Venting Debt collectors hounding me

[2 be or not]

I can't stand being in the gutter like this and always having to worry about money. It's driving me round the bend. It is one of the main reasons for my major depression/desire to ctb. Anyone else in a similar position?

Dr. Harriet Fraad, mental health counselor and psychotherapist discuss the mental health effects of Capitalist Enterprises with professor of economics Richard Wolff @30 of 58 minutes.

 

[Final Escape]

View attachment 5925

Johnny have you heard of Austrian economics? That is the only true economics or honest economics. What they practice in the US is Keynesian economics, or basically government intervenes and alters the economy to suit its own agendas.

 

[Johnnythefox]

And I wish I could pay back all the debt I have now but I don't think my body will let me.

See, that's the embodiment of the capitalist system, if no one was in debt to it, it would not be able to exist. That is why there is so much fear mongering in the US regarding alternative systems. They want you in debt to the system till you die.

 

[Johnnythefox]

What they practice in the US is Keynesian economics, or basically government intervenes and alters the economy to suit its own agendas.

I think that's called capitalism.

 

[2 be or not]

View attachment 5926

If the US really had a 'free' market it wouldn't cost $727 Billion to enforce (fy 2019)

 

[Johnnythefox]

If the US really had a 'free' market it wouldn't cost $727 Billion to enforce (fy 2019)

You best tell Google.

 

[Final Escape]

See, that's the embodiment of the capitalist system, if no one was in debt to it, it would not be able to exist. That is why there is so much fear mongering in the US regarding alternative systems. They want you in debt to the system till you die.

Crypto currency would change this because the people control it, not some strange group of people we don't even know. I don't fully understand how it works but if something is unable to be printed and limited in supply than it keeps the value.

 

[2 be or not]

Johnny have you heard of Austrian economics? That is the only true economics or honest economics. What they practice in the US is Keynesian economics, or basically government intervenes and alters the economy to suit its own agendas.

The Republicans are laissez faire, the Democrats lean Keynesian.

 

[Final Escape]

I think that's called capitalism.

Lol! Crony capitalism maybe.

 

[Johnnythefox]

Lol! Crony capitalism maybe.

A rose by any other name.

 

[Johnnythefox]

Capitalism was built on the bodies of millions from the very start. From the late 17th century onwards, the transatlantic slave trade became a pillar of emergent capitalism. Much of the wealth of London, Bristol and Liverpool – once the largest slave trading port in Europe – was made from the enslaved labour of Africans. The capital accumulated from slavery – from tobacco, cotton and sugar – drove the industrial revolution in Manchester and Lancashire; and several banks today can trace their origins to profits made from slavery.
Even when the international slave trade began to crumble, the blood money of colonialism enriched western capitalism. India was long ruled by Britain, the world's pre-eminent capitalist power: as Mike Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts explores, up to 35 million Indians perished in needless famines as millions of tonnes of wheat was exported to Britain in times of starvation. Here was a cash cow for British capitalism, becoming the country's main source of revenue by the end of the 19th century. The west is built on wealth stolen from the subjugated, at immense human cost.
It was the 20th century when capitalist Europe began to import the mass horrors it had previously inflicted on others. The Great Depression – still the most severe crisis of capitalism – helped to create the conditions of popular discontent that led to the rise of the Nazis. In the early period of Hitler's regime, big business, fearful of the power of the German left, made its grubby compromises with National Socialism, seeing the Nazis as a blunt instrument with which to bludgeon both communism and trade unionism. German businesses made huge donations to the Nazis both before and after their rise to power, the industrial conglomerate IG Farben and Krupp among them. Many businesses profited from Nazi slave labour and the Holocaust, including IBM, BMW, Deutsche Bank and the Schaeffler group.

It is possible to believe in capitalism passionately, or simply be resigned to it as the only viable system, but also acknowledge that it has its own dark shadows and complicities with murderous episodes in human history. It serves a useful political function, of course, to suppress the idea that there is an alternative to capitalism, resting on different principles and values.

 

[2 be or not]

Another term for "murderous episodes in human history" is "economic depression" which leads to human depression and increases in suicide rates. The capitalistic principle of voluntary exchange becomes not so voluntary when you're a slave or wage laborer. 8 capitalists own as much wealth as one-half the world's population so the principal of capital accumulation was preserved while the principle of voluntary exchange was dismantled.

 

[Final Escape]

Another term for "murderous episodes in human history" is "economic depression" which leads to human depression and increases in suicide rates. The capitalistic principle of voluntary exchange becomes not so voluntary when you're a slave or wage laborer. 8 capitalists own as much wealth as one-half the world's population so the principal of capital accumulation was preserved while the principle of voluntary exchange was dismantled.

Capitalism for the wealthy, socialism for the rest of us.

 

[Vilthuril]

I would tell them to take their pound of flesh near the jugular.

 

[Final Escape]

Capitalism was built on the bodies of millions from the very start. From the late 17th century onwards, the transatlantic slave trade became a pillar of emergent capitalism. Much of the wealth of London, Bristol and Liverpool – once the largest slave trading port in Europe – was made from the enslaved labour of Africans. The capital accumulated from slavery – from tobacco, cotton and sugar – drove the industrial revolution in Manchester and Lancashire; and several banks today can trace their origins to profits made from slavery.
Even when the international slave trade began to crumble, the blood money of colonialism enriched western capitalism. India was long ruled by Britain, the world's pre-eminent capitalist power: as Mike Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts explores, up to 35 million Indians perished in needless famines as millions of tonnes of wheat was exported to Britain in times of starvation. Here was a cash cow for British capitalism, becoming the country's main source of revenue by the end of the 19th century. The west is built on wealth stolen from the subjugated, at immense human cost.
It was the 20th century when capitalist Europe began to import the mass horrors it had previously inflicted on others. The Great Depression – still the most severe crisis of capitalism – helped to create the conditions of popular discontent that led to the rise of the Nazis. In the early period of Hitler's regime, big business, fearful of the power of the German left, made its grubby compromises with National Socialism, seeing the Nazis as a blunt instrument with which to bludgeon both communism and trade unionism. German businesses made huge donations to the Nazis both before and after their rise to power, the industrial conglomerate IG Farben and Krupp among them. Many businesses profited from Nazi slave labour and the Holocaust, including IBM, BMW, Deutsche Bank and the Schaeffler group.

It is possible to believe in capitalism passionately, or simply be resigned to it as the only viable system, but also acknowledge that it has its own dark shadows and complicities with murderous episodes in human history. It serves a useful political function, of course, to suppress the idea that there is an alternative to capitalism, resting on different principles and values.

I know I'll never convince you but capitalism and slavery are direct opposites. There's no slavery in free market capitalism, only voluntary exchange between two parties who benefit equally from the transaction. The west was not built on the subjugation of slaves because people don't respond well to slavery. If there is nothing in it for an individual to work, especially if it's work they hate, they will not be very productive unless you are completely enslaved and being forced to do something under threat of being killed maybe. The west was built on respect for private property rights, judeo Christian values, no taxtation, and some other stuff too. The west has been being destroyed through progressive taxation, central banking, collectivist ideology, basically pushing the idea that the individual should be sacrificed for the good of the group and that individuals are basically the same. The reason that the west became so prosperous is because they figured out that the individual is the most important and not the needs of an abstract group. That individual person's natural god given rights are to be respected. These days we live in a country where the government decides your rights as if they give you your rights and it doesn't come from the fact that you are alive with natural rights to life without the government.

 

[Johnnythefox]

There's no slavery in free market capitalism, only voluntary exchange between two parties who benefit equally from the transaction.

So you don't subscribe to being a wage slave? Try telling that to the workers locked in factories throughout the world who are expoited and forced to work every waking hour in order that the *free* world can have the latest fashion trend or gadget.
Who benefits the most from that situation?

The west was built on respect for private property rights, judeo Christian values, no taxtation, and some other stuff too.

I was under the impression that the American, Asian, Australian and African continents were already inhabited by indigenous people. To my knowledge very little respect was afforded the natives, in fact it was quite the opposite.

I agree with the judeo Christian values part, if you don't believe in this book here we're going to wipe you out.

Taxation to my knowledge was introduced to pay for the wars in Europe in the middle ages and has remained. I'd guess it also funded the West's jolly empire building and rape and pillage of the rest of the world.

 

[Mark Edward]

I was self-employed for 16yrs and for about 8 of those years in serious problem debt to the point of bankruptcy.
I beg you to do all in your power to live within your means and if you have to have credit, treat it with the utmost respect.
It is better to have not than to be made to suffer at the hands of debt collection agencies and those awful people they send to your address.
Whatever torments you in this life, I only wish for you that it is not to do with money, for it is a form of misery that can be hardest to defeat.

 

[azucaramargo]

They are driving me nuts. I was financially irresponsible the past couple of years and now I am paying the price. My phone is ringing off the hook and they are constantly emailing and texting me and leaving me ominous voice mails. I think I am going to be sued but I am flat broke and have too much anxiety to deal with it or show up for any potential court dates.

I can't stand being in the gutter like this and always having to worry about money. It's driving me round the bend. It is one of the main reasons for my major depression/desire to ctb. Anyone else in a similar position?

I'm in the same boat, AFFU. It's effing hell.

 

[Kyrok]

It's socialism that produces debt. We haven't had a free market in US since 1913 when they created the federal reserve. Ever since then they have been chipping away at the value of money. There's a book called The creature from Jekyll island, explains what's been going on behind the scenes. I haven't read it but I'd like to.

The U.S. has nearly three times the debt/GDP ratio of Norway.

At the national level, socialism doesn't cause debt, it is revenue minus expenditures... and guess who most skewed that? Reagan. Nations can provide robust social benefits to its people, but taxes have to keep up and those benefits have to be properly budgeted. We have 50 years of evidence that "trickle down economics" does not work and corporate tax cuts are mostly due to lobbying, not sound economics.

 

[Final Escape]

The U.S. has nearly three times the debt/GDP ratio of Norway.

At the national level, socialism doesn't cause debt, it is revenue minus expenditures... and guess who most skewed that? Reagan. Nations can provide robust social benefits to its people, but taxes have to keep up and those benefits have to be properly budgeted. We have 50 years of evidence that "trickle down economics" does not work and corporate tax cuts are mostly due to lobbying, not sound economics.

Unfortunately robust social benefits doesn't fix the fact that taxation is theft and forced redistribution of income. The government uses the tactic of handouts to get people dependent. It's a form of bribery because if u become dependent on state handouts u are more likely to vote to continue to receive the money and defend big government. You are more free of government control if u don't need to be dependent on the welfare. The welfare state doesn't have to exist, in fact it didn't always exist and people still got taken care of. There was other ways of handling people in need that didn't trap u in permanent dependence on the state. Welfare actually produces more poverty in the long run. There's something called the welfare cliff where if you make slightly too much u lose your benefits lol! What's the incentive to get off welfare if your employer wants to give u a raise but u can't take it because u will lose all the benefits u live on. Plus the problem with socialism is that other people's money eventually runs out because people naturally resist theft of what they worked hard to earn, most rich people earned that wealth through being very competent, making wise decisions, hard work. The wealthy can shield themselves from getting taxed to death so the burden ends up falling on the middle class. Eventually u wipe out the middle class by heavy taxation to subsidize the poor and u end up with only the very wealthy and the poor but no middle class. The only way to fix poverty is to not tax anybody, voluntarism, people being educated well, free market, people actually cooperate well when u remove the perverse incentives, more good jobs are created too. It changes everything if u let the economy work like it's supposed to.

 

[ReadyasEver]

Crypto currency would change this because the people control it, not some strange group of people we don't even know. I don't fully understand how it works but if something is unable to be printed and limited in supply than it keeps the value.

Cryptocurrency is under intense pressure because as it has grown, it needs needs something tangible behind it as collateral. Perceived value does not work if you trying to expand a currency, or ascertain a definitive value. None of the major central banks will back these currencies, and until they do, the will continue to be volatile on the way down in value.

 

[ReadyasEver]

Also Final, the Federal Reserve came into existence because of rapidly growing economy and population in the United States. The US government simply could not procure enough gold to stand behind the currency. We operated for 20 years in this hybrid state until FDR did away with good standard in the 1930's. So far it has worked fairly well, and sometimes not so well. What the Federal Reserve does control is the money supply base on our habits, how much we spend and control basic lending rates. There's really nothing nefarious about them, only that under their creation, they operate fairly independently from Congressional and Presidential control. That's the real problem.

 

[TooLate2582]

What @Smilla said, or just tell them to get fucked.

 

[Final Escape]

Also Final, the Federal Reserve came into existence because of rapidly growing economy and population in the United States. The US government simply could not procure enough gold to stand behind the currency. We operated for 20 years in this hybrid state until FDR did away with good standard in the 1930's. So far it has worked fairly well, and sometimes not so well. What the Federal Reserve does control is the money supply base on our habits, how much we spend and control basic lending rates. There's really nothing nefarious about them, only that under their creation, they operate fairly independently from Congressional and Presidential control. That's the real problem.

You mean we went off the gold standard, not the good standard lol! Basically gold limited the power of the government to spend beyond its means. Once they could print money backed by nothing, they could fund all the endless wars on the backs of the taxpayers. War is very expensive, and if people actually knew what these wars are really about and how much it costs the people there's no way anybody would consent.

 

[Kyrok]

@Final Escape , I'm familiar with taxation as theft ideology. There is also taxation as patriotic/common good.
The system in the US is absolutely atrocious... and its policies have decimated the middle class. Quite different in most other countries where there is no where near the same wealth gap.

 

[ReadyasEver]

@Final Escape , I'm familiar with taxation as theft ideology. There is also taxation as patriotic/common good.
The system in the US is absolutely atrocious... and its policies have decimated the middle class. Quite different in most other countries where there is no where near the same wealth gap.

Absolutely correct. Upper middle class and middle class get hammered, especially since families have fewer children. This year though a lot of people I know will get some serious relief with standard deduction now being 12k per individual. My brother teaches this. There is a huge income gap widening in the US though. But still to this day, the top 10% of wage earners pay 80% of taxes collected. And every time they threaten to raise it, the money disappears overseas, lol. Congress won't do anything about it, even the liberals, they are on the payroll too :).

 

[ReadyasEver]

You mean we went off the gold standard, not the good standard lol! Basically gold limited the power of the government to spend beyond its means. Once they could print money backed by nothing, they could fund all the endless wars on the backs of the taxpayers. War is very expensive, and if people actually knew what these wars are really about and how much it costs the people there's no way anybody would consent.

Gold, correct lol. I wonder where you hear this? FDR pulled the final trigger during the depression not pertaining to finance wars, but to allow a deficit and keep people from starving. The war financing was actually an after-effect.

 

[Gina]

If we thought of one another in this society, debt would not exist.But people are so greedy for no reason.

 

[Funkbunny]

Up until 6 months ago, I was a debt advisor. Kinda ironic to be on the other side of the fence so to speak. Are you UK based? And no, I'm not touting for business! If I never see another budget again it will bee to soon.

 

[FTL.Wanderer]

They are driving me nuts. I was financially irresponsible the past couple of years and now I am paying the price. My phone is ringing off the hook and they are constantly emailing and texting me and leaving me ominous voice mails. I think I am going to be sued but I am flat broke and have too much anxiety to deal with it or show up for any potential court dates.

I can't stand being in the gutter like this and always having to worry about money. It's driving me round the bend. It is one of the main reasons for my major depression/desire to ctb. Anyone else in a similar position?

Sort of. I invested my life's savings with a friend who was homeless and hopeless to start a business. He turned around and stole my entire life savings then threatened bankruptcy to escape accountability. I'm sure that's not your situation, but there are some predators out there who go on destroying life after life and then they hide so they can't be served court papers... It's one thing to be irresponsible with credit cards (big banks...). It's another to destroy the lives of the people who sacrificed their own lives to help us. I wish our justice system recognized the difference between the two. It doesn't.

Used to be a CPA. Please look into bankruptcy, it's nothing to be ashamed about and will give you a clean slate, plus peace of mind because legally they won't be able to harass you anymore.

What about the effects on individuals whose resources the potential bankrupt person exhausted when they desperately needed help? Bankruptcy when it's a multi-million dollar corporation, I get. But what about when it's parents or a brother or a friend who liquidated everything and went into debt to help? I'm sure that's not the case with the OP, but bankruptcy can transfer problems.