Another sign of the economic blues, bankruptcies are way up in Wisconsin. Bankruptcy petitions are up nearly 40 percent in Wisconsin this year, as the economic downturn finds more people overwhelmed with mortgage payments and credit card debt. Dane County bankruptcy attorney Michael Lambert says there are some tragic cases. Lambert recalls one elderly man, who had "a ton of debt," as a partcularly sad case. "They had these collection peope calling him, and he'd get so nervous that when they called him, he'd faint. I filed for him just to get the creditors off his back." Lambert says many elderly people are running up big credit card bills just to pay for food or medicine. Some younger people, he says, have three jobs, and they're still going under.
