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John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

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Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#131

Post by evolve2k »

ColinWright wrote: post #63

Georestricted: The uploader has not made this video available in your country Someone else provided a different link: https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id... That returns with: Sorry, this page isn't available The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed. I look forward to the day we finally realise we are out of the transition period between not having the web at all…

Yup super frustrating, I'm in Oz and face this too.

Here's a link that should work on main part of the show: https://youtu.be/Ii6TEJuvrM0

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#132

Post by Dirlewanger »

veidr wrote: post #26
zimpenfish wrote: post #2

The baffling thing to me is that this is already discharged debt - "out of statute medical debt from Texas", "medical debt they no longer had to pay" - and how on earth is it legal to try and collect that?

Debt doesn't magically (or legally) stop existing after a set period of time. It's just that legal means to enforce collection expire. I once (in the early 1990s) refused to pay a company I was very unhappy with -- IIRC it was Verizon. They cancelled my service, tried to collect, then sold the debt after a while. I still get these offers to settle the debt for 70% less than the total -- but the letters always include…

But it had to have affected your credit to some degree in the past though, right?

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#133

Post by pessimizer »

I was a little disappointed in how this story developed; it started with a family being destroyed by medical debt, and I thought it was going to develop into a discussion of medical debt, which accounts for 60% of bankruptcies in the U.S.[1]. Instead, it just talked about the buying and selling of debt, which is a legitimate business (often unregulated and operated by scum.) I'm not sure what he was calling for, here. That companies be required to hold on to their own debt?

I'm happy about the debt he forgave, though. An organization called Rolling Jubilee[2] does it without a tv show - you can buy someone's debt, too. I didn't notice a shout out; did I just miss it?

edit: learned from the comment above me that they've stopped doing it, and are now The Debt Collective[3], an advocacy organization.

[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-bill...

[2] http://rollingjubilee.org/

[3] http://blog.debtcollective.org/

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#135

Post by zeveb »

bmh_ca wrote: post #58
bedhead wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You took the words out of my mouth and I'm glad someone else feels the same. It's a difficult thing to articulate but I think he crosses a line into unbearable preachiness and pandering. It's a bummer because I think the guy is a riot, but I just can't take the lectures anymore, and yes, given that this is almost a Daily Show spinoff, it's not terribly surprising to see a heavy left-leaning slant to everything...that…

Often it seems that facts, evidence, and observation are derided as "left". I find John's commentaries to be suitably supported by substance, with constructive conclusions. I worry that characterization as "left" is a defence against cognitive acknowledgements that just happen to be dissonant with neurostatic precepts.

> Often it seems that facts, evidence, and observation are derided as "left".

Well, those on the left would think so. Oddly enough, those on the right think that facts, evidence & observation are derided as 'right.' Weird how that happens, isn't it? It's almost as though we all sincerely believe that we are correct and that those who disagree with us are incorrect.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#136

Post by partiallypro »

ritchiea wrote: post #111
bko wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with John Oliver is that he often chimes in on subjects he doesn't know anything about with folksy common sense logic that is often wrong. I remember him mocking some system for using tapes for storage on the belief that a technology that is so old cannot possibly be useful in modern technologies. In his latest clip, he mocks information being passed by Excel. How does he think things happen? Some mag…

At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts. If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

> At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh

He and Jon Stewart keep (kept in the case of Jon) using this excuse when they get things wrong, but when they get things right they take all the glory they can get. The show(s) have to have some sort of accountability.

For example Couric was just ripped for adding 6 seconds of dead air on a documentary....but that's literally what The Daily Show had been doing for years, making people look like idiots (so it fits their segment narrative). That's all good fun until you realize young people think people like Stewart and Oliver are trustworthy news sources.

I like what they do in many cases, but I despise this excuse that it's "just" a comedy show. Maybe NBC nightly news should just add an in-studio audience that laughs and suddenly they can get away with every screw up.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#137

Post by xviia »

ritchiea wrote: post #111
bko wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with John Oliver is that he often chimes in on subjects he doesn't know anything about with folksy common sense logic that is often wrong. I remember him mocking some system for using tapes for storage on the belief that a technology that is so old cannot possibly be useful in modern technologies. In his latest clip, he mocks information being passed by Excel. How does he think things happen? Some mag…

At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts. If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

The show is interesting because it combines a late night talk show format with a news format. Their special segments are often in the same format as a nightly news program, where they take an issue, perform research, and prevent a side.

Should we hold these types of shows to a talk show standard or a news standard?

When CBS presented a fabricated military report about George W., they were rightly condemned for presenting false information and presenting it as fact. If, instead, the fabricated document had been shown on John Oliver, would we think it's OK simply because John Oliver is partly comedy?

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#138

Post by lujim »

benbot wrote: post #130
lujim wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying I do or don't agree with him, but you don't have to be wrong to be preachy. When you're a comedian you need to be at least 80% funny. If you're 50% funny 50% preachy I'm not going to bother. Southpark use to danced this line pretty successfully.

You don't have to be non-preachy to be genuinely funny, though, despite your arbitrary % guideline. Check out Bill Hicks. Nobody has ever accused him of being either too funny or not preachy enough.

I wasn't being literal about the percentages. It's subjective. At this point we are trying to dissect humor and killing it in the process.

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#139

Post by chrisseaton »

ritchiea wrote: post #111
bko wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with John Oliver is that he often chimes in on subjects he doesn't know anything about with folksy common sense logic that is often wrong. I remember him mocking some system for using tapes for storage on the belief that a technology that is so old cannot possibly be useful in modern technologies. In his latest clip, he mocks information being passed by Excel. How does he think things happen? Some mag…

At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts. If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.

Have you ever heard the phrase 'it's funny because it's true'?

If he's not going to actually consider the facts, why make jokes about current affairs rather than just totally making things up?

Re: John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

#140

Post by pyvpx »

xseven wrote: post #89
vittore wrote: post #33

Why there is no non-profit here that gets donations and spent them to wipe out medical and general debt that is the cheapest available on the market right now? Or are there ?

bad idea, that's like validating the debt buying industry

guess what the US Dollar is backed by? guess what many monetary systems have been based on for quite sometime?

debt!

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