[PeterFinn]

Banks should also be held responsible for handing out depositors and shareholders funds to people with spotty credit.

Tighten up credit requirements and bankruptcies would decline, too.

The collection agancies will celebrate this and so will the banks who assess huge $$$$$$$$$ in late fees and usury interest rates against people who should not have been granted credit in the first place.

Maybe we should open up debtors prisons, too.

[Southack]

"Maybe we should open up debtors prisons, too."

Prisons?! Ha! Most people just call 'em "jobs."

[Not A Snowbird]

Banks should also be held responsible for handing out depositors and shareholders funds to people with spotty credit.

You're absolutely right.

[Gunslingr3]

Banks should also be held responsible for handing out depositors and shareholders funds to people with spotty credit.

They are to the extent they lose money doing so. Why do you think the people with 'spotty credit' pay such high rates?

[Always Right]

Banks should also be held responsible for handing out depositors and shareholders funds to people with spotty credit.

It's not like they don't have access to their credit history. Banks loan to high risk people because they know they can get a high rate and charge higher fees. Banks pass out credit cards like candy and now have the feds to clean up their mess.

[Finger Monkey]

It's really a two-sided coin.

People believe they must have a microwave oven, two cars, a VCR, multiple TV's, $2,000.00 vacuum cleaners (yes, it's true), computers, etc., to keep up with the Joneses. So they charge it, instead of saving for it, and get in over their heads. Allowing the purchase of groceries on credit did not help matters either. Many consumers are foolish and easily led (thus the success of advertising).

The credit card companies are in the business of giving people credit. They (the credit card companies, et al) created the credit reporting agencies so they could keep track of people's credit histories, and determine credit-worthiness. Sometime in the late seventies, early eighties, it appears that the credit-worthy were not bringing in enough revenue and an effort was made to get more money by offering more credit to people who were already over-extended (the un-credit-worthy). I believe usury laws were also loosened sometime around then, allowing creditors to charge higher interest rates (although that may be a state thing). And so on and so on. I've been in the bankruptcy world for nigh on fifteen years. It's gone from medical and tax debt to tax and credit card debt. It started in the eighties when the economy was "so good." It was all based on credit. No actual money changed hands.

Man, I can go on and on.

[wiley]

I call this the "Loan Shark Enablement Act".

[speekinout]

Banks should also be held responsible for handing out depositors and shareholders funds to people with spotty credit.

Are you proposing that people with spotty credit shouldn't be able to get credit cards at all? It wasn't so long ago that was the case. People who didn't have a lot of assets relied on "payday loans" (still around), and "layaway" purchasing (mostly gone).
They paid higher fees with those gimmicks than most do with the high CC fees today.

What is your answer to people who don't have much, but need some credit?

[IrishCatholic]

Let's see. The bank made my loan paperwork disappear the day after September 11th. I have fought for three years and work a job an hour away from my farm in an effort to keep going and pay my debts. I lost my stake in the business and an adoption fell through. I go out to eat with the wife once a year on our anniversary and still will probably have to declare bankruptcy.
You speak without thinking.

[Centurion2000]

Maybe we should open up debtors prisons, too.

Fall behind on child support payments and you will discover they still exist.

[Robert DeLong]

I agree, this is the real problem many Americans now face, easy credit dangled in front of their noses. The stupid people on here that are cheering this legislation may one day, soon, regret its passage. When a loved one gets really sick and drives the family finances totally out of whack they will realize how stupid they are being. Sorry, I am a strong conservative but bankruptcy is a valid option that must be left in place. Tighten up the credit requirements that the democrats have loosened up over the years.

[recalcitrant]

1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD's time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.

Deuteronomy 15

---

The declaration of a bankruptcy is a biblical principle.
It was demanded EVERY seven years.
In the USA it was ALLOWED to those who needed it, EVERY seven.

The founders believed in allowing bankruptcy.
It has been codified in our laws.

Restricting bankruptcy for the living, to provide protection for corporations instead... may be GREAT for businesses, but is not a biblical/Christian principle.

I am not so sure this, along with our massive federal spending, at this time, is really an accurate manifestation of what many of us envisioned in the term "compassionate conservative."

[RetiredArmy]

That is true. Here in Seattle a few years ago I read an article talking about some woman who filed for bankruptcy. Attending the hearing was some guy from a local department store where this woman had a credit card bill run up. After the woman's debts were wiped away, and left the court room, a reporter saw the man give her an application for a new credit card!!!! When asked why he did that, the man replied the woman now had NO debt, still had a job and lots of money to spend. Thus, she could have a new one. So, she probably got a new card within days to start on the road to her next bankruptcy.