March 2021

President-elect Joe Biden has made a campaign proposal for erase $10,000 for an estimated 37 million Americans who owe federally-backed student loan debt, and experts are divided on whether the new president will be able to deliver on that promise.

“Just erasing student debt…that was one of the more left-leaning ideas that won’t be feasible given that the Republicans really fought the Democrats to lure” Congressman Michael Petrilli, chairman of the think tank Thomas B Fordham Institute, told Yahoo Finance.

There are two avenues that could theoretically cancel student debt: either through legislation or through executive action.

In practice, student loan forgiveness could either be included as part of a new stimulus package passed by Congress or signed into law by a President Biden asking his education secretary to forgive the debt.

“We are committed to fighting to ensure that student debt relief is included in any future stimulus agreement,” said Natalia Abrams, executive director and co-founder of Student Debt Crisis.

The decree route is based on the Higher Education Act, which grants broad authority to the president (through the Secretary of Education) to cancel the debt.

“I have a proposal with Elizabeth Warren that the first $50,000 in debt be defeated,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). affirmed recently, “and we think Joe Biden can do it with the pen as opposed to legislation.”

The Biden administration would have ‘the power and legal authority to order its Department of Education to cancel millions of student debts from day one of its administration,’ the loan project’s legal director says. Predators, Eileen Connor.

“Cancellation will not necessarily happen overnight”

The stock of student debt in the United States is nearly $1.7 trillionaccording to the New York Fed.

“This is something that has dashed the hopes and dreams of too many Americans for too long,” former presidential candidate Andrew Yang pointed out on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “I met people on [campaign] trail who were in their 50s and 60s and were still struggling with some of the $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.

The story continues

About 7% of this debt was seriously overdue as of July 2020. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government government payment break on federal loans has helped many borrowers avoid default.

It’s unclear whether Biden’s team will pursue the executive’s argument, and experts are cautious about the idea that debt cancellation would happen anytime soon.

“Voiding won’t necessarily happen overnight,” said Ashley Harrington, director of federal advocacy at the Center for Responsible Lending at Yahoo Finance, adding that the process included taking the first steps to understand the legal arguments to be made. forward and coordinate with agencies like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to ensure the debt is not taxable.

At the same time, the National Student Defense Network noted that the education secretary can quickly take “administrative proceduresenshrined in the Higher Education Act to cancel borrowers’ student loans.

The Predatory Lending Project argued that a Executive Decree could be a real solution to Obama-era borrower defense regulations protecting defrauded borrowersthat the Trump administration tried to dismantle despite court decisions favoring borrowers.

‘Economic activity would in turn be stimulated.

Debt cancellation could have ripple effects, experts have previously said.

A report by Moody’s Investors Service said canceling student loans could stimulate the economy in the short term by serving as a “tax cut-like stimulus.”

“Partial or full cancellation of student debt would increase household disposable income by the amount of debt service saved,” the report said. “Economic activity would in turn be boosted by the portion of these savings on debt service being channeled into other current and investment spending. At the same time, some households could potentially increase their spending beyond their savings on debt service if their improved net financial worth encourages them to save less and spend more overall, which will further stimulate the economy.

And since more than 90% of student debt is in the hands of the US government, the report notes, forgiving that debt isn’t all that different from cutting government taxes.

A separate report by Bard College’s Levy Economics Institute added that debt cancellation “could raise real GDP by an average of $86 billion to $108 billion a year” and reduce unemployment.

And apart stimulate economic growthforgiveness also frees Americans from debt, allowing them to increase expensesimprove their credit scoresand spend more on consumer goods.

“The cancellation will disproportionately impact black and brown borrowers, low-income borrowers and female borrowers,” Harrington noted, stressing that it is especially true for black borrowers “Because of the history of discriminatory policies…in the financial market which continue to this day.”

This post has been updated with a tweet from Senator Elizabeth Warren.

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Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be contacted at [email protected] Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.

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In 2007, Pamela Hunt had just finished her bachelor’s degree at the University of Connecticut when she saw an ad online for Everest University.

“You know, if you were a single mom, underemployed, that would be perfect,” she recalls. “They had a great internship.”

Hunt, who has five children, wanted to be a probation officer. Two years later, she had a master’s degree in criminal justice from Everest’s online program, but all those job placement promises boiled down to little more than a few emailed links to job search websites. Everest’s parent company, Corinthian Colleges, was later fined $30 million for inflating its placement figures. Last spring, the company was forced to close due to accusations of widespread fraud and deception.

“Needless to say, I’ve never worked in my field of study,” Hunt said.

Now Hunt makes less than $15 an hour as a home health aide. Between her two degrees, she said she had student loan debt of $159,000.

Last May, she requested the cancellation of her Everest loans, through a little-known part of federal law.

“If the college lied about anything related to the loans or the education, the loans could potentially be canceled,” said financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz with Cappex.com. “It’s incredibly vague.”

The government has agreed to forgive about $28 million in debt for some former Corinthian students, but thousands of other borrowers, like Hunt, are still waiting for answers.

According the Debt Collective, a borrower advocacy group, alumni of other for-profit colleges, like ITT Tech and the Art Institutes, have also filed claims. About 50 DeVry University students applied through the Debt Collective website, according to the group’s legal coordinator, Luke Herrine. On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it is suing DeVry for allegedly inflating its placement and graduation rates.

For many borrowers, the higher education law’s so-called “repayment defense” provision may be the only hope of escaping crippling debt, Herrine said.

“Student loans are almost never dischargeable in bankruptcy,” he said. “Even if you took out a loan for a fraudulent product, you can’t get away with it unless the repayment defense clause actually works.”

The Department of Education has begun a months-long process to negotiate clear rules to determine who is eligible for relief, said Robyn Smith of the National Consumer Law Center.

“We envision a very lengthy process for students, which is why we are asking the department to immediately stop collecting student loans once students assert a defense to the claim, regardless of the school in which they went,” she said.

More than 7,500 students have applied for debt relief in the past six months, according to the department. If that sounds like a lot, Smith said, hundreds of thousands should be eligible.

By Sujata Rao and Dhara Ranasinghe

LONDON, December 8 (Reuters) – An explosion in global crisis borrowing has yet to give so-called ‘bond vigilantes’ sleepless nights or incited them to fight with all-powerful central banks.

According to forecasts by the Institute of International Finance, global indebtedness is expected to reach $277 trillion by the end of the year. Including government, corporate and household debt, that figure has risen by $15 trillion this year.

Governments that turned on the taps to offset the damage caused by the pandemic to economies accounted for 60% of the increase.

Another estimate from S&P Global puts global debt at $200 trillion by the end of the year.

But investors speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook summit last week took a relaxed view of this mountain of debt.

Bond market vigilantes — a term from the 1990s for investors who punish profligate governments by demanding higher yields — seem calm in the face of record high debt and rock-bottom bond yields.

The main reason is simply that the central bank’s buying of bonds maintains long-term borrowing rates, ensuring that governments can borrow more at affordable rates. And as long as inflation stays below around 2%, as it has for a good decade, central banks will continue to buy.

For many asset managers, much of the debt — especially bonds issued to fight the pandemic — will never reappear in the market again, as central banks simply hold them to maturity.

Jim Leaviss, director of public bond investments at M&G Investment Management, predicts that this type of “deficits don’t matter” worldview will become increasingly common.

“On the face of it, bond vigilantes should be worried. One of the reasons we’re not doing that is because debt servicing costs are incredibly low,” Leaviss said at the summit.

“But I would also be surprised if, over the course of my career, we ever see bonds bought by the BOE, the Fed and other central banks being voluntarily released into the market,” Leaviss said. He expects bonds to “disappear on central bank balance sheets and quietly mature there.”

Going forward, central banks could choose not to reinvest the proceeds of maturing bonds, a first step towards withdrawing liquidity. But that would change if there was persistently high inflation, as evidenced by recent increases in US Treasury yields.

But that’s unlikely for many years. Meanwhile, the lines between monetary and fiscal policy continue to blur.

NN Investment Partners CIO Valentijn van Nieuwenhuijzen noted that many central bank officials have made it clear they see lowering debt costs as part of their financial stability role.

“Government debt will stay with us forever. It doesn’t have to be repaid. They can (refinance and refinance) given the cost of servicing debt and the current mindset of central banks.”

ANGER

For junk bonds and emerging markets, which lack strong central bank support, some defaults and requests for debt relief seem inevitable.

IIF data shows more than $76 trillion in debt has been racked up in emerging markets, a sector where there have already been several defaults and debt relief exercises this year.

Corporate and household debt, excluding the financial sector, stands at $80 trillion and $50 trillion respectively.

Even in the West, there are growing calls to cancel student loans, for example. Italy’s 5-Star Movement co-leader in a blog post said the European Central Bank should write off Italy’s COVID-era debt it owns.

Rome was quick to reject that suggestion, showing that policymakers are reluctant to advocate outright debt monetization — essentially printing money to buy government bonds.

But then they may never need it.

“If the BOE says it’s canceling its QE gilts, markets will say ‘wait, has the UK become a banana republic?’ Whereas if you put it on the balance sheet forever, no one will ever notice,” M&G’s Leaviss said.

But as government borrowing and spending increases, so does the pressure on central banks.

Markets, which previously panicked at any hint of stimulus withdrawal, could react even more furiously if central bankers talk about offloading their bond holdings or simply decide to stop reinvesting the proceeds.

Mike Riddell, head of unconstrained macro at Allianz Global Investors, said the US Federal Reserve began unwinding its balance sheet in 2017 but stopped after a year as 10-year yields hit lows. highs in seven years.

“It’s the world we live in,” Riddell said, noting Japan’s experience. Decades of bond buying left the BOJ with about 45% of the market and buying stocks. “That’s the future direction of all other central banks.”

Central bank holdings of government bondshttps://tmsnrt.rs/3nueNSQ

Global debt on the risehttps://tmsnrt.rs/2VBwILx

Central bank balance sheets are swellinghttps://tmsnrt.rs/3lBm7KY

(Additional reporting by Ritvik Carvalho in London and Megan Davies in New York. Editing by Jane Merriman)

(([email protected]; +44 207 542 6176;))

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Here’s the problem with student debt: It’s only a problem for some people. Americans of all ages to have to nearly $1.5 trillion in student loans and so many Americans are in debt, it’s politically popular for a candidate like Elizabeth Warren to chat for the drastic action to erase student debt and provide free college. The problem with his plan – in addition to the possibility of paying for it with a wealth tax – is that it is regressive. This is a bailout for Americans who should be the highest earners, those who have a college education. The most indebted Americans tend to have higher income.

For some borrowers, student debt can be paralyzing, especially for college dropouts or graduates of for-profit schools that grant degrees of dubious value, but for many others it’s a wise investment that will yield future income over decades. A better policy would target those who need debt relief, rather than all borrowers, regardless of their needs.

One idea is income-contingent debt repayment, where a borrower is only required to repay a set fraction of their income – say 15% – and only if they earn above a certain threshold of revenue. This government program exists in America, and although it is not highly publicized, 28% of borrowers with federal student loans take advantage of it. Anyone who has federal subsidized loans could be eligible, depending on the program to which they are applying. But in the UK, this is how most student debt is repaid. UK universities only started charging fees in 1998, but they quickly rose from around £1,000 ($1,279) in 1998 to £9,000 in 2012. Today, 85% of UK students take out loans to pay for their studies.

In the UK system, borrowers only repay their loans if their income exceeds a floor, currently set at £18,395 a year (it was originally £10,000). For any income above that, 9% is used to pay off the student loan and is automatically deducted from the borrower’s paycheck, like a payroll tax. After 25 years, any remaining balance is forgiven. This program has the advantage of ensuring that student loans do not overwhelm borrowers and high earners do not receive a huge subsidy from taxpayers.

But economists and policy makers (pdf) fear that such a program will encourage borrowers to earn less and borrow more. What’s the incentive to earn over £18,395 when you have to pay 9% on every pound above it? But a new search An article by economists Jack Britton and Jonathan Gruber argues that the income floor does not discourage work. If payment schemes reduced the incentive to earn more, then there would be plenty of borrowers with incomes just below £10,000, which was the income threshold for most of the period studied. They do not observe this and found that even though the threshold income level was adjusted over time, there was not much clustering at the threshold. Economists say the income distribution looks similar for non-borrowers.

Their study suggests that income-tested loan programs may be a better solution than general debt relief. While it’s important to note that while nearly all borrowers in the UK take part in the loan-based scheme, Americans have to opt for the less popular US scheme, which suffers from poor awareness and a poor process. tedious registration. The problem with an opt-in program is that high earners would prefer a more traditional loan repayment program because their payments would be lower if they didn’t pay a fixed percentage of their (high) income. If only low-income people choose income-based loan repayments, the program may not be sustainable. To break even, some high-income borrowers are needed to offset low-income borrowers who pay little or nothing. Success may require full participation.

The study also only considered incomes around the threshold at the start of borrowers’ careers. It is unclear whether an earnings-based program would encourage people to pursue less lucrative studies and take lower-paying jobs that lead to lower lifetime wages. No student debt relief program is perfect, but income-contingent loan repayments can still be better than blanket debt forgiveness.

With a population that includes more children and older people, Zambia finds itself with an insufficient number of workers. Its dependency ratio makes it vulnerable to too much indebtedness in the future, regardless of the post-default restructuring solution.

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Reporting from Sacramento —

Bryan Ruiz’s hands were still shaking an hour after learning that the $300,000 in medical school loans he took out to become a dentist were being wiped out by California taxpayers.

A year out of medical school, Ruiz thought it would take decades to pay off the debt, especially since he had accepted a less lucrative position at a community health clinic that primarily serves low-medical Cal patients. revenue.

“It’s really life changing,” he said.

Ruiz was among the first doctors and dentists told this month that their medical school debt was being paid off by the state. In exchange, physicians must commit that at least 30% of their workload will be devoted to Medi-Cal patients for five years.

“He’s dedicated his life to this type of service, and that’s what our loan repayment program is all about,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said of Ruiz at a news conference. last week, touting health care investments in the new government. California budget. “If you support providing quality care to Medi-Cal patients, we’ll support your journey by offering some relief on these loans.”

Federal, state and local governments have increasingly turned to loan forgiveness programs as competition for doctors has grown more aggressive nationwide. According to a 2019 survey by physician recruiting firm Merritt Hawkins, two-thirds of physicians completing training said they had been contacted more than 50 times by recruiters.

California will spend $340 million to pay off doctors’ debts using Proposition 56 tobacco tax revenue. This month, the state offered its first awards – 40 dentists received $10.5 million in debt relief while 247 doctors received $58.6 million.

The California program aims to increase the number of doctors who see Medi-Cal patients in a state experiencing a shortage of health care providers. The number of doctors accepting Medi-Cal patients — and the low reimbursement rate that comes with them — hasn’t kept pace with the rapid expansion of the state’s health care program for the poor, which covers 1 in 3 residents in the state.

“The loan repayment program is huge,” said Sandra R. Hernández, physician and president of the California Health Care Foundation. “You have a lot of young doctors graduating from medical school with huge debt. We think this is a good long-term win for getting doctors to work in underserved areas.

As California’s doctor shortage has grown, the state’s residents are aging, with an aging baby boomer population increasing the need for healthcare workers. And a third of the state’s doctors and nurse practitioners are baby boomers reaching retirement age, further draining the workforce.

These trends led health, education, and business leaders to form the California Future Health Workforce Commission in 2017 to study the state’s situation. impending health crisisthe task force eventually coming up with a $3 billion plan over the next 10 years to fix it.

Newsom included $300 million in new money to address supplier shortages in the budget he signed last month for the fiscal year that began July 1. Much of that money was allocated to training and recruitment programs recommended by the commission, including an additional $120 million for loan forgiveness incentives to ensure doctors and dentists care for patients. Medical.

But some costly and politically heavy committee recommendations will not be addressed this year, which could slow the state’s efforts to close the gaps in access to health care. Among the commission’s recommendations was legislation allowing nurse practitioners, who undergo more extensive training than registered nurses, to care for patients on their own without the supervision of a doctor.

Member of the Commission Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) drafted the bill that would have allowed nurse practitioners more autonomy. But it stalled in May amid pushback from the California Medical Assn., the state’s physician lobbying arm. Wood said he would revive the bill next year.

The commission’s report said the state would have seen an immediate and substantial increase in the number of nurse practitioners working in rural areas in 2020 had the bill moved forward and, over time, would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars treating conditions that would otherwise result in trips to the emergency room.

“California is facing a perfect storm – seniors who will need care and a lack of health care providers,” said Karen Bradley, president of the California Assn. for nurse practitioners. “This bill would have made nurse practitioners part of the solution.

Many more doctors will need to be trained in California if the state is to meet residents’ health needs, said Janet Coffman, a professor at UC San Francisco’s Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.

More than 60% of California students who attended medical school in 2017 left the state for their studies, according to the commission’s report. The national average of medical students per 100,000 population is 30.3; California has 18.4 students per 100,000. This is the third lowest rate among the 45 states that have at least one medical school.

Despite this, California has made relatively little investment in increasing medical school enrollment in the state. The only new public medical school to open in California in the past four decades is at UC Riverside.

“And it’s relatively small,” Coffman said. “We have expanded class sizes at other medical schools, but not by much.”

State Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside) introduced a bill this year giving UC Riverside $80 million to build a new facility for its medical school, allowing the campus to double its enrollment by 250 students at 500 students. But the money was not included in the recently signed budget, and the bill was amended to exclude the funds. Instead, the budget only promises a future obligation to pay for construction.

Lawmakers approved spending about $115 million on residency training positions, which the health commission said have historically been underfunded. That includes $33 million for California’s Song-Brown Program, which funds residency programs that increase diversity among students studying to become doctors or serving high-needs areas of the state.

The budget made funding for this program permanent for years to come, a key priority for the commission.

“A significant down payment has been made with this budget,” said David Carlisle, president of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and a member of the health care commission. “This represents a significant achievement and response to the challenges that exist. We must continue to work on this subject, because there is still work to be done.

[email protected]

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Dubai – The Central Bank previously announced a 100 billion dirham stimulus package.

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The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday doubled the size of its stimulus package to 256 billion dirhams and authorized the country’s banks and financial companies to extend deferrals of principal and interest payments to their customers until December 31, 2020.

On March 15, the Central Bank announced a 100 billion dirham stimulus package, which allowed banks to provide temporary relief to individuals and businesses for loan repayments for up to six months.

The regulator also took another major step on Sunday, halving reserve requirements for demand deposits for all banks from 14% to 7% to boost liquidity in the banking sector and mitigate the impact of the coronavirus. This step will release MAD 61 billion of additional liquidity for the banking sector.

The regulator has also doubled its stimulus package from 126 billion dirhams to 256 billion dirhams since March 15. The new funds now consist of 50 billion dirhams from relief banks, 50 billion dirhams funds available at zero cost to expand funding, 95 billion dirhams to ensure there is sufficient liquidity in the market and the reduction of 61 billion dirhams in compulsory cash reserves.

It also extended the MAD 50 billion zero-cost funding facility available to banks from mid-September to December 31, 2020.

Abdulhamid Saeed, Governor of the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, said the additional measures announced will effectively ease the pressure on financial institutions, allowing them to continue playing their crucial role as the backbone of the economy while providing the required relief and continued access. financing businesses and households.

“The actions taken by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates are forward-looking, targeted and diversified, demonstrating that we are exploiting the full potential of the tools at our disposal. The Central Bank expects banks and financial companies to use actively installing Tess, for the benefit of their customers and the UAE economy,” he added.

AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, Chairman of the United Arab Emirates Banking Federation (UBF), said that by increasing liquidity in the banking sector, it will bring greater stability in these uncertain times and allow banks to offer loans and additional support for critical sectors of the economy.

“To help the country through the temporary difficulties we are facing, UBF, in coordination with the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates and its member banks, remains committed to supporting businesses and advancing economic development and sustainability. “, said Al Ghurair.
Dr. Khalid Maniar, Founder and Managing Partner of Crowe Mak, said these central bank economic stimulus programs are a positive step for the long-term sustainability and economic growth of the economy.
“The UAE management continues to take numerous security and support measures that would provide financial liquidity for business sustainability and growth opportunities. What until recently were low risk accounts according to the ‘IFRS 9 that were recoverable or properly managed may now be in doubt due to revenue slumps, going concern doubts or balance carryover due to government action to protect businesses,’ said said Maniar.
However, he noted that businesses and companies must report on how the economic stimulus and support plans issued by the respective countries would be implemented as part of the application of IFRS 9.
“Delaying the implementation of certain Basel III capital standards to March 2021 for all banks would minimize the operational burden and banks would welcome this decision. The application of the prudential filter to provisions for expected losses of IFRS 9 and these will be phased in over a five-year period ending December 31, 2024,” Maniar said.
Dr Yaqoub Mousa, Chairman of Bu Abdullah Group of Companies, said the move will further mitigate the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on the UAE economy.
“This decision will boost the morale of the business community in the UAE,” he said. “The latest decision by UAE leaders to step up precautionary measures to contain the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is aimed at protecting people’s health and safety and ensuring business continuity across all sectors. “The country’s visionary leaders are positively responding to challenges with grace and resilience,” he added.

Basel III conditions postponed

The Central Bank said it was working with other regulators to issue guidance on the IFRS 9 financial reporting standard for banks and financial companies. It postponed the implementation of certain Basel III capital standards to March 31, 2021 for all banks, in order to minimize the operational burden for lenders.

Importantly, guidance has also been issued for banks and financial companies on the implementation of the IFRS 9 financial reporting standard. The guidance has been issued for public consultation and is expected to be finalized d here on April 8, 2020.

It also issued a new requirement for all banks to apply a new filter to IFRS 9 expected loss provisions. The filter aims to minimize the effect of IFRS 9 provisions on regulatory capital, given the volatility expected due to the Covid-19 crisis.

Any increase in provisioning compared to December 31, 2019 will be partially added back to regulatory capital. He said the provisions of IFRS 9 will be phased in over a five-year period, ending on December 31, 2024.

The Dubai Financial Services Authority also believes that local financial institutions should take advantage of the flexibility built into the IFRS 0 framework to deal with the current crisis.
[email protected]

Updated Wednesday at 7:23 a.m.

The four Democrats running for Cook County Circuit Court clerk all pledged Tuesday night to reduce punitive fines and improve accountability and public access in an office long plagued by patronage allegations, corruption and inefficiency – an office where carbon copies remain a central record-keeping tool.

In their first face-to-face meeting ahead of the March primary, the candidates also tried to sort out their priorities and experience, vying to replace Dorothy Brown, who announced last August that she would step down after her current term. , which ends in December.

Michael Cabonargi of Wilmette, commissioner of the Cook County Board of Review, has repeatedly stressed the need to digitize the clerk’s mountains of paper documents.

“We have warehouses across the county full of data that can help working families and that can help the people of Cook County, but it’s on paper,” said Cabonargi, who received Party endorsement. Cook County Democrat in the race.

Illinois State Senator Iris Martinez of Chicago said she would hire interpreters and other knowledgeable people to augment the office’s non-English language services.

“There is an opportunity to make changes in this office based on the fact that we have people who speak more than one language,” Martinez said. “That’s going to be one of my priorities there.”

Chicago attorney Jacob Meister, who challenged Brown to a three-way race in 2016, vowed to expand the bureau’s enforcement of the state’s open records law, saying it would help investigators and academics to obtain data for criminal studies and to measure litigation trends and the economy.

“These are things the clerk’s office hasn’t cooperated with,” Meister said.

Former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin of Oak Park, who lost his county board seat in 2018 to Presidential ally Toni Preckwinkle after leading the charge against his tax on sodas in 2017, promised to erase the debt of the poor who owe the clerk’s office for fines and unpaid fees.

“I’m the only candidate here who grew up in Englewood,” Boykin said, referring to a low-income neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, “and I understand what it’s like to struggle.”

“I will be working with people on Day 1 to make sure we wipe the slate clean so individuals don’t have to worry about paying those fees,” Boykin said.

Brown, the circuit court clerk since 2000, has long faced accusations of mismanagement.

The Clerk’s Office has also been the subject of a six-year-old investigation into gambling pay allegations involving jobs and promotions. As part of this investigation, two former employees of the office were found guilty and sentenced.

Martinez, Meister and Cabonargi all criticized Brown’s tenure, but Boykin defended her.

“I’m sick of people talking about Clerk Brown,” Boykin said. “I think she did a good job. You can badmouth her all you want, but Clerk Brown is not on the ballot. You are on the ballot. Talk about your vision. Don’t talk of the past The past is history.

The winner of the March 17 primary will face Republican Barbara Bellar of Burr Ridge in November. Bellar, a physician, ran for state senate in 2012.

Tuesday’s forum, organized by a downtown Chicago law firm, was moderated by Maya Dukmasova, editor of the Chicago Reader. More than 100 people took part.

Chip Mitchell reports from WBEZ’s West Side studio on the police. Follow him on @ChipMitchell1.

CINCINNATI (FOX19) – Thousands of families in Cincinnati and across the tri-state have had their medical debt eliminated thanks to a local church.

Crossroads Church worked with a national nonprofit to repay $46.5 million owed.

The lucky recipients began receiving letters in the mail over the weekend.

A woman says she threw her letter in the trash but dug it up, read it again and still thought it was a hoax.

“My main focus was how I was chosen. It was random,” said the Williamsburg mom, who wishes to remain anonymous.

“It was nameless and faceless from our perspective. We just wanted to help people even though we didn’t know who they were and didn’t choose,” said Brian Tome, senior pastor of Crossroads.

In Ohio, church officials say they have abolished $42. 8 million debts in 41,233 households in 103 postcodes.

But the church went beyond state lines, eliminating $1.9 million in debt from 2,974 Kentucky households, $1.5 million from 503 Tennessee households and $200,000 from 136 households. from Indiana.

Pastor Tome spoke about getting involved in the community during Sunday’s sermon.

He mentioned a previous sermon where parishioners had to pay tithing. Tithing is a contribution that a parishioner makes to the church. The money raised is used to meet the needs of the church.

Tome challenged parishioners to donate to an organization that was not affiliated with Crossroads.

The challenge led to the partnership with a non-profit medical debt relief organization called RIP Medical Debt and church members donating $465,000 to the cause.

According to the association websitefor every $100 donation, $10,000 of medical debt is erased.

“We really like not only being able to help people, but being a role model for people. We’re here to bless people, not to have big meetings. So to be able to have an impact, a huge impact on normal people in Cincinnati, it’s really rewarding for us,” Tome said.

The impact of debt relief is now causing a ripple effect of goodwill in Cincinnati and beyond.

“I don’t even go to church here, so I’ll definitely pay it forward,” the Williamsburg mother said.

RIP Medical Debt claims this is the largest amount of medical debt they have ever helped pay off.

Church officials say those whose medical debt has been paid off are currently receiving notices by mail that are enclosed in bright yellow envelopes.

For more information, Click here.

Want to know why the church decided to help so many people eliminate their medical debt? Look here :

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UNION SQUARE, NY – City Bakery shared a “painful truth” with its followers this week, announcing that the company has racked up mountains of debt and may be forced to close its famous Manhattan store, the owners announced this week.

Celebrity Bakery Owners caught on Instagram on Wednesday announce the City Bakery on West 18th Street near Fifth Avenue would face major changes.

“We can relocate. We can only serve. We can only wholesale. We can transform and partner with another food business in town,” the owners wrote. “There is also a strong possibility that we will close entirely, and soon.”

The owners revealed that they had been looking for a solution to the company’s financial problems for more than a year, but had accumulated debts that had become like “quicksand”, the Instagram post reads.

“Incredibly, regardless of whether we are a two-generation favorite in New York, normal debt relief from a normal bank has not been an option,” the owners wrote.

“People think that rent is the ultimate retail killer in New York, but it’s fair to say that if a normal bank loan had been available to City Bakery a few years ago, we wouldn’t be anywhere near the danger in which we find ourselves today.“

town bakery has been serving frothy hot chocolate and buttery croissants near Union Square for nearly 29 years, according to the company’s website.

The bakery took over the old Vesuvio storefront in SoHo, renaming it Birdbath Green Bakery, about ten years ago. But Maury Rubin, owner of City Bakery announced that the SoHo site would close after the end of its lease in August.

City Bakery did not immediately respond to comment on the future of its Union Square location or details of its financial troubles.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – More than 3,100 River Area families have had their medical debt forgiven thanks to a coalition of Montgomery faith communities and a New York-based charity.

First Christian Church on Taylor Road, Agudath Isreal Etz Ahayem Synagogue on Cloverdale Road and Community Congregational United Church of Christ on South Court Street have worked with RIP Medical Debt to settle medical debts for low-income families.

Through an online campaign and an interfaith talent show, the faith coalition raised $23,600. RIP Medical Debt used these donations to purchase pooled medical debt portfolios and canceled over $3.4 million in debt.

In Montgomery County alone, the coalition was able to clear $1.7 million in debt, helping 1,974 beneficiaries. The remaining funds targeted debt in the river region and smaller pockets of debt in the state, affecting 51 counties in total.

Recipients of this debt forgiveness began receiving notification letters this week, according to the coalition.

According to RIP Medical Debt, for every dollar collected, it can eliminate an average of $100 in medical debt. Debt relief is random and based on debts available for cancellation. It cannot be requested.

Copyright 2020 WSFA 12 News. All rights reserved.

Business associations are predicting brighter days for Thailand’s economy in 2021, buoyed by the release of a coronavirus vaccine, a weaker baht and an increase in domestic tourism.

Suphan Mongkolsutee, president of the Federation of Thai Industries, said at the annual joint chambers of commerce seminar on November 26-27 in Bangkok that although Thailand is still in recession, the decline in gross domestic product each quarter has decreased from -12% in the second quarter to -6.4% in the third quarter.

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He said successful phase 3 trials of multiple vaccines and the loss of President Donald Trump in the US election have boosted financial markets, giving the world a boost in 2021.

He said Thailand’s economy will definitely improve, although the four engines of its economy – exports, tourism, investment and consumption – will not fully recover. The first half of next year still requires the government to take economic stimulus measures, such as the expansion of the successful co-pay program and the less successful subsidized tourism campaign.

Tourism promotion is particularly needed for second-tier cities, Suphan said, and should be expanded to include foreign expats.

He said the government also needed to open borders more widely to foreign tourists, allowing them to travel to smaller towns where they can more easily be monitored for illnesses and support tourism supply chains there.

Exchange rates also remain a concern, Suphan said, with the baht’s appreciation this year (8%) far outpacing rivals such as Vietnam (1%).

Kalin Sarasin, president of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, agreed that the government should continue economic stimulus programs until the end of 2020.

He said campaigns to boost domestic tourism can generate more than 1 trillion baht in revenue for the country.

Warodom Pitakanon, president of the Chiang Mai Chamber of Commerce, said the “We Travel Together” scheme has boosted the northern city’s economy, even as it faltered nationwide. Yet, he said, domestic tourism cannot replace the income of foreigners, who spend 200% more.

“Next year, if tourism promotion measures continue, vaccine development is successful and foreigners can come to Thailand in the middle of 2021, the economy will be better,” Warodom said. “However, financial assistance from banks is needed at the same time for debt repayment issues.”

Thanawat Poonsilp, vice president of the Songkhla Chamber of Commerce, said his organization sees the country’s reopening to tourism as the most important issue and believes Thailand must accept more coronavirus risks.

“In 2021, the effects on large businesses, such as autos, real estate, furniture, etc., will feel the impact of unemployment and workforce reductions. Therefore, the government must devise measures to support for companies to avoid unemployment and, for example, suspend the repayment of the principle of the loan and interest,” he said.

Kamolpong Sanguantrakul, chairman of the Khon Kaen Chamber of Commerce, said the province’s third-quarter GDP was almost back to normal and many businesses rebounded in the fourth quarter. He said he also wanted the co-pay and travel programs to continue, but grant allocations to be redistributed to provide more aid to the northeastern provinces.

Rayong Chamber President Noppadol Tungsongcharoen also said his province’s purchasing power was better but had not recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels. But the economy is being pulled by government stimulus measures as mass tourism has not resumed. He reiterated calls for continued stimulus and debt relief, as well as direct grants to small businesses.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — More than 1,000 students who were enrolled at the now-closed ITT Technical Institute campuses in Indiana are eligible for nearly $10 million in student loan forgiveness, the attorney general announced Tuesday. the state.

Indiana’s share of a $330 million nationwide settlement follows investigations by multiple attorneys general into student loans offered by the for-profit school. Attorney General Curtis Hill said 1,354 former Indiana students will receive debt relief.

The 47 attorneys general and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached an agreement with PEAKS Trust, which operated a private lending program for ITT Tech. Under the agreement, PEAKS admitted coercing students into high-interest loans, agreed to cancel outstanding loans and terminate operations.

“This settlement ensures that former ITT Technical Institute students are no longer subject to PEAKS Trust’s abusive lending practices,” Hill said in a statement. “We hope this result will alleviate the financial stress that so many former students have undoubtedly endured.”

ITT Tech filed for bankruptcy and closed its campuses in 2016, including in Indianapolis, South Bend, Fort Wayne and Newburgh. The college chain’s parent company, ITT Educational Services Inc., was based in Carmel.

Curtis said students didn’t have to do anything to receive the aid.

Politician Musalia Mudavadi said the regime that succeeds the Jubilee administration after the 2022 general elections should prepare for the Herculean task of resuscitating an economy ravaged by huge public debts.

National Congress leader Amani is among those seeking to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is in his second and final five-year term.

He spoke to reporters at his office on Monday, just days after Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani told the National Assembly’s Finance and Planning Committee that public debt was rising. now at 7,120 billion shillings.

If the government’s insatiable appetite to borrow continues, it means it is likely to breach the 9 trillion shillings debt ceiling enacted by parliament last year through amendments to debt regulations. public financial management (national government).

“Terrible miscalculation”

The ANC boss said the Jubilee administration, which came to power in 2013, miscalculated and drove Kenyans into poverty when it opted for expensive business loans with short repayment periods.

“We are in crisis. The economy is not in good shape, largely due to the accumulation of huge expensive loans that have to be repaid. This means that the little the government collects after taxing Kenyans too much committed goes to repaying the debt,” he added. Mr. Mudavadi noted.

The ANC boss has been consistent with his concerns about government borrowing behavior since 2015, after proceeds from the 250 billion shilling Eurobond loan could not be properly accounted for.

When the Jubilee administration took power in 2013, the country’s public debt was just 1.6 trillion shillings.

But five years later, the country surpasses the 7 trillion shillings mark.

“What the government needed to do was give incentives to SMEs and use agriculture to stimulate the economy. It failed miserably,” he said.

Priority

Under Article 203(1) of the constitution, the public debt is the second charge of the Consolidated Fund after the national interest, followed by the needs of the national government and those of the counties, among others.

This means that with the revenue the government collects through taxation and aid appropriation, among others, paying down public debt is the second priority.

But even as Mr Mudavadi spoke, the government is still required to borrow more from the local and foreign market to finance the 841 billion shilling shortfall in this year’s 3 trillion shilling budget.

“Wakati mkenya wa kawaida anafuliza madeni madogo madogo kushughulikia mahitaji yake kwa sababu ya uchumi dhaifu, serikali nayo inafuliza madeni makubwa makubwa ambayo yana madhara makubwa sana kwa ukuzi wa uchumi wetu,” the ANC boss said.

This roughly translates to “when Kenyans are busy seeking out exploitative digital lenders because of poverty, the government is busy with commercial lending which has adverse effects on the economy.”

IMF Terms

Fears that the country may not be able to meet its repayment obligations have led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to propose conditions to access its accreditation and revive the economy.

The conditions include the undertaking of layoffs as well as the freezing of employment in the public service.

“What the IMF is telling us is that you have dug yourself a huge hole and you may not get out of it. The only thing waiting for you is to die in the abyss.”

Through MP Nambale Sakwa Bunyasi, Mr. Mudavadi’s party sponsored the Public Management Bill 2020, currently before the National Assembly.

The bill aims to regulate borrowing by creating an autonomous body – the Debt Management Authority.

Currently, the government manages its debt situation through a national treasury department, but it lacks the independence to advise the government appropriately.

“The National Treasury cannot check itself. We need an independent office to properly advise the government and not one who takes instructions from the Treasury because this is clearly a conflict of interest The hope for a better Kenya lies in the proposed law,” Mudavadi said. .

More people in serious financial difficulty could be helped to get a fresh start under the government’s proposals to widen the eligibility criteria for Debt Relief Orders (DROs).

ROs are a type of formal personal insolvency in England and Wales, alongside bankruptcies and IVAs (individual voluntary arrangements).

DROs tend to be a low-cost solution for people who have smaller debts but have no realistic prospect of paying them off. They protect people from actions of creditors and after 12 months the debts within the order are cancelled.

• £20,000 currently
• £30,000 as part of the proposals

The government is consulting on proposed changes to DROs which would increase the maximum total amount of debt allowed from £20,000 to £30,000.

The maximum value of assets that someone could own under the DRO’s eligibility criteria would be doubled from £1,000 to £2,000.

People could also be allowed to have more excess income under the eligibility criteria, at £100 a month instead of the current £50.

The government said research indicates that demand for debt advice could increase by up to 60% by the end of 2021 and that around three million more people than before the coronavirus pandemic will have need help with problematic debt by the end of 2021.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “Suffering from financial hardship puts a huge strain on people’s mental health and wellbeing – that’s why we’re committed to giving to more people struggling with debt. a chance for a fresh start.

“Debt relief orders are a valuable tool to help vulnerable people deal with their problematic debts. Our plans to increase eligibility criteria will mean that many thousands more could benefit from this aid.

Phil Andrew, chief executive of StepChange Debt Charity, said: “Low-income households with few assets are among the most deeply affected by debt during the pandemic.

“Expanding eligibility for debt relief orders will help give more people a chance to avoid the long-term misery of being trapped in debt they can’t afford to repay. over a reasonable period.”

The consultation will last six weeks and any potential changes are expected to be in place in spring 2021.

NEW DELHI: India has started work on a universal debt relief program for small borrowers for micro-enterprises, small-scale farmers and artisans, which should be ready for implementation when the next government will be in place.

People below a specified income and asset threshold will be eligible for debt relief. Individuals with an annual income of Rs 60,000 or less, outstanding loans of Rs 35,000 or less and assets worth Rs 20,000 or less may be eligible.

“It will be a well-structured loan relief scheme across all sectors for small farmers, artisans, micro-enterprises or other individuals,” General Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas told ET. “It will be a universal debt relief program for the poor.”

The scheme, which is being developed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), will be one of the main features of changes being considered for the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The cost of the scheme is unlikely to exceed Rs 20,000 crore but will benefit millions in the ultra low cost loan category, Srinivas said.

Srinivas pointed out that the IBC does not provide any special exemption for small borrowers and that the chapter on personal insolvency needs some modifications.

“There are people who are really poor and the law as it is today provides that the process (for them) is as rigorous as the process for resolving business insolvency,” he said. declared. “Into this category you will now have millions and millions of people coming in…No system will be able to deliver.” The Ministry of Corporate Affairs is confident to finalize the program within a quarter, keeping it ready for the rollout of the next government, he said.

This could be an online system within the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) with a dedicated team to review and respond to requests. “We can create a personal insolvency cell or division within IBBI to handle debt relief only,” Srinivas said.

Withdrawal flexibility

“If you can establish that your income is below this (specified threshold) and your assets are below this (specified threshold), you will receive debt relief and can start afresh.”

The program will also allow flexibility so individuals can opt out to protect their credit history.

“We will allow someone who does not wish to avail themselves of the program to waive themselves because the debt relief will stigmatize you or limit your future credit,” Srinivas said, noting that individuals will have the option of opting into insolvency. .

“In a case like Bhushan Steel, we got Rs 34,000 crore but even in this case there was a haircut of Rs 20,000 crore,” he said. “It was for a company… There will be millions of people benefiting from this program and maybe you will get a haircut like this.”

The International Monetary Fund is working “very intensively” with Sudan to put in place the preconditions for broad debt relief and will assess the progress of a staff-monitored program in March, the IMF’s managing director said Monday. Kristalina Georgiava.

She told reporters in an online press conference that she was encouraged by the strong support from the United States, Britain and other member countries for Sudan’s debt relief in the framework of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, and by the determination of the Sudanese authorities. .

“We hope to present members with a strong case on Sudan for the HIPC Initiative as soon as possible so that this country can reintegrate into the international community,” Georgieva said. “I think in March we will have more to tell you.”

The United States, the IMF’s largest shareholder, last month reinstated Sudan’s sovereign immunity and the US Congress passed legislation formalizing the move, after Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism ended.

The state sponsor of the terrorism designation, which had been in place for nearly three decades, had weighed on the Sudanese economy and limited its ability to receive aid.

Under US law, Washington will authorize $111 million to pay off part of Sudan’s bilateral debt, and $120 to help repay its debt to the IMF while making an additional $700 million available through September. 2022, which will allow it to release $1 billion in arrears to the World Bank.

The Bank of Thailand plans to implement an additional debt restructuring program using targeted measures to help borrowers during the pandemic when the second phase debt relief program expires.

There have been two phases of debt relief measures. The first started in April and the second from July. The first phase program is due to expire on October 22, while the second phase program will expire at the end of this year.

The additional package aims to improve the effectiveness of existing measures and address borrowers’ problems in a targeted manner, said Mathee Supapongse, deputy governor for monetary stability.

The package will include debt suspension, subsidized loans and other related measures, Mathee said.

For the central bank’s 500 billion baht subsidized loan program, relevant regulators will consider adjusting the terms of the program to allow borrowers better access to funding sources, he said.

An interest rate inconsistent with banks’ financial costs is the main reason why the Bank of Thailand’s subsidized loan program failed, according to an unnamed source from a public financial institution.

The central bank is also evaluating the concept of asset warehouses, but the idea has not yet been finalized.

Mr Mathee said the central bank had discussed with financial institutions the debt servicing capacity of borrowers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and retail customers, to assess the outlook after the phase two debt relief measures will soon end.

Based on the discussions, approximately 60% of all SMEs and individual borrowers who applied for the debt relief measures were found to be able to resume normal debt servicing.

While the economy continues to experience an uneven economic recovery, the debt repayment capacity of low-income people, SMEs and tourism operators is still fragile.

The central bank encourages financial institutions to help customer segments restructure their debt and the central bank will provide incentives for this assistance.

The central bank is also requiring banks to conduct an updated stress test and capital planning for an outbreak scenario over the next three years, which is expected to be reported later this month.

Amid signs of rising non-performing loans attributed to the pandemic and deteriorating revenues, rising bad debts will affect the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of the banking sector.

“The RCA for the entire banking sector could be below pre-pandemic levels. But the central bank is not assessing the ratio within the framework of the existing strong cushion,” Mathee said.

“Despite the country’s good financial stability, it could face higher risks amid growing uncertainties.”

Don Nakornthab, senior director of financial stability and corporate group, said the central bank expects Thailand’s economic recovery to take at least two years and the momentum for the recovery is about to be uneven.

The slow economic recovery will mainly affect the tourism and export sectors.

“Thailand’s economic recovery will not be in tandem with the global economic recovery if we cannot reopen the country to foreign tourists as usual, while a recovery in Thai exports is expected to be slower than that of its peers. regions,” Don said.

With limited space for fiscal and monetary policies, a targeted policy framework is needed to balance economic growth and financial stability, he said.

Targeted policies should be implemented directly for low-income people, the labor market, SMEs and the tourism sector, Don said.

* The Canadian dollar falls 0.2% against the greenback * Canada adds 83,600 jobs in October * The loonie gains 1.9% since the start of the week * Canadian bond yields rise on a steeper curve TORONTO , Nov 6 (Reuters) – The Canadian dollar weakened against its U.S. counterpart on Friday but held steady for its strongest weekly gain since June as the greenback fell broadly and domestic data showed that the economy created new jobs in October. The Canadian dollar was trading down 0.2% at 1.3067 against the greenback, or 76.53 cents US, coming back from its highest intraday level in more than two months on Thursday at 1.3024. For the week, it was on track to gain 1.9%. The U.S. dollar depreciated against a basket of major currencies as investors bet that a divided U.S. Congress would hamper government borrowing and potentially pave the way for even more stimulus from the Federal Reserve. Statistics Canada reported 83,600 new jobs in October. That was less than expected as coronavirus-related shutdowns began to bite, but analysts said the gain reflected welcome signs of resilience in the economy. Investors also digested U.S. jobs data, which showed employers hired the fewest workers in five months in October. It was the clearest evidence yet that the end of fiscal stimulus and the explosion in new COVID-19 infections were undermining the momentum of economic recovery. The price of oil, one of Canada’s top exports, fell as new lockdowns in Europe to halt a spike in COVID-19 infections raised concerns about the outlook for demand. US crude prices fell 1.9% to $38.05 a barrel. Yields on Canadian government bonds were higher on a steeper curve in sympathy with US Treasuries. The 10-year rose 4.9 basis points to 0.663%. (Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Alex Richardson)

The more than 40 million Americans who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic include many struggling with college debt. And yet, Congress has done nothing to reduce the $1.68 trillion in student debt. Meanwhile, for-profit colleges that have burdened students with a heavy debt burden are reaping taxpayer-subsidized emergency aid.

The $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed in March includes hundreds of billions of dollars in business assistance. Good jobs first followed the beneficiaries of these billions, and among them are 10 of the largest for-profit universities. Together, they have received over $32 million in direct cash assistance.

The list includes the infamous University of Phoenix, which received $3.2 million in taxpayer relief – despite racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties for its deceptive practices in recruiting students. The University of Phoenix is ​​owned by the huge private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

The largest recipient among for-profit colleges is Grand Canyon University, with $11.1 million. It is an evangelical Christian college with a reputation for allowing conservative branding like Ben Shapiro speak on campus. He was also accused of fraud his students.

These schools also received an equal amount for student emergency aid for eligible students. However, this cash assistance was a one-time payment to compensate for disruptions due to campus closures. None has been allocated to help students who may have lost their jobs or housing.

Compared to payments to for-profit colleges, the CARES Act was far less generous with student debt holders, only allowing federal student loan interest and payments to be deferred until September 2020. That just kicks the box out on the road, rather than providing a real debt relief. The HEROES Act proposed by House Democrats would go one step further by canceling $10,000 in federal loans to economically distressed borrowers.

A more sensible and fair approach, especially in the midst of an economic crisis, would be to cancel all student debt. It would help people survive with a roof over their heads during the economic crisis and reduce the crushing financial stress caused by student loans.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ilhan Omar introduced a bill to cancel all student debt last year, and Representative Omar recently highlighted its importance during this pandemic: “Student debt was a crisis before the coronavirus. And it’s an even deeper crisis now… We must not force Americans to choose between putting food on the table and paying off exorbitant student loans.

Canceling student debt would also stimulate the economy as a whole by creating a huge financial boost. This would free up money that people could spend on housing and goods to kick-start the economy.

Unlike proposals that limit debt relief to those who fall below certain income thresholds, the Sanders-Omar plan would erase all outstanding student debt. In the future, they would make public college and university education free for all. Proponents argue that this one-size-fits-all approach would build broader political support and reinforce the principle that education, like health care, is a human right.

The benefits of student debt cancellation would be particularly significant for people of color and women. First, as Tressie McMillan Cottom illustrates, these for-profit universities target and recruit specifically people of color, using euphemistic language to suggest they can fix inequality in nonprofit higher education. Second, blacks are struggling with higher levels of student debt than other races, and women – of all races –have more student debt only men.

These are the same segments of the American population that have been most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Black people are dying twice as fast as other races, Latinx and black people are more likely to have faced job and wage losses due to the pandemic, and women are both more likely to lose their job and have jobs deemed essential.

Over time, canceling student debt could also help reduce racial disparities in home ownership. Student loan repayments are a major obstacle when buying a home – in addition to the many forms of systemic racism that make it more difficult to accumulate the wealth needed to buy a home. Experts believe that 300,000 more homes would be sold each year if student debt were eliminated.

Why should a “school” like the University of Phoenix receive government aid when struggling students get no real relief?

Let’s level the playing field. Let’s cancel student debt.

The International Monetary Fund will refuse to participate in a new rescue plan for Greece until there is an “explicit and concrete agreement” on debt relief from eurozone creditors, an IMF official confirmed.

Without IMF intervention, Greece’s eurozone partners will have to find more funds to meet Athens’ short-term financing needs, which raises the question of whether the €86bn (£60bn) rescue package debated earlier this month will prove to be achievable.

As Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras struggled to win the support of his radical party Syriza Partying for the austerity program demanded by the rest of the eurozone, an IMF official, speaking from Washington, said the fund would not get involved until there was “an explicit agreement and concrete between Greece and its eurozone partners on how to provide debt relief”.

The IMF has insisted it also expects tough economic reforms from Athens in return for a reduction in its debt burden. “There is a need for tough decisions on both sides. There should be no illusion that only one party can solve the problem,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the IMF team in Athens, which is helping craft a third bailout, would “not sit on the sidelines”, the official said. But he will not subscribe to any formal support program for the country in difficulty. “We will actively participate in policy discussions over the coming weeks.”

On Wednesday, Christine Lagarde told the IMF’s board of directors, made up of representatives of its member countries, that an IMF team should be sent to Greece. But the official said: “The board would not support a program that did not meet medium-term sustainability.”

Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio has soared to 175% from 120% when it first received a bailout from the ‘troika’ of the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission in 2010.

News of the IMF board’s hard line came as Tsipras challenged Syriza members to back the decision to sign further spending cuts and reforms demanded by the country’s creditors.

At a meeting of Syriza’s national council in Athens on Thursday, Tsipras offered party members two options: an internal “referendum” on Sunday to review the terms of the deal reached earlier this month; or an extraordinary party meeting in September. By a show of hands, the assembly opted for the latter.

Tsipras managed to push through the latest austerity measures with the support of opposition MPs, allowing talks on a new bailout to begin. But he has yet to win the support of many members of his own party.

Speaking at Syriza’s rally in a former cinema, Tsipras reiterated that giving in to the country’s creditors was “not of our choice”, but the only alternative was to leave the euro zone.

Details of the third bailout have yet to be finalized, but the IMF appears to be challenging Greece’s other creditors, led by Germany, to soften their opposition to substantial debt relief.

The rocky deal struck by eurozone leaders earlier this month delivered on the promise of debt restructuring if Athens passes further economic reforms, but did not provide any details.

The IMF’s own debt sustainability analysis, published in the aftermath of negotiations between Tsipras and his euro zone partners earlier this month, suggests that the country’s debt burden will quickly become unmanageable without a long moratorium on repayments, of up to 30 years, or a reduction in the nominal value of the debt. The IMF official said the fund stands by that analysis.

With talks just getting started in Athens – and particularly given the IMF’s decision to avoid getting involved immediately – analysts say it is increasingly unlikely that a deal can be reached in time for August 20. It was then that Greece had to repay 3.4 billion euros to the European Central Bank.

Observers had expected Greece to seek a short-term bridge loan from its eurozone partners to cover the ECB payment. But without the intervention of the IMF, the amount of financing needed in the coming months is likely to be considerably higher.

The IMF’s role in eurozone bailouts has been controversial since Greece’s first bailout in 2010. However, the European Commission and the ECB felt that the credibility of the bailouts had been enhanced by the presence of the IMF, due to the stringent conditions that the fund attaches to financial assistance.

Asked if it had been a mistake to get involved in the first place, the IMF official said: “We are learning as we go, in changing circumstances, and the experience we have will be integrated into all the new discussions that we will have. This is of course one of the reasons why we say that this requires difficult discussions on both sides.

Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told CNN: “China has agreed to waive the interest-free intergovernmental debt that Cameroon failed to repay at the end of 2018.” .

In short, it was a tiny slice of Cameroon’s responsibility to China.

So why the initial secrecy?

African debt backlash

China may also have sought an under-the-radar arrangement due to political unrest in Cameroon.

The West African nation is battling a Boko Haram insurgency in the north, while a secessionist movement destabilizes the two English-speaking regions of the majority French-speaking nation born from the unification of a former British colony and a former French colony .

Due to the unrest, Cameroon has been stripped of the right to host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, the continent’s biennial football championship, which will now be held in Egypt.

But Biya, 85, who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years, is looking increasingly like an “unsuitable partner” from a business perspective as China faces growing scrutiny on the continent, says Chris Roberts, political scientist at the University of Calgary. .

“Cameroon in every aspect, shape or form is getting worse day by day in every metric,” Roberts says. “This regime has dismantled all the foundations it had for a stable economy.”

Deep pockets, deep carry

China established diplomatic relations with Cameroon in 1971. Their economic partnership grew after Nicolas Sarkozy became President of France in 2007 and oversaw his country’s dwindling engagement with its former colonial territory, leaving a void for Beijing to fill.

The current port of Douala in Cameroon was overcrowded, dilapidated and limited by its location on a sediment-filled estuary.

When completed in 2035, Kribi will be the largest deep-water port in the region. It will handle exports of bauxite, iron ore and other minerals from Cameroon and could also serve the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project, which pumps oil from landlocked Chad.

The Port of Kribi will also extend the reach in West Africa of China’s Maritime Silk Road, an initiative Senegal signed on to last year. It is an important part of President Xi’s broad multinational One Belt One Road economic development plan.

“The Gulf of Guinea is strategic for China”, explains Xavier Auregan, specialist in Sino-African relations in French-speaking countries, explaining that a foot there strengthens its interests in West Africa, from the Côte d’ Ivory in Gabon.

“Cameroon is one of the countries that can federate the energy infrastructures of… West Africa.”

China has also undoubtedly benefited from these developments, with many of the contracts going to its companies.

“If you say we lent this money to this development project or effort, and we’re just canceling it because we know we’ll never get it back,” Roberts says, “that has a national effect, but it has also international implications.

One of the big concerns about Chinese lending to Africa is debt trap diplomacy – the idea that Beijing will pressure countries that can’t repay their loans to hand over key assets.

Last December, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta denied that the huge port of Kilindini in Mombasa, East Africa’s biggest port, had been listed as collateral for a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan to fund railway. China also denied the report. In Djibouti, similar concerns have been raised over China’s recent acquisition of a stake in a port there.

Tensions in the gold mines

China’s decision to grant Cameroon debt relief also comes at a difficult time between the country’s traditional mining community and Chinese mining companies.

Eastern Cameroon is rich in gold. Justin Kamga, coordinator of the Forestry and Rural Development Association (FODER) in Yaoundé, says Chinese companies operate illegal mines throughout the region and have little respect for the land.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Local Cameroonian miners generally use artisanal mining methods that do not harm the environment, says Kamga. Chinese companies use heavy machinery that often digs villages with multiple holes 30 meters deep, destroying agricultural land.

Between 2012 and 2015, Kamga said more than 250 excavations were abandoned, mostly by Chinese companies. From 2015 to 2018, he said, more than 100 people died in such holes, which trigger landslides and spark local outrage against Chinese companies. In December, nine people died in such an incident, according to FODER.

The Cameroonian government did not respond to emails from CNN seeking comment.

Auregan says that while reckless mining has tarnished China’s image, it is unlikely to be the reason for the 2018 debt cancellation.

“China sees the geo-strategic and long-term vision of Cameroon’s importance in this region,” Roberts said.

In short, as long as China needs a maritime foothold in West Africa, Cameroon’s debt burden could ease a little further.

New Delhi/Mumbai – On Wednesday, thousands of farmers, laborers and rural laborers from across India boarded trains to the capital to take part in a two-day ‘Dilli Challo’ (Let’s Go to Delhi) march.

They gather in central New Delhi on Thursday to prepare for their march to parliament on Friday and call on lawmakers to address the many challenges facing the agrarian society.

They will demand the passage of two bills – one to relieve farmers of their debts and the other to guarantee minimum prices for their crops.

Takadya Tapar, 41, is from Dhamangaon village in the coastal district of Palghar, Maharashtra, and like most people in the area, she is a subsistence farmer from the Scheduled Tribe community.

She is attending the New Delhi event to protest her land acquisition for the 508 km high-speed rail corridor linking Mumbai to another state capital, Ahmedabad.

A favorite project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the train will cut travel time between the two cities from eight hours to two hours. But it will affect the lands and livelihoods of 195 Scheduled Tribe households in Palghar district alone.

“Over 100 people…received acquisition notices. We protested against this at [grassroots] level but nothing came of it. So we are going to Delhi,” says Tapar.

For hundreds of women, undertaking a 28-hour train journey to reach New Delhi involves a good deal of sacrifice. Indeed, their absence will be sorely felt during the crucial harvest season here.

#ChaloDilli #farmersmarch pic.twitter.com/ApwMEkhhHE

—Neha Dixit (@nehadixit123) November 29, 2018

“It’s a question about our existence. If we don’t go now, how will our children survive,” she said.

Unlike farmers who cultivate cash crops on relatively larger tracts of land in the rest of Maharashtra, Scheduled Tribe farmers in Palghar, Thane, Nashik and Nandurbar districts engage in farming for personal consumption.

Their farms are small – two acres (0.8 hectares) on average, on which they grow vegetables, rice and millet – but crucial for their survival. In 2016, the district recorded 557 child deaths due to malnutrition.

Jitendra Ibhad, 54, is a board member of a local farmers’ union in Dhamangaon, a village. He majored in history and geography, but after unsuccessful attempts to get a job with the state electric utility and the local school, he turned to farming.

“The last two years have seen a period of very dry rain, so my crops have been ruined. Four months a year, we depend on rain for irrigation. The rest of the year we have to manually water the crop, which can cost up to 300 rupees ($4.25) per session.

Ibhad also spent money to build boundary walls for his vegetable field because of stray cattle.

“Since the government banned beef, and [briefly] the sale of cattle, the number of cattle on the roads has increased exponentially. Like thieves, they plunder our fields at night. I took out a loan of 30,000 rupees ($425) to build a boundary wall to keep the cattle out. I doubt I will be able to repay it.

He joins the march to demand loan waivers and reduced prices for inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and irrigation equipment.

One of the most pressing demands of this group of farmers in Palghar is for their land title, called 7/12, to be granted under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act 2006 ( recognition of forest rights).

Under the law, they are entitled to ownership of forest lands which they use for cultivation, grazing and foraging.

For HD Karbat, a 65-year-old farmer from Jamset village in Palghar, getting the title deed means being eligible for various government programs and benefits.

“We want the government to declare our region affected by drought, which they don’t want. The rains have constantly failed our crops over the past two years. But when the government itself denies there is a problem, how will it help us? he asks.

Karbat refers to a controversial change in the central government’s definition of drought in 2016. By measuring drought-affected areas on the basis of districts rather than sub-divisions, the total number of drought-affected regions has been significantly reduced.

Ashok Dhawale, president of the All India Kisan Sabha farmers’ union, which has led the protests, said the pressure on agricultural workers and businesses had been made worse by the policies of the Modi administration.

It specifically refers to demonetization, a November 8, 2016 decision, in which banknotes of 500 rupees ($7.16) and 1,000 rupees ($14.31) were declared null and void.

“In a recent report, the Ministry of Agriculture admitted that demonetization had badly affected farmers, which we were saying on our own,” says Dhawale.

“Then there is the issue of farmer suicides, which rose by 42% in the first two years of Modi’s government.”

In 2016, the National Crimes Record Bureau stopped publishing farmer suicide rates, which Dhawale says is an attempt to erase the government’s track record.

The past three years have seen more farmers’ marches across the country.

In some cases, they have become fatal.

In June 2017, police fired on a group of farmers in Mandsaur, killing at least six people.

In August 2017, farmers in the southern state of Tamil Nadu went on a hunger strike in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Infuriated by what they saw as government indifference, they escalated their protest by holding human bones and dead rats in their mouths, even threatening to ingest excrement if their demands were not met.

In November 2017, over 180 protesting farmer groups joined to form the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKASCC).

The Dilli Chalo march is organized under the same banner.

Sudhir Kumar Suthar, an assistant professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Center for Policy Studies, says Dilli Chalo’s march expands the definition of a farmer.

“If you look at the two bills they are asking to pass in parliament, that includes landless laborers, artisans and women, in addition to the farmer.”

He thinks the support the march has garnered from the urban population is a new phenomenon.

“People’s perception of rural and urban is changing. Living in our cities with its pollution and shrinking job prospects, people want to reinvent the rural world.

“Therefore, rural distress is not just farmers’ problem, it’s everyone’s problem.”

Fears that Greece is on the verge of defaulting on its debt swept through European prosecutors on Monday morning after talks between Athens and its creditors broke down on Sunday.

Greece’s stock market tumbled nearly 7% in early trading as traders worried a deal won’t be reached before the country’s bailout package expires on June 30.

Despite growing pressure, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsiprasrefuses to agree to further spending cuts and tax hikes to achieve the budget surpluses demanded by Greece’s lenders.

“One can only see political intent in creditors’ insistence on further pension cuts after five years of looting in bailouts,” Tsipras told Greek newspaper Efimerida Ton Syntakton on Monday morning.

“We will patiently wait for institutions to achieve realism,” he said. “We have no right to bury European democracy where it was born.”

The war of words between the two sides has continued, with Jens Weidmann, the head of Germany’s Bundesbank, saying time is running out for Greece.

Greek financial stocks were routed Monday morning, with Piraeus Bank tumbling 18% and Eurobanks 15%, dragging the Athens market to its lowest since mid-April.

The price of two-year Greek government bonds fell sharply as investors rushed to sell in case Athens defaulted on its debts.

pic.twitter.com/EXCdYd8WM1

— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) June 15, 2015n","url":"https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/610350884690755584","id":"610350884690755584","hasMedia":true,"role":"inline","isThirdPartyTracking":false,"source":"Twitter","elementId":"901edeef-23d0-472c-ac70-fdc9197f76b4"}}'>

Analysts have warned that the collapse of talks on Sunday, after just 45 minutes, has pushed Greece closer to default and a potential exit from the single currency.

“Even if the parties involved reach an agreement in the near future, it will probably only be a short-term agreement,” said Gary Jenkins of LNG Capital. “Indeed, the lack of confidence suggests that funds will be trickled into Greece and that a longer-term deal will be very difficult to achieve.”

According to local media, Tsipras called an emergency meeting with key ministers to discuss the situation, including chief negotiator Euclid Tsakalotos, Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis and Minister of State Nikos Pappas.

The talks are now in limbo until Thursday, when eurozone finance ministers gather for their scheduled Eurogroup meeting.

This is likely Greece’s last chance to broker a deal to release the €7.2bn (£5.2bn) in bailout funds frozen for months, said Peter Rosenstreich, head of the market strategy at online banking Swissquote.

“We expect the markets to feel the heat this week as the odds of a Greek default have increased significantly,” Rosenstreich added.

All major European markets fell on Monday morning, with the German DAX index down 1.1%. In London, the FTSE 100 index of blue chip stocks fell 37 points or 0.5% to 6746.

How the talks fell apart

On Sunday evening, the European Commission warned that: “Although some progress has been made, the talks have not been successful as there remains a significant gap between the plans of the Greek authorities and the common demands of the commission, European Central Bank and the IMF.

In tax terms, the differences amount to 2 billion euros per year of permanent budgetary savings.

The rift between the parties prompted the IMF’s chief economist to ask the two sides to make more compromises. Olivier Blanchard said Brussels should be prepared to further delay Greek debt repayments, accept only limited reforms and reduce interest charged on debt relief loans, while Tsipras should propose further pension reforms and accept that certain VAT exemptions be removed.

“On the one hand, the Greek government needs to come up with really credible measures to achieve the lower target budget surplus and it needs to show its commitment to the more limited set of reforms,” ​​Blanchard wrote in his economics blog. “On the other hand, European creditors should accept significant additional financing and debt relief sufficient to maintain debt sustainability.”

Blanchard’s intervention late on Sunday will be widely seen as support for Greece’s position, albeit with the sting of Athens in its call for pension reform, which Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s finance minister, repeated on Saturday. was a dealbreaker.

As Greece’s future in the euro zone hangs in the balance like never before – and now is the time for Athens to honor the repayment of a 1.6 billion euro debt to the IMF on June 30 – the scale of the moment did not escape Greek officials. or the Prime Minister’s radical left Syriza party.

Dragasakis, who flew to Brussels to lead the talks, said Athens remained ready to conclude negotiations “with a mutually beneficial deal”, suggesting there was still room for compromise.

Blaming foreign lenders for the breakdown of the talks, he said the Greek government had submitted complementary proposals that “fully cover” the fiscal gap and the primary surplus – the two main sticking points between the two sides.

Creditors, he said, had insisted on pension cuts and VAT increases worth 1% of GDP – or 3.6 billion euros – to close the planned gap, measures that Athens considers untenable for a population already impoverished by five years of biting austerity. This was the second package of economic reforms proposed by the Greek government and rejected by creditors in June.

“Despite the presence of the Greek delegation in Brussels, there was no response from the institutions [European commission, ECB and IMF] to discuss at the same time [political] level or permissions that would resolve the issues that remain open,” Dragasakis said in a statement.

Tsakalotos said it was clear “the opposing side had no mandate to negotiate”. He told the Guardian in a text message: ‘We made huge efforts to meet them halfway but they insisted on both the pension cuts and the restaurant VAT hike and would not accept to close the gap even partially through administrative measures to reduce tax evasion, even though this is a central element of our electoral platform. Moreover, they told us in no uncertain terms that they had no mandate to discuss a compromise! So much the worse for the negotiation.

With events taking such a dramatic turn, opposition parties urged Prokopis Pavlopoulos, the head of state, to call an emergency meeting of political leaders. “The country must remain intact within Europe and this must be understood by everyone,” said the centrist To Potami party. “We expect a responsible response from the country’s political leaders.”

Failure to keep Greece in the euro, after years of arduous negotiations and two emergency rescue packages totaling 240 billion euros, would send it into the dark and mark a historic blow for the most ambitious project in the EU.

Greek officials flew to Brussels after Tsipras signaled he would soften his stance and agree to painful compromises in return for promises to relieve the country’s staggering debt.

Government sources had said Athens was ‘very close’ to striking a deal that would free up more than €7 billion in bailout funds the country desperately needs to avoid defaulting on IMF and ECB loans during the summer. Creditors have refused to disburse financial aid since August, with the two sides squabbling over reforms.

A move on the still contentious Greek debt issue would also allow Tsipras to sell a deal to hardliners Syriza, which was catapulted to power in January on a promise to end five grueling years of austerity.” self-destructive”, and to the Greeks at large.

With more than 320 billion euros, equivalent to 180% of the country’s total economic output, Greece has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the EU, with economists agreeing that it is not viable. Following the breakdown of the talks, left-wing activists implored the government not to back down on any measures that would lead to “the extinction of the Greek people”.

Fears now abound that Greece could be heading for a Cypriot outcome with the ECB ending the emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) it was dribbling to Greek banks. The Frankfurt-based institution has come under increasing pressure to make such a move in recent weeks.

Indicative of the growing tensions between Athens and Berlin, the biggest contributor to Greece’s bailout program to date, Sigmar Gabriel, German vice-chancellor and leader of the country’s Social Democratic party – who has long been considered a friend of Greece – criticized the Greek government’s negotiating tactics in an article in the daily Bild on Monday.

“Greek government game theorists are gambling the future of their country,” he wrote in an excoriating critique of Varoufakis, whose academic expertise includes game theory. “Europe and Germany will not allow themselves to be blackmailed. And we will not let the exaggerated electoral promises of a partly communist government be paid for by German workers and their families.

As new coronavirus patients multiply, job losses mount and economic losses continue, South Carolina and the federal government have made significant changes aimed at providing some relief.

Here is an overview of what has already happened, and some proposals that are still in the works:

Income taxes

The deadline for filing federal income tax returns will move to July 15 The reported Associated Press on Friday after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the change in a tweet. For those who owe money the payment deadline had already been extended April 15 through July 15—including estimated quarterly payments—as long as the amount owed is less than $1 million. See irs.gov/coronavirus for more details.

The deadline for returns to South Carolina, and other taxes administered by the State Department of Revenue, is now June 1 for filing and payment. See dor.sc.gov for more details.

So there’s more time to file and if you expect to owe money, you get an extra three months to pay the feds – or 2.5 months for SC filings. If you are expecting a refund, file it as soon as possible.

Credit cards, banks

Many credit card issuers and banks have responded to COVID-19 by relaxing terms.

If you need more time to pay, want a bigger line of credit, need a lower interest rate, or want to be waived of fees, pick up the phone and call the number toll on the back of your credit card or contact your bank.

More often than you think, all it takes is a call to get some relief.

Paid vacation

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday and effective April 2, provides paid sick and family leave for employees of businesses with up to 500 workers and the self-employed.

The details are unfortunately too long to be given here. If you are in a company with less than 500 employees, find out from your employer. If you are self-employed, you may be able to get federal tax credits if COVID-19 takes you away from work because you are sick or caring for family members.

In a summary of the provisions The New York Times reported: “It grants skilled workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are sick, quarantined or seeking a diagnosis or preventive care for the coronavirus, or if they are caring for members of It provides 12 weeks of paid leave for people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose childcare provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus.”

Checks by mail

As of Thursday night, a $500 billion proposal to send money directly to taxpayers was under consideration in Washington. The plan requests that checks be mailed in early April and again in mid-May. Details are yet to be determined.

Putting money directly into people’s hands, rather than cutting taxes, would help some people with immediate needs, like paying rent. Ugly could rise to $1,200 per adult, and more for those with dependent children, under a Senate Republican plan introduced Thursday night.

Above certain income levels, the checks would be smaller or eliminated, and those with little or no tax payable would receive half the amount, under this plan. Low-tax adult retirees, for example, could get $600 each instead of $1,200.

Rent and mortgages

The SC Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a halt to foreclosures statewideincluding an indefinite moratorium on foreclosure hearings, sales of seized property and other court orders forcing people to leave their homes.

Chief Justice Donald Beatty’s edict follows a freeze on all evictions in South Carolina through May 1.

The federal government also announced on Wednesday a 60-day moratorium on foreclosures and evictions involving all single-family mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

Additionally, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which underwrite about half of all home loans in the United States — federal regulators have ordered lenders to reduce or suspend mortgage payments for up to 12 months for borrowers who have lost income, NPR reported Thursday.

State and federal orders could give people who can’t pay their rent or mortgage some time to seek financial solutions. The time, for example, to wait for those checks that the government could send.

Unemployment assistance

Southern states have the least generous unemployment benefits in the country, and South Carolina is no exception, with a maximum weekly benefit of $326. This is pre-tax, for no more than 20 weeks – less if an employer claims the displaced worker is in any way responsible for their job loss.

The state unemployment system was designed for years to cut costs for employers, making it a weak safety net for employees. It’s better than nothing, and if you’re one of the many suddenly unemployed, apply as soon as possible at dew.sc.gov.

One bright spot is that the one-week waiting period to file unemployment claims in South Carolina has been removed. Additionally, businesses will get a break, with no unemployment tax due until June 1.

Under the Coronavirus Response Act, the federal government provide money to states who are seeing large increases in jobless claims. The money can be used by eligible states to provide extended benefits, paid for 100% with federal funding.

Student loans

Friday the US Department of Education announced“All borrowers with student loans held by the federal government will automatically have their interest rates set at 0% for a period of at least 60 days. In addition, each of these borrowers will have the option of suspending their payments for at least two months to allow them greater flexibility during the national emergency. This will allow borrowers to temporarily stop their payments without worrying about the interest to be paid.”

For more details, visit StudentAid.gov/coronavirus.

President donald trump reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Greece’s economic recovery at the White House on Tuesday, a meeting that allowed the country’s prime minister to brush aside crude comments he made about Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Trump, along with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, said Greece had “been through a lot” during its long period of economic hardship, but vowed the United States would stand firm as the country carries out its debt relief plan.

“The American people stand with the people of Greece as they recover from the economic crisis that has recently afflicted their nation,” Trump said alongside Tsipras in the Rose Garden. He added, “A strong and thriving Greece offers immense opportunities for American trade, investment, and job creation.”

Greece has relied on international bailouts since 2010 to deal with the difficulties encountered during the recent economic downturn. In return, the country imposed painful spending cuts, tax hikes and reforms.

Eurozone officials said Greece and its European creditors were on track to complete bailout talks for a “clean exit” from tight fiscal watch.

At a joint press conference, Tsipras was asked about his scathing statement about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, when the leftist Greek leader warned that Trump represented a set of “evil” ideas.

Tsipras smiled and laughed after being asked about his comments, prompting Trump to joke: “I wish I had known that before my speech.”

The talks focused heavily on economic ties, energy and defence. Tsipras said his country had made economic progress and was “leaving behind the economic model that led to the crisis”.

Trump, for his part, noted that Greece is among NATO members spending at least 2% of its gross domestic product on the military, a key request from the US president. He also cited a potential $2.4billion (£1.8billion) aircraft sale to Greece to upgrade its F-16 fighters, which he said would generate thousands of jobs for the states -United.

Greece is emerging from an eight-year financial crisis, with the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and others forecasting a return to growth this year. With major privatizations still on the government’s agenda and a gradual return to bond markets expected over the next year, Greece is keen to attract US investors.

The meeting allowed the two leaders to put aside the past. Asset tweeted in 2012 that Greece should leave the euro and return to its own currency, adding: “They are just wasting time”. But this time he praised Greece’s efforts to recover: “They are doing a great job of coming back.”

Greece should exit the euro and return to its own currency – it’s just wasting time.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012

There is light at the end of the tunnel for Morris Brown College after settling a $4 million debt with the African Methodist Episcopal Church Monday night. The AME Church General Council Executive Committee’s vote to cancel the debt, along with the interest owed, improves HBCU’s chances of recovering its credential, who was revoked in the early 2000s following financial mismanagement.

The relief is part of an agreement that will require Morris Brown College to create a $1.5 million scholarship program for members of the AME church. The scholarship criteria have not yet been finalized, but AME scholarship students are expected to start enrolling in 2021.

“An integral part of the credentialing process is going through our audits, and this debt was hindering audits, so this discount definitely affects the credentialing process in a positive way,” said Kevin E. James, acting president of Morris Brown College. .

The 139-year-old college has continued to educate graduate students despite losing accreditation nearly two decades ago, but with students unable to receive federal financial aid, enrollment has plummeted and the school struggles with debts, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2011. James said financial assistance from the AME Church is essential. “We wouldn’t be open without the church,” James said. “Debt forgiveness is an essential part of the accreditation process.” The school began seeking accreditation from the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS), a national education accrediting agency based in Virginia, in early 2019.

Photo courtesy of Morris Brown College

“With AME Church being one of the largest black denominations in the world, this will help us rebuild our registration. It’s a huge win for both parties,” says James, who has made restoring accreditation a priority since taking office in March last year.

Morris Brown received more good news last fall when the National Park Service awarded the school a $500,000 grant to renovate Fountain Hall, a tower on campus that once housed the office of the historian and civil rights activist WEB Du Bois.

Restoring the school’s accreditation will allow many more students to graduate according to James, who said there are currently 35 students taking courses on campus and online. The school recently launched a call for volunteer teachers via Facebook, the only criteria being advanced degrees, and has since received hundreds of emails and resumes from alumni and non-alumni looking to help.

“I anticipate that once we apply for accreditation and eventually get accredited, more students will come,” says James.

UK bolsters IMF Disaster Relief Fund with £150m

March 11, 2020

Washington, DC – March 11, 2020
The UK today announced a package of measures to respond to the economic challenges of coronavirus, including that it will pay £150 million to the International Monetary Fund

Disaster Relief and Containment Trust

(CCRT), which provides debt relief for countries affected by catastrophic events, including public health disasters. The contribution will take the form of a £75m grant directly to the trust, plus an additional £75m allocated to the budget and based on demand.

“I welcome the economic and fiscal measures announced in the UK government’s budget statement to address the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Coordinated monetary and fiscal policy measures will help alleviate health concerns and help people households and businesses to overcome the economic challenges facing the country,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. The Managing Director also welcomed the announcement that HM Treasury would conduct a review of the fiscal framework. from the United Kingdom.

The Director General particularly welcomed the support of the United Kingdom to the CCRT. “This contribution represents a most welcome response to

the call of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) to members
provide the support needed to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus crisis, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable countries. I urge other member countries to follow the UK’s leadership in contributing to the CCRT. By working together, we can overcome the global challenge we face and restore growth and prosperity for all.

The CCRT enables the IMF to support international debt relief efforts when poor countries are hit by natural disasters and to help poor countries struggling with public health crises – such as epidemics like the coronavirus – with grants for debt service relief. Last week Mrs Georgieva called the

international community to help rebuild the CCRT
which only had $200 million for the world’s poorest countries.

A Cincinnati megachurch announced on Sunday that it was paying off $46.5 million in medical debt for more than 45,000 families.

Crossroads Church has partnered with RIP Medical Debt, a non-profit medical debt relief organization, to erase the debts of people from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana. They will receive bright yellow envelopes this week informing them of the good news.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT FLOODED WITH LETTERS OF SUPPORT AFTER BEING REJECTED FROM CHRISTIAN CLUB ON CAMPUS

“Churches are at their best when we are a blessing to real people in our communities,” Senior Pastor Brian Tome told Fox News on Thursday. “We’re not here to have big meetings on Sundays.”

Tome spoke to his congregation about “the opportunity to multiply our impact” during a November 23 Sermon“They’ll get a letter saying, ‘Congratulations, your debt has been paid because someone loves you and there’s a God who hasn’t forgotten you.'”

On Sunday, the pastor read aloud a message from one of the lucky recipients.

OHIO CHURCH REFUNDS STUDENT LUNCH DEBT FROM 11 SCHOOL DISTRICTS

“I got this mail in this bright yellow envelope and started throwing it away,” the pastor read. “But when I saw that it said your medical debt was paid, I thought, ‘seriously, wait a minute.’ When I read it, I was moved – the person continued – because I needed a break so badly to collect my credit. I really appreciate the gift.

The church erased the debt of 41,233 households in Ohio for a total of $42.8 million, 2,974 households in Kentucky canceled $1.9 million in debt, 503 households in Tennessee for $1.5 million dollars and 136 Indiana homes for $200,000. FOX 19 reports.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FAITH STORIES

For every $100 donated to RIP Medical Debt, $10,000 of medical debt is erased, according to the New York-based organization.

Crossroads Church’s recent act constitutes the largest amount of medical debt eliminated in the nonprofit’s history.

What is debt restructuring?

Debt restructuring is a process used by companies, individuals and even countries to avoid the risk of default on their existing debts, for example by negotiating lower interest rates. Debt restructuring offers a less costly alternative to bankruptcy when a debtor is in financial difficulty, and this can benefit both the borrower and the lender.

How Debt Restructuring Works

Some companies seek to restructure their debt when faced with the prospect of bankruptcy. The process of debt restructuring typically involves lenders agreeing to reduce interest rates on loans, extend the dates by which the company’s debts are due, or both. These measures improve the company’s chances of repaying its obligations and staying in business. Creditors understand that they would receive even less if the company were to declare bankruptcy or liquidation.

Debt restructuring can be a win-win situation for both parties, as the company avoids bankruptcy and lenders usually receive more than they would have received in bankruptcy proceedings.

The process works much the same for individuals and for nations, although on very different scales.

Types of debt restructuring

Debt restructuring for companies

Companies have several tools to restructure their debts. One is one debt-for-equity swap. This occurs when creditors agree to cancel some or all of a company’s outstanding debts in exchange for shares (ownership) in the company. The swap is usually a preferred option when the company’s outstanding debt and assets are large and forcing the company out of business would be counterproductive. Creditors prefer to take control of the troubled business, if necessary, as a permanent concern.

A company seeking to restructure its debt could also renegotiate with its bondholders to “take a Haircut“- which means that part of the unpaid interest payments will be written off or part of the balance will not be refunded.

A company will often issue callable bonds to protect himself from a situation in which he cannot make his interest payments. A bond with a callable feature can be redeemed early by the issuer in times of falling interest rates. This allows the issuer to restructure debt in the future, as existing debt can be replaced with new debt at a lower interest rate.

Country debt restructuring

Countries may face payment defaults on their sovereign debt, and this has been the case throughout history. In modern times, some countries choose to restructure their debt with bondholders. This may mean transferring debt from the private sector to public sector institutions that may be better able to handle the impact of a country’s default.

Sovereign bondholders may also have to accept a discount by agreeing to accept a reduced percentage of what is owed to them, perhaps 25% of the total value of their bonds. The due dates on the bonds can also be extended, giving the government issuer more time to secure the funds it needs to repay its bondholders.

Unfortunately, this type of debt restructuring is not subject to much international scrutiny, even when restructuring efforts cross borders.

Debt restructuring for individuals

People facing insolvency can try to renegotiate terms with their creditors and the tax authorities. For example, someone unable to continue making payments on a $250,000 mortgage could make an agreement with the lending institution to reduce the mortgage to 75%, or $187,500 (75% x $250,000 = 187 $500). In return, the lender could receive 40% of the sale proceeds of the house when it is sold by the mortgagor.

Individuals can attempt to negotiate on their own or with the help of a reputable debt relief company. This is an area rife with scams, so they need to make sure they know who they are implicating. Investopedia publishes a regularly updated list of best debt relief companies.

Bank spokesperson Songezo Zibi says customers who have not received the SMS can call the bank directly.

Absa has joined other banks in offering payment holidays to its customers.

In a statement on Sunday, the bank said the comprehensive program for customers, businesses and businesses incorporated a three-month payment holiday and allowed customers in need of short-term financial relief to lower their monthly payments. .

Speaking to Eusebius McKaiser, Absa’s head of communications, Songezo Zibi, said they were sending batch SMS to their customers.

RELATED: “We need a response and intervention from the banking sector in the face of COVID-19”

What we have decided to do is recognize all forms of our customers’ debt and not limit it to a certain income group of certain types of products.

Songezo Zibi, Communications Manager – Absa

RELATED: “It appears that the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a global recession”

If you are affected by COVID-19, you would likely qualify for debt relief where you would be able to pay less for the next three months or pay nothing for the next three months.

Songezo Zibi, Communication Manager – Absa Bank

The idea is that we text you and you sign up, so if you feel you can handle it for now, you can just ignore the text. You can also call us if you can’t wait for the SMS.

Songezo Zibi, Communications Manager – Absa

Listen to the full interview below…

More information on the Covid-19 coronavirus

CHICAGO, October 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Local, regional and national leaders of the United Church of Christ announcement October 20 that church donations have wiped out $5.3 million medical debt for 5,888 South Side Chicago families. Families in three postcodes now receive letters telling them that their debt, on average $907has been forgiven.

During a press conference and a celebration in Trinity UCC which included national and UCC Conference representatives, church leaders said the project focused on ZIP Codes 60621, 60628 and 60636. Church bodies raised $38,000 during the summer, then worked with the New Yorknon-profit RIP medical debt to buy the debt at pennies on the dollar. In addition to Trinity UCC and two larger UCC agencies — Justice and local church ministries and the Illinois Conference — generous contributors included UCC of Saint-Paul of Chicago, UCC Pact of South Holland, Illinois.and The network of leadersa consortium of Baptist churches serving Chicago neighborhoods on the west side.

The urban neighborhoods were chosen because of their demographics, the Reverend said. Traci BlackmonUCC National Assistant General Minister for Justice and Local Church Ministries.

“Today we thank all supporters of this beautiful vision,” said Reverend Dr. Otis Moss III, senior pastor of Trinity UCC, major contributor to the congregation. “Thanks to your generosity, thousands of families in Chicago will now be free to pursue their dreams and celebrate this holiday season without the weight of medical debt.”

“When medical debt piles up, families have to make difficult financial decisions, sometimes cutting back on food, clothing or other basics,” said Reverend Justo González II, acting minister of the Conference of Health. ‘Illinois.

“The talent, time and treasure of the church have touched a basic need of people without means, or an impossible outcome,” said Reverend Dr. Ozzie Smith Jr., Senior Pastor of Covenant UCC. “Praise God for faithful collaborative efforts!”

“Saint Pauls is so happy to be a part of this effort,” said its lead pastor, the Rev. Matt Fitzgerald. “It’s like Jesus feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and two fish. We just watched $38,000 become more than $5 million.”

Blackmon also announced that the UCC is planning a similar campaign across the denomination on Giving Tuesday, December 3. Updates on this project are available at this page on the UCC website.

“Our efforts in the Chicago serve as the launch pad, in conjunction with all 38 UCC conferences and nearly 5,000 congregations, of medical debt relief efforts for those living in poverty or below in the 44 states we currently serve Blackmon said. “We view this ministry as one that also embodies what it means to love God, to love our neighbors and to proclaim the Good News to the poor, whether they worship in our churches or not.”

Fact sheets on the impact of medical debt relief are available this section from the UCC website.

The United Church of Christ, a primary Protestant denomination, has nearly 900,000 members and 5,000 congregations nationwide. Based at Cleveland, it is a church of many firsts: the first major denomination to ordain a woman, the first to ordain an openly gay man, and the first predominantly white denomination to ordain an African American. More information on the UCC Ministries of Justice is here.

contacts:

• Connie LarkmanUCC news director, Cleveland216-736-2196, [email protected]
• Donna L. HammondUCC Trinity, Chicago773-738-7989, [email protected]
• On October 20: Hans HolznagelUCC news team, 216-375-8776, [email protected]

SOURCE United Church of Christ

Related links

http://www.ucc.org

Kiatnakin Phatra Financial Group (KKP) expects its non-performing loan (NPL) ratio to rise this quarter after the expiry of the Bank of Thailand’s debt restructuring measures in October.

The NPL ratio is expected to increase significantly this quarter given the lag following the end of the first phase of the central bank’s debt relief measure for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the director said. General of KKP, Aphinant Klewpatinond.

The central bank implemented large-scale debt relief measures on April 23 to help SMEs recover from the fallout of the pandemic, but the measures expired on October 22.

The Bank of Thailand has also put in place targeted debt moratorium measures to help SMEs in financial difficulty, which are due to end on June 30, 2021. This program is intended for SMEs with a credit line of less than 100 million baht who are having difficulty repaying loans to financial institutions because their operations have collapsed.

KKP will continue to help customers restructure their debt this year, especially retailers, as its retail loan portfolio accounts for the largest portion of the bank’s total outstanding loans, Aphinant said.

KKP’s gross NPL ratio stood at 2.9% of total outstanding loans at the end of 2020, compared to 4% recorded in 2019. KKP aims to control distressed debt at less than 4, 5% of total outstanding loans this year, despite a second wave of the pandemic in Thailand.

“Although NPLs are expected to increase, the bank does not need to set a large amount of loan loss reserves as we have a strong cushion from previous provisions,” he said.

Around 200,000 retail customers applied for the bank’s debt restructuring program in 2020, with the combined loans accounting for 40% of KKP’s total loan portfolio. All candidates managed to exit the system in December, in line with a gradual economic recovery.

With the second wave at the end of last year, around 10,000 retail customers applied for the second phase of debt restructuring starting in January.

KKP has reserved a total loan portfolio of 268 billion baht in 2020, of which 168 billion or 62.7% were retail loans. The bank recorded total loan expansion of 12.4%, including 15.8% for retail loan growth, while the NPL for retail loans stood at 1.6%.

Given the higher downside risks and low interest rates, KKP expects to balance banking, wealth management and investment banking this year.

Student debt is not just a student problem. In the United States, many parents are also struggling with the burden of student loans.

A recent survey by Freedom Debt Relief found that 37% of 1,506 American adults said the cost of their children’s college education made them feel financially overwhelmed. And 20% said stress contributed to mental or emotional health issues.

More than 40% said education costs had affected their retirement plan, with 31% saying they had “given up on retiring when they initially wanted to”.

Yahoo Finance spoke with a relative in a particularly difficult student loan situation: a 60-year-old factory worker from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who had co-signed a loan for his son. (The man, who we’ll call Frank, requested anonymity to protect his son.)

“It’s not nice for a hard-working middle-class family”

Frank’s student debt experience began when his son entered college. As a “working-class, middle-class family” earning around $75,000 a year, Frank and his son began borrowing.

The son fell seriously ill after attending school for a year and a half and dropped out. After his health improved, the son decided to resume his studies at another school. All the while, father and son continued to borrow.

Expenses began to mount: the family had a refinanced mortgage and credit card debt, as well as home and auto insurance to pay. On top of that, they had recurring medical bills. And there was the possibility of more children going to college.

“[With] some of my bills, I was barely able to help myself,” Frank said.

Eventually the son dropped out of the second school due to a combination of illness and circumstances. But the lenders were at the door: Frank’s son owed more than $100,000 in federal and private student loans.

“So here we are, he’s out of school, Sallie Mae and everyone else wants their money,” Frank said. “Without a diploma, and without going to school full time, there is no longer any delay. No chance of consolidation, nothing.

The story continues

Frank’s credit rating has suffered since he used his credit cards to pay for his son’s college expenses. And every loan he took out came with a higher interest rate – from 9% to 12% – making the situation even worse. Frank began withdrawing money from his 401k, sacrificing his own retirement fund to ease the pressure of student debt.

He described the burden as both financial and emotional. The son is “so depressed and [we] are heartbroken for him,” he said. But “I think now I work until I’m 75. … It’s not nice for a hard-working, middle-class family.”

“Go to a school you can afford”

It’s not just parents: Parents are also being dragged into student debt, according to Tayne Law Group founder Leslie H. Tayne.

“I also see a lot of people co-signing loans for other family members thinking they’re trying to do the right thing and help them with their education,” Tayne said, relying on on his experience in New York and Florida, at Yahoo Finance. “And it’s uncles, cousins, friends or relatives or boyfriend, girlfriend, things like that. And these are people who really have their hearts in the right place, and they’re trying to help.

While Tayne has sympathy for family members in sticky situations like Frank, she pointed out that sometimes parents have to avoid going into debt to fund a child’s college.

“Student loans are not predatory,” she said. “They don’t come after you to give you the loan – you go to them because you want to go to a school you can’t afford. And by choosing to go to a school you can’t afford, you have to borrow money. There are plenty of options for going to a school that you can afford.

—

Aarthi is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.

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(Agence Ecofin) – On November 30, the organization of the G5 Sahel countries held a summit by videoconference with the European Union (EU) to discuss the problems of the region. The meeting was also attended by the UN and the African Union.

On the program were mainly the covid-19 pandemic and its impact on populations, the issue of debt, and the eternal security problem that undermines the region.

Welcoming the opening of discussions with the EU within the framework of its new strategy for the Sahel, the various Heads of State of the five member countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad) pleaded for an intensification the efforts of European countries to set up various military programs to secure the Sahel. The new Takuba mission is included. Burkinabé President Roch Kaboré has called for its full operationalization.

G5 Sahel leaders also recalled how their economies have been affected by covid-19. There are at least 19,166 cases in total, according to the latest WHO assessment.

In line with their April appeal, they called on foreign countries, especially those in the EU, to improve their support to G5 Sahel governments through debt relief initiatives. In this regard, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh el-Ghazouani, also current president of the G5 Sahel, recalled “the need to cancel the debt of the G5 Sahel countries, the weight of which is becoming too heavy”. […] and which is a real socio-economic imperative, as we strongly underlined in the Nouakchott Appeal of last April.

According to Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou, “support from the European Union in this area will be a strong signal to other bilateral and multilateral partners who will not hesitate to follow suit”.

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou

The Zambian government has announced an agreement with the China Development Bank (CDB) to defer repayment of a loan that matured in October 2020. The terms of the agreement provide for a suspension of interest payments for six months, the interest payments due to resume in April. 2021. The principal due has also been deferred and will be rescheduled over the entire term of the loan. Chinese lenders aren’t known for their flexibility, so the deal comes as a welcome shock.

I am happy to hear that the China Development Bank has entered into a debt deferral agreement with Zambia. This fully shows that in addition to official creditors, other Chinese financial institutions are also actively solving the debt problem of Zambia and other African countries.

The government, however, did not disclose the extent of the debt or the amount involved. There is still uncertainty as to whether this agreement covers the entire CBD loan or a percentage of it.

China is one of Zambia’s largest creditors with 25% of Zambia’s debt owed to China.

This year has been particularly stressful for Zambia as it also missed a deadline for the repayment of the $42.5 million Eurobond debt. The country is currently in a 30-day grace period. The country’s government is appealing to Eurobond holders for a similar deferment deal, but there is no joy in that regard yet.

The meeting at which Eurobond holders are expected to vote on the Zambian debt postponement is set to take place on Nov. 13 after last month’s postponement. At the last meeting, 40% of Zambia’s creditors chose to abstain from voting. Some analysts believe the secrecy surrounding China’s debt is a major contributing factor to Zambia’s failure to secure a reprieve for Eurobond holders. More clarity on the amount and interest of Zambia’s debt to China in order to have a clear picture of the risks involved. Bondholders are wary of a suspension only to find themselves funding Zambia’s repayments to China.

To compound the country’s woes, last month Zambia’s currency rating was downgraded by S&P to “selective default”.

The country, on the brink of crisis, owes nearly US$12 billion. Of this figure, US$3 billion includes Eurobonds while US$3.5 billion is owed to bilateral lenders. In addition, there is US$2.9 billion in commercial debt and multilateral lenders owe US$2.1 billion.

Zambia in crisis as debt rises as GDP stalls

The country’s president, Edgar Lungu, reportedly told the media that he was having sleepless nights because of the debt situation.

Zambia’s debt crisis further highlights the problem associated with the high cost of borrowing associated with an African label. Furthermore, Chinese loans, which in some quarters have been described as a debt trap, create an additional problem in the debt market as they have not been fully disclosed. The COVID pandemic has accelerated Zambia’s debt dilemma by putting unexpected pressure on government spending.

Zambia’s aggressive debt-financed campaign to improve infrastructure may have failed. As the country continues to find solutions to its debt crises, it remains to be seen whether debt relief of this nature can prove to be a solution to the country’s debt crisis.

The organization was founded in Bradford, Yorkshire in August 1996 and works with a network of churches.

It undertakes that its services are accessible to all, without distinction of religion or belief.

Over the past decade, the charity has helped more than 20,000 people pay off their debts. In addition to the United Kingdom, the organization is also established in Australia, the United States and Canada.

Mr. Kirkby had worked in the financial sector before founding CAP and was able to use his expertise to help people trapped in debt, negotiate with creditors and set up budgeting systems.

The charity now offers debt advice, money management, job clubs, life skills groups and support for people breaking the habits that control their lives.

Mr. Kirkby will officially step down at the end of June.

He and his wife Lizzie are expected to take a sabbatical over the summer as they consider possible future projects.

The Very Reverend Justin Welby said, “John’s religious conviction and passion for financial justice has been the driving force behind an organization that has grown exponentially since its inception and has helped thousands of people break free from poverty. debt jail.

He added: “I would like to offer my prayers and warmest wishes to John as he leaves office with Christians Against Poverty, which he founded 25 years ago this year. I hold both John and Lizzie in my prayers as they embark on their next call and I remain honored to be part of the organization.

Mr Kirkby said: “I am delighted to see the organization that CAP is today and know wholeheartedly that I have fulfilled the role I was called here to perform.

“I see an organization made up of people strong in mission and faith, ignited with passion and overflowing with compassion for those they help.”

Paula Stringer, CAP’s UK Managing Director, said: “There is no doubt that John’s personal commitment and sacrifices over the past 25 years have truly saved the lives of countless people in the UK and around the world. of the.

BY JESSICA PARKS

Undocumented immigrants in Brooklyn face high rates of exposure to the novel coronavirus and few options for financial assistance as their conditions worsen amid the ongoing pandemic.

“This is already a very vulnerable and disenfranchised population,” said Janet Perez, program director at Mixteca Organization Inc, which works with immigrant families. “With the coronavirus and the spread, especially for people who have been deemed essential workers, I think a lot of conditions have been exacerbated.”

The Greenwood Heights community organization has been supporting undocumented immigrants in the area for years – but has since expanded its coverage area to serve families as far away as Connecticut and New Jersey due to the growing situation. more disastrous caused by the pandemic.

Undocumented immigrants make up about 6.3% of Brooklyn’s population, immigration research group says Partnership for a New American Economy, and many are employed in industries deemed essential, such as delivery people, catering and construction, which puts them at increased risk of contracting the virus.

“A lot of community members work in delivery,” Perez said. “For public companies, they have to deal with the new conditions because it is their only means of income.

Compounding the problem, Perez said many of the city’s undocumented immigrants don’t have proper insurance and don’t have easy access to a doctor in case they have serious symptoms.

“A lot of the families we’re seeing right now are already underinsured and uninsured,” Perez said. “Even being able to provide or have access to a doctor is already a huge hurdle for them to start with.”

Perez and his team advise families to consult the city’s hotline, 311, which can connect individuals with a NYC health clinician and hospitals – but that hotline is overwhelmed. , leading to excruciatingly long waits for help, she said.

“The 311 line is heavily, heavily saturated right now,” Perez said. “And so it definitely becomes a waiting game for them to get their hands on the doctor or some kind of commission that will be able to help them manage the symptoms or get their questions answered.”

Some families served by Mixteca who have visited hospitals have been turned away for not showing sufficiently severe symptoms and are instead treating themselves at home — where they often succumb to the disease, Perez said.

“A lot of them have decided to self-medicate and try to manage at home,” Perez said. “It has created a domino effect, as many fail to take care of their condition and die at home.”

In some situations, infected family members choose to isolate themselves from the rest of their family. This often means finding alternative housing, as immigrants’ often cramped quarters — which can span multiple generations, even multiple families — don’t provide appropriate distancing space.

“Many undocumented families find ways to survive, they rent rooms,” Perez said. “There can certainly be several families in the same place, often multi-generational. We see a lot of it. »

To make matters worse, many undocumented immigrants are spending the rest of their savings to survive, according to Perez, who noted that non-citizens are not eligible for unemployment benefits, as well as $1,200 stimulus checks. granted by the federal government. coronavirus relief package.

“Many families use their savings as a last resort,” Perez said. “They’re not eligible for any relief, any stimulus package, which puts them at an even greater disadvantage because they’re not getting any kind of help.”

Perez said many organizations like his are preparing relief funds in an effort to provide support to families suffering during the pandemic.

“A lot of local nonprofits have tried to step up. A lot of them are trying, like us, to set up emergency relief funds,” Perez said. there is no type of relief fund at the state, city or federal level, we found ourselves organizing to get at least some sort of economic support for them.

Donations can be made to the Mixteca Organization Emergency Relief Fund here. Families in need of economic support can apply for assistance here.

This story first appeared on brooklynpaper.com.

Four months have passed since the first — and possibly the last — federal stimulus package during the COVID-19 crisis, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warns Mitch McConnell’s usual Senate politics threaten further relief from Washington.

At a press conference on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez suggested there should have been multiple stimulus bills at this point in the crisis to bring local economies to their knees, but she believes the majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has extra help to coerce Democrats into doing something they might not otherwise favor.

“Right now we’re on the edge of a precipice, if we think things are heating up right now in New York in terms of crime, the $600 pandemic unemployment benefit should expire in about two weeks. It’s a ticking time bomb,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “My reading of the tea leaves is that Mitch McConnell is intentionally waiting for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance to expire to increase his influence on people’s lives.”

According to the Queens/Bronx Democrat, the Republican senator from Kentucky has given no indication to other political leaders in the nation’s capital about when he plans to introduce the HEROES Act in the Senate, and under what circumstances he would agree to do so. TO DO.

In the past, McConnell has called the HEROES Act a “blue state bailout” due to New York, New Jersey and other Democratic states posting high numbers of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths.

Since then the numbers have changed as Arizona, Texas and Florida are epicenters of the virus along with California which has returned to lockdown orders.

Without additional help from Washington, the AOC believes the state must then step in and provide it — and should tax the wealthy to pay.

“If Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump choose to starve the American people in the midst of a pandemic, I believe the state has a responsibility to act. We should raise taxes on our millionaires in New York State to raise the crucial funds needed to provide needed relief,” she continued. “Now we’re in a situation where we really, really have to get something done in the next two weeks. He may be trying to position the Democrats to swallow some poison pill he wants to push through.

That poison pill could take a form similar to the corporate bailout that was attached to the CARES Act toward the end of March, Ocasio-Cortez said.

While $292 billion of the $2 trillion CARES Act went to individuals in the form of $1,200 and unemployment assistance, up to $257 billion went to companies such as Boing and major banking institutions.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, for example, received $3.8 billion; only about half of what they need to get through 2020 at this rate to avoid a $10 billion deficit.

Meanwhile, local governments such as New York City were forced into deep budget cuts while the state offered them permission to take out loans to cover operating costs.

Posted on May 29, 2020, 7:14 p.m. by

The Maritime Executive

After years of battling oversupply and weak demand, businesses in the OSV market are now being further challenged by the economic downturn due to the global pandemic.

Siem Offshore, which operates a fleet of 35 vessels serving the oil and gas industry, announced that it has reached a standstill agreement with its secured lenders in Europe and Norway to defer payments until April 30, 2021, as first step towards improving cash flow and liquidity to sustain operations.

In February, Siem warned that in the fifth year of a depressed market, and with increasing pressures resulting from the impact of COVID-19, the company’s existing agreements with its lenders for repayment of debt were “unsustainable under current market conditions and with the level of revenue expected in the future.

Although it has taken significant steps to reduce its debt over the past five years, Siem warned that with a recovery in its market taking longer than expected, “it is very uncertain when rates will chartering will provide sufficient revenue to service the debt in full”. They said they were seeking relief from lenders on servicing its debt for the next two years.

The agreement reached with executives in Europe and Norway provides for an 11-month deferral of principal and interest payments, includes a waiver of financial covenants and loan-to-value provisions.

The deal, however, is only a first step as it is conditional on similar ongoing discussions with secured lenders in Brazil and Canada. Siem must also obtain approval from its bondholders to defer payments and suspend their acceleration rights.

According to the company, the standstill agreement will improve its cash flow and liquidity and ensure sufficient liquidity to continue operations during the current offshore market downturn.

Siem Offshore’s fleet includes large anchor handling tug supply vessels, platform supply vessels, multi-purpose field and ROV support vessels and offshore subsea construction vessels.

People who take formal insolvency action, such as bankruptcy or a voluntary arrangement to repay their debt, are added to the individual insolvency register, which means they are formally indebted.

Data from the Insolvency Service shows 571 people went into debt in Southampton in 2019.

At last count, the insolvency rate for women was 32.3 per 10,000 adults – higher than the rate of 24.6 for men.

Of those who were in debt in Southampton, 379 entered into an individual voluntary agreement with their creditors to repay their debts, while 90 went bankrupt.

Another 102 people applied for a debt relief order, at a rate of 7.5 women per 10,000 adults versus 2.7 men.

A debt relief order can be used by people who owe up to £20,000 and have no assets of value. It allows those who cannot afford to pay their debt to stop paying it for a period, usually 12 months, after which the debt is forgiven.

In England and Wales, 121,900 people were insolvent in 2019, which equates to a rate of 27.8 insolvencies per 10,000 adults for women and 24.1 for men.

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the Women’s Budget Group, said: ‘The reason why a higher proportion of women were insolvent is that women do the majority of the unpaid work, which means they have less time for paid work, so they earn less, own less and are more likely to be poor.

“In particular, women make up 90% of single parents who are particularly likely to live in poverty.”

She added that women were more likely to have been affected by the pandemic as they were at greater risk of being furloughed or working in sectors hard hit by job losses, such as retail. in the shopping streets.

The charity Citizens Advice estimates around one in seven people across the country have fallen behind on their bills during the pandemic.

A spokesperson said: “The number of people Citizens Advice is helping to pay off debt is growing as economic hardship worsens and protections for those unable to pay essential bills have weakened since the first lockdown. .”

University of Phoenix is ​​paying a record $191 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit accusing the for-profit university of using deceptive ads to lure students with the promise of future job opportunities with major companies such as AT&T, Adobe, Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo.

The settlement includes a plan to cancel $141 million in student debt owed to the school by people who enrolled from October 2012 through the end of 2016 — the period in which the FTC says prospective students could have been fooled.

Court documents establishing the settlement give the University of Phoenix and its parent company, Apollo Education Group, 15 business days to send an email and letter to eligible students, informing them that they are covered by the agreement. . The second paragraph of the letter reads as follows:

“You no longer owe the University of Phoenix any more money. You don’t have to do anything to get this relief. Your account balance will be cleared within 45 business days.”

The letter also says the school has 55 business days to tell credit reporting agencies to remove the debt from student credit reports.

The FTC says the university incorrectly suggested it worked closely with leading companies to develop its courses. And it is said that the school’s “Let’s Get to Work” advertising campaign was an example of how it fostered relationships with potential employers.

In one video from this campaign, a UOP student is seen driving through a school parking lot, passing spots filled with the iconic logos of successful businesses.

The FTC accused the university to “give the false impression that UOP has worked with these companies to create employment opportunities for its students and to tailor its curriculum to those jobs”.

The remaining $50 million in the settlement will be paid in cash, which the FTC says “will be used for consumer redress.”

The University of Phoenix has successfully targeted minorities, military veterans, service members and their spouses for enrollment, the FTC said, calling the University of Phoenix “the biggest recipient of benefits from the GI Post bill. -9/11 since the inception of the program”.

“The University of Phoenix once had nearly half a million students,” reports NPR education correspondent Anya Kamenetz, “but enrollment has fallen sharply over the past decade amid several investigations, lawsuits and controversies”.

The University of Phoenix says it enrolled nearly 100,000 students in 2018.

Kamenetz adds that while the FTC settlement includes debt forgiveness, it only covers debts owed to the college — not money students owe on federal or private loans. To clear these balances, students should apply for loan forgiveness through the borrower defense repayment program.

As part of the settlement, the university has neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing alleged in the federal complaint.

This is the most significant settlement the FTC has obtained against a for-profit school, said Andrew Smith, director of the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau. In a statement announcing the deal, Smith added, “Students making important decisions about their education need facts, not imaginary job opportunities that don’t exist.”

In response to the FTC settlement, the University of Phoenix released a fact sheet touting both its accomplishments and its commitments to improve. In it, the school says it spent 17% of its total fiscal year 2018 expenses on marketing expenses. The fact sheet ends with a section titled “We are committed to responsible marketing”.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To learn more, visit https://www.npr.org.

• Senator Elizabeth Warren on Thursday called on President-elect Joe Biden to write off much of the student debt without Congress.
• “This is the most effective executive action available for massive economic stimulus,” she wrote in a tweet.
• Warren and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer presented a plan in September that the president had the power to write off student debt by directing the education secretary to do so.
• Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.

Senator Elizabeth Warren said Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden should write off a significant portion of student debt without Congress, arguing it could be a powerful economic stimulus.

“Biden-Harris can write off billions of dollars in student loan debt, giving tens of millions of Americans an immediate financial boost and helping to close the racial wealth gap,” the Massachusetts senator wrote in a tweet. “This is the most effective executive action available for massive economic stimulus.”

—Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 12, 2020

The tweet was one of many identifiers executive actions that the new Biden administration could take on on its own. Other measures she identified were:

• Lower drug prices by using federal authority to circumvent patents to produce drugs such as insulin.
• Stricter workplace safety regulations.
• A $15 minimum wage for federal contractors.

Warren said in a Washington Post op-ed published on Thursday that the success of several progressive ballot initiatives such as Florida’s $15 hourly wage indicated that large swathes of the public support the measures.

“Bold policies aimed at improving opportunities for all Americans are widely popular,” she wrote. “Voters recognize that these reforms are needed to fix what is broken in our country.”

A pair of Senate runoff races in Georgia in January will decide which party controls the Senate. If Republicans retain control of the chamber, it may be difficult for Biden to achieve many elements of his platform, such as tax increases for the wealthy and businesses. That prospect has raised concerns among Democrats that Republicans could thwart Biden’s leadership next year.

Warren and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Senate Minority Leader, sketched out a plan in September, which indicated that the president had the power to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt per borrower. Schumer stated in a recent interview that the move could be part of Biden’s first 100 days in office.

During this year’s Democratic primaries, Warren said she could use executive power start canceling student debt if she won the presidency. She cited an analysis Harvard University researchers indicating that the president could direct the Secretary of Education to cancel student debt on a “broad or categorical basis”.

Biden has offered to forgive $10,000 in student debt for borrowers under coronavirus relief package.

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Last weekend, the Group of 20 (G20) held its Mountain peak in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Leaders of the world’s biggest economies have met virtually to discuss the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which triggered the worst recession since World War II. The meeting followed the announcement by the G20 of new lame proposals to respond to the impending debt crisis.

The economic fallout from the pandemic has pushed many countries with already unsustainable debt levels to the brink of default – where governments are unable to repay creditors. The sovereign debt burden has exploded in recent years, reaching unprecedented levels before the pandemic.

For wealthier countries like the UK, current levels of borrowing and debt are No problem – a large part of the debt of the United Kingdom is due to himself or institutions in the UK and he can borrow at low interest rates. But the countries of Global Southwhere most debt is owed to foreign creditors, including multilateral institutions, private banks, investment funds and wealthy countries, face a much higher risk of default.

The current economic recession, with strong currency devaluationshas driven down the incomes of these countries at a time when government spending is greater than ever.

But ask creditors to cancel the debt have been met with resistance from rich countries and private lenders. Instead, many countries in the South have been faced with a stark choice: prioritize reimbursements over vital healthcare and emergency needs or risk default.

In recent years, the Zambian government has been forced to cut spending to reduce its debt, even though it has one doctor for 12,000 patients. Zambia spent four times more on paying the debt than on public health throughout the pandemic.

Despite these measures, earlier this month Zambia became the latest in a country string this year to default on its debt. Private lenders rejected the government’s request for a temporary suspension of debt payments and it simply could not afford to keep paying.

Save time – at whose expense?

In April, the G20 launched the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) to temporarily suspend debt repayments. But the scheme alone postpone reimbursement to 2022as countries will likely have taken on even more debt to save lives amid the pandemic.

Only a limited number of developing countries can participate in the status quo, while multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, and private creditors have refused to participate voluntarily.

According the European Network for Debt and Development, $5.3 billion in debt payments have been suspended so far, but the 73 developing countries eligible for the program have continued to pay a whopping $37 billion to private, multilateral and domestic creditors throughout 2020.

Ahead of the November 13 G20 finance ministers meeting, activists hoped that leaders would announce a new framework providing a solution to the crisis – in the form of debt cancellation and including at least private creditors and multilateral lenders. But again he has disappointed.

His “Common Framework for the Treatment of Debt” said that “in principle, debt treatments will not be carried out in the form of debt write-offs or write-offs”, although he did not rule out the possibility. Instead, he focused on tinkering with debt payment terms, such as increasing the repayment term.

While the new framework stipulated that countries requesting public debt relief would be required to seek redress from private creditors as part of the process, this puts the responsibility on the countries themselves and does not prevent private actors from refusing their requests for relief. Any debt relief given to developing countries by rich countries will probably always go straight into the pockets of their private creditor counterparties.

Meanwhile, the G20 had only “meaningless words” offer on multilateral debt cancellation, according to the Jubilee Debt Campaign. Within the G20, Western countries are slow to participate in the World Bank despite a China’s concerted push.

This leaves countries with no choice but to keep borrowing from lenders, piling up more and more debt on a growing pile. When the due date arrives for payment, it will hurt the marginalized the most.

The new framework is far from long time calls for a multilateral sovereign debt restructuring mechanism which resolves countries’ debts through a fair and transparent process.

Debt injustice is a women’s rights issue

The impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic have been rapid, uneven and sexed. As schools closed and nationwide shutdowns cut off access to essential services, women were forced to fill gaps in childcare and caring for sick family members. women and girls unpaid and underpaid care and domestic work, long exploited, exploded during the pandemic but still remain largely unknown.

Women, especially in the Global South, bear the brunt of the economic damage of the pandemic and a jobs crisis which has hit the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors the hardest. Women are more likely to have lost their jobs and less likely to have access to vital social protection like sick leave.

As Zambia shows, when governments are forced to spend more revenue on debt repayment, it is often crucial public services, such as health, education and childcare or social protection that are cut first. This has a ripple effect on women’s access to vital servicesfurther increasing unpaid care work and impacting women’s employment in the public sector.

In 2018, Women’s Rights Activist and Director of Policy and Communications at Womankind Worldwide Dinah Musindarwezo warned“The costs of servicing this debt are borne disproportionately by women, while borrowed funds are rarely spent in a way that prioritizes women’s rights.”

The new G20 framework requires countries seeking debt relief to apply for an IMF loan program. These programs are notorious for imposing brutal austerity measures to reduce the deficits that exacerbate gender inequalities. Ecuador faces new cuts in the public sector as part of its debt restructuring process after years of severe austerity that prompted protests by indigenous women’s groups Last year.

It is therefore not surprising that women’s movements are calling for a ‘feminist rescue’ and feminists in Chile, Argentina, Spain and Puerto Rico were debt strike. This year celebrates its 25th anniversary since the adoption of the most progressive plan to realize women’s rights at the Beijing conference. But the United Nations has warned that the pandemic is likely to set back decades of women’s rights. Without debt justice action to address debt crises now and in the future, it will be a shameful legacy of the pandemic.

Barack Obama offered his solidarity with Greece over its debt and migrant crisis yesterday (November 15) during his final trip to Europe as US president before handing over power to Donald Trump.

Obama delighted his Greek hosts by backing debt relief for the recession-hit country, which has seen its economy shrink by a quarter in just seven years, but riot police have had to use tear gas to quell the protests. anti-American protesters in central Athens.

Greece hopes that Obama will be able to convince its foreign creditors to restructure part of its debt, which represents nearly 180% of national production.

“We can’t just see austerity as a strategy,” Obama said after talks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

“Our argument has always been that when the economy is contracting so quickly, when unemployment is so high, there also has to be a growth agenda to go with it and it’s very hard to imagine the kind of growth strategy necessary debt-free relief mechanism,” Obama said.

Athens signed a third economic bailout of up to €86 billion in mid-2015, but says it needs long-term debt restructuring to get out of the crisis – a message repeated on Tuesday by Tsipras, a leftist whose popularity is in decline.

Obama, who said the United States would be “neck to neck” with NATO ally Greece, was due to visit Germany, Europe’s main champion of economic austerity, on Wednesday.

“The Yankees Go Home”

Left groups are angry that Obama, the first US leader to visit Athens since Bill Clinton in 1999, is visiting just two days before the anniversary of a bloody 1973 student uprising that helped topple a junta Greek military backed by Washington.

The clashes, just a few miles from where Greek leaders were greeting Obama at a state dinner, broke out after around 7,000 people, some of them wearing hoods, marched through central Athens and attempted to reach the parliament and the embassy of the United States.

The demonstrators held up banners that read: “We don’t need protectors! and “Yankees go home!”

In addition to its economic difficulties, Greece, a country of 11 million people, is grappling with a migration crisis that is engulfing Europe. More than 60,000 people are stranded in Greece after their journey to Europe was sealed off this year as borders were closed in the Balkans.

“It’s important that no country bear the full burden of these challenges,” Obama said.

Humanitarian organizations have called on Obama to insist on the need for a European response to the problem and to demand that the richest countries take in a greater share of refugees.

Obama, who is in Athens until Wednesday afternoon, was staying at a luxury resort on a peninsula south of Athens, less than 15km from a disused airport that is temporarily housing hundreds of migrants and refugees .

Children played outside the abandoned terminal through clotheslines covered in laundry. Some sat on a battered old sofa as Obama’s motorcade passed them.

“We want Obama to come see us here, how we live like prisoners,” said Hatzi Naser, 42, from Afghanistan, still mired in conflict more than a decade after US forces toppled the Taliban following the September 11 attacks. United States.

“He’s the reason we’re here, because of his army’s war. We want him to come and see the filth we live in.

Oxfam New Zealand is calling on the New Zealand government to free up spending for global public health, advocating for the immediate cancellation of all external debt payments due in 2020 by developing country governments.

Joanna Spratt, Advocacy and Campaigns Director for Oxfam New Zealand, said: “Countries around the world need to massively increase their health budgets to tackle the coronavirus crisis. But the poorest countries are expected to spend US$40 billion to pay down their debt in 2020 alone.

“World leaders are meeting this week to talk about debt cancellation at the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. While the G20 has already agreed to a suspension, this only throws the problem on This unprecedented moment of need requires at least a cancellation of all debt payments due this year, so the money can instead help save millions of lives.

“Many of our neighbors in the Pacific region are already at high risk of debt distress. Countries like Papua New Guinea, where they have just 14 ventilators for their eight million people, are currently spending more on debt repayment than on public health. Until we are all safe, no one is safe.

“New Zealand can be an advocate for debt cancellation at World Bank and IMF meetings – as an aid donor who does not give loans, our position on this is strong. We have a responsibility to defend our neighbors in the face of this intolerable situation. »

Oxfam’s recent report
Dignity not misery highlights how the coronavirus and disruption to the global economy could push up to half a billion more people into poverty. It also shows that 46 countries were spending an average of four times as much money to pay their debts as they did on public health services earlier this year when the coronavirus was spreading.

“This pandemic will require a massive injection of resources to sustain economies, so it makes no sense for poorer countries to transfer vital resources to the rich world. The costs of the debt burden are being paid by the poorest, in cuts to public services, and women are the hardest hit.

More than 200 organisations, including Oxfam, have signed a statement
calling for the cancellation of all debt payments owed by developing countries to bilateral, multilateral and private creditors. In addition, more than 750,000 people have signed a petition
calling for urgent debt relief.

The international aid agency is also advocating for the New Zealand government to provide NZ$25 million in immediate additional humanitarian funding under a coronavirus emergency response program for people living in the world’s worst crises and emergencies; and for the protection and maintenance of existing aid and climate finance budgets so that fewer people are pushed into poverty by the global pandemic.

© Scoop Media

Senator Elizabeth Warren is promoting an online calculator that shows voters how much — exactly — they would benefit from her proposal to forgive outstanding student loans.

Speaking at Iowa State University on Friday, the Massachusetts Democrat and 2020 presidential hopeful asked people to pull out their phones and plug the amount of their debt into the

calculator, which is available on his campaign website.

“Anyone here has student loan debt? Does anyone here know anyone with student loan debt? Okay, I think we have almost everyone,” the Massachusetts Democrat said.

The calculator, she added, is “a way to make real for people what it means to talk about canceling student debt.”

Warren freed

his loan cancellation plan

last week, which she said would be paid by her

wealth tax bill. His campaign estimates that the one-time debt cancellation would cost $640 billion.

Warren’s plan would forgive up to $50,000 in student debt for anyone in households earning less than $100,000 a year. For these Americans, the math is simple.

But the amount of relief gradually decreases as the level of income increases. Households earning more than $250,000 would not qualify for debt relief.

Warren also proposes making tuition free at public two- and four-year colleges for all students, regardless of family income. She wants to increase federal funding for Pell Grants, which are given to low-income families, as well as invest more money in historically black colleges and universities. The senator also calls for a ban on for-profit colleges from receiving federal funding.

There is broad support

among Democratic presidential candidates for making college more affordable, though they differ on how to achieve that goal.

The senses. New Jersey’s Cory Booker, California’s Kamala Harris and New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand — along with Warren — are all co-sponsors of Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz’s Debt-Free College Act. It would establish a matching grant for states that pledge to help students pay full tuition without taking out a loan.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who helped popularize the idea during his 2016 presidential bid, introduced his own bill that would make tuition and fees free at public colleges for students whose families earn less than $125,000.

But other candidates — including Sen. Amy Klobuchar and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — have held back on embracing a free college platform.

ISLAMABAD:

Sharing their concerns over the negative impact of Covid-19 on the economies of developing countries, Pakistan and Norway agreed to work closely together on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s global debt relief initiative and stay engaged.

The development comes after Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had a phone conversation with his Norwegian counterpart Ine Eriksen Søreide on Wednesday.

FM Qureshi also offered his condolences for the loss of life in Norway due to the coronavirus outbreak. He gave a briefing on the measures taken by the Pakistani government to contain the pathogen and “stressed the need for solidarity among the international community in these difficult times”.

Bill Gates hails Pakistan’s efforts against Covid-19 outbreak

According to the official statement, the foreign minister also stressed the importance of Prime Minister Imran’s global initiative on debt relief for developing countries to enable them to devote their resources to the fight against the pandemic. of Covid-19 and mitigate its economic fallout.

“The Global Debt Relief Initiative will bring stakeholders together on a platform to promote a coordinated response to debt issues. The initiative envisions providing developing countries with fiscal space and financial relief and other additional measures that could help them manage the current crisis,” he added.

The Foreign Minister also expressed concern over continued communication and movement restrictions in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) which hamper the dissemination of information and the unimpeded supply of medicines and other essentials needed to fight the pandemic. He also highlighted his concern over the demonization of Muslims in India amid Covid-19.

Coronavirus cases 30-35% lower than projections, says Asad Umar

The Norwegian Foreign Minister thanked Qureshi for his expression of solidarity and agreed with him on the importance of international cooperation to deal with the pandemic.

Søreide shared Pakistan’s concern over the negative impact of Covid-19 on the economies of developing countries.

Both parties agreed to work closely together on the debt relief initiative and to remain committed, the statement added.

Even though the Center and the RBI show reluctance to expand the scope of post-pandemic loan relief to borrowers and banks seem reluctant to artificially shed their stressed assets, the Supreme Court is still considering whether hard-hit industrial sectors could receive more relief. The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered RBI to respond to requests from power producers for various benefits, including the restructuring of their loans, under the central bank’s recent circular on debt overhaul.

Lead attorney Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the Power Producers Association, made it clear that he was not seeking cash injections or any specific tax or other relief. “As the electricity sector is an essential and abused segment, it is enough to fine-tune the RBI circular to make it inclusive so that the sector can reap the benefits of the scheme,” he said. Singhvi further said that power sector NPAs were the result of non-payment by consumers (discoms). Stating that the production companies, who are suffering the most, he said the total debt had risen to Rs 1.2 lakh crore.

The supreme bench of the court consisting of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and MR Shah also ordered the power producers to submit their suggestions to RBI. He also asked the Center and RBI to file short submissions/suggestions and released the case for rehearing next week.

Power producers said the banks were not collecting the loans but then wanted to collect the collateral. While the moratorium applies to the principal loan, banks are taking enforcement action on collateral and other aspects, Singhvi said, on their behalf, adding that it was an “ongoing subterfuge”.

“A larger part of the loans cannot be restructured due to certain exclusions. Much of the borrowing comes from LICs and alternative investment funds, REITs and foreign private banks. Allow us to restructure loans from these lenders. Moreover, the RBI circular provides for restructuring at the request of the lender and not the borrower, which defeats the purpose of the circular. These shortcomings must be corrected by RBI. He needs to review the circular and make those changes,” he added.

The RBI program which covers 26 sectors, including electricity, is modeled on the proposals of the Kamath Committee.

Power producers had moved the Supreme Court, urging it to order the Union government to order lending institutions not to charge interest on accrued interest during the moratorium period. Since the compound interest relief unveiled by the government is only for loans up to Rs 2 crore, power companies have hardly benefited.

The power companies also want to extend the moratorium period on interest and principal for another six months, ending on March 31, 2021, and have asked the court to order the government to provide specific guidelines for banks to convert the accrued interest on term loans and principal works over the one-year deferment period into a funded interest term loan (FITL) which will be repayable in equal monthly installments over the remaining term of the loan.

During the hearing, Judge Shah asked the central government why credit card users should qualify for the benefit of compound interest relief under the RBI loan moratorium scheme as they do not were not loan borrowers but only used the card to purchase goods. The sighting came after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told judges that even credit card users would receive gratuitous payments.

The RBI informed the High Court that it has instructed all banks, financial institutions and non-banking financial institutions to take “necessary steps” to ensure that the amount is released to eligible borrowers on time. Mehta also said the Ministry of Finance has released a plan that credit institutions will credit this amount to borrowers’ accounts. However, the government has said that the banking sector cannot bear any new financial pressure. “This is a matter of fiscal policy and the government is above it,” Mehta said.

Band David Lawder and Karin Strohecker

January 12 (Reuters) – Rising emerging market debt distress means China, now the world’s biggest official creditor, will have to start restructuring its debts in the same way Paris Club lenders have done in past crises, said World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart at the Reuters Next conference on Tuesday.

“What I think China will have to do to deal with this is what other previous creditors have done in the past, which is you have to restructure. And deep restructure, that which means either lower interest rates, longer maturities, write-off of principal, or some combination thereof,” Reinhart said during a panel discussion on economic inequality.

She said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, China should take on a “new role” that was an “old role” for Paris Club lenders, as Beijing now faces wider gaps for the first time. and difficulties in countries. ability to service debt on a large scale.

China has signed a G20 debt suspension initiative that allows up to 73 of the world’s poorest countries to suspend payments on official bilateral debts to help fund critical health initiatives, and it has agreed a new G20 debt restructuring framework.

“The real challenge is this, when we get to the stage where you have real write-downs to deal with,” Reinhart said.

Reinhart, a Harvard economist who joined the World Bank in June 2020, has researched and written extensively on financial crises. Last year she co-wrote a scientific paper paper on China’s overseas loans which revealed that up to 50% of these are not declared to the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund.

World Bank President David Malpass has warned that without permanent debt relief, more people in developing countries will fall back into poverty and the disorderly defaults of the 1980s could be repeated. He pressured China to fully participate in debt relief efforts, including on debt issued by state-owned enterprises.

Emerging market failures in Latin America and East Asia led to large-scale debt cancellation efforts such as the Brady Plan in the late 1980s and the Very Poor Countries Initiative. debt (HIPC) in the 1990s.

When asked if another such HIPC initiative was needed, Reinhart replied, “I don’t think we’re there yet,” noting that the G20 common framework for debt restructuring takes more of a case-by-case approach.

“Whether at a later date we can get creditors to sign off on another initiative, whether it’s HIPC-type or Brady-type or whatever form it takes, I don’t see that happening at very short term.”

She said Paris Club creditors and China could struggle with such a broad initiative, which has cleaned up countries’ balance sheets but allowed them to increase borrowing again.

“You ask what it takes to get rid of these cycles – I’d like to know,” she said, noting that her 2009 book with Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” chronicles the repeated cycles of boom and bust in dozens of countries.

For more coverage of the Reuters Next conference, please click here or www.Reuters.com/business/Reuters-next

To watch Reuters Next live, visit https://www.Reutersevents.com/events/next/register.php

(Reporting by David Lawder and Karin Strohecker; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Rosalba O’Brien)

(([email protected]; +1 202 354 5854; Reuters Messaging: [email protected]))

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

A new pilot program designed to help stop the ‘criminalization of poverty’ has been successfully adopted by Chapel Hill City Council. The Criminal Justice Debt Fund will establish funding for unpaid criminal justice debt – in hopes of reintegrating those in tax debt into the community.

The idea for the scheme began last spring when some Chapel Hill City Council members realized they were reluctantly fueling what they called an “unfair system.”

At their last meeting, council member Karen Stegman said it was wrong for the Chapel Hill Courthouse to collect revenue from courthouse costs and fees, especially when those fees are collected from of deprived people.

“Chapel Hill values ​​being a welcoming community with a place for everyone,” Stegman said. “The imposition of these court fees and costs creates significant barriers to justice for indigent community members seeking to reintegrate into our community.”

In order to offset the negative impact of these court fees on part of the community, a $20,000 Criminal Justice Debt Fund was passed by the council.

The program will be administered by the Chapel Hill Police Crisis Unit and is intended for residents of the city who have committed non-violent criminal or traffic violations. VSertain criteria must be met before a person can apply for this financial assistance. Each person must be a resident of Chapel Hill, cannot be currently incarcerated, and must have an outstanding Orange County criminal justice or traffic debt.

Nominations will be nominated once every three years and each recipient must demonstrate that they are on the ‘path of stability’ – whether through treatment, employment or raising children .

“Tonight, we have the opportunity to take meaningful action to address the systemic injustice affecting our community while providing concrete and desperately needed help to residents who are grappling with the very real financial impacts of legal costs. “Stegman said.

Retired Orange County public defender James Williams contributed to the city council’s discussion. He said poverty is an important factor in people’s ability to successfully reintegrate into society. Williams also said these fees and court costs have a more direct impact on poor people of color, which can prevent them from reintegrating into society and contributing.

“A hundred dollars might not seem like a lot to you and me, but for people navigating the system, it can be the difference between being able to stay in an apartment or being able to buy food for the kids.”

This Criminal Justice Debt Fund aims to “fill the gap” and help eligible low-income people access debt relief opportunities.

Council member Allen Buansi worked with Stegman on this proposal. He said he was proud to have grown up in Chapel Hill as he saw the town as a whole continually working to serve the most vulnerable members of the community. He says this fund is another opportunity to serve.

“At Chapel Hill, we value empathy,” Buansi said. “We appreciate forgiveness. We value love, we value inclusion, and we value equality. Ultimately, the price associated with this program is low compared to the need that exists not only in Chapel Hill, but throughout North Carolina.

With the one-year pilot program passed unanimously, it is hoped that similar programs can be adopted in other parts of North Carolina. Once implemented, there will be a 6 month audit with City Council to quantify the success of the program.

(Photo courtesy of the North Carolina Judiciary)

Related

As Americans, we are greatly indebted not only to the men and women who fought and died for our country, but also to the thinkers, statesmen, innovators and ordinary people who gave us our founding principles.

This debt is not repaid with money, but with a commitment to the active and vigilant self-government of our republic, in accordance with the principles and virtues of our ancestors.

Yet our ancestors would shudder at our current $22 trillion in the gross national debt. By the end of 2019, the debt will reach nearly $23 trillion. That equates to a $69,200 credit card bill for every man, woman, and child in America.

But this is only the money that the government has explicitly borrowed. It does not include any measure of “unfunded obligations” – money the government does not have but has promised to spend nonetheless.

>>> Reform reckless government spending

Unfunded obligations are often seen as problems for future citizens, but with Medicare and Social Security both cash-short and cash-strapped in 2026 and 2035, respectively, these future obligations are become a current burden.

Unfunded Social Security obligations alone represent $13.9 trillion. This means that over the next 75 years the government has promised to pay out $13.9 trillion more than it expects to collect in payroll taxes.

At $42,200 per person, the Social Security shortfall alone is about as much as the average person earns in a year. Just buy one new sedan and pay a the year of rent in a two-bedroom mid-rent apartment.

If the Social Security shortfall wasn’t bad enough, it pales in comparison to Medicare’s $42.3 trillion in unfunded bonds. At $128,500 per person, or $514,000 for a family of four, America’s Great Society program, hailed by socialists as a model for the future of health care, is already breaking America’s bank.

All combined, each American effectively owns $240,000 of US debt and unfunded bonds – an amount equal to the average US home price Just imagine having to pay two mortgages instead of one just to cover the excess government past.

While some politicians will be quick to blame this gargantuan bill on recent tax cuts, it is overspending — not a shortage of taxes — that is fueling America’s deficits and debt.

After all, tax cuts represent a much smaller percentage of gross domestic product than growing Social Security deficits.

A tax aimed at making Social Security solvent, by covering its annual cash balance and gradually increasing it to a point of sustainability, would require annual increases in payroll taxes for the foreseeable future. This year alone we would need an immediate increase to 13.5% from the current level of 12.4%, and in 2035 it would exceed 15.5%.

For a worker earning $50,000 a year, that’s an additional $1,550 (and $7,750 in total Social Security taxes) that she could have taken home and spent or saved as she wished. And that 15.5% would be enough just to cover Social Security’s unfunded liabilities for that year. Covering Medicare costs would require much larger tax increases.

Paying for the government services workers receive as well as the interest on the debt – which will soon exceed spending on national defense – would require crippling levels of taxation for all workers, not just the wealthy.

Instead of calls for caution and accountability, we’re calling for major expansions of programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare, and unprecedented discretionary grants like student debt relief and a “Green New Deal”.

Raise taxes enough to cover current excesses and also finance a socialist regime spending spree would simply be impossible: the cost per household of the Green New Deal alone would exceed $165,000 by 2040regardless of rising electricity costs and the costs of a declining economy.

And like a new report according to The Heritage Foundation, it would be mathematically impossible to fund the progressive agenda by taxing the rich. Even confiscating every dollar earned by taxpayers with incomes over $200,000 would not come close to paying for the left’s agenda.

Instead, the progressive agenda would demand between 200% and 900% in middle-class tax increases or radically higher and unsustainable federal borrowing.

Ultimately, tax hikes and government expansion are not a viable option for solving America’s rights problem.

Once Americans recognize that the entitlement programs they paid into are really just generational transfers of wealth, with no real money in their notional trust funds, perhaps we can seriously consider reforming the programs in a way that protecting those who need it most while allowing everyone to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks.

By social Security to its anti-poverty roots and by modernizing program rules and requirements, Congress could reduce payroll taxes and give workers more control over their incomes and savings.

And by capitalizing on the free market – instead of government intervention – to reduce health care costs and drive innovation, we can avoid the health care rationing that exists in other countries.

The Heritage Foundation “Balance Plan” The chapter on health care and rights proposes changes that would accomplish just that, if policymakers are willing to put our nation’s future ahead of current, excessive spending.

Raising taxes and making individuals and families more dependent on government programs is not just bad policy; it’s totally un-American.

CHICAGO (WLS) — Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law consumer debt legislation on Monday.

“Consumer debt is at an all-time high across the United States, and there are millions of people, including too many Illinois families, struggling in unconscionable circumstances,” Governor Pritzker said.

The new bill, the Consumer Fairness Act, will relieve Illinois from high interest on its debt.

“Under this new law, families will now pay a lower post-judgment interest rate for sums of $25,000 or less, and we are reducing the time in which a collection judgment can be reinitiated,” said Governor Pritzker.

According to the Heartland Alliance, one in three Illinoisans is in the debt collection process.

Governor Pritzker said the new legislation will lower post-judgment interest rates from 9% to 5%. He also said the bill would reduce the collection window from 26 years to 17 years.

“The number represents the lives of real people. These are seniors who haven’t been drowning in debt for decades. These are families who are able to build financial stability for their children, who are no longer trapped in a circle vicious in debt,” Governor Pritzker said. .

HB 88 passed unanimously without opposition from debt collectors and other financial institutions, according to the governor’s office.

The bill signing took place at Chicago Volunteer Legal Services at 33 N. Dearborn St. at 9:30 a.m.

The Consumer Fairness Act will come into force on January 1, 2020.

LONDON/QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador pushed ahead with its debt overhaul plans on Monday, seeking a vote among its creditors on reconfiguring the terms of $17.4 billion of its external bonds, its largest group of creditors supporting the proposal.

Under the proposed deal – unchanged from the government’s previous proposal – 10 existing bonds maturing between 2022 and 2030 would be swapped for three bonds maturing in 2030, 2035 and 2040, as well as an interest-bearing bond in suffering expiring in 2030.

This would provide more than $10 billion in debt relief over the next four years and another $6 billion between 2025 and 2030, and offer a nominal haircut of 9%.

“This restructuring, if accepted, will bring significant relief to the country and allow more resources to be devoted to managing the health crisis and reactivating and reviving the economy,” the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health said on Monday. Finances in a press release. .

A spokesman for the International Monetary Fund said the group “welcomed” Ecuador’s restructuring proposal.

Bondholders will have until July 31 to vote on the deal.

Two groups of creditors, who in recent weeks have been calling for better terms, rejected the new proposal, saying it did not represent Ecuador’s best efforts to reach a fair deal.

The group’s steering committee, which includes Amundi, Contrarian Capital Management and T Rowe Price Associates, represents more than 25 institutional investors and an ad hoc group of bondholders due 2024.

They own more than 25% in some series of bonds and more than 35% in others, according to earlier statements.

The groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ecuador’s largest creditor group, the Ad Hoc Group, including asset managers such as AllianceBernstein, BlackRock and Ashmore, backs the plan.

The group, which collectively owns over 53% of Ecuador’s total sovereign bond outstanding and close to or over 50% of nearly all individual bond series, said it believes the plan will bring ” a substantial contribution to guaranteeing the sustainability of Ecuador’s external debt in the medium term.”

In response to questions about Monday’s proposal, Tiago Severo, vice president of economic research for Latin America at Goldman Sachs, said: “It seems like a somewhat risky strategy to us, and it could lead to a temporary blockage of the process”.

“However, we remain of the view that the parties will eventually find common ground and that a full restructuring will be carried out in the next/several weeks,” he said.

The government has said it needs support from creditors holding at least 80% of the aggregate principal of all bonds except the 2024 issue. The latter, which has different terms, requires support 75% according to legal experts.

Financial donations from 20 United Church of Christ congregations to the denomination’s Kansas-Oklahoma Conference, as well as several religious individuals and organizations, have forgiven $5.2 million in medical debt in those two states. More than 3,200 households in 76 counties in Kansas and 60 counties in Oklahoma will soon receive letters telling them that their medical debt has been forgiven.

In an online press conference Nov. 24, local, regional and national UCC leaders announced that a Conference-wide fundraising campaign, born before the coronavirus pandemic, as well a contribution from a UCC national ministry, raised $40,000. The gifts were sent to New York-based nonprofit RIP Medical Debt, which redeemed the debt for pennies on the dollar in October.

The purchase erased $5,211,729 in medical debt for 3,234 households. The average amount remitted per household was $1,612.54. Campaign contributors are listed here.

“Medical debt is something that you don’t think will affect you personally,” said Lori Herpich, a member of Plymouth Congregational UCC, Lawrence, one of the contributing congregations. Although she herself did not receive debt relief through this project, she said she was “delighted to hear that UCC was helping families pay off their medical debt” because “I really know what it’s like to have medical debt.

“A few years ago I had to have several surgeries, and the bills that came with it were just huge,” Herpich said. “It caused stress, it was overwhelming and it looked like it was never going to end. Just knowing that there are families who are going to be contacted, that their debt has been eliminated, that it has been resolved, that’s going to be huge, believe me.

“Medical debt is just another expression of the unjust systems that are so deeply rooted in our country,” said Kansas-Oklahoma Conference Minister Edith Guffey. “We are a small Conference; 53 churches. We have a handful of larger congregations, but we are mostly made up of small churches, a mix of urban and rural, located in mask-wearing and mask-resisting communities. We have done this important ministry together, in two states, because medical debt doesn’t care who you are, how you vote or where you live. The only thing that matters is if you can pay. Love of neighbor is easy to say, but it doesn’t pay the bills. What a gift for our members to have the opportunity to make a tangible difference in the lives of thousands of families across Kansas and Oklahoma.

“One of the roles of the church is charity, but another equally important and different role is that of justice,” said the Reverend Chris Moore, pastor of Fellowship Congregational UCC, Tulsa. “During a pandemic, it becomes even more important for the church to intervene, disrupting unjust systems like those that subject people to financial ruin simply because they have become ill or injured. If mobilizing our resources for the relief of medical debt is not ‘being the church’, I don’t know what it is.”

Specific criteria were used when purchasing. Eligible debtors were those earning less than twice the federal poverty level; in financial difficulty, with out-of-pocket expenses that represent 5% or more of their annual income; or facing insolvency, with debts exceeding assets.

The debt purchase was made anonymously; the UCC does not know who specifically benefited. Thanks to RIP Medical Debt, a yellow envelope bearing a UCC logo is on its way to each beneficiary family, along with a letter naming the contributing congregations and organizations. It reads: “You may never walk through the doors of one of our churches, but we are the United Church of Christ and we love you. More importantly, you are loved by God and your debt has been forgiven.

Other speakers at the press conference include:

• Bobbie Henderson, Fellowship member in Tulsa and Conference President. “People don’t take on medical debt on a whim,” she said. “It is forced on them – most of the time, unexpectedly. They end up in dire health care situations that are compounded by the mountains of bills they face — all too often, due to our society’s failure to ensure that all Americans have access to quality health care. quality.

• Reverend Lori Walke, senior pastor of Mayflower Congregational UCC, Oklahoma City, who contributed part of her charitable fund to the effort.

• Rev. Church. Gage, pastor of Central Congregational UCC, Topeka, who raised $3,140 for the effort through his annual chocolate sale and other donations.

• Reverend Michael Vollbrecht, pastor of Peace UCC, Alma, a “small” congregation that contributed the money collected from his Lenten suppers last winter.

• The Reverend Sekinah Hamilton, Minister for Economic Justice in the UCC National Framework, who said: “We will continue our efforts to cancel the debt, but neither will we rest until predatory financial products will no longer prey on families, unjust burdens of debt will no longer prevent individuals from creating wealth, and ultimately the economic systems of this country no longer have the stench of racism that fuels despair and despair. ‘iniquity.

• The Reverend Traci Blackmon, UCC Assistant General Secretary, who called the Kansas-Oklahoma effort “nothing short of stunning.” “This effort on behalf of The United Church of Christ is not just about charity, and it’s certainly not for us to congratulate each other on,” Blackmon said. “It’s our way of bringing attention to a justice issue that’s deeply ingrained in the fabric of our United States. It’s our way of saying that the gospel we believe in and promote compels us to fight and defend health care for every citizen.

To date, $57 million in medical debt has been forgiven by United Church of Christ.

The UCC Medical Debt Project began with a 2019 purchase in Chicago, where church donations removed $5.3 million in debt for 5,888 families on the city’s South Side.

In January 2020, the effort shifted to St. Louis, where $12.9 million in medical debt was eliminated for 11,108 households in that city and St. Louis County.

In the summer of 2020, nine California congregations in the East Bay area cleared $7.4 million in medical debt for 3,539 households across the state.

In October, a collaborative effort of 122 United Church of Christ congregations, four associations and more than 100 New England Southern Conference homes wrote off $26.2 million in medical debt in two separate purchases. The beneficiaries were families from seven states in and around New England and first responders across the country who benefit from RIP’s Helping COVID Heroes Fund.

The campaign will continue throughout the summer of 2021, reaching low-income Americans in each of UCC’s geographic regions. A sixth purchase is underway at UCC’s Mid-Atlantic Conference, covering Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

If misery loves company, the more than one million New Yorkers collectively carrying $35 billion in student debt can rest assured they are not alone.

The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) says about 14% of city residents with student debt are 90 days or more behind on loan payments, according to its commissioner, Lorelei. Salas.

“I care about that a lot,” Salas said. “I graduated from law school with $150,000 in student debt. So I know what it does to people’s finances and to their stress levels.

“It’s a long process,” added Salas, who still has nearly $50,000 in student debt. “There were times when I thought, ‘I’ll never stop paying until I die.'”

Borrowers have taken to social media and advocacy organizations like the non-profit Student Debt Crisis to share their stories of woe (and also their accomplishments if they managed to repay or repay their debts ).

“For the past three years I’ve had a pretty solid job at a top university,” one New Yorker wrote on studentdebtcrisis.org.

“I make a pretty decent salary and get a free MBA. I have a 401(k) and a Roth IRA and I put 25% of my salary in my savings account every month. I have about $45,000 student debt — $15,000 private loan and $30,000 federal loans I’m trying to contribute $600 a month to these loans.

“Last year I contributed $1,762.12 to a large chunk of federal loans totaling $25,000. Over the past year, that total debt has gone down by $415. I invested $300 there I’m seven days old and I already owe $20. I burst into tears when I realized this. For years, my student loan debt has been this shadow hanging over me.

Indeed, a Moody’s report released in January found that slow repayments have become a key driver of what has been the fastest growing type of household debt over the past decade.

Student loan debt soared to $1.6 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the Federal Reserve. One in five adults – 45 million Americans – contributes to the total.

Over the past decade, the overall annual net repayment rate (or the amount of existing balances eliminated each year) for U.S. student loans has averaged just 3%,” and many recent graduates have not repaid their balance at all,” Moody’s said.

Meanwhile, the student debt clock on FinAid.org has topped $1.7 trillion, and the issue looms large as the presidential election approaches.

The student loan woes put education concerns ahead of job loss and market downturn fears to become the No. 1 financial disruptor in a recent Harris poll on behalf of TD Ameritrade.

The results came in a time of low inflation, record employment, a rising market (pre-coronavirus), noted Tom Butch, general manager of retail distribution at TD Ameritrade.

In five years, education concerns have risen slightly, with student debt jumping more than 25% in that time, he said, especially for millennials.

The NYC DCWP, formerly the Department of Consumer Affairs, released three reports on student debt, including one in 2017 with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York looking at student loan default and delinquency rates in different neighborhoods, a study that has been replicated in other cities.

The DCWP held debt clinics in targeted areas in 2018 based on the findings of the Fed’s joint report – delinquency and default rates are higher in lower median income neighborhoods.

He offers counseling for student borrowers at nyc.gov/studentloans and provides free counseling at Financial Empowerment Centers in all boroughs.

There are many resources available across the country, but borrowers should be sure to find one that offers student loan expertise, whether it’s a financial advisor, CPA, or attorney, said Bruce McClary, vice president of communications at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which runs studentloanhelp.org.

Try to avoid for-profit debt relief companies, he warned.

“Clients pay a lot of money up front and in many cases end up worse off than when they started,” he said.

LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) – The world’s major development banks will not see their coveted credit ratings penalized for providing temporary debt relief to the world’s poorest countries during the coronavirus crisis, it said on Thursday. rating agency Moody’s.

Plans by the G20 group of major economies to allow around 76 countries in Africa and other parts of the world to suspend debt payments for the rest of the year have raised potential rating issues for all parties. concerned.

The worry is that it could put countries themselves in default, shutting them out of borrowing markets.

It was feared that this would undermine the “preferred creditor” status enjoyed by multilateral development banks (MDBs) such as the World Bank, African Development Bank or European Investment Bank, which also lend to Africa.

This status – where they are paid off before a country or company’s commercial lenders – helps underpin what are in many cases highly prized triple A ratings. These higher ratings enable the MDBs to obtain the best rates for borrowing money from the international credit markets, which is then lent to countries in need.

“The way we see this is not really debt relief, but debt deferral for a relatively short period of time,” Moody’s Senior Vice President Kathrin Muehlbronner said.

The banks themselves have yet to declare whether they will provide the debt relief advocated by the G20.

“We would not consider an extended debt suspension offer at the discretion of an MDB affecting our view of preferred creditor status.”

Moody’s estimates that around a quarter of the 40 MDBs it tracks have preferred creditor status in their ratings.

A broader look at the potential impact of coronavirus on development bank ratings showed that the big ones were likely to be protected by strong financial buffers while smaller ones that focus on Africa could be downgraded. .

However, performance and asset quality will deteriorate for all, with private and public borrowers finding it harder to meet their financial obligations and non-performing loans likely to rise from generally very low levels.

Development bank debt ratios are also expected to rise as they expand their balance sheets in response to the pandemic.

The largest response in nominal terms is expected to come from member institutions of the World Bank Group (WBG), totaling up to $160 billion over the next 15 months.

The European Investment Bank is creating a new €25 billion ($26.95 billion) COVID-19 guarantee fund, which aims to mobilize up to €200 billion.

Others are also primarily redeploying their planned lending programs. For example, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said that all of its planned loans for the two-year period 2020 and 2021 – a total of 21 billion euros – will be spent to counter the economic shock.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group will reallocate resources of $18.35 billion this year and the African Development Bank Group’s Covid-19 Rapid Response Mechanism – which totals $10 billion – will mainly accelerate its planned lending for the year.

“We expect the credit profiles of highly rated MDBs to withstand the pandemic-induced shock to many of their borrowers…But some of the lower rated MDBs may come under greater credit pressures,” Moody’s said. . (Reporting by Marc Jones Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Attorney General Andy Beshear has issued a scam alert to warn former and current students about companies offering student debt relief for a fee.

Beshear’s office and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) say it’s illegal for companies to charge upfront fees before providing debt relief services.

Kentuckians from Allen, Breckinridge, Clark, Daviess, Fayette, Jefferson, Kenton, Mason and Warren counties recently reported receiving strange calls and voicemails from a woman saying she needed to discuss new repayment options federal student loan. Many people who receive calls say they don’t even have a student loan, but have been provided with a callback phone number and a reference number.

The third-party companies behind the calls claim to offer document preparation services and claim they can help you qualify for a loan forgiveness program – but they may want upfront fees and personal and financial information.

“Far too many Kentuckians are already struggling to repay their student loans and I don’t want them to get tricked by scammers and go into even more debt,” Beshear says. “The truth is, there is no service these scammers can offer that you can’t do yourself for free.”

According to the FTC and the Attorney General’s Office, some companies that promise debt relief are scams. To spot them, follow these tips:

• Never pay in advance

Federal debt consolidation with the United States Department of Education is free, and reputable private lenders do not require any upfront payment.

• Beware of imposters

Beware of scammers claiming to be federal government employees. Contact the Department of Education directly at StudentAid.gov or 800-433-3243, or independently contact your private loan officer through a verified number or website.

• Resist pressure

Know that no company can promise quick loan forgiveness and never rush to qualify for repayment plans, loan consolidation or loan forgiveness programs.

• Beware of legal tricks

Beware if a company asks you to sign a “power of attorney”, “third party authorization” or other similar agreements that give third parties legal permission to talk to your student loan officer and make decisions in your name.

• Never provide sensitive information

Never provide your FSA ID or PIN or other personal and financial information to anyone who randomly calls you by phone or contacts you by email.

The Beshear Consumer Protection Office urges current and former students who feel victimized by questionable service to complete a complaint form.

Students having problems with their student loan agent or collection agent should contact the US Department of Education’s Student Loan Ombudsman at 877-557-2575.

Since taking office, Beshear and his team have worked to protect students from predatory colleges and for-profit lenders.

Last week, Beshear’s Consumer Protection Bureau secured $2.2 million in debt relief for former Kentucky ITT Tech students under pressure from deceptive lending practices.

To date, nearly 8,000 Kentucky students have received more than $8 million in student debt relief or restitution from for-profit colleges that Beshear has held accountable.

(provided by the Commonwealth of Kentucky Attorney General’s Office)

Over the past four months, Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, has make a donation more than $4 billion to hundreds of humanitarian and charitable organizations, including food banks battling the impact of the pandemic. Scott has a personal net worth of over $60 billion, making him the 18th richest person in the world. Last year, she vowed to give away much of her wealth following her divorce settlement with Bezos.

In July, Scott announced that she had donated $1.7 billion to 116 charities. She then decided to “accelerate” her donations. In the past four months, it has donated an additional $4.15 billion to 384 organizations in the United States and Puerto Rico, bringing its total contributions this year to $6 billion.

Scott wrote in a blog post:

This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of already struggling Americans. Economic losses and health problems have been worse for women, people of color and people living in poverty. During this time, he significantly increased the wealth of billionaires.

Bezos, who was married to Scott for 26 years, is the richest person in the world. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Benzos’ fortune before the pandemic was estimated at $113 billion, and now it has risen to around $185 billion.

Scott took a “data-driven” approach to selecting donation recipients. His team primarily focused on “those operating in communities facing high food insecurity, high measures of racial inequality, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.”

Some of his donations have targeted basic needs, such as emergency relief funds, food banks and support for the most vulnerable. Others were aimed at long-term issues that the pandemic has made worse, including debt relief, legal defense funds, civil rights groups, job training and education for “people historically marginalized and underserved”.

Overall, his team looked at 6,490 organizations and selected 822 for “further research”. Scott’s list of organizations that will receive funds include Meals on Wheels, the YMCA, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Global Fund for Women.

Last year, Scott became involved in the Giving Pledge Initiative, set up by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Edward Buffett, which encourages exceptionally wealthy people to donate much of their wealth to charitable causes. .

The Gates have committed $305 million to Covid-19 vaccines and development of diagnosticsas well as $3.7 million for Covid-19 relief efforts. Other significant donations made during the pandemic include:

• In March, fame Rihanna donated $5 million to Covid-19 relief efforts through her Clara Lionel Foundation.
• In April, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced he was moving 28% of his wealth ($1 billion) to Covid-19 relief efforts and other causes.
• In April, Estée Lauder donated $2 million for Covid-19 relief efforts to “Médecins Sans Frontières”, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières – to support deeply affected and underfunded countries in the fight against the spread of Covid-19 .
• In June, basketball legend Michael Jordan announced he would donate $100 million to Black Lives Matter and other social causes over the next ten years.
• In August, the British rapper Stormzy donated £500,000 finance scholarships for students from underprivileged backgrounds.
• In February, Bezos said he was contributing $10 billion to fight climate change through his philanthropic project called “the Bezos Earth Fund”. In November, Bezos announced the first of these grants, awarding nearly $800 million to sixteen groups.

SINGAPORE: Most Singaporean households remain financially resilient amid the COVID-19 pandemic, although those heavily in debt or employed in hard-hit sectors may be more vulnerable as economic uncertainties persist, the bank said center of the country on Tuesday (December 1).

In its annual Financial Stability Review, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) also urged households to exercise caution when taking on new debt or engaging in property purchases.

He noted an uncertain outlook for Singapore’s economy which “could have dampening effects on revenue flows”. He also expects resident unemployment to “remain high” next year and the labor market recovery to be prolonged.

READ: Singapore businesses, households and banks must remain vigilant amid uncertain outlook: MAS

MAS said it recognizes some homeowners may struggle to pay their mortgages and worked with the financial industry to roll out relief measures earlier this year. These measures have been recently extended to support cash-strapped individuals and businesses until next year.

Approximately 36,000 applications for mortgage relief were approved and 8,700 people received relief from their revolving unsecured debt in the third quarter.

“Given the uncertain economic outlook, households should resort to these support measures as necessary and take into account the potential volatility of future income streams when considering large purchases and loans,” the central bank said in its statement. report.

“Where possible, they should also continue to insure or consolidate their existing obligations to build resilience to unexpected shocks.”

READ: TOP FEATURE: After COVID-19, where is Singapore’s economy, labor headed?

“RELATIVELY HEALTHY”

The report said Singapore’s household balance sheets were “relatively healthy” at the start of the pandemic, reflecting the financial reserves built up over the years.

Household net wealth reached 4.4 times gross domestic product in the third quarter, up from 3.8 times a year ago, he cited as an example.

“While the increase is partly due to falling GDP, asset values ​​have continued to hold up despite the economic downturn,” MAS said.

“Furthermore, liquid assets such as cash and deposits continued to exceed total liabilities, providing households with a financial buffer against income shocks.”

READ: Singapore revises growth outlook again as third-quarter GDP contracts at 5.8% slower pace amid COVID-19

Its simulations also suggest that the debt service burden of Singaporean households remains manageable in a crisis situation.

Government transfers and relief measures softened the impact of a sharp fall in employment and incomes in the first half, the central bank added.

SOME RISKS

But the risk of indebtedness has increased slightly even if the growth of overall household debt has moderated.

The MAS said overall household debt had continued its downward trend since the introduction of cooling measures in July 2018, but nominal GDP had fallen by a larger margin due to the pandemic.

As a result, household debt as a percentage of GDP rose from 63.1% in the first quarter to 65% from April to June, before reaching 67.1% in the third quarter.

READ: COVID-19 downturn will be more prolonged than past recessions, slow job market recovery: MAS

Other indicators mentioned include the credit risk profile of home loans. This remained solid, with macroprudential measures encouraging prudent borrowing and improving the capital buffer.

But since household resilience is linked to employment and income, credit risk for home loans could increase further if the economic downturn persists, the central bank said.

The unsecured loan cancellation rate – a leading indicator of the credit quality of home loans – rose in the third quarter, suggesting that more households may be struggling to pay for their homes, he added.

“Close monitoring of housing loans to the most vulnerable households is needed in the coming months as the labor market recovery is expected to be prolonged.”

Turning to the real estate market, the report notes that rents for private homes have moderated alongside rising vacancy rates.

READ: Real estate firms expect more transactions as physical viewings of resale apartments, showrooms resume in Phase 2 reopening

Comment: Wondering what the decline in private home sales means? Market fundamentals paint a different story

The vacancy rate for private residential properties rose from 5.4% in the second quarter to 6.2% in the third quarter. Rents fell for the second consecutive quarter in the July-September period, as the rental price index for private residential properties fell 0.5%.

Low rents were observed for both land and non-land properties.

“If demand for rental properties continues to decline, borrowers who rely on rental income to meet their investment property mortgage payments could experience repayment difficulties,” MAS said.

“Prospective buyers should therefore consider the possibility of further weakness in rental income when committing to the purchase of investment properties.”

In the 112-page report, the central bank also urged businesses and local banks to remain vigilant and cautious as an uneven economic recovery “will affect jobs and corporate profits”.

“The risk of financial stress remains during this long period of recovery. Continued vigilance and caution therefore remain warranted,” he wrote.

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CHICAGO (CBS) — Some Chicago-area families have begun begging for help in recent days — a young father with leukemia, a teacher with breast cancer and a shooting victim.

On Tuesday, CBS 2’s Lauren Victory got to the bottom of a program that promises to erase thousands of medical debts for a dime on the dollar.

Inside Trinity United Church of Christ, Pastor Otis Moss III reaches 6,000 people a week.

“We are called to stand up for those who have their backs against the wall,” Moss said.

On a recent Sunday, he praised God and his own followers.

Their donations to a non-profit organization based in Westchester County, New York called RIP medical debt helped strangers pay bills for ambulances, hospital stays and medications, and more.

“He’s a quiet, quiet dream destroyer,” said Pastor Moss. “We brought together several other churches and, and we were able to raise about $38,000. That bought about $5.3 million in debt.”

Victory must have figured out how $38,000 turned into over $5 million in bills. So she Skyped with Craig Antico, co-founder of RIP Medical Debt, and got the rough math.

“You just add two zeros to your donation, and that tells you how much money you can take away — $1, of course, equals $100, and so on,” Antico said.

He explained that medical providers will accept offers from his nonprofit organization to reimburse patient expenses if bills are aggregated in the thousands. Many outstanding debts are years old.

“It’s like getting money now instead of getting it later in the next three or four years from people who can’t really afford it,” Antico said. “TransUnion, which is right there in Chicagoland, they give us debt at a really good price and they’re able to help us find people who need help.”

One of those people was Dianna Western from downstate Belleville. She was stricken with breast cancer, a heart attack and personal expenses.

“Financially, we found ourselves strapped for cash,” Western said.

She has health care coverage, but the coinsurance payment for the procedures totaled $1,412.

But then a letter arrived from RIP, telling him that the debt was gone.

“You’re kind of in shock, you know, and you’re happy,” Western said.

RIP begins to make headlines across the country.

In Collin County, Texas, Elevate Life Church worked with RIP Medical Debt to cancel a $2.2 million debt. The Grand Rapids Church in Wyoming, Michigan also worked with RIP Medical Debt to forgive nearly $2 million to nearly 2,000 families.

Higher Vision Church in Santa Clarita, California has partnered with RIP Medical Debt to raise $16,000 and clear $1.6 million in medical debt. City Church in Russellville, Arkansas worked with the nonprofit organization to pay off $3 million in medical debt for 1,589 local families.

And it’s not just the churches. Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young also canceled more than $1 million in medical debt for Atlanta residents with the help of the organization. And in Murchison, Texas, fifth-grade teacher Reagen Adair had a $3,100 debt erased using RIP medical debt.

Donors can’t choose specific people to help, but Trinity was able to target Cook County – eliminating medical debt for 5,888 families.

“We were going to do blind generosity,” Pastor Moss said.

RIP Medical Debt’s Antico said his nonprofit tries to tailor fundraisers to specific diseases like cancer or diabetes.

(AP) – The Biden administration is considering whether it can take steps to provide student debt relief through executive action, even as it continues to ask Congress to pass legislation to help borrowers and their families .

A tweet from White House press secretary Jen Psaki appeared to go further than her comments during a briefing earlier Thursday, when she said President Joe Biden was counting on Congress to act next. on student loan relief. Biden said he supports up to $10,000 in student loan forgiveness per borrower.

“The President continues to support student debt cancellation to provide relief to students and families,” Psaki tweeted. “Our team is looking at whether there are any steps he can take through executive action and he would be happy to sign a bill sent to him by Congress.”

It came hours after a group of Democrats urged Biden to use executive action to forgive $50,000 in federal student debt for all borrowers. The group, which included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said it would boost the economy and help close the country’s racial wealth gap.

Biden has previously said he supports erasing up to $10,000 in student debt through legislation, but he has not expressed interest in pursuing executive action. In a briefing before posting his statement on Twitter, Psaki appeared to reject the idea of ​​using presidential powers to wipe out debt, saying Biden had already suspended student loan repayments during the pandemic.

“He would look to Congress to take the next steps,” she said.

Legal scholars have fallen back and forth over whether Biden has the power to deal with loan relief himself, with some saying the move is unlikely to survive a legal challenge.

The Trump administration moved to block broad debt cancellation in early January, issuing an Education Department memo concluding that the secretary had no authority to provide such assistance and that it would be up to Congress.

Schumer said he and Warren researched the matter and concluded “it’s one of those things the president can do on his own.” Past presidents have written off debt, Schumer said, but not on the scale proposed.

Democrats are pushing the issue as a matter of racial justice and as relief from COVID-19. They rely on statistics showing that black and Latino borrowers are more likely to go into debt and take longer to repay their loans.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said the student debt crisis “has always been an issue of racial and economic justice.”

“But for too long, the narrative has excluded Black and Latino communities, and how this debt has exacerbated deep-rooted racial and economic inequalities in our country,” she said.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who also supports the measure, said it would help millions of Americans who have suffered financial loss during the pandemic. “The last thing people should worry about is their student loan debt,” she said.

Calls for debt forgiveness are growing after years of tuition hikes that have contributed to rising national student debt. More than 42 million Americans now hold federal student loans worth a combined $1.5 trillion, according to Department of Education data.

In an effort to provide relief soon after the pandemic hit last year, the Trump administration suspended federal student loan payments and set interest rates at zero percent. Upon taking office, Biden extended the moratorium until at least September 30.

Some Democrats say that’s not enough, and Schumer said he recently met with Biden to advocate for broader relief.

Canceling $50,000 in student debt would cost about $650 billion, Warren said. She argues it would be a “big positive” for the economy by allowing more Americans to buy homes and start businesses.

Republicans have pledged to fight any attempt at blanket debt cancellation, saying it unfairly shifts the burden from borrowers to taxpayers.

During a Wednesday hearing with Biden’s nominee for education secretary, Sen. Richard Burr, RN.C., urged the White House to reject calls for mass pardons and pass legislation aimed at simplify loan repayment options.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some G20 creditor countries are reluctant to expand and extend coronavirus-related debt service relief for the world’s poorest countries by a year, so a six-month compromise could emerge this week, World Bank President David Malpass said Monday.

Malpass, speaking to reporters at the start of the virtual annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, said the G20 debt working groups failed to reach an agreement on the two institutions’ efforts for a one-year extension of the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI).

“I think there can be compromise language that can be a six-month extension (and) it can be renewed depending on debt sustainability,” Malpass said.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from major G20 economies are due to meet via video conference on Wednesday. In May, they launched an initiative to allow poor countries to suspend payments on official bilateral debt owed to G20 creditor nations until the end of 2020, which Malpass says has so far freed up $5 billion. dollars to strengthen coronavirus responses.

Malpass and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva have warned that much more debt relief is needed for poor and middle-income countries, including principal reduction, to avoid a “lost decade” as the pandemic destroys economic activity.

Malpass said the two institutions would come up with a joint action plan to reduce the debt stock of poor countries whose debt is unsustainable.

But he said debtor countries were too “deferential” to creditor countries and needed to demand a lower debt burden more forcefully. “That dialogue has not yet been as strong as I think is necessary to move this process forward.”

A new World Bank debt study released on Monday showed that among countries eligible for the G20 debt relief program, external debt soared 9.5% in 2019 to $744 billion before the pandemic does not strike.

The official bilateral debt of the poorest countries to G20 countries reached $178 billion in 2019, with 63% of the total owed to China. The study says China’s share of that debt stood at 45% in 2013, the year Beijing launched its global Belt and Road infrastructure campaign.

Malpass said the debt service suspension initiative has accelerated more slowly than expected because “not all creditors are fully participating,” including China.

He said he wanted to see China’s participation in the debt service suspension initiative expanded to more state-sponsored creditors, adding that many of those already participating had no deferred repayment of the principal but still received interest.

Credit: Twenty20

Undertaking a major rewrite of higher education law is one way to address concerns about college affordability and student debt, according to a group of federal lawmakers that includes a congressman from South Jersey.

The group introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month that called for increased student tuition subsidies and increased federal aid to states like New Jersey that fund programs free at community colleges, among other proposed policy changes.

New efforts would also be made to help those who already have significant college debt, including establishing more generous repayment terms for low- and middle-income borrowers. The legislation also calls for the expansion of a program that offers loan forgiveness to those entering a public service field after graduating from college.

The introduction of the “College Affordability Act” by a group of sponsors that includes U.S. Representative Donald Norcross (D-1st) comes as new alarms are speaking out about the impact of high student debt on the economy. It also aims to make college more affordable as tuition fees continue to rise nationwide.

“The College Affordability Act invests in America’s schools, teachers and students, makes college more affordable, alleviates student debt and prepares graduates for meaningful careers,” said Norcross, who serves on the college’s committee. Education and House Labor.

“We need to provide every student with the tools to learn and the opportunity to succeed in their careers and this bill does just that,” Norcross said.

Fewer people are signing up as costs rise?

According to recent estimates from the New York Federal Reserve, more than 40 million people across the country have taken out a total of $1.6 trillion in student loans, including more than $106 billion borrowed in 2017 alone. The record for single-year borrowing by students was $125.6 billion in 2010, according to the US Chamber of Commerce. But experts attribute the decline to fewer people enrolling in colleges and universities as tuition fees have risen.

In New Jersey, more than one million people had outstanding student loans totaling more than $43 billion at the end of last year, according to the nonprofit Student Borrower Protection Center. And the average loan balance was nearly $40,000.

Earlier this year, a survey of New Jersey accountants suggested student loan debt was impacting the state’s economy, including preventing those with outstanding loans from saving for retirement or to buy a house. The NJCPA has created a task force take a closer look at the issue of student debt.

Meanwhile, a poll study published last week by The Pew Charitable Trusts found that nearly 70% of respondents believed the difficulties of those facing student debt were weighs on the national economy. Another 80% said the federal government should do more to help borrowers repay their loans.

More generous conditions for borrowers

the law Project revise the law on higher education – which is more than ten years old – by establishing new repayment plans with more generous conditions for borrowers. The measure would also make it easier for borrowers to refinance their debt, in particular by lowering interest rates. It also calls for an expansion of the federal Civil Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which helps forgive outstanding student loans for those entering professions such as teaching and law enforcement.

Other policy changes proposed in the bill are intended to help students directly, including increasing the amount of tuition assistance grants known as Pell Grants that income-qualified students can receive from federal government. The availability of these scholarships would also be expanded to include more students participating in short-term programs, according to the bill.

States would also be encouraged to establish tuition-free community college programs by receiving more federal assistance once they do. Governor Phil Murphy established such a program in New Jersey last year, and earlier this year, state lawmakers renewed its funding in the state budget for fiscal year 2020. The bill would also allow for increased assistance to states investing sustained manner in public colleges and universities.

Additionally, the bill calls for greater federal oversight of the federal college accreditation process and seeks to close a loophole in current law that gives underperforming for-profit schools a financial incentive to enroll veterans. .

Although it has received far less attention than other more high-profile issues that have made headlines in recent weeks, the legislation is being watched closely by groups that represent students, colleges and veterans.

“We look forward to working further with lawmakers on this comprehensive and much-needed legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act,” the American Association of Community Colleges said in a statement.

“We are grateful to the House for its comprehensive bill that addresses most of the concerns expressed by the military-affiliated community,” said Veterans Education Success, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for opportunities education for veterans and military service members.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In Kenya, the coronavirus pandemic has dried up ecotourism, cutting off sources of funding that help protect wildlife and pay income to communities working to preserve nature.

But canceling some of Kenya’s heavy external debt, in exchange for the government devoting those resources to tackling the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss, could tackle several big problems in the future. time, researchers said Tuesday.

“Under pandemic economic bailouts, governments have an opportunity to simultaneously address the crises of debt, climate and biodiversity destruction,” wrote researchers from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) based in London in a report.

It ranks the countries that would benefit the most from these “debt swaps” according to their vulnerability to climate change, biodiversity richness, indebtedness and creditworthiness.

Topping the list are Cape Verde – an island nation off the coast of West Africa – Vietnam, Honduras, Kenya, Nicaragua and Papua New Guinea.

In Vietnam, for example, swapping debt for nature and climate protection could help farmers in the Mekong Delta – an important food-producing area at high risk of sea-level rise – transition to salt-tolerant crop varieties, said report co-author Paul Steele. .

Opening up fiscal space could also expand a government effort that pays farmers, especially in poorer indigenous communities, to plant trees and conserve forests, he said.

Most of the $8 trillion in debt owed by developing countries in 2019 – before the virus crisis – is held by wealthy countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, China and big money managers. assets, Steele said.

All might have good reason to consider such exchanges, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

China, for example, is hosting the upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity summit, now postponed to 2021, which aims to increase funding for nature conservation, among other goals.

As the largest holder of bilateral debt with developing countries, China could lead by example in testing debt swaps, and recently mentioned them at a meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Steele said.

Asset managers facing debt write-offs following the coronavirus downturn could choose to use them for productive purposes – which could both support struggling economies and reduce the need for additional debt relief. debt in the future, Steele said.

Some investors who have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 might also consider debt swaps as part of their broader mission, he added.

Debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swaps are a relatively new idea. In 2018, Seychelles signed a $27 million deal brokered through The Nature Conservancy, with the money released going to create a large marine reserve, Steele said.

Similar agreements could be particularly suitable for other small island developing states in the Caribbean or the Pacific with high debt, high climate vulnerability and rich biodiversity, he said.

In all exchanges, money would be made available for climate and nature protection under a “results-based” payment system, in which the debtor nation must do what it promises to get debt relief, he said.

While Britain no longer holds much developing country debt after forgiving most of it decades ago, as host of the major UN climate summit next year, it could put pressure on creditors in the London financial center to participate in such exchanges, he said.

These deals could become more attractive — and important — as debt rises in developing countries grappling with the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturns, the researchers noted.

Developing country debt was already at record highs before the COVID-19 crisis, rising from 110% in 2010 to 170% of gross domestic product across all countries in 2019, according to the International Monetary Fund.

By Adrian Stones and Yigal Chazan*

As China moves to tackle an ongoing financial crisis among coronavirus-hit African members of its flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), or new ‘Silk Road‘, some in the West, skeptical of the company’s stated development goals, will be alert to countries that might hand over project stakes in return for loan repayment concessions.

Beijing has long denied claims that investments in the BRI, a trillion-dollar infrastructure project boosting trade ties between China and much of the developing world, risked overwhelming beneficiaries of a so much debt that they have little choice but to cede majority stakes in assets and/or agree to give China excessively long leases – the so-called debt trap diplomacy.

President Xi Jinping and his officials have sought to highlight the BRI’s contribution to economic development. And while Chinese funds are helping to build vital transport links and boost industrial activity in low-income countries, the debts they are incurring in the process seem increasingly unsustainable.

This seems to be the case in Africa, where China is seen as the biggest creditor. Johns Hopkins University identified some $152 billion in Chinese loan financing provided to 49 African countries between 2000 and 2018. Their ability to service Chinese loans – in 2018, an estimated debt of $64 billion – could now be seriously compromised by the fall in commodity prices and the recession. IMF predicts sub-Saharan African economies will contract 3.2% this year, “considerably worse than expected in April”.

In recent years, BRI countries have canceled or renegotiated projects due to debt problems, but with pandemic-related financial difficulties, others are now asking China for flexibility on their repayment schedules, and several are considered African states, according to the FT. China has signed to a G-20 commitment in April suspend debt service until the end of the year, potentially freeing up 76 of the poorest countries, including 40 in sub-Saharan Africa, to spend scarce funds to deal with the economic damage caused by the health crisis.

But according to the trade publication Eurocurrency, China added caveats that would effectively exclude hundreds of large loans made through the BIS. An opinion piece in the Atlantic Council Public Policy Blog pointed out that Chinese officials distinguish between interest-free, government-to-government credits and preferential loans from the China Export-Import Bank and the China Development Bank which “account for the largest share of Chinese lending to the foreign”.

In June, President Xi says to African leaders that he would cancel the interest-free loans due this year, but these are supposed to account for less than 5% Chinese loans to Africa. Worryingly for the continent – 39 of which are part of the BRI program – it appears that Beijing does not see preferential loans as tradable. An article from the Chinese state corporation world times said the loans are “not applicable for debt relief” due to the commercial nature of the projects they fund.

The article, however, pointed out that the repayment problems could be solved by several approaches, such as the addition of subsidies by China to help revive the projects; use of Chinese companies to help operations; or by swapping debt for equity.

For those who view China as a predatory lender, the potential offer of debt-for-equity swaps bodes ill. In 2017, Sri Lanka granted the Chinese a 70% stake in – and a 99-year operational lease for – the port of Hambantota, after struggling with debt service. When he came to power, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad pledged to cancel or renegotiate “unfair” BRI projects accepted by his predecessor.

The opacity of many BRI transactions means that it can be difficult to determine the nature of the risks countries are taking. While President Xi promised last year to make plans more transparent and financially viableCritics will nonetheless be alert that Beijing may be exploiting the financial weakness of its African partners to seek larger stakes in BRI projects during bilateral debt relief talks.

Faced with its own economic difficulties, China’s generosity in rescheduling debt service may be limited. Beijing will, however, be well aware that its critics will seize on any evidence that it is exploiting its influence in the negotiations. Yet there is another factor that likely militates against the latter. For the BRI to work, China needs the developing world to see it as an economic partner. A hardline attitude towards debt relief undermines this perception, especially in the eyes of African countries, as their economies have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. This could deter them from future BRI projects.

Those are the calculations Chinese officials are likely to make, but these days it’s hard to guess Beijing given its conduct in Hong Kong. In its defense, China would say that in the past it has shown flexibility on debt servicing, including its decision in 2018 to extend loan repayment by Ethiopia for a railway linking Addis Ababa to neighboring Djibouti within 20 years. Additionally, researchers at Johns Hopkins University revealed that in the cases they examined of African countries facing debt difficulties, there had been no seizures of assets.

Yet critics of Beijing would point the finger at Tanzanian leader John Magufuli indefinite suspension last year of a port project agreed by its predecessor, which gave China a 99-year lease for the facility, as evidence of the tough terms Beijing is believed to be negotiating. And there have been lingering concerns than Djiboutiwhich reportedly received nearly $1.4 billion in Chinese funding for projects, may fall victim to the “debt trap.”

With some BRI projects likely on hold due to the pandemic, Beijing has tried to build trust and renew faith in the company by supporting health services in partner countries. The initiative could also serve to sweeten the pill it might ask loan recipients to swallow when discussing repayments, or simply distract from tough negotiations.

nicknamed the “Health Silk Road”, a redesign of an earlier initiative, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of the measure. China’s partners, especially those in Africa, will no doubt welcome any medical aid they receive, but hope they emerge from the shadow of the pandemic with their strengths intact.

*Adrian Stones is Director and Yigal Chazan Head of Content at Alaco, a London-based business intelligence consultancy. This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com

Economy

Kenya eyes action from China after Paris Club debt relief

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Treasure CS Ukur Yatani. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Kenya is considering debt service waivers by more lenders after the Paris Club of international creditors granted it a 32.9 billion shillings loan repayment suspension to help ease pandemic-related financial difficulties of Covid-19.

The Paris Club – which includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Spain and the United States – said on Monday that it accepted a request from Kenya to suspend debt service from January to the end of June.

“Kenya is committed to using the resources freed up by this initiative to increase spending to mitigate the health, economic and social impact of the Covid-19 crisis,” the Paris Club said in a statement released. on its website.

The country has also requested relief under the G-20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) estimated at 40.6 billion shillings from January 1 to June 30 from non-Club creditors. Paris.

“The Government of the Republic of Kenya is also committed to requesting from all its other official bilateral creditors debt service treatment in accordance with the agreed term sheet and its addendum,” the G20 countries said.

Kenya is expected to pay its biggest bilateral lender, China, 109.4 billion shillings this year, including loan installments for the second phase of the standard gauge railway to Naivasha.

Last year, China announced it would suspend payments from 77 developing countries to complete the G20 offer, which is proving more attractive to countries heavily indebted to Beijing.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said the government was already in talks with China and expected a similar deal to be finalized within weeks.

“China is also generally on board with that, but we will get tougher in the coming weeks,” Yatani said.

Kenya initially resisted the suspension of G20 debt repayment, fearing it would limit access to Eurobonds and lower the country’s credit rating.

Moody’s has previously placed Kenya in B2 with a negative outlook, citing huge external debt, falling revenues and currency risks.

Mr Yatani flip-flopped on his stance on G20 debt relief, saying pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) had forced the Treasury to seek debt relief.

The two Bretton Woods institutions have pledged to give Kenya low-cost concessional loans on the condition that it accepts the suspension of G20 debt repayments.

This now paves the way for Kenya to secure approval for a $2.3 billion (250.4 billion shillings) loan facility for budget support from the IMF Board of Directors due to meet in february.

The country plans to borrow an additional $1.5 billion (150 billion shillings) from the World Bank in 2021.

Kenya is grappling with high debt payments which have soared to 7.1 trillion shillings or 69.2% of GDP at a time when revenues have fallen following the coronavirus pandemic

Tax collections by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) fell by 15.03% or 33.27 billion shillings in the first two months of this fiscal year to 188.08 billion shillings due to the effects extended training periods of Covid-19 containment measures on economic activity.

This means that Kenya will need more debt to fill the fiscal hole or turn to lenders to restructure debt or offer debt forgiveness to reduce loan repayment expenses.

The country’s deteriorating cash position, marked by declining revenues and worsening debt service obligations, forced it to revert to these conditional loans.

Kenya has pledged to reform its state-owned enterprises, which will raise taxes, cut subsidies and put some people out of work.

Kenya had steered clear of direct budget financing from institutions such as the IMF and World Bank under the administration of former President Mwai Kibaki, preferring project support.

Kenya joined Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi who took the Paris Club freeze.

Rwanda, whose over-indebtedness is considered moderate, does not have as much as South Sudan and Somalia, which are both already in difficulty.

Islamabad: Cash-strapped Pakistan has asked members of the G-20 countries for debt relief with a commitment not to take on new non-concessional loans except those permitted by IMF guidelines and from the World Bank, according to a media report.

The official requests were sent to individual countries on Friday as part of the G-20 COVID-19 debt service suspension initiative, a senior Economic Affairs Ministry official told the Express Tribune on Monday.

On April 15, the Group of 20 major economies announced a freeze on debt repayments for 76 countries, including Pakistan, for the period from May to December 2020 as they struggle to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, under subject to each country making a formal declaration. request.

However, one of the eligibility criteria was that the recipient country would not incur any new non-concessional debt during the suspension period, other than agreements under this initiative or within agreed limits under IMF debt limitation policy (DLP) or WBG policy. on non-concessional borrowings.

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Read also:For a broke Pakistan, Bahawalpur was the kingdom that kept on giving. Then he disappeared

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The Pakistani government did not mention the debt relief in the request letters, although it assessed the cumulative amount of relief at $1.8 billion for the period May to December 2020.

Pakistan has also notified the IMF, World Bank and Paris Club of its decision to formally request debt relief.

Last month, the IMF’s resident representative in Pakistan, Teresa Daban, said that Pakistan had not formally made any request to G-20 countries for debt relief.

Pakistan owes $20.7 billion to 11 members of the Group of 20 major economies. Of this amount, $1.8 billion would fall due by December 2020, including interest payments, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

During these eight months, Pakistan will have to reimburse 1.8 billion dollars to its 11 members. That includes $1.47 billion in principal repayments and $323 million in loan interest, according to the daily.

In addition, $613 million in Saudi debt and $309 million in Chinese debt will come due, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

During this period, Pakistan is also required to return $23 million to Canada, $183 million to France, $99 million to Germany, $6 million to Italy, $373 million in Japan, $47 million to South Korea, $14 million. to Russia, 1 million USD to the United Kingdom and 128 million USD to the United States.

According to an IMF condition, the $7.5 billion loans that the Imran Khan government had obtained from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar cannot be repaid during the period of the program. IMF, according to the report.

These loans were only guaranteed for one year to avoid default on international debt obligations, but the IMF had made it a condition that this money would be renewed each year until the program ended in 2022.

If the G-20 member countries agree to the request, Pakistan will have four years to return the amount, including a one-year grace period.

Pakistan has assured G-20 members that it will not incur new non-concessional debts during the suspension period other than agreements concluded under the initiative or in accordance with limits agreed under the policy of IMF debt limitation or World Bank Group policy on non-concessional lending. ready.

An IMF report had estimated Pakistan’s post-COVID-19 external financing needs at $25.8 billion with a financing gap of $2 billion.

For the next fiscal year, the IMF has projected Pakistan’s gross financing needs at $29.3 billion and a financing gap of $1.5 billion.

The IMF had approved emergency loans of $1.4 billion, which more than filled the projected financing gap, but the amount fell short of overall needs.

G-20 countries have announced debt relief to help poorer countries use the fiscal space created to increase social, health or economic spending in response to the coronavirus crisis. A monitoring system was to be put in place by the international financial institutions.

The debt relief will last until the end of 2020, but G-20 countries could consider a possible extension, taking into account a report on the liquidity needs of eligible countries by the World Bank and the IMF .

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Read also : IMF mulls $1.4bn loan to Pakistan to help deal with economic impact of Covid-19

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Democrats and “Squad” members have revisited the issue of student debt forgiveness, saying it’s time to help their fellow Americans.

In a tweet Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rejected arguments against writing off heavy debts accumulated in continuing education.

“‘Things were bad for me, so they should stay bad for everyone’ is not a good argument against canceling debt – student, medical or otherwise. #CancelStudentDebt,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

“Things were bad for me, so they should stay bad for everyone else” is not a good argument against debt cancellation – student, medical or otherwise. #CancelStudentDebt

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 16, 2020

Rep. Ayanna Pressley also contributed to the debate, adding, “Cancelling student debt will ensure a fair economic recovery from COVID-19, revive our economy, and close the racial wealth gap. One more thing,” a- she declared.

Cancel the rent.
Cancel the mortgage.
Cancel student debt.

— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) July 21, 2020

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez supports the long-term goal of having tuition-free public colleges to avoid huge debt in the first place. She believes the current education system is “financially decimating [people in] every generation.”

We should also push for public colleges to be free to prevent this massive debt bubble from financially decimating people in every generation. It is one of the easiest progressive policies to “pay for”, with multiple possibilities ranging from a Wall St transaction tax to a wealth tax to cover it.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 16, 2020

The “Squad”, made up of four young and diverse women elected to the House of Representatives – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — strongly supported the write-off of $30,000 in student loan debt, which they outlined in their Student Debt Emergency Relief Act in March.

The bill aims to provide immediate monthly payment relief to those who have taken out federal student loans and crucially prevent those with student debt from having to make involuntary payments during the coronavirus pandemic.

Congressmen Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar said the legislation would provide much-needed debt relief to some 45 million workers and families, who they say are “crushed by student debt during the COVID-19 pandemic. “.

Rep. Pressley said in a statement: “During this unprecedented crisis, no one should have to choose between paying their student loan, putting food on the table, or protecting themselves and their families.

“Our $1.6 trillion student debt crisis stands in the way of any meaningful economic stimulus efforts during and after this pandemic, which is why we need to cancel student loan debt in order to get the economy moving again. bring immediate relief to workers and families crushed by the financial and emotional burden of massive student debt. We must prioritize debt cancellation for the 45 million student borrowers who are struggling to repay their debt during this difficult time.

KEEP my beloved, departed mother (whom you would not have been able to tie) out of your ignorant mouth.

— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) November 17, 2020

As part of the President donald trump, a six-month suspension of student loan repayments has been put in place until September 30. In addition, no interest has been added to the debt. Collection appeals were also put on hold, while borrowers who had defaulted would not be denied their tax refunds. The relief was later extended until December 31 as the pandemic continued. But Democratic representatives want to go further with a more permanent solution: erase up to $30,000 in unpaid student debt, which will help “to restore economy”.

Debt cancellation critics say a bailout will simply redistribute the debt to other Americans and largely benefit those who can afford to go to college, disproportionately helping a wealthy segment of society at the expense of the taxpayer. Texas representative Dan Crenshaw called the proposal to write off the debts “immoral”, in response to the senator. Bernie Sanders saying Wall Street should help foot the bill.

“During the financial crisis, Wall Street received the largest taxpayer bailout in American history. Now it’s Wall Street’s turn to help rebuild the vanishing middle class,” Senator Sanders said. in June.

Senator Crenshaw replied: “When you say #cancelstudentdebt you are saying that a minority of people who have had the benefit of graduating should have their debt paid off by hard working taxpayers, 2/3 of whom n ‘have not graduated themselves, or have already paid off their own student debt.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once spoke about being personally affected by student debt, “I also have student loans, and I think it’s so funny, a year ago I was serving tables in a restaurant” , she said in 2019, “and it was literally easier for me to become the youngest woman in American history to be elected to Congress than to pay off my student debt.”

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez made a payment on her outstanding balance during a 2019 congressional hearing. “I literally made a student loan payment while I was sitting here in this chair, and I watched my balance and it was $20,237.16,” she said. at the meeting on student debt.

“I just made a payment that brought me down to $19,000 (£15,412) so I feel really accomplished right now.”

At the start of the pandemic, Reps Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib were paying off all of their student loans.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib believes the student loan problem is tied to a larger issue of racism. “I truly believe that canceling student debt is about racial justice,” she said.

“Even though some middle-class and wealthier families have a lot of student debt, low-income people, especially black and brown people, have higher balances and are more likely to drop out of school because “they can’t pay. Canceling all student debt would restore access to education as a right.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senate Democratic leader chuck schumer put pressure on the president-elect Joe Biden to “provide meaningful relief to struggling Americans and globally forgive up to $50,000 in student loan debt”.

Senator Warren called on Biden last week to “cancel billions of dollars in student loan debt, giving tens of millions of Americans an immediate financial boost and helping close the racial wealth gap. This is the most effective executive action available for a huge economic stimulus.”

1. Biden-Harris can write off billions of dollars in student loan debt, giving tens of millions of Americans an immediate financial boost and helping close the racial wealth gap. This is the most effective executive action available for massive economic recovery.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 12, 2020

Some 45 million people in the United States have outstanding student loans and owe an estimated total of $1.56 trillion, making it the second largest consumer debt after mortgages.

The average student loan for those who graduated in 2018 was $29,200.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the US deficit will total $4 trillion this year.

Containment and Disaster Relief Trust

April 9, 2021

Purpose of the CCRT. In February 2015, the IMF transformed the Post-Catastrophe Debt Relief Trust into the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), expanding the the range of situations covered by IMF disaster assistance to include rapidly spreading epidemics. In March 2020, the IMF adopted a set of reforms to the CCRT to enable the Fund to provide immediate debt service relief to its poorest and most vulnerable members affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic and any future pandemic. the trust provides grants to pay debt service due to the IMF to eligible low-income member countries that are affected by the most catastrophic natural disasters or are struggling with public health disasters, such as epidemics or global pandemics. The objective of debt relief under the CCRT is to free up resources to meet the exceptional balance of payments needs created by the disaster rather than having to allocate these resources to debt servicing.

Eligibility. Assistance through the CCRT is currently available to countries eligible for concessional borrowing through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) and whose per capita income is below the operational threshold of International Development Association (IDA) (currently US$1,185) or, for small states with a population of less than 1.5 million, a per capita income below twice the IDA threshold (currently $2,370).

Structure. The CCRT has two windows: (i) a Disaster Containment window, to help contain a public health disaster; and (ii) a post-disaster relief window, to provide exceptional assistance following a catastrophic natural disaster. Windows have different purposes, qualification criteria, and support requirements.

Disaster containment the window:

• Qualification. There are two alternative qualifying cases of public health disasters. The first concerns a life-threatening epidemic that has spread to several regions of the affected country, causing significant economic disruption, and has the capacity to spread or is already spreading to other countries. A significant economic disruption is defined by at least: (i) a cumulative loss of real GDP of 10%; or (ii) a cumulative loss of revenue and an increase in expenditure equivalent to at least 10% of GDP. The second case involves a potentially deadly global pandemic that inflicts severe economic disruption on all IMF members and creates balance-of-payments needs on such a scale that it warrants a concerted effort to support the poorest countries and the most vulnerable through substantial additional subsidies. and debt service relief. To qualify for assistance, the affected country must put in place appropriate macroeconomic policies to meet balance of payments needs.
• Debt service relief. Eligible low-income countries that are affected by public health disasters as defined above may receive initial grants covering eligible debt owed to the IMF within a period not exceeding two years from the date of the initial decision. (i.e. until April 2022), provided that the CCRT has sufficient means.

Post-disaster relief window:

• Qualification. A catastrophic natural disaster that has (i) directly affected at least a third Population; and (ii) destroyed more than a quarter of the country’s productive capacity, as estimated by early indications such as destroyed structures and impact on key economic sectors and public institutions or caused greater estimated damage 100% of GDP.
• Debt flow relief. Eligible low-income countries affected by catastrophic disasters as defined above would receive debt stream relief on the servicing of their IMF debt falling due within two years of the disaster.
• Relief of outstanding debt. Full cancellation of a country’s outstanding debt to the IMF is also possible in cases where the disaster has created substantial and long-lasting balance of payments needs and where the resources freed up by debt relief Outstanding debt is essential to meet these needs. This would generally only be the case if the country was faced with very high debt. Relief of outstanding debt would be conditional on concerted debt relief efforts by the country’s official creditors and the availability of resources within the CCRT.

CCRT funding. The CCRT was initially funded with the balance of the former Post-Disaster Debt Relief Trust and the remaining accounts of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative funding. In response to the covid19 pandemic, the IMF has launched an urgent fundraising effort that would allow the CCRT to provide debt service relief for the entire two-year period, while leaving the CCRT sufficiently funded for future needs. This will require a commitment of approximately $1.4 billion

Use of the CCRT. To date, three tranches from April 2020 to October 2021— have been approved for the 29 eligible countries with eligible debt. In previous cases, three Ebola-affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) received nearly US$100 million in aid from this trust in February-March 2015. The previous debt relief trust post-disaster was used to provide assistance to Haiti July 2010 of approximately US$270 million, eliminating all of Haiti’s debt to the IMF

The American flag floated above the courthouse and its huge parking lot. Just outside a fence and a guard post, protesters had pitched tents, hoisted a small Puerto Rican flag and hung banners saying, “The problem is not the junta, it’s the colony.

Ms Sánchez said protesters converged on the spot at 6 p.m. Wednesday, as soon as they learned that Promesa had passed the Senate. She said she was angry at, among other things, a provision to lower the minimum wage here to $4.25 an hour for young workers and the government’s announcement not to test supply in water.

“We’re looking at, basically, the next Flint,” she said, referring to the struggling Michigan town where high levels of lead have been found in drinking water. Flint’s deeply troubled finances are controlled by a state-appointed emergency officer, under an arrangement similar to what is now expected for Puerto Rico.

As if to embody the emotional whirlwind here, the governor, Mr. García Padilla, reversed his allegiance on the issue of federal intervention, making a 180-degree turn at the very last minute. A staunch opponent of federal surveillance, in early June he became the first sitting governor in Puerto Rico’s history to visit Cuba, where he attended a Caribbean summit as an observer, spoke with President Raúl Castro and laid the foundations for a commercial office in Havana.

The move stunned policymakers in Washington, who had pushed Promesa’s sensitive dossier for months and expected the governor to join them in the latest lobbying offensive on Capitol Hill.

This week, García Padilla traveled to Washington, where he dutifully accompanied Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew to lobby for the bill.

There are 45 million borrowers who owe $1.6 trillion in student debt, according to Forbesand Quinnipiac University students are calling on President-elect Joe Biden to lighten the load in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn.

“Students shouldn’t worry about school debt when they turn 50,” said Jennifer Guzman, a first-year psychology student. “There are so many students who are working double duty just to try and pay their school debt and barely make a dent. There are other students who are first-generation Americans, and their parents don’t even earn half of their school dues.

Students like Guzman are not alone in their frustration. A coalition of 236 mostly progressive groups called on Biden on Nov. 18 to use his executive powers to cancel student debt on his first day as president.

During the campaign trail, Biden promised to immediately forgive $10,000 of each borrower’s debt as part of his COVID-19 response.

Ricardo Bernabe Torres, a finance professor at Quinnipiac, said a student he spoke to about his student loans told him Biden’s plan wouldn’t be enough.

“The $10,000 wouldn’t make much difference to her, but she said she was happy for everyone that it would help,” Torres said.

Torres said he supports student loan debt forgiveness because of conversations like these he had with students.

“It’s good for the economy,” Torres said. “I don’t think it’s going to solve everything, but we have a different generation than we had before. It is the first generation that is poorer than previous generations. There is less home ownership. There are delays in retirement.

The pandemic is only exacerbating existing trends, Torres said.

“The looming feeling of these debts can set people back,” Torres said. “When they want to take a risk or make a big financial decision like buying a house or having kids, the impending gloom has an impact.”

Sumer Perratti, a junior media studies student, said student debt relief would give her time to explore her areas of interest without worrying about paying off student debt.

“Cancelling student debt would give me the opportunity to freely explore the field of communications and follow my passion without worrying about college expenses,” Perratti said.

Critics of canceling student loans argue that it is unfair to people who have already paid off their loans and would cost too much. Perratti said each family’s financial situation is different and reviews should be more understanding.

“I think people need to understand that a lot of us come from low-income or working-class households and going to a very reputable university is often a risk,” Perratti said. “We must bank on the success that our schools promise us to pay to avoid living in debt for the rest of our lives. College is so expensive now, and it’s unfair that my life is at a disadvantage because my family doesn’t make enough money.

As someone who doesn’t have kids and has never had his own student debt from scholarships, Torres said he always feels empathy for those who owe her. refund.

“We all benefit from a more educated society,” Torres said.

Due to a concept Torres called “degree inflation,” an increasing number of careers require not just a bachelor’s degree, but also a master’s degree. More degrees mean more money and fewer opportunities for those with less money.

“We all impose this as a society and so not everyone is in the position of being able to go to school without going into debt,” Torres said. “Are we going to stop these people from getting a degree?”

For many students and activists, the answer is no.

“Every year, student debt increases and hits a new high,” said Collin Doria, a sophomore in health sciences. “The pandemic is not improving anything, so the debt should be cancelled.”

India said on Thursday it was in talks with Sri Lanka over its request for a debt repayment deferral.

“The file has progressed and discussions at the technical level are currently underway,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava.

He was responding to a question about the issue during an online press conference.

Sri Lanka is reeling from a major economic crisis and has asked several countries and international donors, including India, for debt relief.

Asked about reports of Chinese envoy to Nepal Hou Yanqi meeting with several leaders in Nepal and whether she was meddling in the country’s political turmoil, Srivastava declined to comment.

I have no comment to make on the internal political situation in Nepal, he said.

Responding to a question on the Enrica Lexie case, Srivastava said the Foreign Ministry was quick to inform the Supreme Court and the government of Kerala of the verdict of an international court on the matter.

In its ruling, the court said two Italian sailors who shot down two Indian fishermen cannot be tried in an Indian court.

He did, however, confirm the conduct of Indian authorities following the 2012 incident.

India has accused two Italian marines, Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, aboard the MV Enrica Lexie, an Italian-flagged tanker, of shooting dead the two Indian fishermen who were on a fishing boat off Kerala in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of India.

The incident happened off the coast of Kerala on February 15, 2012.

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The World Bank, IMF and Oxfam have all called on the G20 to extend the debt suspension of the poorest countries battling coronavirus.

The Group of 20 major economies will make a decision on extending the current suspension of debt repayments for the poorest countries towards the end of the year, postponing assurances of further relief as the global pandemic ravages nations of the whole world.

All member countries have started implementing the Debt Service Suspension Initiative which is currently only expected to run until December and the G-20 expects the status quo to put $14 billion dollars available to fight the virus, said Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan of host Saudi Arabia. told reporters on Saturday after a virtual meeting of ministers and central bankers. So far, 42 countries have requested assistance under the plan, resulting in the suspension of $5.3 billion in repayments.

The decision to consider extending the debt suspension follows calls from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and charities such as Oxfam. The rate of Covid-19 infections is rising in many countries, and even with the April G-20 agreement to waive bilateral debt payments for vulnerable countries, the cost of servicing bonds is crowding out the health and social expenditure.

The World Bank last month forecast emerging market output will decline for the first time in at least six decades.

The virus and global recession will lead to increased poverty in poor countries and some countries’ debt burdens are reaching crisis levels, World Bank President David Malpass said in prepared remarks for the meeting of Saturday. He urged the G-20 to extend the status quo until the end of 2021 and expand the scope.

“More and more desperate”

“The situation in developing countries is increasingly desperate,” Malpass said. “Time is running out. We need to act quickly on debt suspension, debt reduction, debt resolution mechanisms and debt transparency.”

Al-Jadaan said the G-20 will receive a progress report from the IMF and World Bank ahead of the annual lenders’ meetings in October to help decide on next steps.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement that she hoped the G-20 would consider an extension of the debt moratorium, without giving a specific timeline. The IMF is stepping up action to make better use of existing special drawing rights, or reserve assets, she said.

After Saturday’s meeting, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said France supported extending the debt service suspension until the end of 2021 and that nations were on track to achieve this. to an agreement. He said European countries were continuing to discuss work to establish a digital business tax by the end of the year and a minimum business tax to tackle evasion.

However, the commitments made at Saturday’s meeting may not yet go far enough, according to Jubilee USA Network, a nonprofit group that advocates for debt relief for small economies.

“Given the severity of the current crisis, we were hoping to see more action,” Jubilee’s Eric LeCompte said in a statement.

-With help from Vivian Nereim, Reema Alothman and Matthew Martin.

By AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has secured a $1.7 billion debt relief deal to help offset financial headwinds caused by the coronavirus pandemic, officials said on Monday.

The deal, after months of negotiations with creditors, will provide a moratorium on debt payments for large swaths of the current financial year and help ease the cash-strapped country’s massive financial obligations.

“The Pakistani government has successfully negotiated and concluded rescheduling agreements with 19 bilateral creditors, including members of the Paris Club,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement.

The ministry went on to describe the deal as “timely” which will help save “the lives and livelihoods of millions of people”.

Pakistan’s economy was already on life support before authorities began shutting down large segments of the economy in the spring as a series of lockdown measures were rolled out to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly called for international donor debt cancellation as tax revenues soared, inflation soared, the currency devalued and budget deficits widened.

Earlier this year, the G20 and the Paris Club agreed to waive most debt payments for the world’s poorest countries in 2020 as sweeping virus lockdowns rocked the global economy.

In June, Pakistan was named as one of the few countries to secure a moratorium on Paris Club debt repayments in a bid to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.

To add to the country’s woes, Pakistan is also facing growing questions over the huge debt it has incurred in recent years from Chinese-funded infrastructure projects.

Beijing has steadily poured money into Pakistan, investing more than $50 billion under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which has improved infrastructure, electricity and transport links across the country.

PARIS/TOKYO/WASHINGTON: G20 countries agreed for the first time on a common restructuring framework government debtin anticipation of the coronavirus crisis leaving some poorer nations struggling to pay and in need of relief.
With the Covid-19 pandemic straining the finances of some developing countries, G20 finance ministers said on Friday that more help was needed than a current temporary debt freeze, which will be extended until June 30, 2021.
Major creditors, including China, will have to follow common guidelines agreed by the G20, which specify how debt deemed unsustainable can be reduced or rescheduled.
Non-governmental groups said the deal should have gone further by including middle-income countries and forcing private investors accept cancellations.
The coronavirus crisis has exacerbated the problems of the poorest countries, 50% of which are currently in debt distress or at risk of debt distress and, in an early sign of its impact, Zambia is on the verge of becoming Africa’s first sovereign default in the world. COVID era.
managing director of the imf Kristalina Georgieva Last week, African states alone faced a funding gap of $345 billion through 2023 to deal with the pandemic and its economic impact.
“I count on the constructive spirit of everyone to ensure a rapid and cooperative implementation of the common framework, while several countries are already asking for debt treatments, particularly in Africa,” said Bruno Le Maire in French finance. G20 counterparts in an online meeting.
China, which accounted for 63% of the total debt owed to G20 countries in 2019, has been reluctant to acknowledge the need for outright debt cancellation or reduction.
Under the new framework, creditor countries will negotiate with a debtor country, which will have to seek the same terms of treatment from private sector creditors.
The regime borrows heavily from the rules established by the Paris Club, an informal grouping of governments of mainly wealthy countries created in 1956, which was until now the only common forum to negotiate debt restructurings.
G20 finance ministers said in a joint statement that the new framework aims to “facilitate the rapid and orderly processing of debt” for countries eligible for the debt payment freeze put in place in April, but which does not only included private sector creditors on a voluntary basis.
“From now on, all interested parties must ensure that the common framework is implemented. Debt transparency is extremely important,” Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters after a G20 conference call, calling the deal “historic.”
Wave of crises
The new framework also goes further by requiring the participation of all public creditors, after China was criticized by G20 partners for not including debt owed to its state-owned banks.
Wary of debt cancellations, Beijing has defined the state-owned China Development Bank as a private institution, resisting calls for full participation in debt relief.
Although China signed the framework, it was still unclear how it would implement the measures, a source familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.
Tim Jones, head of policy at Jubilee Debt Campaign, said in a statement that the G20 announcement enabled but discouraged outright debt cancellation, and did not create a mechanism to compel the participation of the private sector.
“This announcement falls far short of what is needed to tackle the wave of debt crises in the poorest countries,” he said.
“With many countries facing debt crises and Zambia today on the brink of default, the G20 must stop kicking the road,” he added.
Eric LeCompte, UN debt adviser and executive director of Jubilee USA Network, said including private sector creditors was an important step, but criticized the G20 for not including middle-income countries.
“Unfortunately, middle-income countries that will see some of the biggest increases in poverty due to the crisis, are being left out of this process,” LeCompte said.
The Paris Club, which is organized by France’s finance ministry, and G20 countries had already agreed last month to extend this year’s debt freeze under which they were postponing $5 billion in debt service to help the world’s poorest countries.
G20 leaders are expected to endorse the common framework at a virtual summit meeting next week.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Nakeia Warren and Andre Archibald are just two of more than 2,000 consumers who have contacted the Federal Trade Commission to complain about Ameritech Financial, a student debt relief company.

According to the FTC, between 2014 and 2018, consumers paid Ameritech Financial $60 million in fees in exchange for Ameritech Financial submitting documents on their behalf to loan repayment plans.

RELATED: Ameritech Financial employee claims struggling student debt relief company was helping people

Warren and Archibald thought the money they paid to Ameritech Financial was going towards their student loans, but the FTC says that was not the case.

“I felt humiliated. I was very angry about it,” Warren said.

Archibald served in the military for 19 years and now works in counterintelligence.

“It makes you feel like an idiot,” Archibald said.

The two paid thousands of dollars up front, followed by recurring monthly fees.

The FTC says this upfront fee should serve as a wake-up call to consumers.

RELATED: Sonoma County CEO charged under student debt relief program to be released under house arrest

“Asking you for a fee before we do anything for you and in doing anything, what I mean is actually providing you with the debt relief services that you sign up for and that are illegal,” said FTC staff attorney Michelle Grajales.

Consumers also say Ameritech Financial encouraged them to exaggerate their family size to qualify for loan forgiveness programs.

In February, the FTC filed a lawsuit against Ameritech Financial and CEO Brandon Frere outlining the alleged deceptive practices.

“I would have kept paying out of ignorance if it hadn’t been for the legal notice I received,” Warren said.

In Ameritech Financial’s offer letter, there is a disclosure at the bottom in fine print. It explicitly says that the company does not assume or pay consumer debts. It also states that there are many free government programs and this is not a government program. It’s information that Warren says she only noticed after the FTC contacted her.

She then contacted the Ministry of Education.

“When I said Ameritech the woman on the phone finished the finances for me – she already knew who the company was, she said I had spoken to so many people like you and unfortunately you were taken advantage of as many more,” Garenne said.

On November 29, the FTC filed an injunction shutting down Ameritech Financial. Brandon Frere also faces a charge of wire fraud for transferring company money to personal and offshore accounts.

Frere’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment today, but has already spoken to ABC7 News outside of court.

“There are an awful lot of issues in this case that will emerge as the case progresses,” attorney Ed Swanson said.

RELATED: Sonoma County leader arrested over student debt relief program

Meanwhile, Warren and Archibald have several thousand dollars more student loan debt than when they started paying Ameritech Financial because of the interest that continued to accrue on their loans.

the The FTC has a list of companies and those barred from debt relief.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is open to extending a joint framework for debt treatment agreed on Friday by G20 finance officials for the world’s poorest countries to include countries with middle income and small island states, a senior US Treasury official said.

However, this view is not shared by all members of the Group of 20 major economies at this stage, the official said.

“We are very open to extending this to other countries,” the official told reporters. “It’s a framework that we believe could apply to low-income countries, as well as middle-income countries, small island states.”

On Friday, G20 countries agreed for the first time on a common framework for restructuring public debts as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates problems for poor countries that were already facing high levels of debt. overwhelming before the outbreak.

The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and finance ministers from many middle-income countries have argued that the G20 debt relief initiative must be expanded to include countries that are not currently eligible.

US approval marks a substantial step forward in this push.

The senior US official called the joint framework a historic achievement that brought creditors such as China, India and Turkey into a coordinated debt restructuring process, alongside the Paris Club of official bilateral creditors.

But he said the United States would carefully monitor its implementation, with a focus on China, which has increased its lending sharply over the past 20 years. Estimates of total Chinese loans ranged from $350 billion to more than $1 trillion, the official said.

“We will certainly be watching closely how it works in practice, and with a particular eye on Chinese participation,” the official said. “It’s really the lack of transparency on Chinese debt that allows them, in some cases, to game the system and avoid full participation.”

Several banks across the UAE have canceled the debts of 1,607 Emiratis, totaling more than Dhs 869.85 million, the Non-Performing Debt Relief Fund announced on November 30.

Participating lenders included: First Abu Dhabi Bank, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Al Hilal Bank, Mashreq Bank, Emirates NBD, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Standard Chartered, RAKBANK, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates Islamic, NBQ and the Arab Bank for Investment and Foreign Trade (Al Masraf).

This decision was implemented in accordance with the directives of the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Under the directives of Khalifa bin Zayed, with the support of Mohamed bin Zayed and the follow-up of Mansour bin Zayed, the Citizens Debt Settlement Fund announces the exoneration of 1,607 citizens from debts worth 869,845,000 AED with the participation of 12 banks across the UAE. pic.twitter.com/oBjAi3o9Na

— مكتب أبوظبي الإعلامي (@admediaoffice) November 30, 2020

“Since its inception in 2011, under the guidance of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa, the fund has undertaken many important initiatives to address the issues and concerns of citizens and provide them with the means for a decent standard of living, in cooperation with national banks and the Central Bank,” said Jaber Mohammed Ghanem Al Suwaidi, Director General of the Court of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Supreme Committee of the Non-Performing Debt Relief Fund.

Al Suwaidi also expressed his thanks to all the banks that have been part of this initiative, the official news agency W.A.M. reported.

The most direct impact Americans will see from COVID-19 recovery plan signed by President Donald Trump on Sunday evening will be payments of $600, which will be sent in the coming weeks.

And while there was some debate about whether that amount should have been higher, President-elect Joe Biden said any aid approved by Congress in his lame session before his inauguration would only be a “down payment” on additional assistance would offer his administration.

The $600 payouts have gotten the lion’s share of the attention, but plenty of other funding is coming to the first state.

This includes an additional $300 per week for people receiving unemployment benefits through March 2021. Businesses hit hard by the pandemic will be able to apply for a second round of the Paycheck Protection Program to continue paying their workers. The small business debt relief program is also being extended. Nationally, more than $8 billion in debt relief has been distributed, with approximately 900 small businesses participating in the initial program.

“This package will provide quick relief to our small businesses, especially those hardest hit by this pandemic,” said U.S. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, “Delaware workers who have been laid off through no fault of their go; and to our families struggling to pay rent and put food on the table.

Coons echoed Biden in suggesting more relief should come from the new administration in 2021.

“This may not be the last relief bill,” Coons said, “but it is a solid compromise that will bring relief to Delawares who need it before the holidays.”

The additional help is long overdue, Coons added. “The support we provided through the CARES Act in March had to be extended months ago,” he said. “We’ve expanded SNAP benefits, we’ve expanded help for food banks and for hungry Americans, but there are far too many hungry Americans.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Many countries may need debt restructuring in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist said on Tuesday.

Gita Gopinath told an online event hosted by Oxford University that there was no debt crisis at the moment, but there would be a “much more persistent need for debt relief for the world’s poorest nations” in light of the pandemic.

Given that around 40% of low-income countries were already in debt distress or at high risk of becoming so, with growing numbers, she said there may well be “a need for debt restructuring in many country”.

The comments came a day before the Group of 20 major economies and the Paris Club of official creditors are organizing a high-level conference on debt, capital flows and sustainable finance in the context of the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic.

G20 finance ministers, IMF and World Bank leaders and private sector creditors will discuss options for responding to capital outflows from emerging markets, debt challenges and how best to foster strong growth and sustainable.

Gopinath and other international financial experts have said they believe the freeze on debt service payments offered by G20 countries to the poorest countries until the end of the year should be extended.

They have also repeatedly called for increased private sector participation in the G20 debt moratorium.

The World Bank’s new chief economist, Carmen Reinhart, told the online event that the original timeline for the G20 debt initiative should be reviewed and the debt restructuring process should become more fast and faster.

“The main constraint is to make sure everyone is on board, which hasn’t been the case,” she said, noting that private sector involvement “didn’t happen.” .

Argentina on Saturday extended its debt restructuring offer until Monday, after creditors largely rejected the proposal to avert the country’s ninth sovereign debt default.

President Alberto Fernández said Argentina’s goal was to make “commitments we can keep” after the government failed to garner enough support for its bid to restructure $65 billion of external debt before Friday’s original deadline.

“It’s a negotiation with very unique characters from the world of finance. Now let’s see how many accepted the offer, if there are any counter offers. I heard there might be some counter offers in the next few days. The negotiation continues, nothing is closed,” Fernández told a local radio station on Saturday morning. “Nobody wants to fall into default.”

The country had given bondholders until Friday to accept a restructuring proposal which calls for interest payments to be deferred until 2023 and principal payments until 2026.

Most foreign bondholders rejected Argentina’s offer, according to people familiar with the matter, and turnout was so low that the government chose not to announce the results in an official statement.

“It’s a pretty big fail,” said one investor.

Martín Guzmán, Argentina’s economy minister, said on Friday that dialogue remained open with creditors.

“We appreciate the fact that there are creditors who enter into the proposed exchange, choosing the path of a lasting relationship,” he told El Cronista, a newspaper. “If creditors who have not yet entered have other ideas consistent with the capacity to pay identified in the government’s and IMF’s debt sustainability analysis, then we are prepared to consider them.”

Bondholders have said they are now considering making a counter offer, although many are reluctant to do so until the government admits its offer and the assumptions on which it is based are not acceptable, according to an investor participating in the negotiations.

The main Argentine bondholders have remained firm in their opposition to the deal since the government introduced it last month. Three creditor groups – whose members include BlackRock, Fidelity, T Rowe Price, GMO, VR Capital Group and other major institutional investors – immediately rejected the terms. Earlier this week they double over their critics, saying in a joint statement that they would not support the Buenos Aires proposal.

Without the support of these creditors, Argentina will struggle to avoid another default. The group which includes BlackRock, Fidelity and T Rowe Price says its members own more than 25% of the country’s bonds issued since 2016, and more than 15% of previously restructured bonds issued in 2005 and 2010 – the so-called bonds of exchange . Another group representing swap bond holders claims to hold more than 16% of the bonds outstanding.

Depending on the bond, Argentina needs the approval of between 66 and 85 percent of creditors. While the three groups remain separate, they have aligned more in recent weeks, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“[Guzmán’s] the intransigence brought all bondholders together,” the person said.

Bondholders have disputed that under the current proposal they will see no payout for three years. When coupon payments begin in 2023, they say, the proposed initial size of 0.5% on most bonds is simply too low.

Members of the creditor groups have also hit back at Argentina for its handling of the negotiations so far. Many investors ignored recent meetings with Guzmán and his team, citing that the deal was being framed as a “take it or leave it” offer.

“The old strategy of using harsh rhetoric to drive prices down so they can come back to make it look okay won’t work,” said a member of one of the groups. “Many of these investors bought the bonds when they were issued.”

On current terms, analysts see an average recovery value of 32 cents on the dollar for bonds issued after 2016, and about 35 cents on the dollar for exchange bonds.

Investors said they are now looking to May 22, the end of a 30-day grace period for payments they have already missed. Some see the way to an agreement, with Argentina showing some flexibility, especially given the risks in the event of another default by the country.

“It doesn’t benefit anyone to get into a protracted situation,” said a person familiar with the negotiations. “We know what it looks like. Argentina spent a decade in financial isolation” after defaulting in 2001, the person added.

A bipartisan group of senators negotiating a $908 billion coronavirus relief package is circulating a summary of the plan that says $13 billion would be allocated to the agricultural sector.

the abstract, obtained by Agri Pulse, does not specify how the money would be spent, except to allocate $600 million for disaster relief in the fisheries sector.

The outline of the proposal only indicated that $26 billion would be allocated to agriculture and nutrition.

According to the new summary, the plan would temporarily increase the Individual Monthly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by 15% for four months and provide funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program to help food banks and pantries.

It would also temporarily increase the value of the benefits of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), allowing participants to purchase additional fruits and vegetables.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, a senator leading the negotiations, Sen. Joe Manchin, DW. Va, said lawmakers are making progress on state and local funding, as well as liability protections.

These two issues have been two major sticking points among Republicans and Democrats over the past few months, which is why they have yet to reach an agreement on COVID relief.

Interested in more coverage and information? Receive a free month of Agri Pulse.

“Hopefully we’ll finish our language by tonight,” Manchin said. “That’s what we’re aiming for.” He said he understood there was agreement Tuesday night on state and local funding and believed lawmakers were reaching agreement on liability protections.

When asked if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other GOP leaders were taking the bill seriously, Manchin replied, “They don’t another on the table”.

The bipartisan package would provide about $10 billion for broadband needs, including $6.25 billion that would go to state broadband rollout and broadband connectivity subsidies. The grants are intended to ensure “affordable broadband access” during the pandemic, the summary says.

An additional $3 billion would be allocated to the Education Connectivity Emergency Fund. This money would be given in priority to rural areas that need it most to help education and distance education providers distribute hotspots, devices and other connected devices.

The Federal Communications Commission would receive $475 million for its COVID-19 telehealth program to bolster the efforts of healthcare providers to fight the coronavirus. There would be 20% reserved for small rural suppliers.

The agricultural section of the summary also indicates that USDA Rural Development would obtain funding for water and wastewater programs. The amount was not specified.

For more news, visit www.Agri-Pulse.com.