7 discussion responses on other people's post

RE: Week 2

Before the end of last week I decided to watch the film Sleep Dealer and did the readings after. After

watching the I found myself analyzing how the film was related to debt because while watching this

relation wasn't obvious to me. I did remember seeing the scene where Luz receives the call informing her

about her students loans. The man was informing her that if she didn't call them back they would sell all

her stuff after that his attitude of seriousness changes to tell her to have a good day as if it would be an

easy task after what he told her. I continue to see examples of how student debt can weight someone's

entire life to the point that they seem forced to actions that go against their wishes. I say this because Luz

was pushed to establish a relationship with Memo in order to get paid for her memories of him, something

that she would have thought twice if she wasn't in urgent need for the money. Another example is Elena

Martinez the USC student who did all the schoolwork and chores of her roommate to get paid and survive

her loans. I found this story to be surprising because of how she was taken advantage of by someone she

shared a living space with because of their different economic backgrounds. In a way I don't agree with

Elena's actions but I for sure I don't know how I would react if I was in her shoes and was desperate for

money. Something I clearly didn't catch while watching the film is that the end was an example of debt

abolishment until I read in in Curtis Marez's article. Did anyone else have this issue of making a

connection with debt abolishment when just watching?

RE: Week 3

I usually try to do the readings before listening to the lecture but this time I did the opposite. When

listening to the lecture, the themes were in a way new to me because I didn't know what the readings were

about. I figured they would be something related to student debt but it was something completely

different. It wasn't the first time I heard about the way Native Americans were treated during colonization.

It is thought by many that they owe a debt to the colonizers for saving them and educating them in their

manner when in reality the colonizers owe Native Americans more than anything. They were stripped

from their land and resources and treated like salvages when in truth they were not dangerous nor

bothering anyone until the colonizers decided to take charge of their territory.

I also found it very interesting to learn more about how African Americans were made to feel after they

were declared free from being slaves. If I am being completely honest I hadn't considered how they were

made to feel as if they were in debt with those who made them their slaves. I did think it must have been

really hard for them to cope with freedom since it was a very long time that they lived as slaves. All they

knew in that time was to follow orders and get their tasks done if they didn't want to be whipped and

beaten down. I was surprised to read that things as free men were even more complicated than when they

were slaves. What I mean by this is that the fact that they were made to work for a minimum pay to fulfill

the responsibilities they now had was ridiculous. Even as free men they were made to sign contracts that

would have them enslaved to terrible working conditions. There is no better word than "indebted

servitude" to explain what they went through after being declared free. I found it enraging when reading

that even they thought they were better off as slaves because they didn't have anything as free men and

weren't educated to be able to succeed and live better. To look back at these part of history only makes me

feel disappointed and mad about the cruelty that men are willing to force upon others.

RE: Week 4

I was impressed as well as devastated by the injustices underdeveloped countries have to endure day a

day because of the loans their country took. I've never been to Jamaica but I was given an insight of the

real situation the country is in with the documentary Life and Debt. I truly believe that the documentary

did a great job at drawing me in with their methods, by this I mean that while watching I became more

and more intrigued on what the consequences were from taking loans from the World Bank. The fact that

they showed both the reality of the situation as well as the side that tourists see when visiting was

important to my experience. It made me feel bad about not being informed on what was happening in

Jamaica which is also what is happening in other underdeveloped countries. The scene that was the most

impactful for me was the one where the farmers are telling what competition did to the sell of their

produce, as well as the scene where we are shown all the milk that goes to waste because it can't be sold. I

became even more intrigued when I read Hennessey's chapter especially when she stated that "the Bank

and IMF are 'colonial institutions' in that hundreds of millions of people whose lives are affected by their

decisions have no voice or effective representation in their policies" (Hennessey 43). It is completely

enraging to know that almost all the time those who are affected have no say on what it is that caused

them distress and how to stop it from going on. In my opinion the World Bank's only interest was to make

more and more money with the policies they created rather than help those in need which is completely

saddening.

RE: Week 7

One theme that I noticed while watching the film, 99 Homes, that was talked about in this class was that

banks and these other “big players” in the market are more important than people who take out the loans

from them and because of this debt collection between the two is completely different. Whereas regular

people are being evicted from their long owned homes from unpaid payments from a month or so ago,

while big banks and others are getting millions of dollars of pay-outs when they fall behind or unable to

pay for payments. As we can see in the end of the film where Nash is being arrested from bringing forged

documents to a court case for a property on behalf of Rick Carver, so while Dennis Nash is in the back of

the police cruiser Rick Carver is standing alongside some of his colleagues and lighting up a cigar. We

can only assume that Carver walked free and Nash was the scapegoat and was fully arrested for the crime

while the house he tried to save from being evicted were in the end still repossessed and his heroic efforts

were for naught.

There was one scene that had me in tears due to the realisticness of the situation. This scene being when a

very elderly man was having his house repossessed and when they were asking if he had anyone he could

stay with for the time being and he answered that he did not have anyone, not even a neighbor that could

help; reality struck me. My grandparents have a similar situation where they took a second mortgage out

on their home (my childhood home), so seeing this made me think about how ruthless it is when things hit

the fan and you’re unable to pay for debts due to whatever reason and you’re left homeless and alone like

how most likely this elderly man was left.

RE: Week 8

With the risks of unwieldy debt that comes with taking part in loans, many lenders desire to have a

vulnerable population of people to take on loans to gain profit. By doing so, many people have lived

under the "radical risk" of living where many have lived an uncertain financial life. McClanahan states

that many borrowers have suffered high rates of closure. The US housing market also turned the practice

of purchasing homes, like assets, and turned them into "financial commodities." There is an exchange that

occurs between paying back and payback that is unstable. Social violence is involved when there is an

agreement that is not reached when there is an undesirable agreement. Through debt securitization, there

have been more lending practices available for housing, from 5% to 30%. The lending practices were

made with rewarded risks after the 1933 Glass Steagall Act was repealed.

RE: Week 9

This week readings had me feeling out of words since I began to feel hopeless and feeling angry about the

way debt and the system have and continue to fail us. I was surprised to be completely emerged and

interested in the reading "Strike Debt..." because I wasn't prepared for all the information I would gain

from reading the manual. One of the first things I read in the preface was the following statement, "the

system of mafia capitalism has made it difficult, if not impossible, for us to meet our basic needs, whether

we have debt or not, whether we pay it back or not" (ii). I believe this is when I first felt that hunger to

hear more about what the manual had to offer. I found the name that was given to the system to be

perfectly suiting because no matter what we do the system continues to trick us and drown us in economic

problems because we don't have the means to even survive and pay for basic needs. I also found it really

interesting when I read the following statement, "those who struggle to stay afloat or who have fallen into

default are told that they are failures, inadequate and abject, and so they do not speak out" (2). I strongly

believe that many have been made feel this way because of the stigma that debt carries within. It is very

rare when a person will get into detail of what they had to borrow to pay for their education, for a better

living situation, or for things that they wanted to have. It is disturbing to think that to be able to correct

credit mistakes you will have to persist and continue to call and email those who made the mistake just to

be heard, when it shouldn't have to be that way. I believe that if someone points a mistake on their credit it

should take only a one time request to get it fixed not a bunch of requests for a long period of time. I was

a bit confused by the following quote, "the older the debt, the less worthwhile it is to pay it back" (9), the

reason being that I thought that the longer you waited to pay for your debt the more interests you would

be accumulating to the point that you will have to go to bankruptcy so I am not sure how this can apply to

someone that decides not to pay for an old debt. I totally agree when it is said that we are in debt because

we are not paid enough, this is a enormous problem because our living costs continue to rise and we are

supposed to cover them with a pay that it is not merely enough or fair to the work we may do. I am sure

there is so much more I can touch on what the manual covered but these are some of the things I found

key and interested in. I can in total honesty say that the information this manual contains is really valuable

and worth the read.