Declare Bankruptcy Now, and Protest Usury by Cutting Up Your Credit Cards. Congress has passed the hugely oppressive "reform" of the bankruptcy law written by credit-card companies and banks to reduce the people of this country to debt slavery. If you have ever thought of declaring personal bankruptcy, DO IT NOW. The Associated Press reports that you have only six months before the new law will take effect and prevent you from starting over free from debt and from crushing, usurious interest rates.

The 30,000 to 210,000 people the American Bankruptcy Institute estimates will be affected can escape its impact if they file for bankruptcy before then.

Bankruptcy attorneys anticipate a rush to the courthouse.

I cannot believe that so few people would be affected by the lockdown of bankruptcy. BankruptcyAction.com says:

To approximate the number of people filing bankruptcy we must increase the filings [1,563,145, including many joint filings by husband and wife] by 31.9% to get 2,062,000 people who filed bankruptcy in the year ended December 31, 2004.

Before you take steps to declare bankruptcy, read a little on the Internet to know exactly what it involves, which can help you decide if bankruptcy makes sense in your particular circumstances. A Google search for "declaring personal bankruptcy without lawyer" produced a number of useful websites, such as:
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/bankruptcy/filing_bankruptcy.html (a short overview)
http://www.consumer-action.org/English/library/money_mgt/2003_bankruptcy_leader/index.php#Topic_01 (a more thoro overview — but beware: that discussion is the product of an entity created by Capital One, a major (and shady, usurious) credit-card company);
http://www.filing-bankruptcy-form.com/FAQ.html (a discussion of filing without a lawyer);
http://standardlegal.net/bankruptcy/ (a website that offers do-it-yourself software and links to lots of informational sites).
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You may think of other search phrases and use other search engines. But if, after you review all the info you think you need, you decide that bankruptcy under CURRENT law is right for you, by all means get all your debt records together and declare bankruptcy! You do not need a lawyer to do so, but if $400 to $1,000 paid to a professional will make you feel more secure in your actions, that's money well spent. And there are many community legal-services organizations that can help even if you can't afford to hire a lawyer.
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Destroying Credit Cards. If you feel that credit cards are more trouble than they're worth, that they constitute a needless temptation and endanger your financial health, by all means CHOP THEM UP. What with debit or check cards being widely available nowadays, and the major ones being protected against unauthorized charges, it makes very little or no sense to hold onto credit cards. If you are using a credit card to accumulate frequent-flyer miles, that is a very unwise way to do so if you end up having to pay high interest rates on any balance you have left over at the end of the month. The same goes for "cash back" programs. If you can't pay off your entire credit card bill each month, you will incur interest charges that almost always will more than wipe out any benefit you might reap from a "cash back" or "rewards" program.
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So perhaps it would be best for you to stop using all credit cards: all Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Diner's Club, and other general purpose credit and charge cards, unless you can and actually do pay off the entire balance at the end of each month, so incur no interest rate. The same holds for store-specific cards, such as Macy's, Sears, The Home Depot, or any other such card, the interest rates for which are often very high.
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Use a debit/check card instead, but make sure that your bank will simply decline a charge if you lose track of your spending, rather than extend credit beyond your available balance and charge you a service fee — that could run you $31 for each and every debit you make beyond your balance! You must keep careful track of your available balance when using a debit card in any case to avoid embarrassment, even if your bank will decline a charge rather than inflict an over-limit fee.
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So destroy all your credit cards to put your finances on a much better footing. But do not tell your credit-card company that you have done so! Because they might accelerate your payments — even demand you pay off the entire balance now — or raise your interest rate, or otherwise treat you badly if they know they can't string you along anymore. And of course pay off your remaining balance as quickly as possible. Destroying your card does not destroy your debt. You can do that only by paying it off, preferably with all due speed — or by declaring bankruptcy.
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And don't give in to the temptation to report the card you chopped up as lost or stolen. Be brave. Cold-turkey your way free from the credit-card habit. It is not so much a convenience as a grave hazard to your financial health.
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If you'd like to make a statement to someone other than your credit-card company that might make a difference in the way people are treated by credit-card companies and government, follow the procedure outlined below. If you're not yet indignant enuf about the credit-card industry to go to the trouble of making a protest, read this article from The New York Times that the PBS documentary series Frontline hilites on its website. If you are now sufficiently angry to try to do something to change all this, follow the procedure below.
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Step 1: cut each of your credit cards into 3 pieces.
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The left piece should show the first four digits of the credit-card number and your first name but NOT your last name.
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The middle piece should show the middle part of the number and your last name, or most of your last name.
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The right piece should show only the end of the credit-card number and at most a small part of your last name.
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Step 2: Take out three pieces of paper and three envelopes. On all three pieces of paper, write "The credit-card industry is an enemy of the United States. Destroy usury. Restore bankruptcy." Write nothing more, because the text must be uniform to be most effective.
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Do not sign the first piece of paper, tho you can write your initials after the text.
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Sign the second and third with your full name, and print or type plainly underneath, your full name and home address (not a post office box).
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On the first envelope, write this address:
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President
American Bankers Association
1120 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
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Put the unsigned statement and the left piece of the credit card(s) into this envelope.
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On the second envelope, write this address:
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The Hon. George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
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Put the right piece of your credit card(s) in this envelope, with no name showing.
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If you trust the banking industry and President to take proper note of your protest, you need not address nor send the third envelope. But if you think the banking industry will not admit that there is widespread, grassroots resentment of the credit-card industry, and that the President is so deep in the pocket of moneyed interests that he or his staff will also pay no heed to your protest and pretend that nobody cares, write this address on the third envelope:
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L. Craig Schoonmaker, Chairman
Expansionist Party of the United States
295 Smith Street
Newark, NJ 07106-2517
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Then put the middle piece of your credit card(s) into that envelope, along with one of the pieces of paper with the statement of indignation and your signature and address.
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Step 3: Seal the two or three envelopes you feel you should send, be sure to affix appropriate postage, and mail them. Also, tell your friends of this protest. You can simply direct them to this blog's URL and date so they can consider for themselves if this is something they want to do too.
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I will collect and number suchever materials as I may receive to prove public discontent. I will assemble the signed pages into a petition to present to Congress, and make the severed bits of plastic available to media as proof of a popular movement to rein in the credit-card industry. If I get no bits of plastic, the credit-card industry will have proven its complete power over society, and this protest will perish. If, however, I get thousands of chunks of credit cards, or tens of thousands, or millions, or tens of millions, media will take note, and government will not be able to pretend that everybody is perfectly content with the way credit card companies treat them and perfectly happy to pay the interest rates Americans are charged.
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If you don't want the credit-card companies to own both you and Congress, cut up your credit cards and send the pieces off as I suggest above. I look forward to hearing from you.*
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* But please, don't send me a recitation of the harm credit-card companies have done to individuals. I can't take the sadness. I know it's hard for many of us, but tell the President or your Congressman. I cannot yet do anything to help but collate and pass along a petition, and display a collection of middle-thirds of credit cards to media. Let government know of any sadness or desperation that credit cards have caused you. They can do something about it. I can only become depressed, which could markedly impair my ability to help.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,550.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 7:41 AM