Asymmetrical Information

Reading comprehension test

Can you find the error this selection from the New York Times' article on the bankruptcy reform bill that passed last night?

"It feels like we've been waiting as long to pass bankruptcy reform as Washington spent trying to get baseball back in town," said Steve Pfister, the senior vice president for government relations at the retail federation. "The House hit one out of the park today. Now we're just waiting for President Bush to cross home plate by signing this bill into law."

Mr. Pfister said the legislation would lower costs for all consumers because they wind up making up the difference on the unpaid debts of those who abuse the system.

But others disagreed.

Opponents of the legislation said that the move by Congress was a harsh attack on the poorest and most needy and came just one day after the House adopted a measure of huge potential benefit to the wealthiest when it voted to eliminate the estate tax.

"The G.O.P. is practicing Robin Hood in reverse," said Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. "Last night they repealed the estate tax, a gift to the wealthiest individuals in our society. Today they pushed through the special-interest bankruptcy bill, punishing the very poorest members of society. This shows all the world that all of that talk about values in the last election was just that - talk."

In fact, 73 Democrats joined the 229 Republicans in voting to approve the measure. It was opposed by 125 Democrats and Bernard Sanders of Vermont, the lone Independent in the House.

The legislation had been opposed by many bankruptcy law professors and judges who testified in recent months that it was unnecessary and would create more problems than it would solve. They said that it would impose new obstacles on many middle-income families seeking desperately needed protection from creditors, and that it would take far longer for those families to start over after suffering serious illnesses, unemployment and other calamities.

In a letter to Congress two months ago, 104 bankruptcy law professors predicted that "the deepest hardship" would "be felt in the heartland," where the filing rates are highest -Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho. A study conducted by legal and medical specialists at Harvard University of 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts found that about half were forced into bankruptcy because of heavy medical costs.

(Find the answer by clicking below)

Yes, students, that's right . . . none of the people quoted in the second half of the selection actually disagree with Mr Pfister. Mr Pfister has said that this will lower costs for all consumers by reducing bankruptcy. The people the second half quotes say that the burden will "punish the very poorest members of society", " impose new obstacles on many middle-income families seeking desperately needed protection from creditors", and "be felt in the heartland", none of which have anything to do with costs to consumers. If one says that deregulating trucking "lowers costs for all consumers", this is not contradicted by the fact that some truckers will be worse off after the change.

Now, conceivably, one could have found someone to argue (as many bankruptcy attorneys are), that some group of consumers will actually be paying higher costs because several provisions in the bill will cause attorney fees to rise. But while the people quoted in the second section undoubtedly disagree with Mr Pfister's unstated implication that the new bankruptcy law is a great thing for America, nothing they've said actually disagrees with anything he stated.