"....prior creditors will ultimately get judgments and start garnishing wages"
I see now.
Nothing prevents a creditor from garnishing wages if you don't follow Chap 13 to the letter.
That's what will bet the growing industry....Wage garnishment from folks who didn't fulfill Chap 13 obligations - so he who garnishes first, garnishes most?
The creditors will get the money before anyone, and there won't be a choice, like I suppose there is when deciding whether to meet Chap 13 obligations.
These folks will have every reason to drop out of the economy, work under the table, and/or go on welfare, because they'll live better than they otherwise would, but not as well as when they were living on credit.
I don't know how I feel about this, truthfully. On one hand, they'll serve as examples, on the other, they could potentially be supported by society, and perhaps at even greater cost than a Chap 7.
I don't tend to want to give folks who take advantage the benefit of the doubt in this case...... if they get this far down the line, the courts have decided they don't deserve the opportunity to walk away from their debts. I'm ok with finding out what happens under the new revisions.
Well I think you do see most of the core issues, but I would only add it wasn't courts that have under the new law decided these people can't get a discharge, its congress and potus. My anecdotal experience as to how many bk cases I see are abusive for one reason or another is about 5% and they were subject to the sec. 527 and 727 remedies I described before. The balance of the cases I see arise from the following in descending order: divorce, illness, injury, lay off and entrepreneurial failure. I do not see how punishing these people to get at the 5% of abusers with the new law (when you already had remedies to go after that 5%) accomplishes anything other than reducing the efficiency of the economy.
If my predictions as to harm to the economy bear out, this law will still not be changed. There is no debtors driven underground lobby to propose the change and the MBNA et al lobby will be in place strong as ever, with its bought and paid for dems and reps, to make sure no such proposed change ever occurs.