You can google it…

Uh, are you referring to the fact that Bush’s foreign policy is clearly being directed by Likud?

For Gilles Deleuze, in “Postscript on Control Societies,” consumer debt is the realization of “virtual confinement.

We are all in a sense invited to enter this virtual prison when we sign on the dotted line of our first student loan—especially we humanists who had no hope of capitalizing on our degrees. We agreed to mortgage our futures for a bit of time to read and study. It looked like an innocent enough choice.

What should be mentioned too is the number of Americans who are using credit cards to pay medical bills…why the Democrats can’t make hay out of this issue I don’t really understand. Do things have to get much worse before they might get a little better or is perpetual debt peonage to MBNA our destiny?

That’s not how a market is supposed to work; that’s not how business is supposed to work. (Why do the Republicans hate capitalism?)

http://www.forbes.com/2002/11/20/cz_ic_1120beltway.html

” a careful analysis of campaign contributions and voting patterns on bankruptcy reform by Princeton University’s Howard Rosenthal and Stephen Nunez of Stanford finds that the big financial institutions’ money has indeed bought substantial influence, though so far not quite enough.

While the crucial factor in most decisions by Congress is political ideology—it “correctly classifies over 90% of all roll-call voting decisions in recent Congresses,” according to the academics—voting on bankruptcy reform is something of an exception. When a corporate political action committee writes a member of Congress a check, its odds of getting his vote on the bankruptcy bill rise substantially. “A moderate Democrat receiving $30,000 from the credit-card coalition would have an 80% chance of supporting the House bill as against only a 30% chance if the representative had received no money,” say Rosenthal and Nunez.”

Here is a link to the paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=558365

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_13-2005_02_19.shtml#1108558247

And yes, I know it’s a ‘right wing’ blogger (and one who supports bankruptcy reform), but that doesn’t make the argument any less thorough or persuasive. Krugman is pretty slippery on this, saying:

“One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies.”

In other words, I’m spreading a meme I know is probably bogus, but useful (a ‘useful lie’?), while using a formulation that will allow me deniability later (“I said it was only one study and didn’t say I necessarily accepted the findings myself.”) That’s unworthy, Krugman.

Are bankruptcies caused by misfortune or irresponsible spending? Yes. Families live close to the edge with credit card debt and no savings not because there is no other way to get by, but in no small part because they just can’t help buying things they’ve convinced themselves they ‘need’ or ‘deserve’. In such situations, it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge. And part of the reason people are willing to operate close to the edge is that bankruptcy is just not that big a deal—their house is protected, the social stigma is no longer there, and their creditworthiness may actually improve (since creditors know that they can’t file again for seven years).

True story—a relative of a close friend has had medical problems recently. He was injured and is on disability and his son recently has had some serious medical problems. The family’s church had a fund-raiser for them and raised $1500…and they spent it all on a big-screen TV (reasoning that since the Dad and son were now stuck at home a lot, they ‘needed’ it and ‘deserved’ it because of all the bad things that had happened).

I, too, have relatives and acquaintances who have low incomes and carry credit-card debt. I know some of the dumb decisions they make about money. One, for example, recently needed a new washer and dryer. Did she buy inexpensive, basic models (which I did when I recently replaced my own—because who cares, we’re talking about laundry)? Nope, top of the line in both cases—3 or 4 times what the basic models would have cost. Several of us tried to talk her out of it, but got nowhere. And then, shortly thereafter, she had to borrow $250 from her mother for medical expenses. Another ‘medical’ bankruptcy in the offing? Aaarrgh.

We don’t have to pretend that bankruptcies happen to blameless people done in by Dickensian misfortunes to oppose this bill—it’s not even good political strategy. The reason is that the lower middle class people who ‘play by the rules’, who carry bag lunches, shop carefully, don’t max out their credit cards and don’t have to resort to bankruptcy even when misfortunes strike them—these folks know the others and it really burns them to see them getting away with their irresponsible behavior. It’s not a good thing if responsible people of modest means end up feeling like chumps for exercising restraint.

So it would be better to acknowledge the problems with bankruptcy—while still opposing a bill that seems to be purely the handiwork of credit card companies.

Are fattened dividend checks worth the immiseration of millions of people?

Is debt-slavery worth the

You mean she bought something with an eye on longevity? God save us.

In other news, ‘data’ is not the plural of ‘anecdote’.

Serfdoms were stable for centuries.
De Soto’s theories haven’t really proved efficient. I suspect once you have eliminated the middle class, it is very hard to get it back. Is there any new non-Marxist theory on this?