The bankruptcy reform bill was the biggest assault on citizens right that has happened over the last few years and almost no one took notice. America was founded on the principal of debt amnesty, in which a citizen at any time could based on their own analysis of their situation could absolve themselves from the burden of their debt. In doing so the owner of their debt would liquidate their assets and take to proceeds. The debtor was then free to try to rebuild.

This institution was created because any other construct, will inevitably lead to slavery and create a debtors nation. They studied the factors that created debtors prisons in Europe and wanted to avoid the pitfalls of a nation built on debt burden. Because it is a nation built on slavery.

The fact that an institution as old as the founding fathers was changed on the eve of the collapse bears more than coincidence. Student Loans are the most over leveraged product on the market, what is worse is they are not backed by an asset that can be liquidated. Knowing this and seeing the collapse coming the lobbyist and politicians quickly worked to place safeguards into place to keep the house of cards from coming down.

Coincidentally the timing of the move is damning evidence to the fact that not only the financial industry but also the politicians knew the collapse was coming. The instituted the means test as a way to strap homeowners to underwater mortgages and outright removed student loans from consideration. It was the most blatant display of politicians putting business interest before the people.

They did everything in their power to strap us to the debt of poor choices while simultaneously working to form legislation to bail out businesses that made equally poor chooses.

I implore each and every one of you, to look at the bankruptcy reform bill and who voted for it and vote them out. They have shown that they are now overtly and directly working against your interest. It is a huge assault on your rights, while you may never need the relief those rights afforded, if you do you will find that they have blocked your ability to start over, denying you of rights when you need them the most. It is a heinous attack on the rights of the citizenry.

> The bankruptcy reform bill

had nothing to do with the non-dischargability (can't get out of with bankruptcy) of student loan debts. That change happened in 1998.

> almost no one took notice.

Speak for yourself.

> The fact that an institution as old as the founding fathers was changed on the eve of the collapse bears more than coincidence.

Bankruptcy laws have changed many times since "the founding fathers".

Thanks for the info, I thought I read that they where both in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 05. I was unaware of a previous bill.

And I do understand that the laws have been change previous to the 05 and 98, but my understanding of the law is that it was the first such attempt to restrict the people who could file for chapter 7 AKA total discharge of debt, therefore pushing them into a 13, requiring a judge to garnish a large portion of the income for 5 years before they can be declared free from the responsibility of having the service the debt.

The lesson that I'm getting out of this is a that a lot of people shouldn't be in college and/or shouldn't be allowed to choose their major.

Is that "ingrain" stronger than "He was just following orders"? I ask because few people accept the latter excuse.

> Cultural wisdom and norms like "put your money in real estate, it never goes down",

That sounds like a lame excuse, as real estate is one of the classic cycles.

It may sound lame to you, but what you fail to see is perspective, many people listen to that cultural wisdom and many people do "just follow orders" it's the reason we have this mess. Are they totally blameless? no. should they have researched what they where getting into? yes.

But both of those require someone actually even beginning to think it through in the first place and that is the point. When it comes to social norms like this, because of socital habits they don't even think. Just like the guy just following orders, he did not think through his actions.

Does that absolve them from guilt or responsibility? no. Does it mean we should reflect on how it happened and have empathy? yes. But just like the guy following orders, the system that indoctrinated him into not thinking requires some of the scorn and blame.

Hitler was just as much to blame as the guard. It's preposterous to view it any other way. To do so, absolves guilty parties of their burden of the blame.

It's not that the author is not guilty of failing to think, it is that the system is also guilty of conditioning children in that manner. We (society, the education system, finance) share the blame, whether you like that fact or not.

From your perspective you see them as excuses for the author to be blameless for his actions. From my perspective, he is not the only accountable party.

Just as in real estate, it is not an excuse that people don't understand cycles, but it is a reality that people relying on "cultural wisdom" invested in real estate "because it is the safest investment". The fact that they did not even know what a cycle was, does not absolve them from responsibility for their action, but it does not absolve us as a society for perpetuating that "cultural wisdom".

Life is never that cut and dry, telling a person to suck it up because you believe it is an excuse, does nothing to address the systemic issues at play, that are just as responsible as the individual.

So, you want to blame his parents. If not them, then who is responsible for this "ingrain".

> Does that absolve them from guilt or responsibility? no

And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame.

If, as you argue, he's not competent to think about the consequences of his decisions, he's not competent to vote, make those decisions, and so on.

> but it does not absolve us as a society for perpetuating that "cultural wisdom".

"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still others had different messages.

And the exact same is true of college educations, and of spending lots of money to become an audio engineer.

Yes, as well as the predatory lenders, targeted marketers and a host of others working to dumb down the consumer. Lack of critical reasoning increases impulsive and conspicuous consumption, it is not a coincidence that critical reasoning and the intellectual lazy have increased along with consumption. To believe that culture and propaganda does not have the ability to influence an individuals decision making is to ignore the body of evidence that fascism (and later the soviets) created for us and used with deadly precision.

And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame.

I hold all parties equally accountable, that was clear in my writing.

"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still others had different messages.

Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions, no one has went to jail over predatory loans, when direct corruption on their part, has been highlighted by several whistle-blowers. The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals, that are being paid to do the thinking and analysis for them. When I go to my CPA, I expect him to be a tax professional, I do not educate myself in tax law because, I pay the CPA to do so. To educate myself in it would be redundant and a waste of my time and money.

It would also kill human progress to require everyone to educate themselves on every aspect of their life to ensure they don't get screwed. We don't expect people to know mechanics and when a mechanic recommends more work than is necessary we generally consider it fraud. Again the person that did not educate themselves is to blame for not educating themselves or at the least seeking a second opinion, but it does not absolve the mechanic of his fraud.

What you suggest is untenable as a society, we have to rely on professionals to make decisions for us, as a society becomes more complex we have to delegate more. To not do so would stagnate us as a civilization. We should expect professional to act professional, and hold them as an accountable party when they do not.

In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children understand the conditions of the loan and the full projected debt and payment at the end of the loans. So a student can see what their debt and payment projections will look like at the end of their education.

We should expect the schools to have clear, data on what their graduated of specific disciplines make, so that a student can compare that to the debt burden that they will incur.

Finally, we should expect sales and marketing to paint a true picture of the prospects for employment and education. Until we do, we as a society share the blame.

We can get into the semantics of who "we" are, but that is playing the blame game, the reality is, "we" as a society should not allow predatory practices in any market where large debt decision will be made. Until we do, we share some of the culpability of the indebted.

> Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions,

So? Folks say lots of things. If I tell someone that they don't look fat, am I responsible if they actually do?

Folks who believe everything are fools. Society needs fewer fools, so making fools take a huge hit for being foolish is a good thing for society.

> The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)

> Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals

So if I hold out grocery clerk to be an expert on nutrition, I have a legit beef?

"I want {someone} to be liable for their advice" is no reason to hold said someone liable for their advice. You want liability, contract for it. Note that a contract requires the consent of the other party, so you're going to pay for said assumption of risk.

> In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children understand the conditions of the loan

They're not children. They're college students. We let them vote. We let many of them buy alcohol.

If they are unable to understand that words have meaning and that it's a good idea to know said meaning, they shouldn't be in college.

Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)

I am interested to hear how you reconcile those two points of views, society needs fewer "fools", but yet the financial collapse is a case study in foolish exuberance. Do you draw a distinction between the individual and the institution or is foolishness excusable when we may have to take a hit for it. Even if we did not participate.

In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been painful for us. One could argue that we need to be empathetic and learn from their mistakes and that we needed to bail them out for the greater good.

If that is the case, why does it differ for the individual "fool"? because we don't have to share in repercussion so we can therefore be selectively empathetic. You see from my vantage point, the "fools" that did not do their homework on wall street are no different than the "fool" that did not do his homework before getting into student loan debt or mortgage debt. You can weigh in on either side of the morality issue that we need to help them or not help them, but they both acted foolishly and other fools in the system helped perpetuate their foolishness, we have a systemic issue of anti-intellectualism and intellectual laziness. Whether you are for or against helping or are in favor of selectively helping the ones that will cause us pain for their foolishness, if we don't act, the fact remains that both sides are culpable. I know that you don't see that vantage point which is fine, but I am genuinely interested in understanding how you unify the two positions for different classes of fools, which from my vantage point looks like an argument for situational ethics. Which is what many in the financial industry used to justify their behavior.

Actually, it wasn't. However, even if it was, there are benefits to a functioning financial system. There's no benefit to more fools.

> In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been painful for us

That's a reasonable view, one that I happen to share. (However, you're ignoring the role of govt in this whole thing. I think that folks who want a foolish govt should take a hit.) However, as I've pointed out, there's a reasonable counter argument.

What is the benefit to protecting fools?

> Which is what many in the financial industry used to justify their behavior.

I think that you're making that up. How about a checkable cite to someone in the financial industry actually making that argument? (Someone else saying it about them is not evidence.)