I agree with comments that community service is a bad idea if it takes people away from paid employment. This does not mean it cannot be performed on weekends.

I have always been critical of ALL THE BAILOUTS!

This is a strange statement, and I don’t see what the ability to take a mortgage has to do with bankruptcy laws. You are saying like you are entitled to a house. Nobody prevents you from paying cash for home, taking a loan for 5 years only or buying a smaller property e.g. a one bedroom for two people or a two bedroom for a family with a child. In Europe, by the way, people on average have a lot smaller living space and they save for many years to buy it. Oh, and for the record – I was born in a communal apartment in St Petersburg, Russia where me, my parents and maternal grandparents shared one room in an apartment with 3 more families with one kitchen and no bathroom (had to go to public bath house). When I was four my grandfather managed to get us a whole apartment to ourselves – a tiny two bedrooms (the whole of which would fit in a living room in a normal US house) for 5 people. So be grateful for an opportunity to buy a home of your own.

Plus, if you don’t pay for your own home for 30 years, you pay rent. In normal circumstances this amount is equivalent to what one pays on a similar property if not right away than in a couple of years. If it is considerably more expensive to buy then maybe you aren’t looking at equivalent properties or real estate is overvalued in a particular time and one should wait and rent.

Regardless, I don’t see what it has to do with bankruptcy laws. Plus, right now it’s not just people with some serious emergencies like medical issues who are claiming bankruptcy but people who have simply lived beyond their means.

By the way – how would you like it if an acquintance you lend your money to doesn’t return it?

There is no debtor’s prison in the USA, and bankruptcy is accepted. That simply means that debts don’t have to be paid. That is just the way it is. I am not a proponent for debtor’s prison, but credit and debt are the ways of this country – and the American Dream of paying on a loan for 30 years while claiming to own the property is the basis of it.

It doesn’t really help the creditors. Now, if the person claiming bankruptcy were to perform some service for the creditors in exchange for money or if they had to repay the debt should their fortune change. Otherwise it doesn’t seem right – the debts are forgiven and even if someone’s fortune turns, he or she still don’t have to return the money.

I think we should look at it from creditor’s perspective: what would you want if somebody owed you money – a community service, a service to you, or a debt repaid at some later date maybe at some kind of schedule? Also, how would you feel if someone who owes you money claims bankruptcy but then wins a million in a lottery. I’d say – either have the guy work for the creditor or have bankruptcy judge mediate with the creditor to agree on some kind of a repayment schedule.

“And those nuts in Dubai: how exactly are you supposed to pay your debts off in jail?”

Exactly. Remember “Little Dorritt”? This has already been tried in England and this was the main problem – if someone is in jail, someone cannot pay off the debt.