Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Aug 19, 2019 (III)

choi

(1) Shahien Nasiripour with David Ingld, The Lasting Burden of Student Debt
("few know that this generation of borrowers is chipping away at their debt so slowly that some may not escape it until they're dead.  That's the grim assessment of a new  analysis, which found that US student loan borrowers as a group are paying down about 1% of their federal debt every year. it's as if a former student were reducing the balance of a typical $30,000 college loan by only $300 annually. At that rate, it's almost unthinkable how long it would take to repay the government: a century.  Of course, many borrowers will pay off their loans much faster, especially as wages grow overtime. * * * It also helps explain why the burden of the nation's $1.6 trillion in student loans -- almost all of which is owed to the fedral government -- has become a major issue in the US presidential campaign")

My comment:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Paying off the $1.6 trillion bill for higher education could take US borrowers a lifetime
(b) It is also possible that Americans are paying the minimum monthly requirement of student loans in anticipation of a national forgiving of all student loans. Then if one pays off his debt, he loses. This is called moral hazard.

(2) Juan Pablo Spinetto and Daniel Cancel (yep, that is his last name),  The incredible Sinking Argentina.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/a ... e-sinking-argentina
Over the last 70 years, Argentina has endured hyperinflation, government collapse, and the world's largest sovereign debt default. It's spent a third of that time in recession * * * And yet even the embattled Buenos Aires stock exchange had never experienced anything like the 48% plunge it took on Aug 12, a day after left-wing candidate Alberto Fernández [whose running mate is former president Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015)] bested the fiscally conservative incumbent Mauricio Macri in the presidential primary by more than 15 points, winning more than 47% of the vote. The primary is meant to winnow the slate of candidates, but in reality it serves as a nationwide poll to preview the official vote for the presidency, still 10 weeks away. * * * Macri was elected in 2015 with a mandate to fix the problems created by the preceding eight-year administration, which had doctored statistics, imposed limits on foreign capital, and kept public service bills artificially low, leading to a swollen deficit and an isolated country unable to borrow. * * * [Argentina is] South America's second-largest economy [Brazil is largest (but Chile has the highest per capita GDP (which is not much)]. * * * After the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates in 2018, causing a steep slide in the peso [hot money left Latin America to US], Macri was forced to negotiate a $56 billion bailout with the International Monetary Fund, the largest ever made with the lender. * * * Annual inflation now sits above 50%, and the economy will contract in 2019 for a second straight year")

Note:
(a)
(i) summary underneath the title in print: Markets reeled as the country whipped back toward protectionaism
(ii) Print and the online version are identical.
(b) "world's largest sovereign debt default"
(i) It is Greece, not Argentina.

Katy Barnato, The world's biggest sovereign defaults. CNBC, July 7, 2015
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/07/ ... reign-defaults.html
(1 Greece: March 2012, size of default; 2 Argentina: November 2001, size $82 billion; "Argentina's most recent default, in 2014, is not included because there is not yet a definitive figure for the sum involved"))
(ii) list of sovereign debt crises
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crises

Northern Expedition 北伐 (1926-1928)
(iii)
(A) "Greek government-debt crisis was the sovereign debt crisis faced by Greece in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007–08. * * *  In all, the Greek economy suffered the longest recession of any advanced capitalist economy to date, overtaking the US Great Depression. * * * The Greek crisis started in late 2009, triggered by the turmoil of the world-wide Great Recession, structural weaknesses in the Greek economy, and lack of monetary policy flexibility as a member of the Eurozone (according to certain arguments). * * * the country required bailout loans in 2010, 2012, and 2015 from the International Monetary Fund, Eurogroup, and European Central Bank, and negotiated a 50% 'haircut' on debt owed to private banks in 2011, which amounted to a €100bn debt relief."  en.wikipedia.org.
(B) Greece's Debt, 1974 – 2018. Council for Foreign Affairs, undated
https://www.cfr.org/timeline/greeces-debt-crisis-timeline

Quote:

"May 2, 2010
First Bailout for Greece
To avoid default, the International Monetary Fund and EU agree to provide Greece with 110 billion euros ($146 billion) in loans over three years. Germany provides the largest sum, about 22 billion euros, of the EU's 80 billion euro portion. * * *

"August 20, 2018
Greece Exits Final Bailout Program
Greece receives its final loan from European creditors, completing a bailout program begun in 2015, the country’s third since 2010. In total, Greece now owes the EU and IMF roughly 290 billion euros ($330 billion), part of a public debt that has climbed to 180 percent of GDP. * * *

(3) Irina Reznik and Ilya Arkhipov with Stepan Kravchenko, Putin's Post-Crimea High Is Wearing off.

Note: summary underneath the title in print: With oil prices falling -- and taking living standards with them -- the people are finding ways to express their discontent