The families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims voted overwhelmingly in favor of a plan to wrap up Alex Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings by liquidating the right wing talk show host’s assets.
The families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims voted overwhelmingly in favor of a plan to wrap up Alex Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings by liquidating the right wing talk show host’s assets.
In bankruptcy cases, a proposal is usually put forth by the end of the process that describes a plan with respect to how the debtor’s assets will be liquidated and the funds distributed to creditors. This plan is put to a vote before the creditors and if the creditors accept the plan, then the bankruptcy court will order that the debtor’s assets be liquidated in the manner described. When that’s all done, the bankruptcy trustee will distribute the proceeds according to the plan to the creditors. Any remaining debts are cancelled.
Why are remaining debts cancelled? They should liquidate all his assets and then take every single cent he makes for the rest of his life.
This is how bankruptcy works. When someone goes bankrupt then it is intended to give them a fresh start. Some debts, such as those incurred as a result of fraud, are not dischargeable.
But why grant him bankruptcy? Where I live, personal bankruptcy isn’t really a thing. You can’t just walk away from debt and get a fresh start as you please. There is a ‘debt sanitation’ procedure but any creditors have to agree to the procedure and you have to go through a period of at least 3 years in which any income above the social minimum will be garnished and used to pay your debts. After this period outstanding debt can be discharged but this is entirely up to the discretion of each individual creditor.
In this case, I do not see any reason why you would agree to that. Let him pay every cent he makes for the rest of his life.
Edit: thought this was a reply to the Trump case. Edited to apply to Jones
Bankruptcy is not “granted”. It is a legal process and courts cannot decline to bankrupt a person. This is the law in the United States, and changing it would require an Act of Congress. Nobody has to “agree” to this. It is just as much a violation of the rule of law to unduly deprive Jones of the rights he has by law as it is to ignore the consequences of his actions prescribed by law. It doesn’t matter what your opinion is of him or his actions; these are his rights. Anyone who has a crushing amount of debt that they can’t pay off, due to no particular fault of their own other than bad financial management, can have their assets liquidated and those debts cancelled. Note that debts incurred by fraud or malicious intent, such as this large judgement, are still not eligible for cancellation in bankruptcy. The purpose of personal bankruptcy laws around the world is because it is recognised that citizens are more economically productive when they aren’t forced to pay a crushing amount of debt for the rest of their lives. It isn’t fair to them. Again, we’re looking at laws that apply to everyone, so your opinion of Jones’s case doesn’t matter. It isn’t about Jones.
Nobody “walks away” from debt. People get their assets liquidated, their properties sold off. and in many cases their lives upended by bankruptcy. Nobody will ever want to lend money to someone bankrupt. Since Jones declards personal bankruptcy then his business and assets will be sold to pay his creditors and he’ll be left with maybe enough to live an average life working an actual job. At the same time, the law stipulates that he, like everyone else, still deserves a decent standard of living even despite his debts. This is not favouritism, this is the rule of law.
Consider the case where a person, after getting into a serious car accident, is hospitalised for two months. When they get out, now they could owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills, could be severely behind on their mortgage, was out of work for two months so they might also owe thousands of dollars on their credit card, and may have even lost their job in the meantime. All those things are possible in the US, so you have to understand that bankruptcy is the last resort for this person. Otherwise, interest and late fees on tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt will crush them for the rest of their lives, and we (Americans) as a society have decided that we don’t want people in that position.
I also believe that student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
That’s probably some Ronald Reagan bullshit. Let me go look it up.
Edit: It’s not. Apparently it only started in 2005.
all of this, but maybe also have people constantly harassing him pushing a narrative about how none of it is actually happening, and that it never happened, and how he made everything up.