Debt Repayment, Irony in Action

As Willie Nelson fans know all too well, owing the federal government back taxes can lead to some very public and potentially embarrassing financial loses. It can easily lead to bankruptcy, and that in turn might very well mean the collectible beer stein display you've got in your basement goes on the auction block, too.

Everything is up for grabs when you get in real financial trouble. No matter how much you love it, or how long it has been in the family, it's fair game to the auctioneer if you get in deep enough.

This is exactly why the average John or Jane Doe needs to have a solid handle on their finances. It is also why those same folks need to avail themselves of some solid legal advice if they suspect all is not well on the economic horizon. The difference between the family that has to hunker down for a while by cutting back on cable television services, and the family that sees their belongings auctioned off in the front yard, is often nothing more exotic or mysterious than the fact that one family had a plan, and one did not.

How weird can all this get? That's a good question. Perhaps the story of Robert Kubick is a good way to illustrate the point. Robert went to jail in the great state of Alaska after being convicted of defrauding his creditors. Judges tend to frown on that sort of thing, and so Mr. Kubick was relocated to a state run facility that was designed to keep its residents from leaving until the judicial system agreed they had paid their debt to society.

The fact that he was incarcerated satisfied part of Kubick's ills. But there was still a financial aspect that had to be cleaned up. That's the part of this case that is a real eye-opener, because while Kubick's belongings were being liquidated as part of the bankruptcy settlement, some of his belongings were in the form of mounted and stuffed animals - animals like an African white rhinoceros, and a snow leopard. Both are endangered species.

Now, it's illegal to traffic in endangered species, so this is a bit of a sticky wicket. So the rare and less than entirely legal trophies weren't sold initially. Instead, they were transferred from federal office building to federal office building, where they were used to educate wildlife agents.

Eventually, all the educational benefits had been wrung from the stuffed animals, it would seem. With no pressing need on the government side of the equation to have possession of them any longer, a means of selling them off was settled on. It was agreed that as long as the buyers were fellow Alaskans, and the trophies would not leave the state, an auction could commence – and so it did.

And that is how the stuffed remains of two endangered animal species came to be on the auction block as part of a bankruptcy settlement – even though it is otherwise unlawful to traffic in these exact items.

Having a plan and some good advice in advance of economic disaster might have averted this whole mess. But then, that's so often the case, isn't it?

It's quite a story. And aside from the part about the endangered stuffed animals, it's all too common – and completely avoidable.