Debtors and Creditors in America

Debtors and Creditors in America
Author: Peter J. Coleman
Publisher: Beard Books
Total Pages: 322
Release: 1999
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 189312214X

Americans now depend more heavily upon credit than any other society on Earth, or any other time in history. Borrowing has become a way of life for millions of families, and it is hard to imagine a time when charge accounts did not exist. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to assume that, because a wallet filled with plastic instead of cash is a relatively new phenomenon, Americans have not been borrowers and lenders since the colonization of the New World. Author Peter J. Coleman proves otherwise. In one Form or another -- notes of hand, book credit, commercial paper, mortgages, land contracts -- settlers borrowed to pay their passage from Europe, to buy and clear land, to build and operate mills, to purchase slaves, and to gamble and drink. Debtors' prison awaited those who could not pay their debts, and a pauper's grave received the unfortunate who lacked the private means to feed and clothe himself in prison. While the debtors' prisons described in this book no longer exist, the author maintains that our credit-oriented society has yet to devise cheap, efficient, equitable, and humane methods of enforcing contracts for debt.

Bankrupt in America

Bankrupt in America
Author: Mary Eschelbach Hansen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2020-02-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022667973X

In 2005, more than two million Americans—six out of every 1,000 people—filed for bankruptcy. Though personal bankruptcy rates have since stabilized, bankruptcy remains an important tool for the relief of financially distressed households. In Bankrupt in America, Mary and Brad Hansen offer a vital perspective on the history of bankruptcy in America, beginning with the first lasting federal bankruptcy law enacted in 1898. Interweaving careful legal history and rigorous economic analysis, Bankrupt in America is the first work to trace how bankruptcy was transformed from an intermittently used constitutional provision, to an indispensable tool for business, to a central element of the social safety net for ordinary Americans. To do this, the authors track federal bankruptcy law, as well as related state and federal laws, examining the interaction between changes in the laws and changes in how people in each state used the bankruptcy law. In this thorough investigation, Hansen and Hansen reach novel conclusions about the causes and consequences of bankruptcy, adding nuance to the discussion of the relationship between bankruptcy rates and economic performance.

Republic of Debtors

Republic of Debtors
Author: Bruce H Mann
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674040546

Debt was an inescapable fact of life in early America. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, its sinfulness was preached by ministers and the right to imprison debtors was unquestioned. By 1800, imprisonment for debt was under attack and insolvency was no longer seen as a moral failure, merely an economic setback. In Republic of Debtors, authorBruce H. Mann illuminates this crucial transformation in early American society.

Republic of Debtors

Republic of Debtors
Author: Bruce H. Mann
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2009-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674265785

Debt was an inescapable fact of life in early America. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, its sinfulness was preached by ministers and the right to imprison debtors was unquestioned. By 1800, imprisonment for debt was under attack and insolvency was no longer seen as a moral failure, merely an economic setback. In Republic of Debtors, Bruce H. Mann illuminates this crucial transformation in early American society. From the wealthy merchant to the backwoods farmer, Mann tells the personal stories of men and women struggling to repay their debts and stay ahead of their creditors. He opens a window onto a society undergoing such fundamental changes as the growth of a commercial economy, the emergence of a consumer marketplace, and a revolution for independence. In addressing debt Americans debated complicated questions of commerce and agriculture, nationalism and federalism, dependence and independence, slavery and freedom. And when numerous prominent men—including the richest man in America and a justice of the Supreme Court—found themselves imprisoned for debt or forced to become fugitives from creditors, their fate altered the political dimensions of debtor relief, leading to the highly controversial Bankruptcy Act of 1800. Whether a society forgives its debtors is not just a question of law or economics; it goes to the heart of what a society values. In chronicling attitudes toward debt and bankruptcy in early America, Mann explores the very character of American society.

As We Forgive Our Debtors

As We Forgive Our Debtors
Author: Teresa A. Sullivan
Publisher: Beard Books
Total Pages: 392
Release: 1999
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781893122154

Bankruptcy in America is a booming business, with hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans filing for bankruptcy each year. Is this dramatic growth a result of mushrooming debt or does it reflect a moral decline that permits the middle class to evade their debts? As We Forgive Our Debtors addresses these questions with hard empirical data drawn from bankruptcy court filings. The authors of this multidisciplinary study describe the law and the statistics in clear, nontechnical language, combining a thorough statistical description of the social and economic position of consumer bankrupts with human portraits of the debtors and creditors whose journeys have ended in bankruptcy court. Book jacket.

Debt's Dominion

Debt's Dominion
Author: David A. Skeel Jr.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2014-04-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400828503

Bankruptcy in America, in stark contrast to its status in most other countries, typically signifies not a debtor's last gasp but an opportunity to catch one's breath and recoup. Why has the nation's legal system evolved to allow both corporate and individual debtors greater control over their fate than imaginable elsewhere? Masterfully probing the political dynamics behind this question, David Skeel here provides the first complete account of the remarkable journey American bankruptcy law has taken from its beginnings in 1800, when Congress lifted the country's first bankruptcy code right out of English law, to the present day. Skeel shows that the confluence of three forces that emerged over many years--an organized creditor lobby, pro-debtor ideological currents, and an increasingly powerful bankruptcy bar--explains the distinctive contours of American bankruptcy law. Their interplay, he argues in clear, inviting prose, has seen efforts to legislate bankruptcy become a compelling battle royale between bankers and lawyers--one in which the bankers recently seem to have gained the upper hand. Skeel demonstrates, for example, that a fiercely divided bankruptcy commission and the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress have yielded the recent, ideologically charged battles over consumer bankruptcy. The uniqueness of American bankruptcy has often been noted, but it has never been explained. As different as twenty-first century America is from the horse-and-buggy era origins of our bankruptcy laws, Skeel shows that the same political factors continue to shape our unique response to financial distress.

Debtor-creditor

Debtor-creditor
Author: Steve H. Nickles
Publisher: West Academic Publishing
Total Pages: 1348
Release: 2009
Genre: Law
ISBN:

This unique book comprehensively reintroduces creditors' remedies and debtors' rights under state and federal, nonbankruptcy law. The coverage: includes commercial and consumer debt transactions; spans the full range of both new and traditional means of judicial and private enforcement; explores modern arrangements for structuring debt and security; focuses consistently on the core issues of defining who is liable for the debt and who has what rights in what property; and probes how debtor-creditor law applies and adapts, by public or private law, to modern transactional forms and circumstances and also to contemporary attitudes about the proper balance of debtors' and creditors' interests. The text will support almost anything the professor wants to teach. The book is designed and arranged so that its many discrete topics and materials stand alone and allow a professor to easily select and arrange its content to exactly fit courses of va

Examples & Explanations for Bankruptcy and Debtor/Creditor

Examples & Explanations for Bankruptcy and Debtor/Creditor
Author: Brian A. Blum
Publisher: Aspen Publishing
Total Pages: 876
Release: 2023-02-01
Genre: Law
ISBN:

Through its previous seven editions, Examples & Explanations: Bankruptcy and Debtor/Creditor has been popular with students and practitioners for its extraordinarily lucid explanations of complex concepts. In this eighth edition, the coauthors, Brian Blum and Samir Parikh, combine their expertise to enhance the book’s treatment of all salient areas of bankruptcy and debtor-creditor law. Although there are many changes in the eighth edition, it maintains the format and approach of previous editions. The textual discussion of the principles, goals, policies, and legal rules of Bankruptcy and Debtor-Creditor law is clear and accessible. The Examples & Explanations pedagogy gives the reader practice interpreting the Bankruptcy Code and applying the rules and principles to factual situations. This book will help law students master fundamental federal bankruptcy and state debtor-creditor concepts and rules, which will help them succeed in upper-level bankruptcy/debtor-creditor courses; and it will also give them a leg up when they encounter bankruptcy in other areas, such as family law, taxation, real estate, business organizations, secured transactions, torts, and others. New to the 8th Edition: New problems addressing current bankruptcy issues, including mass tort bankruptcies like Purdue Pharma and Boy Scouts of America.? New cases throughout and discussion of recent developments in the law, including unique insights into 363 assets sales, fraudulent transfer law, 524(g), small business bankruptcy under Subchapter V, and dischargeability of student loan debt. New overview sections in each chapter, designed to provide a summary of the Bankruptcy Code sections covered. Rewriting of text to enhance clarity, add hypotheticals, and integrate the discussion of?new topics. Professors and students will benefit from: Examples & Explanations are designed to highlight fundamental issues covered in the textual part of the chapter and to allow students to self-test on topics discussed in the text. The Examples set out a factual scenarios which are resolved in the Explanation, with reference back to the textual material. Topics have been arranged within each chapter to allow students to see the interactions between different Code sections, and to move from basic to more complex topics. Each chapter contains cross references to material in other chapters to enable students to link themes in various chapters and to see how the topics fit together to form a comprehensive system. The text is clearly written to be accessible to students, and covers rules and concepts in the depth and breadth that is likely to be required of students in the bankruptcy/debtor-creditor course. One-of-a-kind flowcharts and diagrams aid in understanding by the visual representation of concepts, processes, and relationships. The extensive glossary at the end of the book gives students a ready explanation of the meaning of the many terms of art that they may encounter in this area, both in the book and in other materials.