Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Alleviating unsustainable debts that trap people for life was so important to the writers of the U.S. Constitution that they included bankruptcy as a basic right, part of the core guarantees. Why? Because people that are forced into debt service, or worse, Debtors Prisons, are little more than slaves, which makes it creepily ironic that slavery itself was not also abolished in the original Constitution. It's also ironic that the only debts Americans can't bankrupt out of are School Loans, Taxes & Child Support, meaning kids, education & government are the only financial obligations that are considered important enough to destroy your life.

Bankruptcies are recognized as essential because they provide a formal mechanism for readjustment of circumstances. Bankruptcy is there because it works. Whenever bankruptcy is circumvented through government bailouts, social strictures or pandering to Special Interests, that's when long-term problems occur. Of course bankruptcy is exploited by the unscrupulous, same as any fundamental Right can be leveraged into something unintended by those who enumerated our Rights, but rather than penalizing the many for the actions of a tainted few, we must simply account for them: businesses that loan money certainly do.

Ending on yet another irony, Debtor Prison does indeed exist in America even though bankruptcy was intended to eliminate it. For example, men behind in child support make-up 1/8th of the inmate population in South Carolina, 7 million students have defaulted on loans so cannot move on with their lives & the I.R.S. imprisons 4 out of 5 people convicted, costing more than $200 million a year. Where's bankruptcy when you need it?