One Example of the Ruthless Duplicity of the Bankruptcy 'Reform' Act>>>

[Jacobin]

Dr. RightWinger is a 40 year old orthopedic surgeon and nets $800,000 per year before taxes. He owns a house worth $1,500,000 with a $700,000 mortgage. He lives in Florida. He pays $200,000 a year in income taxes and thus nets $600,000 per year.

The good doctor is convinced by his accountant to sign up for a bogus tax shelter which involves signing notes which he is told will never be called in some offshore tugboat depreciation scheme. Lo and behold the tax scam gets busted and the company is required to call the notes. He is sued for $500,000.

Dr. RightWinger goes to a bankruptcy lawyer AFTER the new bankruptcy 'reform' act is passed.

Guess what? The good doctor 'doesn't qualify' for Chapter 13 because his debts exceed the jurisdictional limits for a Chapte 13. His lawyer tells him he must file a Chapter 7. Which will wipe out the debts. Oh, what about my house? No problem says the lawyer. Totally exempt from seizure in Florida. Just keep paying your house note and keep it. What about my $1 million IRA? No problem. It's exempt. YOu get to keep it.


Now. Reduce all the above numbers by a factor of ten and Joe Blow, who has a boatload of uninsured medical bills or other calamity and he hsa to file a Chapter 13, live on CRUMBS and give the rest of his paycheck to a trustee for Five Years.

If there were ONE, just ONE semi-honest republican in the Senate, and I mean JUST ONE, this bill would have flushed him out. I hereby declare the absolute and total moral bankruptcy of Senate republicans. There is NOT A ONE left standing worth pissing on. None. Nada. Zip.

[ret5hd]

1. what are the "jurisdictional limits" of ch.13?

[Jacobin]

3. It changes from year to year

Right now its about $300,000 in unsecured debts about about $850,000 in secured debt.

[Warpy]

2. And this bill will identify the heartless DINOs we need to target

in 2006. I'm serious. If some sack of shit on our side votes for this horror of a bill, s/he needs to be defeated, even if it means putting up with a pubbie for one term.

They don't get any worse than DINOs.

[teryang]

4. Return to feudalism

...and the ties that bind, forever. Never was there a more short sighted policy. Bankruptcy is a means to dissipate risk and maintain liquidity in the marketplace. Tying people indefinitely to unsustainable obligations will further injure commercial relations.

The emphasis on real estate in the contemporary marketplace as a major means of investment is a related example of the distance we have moved from the founding ideals of Republicanism which historically originally held the rentier class in contempt.

Could we possibly have a more poorly educated and corrupt group in power than we have today?