So true; also if you can qualify for a car loan eventually, they totally screw you over with high interest rates on that loan because you have declared bankruptcy. I had two bankruptcies in my photography career and honestly felt/feel no shame or embarrassment. I took overseas dive trips to boost my underwater/wildlife portfolio with stock agencies and put them on credit cards. I had to get the images to survive in that world. I felt it was worth it at the time.
There is a simple solution to this bankruptcy conundrum that you have pointed out. It is to outlaw (or to render unenforceable as a contract) the lending of money with interest. This approach was standard in the Christian societies of Medieval Europe (leaving it to the Jews in those societies to engage in the process of money lending). Lending and borrowing can be a natural human interaction, but there is nothing natural about the government (as the legal authority) inserting iself in this transaction to favor or to guarantee a particular outcome to one side or the other. So the problem becomes when the legal authority (the government) attempts to adjudicate or enforce a “solution” that is “fair” to both parties.
Allow borrowing and lending to be a transaction between two parties with the outcomes and stipulations to be what those parties agree to (but not enforceable by the agencies of the state), or outlaw the process entirely, and then all of the concerns about what happens in the process of bankruptcy fall aside.
Interesting article Joan. Depressing, but interesting. It seems no matter how debased one's financial circumstances are the 'business' of debt relief awaits...like circling birds.
I get it big time, Joan. This is well done. As someone who has watched loved ones go through this, through no fault of theirs (being married to the wrong person - the one who caused all the unpaid bills), I have watched first hand the way this causes more pain and strife. But, how do we change it? How do WE tell the banks to stop it? What are our choices?
Thank you for this post. I haven't filed for bankruptcy, but when you say "...many sources, including a 2019 paper published by the American Public Health Association, believe that over 50% of all personal bankruptcies are attributable to 'medical debt and job loss due to illness,'" I get it. It's personal. I spent much of my career not admitting I had a potentially disabling disease as a full-time employee. Working in hospitals. 😑
So true; also if you can qualify for a car loan eventually, they totally screw you over with high interest rates on that loan because you have declared bankruptcy. I had two bankruptcies in my photography career and honestly felt/feel no shame or embarrassment. I took overseas dive trips to boost my underwater/wildlife portfolio with stock agencies and put them on credit cards. I had to get the images to survive in that world. I felt it was worth it at the time.
There is a simple solution to this bankruptcy conundrum that you have pointed out. It is to outlaw (or to render unenforceable as a contract) the lending of money with interest. This approach was standard in the Christian societies of Medieval Europe (leaving it to the Jews in those societies to engage in the process of money lending). Lending and borrowing can be a natural human interaction, but there is nothing natural about the government (as the legal authority) inserting iself in this transaction to favor or to guarantee a particular outcome to one side or the other. So the problem becomes when the legal authority (the government) attempts to adjudicate or enforce a “solution” that is “fair” to both parties.
Allow borrowing and lending to be a transaction between two parties with the outcomes and stipulations to be what those parties agree to (but not enforceable by the agencies of the state), or outlaw the process entirely, and then all of the concerns about what happens in the process of bankruptcy fall aside.
Interesting article Joan. Depressing, but interesting. It seems no matter how debased one's financial circumstances are the 'business' of debt relief awaits...like circling birds.
I get it big time, Joan. This is well done. As someone who has watched loved ones go through this, through no fault of theirs (being married to the wrong person - the one who caused all the unpaid bills), I have watched first hand the way this causes more pain and strife. But, how do we change it? How do WE tell the banks to stop it? What are our choices?
As a non-American, I find it almost incomprehensible that people are frequently going bankrupt over medical bills. It's just so unfair.
Thank you for this post. I haven't filed for bankruptcy, but when you say "...many sources, including a 2019 paper published by the American Public Health Association, believe that over 50% of all personal bankruptcies are attributable to 'medical debt and job loss due to illness,'" I get it. It's personal. I spent much of my career not admitting I had a potentially disabling disease as a full-time employee. Working in hospitals. 😑