Bankruptcy on the News
Unfortunately today, there is far too much bankruptcy on the news which inevitably means that more and more people are losing their incomes and potentially their homes.
It seems that hardly a day goes by without some news story about a business going into liquidation; filing for bankruptcy resulting in lots more wage earners losing their ability to support their families. With more than 1,500,000 (yes, that’s one and a half million) business and non business cases commenced in the United States courts in the 12 month period ending March 2010, that’s an awful lot of people losing their livelihoods. These figures are startling in themselves, as is the vast increase in numbers of bankruptcy cases over the last few years.
USA Bankruptcy Statistics according to the United States Courts
- Year ending March 2006 – 1,794,795
- Year ending March 2007 – 695,575 – a drop of more than 60%
- Year ending March 2008 – 901,927 – on the way back up by almost 30%
- Year ending March 2009 – 1,202,395 – another increase of almost 33%
- Year ending March 2010 – 1,531,997 – up another 28%
Where will it all end? You do the math, that’s more than six million business and non business bankruptcies in the last 5 years alone, with potentially many more than six million people losing their incomes and being able to pay for their homes. It can happen to the most unlikely of candidates too, national institutions which people think will be around forever. We’re not just talking one man bands and smaller "street corner" companies, we’re talking:
- Television, radio and media companies
- IT companies
- Banks and financial institutions
- Insurance companies
- Airlines
- Sports Clubs
Even Donald Trump has been in financial difficulty, and if he’s in trouble, what hope is there for the rest of us mere mortals?
