I saw a piece on CNN this morning about how the new bankruptcy laws are going to take effect soon. I thought they already had, but I guess it's at the end of this month, whatever.
I imagine that in the face of Hurricane Katrina there are a lot of people that are falling behind on their bills and that a fair number of them would have used bankruptcy as a step to get back on their feet once they got their house back in order, got a job again, etc.
But that door's been shut on a lot of people because the new laws greatly restrict who can and cannot file for bankruptcy, plus it makes the steps necessary to file more difficult AND more expensive. Last I heard, it costs between $600 - $1200 to file for bankruptcy which for Joe Average Middle-Class can already be hard to rustle up, even without Katrina wiping people out.
So, is this what everyone in Congress envisioned when they revised the laws? In my head, it was an event precisely like Katrina that made the bankruptcy a neccessity, in addition to all of the other freak occurrences of life.
I think it's a shame. My only hope is that the credit card companies and mortgage companies, the entities that pushed for this reform are going to be magnanimous in the face of disaster and help the people suffering now.
Yes. Seriously. The credit card companies and the mortgage companies are full of crap. This law didn't have to be this stringent, they could of made it so that you can't do it repeatedly because that was their only beef that held any water anyway.
Sure credit card companies and mortgage companies were "really hurting" right? That aside why do the corporations get a free pass? They can write off unsecured debt in the blink of an eye and do it again and again. Will this apply to them too I wonder? Maybe it will. But I'd somehow doubt it.