all your money are belong to us

i`m following with abject fascination; you know the rubbernecking at a fatal crash kind of way; this new bankruptcy bill and it seems like indentureship and poorhouse are on the way in, again.

one of the reasons i`m watching on, in abject horror, is we are struggling with some debt of our own and have received all manner of threatening phone calls and completely untrue statements from the credit card company. vic had this credit card for over 10 years, making her payments until November 2003 when she lost her job, about two months after i arrived they phone calls started coming and it`s interesting the lengths these companies will go to get their money. they accused me of being a bad husband for letting my wife running up this credit card debit; never mind the majority of it currently is interest; then told her she was a bad wife and mother because she couldn`t pay, told me my credit would be ruined if she didn`t pay, because i`m married her, the debt was now mine legally; those last two statements are patently untrue. we`re currently making interest payments; just barely; and squirrelling money away until we can make a settlement offer.

we`re not intending to file for bankruptcy; we`re sort of solvent, we have no credit cards so we`re not incurring anymore debt and we`ve got health insurance; sort of; but we have no savings so in the case of major emergency we would be in trouble and we seem to be the lucky ones. i thought bankruptcy protection was supposed to help people out of a tight spot, not just the ones with money.