Something for everybody here, not just BW.
With Bail-outs and Negative Equity in mind, I discover questions from the middle of the 18th century that are yet to be adequately responded to by a whole host of Law Makers since. Below is an extract of an article written by Dr. Samuel Johnson in 1758: "Debtors' Prisons", and a link to where you can read the whole thing...
"Those who made the laws have apparently supposed, that every deficiency of payment is the crime of the debtor. But the truth is, that the creditor always shares the act, and often more than shares the guilt, of improper trust. It seldom happens that any man imprisons another but for debts which he suffered to be contracted in hope of advantage to himself, and for bargains in which he proportioned his profit to his own opinion of the hazard; and there is no reason why one should punish the other for a contract in which both concurred. "
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/29955/