Tim Johnson Quotes

Today, certain people file for bankruptcy, businesses and individuals, and it no longer has the stigma it once had. Now it's almost considered wise, a way to regroup and come back again.

Together with a team of financial and legal experts I have spent months exploring all possible alternatives to bankruptcy but to no avail.

Chapter 11 is an expensive process that does not accommodate the special needs of farmers.

A bankruptcy judge can fix your balance sheet, but he cannot fix your company.

When a company goes bankrupt, you as a company have absolutely no say whatsoever as to what happens.

Even if you feel like your debt is just never going to go away, think long and hard before declaring bankruptcy. Declaring bankruptcy means that getting a loan for anything will be next to impossible for the next 10 years.

Of all the artists on Death Row, none of them went bankrupt.

When our jewellery business went into receivership we avoided bankruptcy by selling our houses and possessions.

The idea that somebody is going to come in and make your debt go away and all be well for the future is really a fantasy.

The dearth of business activity on the traditional day of rest makes Sunday an ideal time to declare insolvency. Bankruptcy petitions are time-stamped to the minute, instantly dividing a failed company's dealings into pre-bankruptcy transactions and post-bankruptcy transactions.

By the time most people file for bankruptcy, their credit is already trashed, they have a high debt-to-income ratio - a key indicator lenders look at - and they've likely defaulted on more than a few accounts.

I'm short-selling my house. I have more loans than I can sell the house for. The house will not go into foreclosure. It will be a short sale. I can't afford the house as I once could.

I can't think of another enterprise other than being a homeowner that can't have its debt restructured in bankruptcy. Corporations can but a homeowner can't? Now with securitization the homeowner can't go to the owner of the loan and work things out.

There are lots of businesses that are well in excess of $9 billion that have gone into bankruptcy, that have been mismanaged. And that has not served anyone very well.

Know what happens when an individual declares bankruptcy and how it affects his or her life.

A lot of other things come along with Chapter 11, which basically end up in a lot of pain.

Bankruptcy is about financial death and financial rebirth. Bankruptcy is the great American story rewritten. We're a nation of debtors.

In 1978, we adopted a new Bankruptcy Code in the United States, and a principal part of this was designed to adjust to the new corporation, to find ways to let a corporation that had gotten into financial trouble reorganize itself. A big part of the selling point on this bankruptcy law was, 'It will preserve jobs.'

Some economists estimate that for every family that goes bankrupt, there are about 15 more who are in the same amount of financial trouble and would profit from bankruptcy but just haven't filed.

Bankruptcy has become a feeding trough for lawyers, accountants and investment bankers.

Almost half of the bankruptcies in the United States are connected to an illness in the family, whether people had health insurance or not. Middle-class Americans, who had the misfortune of either experiencing a medical emergency themselves or watching a family member suffer, were then forced to face the daunting task of pulling themselves out of debt. Bankruptcy law has allowed them to start over. It has given hope

There was a time (not so long ago historically) when people were put in jail for owing money. Now we not only don’t punish them, but we make it easier and easier for them to slide out of their old debts, and start getting into new ones.

At the end of every 7th year you must make a remission of debts…. Everyone who holds a pledge shall return the pledge to the person indebted to him. He must not press a fellow countryman for payment, for the Lord’s year of remission has been declared. You may press foreigners; but if it is a fellow countryman that holds anything of yours, you just renounce all claim on it.

If any man was compelled by poverty to sell his farm or his pasture, he received it back again intact at the year of the Jubilee.

Giving low-level offenders a second chance, no matter the color of their skin or the economic status they hold, can create opportunity for all of us.