The gang of four tackles the subject of personal bankruptcy in the United States and how the federal law was rewritten in 2005 to make it more difficult for individuals to be released from their obligations. The surprisingly lively – at times, heated - discussion uncovers deep divisions among the group as to how the very subject should be approached. Peggy and Shelly focus more on the desirability of fostering personal responsibility and accountability for financial obligations while Jim is concerned almost exclusively with the societal economic benefits to be gained by making personal bankruptcy easier to achieve. John comes down somewhere in the middle between those two opposing viewpoints.

The topic has particular resonance at a time when many individuals are facing severe financial challenges. Furthermore two of the chief antagonists in the 2005 debate preceding the stricter bankruptcy law were then-Senator Joe Biden and then-Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren. (Although Biden supported making the law stricter at the time he now supports Warren’s plan to undo those changes and to make personal bankruptcy easier again). John analogizes between personal and corporate bankruptcy, emphasizing that companies are given a relative painless path to bankruptcy in order to encourage risk-taking. (He also notes that companies sometimes take advantage of bankruptcy law to escape their pension responsibilities). The discussion raises implicit and explicit questions about the role of morality versus economic efficiency in developing public policy as well as which Beatles song is best sung as a lullaby.