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by hilzoy

For about a week I have been thinking that I should try to write something on the bankruptcy bill that’s currently being considered in Congress. I did research, I collected links, but I couldn’t figure out how to get around one crucial problem: I don’t know anything about bankruptcy law, and I try not to write about things I don’t understand. Luckily, however, Josh Marshall has created a new blog devoted to this subject, and turned it over to someone who does understand it: Elizabeth Warren of the Harvard Law School. She’s the author of the recent study that showed that over half of bankruptcies are due in part to medical emergencies. (The study was described in this NY Times article.)

Warren’s take on the bankruptcy bill:

“The bill is more than 500 pages long, all in highly technical language. But the overall thrust is pretty clear:

• Make debtors pay more to creditors, both in bankruptcy and after bankruptcy, so that a bankruptcy filing will leave a family with more credit card debt, higher car loans, more owed to their banks and to payday lenders.

• Make it more expensive to file for bankruptcy by driving up lawyers’ fees with new paperwork, new affidavits, and new liability for lawyers, so that the people in the most trouble can’t afford to file.

• Make more hurdles and traps, with deadlines that a judge cannot waive even if someone has a heart attack or an ex-husband who won’t give up a copy of the tax returns, so that more people will get pushed out of bankruptcy with no discharge.

• Make it harder to repay debts in Chapter 13 by increasing the payments necessary to confirm in a repayment plan, so that more people will be pushed out of bankruptcy without ever getting a discharge of debt.

There are people who abuse the system, but this bill lets them off. Millionaires will still be welcome to use the unlimited homestead exemption. And if they don’t want to buy a home there, they can just tuck their millions of dollars into a trust, a “millionaire’s loophole” that lets them keep everything—if they can afford a smart, high-priced lawyer.

I don’t get paid by anybody on any side of this fight. I just think it isn’t fair.”

More resources and discussion below the fold.

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–Sebastian

I don’t know enough about Indonesia to understand why this would happen, but it can’t be good that the leader of the conspiracy beind the Bali bombing is getting a slap on the wrist of 30 months in prison. 

Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir should spend the rest of his "miserable life" in jail, says Opposition Leader Kim Beazley.

Bashir was sentenced to two-and-a-half years jail yesterday after a court in Jakarta found him guilty of conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Mr Beazley said a life sentence would have been more adequate and the Australian government should do all it could to extend the jail term.

"This man should spend the rest of his miserable life in jail and the Australian government should be doing what it can to put pressure on for an appeal to extend his sentence," Mr Beazley told reporters in Sydney today.

"He has been convicted of a conspiracy that involved the killing of a large number of Australians and others and Indonesians.

"People who do that should spend their lives in jail."

But Mr Beazley did not blame the Indonesian government for the lenient sentence.

"I think the Indonesian government is as horrified as we are," he said.

Is this a case of judicial intimidation or other pressure being exercised by the terrorist group?  Is something else weird going on?  Is Indonesian conspiracy law really weak?  I can’t tell from the reports, but whatever the problem is, it is disturbing. 

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