Item 3: Democrats wanted to make exceptions for people filing bankruptcy dueThe Bankruptcy Reform To Pass
290 thread sheet set $400, Negligee $750
Divorce Lawyer $50,000. Serial marriages,
honeymoons and Romance? Priceless.
For everything else there is Master card.Carl F. Worden OCTOBER 05
$30 billion dollars in profits last year alone buys a lot of congressional votes, and the credit card industry boards will be hoisting a few beers today to a president and congress that have all but finished the paperwork
for them.The Bankruptcy Reform Bill went down to defeat early in Bush’s first term, almost entirely due to an amendment Democrats slipped in that denied
bankruptcy to abortion protesters who had been successfully sued for
millions of dollars in damages. That brought on enough negative Republican
votes to kill the measure then, but the bill’s supporters learned their
mistakes from last term and didn’t repeat them this time.This time, the Bankruptcy Reform Bill got passed largely under the radar, and with no amendments attached at all. Last term, the proposed legislation got a lot of front-page news. This time it was hard to find any mention of it on Fox, CNN or any other frontline media.
If you wanted to follow the Bankruptcy Reform debate this time, you had to
watch C-Span, and there you would have discovered the most onerous of facts surrounding this bill.In a nutshell, the Bankruptcy Reform Bill is largely a bankruptcy denial
bill. It forces people who don’t “qualify” for complete discharge of debt
under Chapter 7 to be forced into Chapter 13, where they are required to pay off their debts over time – if ever.Item 1: While this bill was being debated, another bill that would have
placed a ceiling of 30%(!) on the interest credit card companies could
charge, was soundly defeated by the same Republicans intent on passing a
bill making the discharge of credit card debt extremely difficult if not
impossible for most people.Item 2: Democrats wanted to amend the bill to allow military, National Guard
soldiers and reservists returning from duty in Iraq and elsewhere to beexcluded from the new restrictions. The Republicans overwhelmingly defeated it.
to unexpectedly high, uninsured medical costs. The Republicans
overwhelmingly defeated it.
The Bankruptcy Reform Bill cleared the SENATE,
SAILED THROUGH
the House of Representatives and was signed into
law by President George W. Bush the moment it casts a shadow on his desk.
I watched Senator Dick Durbin of Ohio give one
of his most poignant and
plaintive speeches today, begging the Republicans
to, at the very least,
include the amendment for military personnel
returning from fighting the War
on Terror.
You should have seen the faces of the Republicans
as they heard Durban’s
pleas. They were as stone-faced and unmoved as
any hardened death-row guard
carrying out an execution. They were intent;
they were going to go through
with this, and nothing short of an act of God
was going to stop them. Well,
nothing did.
There is nothing in the Bankruptcy Reform Bill
that will benefit the people
of the United States. Small businesses will realize
little if any benefit
from it. It is a bill almost entirely designed
to protect the credit card
industry from citizens who are about to hit the
wall financially, and they
got it passed just in time.
American credit card debt has never been higher,
and the hemorrhaging of
American jobs and prosperity to other nations
after the passage of NAFTA &
GATT in 1994 continues unabated to inexorably
suck the economic strength out
of America. Our dollar is steadily losing value
against other denominations
like the Euro.
Back in June of 2002, I advised my readers to
“Go For The Gold”,
http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=2917
which was then selling
at $320.00 an ounce. Today, gold is selling at
$442.00 an ounce, an increase
of 38%. That is a direct reflection of how much
value the American dollar
has lost. Not too long ago, I warned of a very
troublesome trend in America:
The use of home equity to make purchases like
cars and paying off credit
card debt. Americans who own homes have been
watching their equity rise
meteorically, while sucking out that equity through
refinancing at
historically low interest rates.
What happens when the housing bubble bursts, sending
values south, and when
interest rates begin to rise? Those people who
are spending 120% of income
through refinancing and credit card debt are
going to hit the wall. So is
our economy! They are going to lose their homes,
either before or after
bankruptcy that forces them into Chapter 13 to
pay off debts they may not be
able to pay.
What then? If they cannot discharge their debts
through Chapter 7 due to
this bankruptcy “reform” legislation, and if
they cannot make the payments
under Chapter 13 reorganization, then what? If
they still own a home at that
point they’re going to lose it! If they have
any assets at all that can be
liquidated, they’ll lose those too.
“Good!” You say. This is a problem with morality
in America. These people
shouldn’t have taken on the debt if they couldn’t
afford to repay it, right?
Well, it’s not that simple. For example, 35%
of the people who filed for
Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, did so because
of excessive medical bills
their medical insurance didn’t pay.
I’m in the insurance business, and I see inadequate
medical insurance
offerings come across my desk all the time. Clients
ask me if I have
anything to offer them, and I tell them I don’t,
because I wouldn’t sell
that garbage to my worst enemy!
We’re in a health insurance crisis affecting millions
of Americans, and as
Senator Durbin pointed out today on C-Span, instead
of passing a medical
insurance reform bill designed to help all Americans,
Congress rushed
through a bankruptcy reform bill designed specifically
to protect the credit
card industry and slam the door in the faces
of Americans who can’t pay off
the medical bills to save the life of their child!
A few years ago, I was traveling south on Interstate
5 in California, when I
spotted a couple of young boys who had gotten
their car stuck on the
shoulder of the highway. I stopped to give them
assistance.
It was so hot that day – probably 105 F or higher.
The kids had stopped
their car because it was overheating. One tried
to open the cap on the
radiator and it had burst open from the pressure,
spewing boiling hot water
all over his forearms and bare chest. The skin
was hanging off his arms!
I’ve never seen two kids in more pain and felt
more helpless. I had no tow
chain to pull them up to the roadway. They said
a California Highway Patrol
officer had happened by earlier, but they had
no money for a tow, so he left
them there.
I gave the kids $60.00 cash and said I’d send them a tow truck.
I drove no more than one mile to a gas station
that had a tow truck parked
in front of it. I told the station owner I’d
given the kids $60.00, and all
he had to do was drive one mile and pull them
onto the road. I told him how
seriously scalded one of the boys was.
To my dismay, the tow truck owner refused to go
to their aid. He wanted
$85.00, and if they didn’t have a credit card
to pay the balance, that was
just tough. They could stay there in that hot
sun and die, for all he cared,
because in his words, “I don’t work for free!”
I returned to the boys to find another driver
had stopped for them. The
driver had a tow chain and had just pulled them
back onto the road. I told
them to keep the money I’d given them to get
medical care.
I relayed that experience because I saw the same
merciless, hard look in the
eyes of those Republicans hearing Senator Dick
Durbin’s pleas today, as I
saw in the eyes of that tow truck owner. It didn’t
matter why, and it didn’t
matter what circumstances were existent; they
were going to fulfill their
campaign promises to those credit card companies,
and nothing was going to
stop them.
It didn’t matter if it was an Army Reservist who
had left his normal job and
been forced to serve two tours of duty in Iraq
and was now returning home
missing a leg! If his family was faced with financial
ruin, those senators
were not going to cut that family any slack in
the Bankruptcy Reform Bill –
or for anybody else, for that matter.
Bankruptcy Reform is a done deal, folks. Keep
your cash and equity handy if
you are one of the 3-4% of Americans who are
fiscally wise and fortunate,
because homes are going to be auctioned off at
pennies on the dollar. People
who think they’ve got nothing to worry about
with the passage of this bill
today will find themselves hapless victims of
it within ten years – mark my
words – and when you remember that the overall
prosperity of Americans in
general benefits everyone in America, I can assure
you everyone in America
will suffer in one way or another from the passage
of this horrendous bill.
Take a gander at this except from the Los Angeles Times:
TITLE: CREDIT CARD PROFITS RISE ALONG WITH BANKRUPTCY FILINGS (03.04.05)
WASHINGTON - In the eight years since they began
pressing for the tough
bankruptcy bill being debated in the Senate,
America's big credit card
companies have effectively inoculated themselves
from many of the problems
that sparked their call for the measure. By charging
customers different
interest rates depending on how likely they are
to repay their debts and by
adding substantial fees for an array of items
such as late payments and
foreign currency transactions, the major card
companies have managed to keep
their profits rising steadily even as personal
bankruptcies have soared,
industry figures show...
~ LAtimes.com
For those still encumbered by the “morality” issue
of bankruptcy, try to
remember that Usury, the act of charging excessive
interest on loans, is
also considered sin in God’s view. Carl F. Worden
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
Our
POSTER is ANITA SANDS HERNANDEZ, Los Angeles Writer, Futurist
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