If you still don’t believe the game is rigged and that there is a coordinated attack on the financial well-being of Americans, perhaps reading through a submission to “Written Off – America and Americans” may change your mind.

A lead attorney for a small law firm in Old Forge, PA, was led to share his thoughts regarding bankruptcy here in the U.S.

He titled his contribution: “The 2005 Bankruptcy Amendments – A Law Passed for the Rich People, by the Rich People.” (You can see his full contribution here on our featured submissions page for Chapter 1.)

That sounds a bit (quite a bit) left of center, but his experience with that law over the years has given him an understanding that needs to be revived and put back to work – that bankruptcy law was created to help people get out of debt.

Bankruptcy as a law and practice was not – until 2005 – designed to further burden those in debt to satisfy the unrelenting greed of bankers and credit card lenders.  No longer.

According to news reports (8/26/2010), bankruptcy filings are up some 21% over last year and the highest since the Bankruptcy Code was amended in 2005 to make it harder (as the attorney put it) “for all the little people to file.”

There are 1,512,989 additional “little people” now under the presumed protection of the courts. In Massachusetts for the first six months of this year, the rate was 25%. Sources quoted in one city’s newspaper attributed the increase to two things: failure of homeowners to successfully create a loan modification program that the banks would fund, and high unemployment.

Actually, there were three reasons; let us not forget the credit card industry.  As one bankruptcy attorney in that state described it, her clients were driven underwater by card policies that mandated rate increases, fees and overdraft charges that rocketed monthly payments “from $200 to $400 or $500.”

As most families carry an average of five credit cards, you do the math.

But, back to our Pennsylvania attorney

His question: was the Bankruptcy Code so broken before 2005 that it needed an overhaul? His answer: NOT.

“From 1989 to 2005 I worked on loads of business and consumer bankruptcy cases. The system worked well. People needed financial relief, and that need grew more and more as time went on. The United States Trustee’s Office, the bankruptcy cops, did a good job at spotting abuse and acting on it.”

And, abuse such as hiding assets and understating income which was a common practice to be “stopped” by the victimized card companies via changes in the BK law, was rare.

“One cannot commit fraud if one has no money with which to behave in a fraudulent fashion,” the attorney related. “These people did not game the system. They were all just broke, and needed a new start. They were not committing abuse, but rather were seeking protection from it.”

Why that law was changed, and who changed it, makes for compelling reading. It also makes for a lot of anger…if you have any capacity left for that emotion…for the way that the common person has been and is being treated by our financial institutions and the government meant to protect them (us).

I invite you to read through his contribution…and then come back with your own stories as well as with your own solutions. And…don’t forget to hit that ‘share’ button.

Let’s set a match to the rage of others as well.  The toes of any number of congressmen and women would benefit from this sort of high-octane warming.