Bankruptcy is bad - except for us!

Seems that the financial industry has a real problem with bankruptcy. See, the idea behind bankruptcy is that if you find yourself over your head with no way out, you get a "do over". Sure, there are penalties (as I know personally), and it makes things harder - but at least you're not thrown into debtor's prison or made a serf for life.

That said, now Countrywide is being sued for "abusing" the bankruptcy process, while at the same time the financial industry lobbyists are up on capital hill, trying to keep the bankruptcy laws from being changed to allow judges from deciding that a home's value is far less than what the mortgage was made for - and give judges the power to do a "do over" for people who got suckered into bad loans.

Sometimes, I feel like the financial industry really does miss those days of debtor's prison and serfdom. Hey, if nothing else, it insured that people paid to you *forever*. That has to be good for the bottom line.