I spent most of my career studying one simple question: Why do American families go broke? Whenever someone asked my daddy about my bankruptcy research, I noticed that he would look off and say something like “Oh, she’s special, that one,” and then move on to something else.
I don’t think my dad ever spoke the word “bankruptcy,” at least not when I was around. He and I were both afraid of falling off the financial cliff. His response was to not talk about money or what might happen if it ran out. He stayed away from sores that hurt. I poked at them.
My response was to study contracts, finance, and—most of all—economic failure, to learn everything I could. And I started a ten-year fight against the banking industry’s efforts to change our bankruptcy laws so they could squeeze everything they could out of working families.
There are still huge problems with our bankruptcy laws today, in large part due to harmful provisions in the 2005 bankruptcy bill. It’s why I have a plan to overhaul consumer bankruptcy rules in this country and restore the middle class. elizabethwarren.com/plans/bankrupt…
