We tend to think of the United States
as the bankruptcy capital of the galaxy. Here’s a story
from the Korea Times reporting that bankruptcy petitions hit 380,000
in Korea in 2005.
Do the math. Korea has a population of
about 48 million. That’s a petitions/population ratio of about 0.79
percent. Figure the pre-BAPCPA United States rate at 1.6 million to
300 million. That’s about 0.53 percent. So Korea is about 50
percent ahead of the
pre-BAPCPA United States. Apparently the Koreans have had their own
bout with “bankruptcy reform:”
Last year’s
figure is 90 times that of 2002, the year the system was adopted.
The bankruptcy system allows people to
get their debt written off by the court. The number of those who
filed for bankruptcy has increased year by year, especially since
2003, when many people accumulated credit card debt.
Fn: I had a
couple of Korean grad students a few years back, who described
themselves as “bankruptcy judges.” Nice kids, spoken English not
so hot, writing just fine. One of them gave me a weird mask which
still presides over my office. Neither one, I suspect, had reached
his 30th birthday. I wonder if they are presiding over
this revolution?
Technical Meta-Fn: Doesn’t it make your head spin when you type "United States population" into the Firefox subject line and get bopped right over to the Census bureau poulation calculator?