Experts fear a fresh wave of bankruptcies could be on the horizon as economic relief programs wind down

There have been 3,000 bankruptcy filings in North Carolina since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Federal bankruptcy courts, including Charlotte's in the Charles R. Jonas Federal Building, have seen a steady stream of business despite extraordinary measures to stem the economic bleeding.(Photo: ROBERT LAHSER, ROBERT LAHSER - rlahser@charlott)

Diyrone Solomon, a deputy sheriff in Halifax County, filed for bankruptcy after the hours at his second job tending rental properties were cut when the pandemic hit.

Robin Hullett and her husband, Kevin, a factory worker from Burnsville, filed because steep medical bills kept coming.

Elizabeth McIntosh and her husband, John, filed because his health couldnt take truck driving anymore and less money in a safer job couldnt cover the bills from his heart attack years before.

Solomon, Hullett and McIntosh are among the more than 3,000 people in North Carolina who filed for bankruptcy from April through September. The number is less than before the pandemic, but experts worry it is a brief reprieve from a deluge expected once some federal relief efforts subside.

Since the coronavirus swept through the state in March, federal and local officials have pulled out every stop to prevent economic bleeding. Evictions were postponed. Water wasnt shut off for unpaid bills. Most foreclosures were delayed.

Still, thousands sought bankruptcy protection. Filings fell about 30% during the pandemic, but a steady stream of bankruptcies kept coming as COVID-19 raged. Extra unemployment benefits, $1,200 checks sent to most Americans, the Paycheck Protection Program they helped, but the efforts didnt move the needle on the deeper issues. A decline in filings, though, suggests these measures eased some of the pressure.

When these assists end, experts worry about a wave of filings. The underlying issues that drive bankruptcies, they say, got worse in the pandemic.

"Why are people still filing? People still have debt," said Robert Lawless, a law professor at the University of Illinois and an expert on consumer bankruptcy.

Health care is still unaffordable for many. Low wage work still cant cover the expenses of conventional American life such as a car payment and school supplies. Being poor, experts say, is expensive.

The cycles of debt that trap people havent relented during the pandemic. In fact, with millions more Americans out of work, bankruptcy lawyers agree that the struggles have worsened. When foreclosures, evictions and other debt collections start again and some already have thousands of North Carolinians and hundreds of thousands of Americans will be thrust back into an economic sweatbox.

It doesn't matter what the relief packages are now," said Duke University law professor Sara Greene. "It could be for some people that they really were on the edge of filing. Then, COVID-19 comes along and it makes things worse. They were just eking by, COVID-19 came along, and it was just the nail in the coffin."

The pain from these bankruptcies is not equally shared.

The Charlotte Observer and the North Carolina News Collaborative compiled a database of the 1,760 bankruptcies filed in North Carolina between May 1 and July 31. While bankruptcy filings dont typically include data on race, the filings were cross referenced with the persons voter registration, which often includes race. Of the filings examined, 90% of voter registrations included race.

An analysis suggests that in North Carolina, Black residents filed bankruptcy at a rate 50% greater than whites residents -- a sign of how financial distress can affect communities of color more severely. White people filed for bankruptcy at a rate of 13.28 per 100,000 white residents. Black people, on the other hand, filed at a rate of 21.56 per 100,000 Black residents.

The reason Black people filed at a higher rate isnt immediately clear, although they are overrepresented in filings historically. It could hold clues about where the economy is headed, experts said.

This may be the canary in the mineshaft, said Bruce Markell, a law professor at Northwestern University and a former federal bankruptcy judge.

While he cautioned that an analysis has yet to be done on the drivers of bankruptcies filed this year, we know the pandemic hits African-Americans harder, and we know that they lost jobs sooner. The most vulnerable people get hurt the most and they turn to bankruptcy because that's the only relief they get.

Other than race, location also skewed filings. Two coastal counties Tyrrell and Washington had the highest rate of people declaring bankruptcy. There were more than four bankruptcies for every 10,000 residents in those counties. North Carolina averaged about 1.7 bankruptcies filed for every 10,000 residents.

Mecklenburg County residents filed the most bankruptcies at 154, followed by Wake County at 131 and Guilford County at 108. The figures roughly match up to the population centers of North Carolina. The average age of those who filed was 53.

A bankruptcy filing can be divided into two categories: the cause and the catalyst. People typically dont file for bankruptcy because they just lost their job. They file because they lost their job and their medical bills keep piling up and their car payment is still due and so is their mortgage. The layered mountain of debt is the cause of the bankruptcy, but a smaller event, such as a pink slip or an emergency room visit, can be the catalyst that pushes someone to file.

"People usually hang on for a while, and try to negotiate with the creditors, said Karen Moskowitz, director of the consumer protection program at the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy. "And then something will send them over the edge."

For Solomon, the deputy sheriff, his catalyst was lost income. His hours were cut at a second job because of the pandemic. He filed for bankruptcy July 7, listing $52,000 in debt.

The ultimate cause of Solomons bankruptcy was the mortgage on his house in Roanoke Rapids. He had missed some payments, and he said he couldnt work out a forbearance plan with his lender, 21st Mortgage. Solomon needed about $5,000 to catch up on payments. He worked another part-time gig at a funeral home helping run services, but fewer hours with a different job tending rental properties meant he couldnt come up with the cash fast enough.

Because of the bankruptcy protection, Solomon got to keep his house.

The most important thing was to keep my home, he said. Anything else other than that can be recovered, you know.

Bankruptcy can carry a daunting social stigma, but it is a useful economic tool. If done in a certain manner, the process allows people to wash away thousands of dollars in debt, stay in their homes and restart their lives.

Though many filed for bankruptcy during the pandemic, the governments intervention did help some.

That stimulus helped us a whole bunch. A tremendous amount, said Robin Hullett, referring to the $1,200 check that the federal government sent out to most Americans. She used it to buy some groceries and pay down some bills.

But bankruptcy was an outcome that a $1,200 check couldnt stave off. Their debts were unrelenting, Hullett said.

Legal experts call this the sweatbox. Its the period before bankruptcy where the debts become insurmountable, bankruptcy looms large, and life becomes a fraught mess of calculations.

"We're starting to see people who a year ago were nowhere near bankruptcy, particularly people who had small businesses or good jobs. Were seeing folks like that start to file."

Roughly half of all people in this pre-bankruptcy period choose to forgo medical care, according to data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a research project into consumer bankruptcy in the U.S. A quarter go without food sometimes.

The sweatbox meant the Hulletts were eating ramen noodles and cardboard pizza, most of the time, according to Robin Hullett.

For Robin and her husband Kevin, the factory worker, their thousands in medical debts put them in the sweatbox. An arm injury has kept Robin from working, but she said she doesnt qualify for disability. Creditors have hounded them to collect on their debts, some of which were as small as $170. They wanted to protect their single-wide mobile home on a quarter acre in Burnsville.

On May 19, they filed for bankruptcy.

While medical bankruptcies fueled the passage of the Affordable Care Act a decade ago, the reality on the ground hasnt changed much. Medical debt is still a top driver of consumer bankruptcies in the U.S. A 2019 study found that about two-thirds of all bankruptcies had the cost of medical care as a factor.

Like the Hulletts, Elizabeth McIntosh and her husband, John, turned to bankruptcy because of medical bills. John was a truck driver, until a blockage in his arteries put him at risk of having a second heart attack, Elizabeth said. For one of his procedures, he was flown to Johnson City, Tenn., on a helicopter that was not in network for his health insurance. That left an almost $23,000 bill to be paid by the McIntoshes.

John had to give up driving trucks for a job that paid half as much. Still, the helicopter bill needed to be paid. On May 22, they filed for bankruptcy.

It was what we had to do to keep him off the road and keep him healthy, Elizabeth McIntosh said.

On top of the legal bills, the debt collectors and the damage to a persons credit, for some, theres also a tremendous stigma towards bankruptcy. No one wants to go broke.

It's very humiliating, said Robin Hullett, noting she was reluctant to even tell family members because of the shame.

With millions out of work due to the pandemic, Hulletts situation will become more common, experts said. They expect the number of consumer bankruptcies to rise. Too many people are out of work to keep paying their bills. By how much they increase is still unknown, and can vary widely depending on what aid Congress may supply.

"We're starting to see people who a year ago were nowhere near bankruptcy, particularly people who had small businesses or good jobs. Were seeing folks like that start to file," said Ed Boltz, a bankruptcy attorney in Durham.

After a lull when the pandemic began, new calls to his office started up again in earnest in August when some of the consumer protections started to lapse.

This report is brought to you by The North Carolina News Collaborative, a coalition of 22 newspapers across the state. This occasional series, Bouncing Back: North Carolina's Economic Journey to Recovery, is made possible through a grant from The Pulitzer Center.(Photo: CONTRIBUTED)

"Cars are being repossessed again. Foreclosures are beginning to start again, Boltz said.

About a third of workers furloughed when the pandemic hit were eventually laid off, according to one estimate. Thats more medical bills that wont be paid, more doctor visits put off, and more nights hungry. The bills will pile up, and with it, the need to seek bankruptcy protection.

It can feel like every step forward comes with two steps back, said Solomon, the sheriffs deputy.

You think you've got a little something saved up over here, then something comes up over here that takes that over there then you start over. You start again and you got a mess over here, Solomon said. It seems like it's always something all the time.

UNC Chapel Hill journalism students Elizabeth Moore and Kayla Guilliams, Charlotte Observer data reporter Gavin Off and Bouncing Back project manager Mandy Locke contributed to this report.

Austin Weinstein is a reporter for The Charlotte Observer and can be reached at aweinstein@charlotteobserver.com or on Twitter at @austwein.

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Amid pandemic, thousands of North Carolinians file for bankruptcy despite relief efforts - Citizen Times

"Some companies [like Century 21] have failed this year, but that isnt the entire story. What we ... [+] have seen is a tremendous amount of business degradation," says James Gellert, RapidRatings..(Photo by John Nacion/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Following the 2008/2009 recession, major retail bankruptcies reached historic highs in 2010, setting the record with 48 filings. Through September this year, we are still 16 filings short of matching that record, after some 32 retailers have filed to date.

BDOs David Berliner, who leads the firms business restructuring and turnaround practice, predicts the 2010 record may stand, since there is a seasonality to bankruptcy filings.

If you dont file by Labor Day, you cant do your going-out-of-business sales before Christmas, which typically takes 90 days, he says. Its October now and I think a lot of on-the-edge retailers are saying, Lets get one more holiday season under our belt. Maybe we can get a good holiday somehow.

That is looking less and less likely with Covid-19, not to mention the predictable flu season. The election could throw the economy and consumers into a tizzy, especially if it is contested as in 2000.

Unemployment and financial uncertainty are still holding back many American consumers from spending and there is no stimulus money coming to tied them over. And for retailers in major cities like New York and Los Angeles, tourist spending is nowhere to be found.

Add to those headwinds, many retailers, especially mall-based retailers in the fashion sector, are entering the holiday season short on inventory from orders canceled in the spring. Further, what they have on hand may not appeal to consumers who may have permanently retired their business wardrobes in favor of casual, comfortable styles.

It all adds up to a toxic mix that may leave many retailers underwater with only one way out in 2021: bankruptcy.

Even if retailers have a strong November and December, the true results arent in until the dust settles in January when all the returns are back, Berliner says. By then, a bunch of retailers are going to realize they dont have the liquidity to make it through the rest of the year.

So far this year, the retailers that have fallen include some big legacy brands, like Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor and Brooks Brothers. BDOs mid-year Retail in the Red report gives the details. Add to that list recent filings by ItSugar with 100 stores and Century 21 with 13 stores.

In addition, these retailers didnt make BDOs list but filed for bankruptcy protection as well, including G-Star-Raw, closing most of its 30 luxury denim stores; Centric Brands, a fashion clothing and brand licensing company with also owns Swims and Zac Posen brands; Canadian Aldo shoe stores with over 400 locations in the U.S.; Roots USA , the U.S. arm of the Canadian outdoor apparel retailer with 7 locations; and DTC Bluestem Brands, including Fingerhut and Haband.

Some of these troubled retailers have emerged, notably Neiman Marcus and J.C. Penney; some have been acquired, like Brooks Brothers, Lucky Brand and Sur La Table; and others have closed for good, like Stein Mart SMRT , Century 21 and Art Van Furniture.

Fashion apparel and department stores took the worst hit this year. When you look at the numbers, those types of stores accounted for over 50% of the bankruptcy store closings, and almost 60% of the non-bankruptcy store closings as well, Berliner says.

On the plus side, those retailers that may have dodged the bankruptcy bullet this year enter 2020 fourth quarter with less competition. But on the other hand, the remaining retailers may suffer less seasonal foot traffic from consumers fear of contagion. Those in malls are the most at risk, since shoppers will have fewer reasons to venture out as mall anchors abandon ship and in-line vacancies grow.

Looking over the horizon for what 2021 may bring is RapidRatings, which assesses the financial health of companies using a stress test model. Two scores are calculated: a companys short-term resiliency and liquidity through a Financial Health Rating (FHR) and mid-term risk and efficiency in a Core Health Score (CHS).

Taking the FHR and CHS scores together, CEO James Gellert says, They indicate whats happening to the company from an efficiency perspective and how that correlates to short-term risk. Its a more complex story thats not often discussed.

The predictive power of RapidRatings model was proven earlier this year when Neiman Marcus, Pier 1, J.C. Penney, Tailored Brands, Ascena Retail Group and Tuesday Morning topped its list of high-risk candidates. Gellert notes that over the past 20 years, over 90% of companies that defaulted across all sectors have been classified as high risk with an FHR score under 40.

When a companys FHR falls under 40, its a measure of extremely weak financial health, similar to blood pressure and blood sugar levels that measure peoples overall health. Healthy companies like healthy people with no underlying weaknesses are better able to fight off shocks to the system, like this pandemic.

Across the board, retailers have faced tremendous disruptions to business in 2020. Going into 2021, they are already in a weakened state. Hearkening back to the last major shock retailers faced, the Great Recession that ended June of 2009, the retailer fallout didnt peak the year of, but the year after, in 2010.

History may repeat itself in 2021. Here, according to RapidRatings stress-test measures are the most at-risk public retailers for future bankruptcy filings, along with those at medium risk:

As in 2020, prospects are poor for many fashion retailers in 2021. Topping RapidRatings list of most at-risk fashion retailers are:

Included in its medium-risk category are Chicos, Burlington Stores, Urban Outfitters URBN , Gap GPS , American Eagle Outfiters, Abercrombie & Fitch ANF and Zumiez ZUMZ .

On the other hand, Foot Locker FL , TJX Companies TJX and Ross Stores ROST are going into 2021 strong.

Macys M tops RapidRatings list of highest risk to fold, followed by Nordstrom JWN . Kohls KSS and Dillards are ranked as medium risk.

Sears is and remains high risk too.

While BDOs Berliner believes home furnishings stores may get a reprieve in 2021 due to consumers shift to spending on home improvements and redecorating, RapidRatings sees weakness in At Home Group HOME and Wayfair that puts them in the high risk group.

Bed Bath & Beyond BBBY and Lumber Liquidators Holdings LL have a medium risk of folding.

Williams Sonoma WSM , Lowes LOW and Home Depot HD remain strong.

Shutterfly, iMedia Brands IMBI , Overstock.com OSTK and Farfetch are holding on by a thread, as they all are rated high risk. The RealReal is rated medium risk.

By contrast, Etsy and 1-800-Flowers FLWS are at low risk, not to mention the all-powerful Amazon AMZN .

Albertsons is the only grocery store that gets a very high risk of default by RapidRatingss measures.

On the other hand, Publix Super Markets is low risk.

High-risk retailers in the specialty category include:

Medium-risk specialty retailers include Sally Beauty Holdings SBH , Dicks Sporting Goods DKS and Hibbett Sport HIBB s.

Within this category, Five Below FIVE and Tractor Supply TSCO are going into 2021 strong.

Making it through 2021 will be the real test of retailers resiliency. On the horizon, BDOs Berliner sees a future of fewer and smaller stores where operational costs can be better managed.

Retailers realize they dont need all those big stores now that consumers have been forced by the pandemic to buy just about everything online and have discovered they like it, he says.

He also foresees retailers making better use of their inventory and omnichannel capabilities so that every store doesnt need to stock every product, but can rely on overnight shipping to get the customers exactly what they want in cases where the size, color or model are not in the store. Buy-online-pickup-in-store and curbside pickup are also services that more retailers will need to offer.

RapidRatings Gellert is quick to point out that the retailers that are going into 2021 with the weakest financial position arent all going to go bust, but they need to rapidly make adjustments to their operating structure to stay financially viable through next year.

Some companies have failed this year, but that isnt the entire story, he concludes. What we have seen is a tremendous amount of business degradation. The question for a lot of companies is how can they move forward operating a strong business and what adjustments do they need to make in the long term to stay afloat.

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Retail Bankruptcies Could Go From Bad To Worse In 2021 - Forbes

Dive Brief:

As she takes over at J. Jill,Spofford will have a turnaround project to manage. The retailer has dodged a bankruptcy this year and still faces financial risks with debt on its balance sheet and sales far down year over year amid the pandemic.

In September, the company cut a debt exchange deal with lenders after acknowledging that Chapter 11 was on the table and that the company's survival was uncertain. The deal followed months of uncertainty amid an extended forbearance agreement with lenders, all of it put into motion by the financial turmoil created by the COVID-19 closures.

In a press release this week, ratings firm S&P Global Ratings gave the apparel retailer a CCC+ rating following its exchange. The rating signals "the ongoing risk of a conventional default" at Jill following the deal. Analysts with S&P did note that the debt exchange and cash infusion (in the form of a new loan) that came with the deal reduced J. Jill's default risk, but they also said that its capital structure could still be unsustainable.

"[P]rior to the pandemic,Jillwas already beleaguered by merchandising and operational missteps that led to deteriorating performance and our view that its once-loyal customers had strayed towards other brands," S&P analysts said."We anticipate continued operational challenges as the company contends with the continuing pandemic, while accelerating competitive pressures and changing consumer preferences hinder sales from returning to fiscal 2019 levels."

Spofford brings with her familiarity of the company and J. Jill's audience. At Cornerstone Brands, she worked on "evolving the brands into profitable, digitally driven omnichannel businesses," according to a J. Jill press release. Omnichannel chops will likely be key to J. Jill's turnaround, as the apparel space keeps evolving and reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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J. Jill names new CEO after dodging bankruptcy this year - Retail Dive

But the reasons why tell a depressing tale

Oct 5th 2020

TO SAY THAT the pandemic has been hard for the American economy would be putting it mildly. The unemployment rate, which stood at just 3.5% in February, is now 7.9%; there are 10.7m fewer jobs today than there were six months ago; a quarter of the workforce is working from home. You might expect such dismal economic conditions to be accompanied by a spike in bankruptcies. But so far this year, bankruptcy filings are down by 27%.

In a new paper, researchers at the University of Illinois, Brigham Young and Harvard collected data from online court filings to estimate the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on bankruptcies. They found that, unlike past business cycles, when worsening economic conditions led to more bankruptcies, this downturn has actually yielded fewer. Filings were down by nearly 140,000 in the first eight months of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019. Personal bankruptcies were down by 28%; business bankruptcies by 1% (see chart).

Though this seems encouraging at first glance, the details are less rosy. Take business bankruptcies. The authors note that filings under Chapter 7, a part of Americas bankruptcy code used mainly by smaller firms wishing to liquidate outright and sell their assets to pay creditors, have fallen by 13%, year on year. But the decrease in Chapter 7 filings has been largely offset by a 35% jump in filings under Chapter 11, the form of bankruptcy covered in the business pages of American newspapers involving bigger companies aiming to restructure their debts and continue operating. Chapter 11 filings by firms with more than $50m in assets have surged by nearly 200%.

The authors argue that small companies have had a harder time securing access to the bankruptcy system during the pandemic, which has delayed filings. Social-distancing measures have forced bankruptcy courts to conduct hearings by telephone or video conference, rather than in person. Some courts have shut down entirely. The pandemic has also made it harder for business owners to avail themselves of legal services. And whereas big companies turn to bankruptcy as a source of protection, small firms view it as a last resort.

Consumer bankruptcies, meanwhile, are down by more than a quarter on the year. Filings under Chapter 13 of the code, which allows individuals to keep their property and commit themselves to a repayment plan, have decreased by 41%. Chapter 13, as it happens, is used mainly by wealthier people and homeowners. These households, the authors argue, may have been less affected by the downturn, and were aided by government interventions such as the mortgage moratorium mandated by the CARES Act (the $2.2trn coronavirus-relief package passed into law in March). Consumer filings under Chapter 7, typically used by people with lower incomes and fewer assets, fell by 20% between January and August. Both types of filing fell by more in states with high unemployment than in those with low unemployment: further evidence that, in a crisis, those who are already worst-off are often hit the hardest.

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Fewer Americans have filed for bankruptcy in 2020 than in 2019 - The Economist

Mallinckrodt (MNK) - Get Report, which makes opioids and other drugs, is reportedly close to a deal to hand majority ownership to its unsecured-bond holders as part of a bankruptcy filing.

Shares of the U.K. biopharmaceutical company at last check were off 19% at 88 cents.

The bonds would be traded for most of Mallinckrodts equity and some new debt, and the debt of higher-ranked lenders would be reinstated or replaced by new securities that fully cover their claims, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the plan.

The lenders and opioid claimants would be included in the agreement, the people said.Mallinckrodt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Debtwire reported earlier on negotiations to give the bondholders equity and new debt. Most of the companys unsecured debt trades at about a quarter of its original value.

Mallinckrodt would become the third major opioid producer to file for bankruptcy, Bloomberg noted.

Companies have faced off against thousands of plaintiffs from states, cities and counties that blame drugmakers and distributors for the epidemic of overdose deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates thatevery day in the U.S.130 people die from an opioid-related drug overdose.

Purdue Pharma, which entered Chapter 11 protection last year, has proposed a $10 billion settlement of existing claims. Insys Therapeutics filed under the bankruptcy laws earlier in 2019.

Mallinckrodt hired restructuring advisers late last year, and management disclosed in February it was pursuing court protection.

The plan at that time was to settle its opioid claims by putting a small part of the company into bankruptcy, but it failed to gain required support from lenders.

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Mallinckrodt Is Said to Be Near Bankruptcy Deal - TheStreet

I have elaborated on my battle with Trigeminal neuralgia in my previous posts.

A bolt of pain shot up the face,

Reached the farthest limit,

With disdain without grace,

Sneaking into the throat,

As quiet as a mouse,

Huddling behind the ear,

Pulsating in the mouth,

Strange tic,

Distorting face so quick,

Drilling into teeth with eye swelling,

Making it tormented house,

A distressful dwelling

Attacks and hides

Its a race against time,

A gloomy struggle all-day,

As the predicament shook me to the core,

Its a dreadful dream, a nightmare,

That I battle every day and more

The pain didnt let me chew food and my lab reports came such that Dr Ishit B Sen nuclear medicine, Director and Head; whom I call Didi affectionately said,

Try to eat something, your reports look like those of starving Ethiopian children!

So maybe now I have to get a dental visit to fix my teeth so that I can eat better because going to the dentist comes as a package deal with trigeminal neuralgia.

The nerves supplying our teeth are the same as those that transmit TN pain. The same nerve thats telling our brain theres piercing, electrical pain in the face is also the one that alerts us to a toothache.

I thought its a simple tooth- and gum-related problem in the left side because I wasnt aware that I have bilateral trigeminal neuralgia. Tapping on a particular tooth will usually arouse pain in a dental problem.

Well, my sob story is I returned home and got 105F fever because of my immunocompromisation and then I called doctors, all said I need immediate hospitalisation but Dr K K Handa was clever to realise that by the time I reach my treating hospital I will be serious and the fever needs to be brought down. He advised ice-bath and the fever was within limits so he prescribed few medicines for the night. Next day he saw me and treated me with antibiotics.

Pharmaceutical science has medications to control the pain without any invasive or non-invasive treatment.

I was initially put on medicine but it mostly didnt contain the pain. I had fleeting jabbing pain which would fade away at the most in a few hours. Pulses of electricity travelled through my cheeks. The intensity of pain was increasing with every passing day.

I want to live up to my dreams and aspirations. I desire to become an established author.

Mums eyes sparkled and a flicker of amusement played in her eyes,

as I told her, that I want to write a refreshing, sweet detective story series for all ages.

I twiddled with the thought of who will be the main character. I lay on my back counting sheep with my left hand, the usual way I sought sleep while chanting my mantra.

The door was partly ajar and a ray of light was coming through it. I could discern mum with too much excitement was running like a chicken with its head cut off. I could immediately think of how mum had nourished my soul when my fathers old ticker stopped and the greatest catastrophe ever happened because the sly villain was desperate for a welcome addition to their bank account.

I looked dazedly then jolted into coherence as an intense feeling washed over me. I remembered how mum brought hope when my life went topsy turvy, with her exceptionally precise type of mind she straightened and tidied all the mess of medical and other documents which father left. She neatly tagged everything and neatened up so that we could survive and my medical documents arent missing and my treatment continues. Even now she goes pottering around the house cleaning and tidying every corner. She doesnt believe in living in a whirlwind of mess. She has a very good eye for little details.

If anyone could arrange a series of apparently unrelated facts into a coherent picture it was Mum with her peculiar alertness. I decided I would write a few escapades and she would be my heroine.

Only she can bring the assassins to the justice of a mysterious death. She is good at ferreting out the facts in reality and she would do a jolly good job in the realms of imagination in my tales. She can stand against those with nerve, unmitigated gall who commit first-degree murder of someones desires and dreams. She can bring in hope through her extraordinary feats by pulling out a soul whose spirit and dreams have been killed.

After I wrote a come-to-the-battle sort of poetry Warrior Princess after which the flames began, the quest for knowledgelife became magical even in poverty, while facing medical embarrassments and the humiliation of asking for financial help, physical suffering which is always there money concerns for food, medicines and rent. I had stopped thinking about my diseases and in the uneasy days of life started to Live! Live the wonderful life that is in me! I felt that rare pulse of joy and was transfigured with joy. An ecstasy of happiness dominated me. I had also written for Sahitya Akademi with my painful Trigeminal neuralgia so I decided to play sidekick.

After which I got letters of appreciation

Since I am talking about

Lets continue, as I started writing more characters came into my mind Verma Sharma detective duo is the avatars of Thomson and Thompson, providing comic relief. Inspector Arin of the homicide department and so on.

The primary characters of the series and a few situations are drawn from the authors own life enhanced by imagination and the stories carry messages.

I wrote six detective stories at the peak of my pain with one-eyed vision and the rarest brain tumours in the worldleptomeningeal hemangioblastomas between 1902 and 2013, approximately 132 cases were reportedGa-DOTANOC PET-CT based SSTR imaging because VHL syndrome associated hemangioblastomas frequently express SSTR confirmed the true nature could be seen and the diagnosis.

While I was typing the lines there was swelling in my eyes and the eyes feet on fire with tears streaming down. I felt pain at the back of my head and the ear and even the pinna. I remember taking painkillers after breakfast apart from the medicines I am on, but still, the pain remained.

The agony of the soul as it shrieks in pain is indescribable at night. My mum used to stay awake with me trying to calm my pain. The pain was gone for a brief while and returned to torment me.

In such a condition, I wrote two other books.

And

Paperback editions of all books were published by

Zebra books, registered in my mothers name.

My heart stopped jumping with joy, enjoying the elixir of life, and as I learned to shed tears of wicked pain hugging my mother at night when the soul screamed out with the agony and howling in pain. I hugged my mother and muttered and cried as pain then came through loud and clear.

I got support and kindness and the cyberknife for the right side the most painful side which happened and we returned in time just before the Covid-19 lockdown. The nerve was shot with a high dosage of radiation to destroy it.

After returning I got an email from Monika Thakur stating I appreciate your efforts put in to give to the society an interesting and captivating book The adventures of mum and princess that people of all ages enjoy reading. I would highly recommend this book to the students of classes 8,9,10 in my institute Monikas Institute of English Language I was delighted, proud, excited.

Then it was lockdown, and Delhi and Noida border was sealed but classes werent held. She denied taking the books.When I got a chance to write for Times of India Digital I Whatsapp her if she was still interested because I was working on my bio, I got a shock, stronger than trigeminal neuralgia.

I have been running the institute in Noida and Indirapuram for last 10 yearsBy profession, i m a teacher and have taught English language in renowned Institutes of saharanpur and dehradunI m also a certified IELTS trainer from British Council..My qualification is M.A Eng, M.A economics, B.Ed and Diploma in creative writing .

Regards

Mrs.Monika Thakur

CMC2, 702,Supertech, Capetown, sector 74,Noida

9718805105

This was there in her email. So how many books shes sold and Im not getting anything, any money, royalty for my effort. She has stolen the intellectual property of a disabled person. She didnt even buy a copy but borrowed it from her neighbour, photocopied it and is earning from it.

Someone approached her to say this is not the right thing to be done.

She addressed me asThat girlI also have sympathy for her well, you are using That girls book as your syllabus and earning money. That girl doesnt need your sympathySympathy is feeling sorrowful, pitiful about somebodys misfortune whereas Empathy is the ability to understand their feelings as if we were having that ourselves, facing the troubles ourselves.

Its a trifling thing though but I didnt expect an English language school teacher would say I have sympathy for the girl. I was surprised to hear that because all my life I tried to make people understand that.

The result of living in such a polluted social environment is alienation, a constant state of dissatisfaction and discomfort, and the development of various coping mechanisms that attempt to make alienated life bearable.

Ones essential life activity becomes simply a means for life, a way of earning money so one can buy the necessities.

Id like to quote from my book she stoleMoney and Power are the root causes in every act of felony, every crime, every treachery committed since time immemorial. Money, gold, holds allure because it gives power, a lavish lifestyle and many are ready to harm a life for its powerful charisma. Money tempts most people to wrongdoing. Crime is as old as humanity. Thus, it is since ancient times that brothers are slaughtering brothers for the power of the throne and the wealth it brings along. Slaughtering, poisoning, strangling, asphyxiating, backstabbing, but achieving money and power and destroying every life in the way. Such is the queer nature of the human race. A son instead of being dutiful towards his parents desires the end of the ailing, helpless parents and shoves them out of the way, a raving egomaniac parent drunk with the influence of wealth, affluence, power withholds what the offspring truly deserves, thus strangling the life out bit by bit.

Yesterday, I noticed the book is being sold on Google books. I wrote to Google and they said they got the manuscript from third-party Bower.com. Now we need to get to the bottom of this howdunit? Nobody should take advantage of the Warrior Princess.

Everyone will read and forget its unfair and shrewdly omit to hear, see or understand the actual fact or the factual act.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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The moral bankruptcy of the society - The Times of India Blog

(Photo via iStock)

Last summer, Austin Smith of Smith Law Group LLP in New York City told me a story about his morning routine during law school. I had stumbled on his work in the student loan debt space, and we had been talking for a few months. He let me speak to a few of his clients, whose stories were rife with heartbreak. But, more than hearing from his clients, I wanted to know what would drive an attorney to try and flip legal opinion about an arcane bankruptcy law that no one else seemed to know of or care about. He wanted me to know that this hadnt been a grand plan that he had been a screw-up, a terrible student, that his mood swings made it difficult to sustain relationships. It was not, he smirked, a story about doing well by doing good.

It was 2014, during his last year in law school, and every morning Smith forced himself to schlep to a local caf a few blocks from campus. He was in his early 30s, a late bloomer, as it were, coming off unremarkable attempts both at working in politics and as a writer, and here he was, trudging up the street every cold New England morning, poring over his textbooks and worried he was too late. His life up until this point had been a bizarre admixture of charmed and cursed; bad decisions followed by lucky breaks or vice versa. And most of the success he did have, come to think of it, traced back to his fathers connections. He found himself the ultimate clich, slinking back to what his father a lawyer himself wanted him to do all along. Up until that point, he felt himself creeping closer and closer to that of a pathetic drifter destined to sink into societys languid center of mediocrity as if a pool of sticky black ooze.

One day, just before six a.m., he got to talking with another regular customer at the coffee shop, a local litigator, about an assignment he was dreading: writing an article for the Maine Law Review. Smith liked law, and the institution it represented, but he hadnt yet discovered a facet of his profession in which he found purpose and passion. He had always been an out-of-the-box thinker, distrustful of the systems that purported to uplift and protect the common man, but civil rights law or public defense seemed too well-worn and typical for the budding attorney. Smith was waiting for a lightbulb to go off in his head. And, as it turns out, sharing the morning mud with a random lawyer in Maine would produce a fork in the road that would send him on a quest one that would forever change his career and the lives of hundreds of thousands of regular people. Thats because, that morning, the local litigator told Smith he should write his article for the law review about student loan debt and bankruptcy.

Its really interesting, the man told him.

Is it? Smith thought to himself. It doesnt sound that interesting.

The man kept hounding him. Every day, it was the same thing: Hey, look at this, look at this, look at this, Smith said. And so finally, just to get him off my back, I started reading the stuff he dropped off for me, and as I was reading it, thats when I was like, This statute doesnt say what everyone thinks it says, Smith told me. Everyone has been getting this wrong for decades. How did this happen? Thats when it dawned on him: The system writ-large has always been rigged in one way or another, but it was even more cruel and arcane for the 45 million Americans who had student loan debt and the window into all of it was the crusty old bankruptcy code about which no one had thought twice.

Bankruptcy was implemented in the early 1800s as an economic escape valve for everyday people. If a person had become consumed by debt or hardship, they could go to court and a judge would formulate a petition to manage, or discharge entirely, the money that they owed. It was, in essence, a second chance at life. To any attorney interested in bankruptcy law, however, it was carved in stone that student loans, unlike credit card or medical debt, could not be discharged. It had been this way for decades a carefully crafted layer-cake of statutes that, over time, made it impossible to get rid of student loan debt. If you borrowed money to attend college, from the federal government and private banks alike, you were stuck with the bill for the rest of your life. To even a newbie like Smith, it was obvious that borrowers who went to college on credit would, in one way or another, have to pay back what they owed. What was the point of digging into it further? But that was before he met this random lawyer at this run-down coffee shop, and before he really started reading the fine print of these laws.

Deep in the code, Smith found vague legalese, educational benefit, that likely did not actually encompass any loan that provided an educational advantage. He spent two months digging through Congressional records and found that, in 1990, when this provision was written into the law, education benefit actually referred to specific grants, like healthcare for veterans, that the government used to issue. He was shocked because this line of the code had been protecting lenders especially predatory big banks for decades. These were the same banks that caused the financial crash of 2008, and they used the same playbook for subprime mortgages as they did for privately issued student loans: They preyed on peoples quest for opportunity and duped them into taking on debt that they would never realistically be able to repay.

Smith knew that there were myriad types of student loans given out to borrowers, many of which came directly from, or were insured by, the federal government and were immune to discharge in bankruptcy The one person you cant screw is Uncle Sam, Smith said but he also knew that billions of dollars worth of debt was being issued every year from big banks directly to twinkle-eyed college kids who hoped an education would be their one-way ticket towards the American Dream. And with sky-high default rates in these pools of private student loans, an ominous comparison had presented itself: If subprime mortgage borrowers were one broken appliance away from default, indebted college graduates were one missed freelance check away from life-destroying catastrophe. Smith knew his discovery could have vast implications.

Smith wrote the article, making his case that billions of dollars of student loan debt was actually dischargeable in bankruptcy, and his professors were shocked by and skeptical of this discovery. But, still, when compared to the total amount of student loan debt out there now over $1.7 trillion and going up $2,853.88 per second, an increase almost identical to the ongoing cost of the Global War on Terror this slice of debt was paltry. People tell me, Well, the private student loan market is only $150 billion. Yes, in the abstract, its smaller than the federal debt, but it is affecting these people far worse, Smith told me. And, not for nothing, $150 billion is a shitload of money; it just doesnt look that way compared to $1.4 trillion.

Smith is right: The amount of outstanding private student loan debt is larger than the GDP of Austin, Texas. Thats a lot of debt being thrust upon unsuspecting borrowers, and an unimaginable amount of debt still owed by middle-class citizens. What Smith didnt know then, but what he knows now, was that this pool of toxic debt also had profound implications for the American economy. You do stand to see longer-term negative effects on people who cant pay off their student loans. It hurts their credit rating; it impacts the entire half of their economic life, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee in March 2019. As this goes on, and as student loans continue to grow and become larger and larger, then it absolutely could hold back [economic] growth. And its estimated that, by 2023, over 40 percent of borrowers who graduated in the 2003-2004 academic year at the height of predatory lending will default on their loans.

But back to that crusty bankruptcy code: How on earth could laws be written that explicitly protected huge financial institutions and threw middle-class individuals under the bus? If a student thought that taking out a loan from J.P. Morgan Chase was going to help them kick-start their life as a working-class adult, they were in for a rude awakening. Compound interest will absolutely destroy you. And there are no protections in place, Smith told me. You owe $100,000 at 12 percent interest? The payment plan on that is how much you have to pay a month to satisfy that loan in ten years. If its $5,000 a month, its $5,000 a month. You only make $3,000 a month? Too bad. Pay me. You dont pay me, youre going to default, and were going to sue you and make you pay. Its this completely upside down universe.

Smith realized something else important early-on: The role of private banks dishing out this toxic, subprime debt to unsuspecting families does not exist in spite of the growing federal debt, but because of it: slipshod government regulations, industry-friendly laws coming out of Congress, the tactics of financial aid offices to boost enrollment, and the sheer desperation for profits on Wall Street have prompted and promoted some of the most insidious consumer financial products to spread throughout higher education like a cancer. All of the worst aspects of consumer debt, the things that affect borrowers the most, had become woven into the very fabric of taking out money to go to college and no one was doing anything about it. By 2013, nearly 25 percent of people who filed for bankruptcy had student loan debt on their balance sheets and almost none of it had been discharged. Everyone, in Smiths view, was asleep at the wheel. He became obsessed with student loan debt, and desperately wanted to litigate his point of view in open court. If he couldnt change the law, he told himself, perhaps he could find a way around it. He wanted to do something about this burgeoning crisis, and help those whose lives had been ruined by Wall Street, spineless policymakers in Washington, D.C., and schools who had promised kids a future but never delivered.

In 2015, Smiths first year out of law school, he got a job at a white-shoe law firm in Manhattan and convinced his bosses to let him try a case. He found a client and filed a lawsuit against their lender, Citibank.

I get to court, and Ive never been to court, Ive never argued. I have no idea what Im doing, Smith told me. I dont even know what table to stand at.

As Citibanks attorney began arguing why the lawsuit should be dismissed no doubt thinking this was just another day at the office the judge cut him off and said, in essence, Youre wrong. I agree with him. Smith was stunned. He won! The judge subsequently wrote an opinion on the case, giving him clear precedent to pursue this line of litigation further. This win revealed a pinhole of light at the end of a dark tunnel in which many borrowers find themselves trapped. He now had momentum. The light was getting brighter. He needed to keep going.

I went back to my bosses and was like, Theres tens of billions of dollars out there in these loans. They said, Dude, we told you, we dont sue banks; we defend them. What dont you get about this? I was like, I want to go do this! Do What? File class actions! File more of these! They were like, Look, I know you get distracted by a shiny object and you think youre very proud of yourself by how clever you are, and its cool, granted, youre a first-year lawyer and you got this done. Dont run off half-cocked on some sort of crazy idea. There was probably some merit to that advice, but I was like, Look, I get what you are saying, but I have to do this or Ill never forgive myself.

Smith quit his job and struck out on his own. Hes found immense success: Over the past four years, he has successfully discharged millions of dollars in predatory debt for over 50 individual borrowers. What he found most infuriating about these cases was not the lenders lack of compromise on settling the dispute, but rather the false moral equivalence with which they defended themselves. These banks were coming into bankruptcy court cloaking their own self interest under the guise of high principle: They argued that they werent saddling students with toxic debt; they were doing Gods work in making sure Americas children were getting an education. These lawyers were coming into court and saying shit like, My client has helped this poor woman through school, and its really a tragedy that she now wants to erase the debt, Smith told me. Its insane that these guys are trying to convince people that they are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Department of Education, because they are not.

Smith quickly realized that, if he tackled these cases one-by-one, hed be dead before he got through them all. In 2016, Smith tried to find other lawyers to help him. It worked, albeit after a rocky start, and with the help of a cadre of like-minded attorneys Smith has filed five class-action lawsuits against Americas most predatory lenders, servicers, and collectors of student loans: two against Wells Fargo, two against Navient (formerly known as Sallie Mae), and one against The National Collegiate Student Loan Trust (NCSLT).

NCSLT is itself a beast to litigate against, as Smith has discovered since starting to represent individual borrowers who have been sued by the company. When he first heard of NCSLT, he had no idea what it was. This shit was a black box, Smith said. I knew they gave out loans that were likely dischargeable, but nothing other than that.

The National Collegiate Student Loan Trust is a shadowy LLC that somehow oversaw $12 billion in private student loan debt from the mid-2000s that encompassed 800,000 borrowers. But what, exactly, did this company do? They didnt originate, issue, or service their student loans. They didnt even have a website, an office, or employees. But they held a massive amount of private student loan debt, their borrowers were defaulting in higher numbers than any other pool of loans, and they were aggressively pursuing repayment, prompting their army of debt collectors to file hundreds of lawsuits on their behalf against borrowers every year. What was going on?

The answer, it turned out, was Wall Street. Mirroring the subprime mortgage crisis, lenders of student loans discovered that they could make tons of money if they bundled up all of their loans into securitized trusts and sold tranches to investment banks. These student loan asset-backed securities, known as SLABS, became an enticing way to make money out of thin air for Sallie Mae as well as private banks who had no relationship to the federal government but wanted to stick their hand in this massive cookie jar.

The creation of SLABS also ushered in the financial depersonalization of student debt. This B-rated tranche wasnt 25,000 kids living in their parents basements, dreams slashed at becoming engineers or nurses or computer programmers, sequestered to their local Starbucks so they could make the minimum monthly payment on their loans. Oh no. It was a reliable slice of warm investment pie. Ah, the bankers could almost smell it. And the changes in the bankruptcy code that made these loans non-dischargeable? Well, that layer of protection was the scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

By 2007, nearly every dollar that had been lent out to students across all lenders was bundled into SLABS and sold off to Wall Street. NCSLT wasnt the only one doing this; they were just the most brazen player in this new Wild West financial landscape. If Sallie Mae and other banks had pistols clipped to each hip, NCSLT carried a bazooka atop their shoulders. Smith, who himself had been approached by borrowers whose loans traced back to NCSLT, was shocked: The National Collegiate Student Loan Trust was nothing more than a way for student loans to be bundled into asset-backed securities and sold off to Wall Street. It was here that the head of the snake finally revealed itself the real reason these loans were being issued in the first place.

But it went deeper: Who was behind NCSLT? Smith discovered that it was First Marblehead, a small bank from Massachusetts. They specialized in subprime student loans issued to risky borrowers: kids from poor families, students enrolled at for-profit colleges, or those already saddled with federal loans. The bank, however, didnt have a federal charter, which would allow them to market and originate student loans on a national scale. A seat at the Big Boy Table, as it were. But they also had a solution. They approached various big banks, including PNC Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, and offered a deal: The banks would advertise and originate the loans, which came with 11 percent compound interest rates and high fees. From there, First Marblehead would immediately buy the debt and pay the bank a fee. This rent-a-charter arrangement allowed First Marblehead to make loans without having the legal authority to do it themselves. They also expanded into making loans directly through colleges. If a student came into the financial aid office needing a private loan, the school itself would issue the loan (as if its own bank), and, in exchange for a fee, First Marblehead would scoop up the debt. A universitys institutional prowess acted as the perfect cover.

With their rent-a-charters and university hook-ups in place, First Marblehead began issuing billions of dollars in private loans per year. To gain a competitive advantage, First Marblehead subsequently bought an educational non-profit, The Education Resources Institute (TERI), and routed all the loans through them, making the debt now technically non-profit loans completely immune to discharge in bankruptcy. Business boomed. First Marblehead CEO Dan Meyers took the company public in 2003 and its stock skyrocketed over 250 percent in its first year. Meyers became worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He also made some pretty solid connections in higher education and made sure to line their pockets. William Berkley, New York Universitys Chairman of the Board of Trustees, spent 16 years on First Marbleheads Board of Directors, where he cashed out stock options worth over $38 million before the company collapsed under the weight of their bad loans. NYU was one of the schools that offered First Marbleheads private loans to students.

But back to Meyers golden egg: Wall Street. Once First Marblehead had bought the debt issued from banks, they passed the loans onto a subsidiary, The National Collegiate Student Loan Trust, to be bundled into SLABS, where tranches would then be sold to investment banks. The book-runners for these offerings were the Whos Who of Wall Street: Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, CitiBank, and UBS Investment Bank. They are getting money from the tranche, and they use that to buy more loans from the banks, and around and around and around they go, Austin Smith said.

But now, a decade after First Marblehead issued all of these loans, borrowers are defaulting in record numbers and Smith is suing NCSLT both through individual cases and a class-action to erase the fraudulent debt. This is what we are asking for, Smith explained, (1) All the outstanding debt is wiped away, you never call these people and ask for this money again, that debt is gone; (2), you have to give back all the money you have collected since the date of these peoples initial bankruptcies; and (3), you have to pay punitive damages for your illegal conduct.

Smith is currently waist-deep in these lawsuits, fighting them tooth-and-nail, and estimates they could encompass over 500,000 borrowers and potentially erase $3 billion in predatory student loan debt. He is the first person in the history of government and law literally to fight in bankruptcy court to discharge student loans for distressed borrowers. And his crusade is already getting attention from the highest reaches of government: One of his class actions, against Navient, was cited in an October 2019, letter to the Department of Education written by Senator Elizabeth Warren in which she called for Navient, who the federal government has hired to service their loans, to be fired.

Smith knows this move is unprecedented. No one has ever had the gall to question the law and try to take down the student loan debt machine and make sure this behavior stops right here, right now, so the next generation of college kids has a fair chance at a worthwhile future. These banks and lenders were Goliath. But Smith, despite being fresh out of law school with little real-world experience and only a slingshot in his back pocket, may come away, when its all said and done, looking less like a fool and more like David. Theres an argument to be made that you just need a bulwark against corporate interest, Smith said. It shows that theres a watchdog out here.

Ian Frisch is a freelance journalist from Brooklyn. He is the author of MAGIC IS DEAD, and has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, New York Magazine, and Playboy.

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How The Bankruptcy Code Protects Lenders And Harms Student Debtors And What One Lawyer Is Doing About It - Above the Law

J. C. Penney Company Inc. is moving forward with brick-and-mortar closures as it seeks to exit bankruptcy.

In a Thursday filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, the beleaguered chain revealed that it is set to shutter 144 stores across the country. The locations are part of JCPenneys plan to shut down 242 locations, announced five months ago in its Chapter 11 filing.

The move comes a month after the department store said that it had reached an agreement to sell its business to Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners. As part of the deal, the mall giants plan to acquire substantially all of JCPenneys retail and operating assets for $1.75 billion, with a combination of cash and debt.

In addition to the sale of its operations, JCPenney is forming a separate real estate investment trust and a property holding company, comprised of 161 of its real estate assets and all of its owned distribution centers. (On its website, the company said it operates a supply chain network of 11 facilities, including distribution centers, regional warehouses, online fulfillment centers and furniture distribution centers.) According to JCPenney attorney Joshua Sussberg of Kirkland & Ellis, the dealis expected to keep intact more than 600 stores and 70,000 jobs.

However, bankruptcy judge David Jones has yet to sign off on the agreement, which was contested just this week when debt holders led by Aurelius Capital Management announced their intention to bid for six of the retailers distribution centers and the aforementioned 161 stores. The judge gave the investment firm timeto submit its plan before the end of next week, which is when the Simon-Brookfield deal is expected to receive approval.

After struggling for several years amid declining sales, numerous leadership changes and increased digital competition, JCPenney filed for Chapter 11 protection on May 15. It obtained $900 million in debtor-in-possession financing to aid operations. In late August, a court filing showed that its net loss for the month ended July 20 was $342.1 million, while revenues were $564.3 million, compared with an income of $46.2 million and sales of $621.7 million for June.

Correction: This story has been updated to show that the 140-plus closures were part of the 242 stores set to close as announced in JCPenneys bankruptcy filing. The original story suggested that the 140-plus closures were in addition to the original 242 closures.

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JCPenney Moves Forward With Closures of 140-Plus Stores as It Seeks to Exit Bankruptcy - Footwear News