I know that last year congres passed bankruptcy reform, but has it taken effect yet? What were the primary changes?
Most important preliminary change is that filing for Chapter 7 (which wipes out all debts, including unsecured credit card debt) will no longer be your automatic right. Instead, the trustee will scour your assets and income (present and future) to determine whether you can or will be able to pay it off over time. In which case you will be required to file Chapter 13 (aka "wage earner"). BUT, with the recent and sudden shift of power in the U.S. Senate last month, the new BK laws are not a done deal, after all. And those in opposition of watering down current consumer rights (mostly Democrats, but also some Republicans and Independents), have made it clear that they will not allow these new restrictions to pass into law the way they're rewritten now.
Jeez, I love the republicans and their anti-consumer , pro-big business laws. They've been in bed with large corporations for decades now....
The law was actually never signed by President Bush. The House and the Senate passed a different version of the bill, so it never got enacted into law.
Correct. The intention was that the House and Senante were to convene a committee to iron out the differences. President Bush was adamant about signing it. However, amid the squabbles, the 2 major political parties (GOP and Democrats) were unable to come to a meeting of the minds on what the demographic make up of the committee would be. So the committee was never organized. In the interim, Senator Jeffers switched parties from GOP to Independent, while announcing that he favors much of the Democratic platform. Thus swinging the power from GOP to Democratics and Independents (who often tend to huddle together). Recall that although the Senate was split 50/50 for the first time in eons, the tie-breaker is always the Vice President, who in this case is Republican. So what was assumed a done deal is turning tides.
Yes, conspicuous by its absence was any hint of reforming the way credit card companies go after business, stooping so low as to send out preapprovals to grad-schoolers. (Yes it happens all the time); behaving like vultures gathering at college freshman registration sites, handing out credit cards like candy (while skimming over the fine print); raising interest rates often without a "by your leave" or for any ryhme or reason; charging for credit limit increases, charging for interest decreases, charging for whatever. But then we have to remember that it was the credit card company lobbyist who pushed for this reform in the first place and who bankrolled so many of the current "Hill" politician's campaigns.
