What effects does bankruptcy have on someone for the rest of their life?

Someone I know is filing for bankruptcy. I was wondering if there were any effects that bankruptcy would have on her as far as credit. Does bankruptcy go on any kind of personal record? I’m just wondering if she’ll always have to worry that filing bankruptcy will effect her credit permanently or any other issues throughout her life?

How does a mortgage holder get out of PMI payments on their mortgage loan?

Seems to me that PMI is very costly for the home owner, especially me with a perfect credit rating and new funding source to maintain a mortgage if I lose my job (my job is very secure). Please any suggestions on how to get the PMI waived by the mortgage company.

What caused home mortgage rates to skyrocket?

The recession was caused by people being unable to pay back their home mortgages because the mortgage rates were too high?

Banks were not getting their money back from home owners, causing a credit crunch, thus they were unable to lend money to big businesses.

Big businesses then had to cut back on expenses and began to lay people off the the thousands.

So what caused the mortgage rates to go up so high that started this financial mess in the first place?