I am an Iowa bankruptcy attorney. Bankruptcy law is the only type of law I practice. I become a lawyer in 1979 and practiced in other legal fields in Pennsylvania and then New York. Of course, there are many valuable areas of law that can help people and businesses, but over time it became abundantly clear that bankruptcy is quite exceptional. So throughout my home state of Iowa it’s all that I do.
Through my extensive experience I have concluded that in order for clients to be really satisfied with bankruptcy they need personal care and attention and it should be by a lawyer—not a paralegal or debt settlement agent.
I also found that it is valuable to gain a deeper understanding WHY you need to file bankruptcy. Once you understand, your experience changes. If you can appreciate that you were actually set up—a victim of the profit motive forces driving the financial system—the stress can be greatly reduced, if not eliminated altogether.
Liptak Law Offices provides both of these opportunities: personal attention by an experienced, compassionate lawyer AND some valuable education. I also have a very informative radio show which can be heard through my website under the Life and Debt resource archive.
By way of introduction, I want to share with you some of my ideas about bankruptcy which you probably have not heard before. A few accurate statistics and facts will lead you to a different conclusion about filing bankruptcy, your situation and even your feelings about yourself.
First, it really is important never to blame yourself, as if you alone are at fault for the economic woes you—and the entire country– are suffering. Simply not true. Just look around you, particularly at the country as a whole, and you will get very strong evidence that something basic is not right.
In fact, every year about 1.5 million people and families across the United States file bankruptcy. That does not include commercial bankruptcies. According to Professor Elizabeth Warren from Harvard (who has done extensive research in this area) about 7 times that number (more than 10.5 million consumers over the age of 18) qualify for and desperately need relief each year from the massive weight of debt that holds them and their loved ones down. And this does not include the approximately 45,000 million Americans who are in poverty and are below even the need to file bankruptcy.
Most who should, do NOT file though. Why? Because of what they heard and fear. There is a sort of “blaming the victim” strategy that has been cultivated in our country for a long time. We trust what we hear from supposedly reliable sources providing “guidance”. You are innocently and naively drawn into a game which is rigged against you from the beginning. When you lose you were taught to feel it is your fault.
If you could step off the playing field for just a moment and look at the whole game you would be amazed at how you were set up to be controlled and to fail!
I highly recommend the book Web of Debt by Attorney Ellen Brown to give you a thorough understanding of the system and process. It can change your thinking, feelings and financial life.
Most of what you have learned comes from a structure set up by the money powers. These are primarily the banking and credit industry which was spawned by the wealthy power mongers through the media that it owns. So the facts are skewed, spun, interpreted and manipulated to the industry’s point of view. This gives them a huge advantage.
It creates a lot of myth which tends to be held as the truth. It is mostly what one would call propaganda. Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at deliberately and systematically influencing the attitudes, perceptions and behavior of a community towards some cause, response or position that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.
In this case the benefit goes to the major banks and credit industry—which ultimately represent the wealthy class. The media creates confusion, diversion, stress and failure in order to benefit the banking and credit powers. (That, by the way, also have a revolving door with the government jobs).
My reason for specializing in bankruptcy is that it is a very powerful tool, a highly dignified body of law, that substantially helps people and businesses that have found themselves caught in a terrible bind–in the web of debt created by the system! In fact, as we will discover, we are all in that web but some come to the point when they can no longer move away from the ravenous spider that is descending upon them.
For a starter, bankruptcy is defined as: 1) being unable to pay your debts as they come due; or 2) being insolvent. Insolvent means having liabilities greater than the reasonable market value of all your assets.
Bankruptcy law confronts these conditions directly. It is there to balance out the overwhelming power and negative effect of the banking and credit system. It is a simple process that efficiently, successfully and inexpensively helps those who are facing financial struggles—which usually arise from circumstances beyond their control.
The biggest statistical triggers for bankruptcy are lost income, sickness, accident, injury, divorce and separation, for the individual; and a downturn in related markets or just having well intended ideas that do not bear fruit, for businesses. Each of these conditions causes a stoppage of the creative energy of the people involved and also of their financial dependents. It becomes a domino effect. Not only does the checkbook suffer but the quality of life deteriorates due to the over-emphasis and dependence on money in our world.
In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.” In other words, property is not as important as people! But we live at a time when the financial powers through their actions strongly disagree—property is much more important than human values—it is the source, course and goal of the economy we are captured by. Something even deeper is going on—beyond the turbulent surface waves you believe caused the loss.
The fact is that money actually operates below the surface—it no longer even represents property as a means of exchange, it represents debt which directs the power to manipulate and control the material world itself—to control you, your family, your business, and even your community, city, state and nation.
In the words of Ellen Brown: “Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money [itself] has been “privatized” or taken over by a private money cartel. Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions, including the “private” Federal reserve—which is neither federal nor has back up reserves. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices, and robbing you of the value of your money.”
It is a deception devised to trap you within the web and to strip you of your money—which should represent your hard work and creative productivity in industry and agriculture, rather than debt. On the other hand, it pushes all the money power to the top of the pyramid—where the wealthy reside.
Everything in our lives is influenced either directly or indirectly by an underlying financial system developed over time through the profit-only mentality. Banks and corporations are legally driven by profit. The banking and corporate parents of the financial system have one primary LEGAL mandate—to make money and to make it NOW—regardless of the long term effects on people and businesses like yours—either here or abroad. It is like abusive, dysfunctional parents looking after themselves and a select group of their spoiled kids. The rest of the kids–the majority of family–suffer as a result.
Scholar Hans Schicht says in the ”The Death of Banking”:
“Through a network of anonymous financial spider webbing only a handful of global King Bankers own and control it all… Everybody, people, enterprise, states and foreign countries, all have become slaves chained to the Banker’s credit ropes.”
As a result, today many cities and states are bankrupt and are selling off public assets to satisfy creditors. The American banking system, which at one time extended productive loans to agriculture and industry (which really should be the purpose of banks), has today become a giant betting machine.
For example, by December 2007, an estimated 681 trillion dollars were riding on complex high–risk bets known as derivatives. This amount is 10 times the annual output of the entire world economy. These bets are funded by big US Banks and are made largely with borrowed money created on a computer screen. Derivatives can be and have been used to manipulate markets, loot businesses, and destroy competitor economies. (Ellen Brown)
This all may be hard to believe, or even comprehend, but it is the real game. We are puppets in a hidden global banking scheme operating behind the curtain and pulling the strings. Of course, it impacts on your personal financial life everyday. The bottom line is that even though you are a typical, hardworking, hopeful and good intentioned consumer or business, you have been set up to be a victim, to struggle and eventually to fail. It is just a matter of time. It is like a carefully orchestrated game of musical chairs in which not only is there financial music playing over which you have no control, but you are squeezed into a quite dark room with everyone one else in the economy and with a limited number of chairs to run for when the music stops. Also there is an inside track to the chairs. The wealthy–the insiders–are informed well in advance when the music will stop and how, through law, regulation and misdirection—a sleight of hand by the choreographers setting the stage– to get near and onto a chair when the music dies.
The quality of Amercian life is unfortunately eroding—regardless of what you hear or read in the mainstream news. An honest reflection on what you actually see and hear from people in the trenches is more real. All of us living within this web of debt are being attacked by the spider. Some of us eventually are stung and become the bankrupt victim! The profiteering process scrapes money from you without you really knowing or understanding that it is happening until the poisonous spider descends on you trapped in the debtweb. The bottom line is the financial stability of all of us is suffering without doing anything wrong, immoral, unethical, or bad.
In response you need to do something to protect and save yourself from the attacking spider. You need to take some control of the situation and stop being a defeated victim of the system of banks, creditors and collectors which are trying to humiliate, blame and devour you. You need to take charge and enhance your total quality of life.
Part of the thinking shift you need to make is that quality of life is the goal—not how much money you immediately have access to or what your credit score is. You need to reduce your stress and get healthy again on all fronts.
Bankruptcy is one revitalizing step. It creates a win-win situation—a protective armour– for those caught in the web who currently lack the ability to move away from the spider.
Through bankruptcy you legally walk away from most obligations to pay debts and get a fresh start to rebuild your financial life. It allows a protective barrier from the spider in the web as you regain your opportunity to be mobile. Moreover, as financial issues are so intricately woven into our lives, all other aspects are potentially benefited—such as less stressed relationships, improved health and an opportunity to create a better future on all fronts.
Having a bankruptcy lawyer that understands the debt web and is personally working with you can help you stave off the spider. Also a lawyer who is personally concerned about you, your family and business, who spends time to help you understand your case and who is there with youthroughout the entire process is ideal. You wind up with a fresh start for your financial life but also with a deeper understanding of the issues and a reduction in stress on your journey into building a better future for yourself.
So contact me immediately and whether you are already on the slippery slope or approaching it like most middle class people, we can work together to protect you with the law—like David against Goliath. I look forward to talking with you soon. All the best.
Iowa Bankruptcy Attorney Robert J. Liptak
Fairfield, Iowa