Molly Ivins: Bad to worse

[Dudley_DUright]

Gross! How to take a horrible bill and make it genuinely loathsome. Look at this -- look at what they are doing with this bankruptcy bill.

The bankruptcy bill was a gift to big bankers and credit card companies to begin with, in return for copious showers of campaign contributions to our very own elected representatives in Congress. Same old, same old.

The big lenders, the kind who can legally jack up your interest rates at any time for any reason (read that fine print, folks), have a problem. More and more Americans are going broke. So they declare bankruptcy under Chapter 7, which wipes out their credit for 10 years, but gives them a chance to start over without debt. So, naturally, the banks want to make it harder to declare bankruptcy by forcing people to file under Chapter 13, only a partial diminution of debt.

According to a study by two associate medical professors at Harvard, published in Health Affairs, bankruptcies are indeed shooting up. Between 1981 and 2001, personal bankruptcies rose by 360 percent, but those caused by medical debts rose an astronomical 2,200 percent. Only job loss now slightly leads medical crisis as the reason for bankruptcy -- it's ahead of divorce.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18655

[Warpy]

1. Bankruptcy laws were there to prevent

predatory lenders and rip off artists from leaving us completely destitute, standing naked in the street. People who get sick are going to have to think very carefully from now on whether or not getting well and finding themselves without a home, transportaion, or anything else they need in their daily lives is really worth it.

It's all tied together. They really do want us to shut up and die.

[Skittles]

2. and the freeper types support this kind of shit

they just don't f***ing get it, but they will

[tom_paine]

3. It will just make their desire to advance to Phases Two and Three

that much more intense.

Phase Two and Three of the Transformation of America into Amerika will likely involve more personlized Sovietization, including increased "Neighbors Spying on Neighbors Programs" and a likely upswing in Mississippi 1940s style retribution on Enemies of the State.

Progress, though, anyone of ANY RACE will soon be able to be treated similarly (but not EXACTLY teh same, of course) as an "Uppity Negro" in Mississippi 1940s.

They won't make us Enemies of the State drink from seperate water fountains, though (would we have to sign a Bush Loyalty Oath before we could drink at PARTY water fountains if they did try it?), because it's already been done and shielding Imperial Ameikan Subjects false view of ourselves as Leader of the Free World (HAH! we don't even BELONG to the Free World, anymore) means old oppresions will have to take new forms.

Anyway, while I also eagerly await the Idiot Busheviks' chickens coming home to roost, I have no illusions that it will make them re-examine their own views anymore than German Defeats in 1943 and 1944 made Nazi PARTY Members reconsider theirs.

No, they will just get madder and, under the driection of their Bushevik Masters, more Nazi-like or Soviet-like themselves.

[Skittles]

6. oh, I have no doubt it will not alter their views

they'll always blame everything on Democrats

[realFedUp]

4. If you have a Republican representative...

you need to be in his or her face or in
the faces of his or her local office staffers
all the time about this stuff. It's easy
for them to pass this crap when no one is
looking them straight in the eyes. Make
them remember they represent everyone in
their districts.

Picket their offices....get the press there.
Let people know how people vote.

[TygrBright]

5. Hell, darlin'... if you have a DEMOCRATIC representative...

...you need to check their position and be in their face. A truly shocking number of Dems are actually supporting this!

Bought-and-paid-for, wholly owned subsidiaries of the financial disservices industry.

feh. Disgraceful!

contemptuously,
Bright