Abstract
Bankruptcy is a form of renewal available to those who have tried to do something worthwhile but failed. If borrowing power is earned by experience and potential performance thank God for bankruptcy’s protection. If borrower or lender enter into a consensual contract in ignorance, without qualification, or with illegitimate purpose God help us. Propriety lives in the intentions and motives of borrower and lender.
“Those who made the laws have apparently supposed, that every deficiency of payment is the crime of the debtor. But the truth is, that the creditor always shares the act, and often more than shares the guilt, of improper trust.”
Samuel Johnson, Idler #22, 1758.
Last week the Center for American Progress (CAP) unveiled a study suggesting that bankruptcy should be available to student borrowers. Tyler Kingkade of The Huffington Post reported that 7 million student borrowers are in arrears, only 40% can pay what they owe, coupled with CAP’s plan this is a national travesty.