#collateralized debt obligations

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The seductive, science fictional power of spreadsheets

Tomorrow (Apr 30) at 2PM, I’ll be at the San Francisco Public Library with my new book, Red Team Blues, hosted by Annalee Newitz.

This week, John Scalzi was kind enough to let me write a guest-editorial for his Whatever blog about the themes in my new crime technothriller, Red Team Blues; specifically, about the ways that spreadsheets embody the power and the pitfalls of science fiction at its best and worst:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/04/26/the-big-idea-cory-doctorow-2/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/29/gedankenexperimentwahn/#high-on-your-own-supply

Yes, spreadsheets. Marty Hench (the protagonist of Red Team Blues) is a 67-year-old forensic accountant who specializes in unwinding Silicon Valley financial frauds, a field he basically invented 40 years ago, when, as a PC-struck MIT dropout, he moved from Cambridge to San Francisco to recover the stolen millions hidden in spreadsheets.

Working through this book — and its two sequels, which travel back in time to the 1980s and Marty’s first encounters with VisiCalc and Lotus 1–2–3 — I was struck by the similarities between spreadsheets and science fiction.

While many people use spreadsheets as an overgrown calculator, adding up long columns of numbers, the rise and rise of spreadsheets comes from their use in modeling. Using a spreadsheet, a complex process can be expressed as a series of mathematical operations: we put these inputs into the factory and we get these finished goods. Once the model is built, we can easily test out contrafactuals: what if I add a third shift? What if I bargain harder for discounts on a key component? If I give my workers a productivity-increasing raise, will the profits make up for the costs?

These are the questions that anyone managing a complex system asks themselves all the time. Historically, the answers have sprung from intuition, from fingerspitzengefühl — the “fingertip feeling” of how a system’s components work and what their potential and limitations are. But intuition can calcify, become a rigid set of rules that increasingly diverge from the best strategy.

By contrast, spreadsheets yield a set of crisp, instantly tallied answers to any question you put to them. Change the input and watch as that change ripples through the whole system in an eyeblink. If you’re adding three more people to your camping trip, will the amount of additional water require renting another vehicle? No need to guess: just check and see.

This has a lot in common with science fiction, a genre full of thought experiments that ask Heinlein’s famous three questions:

What if?

If only, and

If this goes on…

These contrafactuals are incredibly useful and important. As critical tools, science fiction’s parables about the future are the best chance we have for resisting the inevitabilism that insists that technology must be used in a certain way, or must exist at all. Science fiction doesn’t just interrogate what the gadget does, but who it does it for and who it does it to:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/20/love-the-machine/#hate-the-factory

One of science fiction’s key methods comes from sf grandmaster Theodore Sturgeon: “ask the next question.” Ask a question, then ask “what happens next?” Do it again, and again, and again:

https://christopher-mckitterick.com/Sturgeon-Campbell/Sturgeon-Q.htm

This technique produces excellent, critical ways of interrogating technological narratives — check out this delightful example of the possible pipeline from self-driving cars to ransomware gangs to mutual aid societies to the reinvention of the train:

https://dduane.tumblr.com/post/715940904747352064/you-can-make-your-mercedes-ev-go-faster-for-60-a

The commonalities between sf and spreadsheets don’t stop there — sf and spreadsheets share pitfalls, too. A spreadsheet is a model and a model is not the thing it models. The map is not the territory. Every time a messy, real-world process is converted to a crisp, mathematical operation, some important qualitative element is lost.

Modeling is an intrinsically lossy operation. That’s why “all models are wrong, but some models are useful.” There is no process so simple that it can be losslessly converted to a model. Even the actions of the nanoscale transistors in a microchip, which toggle between “0” and “1,” are rarely in a state of “no voltage” and “voltage.” That clean, square-wave line that’s used to describe what happens in a chip is a lie — that is to say, it is a model.

The wave isn’t square, it’s a squiggly line that hovers around zero and around one. Under normal circumstances, “zero” and “zero-ish” is a distinction without a difference. But when computers go wrong, it’s sometimes because a sufficiently ambiguous “zero-ish” acts like a “one.” That’s true all the way up the stack. On engineering diagrams, the nanoscale lines that electrons travel along inside a chip are represented as sharp paths, the kind of thing a Tron-cycle would lay down. But in the real world, we get all kinds of weird effects at that scale — electrons sometimes tunnel through those lines, performing a spooky quantum trick that reminds us that Newtononian physics are also just a model.

Every real-world phenomenon contains qualitative and quantitative elements, but computers can only do math on the quantitative parts. This creates a powerful temptation to incinerate the qualitative and perform operations on whatever dubious quantitative residue is left in the crucible, often with disastrous results.

Remember during lockdown, when a pair of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physicists produced a model of covid spread that predicted that the campus could safely reopen, predicting no more than 500 cases over the entire semester and no more than 100 cases at any one time? The physicists were openly contemptuous of their epidemiologist peers, saying that this kind of model making lacked the “intellectual thrill” of real science.

UI was so swayed by the crisp, precise model that they invited students back to campus — only to shut down again in a matter of weeks, with 780 active cases on campus and more rolling in every day.

The model reduced qualitative factors — like the propensity of undergrads to get drunk, take off their masks, and lick each others’ eyeballs — to a quantitative probability, using the highly precise, scientific technique of taking a wild-ass guess. That guess was wrong. The campus reopening was a super-spreader event.

Any model runs the risk of hiding the irreducible complexity of qualitative factors behind a formula, turning uncertainty into certainty and humility into arrogance.

Think of how we replaced contact tracing with exposure notification. Contact tracing has a qualitative foundation: public health workers establish rapport with infected people, win their trust, and get them to fully enumerate the places they’ve been and the activities they participated in.

By contrast, exposure notification measures whether two Bluetooth radios were within range of each other for a predetermined interval. It substitutes signal strength for a person’s own understanding of their experience. Now, people can be wrong about their own experience — we lose track of time, we misremember emotionally charged events, and so on — but that doesn’t mean we can substitute Bluetooth measurements for personal experience.

That’s why, despite all the clever privacy-preserving math and interesting analysis, exposure notification was a bust, something between a distraction and a false-confidence-generating disaster. Contact tracing ended the 2014 ebola outbreak. Exposure notification just wasted a lot of time:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

It’s just too easy to forget which parts of a model are based on guesses and which parts are based on ground truth. And even if you can keep track of those differences, it’s even harder to re-check the model’s ground truth to determine whether the underlying factors have changed. That’s how we got into so much trouble with collateralized debt obligations, which were supposed to be “risk-free” mortgage derivatives that could be safely insured and invested in.

The formulas behind CDO hedging were designed by some of the world’s smartest mathematicians and physicists, who simply assumed that market actors — from loan-originating bank officers to insurance underwriters — would act in reliable, predictable ways. They were so very wrong that they brought the world economy to the brink of ruin:

https://www.wired.com/2009/02/wp-quant/

This is also science fiction’s failure-mode: any science fictional “ask-the-next-question” exercise represents a series of guesses or speculations or maybe possibilities — but when you combine that guesswork with the deceptive certainty that comes from inhabiting a cracking story, it’s easy to mistake “guessing” for “prediction.”

Prediction is hard, especially about the future. The assumptions that go into a prediction are always incomplete, not least because human beings have free will and agency and can change the circumstances that go into the assumptions. The very best science fiction embodies this principle. I’m thinking here of the likes of Ada Palmer, an historian and sf writer whose deep historical knowledge informs her sf and her pedagogy at the University of Chicago:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/10/monopoly-begets-monopoly/#terra-ignota

Palmer is famous — even notorious — for her annual four-week undergraduate LARP in which students re-enact the election of the Medicis’ Pope. It’s four weeks of alliances, betrayal and skullduggery by the students, each of whom is enacting the agenda of a real-world Cardinal or other power-broker.

The final investiture is done in full costume at the university’s massive faux-gothic cathedral, and going into that climax, of the four candidates, two are always the same, because the great forces of history are bearing down on that moment to ensure that the champions of the two dominant power-blocs are in the running. But the other two? They’re never the same — because the agency of the actors jockeying for power change the outcome, every single time, in absolutely unpredictable ways.

Like any other model, sf is wrong, but sometimes useful. Thinking about jetpacks and flying cars is “useful” insofar as it gets us to interrogate how we think about cities, about mobility, about privilege and geography. But it’s not a prediction. Worse, the endless tales in which flying cars are presented a fait accompli is a gift to grifters raising money for the objectively stupid idea of flying cars. After all, we all know flying cars are inevitable, so it’s basically a risk-free investment, right? With flying cars just around the corner, wouldn’t it be irresponsible to build a city with mass-transit instead of helipads?

There’s a whole range of thought-experiments that got transformed into predictions and then certainties: self-driving cars, “general artificial intelligence,” infinite life-extension, space colonization, faster-than-light travel, cryptocurrency, etc etc.

Spreadsheets don’t just lead their users astray — they also trick their creators. The very same people who transform wild-assed guesses about hairy, unknowable outcomes into neat mathematical relationships are perfectly capable of acting as if those relationships are based on fact, rather than supposition. The Great Financial Crisis wasn’t just about people who didn’t understand the uncertainty in the hedging algorithm going all-in — the people who made those models were also fooled by them.

It’s very easy to get high on your own supply. I’ll never forget the sf convention panel I was on with Robert Silverberg about sf’s supposed predictive value, where the subject of Robert A Heinlein came up, and Silverberg sniffed, and, in that trademark bone-dry way of his, said, “Ah yes, ‘Robert A Timeline.’”

Sf isn’t just full of writers who mistake their suppositions for predictions — the canon is full of tales in which brilliant people can and do predict the future, with near-perfection. Think of Hari Seldon, the hero of Asimov’s Foundation series, who is able to forecast the future several millennia out. Or Heinlein’s first-ever story, “Life-Line,” in which a genius inventor destroys the insurance industry by creating a computer that can predict your exact date of death using statistical methods.

There’s something wild about this phenomenon, in which writers make stuff up and then assume that anything that cool must also be accurate. One tantalizing explanation for this comes from EL Doctorow’s (no relation) essay “Genesis,” from his 2007 collection “The Creationists”:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/41520/creationists-by-e-l-doctorow/

Doctorow tells the history of the Genesis story, which the Hebrews plagiarized from the Babylonians. In Doctorow’s telling, the Babylonian mystics who made up the Genesis story assumed that it had to be true, because they considered themselves to be nowhere near imaginative enough to have come up with something as great as Genesis. An idea that amazing had to be divinely inspired.

I like this because it’s a story of being led astray by humility, rather than hubris.

Imaginative exercises — whether or not they are assisted by mathematical models and self-updating digital spreadsheets — are powerful tools for thinking about the future we want, and to guide our attempts to make that future come true. All models are wrong but some models are useful, of course!

I’m on tour with Red Team Blues right now — I’m writing this post while waiting for my flight to San Francisco, where I’m appearing at the public library with Annalee Newitz tomorrow (4/30) at 2PM:

https://sfpl.org/events/2023/04/30/author-cory-doctorow-and-annalee-newitz-conversation-red-team-blues

One especially fun stop on this tour will be on May 5, at the Books, Inc in Mountain View, where I’ll be talking about the book with Mitch Kapor, the creator of Lotus 1–2–3, who knows a thing or two about spreadsheets:

https://www.booksinc.net/event/cory-doctorow-books-inc-mountain-view

The tour is bringing me to Berkeley, Vancouver, Calgary, DC, Gaithersburg, Toronto, PDX, Nottingham, Hay, London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Berlin — I hope to see you!

https://craphound.com/novels/redteamblues/2023/04/26/the-red-team-blues-tour-burbank-sf-pdx-berkeley-yvr-edmonton-gaithersburg-dc-toronto-hay-oxford-nottingham-manchester-london-edinburgh-london-berlin/

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Mountain View, Berkeley, San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet with green-on-black, low-res type; its center has an irregular vignette revealing a space station.]

#pluralistic #el doctorow #parables #gedankenexperiments #contrafactuals #qualitative factors #quantization #collateralized debt obligations #cdos #science fiction #false precision #great financial crisis #models #spreadsheets #red team blues #the map is not the territory #warnings #prediction #fingerspitzengefühl

[dayofbanks]

Stock Markets, Derivatives Markets, and Foreign Exchange Markets.

The stock market is an important part of the economy of a country. The stock market consists of primary and secondary stock markets. Initial public offerings are issued in the primary market. Seasoned equity offerings are new shares offered by firms that already have stocks outstanding. The secondary stock market where investors trade can further be divided into auction and dealer markets. Derivatives have become an effective tool to reduce business risks. Corporations and financial institutions are the major users of derivatives. Most derivatives are based on one of the four types of assets: foreign exchange, interest rates (debt securities), commodities, and equities. Forwards, futures, options, and swaps are the major derivatives instruments. Mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and collateralized loan obligations are instruments of securitization. The most common forms of credit derivatives are credit default swaps, total return swaps, credit spread options, and credit-linked notes.

International monetary systems refer to the operating systems of the financial environment that consist of financial institutions, multinational corporations, and investors. The forex market is the world’s largest financial market where trillions are traded daily. The foreign exchange market consists of currency spot, forwards, futures, options, and swap markets. Foreign exchange risk consists of economic and translation exposure.

Learn more about Stock Markets, Derivatives Markets, and Foreign Exchange Markets related to the publication - Strategies of Banks and Other Financial Institutions: Theories and Cases.

#Foreign exchange risk #International monetary systems #financial environment #Investors #financial markets #multinational corporations #international day of banks #4 december #stock market #Mortgage-backed securities #collateralized debt obligations #collateralized loan obligations

[poojaj]

Latest Research Report on Collateralized Debt Obligation Market by Application, Industry Share, End User, Opportunity Analysis 2030

The Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) market is a financial market that involves the creation and trading of complex structured financial products known as collateralized debt obligations. A CDO is a type of derivative security that is backed by a pool of underlying debt obligations, such as bonds, loans, or mortgage-backed securities.

For Sample Report Click Here:-https://www.globmarketreports.com/request-sample/252930

In a typical CDO transaction, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) is established to purchase a diversified portfolio of debt securities. The SPV then issues different tranches of CDOs, which represent different levels of risk and return. Each tranche has a specific priority of payment, with the senior tranches having priority over the junior tranches.

Investors can purchase these CDO tranches based on their risk appetite and return expectations. Senior tranches are generally considered safer as they have the first claim on the cash flows generated by the underlying assets, while junior tranches carry higher risk but offer higher potential returns.

The CDO market gained significant attention during the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. It was found that many CDOs were backed by subprime mortgage loans, which defaulted at high rates, leading to significant losses for investors and triggering a broader financial crisis.

Since then, the CDO market has undergone various regulatory changes and reforms to improve transparency and risk management. The market has also evolved, with the focus shifting towards higher-quality assets and improved structuring techniques.

It’s important to note that the specific details and dynamics of the CDO market can vary over time, and it is always recommended to consult up-to-date financial sources and experts for the latest information and analysis.

#Collateralized Debt Obligation Market

[patchesbeanie]

eating cookies and reading about the financial crisis

#almost wrote financial cookies #i'd probably like those more than special investment vehicles or collateralized debt obligations

[generalmarketresearch-blog]

#collateralized debt obligation #collateralized

[neuxue]

I’m obviously not very far into 《琅琊榜》/ Nirvana in Fire yet, but one of the things I love about these early episodes is how well they establish these (many, many) characters as a) complex and nuanced in their motives, b) thoroughly intertwined with one another through ties of alliance, enmity, love, hatred, loyalty, family, duty, debt, necessity..., and c) at a glance divided rougly into factions but at closer look, hard to truly partition without leaving some stranded on the boundaries, pulled in different directions by those very ties.

Because it immediately creates this tapestry where it is impossible to pull on a single thread without tangling up so many others, impossible to interfere in one place without sending repercussions rippling outwards - impossible to take down a single individual without collateral damage.

How do you take down the Crown Prince without first taking down Xie Yu, and how do you take down Xie Yu without first or also taking down Zhuo Dingfeng, and how do you take down the Xie and Zhuo families without irreparably wounding Xiao Jingrui? And that’s a relatively simple thread, of those that have been hinted at thus far.

And what this early setup also does, along with presenting an exquisitely interlinked set of characters, is permit those characters an element of depth and complexity in regards to that network of relationships. There are some main factions and alliances, certainly, but even in those, most characters involved seem to have more than a simple, singular allegiance - which means none are immune to influence, to manipulation, to either causing or becoming collateral damage.

Take, say, Zhuo Dingfeng. A thoroughly tertiary character (now, anyway), but even he is given more than just ‘member of Xie Yu’s Crown Prince Support Squad’: he is bound to Xie Yu by their families’ marriages and the general existence of Xiao Jingrui... but when he thinks Xie Yu is asking him to act against Mei Changsu, he baulks. Because his bond isn’t just to Xie Yu; he is also leader of the Tianquan house, tied to the jianghu. And Mei Changsu is not merely an opponent of the Crown Prince; he is also a jianghu sect leader. And so for a moment this character who in another story could easily be nothing more than a loyal pawn, is given this moment to be caught between different bonds of loyalty and honour.

Or, even better, take Xia Dong. Xia Dong, who cares deeply about Mu Nihuang and calls her friend... but also believes her husband died at the battle of Meiling because of the Lin family’s treachery, and so cannot fully trust or see eye-to-eye with Mu Nihuang who remains convinced of Lin Shu’s innocence. Xia Dong, who is aware of some of Xie Yu’s actions in the interests of his chosen prince - including trying to kill her - and whose duty could compel her to reveal this... but who does not, obeying a higher obligation to a debt of gratitude. So you could ask whose ‘side’ she is on, but is that even the right question?

It’s not about a simple set of sides that can be easily and cleanly toppled or subverted; instead it’s a complex and interconnected set of people, and that makes for so much more potential for both clever strategy and devastating consequences.

#and the thing is ALL the characters are like this!! it's not just one or two!! #the sheer POTENTIAL for betrayal and collateral damage is immense #because it's set up so that no one can take down their opponents without very likely wounding their friends #and i am entirely normal about this #nirvana in fire #neuxue watches lyb

[mariacallous]

It only took a jury four hours to decide that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried had committed large-scale fraud—and that included their dinner break. Leading politicians, investors, and observers, not to mention a number of high-profile journalists, in contrast, managed to stay oblivious to it for years. Two recent books illustrate how and why he got away with it, at least for a while.

The first one, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis, illustrates it by example. Early reviews alerted me that the book took a charitable view of SBF and his enterprise, and yet I still struggled to believe what I was reading as I started making my way through it. The preface is a flashback to 2021. Interesting, I thought—Lewis is taking us back to the day when he fell for SBF’s narrative of crypto-fueled do-goodery. That assessment was overly optimistic.

The first real chapter of the book is a litany of examples of Bankman-Fried behaving like an unbearable, childish jackass who lies a lot … written in the manner of a hagiography. “The funny thing about these situations was that Sam never really meant to cause them.” Lewis writes. “He didn’t mean to be rude. He didn’t mean to cause chaos in other people’s lives. … With him it was never personal. If he stood you up, it was never on a whim, or the result of thoughtlessness. It was because he’d some math in his head that proved that you weren’t worth the time.”

It does not improve much from there. Somehow, the villain of his book is John Ray, the current FTX CEO, who was appointed after the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy, and whose filings suggest that he has made significant progress in recovering missing customer funds.

The second book, Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud by Ben McKenzie with Jacob Silverman, illustrates Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall by painting a picture of the whole crypto industry as a hive of scams and villainy. Its basic argument runs as follows. Loose monetary policy after the global financial crisis of 2007-09 and bailouts of chunks of the financial industry produced a context of distrust that facilitated the creation of cryptocurrencies as an alternative to sovereign money.

A new wave of easing was set loose when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered an economic crisis and led to a situation where asset bubbles were more likely. The main bubble that flourished was crypto, and with bubbles come fraudulent schemes—or so the story goes.

The juxtaposition of the two stories highlights an interesting aspect of SBF’s rise and fall: the class markers that convinced those around him that he was a genius, not a spoiled con artist. Sure, macroeconomic conditions mattered. In response to concerns about currency debasement and expansionary monetary policy as drivers of cryptomania, I would make note of the generous U.S. fiscal response to the pandemic that gave households plenty of cash to speculate with, as well as the boredom of especially the first months of the pandemic. I ended up watching all of the films Jeanne Dielman and Sátántangó for the first time; far be it from me to blame people for turning to drinking or gambling.

But macroeconomic conditions alone do not account for Lewis’s sympathetic approach to SBF. Lewis wrote The Big Short! The heroes of that story are the likes of Steve Eisman and Meredith Whitney, not Joseph Cassano and Howie Hubler: the people who saw through the bubble, not the people who gambled and lost. A Going Infinite­-style account of the global financial crisis would find a man who behaved obnoxiously while assigning incorrect ratings to collateralized debt obligations and treat him sympathetically, if not admiringly. And that’s even before we get to the fraud that Bankman-Fried so clearly committed.

While the macroeconomic context may offer a partial explanation for the crypto bubble, it does not explain why Lewis and many others admired SBF the way they did. Nor do the regular features of every bubble—the fact that lots of money is involved, or that riding a bubble until (just before) it bursts can be very profitable, while shorting one is difficult.

A number of idiosyncratic characteristics of the crypto bubble, and of SBF and his firm, may better explain their appeal. First, there is the nature of the technology—can we say of the securities?—itself. While the underlying assets in the global financial crisis were tangible, cryptocurrencies, with their reliance on algorithms and distributed consensus and proof-of-work or proof-of-stake mechanisms, are very much unlike real estate. Who are we to doubt those who know magic?

There was a deep conviction among those who didn’t understand crypto that there must be something to making money out of thin air, even as skeptics pointed out that it was, in fact, just as stupid as it sounded.

All that was happening was large-scale gambling: Will the price of Dogecoin, featuring the face of a Shiba Inu dog, continue to go up? Will the official cryptocurrency of the Cameroonian separatist entity of Ambazonia appreciate further? What will this non-fungible token representing Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sell for tomorrow? Nothing but a continued inflow of speculative cash could keep these bets afloat; no value or income was being generated by the underlying technologies.

Then there was the ideological edge of the movement. While the housing bubble was aligned with a political push to promote homeownership and a broader ownership society, those ideas never inspired the kind of commitment that crypto does among its biggest fans. That commitment is fueled by skepticism of government-issued currencies and an appreciation of some level of privacy (or an even more hard-line libertarian attraction to the ability to pay for illegal goods and services, or to evade taxes).

McKenzie highlights a related aspect of the crypto craze: its cultlike nature. The loss of trust in traditional financial institutions that he diagnoses created a desire for community that manifested itself in the creation of multilevel marketing (MLM) dynamics of enthused individuals spreading the gospel of the new currencies. The get-togethers and online communities that he describes in the fourth chapter of his book highlight how this works in practice—a world where “being scammed is a necessary educational experience in order to be reborn in the community of the free.”

For a more recent illustration of the bizarre groupings forming around blockchain technology, I refer you to a Bored Ape Yacht Club event that took place in Hong Kong earlier this month, where attendees who had paid thousands of dollars to say they owned digital art of an ape gathered to accidentally get blinded, reportedly by shoddy ultraviolet lights. Cryptocurrencies and related technologies are better suited for MLM schemes, because unlike mortgage derivatives, retail investors can easily access this gambling technology.

But to some extent, all of that was for the rubes, and SBF was playing at a very different level—one where he was able to con people as smart as Lewis. The cult-like scene most important to SBF’s appeal to intellectuals was a different one: the world of so-called effective altruism.

This is a movement focused, at least in theory, on doing good effectively and efficiently. It is associated with ideas ranging from the purely altruistic—such as kidney donations—and the relatively uncontroversial—cost-benefit analysis: dollar for dollar, do mosquito nets save more lives than water sanitation projects?—to more speculative ones, such as an emphasis on long-term catastrophic risk and “earning to give.”

Assessments of existential risk often come down to calculations involving small, hard-to-estimate probabilities, as well as difficult decisions around modeling uncertainty and the relative value of benefits enjoyed by future generations. This leaves a lot of room for rigging the numbers—especially when science-fiction fantasies about the impact on future generations come into play. Why eradicate malaria today when you could save billions of lives in the future from the threat of super-intelligent artificial intelligence—by investing in a buddy’s project?

That suspicion was not alleviated by the calculations a prominent effective altruist produced to show that donating $50 million to his buddy’s congressional campaign would serve humanity better than donating it to various charitable purposes. Earning to give, which SBF claimed to engage in, is the idea that instead of working directly toward one’s cause, one should maximize one’s earnings and use the proceeds for good.

This should, of course, trigger at least two concerns. One, how do you commit to using the proceeds that way as opposed to channeling them to your relatives? Two, once you place yourself at a remove from the good works, what constraints remain? Does consequentialism force you to violate rules, norms, and basic accounting standards?

Effective altruism is important to the story of FTX both directly—Bankman-Fried recruited a good number of self-described effective altruists to work for his firm, and he used the network to raise money for his crypto exchange—and for our purpose of figuring out why SBF was and remains so appealing to at least some outside observers.

A few examples: In May 2022, commentator Matthew Yglesias wrote a piece titled “Understanding Effective Altruism’s move into politics” with the subheading “SBF is for real,” a judgment based, among other things, on the academic work of Bankman-Fried’s mother: “SBF was raised by a leading consequentialist moral theorist.”

Writing for the New Yorker, Gideon Lewis-Kraus argued earlier this month that “one can’t help but feel like the existence of the trial, as necessary as it is, seems a little arbitrary” because Bankman-Fried might well have gotten away with his crimes. Perhaps long-termism, taken to an extreme, leads one to think that of life as a mere game of probabilities without real stakes, not unlike the video games that he so obnoxiously used to play (not very well) during video calls.

Either way, effective altruism gave SBF, and crypto with it, a veneer of respectability that it might not have had otherwise. The alternatives, like the argument that the purpose of our large-scale gambling is to give the unbanked access to financial services, were not an easy sell.

The effective altruism connection does not matter solely because of the ideas and human resources it brought SBF. The movement is one with close ties to elite academia, associated with academics such as Will MacAskill at the University of Oxford, who served on the board of a grantmaking operation funded by FTX and was a close SBF associate, or Peter Singer at Princeton University. Bankman-Fried’s father is a professor at Stanford Law School, though he also worked for FTX for 11 months. His mother is a professor emeritus at Stanford Law School, where she specialized in the field of legal ethics, such as it is.

These connections—and these are certainly not the only ones—may explain some of the sway that SBF had over America’s intellectuals. “None of what the Bankman-Frieds did was for show; they weren’t that kind of people,” writes Michael Lewis.

FTX’s post-bankruptcy lawyers allege that the couple enriched themselves by accepting $26.4 million from their son. Surely our kind of people wouldn’t do such a thing.

[bluemeloncapitalreviews]

Blue Melon Capital Reviews | 5 Key Factors to Consider When Securing Real Estate Financing

Securing financing for real estate investments is a critical aspect of property ownership and development. Whether you're purchasing your dream home or investing in commercial properties, navigating the complex landscape of real estate financing requires careful consideration of several key factors. Blue Melon Capital Reviews shares some essential elements to keep in mind when seeking financing for your real estate ventures.

1. Creditworthiness and Financial Health

One of the foremost factors lenders consider when assessing real estate financing applications is the borrower's creditworthiness and financial health. Your credit score, debt-to-income ratio, and overall financial stability play pivotal roles in determining the terms of your loan, including interest rates and loan amounts. Before applying for financing, it's crucial to review your credit report, address any discrepancies or outstanding debts, and ensure your financial records reflect a favorable picture. Building a strong credit profile not only enhances your chances of securing financing but also opens doors to more competitive loan options with favorable terms.

2. Property Valuation and Collateral

The value of the property you intend to finance serves as collateral for the loan, influencing the lender's risk assessment and loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. Conducting a thorough property valuation, including appraisal and assessment of market trends, is essential to determine its fair market value accurately. Additionally, lenders may impose specific requirements regarding the type, condition, and location of the property, which can affect financing options. Understanding the collateral requirements and ensuring the property meets these criteria is crucial for securing favorable financing terms and minimizing risks for both parties involved.

3. Loan Terms and Structure

Blue Melon Capital Reviews believes real estate financing encompasses a variety of loan options, each with distinct terms, structures, and repayment schedules. From traditional mortgages to commercial loans, bridge financing, and construction loans, selecting the right loan product tailored to your specific needs is vital. Consider factors such as interest rates, loan duration, down payment requirements, and prepayment penalties when evaluating different financing options. Additionally, understanding the implications of fixed-rate versus adjustable-rate mortgages and the impact of market fluctuations on loan payments is essential for making informed decisions about loan terms and structure.

4. Lender Relationships and Options

Building strong relationships with lenders and exploring diverse financing options can provide valuable insights and opportunities for securing favorable terms. Researching reputable lenders, including banks, credit unions, mortgage brokers, and private lenders, allows you to compare rates, fees, and eligibility criteria to find the best fit for your financing needs. Moreover, cultivating open communication and transparency with lenders throughout the application process can strengthen your negotiating position and increase the likelihood of securing financing on favorable terms. By leveraging diverse lender relationships and exploring alternative financing sources, you can optimize your real estate financing strategy and mitigate potential challenges.

5. Regulatory and Legal Considerations

Navigating the regulatory and legal landscape surrounding real estate financing is paramount to ensure compliance and mitigate risks. Familiarize yourself with applicable laws, regulations, and licensing requirements governing real estate transactions and lending practices in your jurisdiction. Additionally, consult legal professionals specializing in real estate law to review loan agreements, contracts, and disclosure documents thoroughly. Understanding your rights and obligations as a borrower, as well as potential legal implications, empowers you to make informed decisions and safeguard your interests throughout the financing process.

In conclusion, securing real estate financing requires careful consideration of various factors, including creditworthiness, property valuation, loan terms, lender relationships, and regulatory compliance. By prioritizing these key elements and conducting thorough due diligence, borrowers can enhance their chances of securing financing on favorable terms while minimizing risks and maximizing returns on their real estate investments. Remember to seek guidance from financial advisors, real estate professionals, and legal experts to navigate the complexities of real estate financing and make informed decisions aligned with your long-term objectives.

#bluemeloncapitalreviews #real estate #comercial real estate #financial

[classicquid]

Short Term Loans UK Direct Lender the Trump Card That Meets Your Needs

You keep failing to get a loan to pay off debts before your next payday. In that scenario, it is advised that you apply for short term loans UK direct lender. You can obtain funds in modest sums, such as £100 to £1000, with a flexible 14- to 31-day payback time. After taking out this loan, you can make the different payments stated below:

Child’s education or tuition,

Payments with credit cards,

Light or phone bills, health care costs, and even other essential payments

You must adhere to a few simple terms and conditions in order to pledge collateral against the lender. You can now easily and stress-free take advantage of short term loans UK direct lender. These include being a permanent resident of the United Kingdom, being at least eighteen years old, working a permanent job for the past twelve months, and having an open checking account.

You must complete a brief online application and submit it online with all necessary details, including your name, address, bank account information, email address, and other details, in order for your money to be approved quickly. On the same day that your submission is made, the money is securely put into your bank account following information verification.

Why am I unable to obtain a UK short term loans?

This could be for a few reasons.

The first and most crucial factor is affordability. You will provide information about your income source, amount, and average monthly expenses when filling out a form. For your personal interest, it is crucial that you tell the truth about these specifics. Direct lenders may run checks to confirm that you have a steady source of income. They will reject your request if they are unable to verify your income or if it is not consistent. They must be certain that you can pay back the short term loans UK. The quantity of existing credit obligations you have is another important factor in determining your affordability. You are probably going to be turned down if you already have a number of short term loans UK direct lender that you are repaying. Lenders don't want to take advantage of you and increase your already substantial debt.

You may already be aware of the other factor, which is your credit record and score. The score alone doesn't really matter, but you might not be approved if you have recent missed payments or defaulted credit history on your record, or if you are enrolled in any debt management programs (like IVAs). These could be interpreted by lenders as an indication that you will probably struggle to repay your short term cash loans to them on time, leading them to deny your request.

You must first complete an online application. This is done in a matter of minutes. Your personal information, address, proof of income, monthly spending information, and bank account information (where you want the loan deposited to) will all need to be provided.

After submitting your application through a broker like Classic Quid, you will be contacted by a lender and directed to their website to complete it. The short term loans direct lenders agreement, which includes information about your loan amount, repayment schedule, installment amounts, and due dates, must be read. If you're pleased with the offer, you confirm the request. The bank account you designated will receive the balance of your loan. This can occur in a matter of minutes, contingent upon your lender and bank.

https://classicquid.co.uk/

#Short Term Loans UK #Short Term Loans UK Direct Lender #Short Term Cash

[my2ndyearpaper]

02212024

Left to office at 8:15am - bought a buffalo chicken wrap at Brew - read Parlour and Plantin 2008 - spoke with Xixi about the job market and everything - had an egg and mandarin for lunch - Giulio's class; we spoke about collateral debt obligations (Giulio asked us to set an appointment with him to discuss our final project) - went back to office and had some chocolate - spoke to Sue about potential PhD candidates - attended Prof. Wasley's class - presentation on learning from Peers (amazing slide deck) - had tuna wrap for dinner (did not turn out well) - did laundry - wrote 10 pages of review work for #2ndyearpaper

[nklhuyhuynh5]

Assignment of Proceeds: Meaning, Pros and Cons, Example

What Is an Assignment of Proceeds?

An Assignment of Proceeds is a legal arrangement in which a party (the assignor) transfers their right to receive payments or proceeds from a specific financial transaction to another party (the assignee). This assignment typically occurs through a formal contract or agreement and is often used in various financial and business contexts. The key components of an assignment of proceeds are:

Assignor: The assignor is the party who currently holds the right to receive the proceeds. This could be the original beneficiary of a financial transaction, such as a seller, creditor, or policyholder.

Assignee: The assignee is the party to whom the right to receive the proceeds is transferred. The assignee becomes entitled to receive the payments or benefits specified in the assignment agreement.

Transaction or Proceeds: The assignment of proceeds pertains to a specific financial transaction or a source of funds. This could include sales of goods, insurance claims, letters of credit, accounts receivable, or other contractual obligations.

Assignment Agreement: The assignment is formalized through a legal contract or agreement between the assignor and assignee. This agreement outlines the terms and conditions of the assignment, including the rights and responsibilities of both parties.

Payment Mechanism: The agreement specifies how and when the assignee will receive the proceeds. It may involve direct payment by the debtor or the third party responsible for making the payment to the assignee instead of the assignor.

Assignment of proceeds can serve various purposes, such as risk mitigation, access to immediate funds, debt settlement, or simplifying complex financial transactions. It is commonly used in international trade, finance, insurance, and lending scenarios to ensure the secure and efficient flow of funds between parties.

For example, in international trade, a seller may assign the right to receive payment from a letter of credit to a bank, reducing the risk of non-payment due to issues with the buyer's creditworthiness. In another scenario, an individual facing financial difficulties might assign their life insurance policy's death benefit to a creditor as collateral for a loan or to settle a debt. In both cases, the assignment of proceeds facilitates the efficient transfer of financial benefits from one party to another.

Understanding an Assignment of Proceeds

Understanding an assignment of proceeds involves grasping the key elements and implications of this financial arrangement. Here are the fundamental aspects to consider:

Parties Involved:

Assignor: This is the party who currently holds the right to receive payments or proceeds from a specific financial transaction. The assignor is essentially transferring their claim to these proceeds to another party.

Assignee: The assignee is the recipient of the rights to the proceeds. They assume the assignor's position and become entitled to receive the payments or benefits specified in the assignment agreement.

Financial Transaction or Proceeds:

An assignment of proceeds relates to a particular financial transaction or source of funds. This could be a sale of goods, an insurance policy payout, a letter of credit, an accounts receivable balance, or any other contractual obligation that involves payment or benefits.

Assignment Agreement:

The assignment of proceeds is formalized through a legal contract or agreement between the assignor and assignee. This document outlines the terms and conditions of the assignment, including:

The specific proceeds being assigned.

The rights and obligations of the assignor and assignee.

The payment mechanism and schedule.

Any conditions or limitations on the assignment.

Governing law and dispute resolution procedures.

Signatures and date of execution.

Purpose and Benefits:

The reasons for executing an assignment of proceeds can vary widely, but some common purposes include:

Risk mitigation: Reducing the risk of non-payment or default, especially in international trade or lending scenarios.

Access to immediate funds: Gaining quick access to cash flow, such as through factoring of accounts receivable.

Debt settlement: Using assigned assets, like life insurance policies, as collateral to settle debts.

Simplifying transactions: Streamlining complex financial dealings by designating a single party to receive payments on behalf of others.

Payment Mechanism:

The assignment agreement specifies how and when the assignee will receive the proceeds. This often involves a redirection of payments, meaning that the debtor or the third party responsible for making payments will send them directly to the assignee instead of the assignor.

Considerations and Risks:

Assigning proceeds can have implications for both the assignor and assignee. Considerations include the loss of control over the proceeds, potential costs and fees associated with the assignment, credit implications, and legal complexities. It's essential to weigh the benefits against the drawbacks when entering into such an arrangement.

Understanding an assignment of proceeds is crucial when entering into such agreements to ensure that both parties are clear about their roles, rights, and obligations. Additionally, seeking legal or financial advice may be advisable to navigate the complexities of these arrangements, especially in contexts with significant financial implications.

Advantages and Disadvantages of an Assignment of Proceeds

An assignment of proceeds can offer several advantages and disadvantages, depending on the specific context and the parties involved. Here's a breakdown of the pros and cons:

Advantages:

Risk Mitigation:

Pro: Assigning proceeds can help mitigate the risk of non-payment or default. By transferring the right to receive payments to a more creditworthy or reliable party, the assignor can ensure they receive the funds they are entitled to.

Improved Liquidity:

Pro: Assigning proceeds can provide immediate access to cash flow. This is particularly beneficial for businesses that need working capital to cover expenses, as they can receive funds upfront in exchange for their rights to future payments.

Debt Settlement:

Pro: Individuals facing financial difficulties can use an assignment of proceeds to settle debts or secure loans. For example, they might assign the death benefit of a life insurance policy as collateral for a loan.

Simplified Transactions:

Pro: In complex financial transactions involving multiple parties, an assignment of proceeds can streamline the process by designating a single party to receive payments on behalf of others, reducing administrative complexity.

Guaranteed Payment:

Pro: When an assignee with a strong financial standing is involved, the assignor can be more certain of receiving payments, which can improve financial planning and reduce uncertainty.

Disadvantages:

Loss of Control:

Con: Assigning proceeds often means giving up control over those funds. This may not be ideal if the assignor needs flexibility or has specific plans for the proceeds.

Costs and Fees:

Con: Assigning proceeds can come with fees and costs. For instance, factoring companies charge fees for advancing funds against accounts receivable, which can reduce the overall amount the assignor receives.

Credit Implications:

Con: Depending on the context, assigning proceeds can affect the assignor's creditworthiness. For example, using valuable assets like life insurance policies as collateral can impact credit.

Legal Complexities:

Con: The legal aspects of assignment can be complex and may require careful documentation and compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Errors or disputes can lead to legal complications.

Dependency on Assignee:

Con: The assignor becomes dependent on the assignee for receiving payments. If the assignee encounters financial difficulties or issues arise between the assignor and assignee, it can disrupt the payment process.

Limited Flexibility:

Con: Assigning proceeds can limit the assignor's ability to change payment arrangements or adapt to changing circumstances. It may be challenging to renegotiate terms once the assignment is in place.

In summary, the advantages of an assignment of proceeds include risk mitigation, improved liquidity, and simplified transactions, while the disadvantages include loss of control, costs and fees, potential credit implications, and legal complexities. Businesses and individuals should carefully evaluate their specific needs and circumstances before entering into an assignment of proceeds to determine if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Legal and financial advice may be essential in complex cases to ensure the arrangement is structured correctly and is in the best interest of all parties involved.

Example of an Assignment of Proceeds

Here's an example of an assignment of proceeds in the context of international trade:

Scenario: Company A, a manufacturer based in the United States, is exporting a large shipment of machinery to Company B, a buyer located in Germany. To secure payment for the machinery, Company B agrees to open a letter of credit (LC) with its bank in Germany. However, Company A is concerned about the creditworthiness of Company B's bank and wants to ensure they receive payment for the machinery.

Assignment of Proceeds Agreement:

Parties Involved:

Assignor: Company A (the exporter and beneficiary of the LC).

Assignee: XYZ Bank (a trusted U.S. bank).

Financial Transaction:

The financial transaction involves the export of machinery by Company A to Company B in Germany, with payment to be made through a letter of credit.

Assignment Agreement Terms:

Company A and XYZ Bank enter into an assignment of proceeds agreement.

Company A assigns the right to receive payment under the letter of credit to XYZ Bank.

The assignment agreement specifies that any payments made by Company B's bank in Germany under the letter of credit should be directly received by XYZ Bank in the United States.

The agreement outlines the payment mechanism, terms, and conditions of the assignment.

Purpose and Benefits:

The purpose of this assignment is to reduce the risk of non-payment for Company A. By assigning the proceeds to XYZ Bank, Company A ensures that even if Company B's bank in Germany faces financial difficulties or disputes arise, they will still receive payment for the machinery.

Payment Mechanism:

The assignment agreement instructs Company B's bank to remit the payment for the machinery directly to XYZ Bank in the United States, bypassing Company A as the beneficiary.

Considerations:

Company A benefits from reduced risk and more secure payment, while XYZ Bank earns a fee or commission for facilitating the assignment. Company B's bank may charge additional fees for processing payments to XYZ Bank.

In this example, the assignment of proceeds provides a level of security and risk mitigation for Company A. They can proceed with the export transaction with confidence, knowing that even if there are issues with Company B's bank in Germany, XYZ Bank in the United States will receive the payment on their behalf. This type of arrangement is common in international trade to protect the interests of exporters and ensure the smooth flow of funds across borders.

Read more: https://computertricks.net/assignment-of-proceeds-meaning-pros-and-cons-example/

#Computer Tricks

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed

Personnel are policy, something that the Biden administration has proved again and again since the 2020 election. Biden himself is a kind of empty vessel into which different wings of the Democratic party pour their will, yielding a strange brew of appointments both great and terrible.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

On the one hand, you have progressive appointments like Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ and Lina Khan at the FTC, leaders who are determined to challenge and curb corporate power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/#bidens-legacy

On the other hand, you have deferential leaders like Pete Buttigieg, who fill their own staff with status quo counsel, and then let those timid corporate apologists run the show, leaving the substantial enforcement powers of a powerful agency to gather dust:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

While the Democrats’ anti-corporate wing got to drive the administration’s competition agencies, the corporate wing has enjoyed near-total dominance over finance regulations (with notable exceptions, e.g. Rohit Chopra), starting with Trump’s Jerome Powell, a bloodletting monster happy to shovel workers into their bosses’ crushers all day long:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/19/creditors-vs-workers/#finance-colored-glasses

Corporate Dems continue to flex their muscle. A seat has just opened up on the Federal Reserve Board, and the WSJ is pretty sure the seat is going to Janice Eberly, a corporate ghoul who helped Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner steal Americans’ houses on behalf of the bankers who destroyed the world economy in 2008:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-considers-two-economists-for-fed-vice-chair-58f13344

A quick refresher: Obama inherited the Great Financial Crisis, a massive global asset crash that followed from a decade of real-estate and derivatives deregulation that saw the world’s largest banks issuing mortgages they knew would fail, and then placing massive bets on “collateralized debt obligations” that were supposed to offset the risk.

The banks gambled trillions, nearly destroyed the world’s economy, and then blamed it all on reckless borrowers — mortgage holders who had been mis-sold predatory mortgages that were designed to trigger defaults thanks to low “teaser rates” that later “ballooned” into monthly payments the banks knew the borrowers couldn’t afford.

Geithner was Obama’s go-to guy for the GFC. It was under his leadership that billions were handed out to the banks to bail them out and keep them solvent during the crisis — and it was also under his leadership that bank execs were able to pay themselves millions in bonuses using that public money.

When the banks were in trouble, Geithner leapt into action. When the banks’ customers faced crises, he was MIA — especially during the foreclosure epidemic that followed, as the banks stole our homes out from under us, often forging the paperwork. No bank was seriously punished for this policy.

Back to Janice Eberly, who served as Geithner’s assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy — his hatchet-woman, in other words. Now, sometimes people in senior government roles stick around because they disagree with their bosses and want to mitigate the harm of their bosses’ policies.

That’s not why Eberly took the job. In 2014, she and Arvind Krishnamurthy co-wrote a Brookings Institute paper called “Efficient Credit Policies in a Housing Debt Crisis,” that explained why Geithner had it right all along — bailing out the banks and leaving homeowners in foreclosure is “efficient”:

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fall2014bpea_eberly_krishnamurthy.pdf

Writing in The American Prospect, Max Moran from the Revolving Door Project breaks down “Efficient Credit Policies,” explaining how Eberly’s stated views should disqualify her from sitting on the Fed board, especially as we teeter on the brink of a deep financial crisis:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-03-06-janice-eberly-fed-nominee-mortgage-crisis/

The first thing you need to understand here is HAMP, the Home Affordable Modification Program, which received the $100b Congress allocated to help homeowners whose mortgages were “underwater” — that is, whose houses were worth less than they owed for them.

That money could have gone to “principal reduction” — that is, to paying off part of your loan. If you owned $350,000 on a house that was now worth $300,000, the Feds could give the bank $50k and you wouldn’t be underwater anymore. The FDIC proposed just this, in a plan that would have required homeowners to pay back the US government if the price of their homes rebounded.

If you want to keep Americans from losing their homes, principal reduction is a straightforward and reliable approach. But the banks hated this — and that meant Geithner wouldn’t do it. Banks don’t like principal reduction because it means that they’ll lose out on future payments: reducing your principal by $50k now means that the banks won’t get hundreds of thousands of dollars over the 30 years of your mortgage.

Using the money for principal reduction would have meant the banks’ balance sheets would have looked a little worse — which, as Moran points out, is a perfectly fair outcome for banks that had just come close to destroying the world economy, especially since many of these underwater borrowers were destined to lose their houses and would never make those payments.

But Geithner didn’t do principal reduction. Instead, he did HAMP, which was just a way to temporarily lower borrowers’ monthly payments so they could stay in their homes. Geithner sold Obama on this plan, convincing him to renege on his election promise to support a “cramdown” on the banks, which would have saved homeowners:

https://www.propublica.org/article/dems-obama-broke-pledge-to-force-banks-to-help-homeowners

HAMP was full of the kinds of complex requirements and paperwork that the professional managerial class love, rules that made it almost impossible for homeowners to invoke HAMP and improve their payments. Meanwhile, the banks got “investor incentive payments” that let them take in public money even as they foreclosed on the public:

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/principal-reduction-alternative-under-the-home-affordable-modification-program

HAMP was a disaster. Almost no one managed to use it, and even among the lucky few who did manage to do so, many were tricked into foreclosure.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/30/government-program-save-homes-mortgages-failure-banks

This is the policy that Eberly and Krishnamurthy defend in their paper: rather than reducing debt, just temporarily restructure mortgage payments. One reason they defend this: it’s cheaper, and Congress didn’t allocate enough money to help everyone who needed principal reduction. But, as Moran points out, Geithner’s anemic response to the crisis caused Congress to claw back $225b of the money allocated to deal with it — enough to do $50k principal reductions for 4.5m households. Under Geithner, HAMP only spent $10b.

But of course, the US government didn’t need to pay the banks off to do principal reduction. They could simply order the banks to take a loss. That’s how lending usually works: lenders who originate bad loans have to eat them — they don’t get made whole by Uncle Sucker.

But when Eberly was working for Geithner, “federal officials convinced themselves this was impossible.” Rather than hold banks to account for their reckless speculation, Geithner announced that he was going to “foam the runway” for the banks, pureeing Americans’ homes to make the foam.

But Eberly’s tenure coincided with the banks’ rebound — by the time she went to work for Geithner, they were rolling in dough, posting massive profits. As @[email protected] put it, “If you force them to eat a bunch of foreclosure losses, maybe a few hundred billion over several years, it probably wouldn’t have been that bad.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLbnr1mxBs

Moran nails it here: “When a bad loan is made, it is both prudent and fair for the lender to bear the most responsibility. They are supposed to be wise stewards of their own capital. Instead, ordinary homeowners who did the least of any actor to cause the financial crisis ended up eating the losses.”

Eberly and Krishnamurthy claimed that Geithner’s policy would be efficient, and that it wouldn’t lead to mass foreclosures. As neoclassical economists love to do, they “proved” this using elaborate mathematical models. And, also in the grand neoclassical tradition, they didn’t bother to check whether their model was correct.

To quote Ely Devons: “If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Here’s what Eberly and Krishnamurthy missed: the choice to foreclose wasn’t being made by the lenders, they were being made by the mortgage servicer, a kind of consequence-free middleman who made more money by foreclosing on homeowners, even if the lenders lost more money over the long term:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228125783_Why_Servicers_Foreclose_When_They_Should_Modify_and_Other_Puzzles_of_Servicer_Behavior_Servicer_Compensation_and_its_Consequences

Eberly and Krishnamurthy barely mention the existence of servicers, but another researcher was keenly aware of them: a law prof named Katie Porter, who delved into the servicers’ role in foreclosure in a report for the California AG:

https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/mortgage_settlement/01-report-waiting-for-change.pdf

Porter identified the servicers’ “dual track” approach to distressed mortgage borrowers: on the one hand, they slow-walked HARP-based changes to payments, and on the other hand, they raced to foreclose on those borrowers who were waiting for their payments to reset.

The servicers’ hunger to throw people out of their homes knew no bounds: they set up massive robo-signing boiler-rooms where low-waged employees forged deeds to plug the paperwork holes created by the high-speed, unregulated speculation on mortgages that precipitated the Great Financial Crisis:

https://www.reuters.com/article/robosigning-plea/ex-mortgage-document-exec-pleads-guilty-in-robo-signing-case-idUSL1E8ML0C120121121

Eberly knew about robo-signing, she knew about servicers, she knew about foreclosures. It was her job to know. But she still wrote her paper defending Geithner’s runway-foaming and all those ruined lives:

Principal reduction can be helpful, but it is a less efficient use of government resources, since it back-loads payments to households that cannot borrow against these future resources to support consumption today, and also because it is most helpful in reducing strategic default, rather than payment-distress-induced default,

This is just means-testing by another name, a fetish for separating the “deserving poor” from “moochers” (AKA “strategic defaulters”). The PMC loves means-testing, but only for poor people. As Moran points out, rich people like Trump use strategic defaults all the time:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html

Elite economists and finance ghouls convinced themselves that helping people stay in their homes would enable waves of crooked “strategic defaulting” but there’s no evidence this was ever widespread — rather, it was a fairy tale that justified mass foreclosure:

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27585/w27585.pdf

Eberly helped throw millions of Americans into the street in order to reward reckless banks, already wildly profitable banks, with even more profit. And far from regretting this, she went on to write elaborate justifications for the cruel policies she helped administer.

The historian Michael Hudson describes debt and debt cancellation as a key determinant of whether a given civilization survives. In every venture, producers have to borrow capital from lenders — farmers, for example, must borrow to pay for seed and fertilizer and labor. When the ventures are successful, the borrowers pay back the lenders.

But not every venture can succeed. There will always be blights, droughts, fires and other risks that can’t be fully mitigated. When failure occurs, borrowers can’t pay back creditors. If you farm long enough, you’ll eventually lose a crop, and have to roll over your debts next year. Eventually, you’ll owe so much that you can’t even make the interest payments.

In the absence of some structured, periodic debt cancellation — such as the Bronze Age tradition of Jubilee — creditors eventually end up controlling the work of the entire productive sector. When that happens, your society stops producing what everyone needs, and instead just makes the things that rich people want:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

A civilization can’t survive if all of its farmers are growing ornamental flowers for rich creditors’ villas instead of staple crops. It can’t survive if every productive worker is stuck in a dead-end job or a dead-end place because of medical or student debt.

Personnel are policy. Eberly has explained, in excruciating detail, exactly what policy she favors — policy that rewards reckless speculation by incinerating the life chances of everyday Americans. Appointing her to the Federal Reserve board would be a giant Fuck You from the Biden admin to every person who got their home stolen by a bank.

Tomorrow (Mar 7), I’m doing a remote talk for TU Wien.

On Mar 9, you can catch me in person in Austin at the UT School of Design and Creative Technologies, and remotely at U Manitoba’s Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture.

On Mar 10, Rebecca Giblin and I kick off the SXSW reading series.

Image: Medill DC (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Geithner_in_2011.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A bombed out neighborhood. Over the crumbling houses is the 'HOPE' wordmark from Shepard Fairey's Obama campaign posters. On the right is the grinning face of Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, colorized to match the Fairey posters. On the left is an ogrish, top-hatted capitalist figure, chomping a cigar and disdainfully holding aloft a single-family home between a gloved forefinger and thumb. He stands before a podium bearing the Citibank logo. The podium has a lever in the shape of a golden dollar-sign, which he is yanking with his free hand. He, too, has been colorized in the mode of the Fairey poster.]

#pluralistic #timothy geithner #personnel are policy #evictions #great financial crisis #gfc #foreclosure #foreclosure epidemic #finance #corruption #revolving door project #biden administration #corporate democrats #democrats #janice eberly #federal reserve #the fed #brookings institution #distressed assets #tarp #impunity #no banker left behind #hamp #Arvind Krishnamurthy #economic #Home Affordable Modification Program #moral hazard #incentives matter #mortgage servicers #katie porter

[shubh--arenainfosolution14]

Get flexible and low interest rate personal loan

Get flexible and low interest rate personal loan

In today's fast-paced world, financial flexibility is often essential. Whether you want to consolidate debt, cover unexpected expenses, or fund a dream vacation, personal loans can provide the necessary financial support. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the ins and outs of personal loans, helping you make informed decisions about borrowing money. Arenafincorp is the top-notch financial company in jaipur

Understanding Personal Loans -

A personal loan in jaipur is an unsecured loan typically offered by banks, credit unions, or online lenders. Unlike secured loans, such as mortgages or auto loans, personal loans don't require collateral. Instead, they're personal loans in jaipur based on your creditworthiness, income, and financial history.

Types of Personal Loans - 

1. Traditional Personal Loans:

 These are the most common types of personal loans. They come with fixed interest rates and a predetermined repayment schedule. Borrowers receive a lump sum upfront and repay it in instalments over the loan term, usually ranging from 1 to 5 years.

2. Lines of Credit: 

A personal line of credit provides flexibility. It works like a credit card, allowing you to borrow up to a specified limit and repay it as needed. Interest is charged only on the amount you use.

Key Factors to Consider Before applying for a personal loan in jaipur, it's crucial to consider the following factors:

1. Interest Rate: 

The interest rate, often expressed as an Annual Percentage Rate (APR), determines the cost of borrowing. A lower APR means you'll pay less in interest over the life of the loan.

2. Loan Term: 

The loan term affects your monthly payments. Shorter terms result in higher monthly payments but lower overall interest costs, while longer terms reduce monthly payments but increase total interest expenses.

3. Fees: 

Be aware of any origination fees, prepayment penalties, or other charges associated with the loan.

4. Credit Score:

 Your credit score plays a significant role in the interest rate you'll qualify for. A higher credit score can lead to better loan terms.

5. Repayment Plan:

 Ensure that the monthly payment aligns with your budget and financial goals.

Applying for a Personal Loan in jaipur

1. Check Your Credit Report:

 Obtain a free copy of your credit report from each of the major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) and review it for accuracy.

2.Compare Lenders:

Shop around and compare offers from different lenders to find the best terms and rates for your needs.

3. Gather Documentation:

 Lenders may require proof of income, employment, and other financial information. Prepare these documents in advance to streamline the application process.

4.Submit Your Application:

 Complete the loan application with your chosen lender. Be honest and accurate with your information.

Managing Your Personal Loan

Once you've secured a personal loan in jaipur, it's essential to manage it wisely:

1. Create a Budget:

 Incorporate your loan payments into your budget to ensure you can comfortably meet your obligations.

2. Automatic Payments:

 Consider setting up automatic payments to avoid missing due dates and incurring late fees.

3. Avoid Additional Debt:

 Resist the temptation to accumulate more debt while repaying your personal loan. This can lead to a cycle of debt.

4. Emergency Fund:

 Build or maintain an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses, reducing the need for future loans.

Conclusion

Personal loans can be valuable financial tools when used responsibly. By understanding the different types of personal loans, considering key factors, and managing your loan wisely, you can make borrowing money work for you. Always do your research and choose the loan that best aligns with your financial goals and capabilities.

[power-chords]

@coolwitchaunt to belatedly address your reply re: Wardell/Waingro/the "golem" interpretation, this raises a loaded question, right? Did Vincent and Neil actively create them? Or are they more like twisted embodiments of karmic obligations, emergent collateral for an unintentionally incurred but no less destructive debt?

To me the latter is more compelling. The most ingenious and ballsy thing Mann has done with Heat is to implant this totally deliberate allegorical sub-reading in which Neil and Vincent represent two generational Ashkenazi immigrant bargaining strategies with American modernity and whiteness.

In Neil’s case, it’s the standard issue “hedge” of material growth and gain, the promise of prosperity minted by our capitalist democracy. And once he gets enough, he’s getting out. Vincent, by contrast, pursues total assimilation through the organizations that establish and perpetuate the norms of American social life. Family, law and order, the machines of pop and intellectual culture. He’s going all the way in. And if you revisit their conversation in the diner, you'll notice that Neil talks like someone who’s playing a game to win and cash out, making moves on a timer, trying to avoid getting boxed in. Vincent can’t shake the vernacular of the regular-type life he’s desperate to maintain, even as it crumbles around him for the third consecutive time. The first time he cracks a smile is when Neil speaks to him in language that identifies this preoccupation and their mutual alienation from it. ("What the fuck is that, barbecues and ballgames?")

This would be striking enough if all we got were the horrific consequences depicted in the film, which are not limited to white supremacist (!) serial killers. Neil's recruitment of Donald Breeden, a working class Black parolee, while dressed in a suit, resulting in Breeden's death, takes on a new layer of moral indictment. Neil dies in the uniform of a class traitor (private security! Just like those guys he robbed in the opening heist!) at the hands of the only person who understood him. A cop. Who just abandoned his family, including a stepdaughter who just attempted suicide, because he can't quit the rush of state-sanctioned predation. Whew.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! In the book, Neil’s romantic frontier fantasy leads to the displacement and destruction of an indigenous family who has lived on the Mexicali border for 400 years. Vincent’s desperate longing for safety, order, and community — maybe even a repressed, unspeakable longing for something or someone else entirely — results only in his further alienation, a downward spiral into substance abuse and yet more authoritarian violence. (Including explicit Nazi imagery! LMAO.) What he can’t confront, or refuses to remember, is what Justine rightly identifies as "self-incineration." Not hard to read between the lines here!!!

[independcnt]

sae-byeok + sang-woo: character comparison & analysis

so. sae-byeok and sang-woo. there’s a lot to be said, so let’s just dive right into it.

i wanted to write a meta that compares and contrasts their characters ( and discuss them as characters, from a literary and storytelling point of view ) because when you look at them, they are alike in quite a few ways... but the ways in which they are dissimilar make all the difference. my central statement, the thought i wish to convey above all others is this: sae-byeok and sang-woo’s character arcs are the inverse of each other. from a storytelling standpoint, it’s fascinating and heartbreaking, seeing as they both meet the very same end — a knife to the neck by sang-woo’s hand. 

so first, some comparisons.

i think one of the most interesting similarities between them is the fact that, in a way, they are both entering the games for the sake of their mothers. there is, of course, a huge difference in why they are there to help their mothers which sets up a startling dichotomy between them. sang-woo is the one who put his mother in a precarious position by putting her shop up for collateral against his debts. sae-byeok is actively trying to get her mother out of a dangerous and difficult life that neither of them signed up for. so while both sang-woo and sae-byeok entered the games to help their mothers, there is a significant divide behind that reasoning — sang-woo is trying to rescue his mother from circumstances that he himself put her in, to save her from his own mistakes. sae-byeok is trying to save her mother from the unfair tragedy of being born in the north, of getting caught at the border, taking on this task that was not asked of her but she does so anyway. this sets them up as the prodigal son versus the filial daughter.

and in my opinion, they are the two most well-equipped people to actually win the games by their own merits. they’re both incredibly intelligent: they both figured out the trick with red light, green light. sae-byeok was brave and curious enough to risk a trip into the vents, but also knew that her knowledge was useless without context and figured telling sang-woo would be a good way of actually getting something out of the information ( knowing to follow him during dalgona ). and sang-woo attended the top university in south korea, so that speaks to his intellect in and of itself, outside of the clear examples we see of it in the games. and what sae-byeok lacks in physical strength, she makes up for in resolve. she holds her own against deok-su long enough to get an injury on him and get away. she’s tough as nails and wily from her time on the streets, and that’s showcased enough in both her encounters with deok-su. sang-woo shows his strength during the night brawl when he’s smacking people around with one of those metal bars. i truthfully think they are both the best equipped to win the games, just in slightly different ways. but i’ll also say that while they both worked hard to get to where they are in life, sae-byeok was clearly way more disadvantaged than sang-woo ever was. a young woman from the north, impoverished, an immigrant. sang-woo had both opportunity and privilege on her due to nothing more than luck and circumstance.

personality-wise, they are also both pretty cold and aloof on the outside. i think sae-byeok a bit more than sang-woo because there are moments ( at least towards the beginning of the series ) where sang-woo at least tries to be cordial with people, namely gi-hun and ali. even if it is pretty evident to us viewers that these are done likely out of obligation to a past friendship ( gi-hun ) or to ensure that strong people stay on your team ( ali ). but deep down, sang-woo is coldhearted. analytical. logical. meanwhile, sae-byeok projects this cold and stoic attitude to conceal the fact that she is just full of heart. she is values-driven, motivated purely by her subjective feelings. when sae-byeok does display her cunning, she tends to use it versus her environment rather than against her fellow man.

and like... if gi-hun and sang-woo represent two opposing values, then sae-byeok is where it’s possible for those values to meet in the middle. she could never be as blindly optimistic as gi-hun, hold as much faith in the world and in people as he does. but she could never devolve as much sang-woo does, become so harsh-hearted and cruel that she would betray who she is and the people who helped her just so she could get what she wants. she is firm in her values and convictions, sticking to them even if it is against her own interests. she tried to make ji-yeong throw her marble again, after all. it is sae-byeok’s words that get gi-hun to put down the knife.

so now, to the real point of this meta, which is sae-byeok and sang-woo’s respective character arcs. because i operate visually, and my words don’t always match up with what i have in my head, i made a quick and very shitty depiction of my thoughts in ms paint.

when i say that their character arcs are the inverse of each other, i mean something like this:

they undergo the same journeys, but in reverse. as sae-byeok’s ability to trust in people builds, sang-woo’s ability to trust in people degrades.

sae-byeok goes into the games cold and untrusting, determined to win at any cost. she’s cagey and combative. she has no allies, only enemies — yet she is transformed by the people around her. she grows to trust and care for others outside of her blood family. so much so that she mourns someone’s death, clearly heartbroken over the loss ( ji-yeong ) and she entrusts someone with her the most precious things in her life: her family and her dreams for them ( gi-hun ). and it was in her efforts to spare gi-hun from guilt ( “you aren’t that kind of person” ) that led to her own death. but her story ends with something she had nothing of in the beginning: faith in her fellow man, trust in someone who is not her family or herself. someone who was not of blood relation that sae-byeok cared about enough to cry over, and someone who cried over her when she was killed.

sang-woo entered the games with allies, people who trusted in him. he has someone in his corner ( gi-hun ) and others quickly take a liking to him ( ali ). he starts off willing to help others, as we see him help gi-hun during red light, green light, and give ali the bus fare and food. granted, his interactions with ali aren’t 100% benevolent, but he was at least willing to do it, intentions aside. but over the course of the series, he allows greed and desperation to erode his morality. he becomes unable to trust in others, and thinks only of himself. sang-woo spirals down in this degradation of character until it comes to the point where he coldly distances himself from his own immoral actions under the excuse of “it’s me or them.” and in the end, it is a culmination of his own shame and wanting to spare gi-hun from the guilt of killing his childhood best friend that leads to his death, to sang-woo taking his own life.

and that’s what i’m trying to convey in the gif above, the parallel displayed. that looking over one’s shoulder, casting a glance back at someone they do not trust. sae-byeok’s happens in the beginning ( episode 2 ), the start of her arc. on the other hand, sang-woo’s happens towards the end ( episode 8 ), near the conclusion of his. their journeys as characters, as narrative storytelling pieces, are just inverses of the same arc. they bookend each other. and still, they meet the very same end.

and if episode 2 is the beginning of sae-byeok’s arc as a cold and distrusting individual and episode 8 is her full growth into someone willing to leave her beloved baby brother in the hands of a near-stranger; and opposite to that, if episode 2 is sang-woo entering as someone with friends and allies around him and episode 8 is his final fall into a desperate man who relies on only himself at the cost of everything and everyone, then episode 6 is the point at which their two arcs intersect. the point at which they cross over each other as sae-byeok rises into a person willing to trust again, and sang-woo falls from grace into someone willing to cheat and betray and kill his former allies to win.

this editing choice alone is so clever to me, sang-woo walking forward and immediately cutting to sae-byeok walking away. the both of them after a moment that has changed the trajectory of their lives and arcs forever: sae-byeok’s for the better, sang-woo’s for the worse. sang-woo cannot handle an honest loss at the cost of his own life, and sae-byeok cannot handle a cheap win at the cost of ji-yeong’s.

and this has been slowly built up over the first five episodes. for sae-byeok, we see the seeds of trust sown in gi-hun when she finds him during fight night and sticks with the team thereafter, before fully blossoming in ji-yeong’s company. in episode 6, we see her confide in ji-yeong in way she hasn’t done ( and never will ) with anyone else. she put her trust and opened up to ji-yeong because she could relate to her more than anyone else in that place, a sort of recognizing herself in the other girl. and it is only because of the trust she was able to place in ji-yeong, and in ji-yeong’s selfless sacrifice, that sae-byeok is ever able to put her trust in gi-hun the way she did. 

and same with sang-woo, we see hints of his deceptive behavior and cunning, his selfishness, in the earlier episodes. like splitting up the team in dalgona despite knowing the game, letting gi-hun take the most difficult shape. we see him start to put distance between him and gi-hun. and then it all comes out at full-force in episode 6, when he betrays ali.

after this, both characters sort of free-fall through the rest of their arcs more pointedly. sae-byeok gives gi-hun another chance, even after shafting her a bit during the partnering up for marbles. she saves his life during glass stepping stones. she saves gi-hun from himself, in that brief lapse in conscience when he goes to kill sang-woo. she has faith that he will win and he will take care of her brother. sang-woo, on the other hand, kind of devolves into a desperate mess the way he grabs the husband and yells in his face that they have to keep going. he pushes the glassmaker, makes that snap decision without any hesitation. he kills a man, and then gets upset when gi-hun tries to call him out on it. then he murders this weak, defenseless girl, someone just off the cusp of adulthood as she bleeds out in her bed, and tries to rationalize that. total degradation of character.

i really don’t have a cute way to wrap any of this up because it’s just kind of .... fucking sad that these two meet the same end either way. but they also get their wishes taken care of by gi-hun either way too, so i guess that’s a fair enough consolation prize. man idk this meta is kind of all over the place, but i hope i at least conveyed something of value sdfndfnafds. i just think these two are very interesting characters with very opposing values, yet somehow they share plenty of similarities and their journeys follow the same, but opposite, trajectory.

#yes the graph is shitty. yes it is green and red bc those are the colors ezekiel and i use for our sb and sw #this is all just my interpretation/thoughts/etc you are welcome to have your own or disagree but . this is what MY brain churned out #meta. #also if i got things wrong maybe i didn't okay i only watch saebyeok scenes nowadays

[createbacklink]

The Importance and Strategies of Corporate Debt Restructuring: A Guide by Sapient Services

Corporate debt restructuring is a crucial process for companies facing difficulties in meeting their debt obligations. Without effective debt restructuring, companies may face bankruptcy, which can negatively impact their stakeholders. In this article, we will discuss the importance of corporate debt restructuring and some common strategies that companies can use to restructure their debt.

The Importance of Corporate Debt Restructuring Corporate debt restructuring plays a vital role in helping companies manage their debt obligations while ensuring their long-term financial viability. By restructuring their debt, companies can reduce their financial burden, manage their cash flow, maintain jobs, and continue to serve their customers.

Additionally, it can help companies regain the confidence of their stakeholders, including lenders and investors, who may be hesitant to provide additional funding if they are concerned about the company’s financial health.

Strategies for Corporate Debt Restructuring There are several strategies that companies can use to restructure their debt. Below are some of the most common strategies:

Negotiating Lower Interest Rates Negotiating lower interest rates with creditors is one of the simplest strategies for corporate debt restructuring. This can help reduce the total cost of the debt and make it more manageable for the company. However, it may be challenging to negotiate lower interest rates, particularly if the company has a poor credit history. In such cases, the company may need to consider offering some form of security or collateral to persuade creditors to agree to lower interest rates.

Extending Repayment Periods Extending the repayment period is another strategy for corporate debt restructuring. This involves stretching out the time over which the company will repay its debt, which reduces the amount of the monthly payments. This can help companies to manage their cash flow more effectively. However, it also means that the company will be paying interest for a longer period, which can increase the total cost of the debt.

Converting Debt into Equity Converting debt into equity is another strategy for corporate debt restructuring. This means that creditors become shareholders in the company, and the debt is effectively forgiven. This strategy can be useful if the company’s financial performance is expected to improve, as it can provide creditors with an opportunity to benefit from future growth. However, this strategy can dilute existing shareholders’ ownership and control of the company.

Debt-for-Equity Swaps A debt-for-equity swap is another way to restructure corporate debt. This involves offering creditors the option of swapping their debt for equity in the company. This can be an attractive option for creditors who are concerned about the company’s ability to repay its debt. It can also help to reduce the company’s debt burden and improve its financial position. However, as with debt-to-equity conversions, this can also dilute existing shareholders’ ownership and control of the company.

Selling Assets Selling assets to raise funds to pay off debt is another option for corporate debt restructuring. This can help to reduce the company’s debt burden and improve its financial position. However, this strategy may not be ideal if the company is selling its core assets, as it could negatively impact its long-term profitability and sustainability.

Bankruptcy and Reorganization If the company’s financial situation is dire, bankruptcy and reorganization may be necessary. This involves a legal process in which the company’s debt is restructured through negotiations with creditors. The company may need to sell off assets or reorganize its operations to reduce costs and improve profitability. While bankruptcy can be a challenging process, it can provide companies with a fresh start and a chance to restructure their debt and operations to achieve long-term sustainability.

Conclusion

Sapient Services Pvt. Ltd. has extensive experience in providing financial and valuation services to companies in a variety of industries.

With a team of experts in debt restructuring, risk assessment, and financial management, Sapient Services can help companies navigate the complex process of corporate debt restructuring and develop effective strategies to manage their debt obligations.

Whether a company needs to negotiate lower interest rates or explore more complex restructuring options, Sapient Services can provide the guidance and support needed to achieve financial stability and long-term sustainability.

#Corporate Debt Advisors #corporate debt restructuring #sapient services #create backlinks