Recently, the numbers of Americans filing bankruptcy were released by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and it showed a steady decline in filings. While this sounds good for the economy, it also will affect the career choice of a bankruptcy attorney. Bankruptcy attorneys typically strive in a bad economy as many Americans need to use their services to get out of debt. In 2010, the US had a record 1.6 million Americans filing for bankruptcy because of the financial debacle back in 2007. At the end of fiscal 2012, that number had dropped to 1.3 million bankruptcy filings and we are expected to finish this year off around 1 million. Realistically, this number is still very high if we compare that to the record high back in 2005 when it was about 1 million. Back in 2005, there were a large number of people filing for bankruptcy prior to the bankruptcy code changes because of fear of not being able to qualify. When the dust settled and the bankruptcy code was changed it included a means test that made people now qualify to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Because of the new regulations of the code, many Americans raced in to get their bankruptcy filed before it went into effect.

Although I’m sure a bankruptcy attorney would be concerned for this decline, many economic experts are now saying this might be the calm before the storm. Governments around the globe have their printing presses running at full speed, printing their own currencies. The United States is no different, as the US has quadrupled the amount of dollars over the last five years. As history teaches us, this kind of behavior ends up badly for everyone involved.

Every country that was the reserve currency for the world that has followed the quantitative easing type of model, lost their global reserve status. Many experts believe that this will lead to hyperinflation forcing bankruptcy filing on many Americans. So for someone that’s a bankruptcy attorney, this is good news because many more people will be using bankruptcy in the next few years. It was also recently reported that close to 5 million homes in the US were at least two months past due on their mortgage payment, default or in some phase of foreclosure. This is one of the things that economic professionals look at for future economic growth. With all these homes hitting the market, real estate is sure to take another hit. Only time will tell, but I don’t think too many attorneys are really concerned about this. Remember the old adage whatever goes up must come down and this economy is once again overheated and on the verge of boiling over.