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| Economy |
| Personal bankruptcies up 41 percent |
| 2009-10-03 |
| Consumer bankruptcies soared 41 percent in September from a year before and climbed from August, as high unemployment and the housing market crash took their toll, the American Bankruptcy Institute said on Friday. September filings totaled 124,790, the fourth-highest month since the bankruptcy law changed in 2005. Filings also rose 4 percent from August, even as recent reports have indicated that the U.S. housing market might be stabilizing and consumer confidence appears to be recovering. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 I don't pretend to be over-informed in this area, but I do know from friends that credit card companies are contributing to this. They jack the interest rates, even if the customer has no missed/late payments, to 30%, which means the bill will NEVER be paid off. I heard of one person who was paying $300 a month on a credit card, and $275 of that was going to interest. That person has never missed or been late with a payment to the CC company (though they were late with a different card). It boggles the mind that a credit card company/bank thinks it's a good idea to raise the interest rate to usurous levels on someone who's already having trouble paying their bills (by way of not paying someone else on time), and it's even dumber that they do it to someone who's been paying their cc bill on time. It's almost like the cc companies WANT to lose their money. If you make it impossible to ever pay you off, most people will eventually say screw it and file bankruptcy; then you get nothing. I'd rather someone who owes me money pays me on time, but I'd also rather they pay me; why would I make it harder for them to do so? It's idiotic. Ever read a credit card application contract? Standard boilerplate gives them the right to raise your interest rate if you're late with or miss a payment to someone else. What the hell are they thinking? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-10-03 22:57 |
| #4 Small rural banks to the rescue by pre paying three years of fdic assesments. Of course, they won't have any operating capital to loan farmers and ranchers, but what the hell? who needs to eat. |
| Posted by: bman 2009-10-03 12:31 |
| #3 Yup, the collapse in commercial real estate is still to come ... |
| Posted by: Steve White 2009-10-03 10:22 |
| #2 Ahhh Phil - You assume some level of competence by "governments". Well, the government of the USA is run by infantile, incompetent political hacks, who will not hesitate to simply PRINT money out of thin air. That is basically what happens when the Fed ultimately absorbs any T-bills that remain unsold at the end of any given auction. It is so very strange to sit here and watch this train-wreck unfold - in slow motion - with the "talking heads" blissfully ignoring the obvious. By 2012, they'll be riding Obama out of town on rail. Maybe we should insist on seeing the university records of our next President, d'ya think?????? |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2009-10-03 06:09 |
| #1 There is still another wave to come of the financial crisis. Banks worldwide are carrying enormous undeclared liabilities on real estate loans. And this time there will no stimulus programs to artificially inflate asset prices, because governments have run out of money. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2009-10-03 02:09 |