Saturday, May 23, 2009

I Overspent, I Lied; Please Feel Sorry For Me

Over the last few weeks, you might have run across the harrowing story of Edmund Andrews, the New York Times economics reporter who got himself into a debt nightmare and defaulted on his mortgage. He wrote a book out about it and had a big excerpt in last week's NYT Magazine. He's also all over radio and TV, painting his circumstances as a "could-have-happened-to-anyone" story, saying that "our situation was not all that unusual."

Well, it turns out that he left out one big detail; one that reduces his entire story to utter bullshit. It turns out that his wife had declared bankruptcy not once-- but twice.

The second time was while they were married, a detail that didn't make it into either the book or the excerpt that ran in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. His wife, Patty Barreiro, first declared bankruptcy during her first marriage in 1998. The bankruptcy code requires filers to wait 8 years after a previous Chapter 7 discharge. But in 2007, barely four months after she became eligible, Patty Barreiro filed again.

Bankruptcy can happen to the average American, I suppose, with a little bad luck. But two-- right in a row, no less? I don't think so.

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