Last week, Clark explained how the banks were petitioning the government to be allowed to write-off a big chunk of consumer credit card debt. He was certain this measure would be adopted, at least on an experimental level at first. However, the banks' request has been denied by the government.

That means if you are facing impossible debt, your options remain the same: default or bankruptcy. Many people are doing both as delinquency rates rise and bankruptcy looks set to hit an all-time high in 2009.

Moving on to something positive, the government has belatedly rolled out its plain English disclosure statement for when you're shopping a mortgage or refinance.

Lenders have fought such a proposal for years; there's simply too much money to be made when people are ignorant about their loan terms. Of course, there is a lot of shared responsibility here. Many people didn't want to hear about what a lousy loan they were getting into.

But going forward, HUD is making its good faith estimate form available, along with a settlement statement. (Editor's note: Both links are pdf files.)

Clark loves disclosure in capitalism. After all, how can you make good choices if the info is not made available to you in a simple way? One caveat here, though: The banks have a year before they're required to start using this disclosure form. That gives them plenty of time to try to get it killed! Stay tuned…