A good article on the OWS debt buying thing: Occupy Wall Street’s Rolling Jubilee: Your questions answered

Technically, the project is feasible. Still, even if Occupy’s moles do manage to buy a lot of distressed debt, the nation’s multi-trillion dollar debt burden won’t be much affected. And as for the industry, the two largest publicly traded credit purchasers are expected to spend nearly $1 billion in distressed debt per year. A few million from the Rolling Jubilee “doesn’t qualify as a rounding error,” Scharf says.

In some key ways, the project doesn’t really “work.” But that, of course, is missing the point. Organizers say the actual goal is to jumpstart the conversation about debt that originated from predatory lending practices. “I want to make it really clear that what we’re doing here is not charity,” Smith said. “It’s not debt forgiveness. It’s a political statement about what we view to be odious debts.”

People whose debt is wiped out will get a certified letter in the mail from the Rolling Jubilee. The idea is that they will donate in turn, Smith says. (That’s the “rolling” part of the plan.) They will also get a copy of the “Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual,” a handbook that will send chills down the spine of anyone worried about moral hazard. The book, which is free online, includes choice phrases such as: “We are under no moral obligation to keep our promises to liars and thieves. In fact, we are morally obligated to find a way to stop this system rather than continuing to perpetuate it.”

Does the plan work? Yes
Will it change anything? No, it’s symbolic
Is OWS still a bunch of douchebags? Yes