How would your family finances look if you could "write-down" your "toxic assets"

[SoCalDem]

I always laugh a little when I hear the "finance guys" say toxic assets.. talk about an oxymoron.. like "depressive happiness"..or "wealthy poverty"..

What would you "write down"?

that $2k snowblower you used once?

a boat that decorates your back yard?

a tv that's too big for the room it's in?

that car you got talked into.. a week before you got laid off?

all those pesky credit card bills that show up?

the 50% extra you owe on a house you couldn't sell now, if you needed to:)

[960]

1. It would help out alot. I can dream, right?

$275K Should cure my balance sheet. Get me rightside up on my mortgage, clear a few useless debts, restore solvency.

Where do I apply?

[SoCalDem]

2. Here?

www.uncle/sam/says/no/way/loser.gov

[dkf]

3. Isn't that the same as walking away from a mortgage?

[SoCalDem]

4. perhaps.. but it's also how businesses profit from their profligacy

and it's considered a normal thing to do when THEY do it,....and businesses do it all the time..

Corporations WANT personhood, when they are shoveling money into the pockets of the legislators they are renting...so their actions are that of a person...but their "style" of personhood is denied/discouraged when it's applied to real persons:)

[960]

5. Not if the government treated individuals the way they do the big banks.

They would pay off the mortgage and give title.... no need to find an apartment and have your credit trashed.

[Warpy]

6. No, it means you thumb your nose at the bank and keep the house

Same thing for the student loan, car loan, and credit card debts.

[SoCalDem]

7. Law changes pretty much preclude most of that, but we can dream

can't we:)

[jwirr]

8. $10,000 would put me in good standing. I am not expecting to get it

though.

[stray cat]

9. very few toxic assets accept maybe the frozen dinner that tasted bad

[SmileyRose]

10. We have a new section of our local paper regarding this

I think it's always been there but it just keeps getting bigger. It's the public announcement section, used to be a couple inches of small print tucked in as a filler someplace. Now it's got a set place on the inside last page of the front section. We are getting up to half the page full of dinky print of people placing ads saying

"I, so and so, am no longer responsible for the debts of so and so." or something similar.

I know quite a few folks that have spent the last year moving all their debts over into just one spouse's name and continuing to pay on schedule. 6 months after everything was moved they stop paying, bankrupt the one spouse under chapter 7 then rebuilding with the one who's credit isn't dinged. I don't think it works in every state, but I gather Georgia's bankruptcy laws have this loophole and people are using it to dump their personal debt.

[zipplewrath]

11. I think you misunderstand what an "asset" is

Many of us are "writing down" our assets, and it ain't pretty. The house isn't worth what it was, and that's a big part of our overall "net worth". The car, the 401K, the investments, the boat... None of them are worth what they were, and at some point you have to admit to yourself that they never will be. Decades of earnings are gone. It's not "if I could" it is "if I can bear to look". In some respects the car was the smartest thing I bought. I paid cash, and it's lost less value than the cash would have.

[Kurovski]

12. "Bad sex."

Another impossibility where I'm concerned.

[Generator]

13. My husband bloated after dinner doesn't count?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

14. Even better how would your finances look if the government gave you $1 million more than you owed.

[BzaDem]

15. That analogy doesn't make sense

"Writing down" assets doesn't mean the debt a bank owes isreduced at all. When a bank borrows money, it uses its assets as collateral. When the value of an asset goes down and is "written down," that means the bank now has less assets backing up the money it borrowed (but it does not mean the bank now owes less to anyone). In fact, writing down assets often means banks need to raise more capital to make up for the shortfall, as banks are required to have a certain amount of capital at all times to cover losses.

The correct analogy would be writing down the value of your home to reflect the fact that it lost value. However, such a "write-down" wouldn't mean anything for you; you still owe the full value on the mortgage (just like a bank that writes down its assets still owes the same amount as it owed the day before).