Is it a moral or legal obligation to pay a debt to a bank?

exemption?

bankruptcy is not a free-get-out-of-debt card.
whatever assets you have will be seized to pay what you owe to your creditors.

hiding your assets to protect them from bankruptcy seizure is tantamount to lying, and ultimately theft.

i would think bankruptcy fulfills your obligation, but it's not uncommon for people to hide their assets during bankruptcy so that they lose their debt without losing their wealth - imo that's immoral.

for example if you're a billionaire real estate developer and several of your properties are losing huge amounts of money, you might transfer ownership of your profitable companies temporarily to shell corporations that you run, declare bankruptcy on the unprofitable businesses while it looks like you don't have any other assets, walk away with no debt leaving your investors empty-handed, then close your shell corporations down and remain a billionaire.

shrewd in terms of worldly wealth but immoral and deceitful.

There are exemptions. They cannot touch my Social Security or my home.

They will will take everything you have if it means increasing their profits.

back when i had a mortgage, yes, that was up-front, clearly spelled out in the paperwork that i signed.

if i don't read what i am agreeing to, that's on me, not on someone else.

the definition of usury is exorbitantly high interest, not any interest at all.

under Moses the Jews were prohibited from charging fellow Jews any interest at all for a loan, but they could charge Gentiles interest.

If the Law allowed a Jew to charge an outsider interest, and to the world we are outsiders - why would it be unlawful for them to do so? and the world was never part of the Sinai covenant Law, but only Israel and those who made themselves Jews.

Christ said to give to whoever asks you without demanding it back.

Do. you believe that banks should give everyone free money, never expecting to be repaid at all?

to be wise we should not borrow at all. if we can help. it, and when we do borrow, never more than we can repay.
Jesus paid your debt of sin but made no promises about your credit card bill.

"Morals" are HUMAN "social inventions" representing the majority opinion du jour of the society in question.

In The U.S. It's MORAL, (and even praiseworthy in some social climates) to MURDER your baby AS LONG as you get it done before the end of the applicable "Gestational age" (The "Morals of individual States vary. Then it becomes IMMORAL and illegal if you MURDER your baby after the specified Gestational age. So much for "Morals".

NATURALLY Banks would attempt to invoke "Morals" in order to get their money (duh).

The Bible doesn't deal in "Morality". IT focuses on RIGHTEOUSNESS, and SIN.

BUT HEY!!! Romans 14:23 (about dietary hangups) governs. if you CAN'T do something IN FAITH, then it's SIN for you. Simple as that. Nothing else matters.

It really doesn't matter what the contract with the bank says, Caesar (the government) gives exemptions. The banks know this before you sign the contract. They take the risk.

if you take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? And if he cries out to Me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.…Exodus 22:26

We cannot expect the heathen to even consider God's laws....never gonna happen. The USA may be a Christian nation formed for Christians, by Christians but it has a lot of heathen businesses in it.

And this world is as good as a heathen ever is going to have it.

Right- in colonial times and for awhile afterward, the early Americans tried to loosely base their laws off of biblical "judeo-christian" principles... but even in ancient and especially classical-era Israel under the law of Moses itself- there were still bad guys making loop-holes and exploits.

There has to be a balance. If contracts are sign, knowing you are going to default and sin, that's one issue. There has to be compassion for those who are in trouble through no fault of their own.

America has a set of bankruptcy laws....much better than debtor's prison or being sold into slavery.

I doubt that in bankruptcy courts there is much "through no fault of their own" happening.

"may be" being the operative clause. both points are highly debatable.

a Christian nation? the Bible speaks of no such thing - and the record of history is that every time Christianity mixed with worldly political rule, the gospel became perverted if not altogether lost. the NT church, as scripture defines it, is wholly separate from secular governance.

Christian founders? deist at best. Christian population? some. but America was originally formed out of all the people whose religious ideas were too crazy for religious Europe to abide by them.


we live in the world -- and as good witnesses to the world, we should not be lawbreakers or be the kind of people who abuse loopholes to shirk our good-faith responsibilities when dealing with others.

You have a good point- and unless somebody lies to the bank (or some other fraud) in order to get the loan... the banks know EXACTLY what their getting into... MORE THAN YOU; because they are the ones with lawyers on staff!

I think you're right. Our modern United States might be a little heathen; but our bankruptcy laws might even have some root in scripture:
And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Now OBVIOUSLY, you cannot run a BUSINESS off of lending to people that you do not expect repayment from: yet there is occasional forgiveness; because it's the right thing to do. Now, we don't take any more advantage of that- than say; God's mercy on us. We don't run up the sin-debt because it's forgiven... but we sure do accept that forgiveness; because if we don't we're kinda screwed.

the court may be lenient but the court judges by facts, and the facts in such a case are always pivoting around "you signed the contract but didn't meet its obligations; therefore the law finds you liable"

and the bank knows that some percentage of people will default. that's why we have credit scores.
banks and insurance agencies are the biggest employers of mathematicians in America outside of the NSA ((codebreakers)).

this is why we have individual credit scores, why we have variable interest rates and how those interest rates are calculated. banks take a risk by lending anyone money because they may never see their money again -- so they have to sort out how much to charge you for a loan in order to still be profitable at the end of the year even if lots of people default. the worse your credit history, the higher their risk; the more they charge you for a loan.

why are credit card interest rates so high? it's a lot more likely someone who ran up a big credit card bill is never going to pay it than someone who went through a process getting a mortgage.

banks and credit card companies aren't 'out to get you' any more than walmart is. they are businesses that need to turn a profit. real predatory loans are in the 'check into cash' and 'no credit no problem' sales sectors of the economy. they are business models customized to take advantage of people who have a high probability of default, and make their profits by charging very high rates to the minority of people in that category who do make good on their promises to pay.

Sure there is... if you intentionally took on loads of debt that you had zero chance of paying back by some kind of fraud- and they have PROOF... you are screwed. You will go to prison! [if you don't have good connections/good lawyer].

they take the risk but we, as Christians, when they trust us with a loan, should not be examples of bad decisions on their part. we should be examples of people who were misjudged -- who they took for being unfaithful, but who turned out to be more faithful than they perceived.

((IMO))