What is Digg?51 Comments
- BorsKaegel, on 07/06/2009, -1/+25Coincidence? I think not!
- benroy, on 07/07/2009, -4/+22Debt collectors aren't bad people. That would imply that they *are* people instead of soulless wage garnishing machines.
- BlueWindKami, on 07/06/2009, -5/+18Makes sense to me! Let's look at the overall picture instead of letting greedy debt collectors ruin the lives of entire families.
- evanft, on 07/07/2009, -0/+13Well, no *****.
- sacramentalist, on 07/07/2009, -2/+15and don't ever get sick
- woog315, on 07/07/2009, -2/+13Did you notice the point of the article is that bill collectors tend to make more of their money back when they *don't* garnish people's wages because less people file bankruptcy?
- smacksaw, on 07/07/2009, -1/+9I don't even know where to start with you as your overall gaps in knowledge on so many issues is just stunning to me.
- tomato1324, on 07/07/2009, -0/+6i thought bankruptcy was one of the common results of seizing wages.....i mean, isnt that kind of common sense?
- 3The3Dude3, on 07/07/2009, -0/+5I hate to admit. But when I was younger I had my checking account levied. Go figure, I owed someone money and they wanted to collect it. It sucked at the time, but was one of those mistakes that yielded a lesson to bring into adulthood: Government deficits may suck, but personal deficits suck, personally.
- mouthbreether, on 07/06/2009, -5/+10Texas, ***** yeah.
- roddack, on 07/07/2009, -1/+6Problem is that with a fiat money system the savings must be able to generate enough interest to beat the expansion of the money supply otherwise all you would have accomplished is to effectively loose money due to your diminished buying power.
- roddack, on 07/07/2009, -0/+4debtors prison is nothing new I am pretty sure it has been around for a long time. I guess the question I would have is that in Ireland if you fail to pay your debts and go to prison when you finish serving your time is your debt cleared?
- smacksaw, on 07/07/2009, -4/+7The lame thing is that these always turn into "personal responsibility" sermons when it's really about who controls the lawmaking process.
All of these arguments would be rendered irrelevant if borrowers had the same amount of clout with lawmakers that lenders have. Look at how all of our mortgages were made into securities and fraudulently sold to investors. There's no "personal responsibility" when the lender never intended for you to pay the loan, but was really looking for profit by selling the loan. They didn't even service the loan after writing it.
Banking is not a "free market" like having competing grocery stores in the neighbourhood. Banking is like organised crime, and while regulated, banks and lenders have influence over the regulatory bodies that are supposed to govern them. If you have the mafia, you form an organised crime task force to fight organised crime. The average consumer trying to live by capitalistic free market principles doesn't stand a chance any more than the shop owner being shaken down stands a chance against the mob.
I'm sure it makes people feel good to sit on their high horse and harp about personal responsibility, but you're not helping. You're not ending the predatory system that led our current financial crisis. If you really care about personal responsibility, empower borrowers to actually be able to have fair and equal footing when dealing with lenders. I don't believe those with the personal responsibility mantra actually want people to succeed, they would rather revel in their failure. If they did want people to succeed, they'd quit blathering oversimplifications and get their hands dirty and be behind a bill of rights for consumers that covers lending or contracts of any sort (cell phones come to mind). - ZenMojo, on 07/07/2009, -0/+3So let me get this straight. You charge *****. You can't pay for it. Debt collector takes your money. You go bankrupt. If Debt Collector can't take your money, you don't go bankrupt.
...
I'm trying to look at this in a common sense way that doesn't make debt collectors sound both reasonable and necessary in recovering money, but I can't. If you don't have money but you don't have to pay, of course you won't go bankrupt.
In the free market, debt collectors should be able to COLLECT YOUR DEBTS. Which causes bankruptcies. Which is how the free market works. So are people here for or against the free market? - NJank, on 07/07/2009, -0/+3No, taking money that is not given to you is stealing. Breaking a private party contract is a business decision that should have stiff consequences if the contract is properly formed. Civil versus criminal. Very different. Banks accepted the risk of nonpayment or default as a part of the loan. They were not forced to loan or accept that risk. People accepted the risk of losing their home, having wages garnished, having their credit ruined, etc. when they took the loan. If the bank poorly estimated its risk, that is a poor business decision. If your fiscal state is affected by other people making poor financial or business decisions, then you may have failed to account for risks applicable to your financial situation.
It's not stealing unless you took something not given to you. Dealing with strings attached is another matter entirely. Deliberate fraud is another matter entirely. Lending is a business. They need to manage risks and realize that they made business decisions with private individuals that will directly affect their bottom line. If they need to tighten up, so be it. If they didn't and suffer because risks come to fruition, so be it. Stop moralizing because you don't like the outcome. - macromorgan, on 07/07/2009, -0/+3Yeah, but 2% of the value of a modest home in the suburbs in Texas is less than the 0.5% of the value of a modest home in the suburbs in California. The percentages may be higher but the amount is similar/less.
- brim4brim, on 07/07/2009, -0/+3You think that's bad. In Ireland if you don't pay your debt and it goes to court, you can be jailed. 278 people jailed in 2008 alone.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0706/debt.html
Now that doesn't make a bit of sense.
One of Ireland's worst criminals is now running a debt collection agency:
http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2009/ ...
Couldn't make it up. Doesn't surprise me that when someone takes your wage to pay part of your debt you end up bankrupt and declaring bankruptcy. - roddack, on 07/07/2009, -0/+3So who held a gun to their head and made them take the loan against their will?
- pathouston22, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2Texas really is one of the best states to live in financially. No bloody state income tax either. About the only thing that sucks here is high property taxes.
- NJank, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2so... i make a bad investment in the stock market, and business leaders make bad decisions, they declare bankruptcy, and I lose my investment, and that's okay.
But banks make a bad investment in (a) a person's ability or willingness to pay back a loan for a home, and/or (b) the value of the collateral for the loan. The risk comes to fruition, for any reason the person (bad decision or not) declares bankruptcy, and the loan isn't paid back, and that's not okay?
Investments come with risk. In the bank's case, they still own the house and can sell it to recoup losses. if they overestimated value of the asset, or allowed themselves to be convinced of the overvalue, that's part of the bank's risk. no one forced the bank to loan to someone who shouldn't get the loan. (there are claims of some exceptions to that last statement, but that comprises a minority the housing bust relative to plain bad risk management, or separation of risk from profit as is stated by some commenters above)
Risk to the person should be sufficient to balance risk to the bank. things got skewed (overvalued houses, upside-down loans, etc) that make the risks set in the contract not sufficient, such that even bankruptcy is less of a 'risk' than dealing with the poor contractual situation. so it goes. it's business. stop selectively moralizing. - macromorgan, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2Actually, your mortgages were't fradulently sold to investors. The problem is that the investors didn't know exactly what they were buying but they saw it had an AAA rating so they bought it. The bad part is that the rating agencies didn't fully understand what they were rating when they gave it an AAA rating which was a disaster waiting to happen.
- 4AntiStupid, on 07/07/2009, -2/+4Taking your wages to pay off debt...isn't that the government's job?
- TheUngod, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2My question is if they can't garnish your wages, how do they get their money? Making other peoples rates ***** to pay for those who don't pay their bills? The companies are going to make sure they get their money one way or the other, it's just whos pocket it comes out of that's in question.
- blueplanet, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2...duh?
- kartman2001, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1Let's just bring back the debtor prisons, because America loves prisons.
/s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Not ... - alais, on 07/15/2009, -0/+1Interest rates would soar.
- inactive, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1So they like have money to service their loans?
- sooperdooper, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1Plus, a country using economic metrics based on growth will never promote saving money.
- alais, on 07/15/2009, -0/+1All you guys who are against debt collection, I hope you enjoy the higher interest rates that go along with that.
- Niteryder, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1They need to get rid of collection agencies that
hound people 24/7 with 130% interest margins
on top of the original debt.
Then maybe courts will be free to adjudicate real criminals,
not people who have fallen on hard times. - inactive, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1Oh I didn't know the common sense train was making a stop at digg today.
- DaDrake, on 07/07/2009, -5/+6"Professor Rich Hynes, who teaches and researches bankruptcy and finance issues at the University of Virginia School of Law, said he sees signs that garnishment is playing a role in bankruptcy rates, but he added that plenty of other factors are at play."
What correlation doesn't equal causation?
Want to lower bankruptcies... teach students the importance of saving. No who am I kidding... since when did the US education system prepare students for the workforce? - randumbusername, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1seems pretty obvious. what's the yang?
- macromorgan, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1While I do advocate personal responsibility I want to point out that the two most likely causes of bankruptcy are medical bills and job loss. While a good rainy day fund should help mitigate the potential loss of job if you get hit with a $100,000 surgery bill and don't have insurance (medical bills + job loss for the double lose) you can pretty well bet bankruptcy is in your future. I don't think that even the most responsible digger on here could avoid bankruptcy in that case.
- Mike17102, on 07/07/2009, -2/+2No *****, because the deadbeats in the states where you cant get their money dont need to declare bankruptcy because they just dont pay people back.
***** deadbeats, you should pay the bills you owe. Lets take a look at how this hurts the companies in those states.
Yes yes I know the diggiots rant and rave about the big evil corporations bla bla bla, and that they wouldnt know what personal responsibility was if it gang raped them, but some of us think people are still responsible for their own (often poor) choices. - bobjrn2, on 07/07/2009, -1/+1Wait, so if I spend money I don't have, don't pay it back, and I prevent the bank from collecting on my debt, I have a greater chance of not going into bankruptcy? And incredibly, we are praising this as a good thing. As bad as BIG BUSINESS is...it is the reason that the US had the best economy in the world, and people still have jobs. This crisis isn't the banks' or businesses' faults, it is Americans that took advantage of government-lowered interest rates by spending money they knew they couldn't pay back. God forbid these people are to blame.
- gkiltz, on 07/07/2009, -0/+0Why do we live in a world where it is necessary to continually state the obvious?
- Meor, on 07/07/2009, -0/+0Be careful to reign in your contempt for the obvious guys. There are *actually* people who think that taking money from the rich and giving to the poor will make the collective better. This is a good case-in-point showing that taking money from productive people and giving it to unproductive people is a waste for everyone.
- smj887, on 07/07/2009, -9/+7So... collecting on something that you are completely entitled to is greedy now? It's not like companies can just create imaginary accounts to collect on. They're collecting on something that is OWED to them. If you give me a loan of $10,000, would you consider yourself greedy if you had me repay it?
- OldSkoolSlacker, on 07/07/2009, -1/+0Right or wrong aside, I would quit my job first. So help me god. I would burn it all down before I allowed them to march in and take it by force. I personally have no debt - not so much as a car loan - and I wouldn't take it if it was offered to me (because I've suffered under it before), but even if i did, I'm not going to allow someone else to decide what or who gets paid first, what debts are most important, how best to dig myself out of debt and so on. I would quit and mow lawns for cash. You want your money that bad? Think I should pay my credit card bill before my doctor bill... just because you got there first? Come find me!
- deema1, on 07/07/2009, -2/+1And then we can have our crooked politicians implement laws demanding that these same delinquents are given easier access to credit cards and loans, and cap interest rates below levels of deterrence, because they've been so badly cheated and oppressed.
- deema1, on 07/07/2009, -9/+6Refusing to pay off a debt you willingly accepted is stealing. When will you people understand that lending is a business, not a charity? Nowhere in any loan does it say that the borrower has the authority to stop paying if they endure unforeseen hardships. That's part of the risk one takes when they agree to a loan.
The majority of debt is spent on wants, not needs. If you don't want to have your lives ruined by debt collectors, then don't be irresponsible with money you don't have and rack up debt. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. - chinaman1212, on 07/07/2009, -3/+1type slowly. explain to me where i am wrong.
- ConcernedCanuck, on 07/07/2009, -12/+10Imagine that MORE control doesn't actually help... WHO WOULD'A THUNK IT?!
- GaltShrugged, on 07/07/2009, -5/+2blah blah blah. You're an idiot.
You have somehow turned the people that borrow money and won't pay it back into victims.
You know why we are on our high horse of "personal responsibility"? We're right, that's why. What's even more disgusting is that you try to blame the real victims. The people that are actually out the money.
WeeeTODDD
Oh, you're a MacDouche. That explains it. - crossmr, on 07/07/2009, -5/+2correlation doesn't equal causation.
- Mike17102, on 07/07/2009, -5/+2Ya, we should let deadbeat ***** go around stiffing everyone on bills that they owe! They are ENTITLED to a free ride after all. Why should anyone have to pay for anything?
Lets all pretend really hard that people who end up bankrupt always did so because they were sick, we can ignore the fact that most do it because of poor business choices and it having nothing what so ever to do with their health. - deema1, on 07/07/2009, -5/+1Ah, yes. I love that pet excuse from all you financial delinquents. The majority of the country is in massive debt, but it's not due to health expenses. What a naive lie that has been spun to justify and rationalize one's financial irresponsibility.
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