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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (85288)	6/4/2010 11:49:36 AM
From: FJB	1 Recommendation Respond to of 224748

U.S. bankruptcy filing rate near 5-year high Thu, Jun 3 2010 * Pace of filings second-highest since 2005 * Improved economy does not immediately reduce filings By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK, June 3 (Reuters) - The pace of U.S. bankruptcy filings edged up in May to the second-highest daily level since 2005, reflecting the difficulty Americans have in working off excess debt even as the economy improves. There were 133,459 U.S. bankruptcy petitions filed in May, 10 percent more than a year earlier, according to preliminary data released Thursday by Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, or AACER. While filings fell 9 percent from April's 146,209, this was because there were just 20 business days in May compared with 22 in April. Average filings per day edged up to 6,673 from 6,646. Experts say bankruptcies typically peak in an economic cycle between six and 18 months after an economy bottoms out. This is in part because many people and businesses seek other means to work off their debts before seeking court protection. U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 3 percent annual rate from January to March, the Commerce Department said last week, after a 5.6 percent growth pace in the fourth quarter of 2009. "Just because the economy gets better doesn't mean that consumers can work off cascading debt problems that surfaced earlier," AACER President Mike Bickford said in an interview. May's filings were the third most in a month since an October 2005 overhaul of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that made it harder to restructure debt without creditor interference. There were 159,251 filings, or 6,924 per business day, in March 2010. Through May 31, there have been 659,516 bankruptcy filings this year, up 15 percent from a year earlier, AACER said. There were 622,798 consumer filings and 36,718 business filings, and 6,048 filings to reorganize under Chapter 11. About 16 percent of filings this year have been in California, while another 7 percent were in Florida and 6 percent were in Michigan. On a per-capita basis, Nevada had the most filings, followed by Georgia and Tennessee.