Is there some age limit for filing bankruptcy? Knowing that you can wind up in the soup from losing your job and losing your medical insurance, I'm not going to assume that anyone young who is bankrupt must have gotten that way through foolishness. Maybe, maybe not. Nationwide, I think about one-half of personal bankruptcies are due largely to medical bills.

Yeah, I know a lot of people have been idiots, but that was the point of my earlier post. If we have *that* much consumer debt, I'm going to guess that it's not half and half, more like 75/25. And what with layoffs and the housing crash, a lot of people are in big trouble and haven't been crazy. By the way, in my state -- maybe this is everywhere -- laid-off workers can't get COBRA health benefits if the company goes bankrupt. So there's no realistic way these folks will get health insurance anytime soon. They're not lazy or spendthrifts, just out of luck. Bad out of luck. I could see some of them going bankrupt pretty easily.

Here's a link from an article written in 2007 about the age of people who file for bankruptcy. I'm thinking it could be changing as we speak...

http://www.uscourts.gov/ttb/2007-05/aging/index.html

oops

My comments above were made strictly for the 'spend thrift' types, not those suffering from events beyond their control. God bless those poor folks, whether young, old or in between.

Looks like dear Micheal is out of the spotlight again. Old news! Hopefully this is the last he'll hear of his small indescretion and he can get back to training...

The economy is in such a mess, I think folks are focusing mostly on that. All else is secondary! IMO.

Besides, Phelps is hurting himself, undermining his own
rep; whereas, those ponzi schemers ruin thousands and thousands
of lives!

I saw him on TV last night. I enjoyed hearing him speak about doubting his future in swimming while he was on a break. I can imagine his break was quite a change because I don't think he'd ever had such a long time away from the water. I was happy to hear he's sticking with it and working towards bigger records at the next Olympics.

Ad far as his mistake, he said he won't make the same mistake twice, but he didn't say he won't make mistakes. He's human.

Bless his heart, he gave a great interview. He seemed so sincere, relaxed and straight forward. I believe he will go on to be a positive role model for many.

Michael Phelps certainly feels more scrutiny after being caught smoking pot at a party. This is good fodder for people who want to connect him with performance enhancing substances like steroids.

Clearly, Michael is a very gifted swimmer but some people don't trust him now. A few weeks ago this summer, Phelps did an interview while being completely out of breath! He also posted bad swim times. People speculate that since he knows he's being watched more closely, he's not going to take anything illegal now, but it's also very possible that he is just really out of shape! After all, he was banned from swimming! Drugs and Sports, always a controversy!