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Public shaming is what this show does best. Calling people on their poo poo in the most bizarre and memorable fashion they can is wonderful.
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Mar 26, 2015 17:00
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Irish Joe posted:Internet is entirely optional. If you desperately need to get online, you can go to a library/school. As for your phone, buy minutes and only use it for business/important matters. The point is, if you're spending all your money on luxuries to the point where you can't afford to pay a speeding ticket, you're not poor, you're just bad with money.
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Mar 26, 2015 17:14
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I ended up doing jail time for not returning a DVD to public library. I actually had returned it and the librarians found it on a shelf, but I was going to be hit with a 10$ fine and 1450$ worth of 'fees'. The look of sadness on the Town Manager when they realized they were about to be sued for their 'guaranteed moneymaking technique' was amazing.
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Mar 26, 2015 18:36
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JT Jag posted:This is a pretty weak troll even compared to your usual offerings Joe Yeah, I know. Realtalk: Hemophilia, you are not a pathetic loser. Rather, you are a victim of circumstances. You're poor not because you waste money on frivolous entertainments, but because "the man" is keeping you down. The police are out to get you. Politicians are out to get you. Corporations are out to get you. Don't hold any hope that your life will get better. Working hard, saving your money and taking responsibility for your life and actions as ways to get ahead are ideas the rich use to keep the poor placated. Its not worth trying to escape poverty. Just take whatever resentment you have towards the system that wronged you and drown it out with petty consumerism. You will never be more than a worthless thrall of the system, but at least you can watch HBO.
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Mar 26, 2015 19:02
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I ended up doing jail time for not returning a DVD to public library. I actually had returned it and the librarians found it on a shelf, but I was going to be hit with a 10$ fine and 1450$ worth of 'fees'. The look of sadness on the Town Manager when they realized they were about to be sued for their 'guaranteed moneymaking technique' was amazing. Yeah, I'd love to hear more about this as well. I hope you got a good settlement or verdict, from the sound of it you have a hell of a case.
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Mar 26, 2015 19:10
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As a person who is going through lawsuits dealing with this type of poo poo, I can safely say thank you John for shining a light on it. It's a loving stupid ridiculous system that ends up punishing the poor the worst, and even the lower middle class. The biggest problem with this system right now is that there's no substantial federal protections against collection agencies in regards to tickets. Generally speaking these things fall under a federal act called the FDCPA, but because of a few cases they've lost their rights as "consumer debt". Usually when something goes into collections and a CA goes after you, you can send a letter requesting they validate what you owe, payments fees ect ect and you have protections against when they can call, accept payments and a bunch of stuff that if they break each violation is a 1k punitive damage lawsuit. Thing is though with tickets they can say gently caress you and call all day all night trying to collect "fees" and generally make your life and your credit miserable. there's changes coming out so it wont affect your credit nearly as much though which will give some people relief, but it's not the same at all. I also think there's no urgency to fix it because A) gently caress the poor B) revenue streams for governments. It's so hosed. Also the bird bit was pretty great the whole thing is such a farce.
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Mar 26, 2015 20:09
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Irish Joe posted:Yeah, I know. Just call it a wash until Sunday, you're obviously a bit off your game. I laughed, though.
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Mar 26, 2015 20:57
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jojoinnit posted:Can you elaborate on this a little…? I was living in rural Wisconsin at the time and I was bored and checked out a movie from the local county library. I return it the next day. Six months later I 'm driving to work and I get pulled over for a taillight out. While the cop is running my license I'm waiting. In my rear view I see him step out of my car and unsnap his holster. I immediately put my hands on the wheel and wonder what the gently caress is going on. He tells me to step out and assume the position. I do and he starts cuffing me as he's telling me I have bench warrant out on me. I'm really confused now. I get driven to the Sheriff's department and they start processing me. I keep asking what the warrant is for,. Finally after I'm processed they look it up and start laughing and tell me. I'm really pissed at that and ask how much I owe so I can pay it and get to work. They look it up and get very quiet. I call my lawyer (my brother in law) and ask him if he can stop by the library and see if the DVD is there and to make sure he takes one of the librarians with him as a witness. They find the disc and check the records to make sure it was the copy I had checked out. My lawyer calls the Sheriff's Department (which is across the street) to send someone over and make sure all this is verified. They run a deputy over and he agrees all the paperwork matches and my lawyer gets a signed affidavit from the librarian. He then goes over to the sheriff's department and asks them since there is no crime if I can leave now. The deputies say sure but then the Sheriff walks in and says, 'Okay, but you have to pay all the surcharges on the $10 dollar fine' all $1450 worth. I say 'What!?" you want me to pay for a crime that never happened? He says, 'You can pay now or talk to the judge Monday morning,' This was Saturday about three pm. My lawyer says if you pay you're never seeing that money again. So I spend the rest of Saturday and Sunday in jail. Monday morning the judge looks at this poo poo and throws the warrant out with all charges. The County Prosecutor is asked why this sort of thing happened and the circuit judge is told it is a new policy of the Town Manager to charge all expenses on prosecuting the warrant to the subject. Even if the warrant is dropped. The judge's mouth kind of dropped open and he asked under what grounds? I sued the Town Manager and the Sheriff personally for the amount of one year of their salaries (160K total) as the manager unilaterally made this policy decision without bringing it up to the town board for review, and the Sheriff had told him it was all perfectly legal. It was found out by my lawyer that the majority of the funds were going to increase the Sheriff's seizure reports allowing them to look better on the state financial review. I was lucky. I had an attorney that would work for free and knew everybody in the county government and where the bodies were buried.
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Mar 26, 2015 23:06
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Are you white?
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Mar 27, 2015 00:01
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Yes
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Mar 27, 2015 00:16
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Holy poo poo.
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Mar 27, 2015 00:21
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I'm a 6'1" blonde haired  - American. Never been arrested or even had a ticket. The library never sent me a notice, and the warrant copy was never sent out. When my lawyer brought that up and the Town Clerk stated that they had never processed through my copies, that was the case right there. The Manager and Sheriff never expected any one to fight it and they had done it before to about twenty or so others. They basically would sit on the paperwork until the fees racked up then get a bench warrant issued.
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Mar 27, 2015 00:31
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Jesus loving Christ. That is a trap designed to throw you in a debtor's prison. What the gently caress.
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Mar 27, 2015 01:01
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It's ridiculous that fees on a book/dvd from the library even go that high. That's the dumbest poo poo ever. Once it goes to X date, they should be declaring it lost replacing it. The maximum fee should be 30 or 40 bucks or whatever. That's how it works here anyway. sbaldrick posted:They haven't region locked anything so Oliver randomly calling people on their poo poo can been seen by everyone. Yes they have
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Mar 27, 2015 01:02
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xcore posted:It's ridiculous that fees on a book/dvd from the library even go that high. That's the dumbest poo poo ever. The library fine was $10. The $1450 was charges for the processing and costs associated with the warrant and fines. So the library charged a quite reasonable fine, which they vacated as soon as the item turned up. The city manager and sheriff on the other hand were adding fees and charges on top the library fine like addicts punching a morphine button.
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Mar 27, 2015 01:50
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I'm a 6'1" blonde haired Come on Irish Joe, please explain how this process would only affect someone who's irresponsible with their money and a general law breaker.
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Mar 27, 2015 02:04
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Chiming in to say that this show's actually kind of hard to watch simply because the dirt Oliver digs up is just so grim. Years of the Daily Show have inured me to snappy, five-minutes-of-outrage segments but the way Oliver really has the time to go deeper on a subject makes it ten times worse. The crazy debtor's prison levels of poo poo dug up in that municipal violations segment is the distillation of the sort of poo poo you vaguely assume must be going on in the bad old world but given a face. It kind of makes me wonder if this is what the other side of the political spectrum feels like when they're watching blowhard Fox personalities work them up into a frothy rage, except actually grounded in terrible things going on and not imagined liberal bogey-men.
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Mar 27, 2015 03:35
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I'm a 6'1" blonde haired That's a super good story. Any way or interest in getting that out? I mean it's resolved which takes a lot of the punch out but that's a drat good story. Also you wonder what happened to the 20 people before you.
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Mar 27, 2015 04:47
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Soylentbits posted:That's a super good story. Any way or interest in getting that out? I mean it's resolved which takes a lot of the punch out but that's a drat good story. Also you wonder what happened to the 20 people before you. I'd personally write a Daily Kos diary about the subject, if you're interested in getting it out there. Good format for a resolved tale.
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Mar 27, 2015 04:50
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Dolash posted:It kind of makes me wonder if this is what the other side of the political spectrum feels like when they're watching blowhard Fox personalities work them up into a frothy rage, except actually grounded in terrible things going on and not imagined liberal bogey-men. Yes, except they remember their rage during the next election. 
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Mar 27, 2015 05:16
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Soylentbits posted:That's a super good story. Any way or interest in getting that out? I mean it's resolved which takes a lot of the punch out but that's a drat good story. Also you wonder what happened to the 20 people before you. This was quite a few (over fifteen) years ago and the Sheriff is dead and the Town Manager moved out of the county and I have no idea where he is. Hell, I moved out of the county 13 years ago and out of the state four years ago.
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Mar 27, 2015 05:46
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Incidentally, passing debts that need to be collected to private collection agencies is a thing that happens all the time in other parts of the economy, so it's only natural that the industry spilled over into the public sector. When various loan companies give up on individuals paying back their debts, they sell the claim to the debt to private debt collectors, who then use debatably legal means to convince people into paying money. Of course, when you work for the US government, all those methods have an extra degree of legitimacy, so there's no limit to what they can do. Not sure how prevalent bullshit fees on top of debt are when there isn't a real threat of jail time though.
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Mar 27, 2015 05:54
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:This was quite a few (over fifteen) years ago and the Sheriff is dead and the Town Manager moved out of the county and I have no idea where he is. Hell, I moved out of the county 13 years ago and out of the state four years ago.
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Mar 27, 2015 05:59
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notaspy posted:One of the things that got me about the long form bit was how little of a shot the audience gave about what was happening and I'm going to put it down to class. The people of the receiving end of this poo poo seem to be working class folk. What made you think the audience didn't give a poo poo? How could you tell?
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Mar 27, 2015 08:04
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pentyne posted:Come on Irish Joe, please explain how this process would only affect someone who's irresponsible with their money and a general law breaker. Let me get the story straight: 1. Guy is arrested and it turns out he has an outstanding warrant over an unpaid fine. 2. He goes to court and shows that the fine was erroneous. 3. All the charges were dropped and he pays nothing. I mean, not be a dick or anything, but it sounds like a perfect example of the system working as intended.
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Mar 27, 2015 11:47
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You could just say you don't have the story straight.
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Mar 27, 2015 12:30
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Irish Joe posted:Let me get the story straight: You forgot where he spent a weekend in jail and had to sure to get them to stop trying to collect their fees.
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Mar 27, 2015 13:26
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GutBomb posted:You forgot where he spent a weekend in jail and had to sue to get them to stop trying to collect their fees. I didn't forget anything. I'm just pointing out how the checks and balances built into our system to prevent injustice successfully prevented injustice in this instance. As tantalizing and sensational as it is, the idea that "I almost had to pay a fine because the system is broken!" doesn't supplant the reality of "I didn't have to pay a fine because the system isn't broken!" Irish Joe fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Mar 27, 2015 |
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Mar 27, 2015 13:53
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Guys spending the weekend in jail is a perfectly reasonable thing to have to do if you have committed no crime.
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Mar 27, 2015 14:23
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I think the whole "covertly adopted system of illegal state-sponsored extortion" part didn't really fit that beautiful idea of "checks and balances", Joe. But clearly, the system is working as intended if you have to pursue private legal action in order to not pay the exorbitant processing fees in excess of a thousand dollars in a $10 fine. God forbid someone without access to a lawyer willing to do it pro bono were to get stuck in that situation!
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Mar 27, 2015 14:38
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Strobe posted:I think the whole "covertly adopted system of illegal state-sponsored extortion" part didn't really fit that beautiful idea of "checks and balances", Joe. But clearly, the system is working as intended if you have to pursue private legal action in order to not pay the exorbitant processing fees in excess of a thousand dollars in a $10 fine. Bootstraps
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Mar 27, 2015 14:45
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Irish Joe posted:I didn't forget anything. I'm just pointing out how the checks and balances built into our system to prevent injustice successfully prevented injustice in this instance. As tantalizing and sensational as it is, the idea that "I almost had to pay a fine because the system is broken!" doesn't supplant the reality of "I didn't have to pay a fine because the system isn't broken!" Ah, now I FINALLY understand Irish Joe's gimmick. All this time I thought he was just a personification of the just-world fallacy, but now I see that he's just a poster who doesn't understand survivorship bias.
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Mar 27, 2015 15:22
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Paper Kaiju posted:Ah, now I FINALLY understand Irish Joe's gimmick. All this time I thought he was just a personification of the just-world fallacy, but now I see that he's just a poster who doesn't understand survivorship bias. His gimmick is that he's trolling you people.
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Mar 27, 2015 15:47
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IRQ posted:His gimmick is that he's trolling you people. Trolling or not, the dedication to his craft and consistency of his message is admirable.
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Mar 27, 2015 16:02
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I love this show, but it also depresses me. Bring on the nuclear fire, it's the ending we deserve.
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Mar 27, 2015 16:07
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Irish Joe posted:Let me get the story straight: Why am I responding to Joe?
And Joe, you're always a pus filled dick. Always.
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Mar 27, 2015 17:29
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Please Ignore Irish Joe
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Mar 27, 2015 18:33
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Squall posted:Please Ignore Irish Joe I've had him on ignore for years. I only saw that because of people quoting him and it gave me the opportunity to give me a informed reason to call him a pus filled dick.
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Mar 27, 2015 18:57
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I've had him on ignore for years. I only saw that because of people quoting him and it gave me the opportunity to give me a informed reason to call him a pus filled dick. This is why I don't bother ignoring him. I know I'll eventually be trolled into responding to him seriously so why bother hiding him away?
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Mar 27, 2015 19:23
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Collecting agencies are downright baffling. As a college-educated underemployed Californian from an upper-middle class family, I know a lot of people who regularly tangle and negotiate with those agencies for all manner of things. A friend of mine goes to school up in Canada and was back home visiting family when he got into a car accident. He had to have a day of hospital care with a bill that came out to eight thousand dollars. There's a weird loophole where the canadian system won't cover him (I forgot the reason), so my friend is basically screwed. He goes back to Canada and keeps getting calls that sound almost exactly like the mafia, except instead of breaking legs they threaten jail time and a demolished credit score. he finally gets some student loan money in (He's a PhD student) and decides to handle the problem. At this point they tell him he owes well over $12,000 due to interest. My friend explains that he lives in Canada and will be planning to stay up there for at least the next decade as a Permanent Resident after school. "I'll give you two thousand dollars via check in the mail, today." "Deal," they say. Last I heard he's good, though with a wrecked credit score if he ever ends up back in america in the near future. ---- It is rather telling that while I have to track down and make several calls if I want even the most basic of health services (I'm under a weird california version of medicaid), my student loan supervisors are consistently keeping track of absolutely everything I do.
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Mar 27, 2015 19:40
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