New bk bill still alive

You know...with campaign finance reform a reality and with uncertain times still with us, you would think OUR elected, bought off politicians would be working to make life easier for Americans instead of harder.

 

If this bill becomes reality, then HOMESTEAD laws need to go out the window as well. The rich should lose their million dollar houses and property like anybody else would. But that's the hipocrisy here.

 

In what ways are they trying to change the bankruptcy laws..I've looked but I am still unclear on what they are doing though I do know it is not to anyones benefit..(except the wealthy)

 

What's the timeline on this bill?

 

Basically, today if you file a CH 7, you don't need to do too much other than list debts to assets and who your creditors are. Most 7s are people that make average money and got in over our heads via losing a high paying job (or a job in general), an emergency crops up (medical bills, student loans, etc) that hurt your ability to pay your debts.

With 7 you can go before your creditors and then a kind of judge who dismisses your debts as long as you do everything properly.

Under the new law, they will use a formula to decide if you can pay your debts NO MATTER what you make. They can also move you automatically to CH 13 if they think that within 7-10 years you can pay off your debts based on some crazy model they come up with. They designed this because the credit industry claims most CH 7 filings are either a) lazy people or b) frauds. Basically this only helps the credit industry and screws over people who TRULY need it.

I say come up with a system that increases penalties for fraudulent filings, weed out more of the people who dug a knowing hole (the people who sign up for 3 or 4 credit cards with 10-20K balances when they make a fraction of that and then charge them through the roof and then file 6 -12 months later).

Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of the credit industry's practices. I am also not a fan of people who use the system to walk away from debt (when they can easily pay it back). But then, when you try to "work" with these companies when hard times come, they give you attitudes and refuse to work with you. Even their insurance plans don't cover that much in the event of an unfortunate firing/layoff. If MBNA, for example, wants the BK laws changed, maybe they need to work with their customers when hard times hit and NOT report bad marks against them or report them to collection agencies if they ATTEMPT to pay whatever they can.

I went through hell as I got worked over by a friend for THOUSANDS of dollars (holding the bag of a failed business). I was also downsized not too long after that. If big business wants fairness, then they need to stop screwing the little guy over with unnecessary layoffs to fix a quarterly profit.

Fairness will only happen when these dumb congressmen realize that the credit industry deserves losses if it can't fix it's attitude. Why should AMERICA bail out the credit industry when it's predatory and immoral practices get it into trouble (credit cards with high balances for college and HS students?). It's not BK filings causing problems it's white collar losers like Enron that muck all this up for you and me.

Sorry for the rant...I needed to get that out...