The Economy

[Batman]

I saw this in a story today, and there is absolutely no way. None.

According to Coventry Direct, the average amount of savings Americans need to retire is $758,847.

All of us, calculating our path to retirement:

 

[The Big Ragu]

The Fed watcher who called the 2007 housing bubble expects interest rates to stay high for 'much, much, much longer.' It's payback for the unsustainable 'free money era'

If the thread is about "the economy." ... This it in a nutshell.

 

[SFIND]

The Fed watcher who called the 2007 housing bubble expects interest rates to stay high for 'much, much, much longer.' It's payback for the unsustainable 'free money era'

If the thread is about "the economy." ... This it in a nutshell.

As Fortune previously reported, hundreds of companies managed to stay afloat during the free money era using cheap debt to sustain broken business models. But now, many of these firms are facing pressure as the economy slows and borrowing costs rise.

Bad news for Gannett and most other chains.

 

[garrow]

Blame Biden?

'Families were cheated': Low-income Americans are about to receive $40.6M after chicken and tuna 'price-fixing conspiracies' — here's what happened

 

[Della9250]

Blame Biden?

'Families were cheated': Low-income Americans are about to receive $40.6M after chicken and tuna 'price-fixing conspiracies' — here's what happened

And that is just the state of Washington

 

[I Should Coco]

And that is just the state of Washington

When our attorney general who negotiated the settlement is running for governor in 2024, he can use the slogan "a chicken (check) in every pot!"

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Blame Biden?

'Families were cheated': Low-income Americans are about to receive $40.6M after chicken and tuna 'price-fixing conspiracies' — here's what happened

"The authorities assert that all 19 chicken producers egged each other on …"

You just know the writer was high-fiving themselves after writing that sentence.

 

[garrow]

Again, voters in Michigan and Georgia, how will Trump fix this terrible economy when he will be spending all his time
a. Blasting immigrants into outer space
b. Smiting his enemies
c. Watching Fox News
d. Golfing

 

[Neutral Corner]

A novel use of funds indeed. St. Paul is taking a million dollar grant from Biden's American Rescue plan and buying $100m in medical debt owed by the city's citizens... and forgiving it.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Where does the Biden administration get that million dollars from?

Getting past that. ... That $100 million was already defaulted on (health care systems are not selling it for $1 million if they have any chance of collecting it). So there's the economic hit of all of that defaulted debt, combined with our government having borrowed $1 million (that we are all now on the hook for) to play games that delude people.

They are essentially taking $100 million worth of defaulted debt and trading it for $1 million worth of charity. The organization buying it is funded by charitable contributions and gets special tax treatment. -- this is really something that could have happened with or without St. Paul / the Biden administration acting like they are magicians.

The effects of it aren't costless. It's $99 million worth of debt that isn't going to be repaid, meaning someone (or lots of someones) got caught holding the bag. The cost doesn't just disappear.

So the net result is that our Federal debt is $1 million greater --add it to the trillions. And some health care systems and hospitals -- most of which are struggling terribly in the U.S. (some losing money) -- took a hit. The scheme he's talking about didn't cause that. They wouldn't be selling $100 million worth of debt for $1 million if they hadn't already written it off.

But none of this paints a good picture. What bothers me is that politicians play with this shirt to act like Santa Claus to delude low income voters they are trying to buy votes from. And people really think that some stuffed suit who got elected can just "forgive"debt in a costless way. That debt had already been written off.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Which does not mean that collection firms would not buy that bad debt which has been written off at that same discount and then hound the people who owed that bad debt. There are a lot of people who get sick and are uninsured and have no choice but to incur debt levels that they have no chance to repay. Hounding them does not magically make the money to pay those bills appear in their accounts. If my choices were to let my wife or child die or sign the papers making me responsible for a couple of hundred thousand in debt that I have no idea how I would ever repay, I'd sign. heck, I *have* signed those papers after my son's car wreck. I was fortunate enough that our health insurance covered the vast majority of the almost half a million dollars having a kid with a traumatic brain injury in a coma costs, but at the time I had no clue how I'd cover the cost. I had absolutely no way to know what it would cost.. heck, his IV medications alone ran to over $200k. Do you seriously think that people are going to say "There's no way I can ever afford that, put him back in the ambulance and I'll take him home"?

Many are not so fortunate as we were.

Those bills were not paid, or only partially paid, but I bet that they were deducted off the hospital's taxes. Some of this is a result of this country having for profit health care, as well. There are many countries around the world who manage to care for the sick and the injured without bankrupting them.

 

[The Big Ragu]

The people who are going to "benefit" from this already went through all of that. They couldn't pay what they owed. The people they owed it to have already exhausted their efforts to get them to pay it. By the point the health care systems are happy to take a penny on the dollar, they have already hounded those people to get them to pay and realize it ain't happening.

FWIW, this is who loses on the debt they have to write off.

Hospitals across Minnesota report growing financial stress

That scheme was about something in St. Paul, so I found something about the financial stress health care systems in Minnesota are feeling. But this is happening all over the country right now. It's going to affect us all.