Thursday, May 12, 2005

Something non-legal for a moment

Alright, I know it has absolutely nothing to do with criminal law, and little to do with law in general (except for that esoteric practice of law known as bankruptcy law), but I just have to mention it. Maybe it's my bleeding heart, Public Defender attitude of supporting the little guy against the big guys.

But....

Has anyone noticed the interesting juxtoposition between the latest headline about United discharging all of their pension obligations in bankruptcy court (and foisting them on the taxpayer), which will inevitably reduce benefits that they had promised to people who worked for them for lifetimes, in some cases, with the recent legislation to severely curtail the ability of working Americans to declare bankruptcy and ever claw their way out of it?

Imagine the scenario: The banks and credit card companies, which pushed so hard for this legislation screwing over ordinary Americans, have financial problems. They take advantage of the fact that bankruptcy laws are still highly favorable to corporations over individuals. They discharge all of their pension obligations through bankruptcy court, putting thousands of their retirees into financial turmoil, many of whom have to declare bankruptcy. Many go into debt to the same financial services companies that they once worked for, who also pushed for this new law. They are not able to discharge their debts in bankruptcy court due to the new law, so they have to work into their 80's and beyond, living destitute, to pay off the companies that screwed them over by discharging their pension obligations in bankruptcy court. At the same time, their Social Security has been cut because the huge costs of paying the deficits caused by the Pension Guarantee Corp, which went belly up due to the numerous companies discharging their debts in bankruptcy court, forced the government to lower benefits to social security, pushing these people even further into debt. I guess the only positive side is that it will inevitably boost the stock prices of these companies to do this, which will mean that when Social Security is privatised, people's benefits won't be cut too badly.

How in God's name is this moral? How can any legislator who supported this stuff look themselves in the mirror (I know, Democrats as well as Republicans supported it, and all who did share the blame. But, it took a newer and stronger Republican majority in Congress, as well as a re-elected Republican president, to push this law, which had languished for 8 years, through to passage).

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Current conservative morality just concerns liberals screwing people to whom they're not married. Nothing else matters.

Republican morality is just a matter of helping the rich people insulate themselves from the poor.

The current conservative climate aims to return us to the golden ages of the 1880s.

On top of that, morality doesn't count any more. Just power and wealth.

Indefensible said...

I'm with you 100 percent. It makes me crazy too. It is a perfect example of the obscene double standard this administration uses.
It is appalling.

I enjoy the blog BTW.
Best,
David Feige
http://davidfeige.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

As far as I'm concerned, anyone expecting to retire on more than that should have saved the money out of their paychecks.

Saved it into what? A savings account? Stock? Real estate? A shoebox under the mattress? Precious metals? What would be you be saying if those investments went bad--"As far as I'm concerned, if the bank folded and the FDIC only pays you back 80% of your savings, you should have put some of your money into a 401(k) plan"? Or "If you expected to make more than a 3% return on your stock investments, as far as I'm concerned you should have bought real estate"?

The issue is not how much the retirees are getting. It's that United won't pay for its obligations--reneging on its agreement--and the government is picking up part of the tab.

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Anonymous said...

Can you believe United did that so easily. It just ain't like it used to be. I don't know how these corporate guys sleep at night. They should fight for all those people that got them where they are!