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Comment by geggam | Hacker News Reader

Why should society be bailing out the banks who loan money to folks who cannot afford it then turn around and bail out people who borrow money and cannot afford it ?

If you are broke file bankruptcy and reset your life. Quit trying to steal tax dollars

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If filing for bankruptcy had no negative consequences I would agree, but that isn't the case. I agree that we shouldn't be bailing out banks, but we should have a safety net to bail out individuals. People go broke for various reasons, but the hallmark of an accomplished society is being able to ensure a decent quality of life for most people. Telling people to accept personal responsibility for everything that happens to them is a huge cop-out. You're basically saying you refuse to consider what scenarios might warrant this because it doesn't fit into your world view.

Conversely if overextending yourself for whatever reason had no consequences, it would be to your disadvantage not to overextend yourself. How do we determine who should be "bailed out"? Seems the issues that are unavoidable that could cause ruin (illness/disability) should be addressed at a higher level than borrowing money with no recourse.

I have no issues with socialized medicine. In fact the fact remains medicare is actually the one functioning health insurance we have because the govt sets the rates that can be charged.

Unregulated healthcare is silly since people dont have a choice about their health ( not discussing the food choices )

People do have a choice about borrowing money.

Health is going to become a bigger problem once we reach a point in the development of our medicine when we could literally heal anyone.

Right now government-subsidised healtcare works because keeping yourself healthy simply can not be externalised to the government. But what if I could spend the beat of my years being a coke-snorting socialite hoping to meet someone at one of those parties who would make my life?

20-year alcoholic? Let us grow you a liver for the total of $2M of taxpayer’s money.

What are the negative consequences of filing for bankruptcy for the individual? If you're at the point where bankruptcy is recommended, it's only up from there.

They are either discharged of their debt or able to protect a house thru a payment plan.

Might have trouble finding an apartment. The lowered credit score will probably cause increased costs for things like car insurance. Life insurance may be a no-go. Employers in some industries do credit checks, too.

It's a good option in crushing debt, but it's not without significant mid-term downsides.

If they are in the ballpark of bankruptcy, their credit score will already be destroyed. Bankruptcy will actually improve a credit score

Bankruptcy will eventually improve the score. It's not instant, and may substantially worsen it in the short term. Some organizations that do credit checks may also have a "no recent bankruptcy" policy despite accepting lower credit scores.

Not everyone's way behind at the time they declare bankruptcy, either. We did it because six figures worth of medical debt was ceasing to be juggleable, and disability approval (and back pay) looked to be years out still. Credit score was largely fine at the time we filed.

I agree, bankruptcy is an unfortunate solution for unexpected medical debt, as it impacts ones consumer credit score. FWIW the GP comment was referring to "banks who loan money to folks who cannot afford it" which implies baling out consumer debt instead of filing for bankruptcy

Exactly, bankruptcy punishes the creditor which is how the system is designed. They assume the risk instead of passing it on to society.

Yes, people go bankrupt for various reasons. Some reasons are more-or-less outside your control (medical costs being number one), many are at least partially within your control.

When you say the government should bail out individuals, you're saying that I should pay for someone's gambling addiction, someone's lack of effort in finding a job after graduating from university with $150K in loans, someone's inability to manage their credit cards.

It's one thing to help people who are in need, something else entirely to help people who are in a bad place because of their own poor decisions.

Bankruptcy is the safety net to bail out individuals. If you find yourself with too much debt to ever escape, regardless of how much it is and (mostly) regardless of how you got it, you get a reset button to wipe out all the debt you can't pay. The only negative consequences of bankruptcy (beyond the fact that it's not free to file) are the ones caused by the fact that it's the safety net; it's embarrassing to be forced to take it and lenders will judge you for needing it.

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