Overview

Household debt assistance the Dutch way Having lived in England for two decades, where I saw what massive inequality looks like, I was horrified when I stumbled upon a novel Dutch phenomenon called vroegsignalering. It's supposed to help people get out of poverty, but I fail to see how it does that in its current embodiment. If you happen to be autistic, for example, it's probably an obstructive nightmare, but that's not all. Basically, there are two main groups of people in western countries, namely people who put money in their own pockets and people who put money in other people's pockets.by donating their time as employees and by paying bills for rent, utilities, healthcare, food and so on. If the people in the second group are required to put increasingly more money into other people's pockets without simultaneously also receiving more income to make up for the deficit, they fall into arrears. People in the second group are largely replaceable as there as so many of them. Making sure that their income remains sufficient to pay the bills is, therefore, a lower priority for most governments than making sure that people in the first group get what they want. Because the latter appear to hold the power. Remember that there is power in numbers, too. Household debt assistance is a major industry, so people in arrears also put money into the pockets of other people that way, either directly or indirectly. This means that there is no real driver to remedy the situation and erase the existence of arrears by eradicating its root cause. This explains so much. In the Dutch process called ""vroegsignalering"", debtors inform the local municipality about arrears, usually without the debtor's knowledge. The local municipality can then take certain steps and that can be everything that collection agencies do and more, including swatting. It's the creditors who report the arrears, not the debtors. They report it to the largest household debt creditor, so it's the creditors' interests that are protected by this approach, not the debtors'. It's hard to see how a democratic government not only can be comfortable with the system of vroegsignalering, but has plans to expand this system and start including for example study loans. The discussion mentions including internet and phone bill arrears, because being a little behind can get people's internet access shut down. I believe that vroegsignalering is likely to increase inequality. It can take agency away from perfectly capable people. It is well known that traditional debt advice too can actually plunge people into financial problems that they didn't actually have before. Vroegsignalering is simply far too Orwellian to be effective. This legislation was sprung on Dutch municipalities by a right-wing government with little to no guidance as to how local government should carry out these novel obligations. Stripping people in poverty of their human and civil rights cannot possibly have been the intention of this legislation, however. This book contains a few suggestions for how to do better. There is also a Kindle version. I'm Dutch. I have an earth & life science background and have been studying bioethics-related topics for about a decade now. In addition to England and the Netherlands, I've also lived in the States. Version date: 5 September 2024

Full Product Details

9798324065881

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available