Archive for September, 2008
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
I own a business for just over 10 years but is not profitable. My income tax records show a loss each year. I am trying to sell the business but since it is a loss each year, no one is interested in buying it. I had to remortgage my house to buy this business initially 10 years ago. I also had to use a shared personal line of credit with my wife in order to pay off some debts, including a court case that I won (but still had to incur costs for defense). My question is if I am in debt with this line of credit and also mortgage payments (which is really payments for the business), can bankruptcy be an option for me? If so, will my wife be affected for the business/mortgage payments and the line of credit?
Posted from: British Columbia
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
I have personally gauranteed for my business to a line of credit, a few company credit cards as well as a private business loan. My company is going unders and I have no personal assets left. Would these creditors sue me personally for recovery? Can they put me into personal bankruptcy? I also have some personal credit card debts on which I plan to make minimum payments from a proposed employment.
Posted from: Ontario
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
I have a motorcycle as my only vehicle. It was purchased through financing in 2006 with my mother as the co-signer. Will I be able to keep this as long as I continue to make my payments? Will my mother find out I have filed for bankruptcy?
Posted from: Ontario
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
The first personal bankruptcy laws began in Great Britain more than four hundred and fifty years ago - of course, those statutes forced the bankrupt to infamous debtor’s prisons (could’ve been worse; the Roman Empire forced insolvent debtors to be slaves of their creditors). Throughout most of western civilization, inability to repay bills was considered the same as fraud and debtors were absolutely considered criminals - often sentenced to death. Things really didn’t start to change until the English economy began a period of expansion in the 1600’s.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
This article contains information on filing bankruptcy and seeking the alternatives. By investigating exactly what bankruptcy is one can gain a better perspective on all possible solutions to their debt problems.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Information on bankruptcy and ways to avoid it. Detailed how to on avoiding bankruptcy.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Earlier today, I was watching the Senate Banking Committee debate the administration’s proposal to have Congress write the Secretary of the Treasury a blank $700 billion check to fix the bad mortgage debt problem and other financial market woes. As Secretary Paulson was explaining the need for such awesome power, a sidebar appeared on the screen stating that Paulson’s net personal worth is $500 million.
That got me to thinking: It would be very helpful for TV public affairs shows to always put sidebars or bubbles showing the net personal worth and annual income of their various talking heads. The same would go for TV appearances by public officials, politicians, and political shills of all stripes. I found myself wondering about the Fed chairman’s net worth, and then the members of the Committee and the other “experts” assembled to support the administration’s request. From there, my thoughts jumped to the TV commentators and pundits who are either super rich themselves or operate in those circles.
Why should we care about someone’s wealth? Every time one of these well-heeled folks says something being proposed is in “our” interest, you have to wonder whose interest they are talking about. Surely Secretary Paulson’s interest is not the same as mine, as my net worth is slim to none. So, when Henry Paulson — or Donald Trump, for that matter — advise that a course of action would be in “all our interests,” I’m pretty sure they’re thinking of a relatively small circle of family, friends, and associates whose net worths are way up there in the many millions.
So here’s what I think about the proposed bailout. It’s crystal-clear that the people who have made out big time under the current credit-debt system desperately want it to continue. And for them, the bailout is a necessity. It may be that it’s a necessity for the rest of us as well, but I’m unwilling to take it on trust from the people who are pushing that line.
If I had knowledge of who had most benefited from the housing and credit bubbles, I would be better positioned to assess whose interests were being served. For now, it appears to me that the “titans of Wall Street” and the government that serves them are using the same shock-and-awe approach to this power grab as has worked so well with the American people in the past — scare the hell out of them, and then take what you like.
This, of course, implies that this was and is an engineered crisis. And why not? Everyone in a position of responsibility repeats the mantra that these high-flying finance types are very smart people. If so, they must have seen it coming. A lot of us said-to-be less brilliant people saw the handwriting on the wall a long time ago.
Of course, a possible alternative explanation is that the Masters of the Universe (to paraphrase Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities) are far too arrogant and completely lacking in common sense. In that case, we really ought to ignore what they say and let events take their course. I do believe that “the market” will likely produce a better outcome.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
The affects of personal bankruptcy after it is declared. How consumers rebuild themselves after bankruptcy.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Technically, the term bankruptcy comes from the old Italian banco rotta or busted bench - most likely a metaphor for flat broke though, for merchants unable to pay their debts in olden days, more than a few benches (or countertops) were destroyed alongside. The overall notion’s rather older and refers to the official distinction of debts that a court agrees could not reasonably expect to be repaid. As a matter of fact, the earliest legal definition of bankruptcy protection appeared in Roman statutes during Caesar’s reign.
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Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
There’s any number of reasons that the number of personal bankruptcy continue to go up exponentially every year - spinning ever close to two million per annum according to government statistics. Credit lines and credit cards are more available than ever to people of all sorts of qualifications, the adjustable rate and negative amortization loans that inspired our current mortgage lender crisis has led to many homeowners’ mortgage bills increasing monthly, national unemployment continues to rise - even the spiraling divorce rate, as partners wish to discharge mutual debt-loads, has helped send bankruptcies to historic levels of acceptance. …
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