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The lenders of yore would drag you into a legal status of debt peonage, a form of slavery, if you couldn't make payments. The old loan sharks would break thumbs and legs.

As long as it's very easy to declare bankruptcy and walk away from debt I don't get too worked up about it. Look at the irish pub owner discussed in the story. The business was going to go bankrupt anyway, he took a gamble with a loan that might have floated him through, but it turned out not to. The loan wasn't really the problem.

The student loan originators are way more immoral than these guys, because student loans can not be discharged in bankruptcy.