What does it say about our society when corporations have more protections than consumers?

Crooks & Liars:

Law Professor: Walking Away From Mortgages Is The Only Way to Get Banks to Negotiate

White argues that far more of the estimated 15 million American homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages should stiff their lenders and take a hike.

Doing so, he suggests, could save some of them hundreds of thousands of dollars that they “have no reasonable prospect of recouping” in the years ahead. Plus the penalties are nowhere near as painful or long-lasting as they might assume.

“Homeowners should be walking away in droves,” according to White. “But they aren’t. And it’s not because the financial costs of foreclosure outweigh the benefits.” Sure, credit scores get whacked when you walk away, he acknowledges. But as long as you stay current with other creditors, “one can have a good credit rating again – meaning above 660 – within two years after a foreclosure.”

Homeowners are damaged by declaring bankruptcy and are bound by law to pay creditors. Corporations, ehh, not so much. Matter of fact, they get tax cuts! Even when they cut jobs, salaries and ship jobs overseas.

Felix Salmon via Atrios:

As Felix says, our contemporary discourse makes personal debts into moral obligations while no such strings are attached to corporate debts.

Let’s not forget how powerful these guys are:

A tax break for U.S. financiers up for debate in the House Ways and Means Committee is indefensible, but not ready for termination, a committee member said.

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said the tax break for hedge fund managers
and venture capitalists that permits much of their profits to be taxed at 15 percent, rather than the standard 35 percent rate, was “a job killer at a very precarious time,” The Boston Globe reported Friday.

However, concerning private equity firms laying off workers, yet benefiting from the tax break, Neal said, “you can’t defend it.”

The difficulty killing the tax benefit, which passed in the House last year, may be testimony to the power of financial lobbyists “working overtime to make sure that real reforms never become law,” said Stephen Pagliuca, a Democratic candidate for a Massachusetts seat in the U.S. Senate.

They did a crappy job with returns, moved cash & jobs overseas and are getting a tax cuts and meanwhile Paulson & Kashkari gave them 100 cents on the dollar per their AIG contracts.

Awesome.

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