Hizbullah, Bankruptcy and Michael Jackson

Recognizing Hizbullah as a force in Lebanese politics is a statement of the obvious. But to state as obvious, as the Washington Post Express did yesterday, that the 500k people who came out in Beirut to support Hizbullah and Syria's presence in Lebanon were there without any prodding from the Syrian intelligence services, local imams connected with such and (probably) imported thugs who intimidated people into attending the rally is to miss the obvious.

Bankruptcy
I may be one of the few Righties to find the bankruptcy law terrible, but I do. It is not that I think that people should be able to shirk their duties toward creditors, but that in reality very, very few people file bankruptcy, and of those who do, even fewer do it as a first resort. Further, credit card companies and hospitals are both responsible for some of the credit problems of their customers.

For credit card companies, it is their policy of charging late fees and crzy interest rates on deliquent accounts (accounts that, btw, are more easily cleared by not paying the credit card companies and dealing with the debt collection agencies to whom the accounts are sold once payment stops) that pushes some people into bankruptcy. Remember, credit card companies borrow money to fund their credit portfolios at rates substantially below their lending rates. Do you really think that someone with a balance of $5000 is a larger credit risk (from the point of view of capital at risk) than someone with a mortgage of $300,000? Even granting that the former debt has no collateral and the latter does, the investor has more money at risk in the latter example for a longer period of time. Yet the credit card might charge 14.99%, while the mortgage might be between 6-8%, depending on credit. Is the credit risk between the two debtors really 6% (600 basis points!)? No, not by a mile.

For hospitals, it is their policy of charging different rates to the insured and uninsured for the same procedures and the general lack of financial saavy at the payment departments that make me cold towards their "poor, poor, pitiful me" attitudes.

I doubt that bankruptcy of customers is a substantial contributing factor to the operational performance of almost all hospitals and credit card companies. Simplifying insurance reimbursement procedures would free more operating capital than pursuing deadbeats.

Michael Jackson
He didn't do it. He's weird, but that doesn't make him guilty. I changed my mind after reading that Leno called the cops on the kid well before Michael became his mark because Leno believed that the kid was on the hunt for someone famous to bilk for money. Also, after the kid's brother went on record admitting that he lied in another trial in which the family was trying to get money from a department store and that he contradicted his own account of the alleged molestations, it is hard for me to put any credence in the kid's account.