- Banned
- #1
I have a friend who genuinely believes that (most) young people today with no assets ought to try to go bankrupt while young and live it up while doing so. I should note that he has been talking about it for a while now so I think he is being serious.
His logic is this: Mortgages, car loans, credit cards etc are all unnecessary and for most people are, at best, an expensive exercise in getting what they want earlier than they've earnt it, more often a ball and chain that curtail their freedoms for years or even decades of their lives, and at worst a ticket to financial misery and ruin down the track anyway. Not being allowed to take out such loans (due to bankruptcy) is thus a blessing, not a curse.
Other consequences of bankruptcy, such as having part of your income taken from you if you earn over a certain amount (60k/year I think), not being able to travel without trustee's permission, etc, are small prices to pay for the freedom of having no debt and no chance for debt, my friend reckons. Note that he is qualified in a field that can get him work whenever he wants it so the spectre of having 'bankrupt' against his name for the rest of his life doesn't worry him from a work perspective.
So he figures that your best bet, if you are young and have no assets to worry about, is to get as many credit cards as you can, travel the world for as long as the credit keeps coming, then come back to Aus when the party is over, file a debtor's petition, then work and save up money because you will never be able to borrow it from the banks again - which, I'll repeat, he sees as a good thing in and of itself anyhow.
I explained to him that my understanding is that if his parents (or anybody else) dies and leaves him something in their will while he is bankrupt, he won't get it. He shrugs his shoulders and says he will tell people not to put him in their will so the trustee doesn't get the loot. I explained to him that he won't be able to get a business loan and he said that this was also good: if he ever starts a business that needs capital, he 'wants it to be his capital so he is not at the behest of reserve bankers and their intentional boom-bust monetary sham'.
His logic is that if enough people started doing this, it would be a more effective way to create positive change than Occupy Wall St or protests on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I should note that he thinks the banking and fiat monetary systems of today are evil. In fact he sees going intentionally bankrupt as the most moral thing a person can do - hence his description of the exercise as going 'morally bankrupt' (a genius play on words imo). But he also says that he doesn't expect people will actually tag on to this movement because they have been 'brainwashed into taking for granted that bankruptcy is bad and so will never really question' why they shouldn't take and blow all of the free money being offered to them by the banks. He hopes to create change but will settle for simply living it up like a king and being punished with the very ability to borrow money which he doesn't want being taken from him when he is done. He will then work, save money, and maybe one day buy his own house with cash, because that will be his only choice if he wants real estate - no chance of being sucked into the system by a mortgage.
Surely this guy is missing something. I actually have money in the bank for the first time in years so I'm not about to start going intentionally bankrupt any time soon. But if it were all as easy and simple as he says, I can actually see merit in it for people with no money or assets. But if it were that easy, heaps of peeps would surely already be doing this. So what negative consequences of his plan is he overlooking?
And since you've now heard the plan, would you ever consider going 'morally bankrupt'? For those of you who have already slaved away in jobs you don't like for equity in your houses (and other investments), would you consider this if you were back to being a young bum without a cent to his name? With an increasing proportion of jobless and asset-free youth in this country and beyond, can anybody see the 'morally bankrupt' movement catching on?
Over to you, bigfooty.
His logic is this: Mortgages, car loans, credit cards etc are all unnecessary and for most people are, at best, an expensive exercise in getting what they want earlier than they've earnt it, more often a ball and chain that curtail their freedoms for years or even decades of their lives, and at worst a ticket to financial misery and ruin down the track anyway. Not being allowed to take out such loans (due to bankruptcy) is thus a blessing, not a curse.
Other consequences of bankruptcy, such as having part of your income taken from you if you earn over a certain amount (60k/year I think), not being able to travel without trustee's permission, etc, are small prices to pay for the freedom of having no debt and no chance for debt, my friend reckons. Note that he is qualified in a field that can get him work whenever he wants it so the spectre of having 'bankrupt' against his name for the rest of his life doesn't worry him from a work perspective.
So he figures that your best bet, if you are young and have no assets to worry about, is to get as many credit cards as you can, travel the world for as long as the credit keeps coming, then come back to Aus when the party is over, file a debtor's petition, then work and save up money because you will never be able to borrow it from the banks again - which, I'll repeat, he sees as a good thing in and of itself anyhow.
I explained to him that my understanding is that if his parents (or anybody else) dies and leaves him something in their will while he is bankrupt, he won't get it. He shrugs his shoulders and says he will tell people not to put him in their will so the trustee doesn't get the loot. I explained to him that he won't be able to get a business loan and he said that this was also good: if he ever starts a business that needs capital, he 'wants it to be his capital so he is not at the behest of reserve bankers and their intentional boom-bust monetary sham'.
His logic is that if enough people started doing this, it would be a more effective way to create positive change than Occupy Wall St or protests on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I should note that he thinks the banking and fiat monetary systems of today are evil. In fact he sees going intentionally bankrupt as the most moral thing a person can do - hence his description of the exercise as going 'morally bankrupt' (a genius play on words imo). But he also says that he doesn't expect people will actually tag on to this movement because they have been 'brainwashed into taking for granted that bankruptcy is bad and so will never really question' why they shouldn't take and blow all of the free money being offered to them by the banks. He hopes to create change but will settle for simply living it up like a king and being punished with the very ability to borrow money which he doesn't want being taken from him when he is done. He will then work, save money, and maybe one day buy his own house with cash, because that will be his only choice if he wants real estate - no chance of being sucked into the system by a mortgage.
Surely this guy is missing something. I actually have money in the bank for the first time in years so I'm not about to start going intentionally bankrupt any time soon. But if it were all as easy and simple as he says, I can actually see merit in it for people with no money or assets. But if it were that easy, heaps of peeps would surely already be doing this. So what negative consequences of his plan is he overlooking?
And since you've now heard the plan, would you ever consider going 'morally bankrupt'? For those of you who have already slaved away in jobs you don't like for equity in your houses (and other investments), would you consider this if you were back to being a young bum without a cent to his name? With an increasing proportion of jobless and asset-free youth in this country and beyond, can anybody see the 'morally bankrupt' movement catching on?
Over to you, bigfooty.
