It's incredible how every day, they seem to push the gap between the rich and the poor ever wider open...
AlterNet: Open Fire On U.S. Consumers
So what does the bill do? It makes it harder for average people to file for bankruptcy protection; it makes it easier for landlords to evict a bankrupt tenant; it endangers child support payments by giving a wider array of creditors a shot at post-bankruptcy income; it allows millionaires to shield an unlimited amount of value in homes and asset protection trusts; it makes it more difficult for small businesses to reorganize, while opening new loopholes for the Enrons of the world; it allows creditors to provide misleading information; and it does nothing to reign in lending abuses that frequently turn manageable debt into unmanageable crises. Even in failure, ordinary Americans do not get a level playing field.
And how shamelessly corporation-states are getting involved in the only most financially self-serving aspects of government...
Who Wrote Illinois SB1700??? The Quest for the Guilty Party Continues...
I've been tracking down the actual authors of SB1700 and have now received independent confirmation from several sources that this state law wasn't written by a legislator at all. It now appears that SBC lobbyists are directly responsible for the language of the law -- in other words, this law appears to have been written, word-for-word by the major telecom industry that it's supposed to regulate. If this proves to be true (and I'm still looking for confirmation on the individual names and affiliations of the law's authors), it would represent an incredibly cynical machination on the part of the telecom incumbents and any legislator who supports this bill.
(Thx Steven for the links)
