Sunday, October 16, 2005

New Bankruptcy Laws

All information came from Yahoo:

My initial concerns while reading about the new bankruptcy laws was an imbalance for the elderly, as the law was tougher on those under the age of 35 and over the age of 65. From strictly anecdotal evidence (no actual stats unfortunately) it seems to me that a large portion of fraud cases (if not most) have the elderly as victims.

This fear has been temporarily been allayed by the understanding that the bankruptcy laws force you to pass a "means test" where your income is compared with your state's median income before deciding whether you pass to Chapter 7 or Chapter 13. Why does this allay my fears for the elderly... social security and pensions do not count as income in this bankruptcy formula, thereby allowing the elderly to qualify for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, generally regarded as easier.

What does this mean? The new bankruptcy laws will follow the 20th century version of the American way: tax the future to live through the present. The people who will suffer are young enterpreneurs. Is this a bad thing? I don't know, but I am getting a little tired of "the Greatest Generation" getting the last table scraps of Social Security, feeding a massive federal deficit, and now skipping out on fiscal responsibility (but forcing it on everyone else).

I'm looking for comments on several fronts. Am I just a man bitter at the boomer generation that is destroying my physical, spiritual, and financial world for their own material needs? Is this the best bankruptcy system/modifactions we could have thought up? Should we even care about young enterpreneurs?