Asymmetrical Information

Dan, I think you forgot something

I often enjoy Daniel Gross's writing for Slate and the New York Times. But this blog post ignores some rather pertinent information:

Bankruptcy filings are on the rise. Andrew Blackman reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Debt-laden consumers across the country are rushing to file for bankruptcy before a tougher bankruptcy law takes effect Oct. 17.
Filings jumped to a record 68,287 from Sept. 26 to Oct. 1 from the normal level of about 30,000, according to Lundquist Consulting Inc. of Burlingame, Calif., which compiles bankruptcy statistics from daily reports by U.S. bankruptcy courts. Filings have risen 14% so far this year from 2004, to more than 1.3 million.

In personal bankruptcy, people who don't have many assets to begin with lose much of what little they have. So much for extending the ownership society.

Meanwhile, at the upper rung of the income ladder, ownership is increasing apace.

Most of that sudden spike in bankruptcy filings seems to be people moving their filings forward, not a radical increase in the underlying level of bankruptcy. It's been a couple of months since I looked at the data, but I've seen no evidence that the Bush administration has presided over any particular increase in bankruptcy other than a secular trend towards increasing bankruptcy that started long before Bush took office, and has much more to do with increasing consumer credit, working mothers, and declining personal savings rates than it does with the policies of this or any other administration.