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> have you considered declaring bankruptcy or defaulting on the credit cards?

No. While I believe bankruptcy is an incredibly useful tool to help people take risks and recover from bad situations, I don't want to abuse it. I have plenty of earning power, and a year and a half of modest living won't kill me.

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That, sir, is a very noble answer to an issue that doesn't deserve to be treated nobly. For most people, the snowballing effect of fees on maxed-out credit cards' interest rates + fees = impossibility, and bankruptcy is the only option. For a long time there was no cap and no limit on how much credit cards could gouge people, and that alone was the profit engine of banks. The fact that the US government made it much more difficult to declare bankruptcy (2005 or so) does not help.

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