This was a huge pet peeve of mine a few years back. I can't stand hearing it from the moral superiority types, but at the end of the day I think our bankruptcy system works pretty damn well so I don't see much of a reason to fix something that is not broken.
That's another pet peeve of mine -- comfortable American society thinks everything is broken and needs to be fixed no matter what the topic is. It's broken, completely broken, and needs overhauling. The complaints in this thread about our consumer credit rating system are prime example. Sorry guys for throwing you under the bus, but if you want credit them play the damn game. You act like you shouldn't have to prove yourselves to financial institutions that are lending you
We bailed out the lenders because the banking system is a structural support for our free market society. It is not part of the market the way I view it. Sure, they buy and sell instruments based on market pressures, but in principle the financial sector is critical support to a market the same as the military or interstate highway system or public education is. Nobody gave two ****s about the bankers, we cared about saving our way of life and that's why we "bailed" them out. In the end, however, they have paid through the nose (and still are) and effectively paid for the Detroit bailout.
