Follow-Up to Edmund Andrews' Tale of Woe

May 22, 2009 7:32 AM

A follow-up from Megan McArdle of the Atlantic to the recent FPP on NYT economics beat reporter Edmund Andrew's tale of his financial travails.

From Gawker: "Megan McArdle of the Atlantic then went digging around and found some major issues with Andrews' story."

"This is really highly unusual. For starters, the overwhelming majority of people who file bankruptcy do not make anything close to $100,000 a year—the standard estimate when the 2005 bankruptcy reform was passed was that about 80% of filers had household incomes below the median income in their state. The number of affluent people who file twice is even smaller, and has presumably gone down since the 2005 filing largely eliminated abusive serial Chapter 13 filings, which used to be used, often by quite wealthy people, to forestall evictions or foreclosure.

The bankruptcy code requires filers to wait 8 years after a previous Chapter 7 discharge. Barely four months after she became eligible, Patty Barreiro filed again. And the filing shows some suggestion of strategic debt management. "

posted by foxy_hedgehog to MetaFilter-related at 7:32 AM (4 comments total)

Isn't this covered in the still-open Edmund Andrew thread?
posted by Shepherd at 7:34 AM on May 22

Oh no! I'm sorry! Mods, please go ahead and delete. I apologize for the trouble.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 7:46 AM on May 22

Since the consensus was "Christ, what an asshole" already, how do I notch-up my outrage in a way that can be expressed in a short, quippy phrase?
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:47 AM on May 22

Yeah, the post is still open, better to do this there even if it hadn't been covered yet in the thread.
posted by cortex at 7:47 AM on May 22