VOL. 45 | NO. 24 | Friday, June 11, 2021
SPECIAL EMPHASIS: PERSONAL FINANCE
Plunge a shock to investors used to an ever-rising market
Much of the fear that struck the country in early 2020 had more to do with the financial effects of COVID-19 than the medical. It began in late February and continued into March with record-setting Dow plunges March 9 (2,013 points), 12 (2,352 points) and 16 (2,997 points).
For parents who want to make sure their children graduate college debt-free, taking out loans themselves might seem like a better option. But a recent article by The New York Times highlights the problems with the federal Parent PLUS loans that can be made without consideration of the borrower’s ability to repay, and with little protections if they can’t.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Many Americans don’t save enough for retirement, but it’s entirely possible to save too much – at least according to the IRS.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Your 20s are a time of self-exploration, finding your footing as an adult – and likely making some money mistakes.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
Where have all the sellers gone? Long time passing. Actually, it’s a fairly recent phenomenon that has large numbers of Middle Tennesseans cashing out of the real estate frenzy and going far, far away to work remotely.
REAL ESTATE
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Many Americans who moved last year relocated to areas where homes were, on average, bigger and less expensive.
May 2021 real estate trends for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
Top residential real estate sales, May 2021, for Davidson County, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
Mortgage rates remained near historic lows this week. The benchmark 30-year home loan held below the 3% mark amid further signs of the economy's recovery from the pandemic recession.
JOE ROGERS: MY TAKE
Happy 225th birthday, Tennessee! You don’t look a day over 210!
NEWSMAKERS
Bass, Berry & Sims has appointed Lillian M. Blackshear from the firm’s Nashville office to its executive committee.
BRIEFS
Engel & Völkers Nashville has partnered with Pareto Realty and will collectively do business under the Engel & Völkers name. Led by license partner Neal Clayton, this announcement adds 18 real estate advisers to Engel & Völkers Nashville, expanding its real estate service into Williamson County.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The average transaction price for new vehicles has been steadily rising over the past few years, jumping to $40,545 in April, a 3% increase from the prior year, Edmunds data shows. Some of this jump can be chalked up to people buying pricier trucks and SUVs, but another part of the story is their desire to get all the “bells and whistles,” often found on the top trim levels.
CAREER CORNER
The headline of this week’s column might sound a bit confusing. It comes from one of my own mentors.
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEW
Everything you know, you learned from Mom. And Dad. And Grandma, Grandpa, six cousins, three playmates, a neighbor, 31 teachers, a coach somewhere along the line, your spouse and a kid or two.
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Kumar Rocker struck out 11 in 7 2/3 innings, while allowing just three hits, and Vanderbilt held off East Carolina 2-0 on Friday to begin a best-of-three series in the Nashville Super Regional.
SPORTS
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Super regionals are the next stop on the NCAA baseball tournament's Road to Omaha.
TENNESSEE TITANS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Julio Jones turned 32 in February, missed seven games with a nagging hamstring issue in his 10th year in the NFL and now finds himself with a new team in the Tennessee Titans.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations voted Wednesday to begin a comprehensive study of litter pollution in the state.
AUTO INDUSTRY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government's highway safety agency approved a request by General Motors to recall four 2021 vehicle makes due to a malfunctioning air bag warning light.
RELIGION
NASHVILLE (AP) — Race-related tensions within the Southern Baptist Convention are high heading into a national meeting next week. The election of a new SBC president and debate over the concept of systemic racism may prove pivotal for some Black pastors as they decide whether to stay in the denomination or leave.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Releases of leaked letters and secret recordings from within the Southern Baptist Convention intensified Thursday as critics sought to show top leaders were slow to address sexual abuse in the nation's largest Protestant denomination and worried more about its reputation and donations than about victims.
ENVIRONMENT
NORTH LAS VEGAS (AP) — Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the Biden administration wants to see lithium needed for electric cars to be mined "in a responsible way" that respects the environment and Native American tribes.
MEDIA
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — After more than half a century in airplane seatback pockets, the American Airlines in-flight magazine American Way is going away.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
In Tennessee and North Carolina, demand for the COVID-19 vaccine has slowed down so much that they have given millions of doses back to the federal government, even though less than half of their total populations are vaccinated.
CARBIS BAY, England (AP) — Leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are set to commit at their summit to sharing at least 1 billion coronavirus shots with struggling countries around the world — half the doses coming from the U.S. and 100 million from the U.K.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — If China is to meet its tentative goal of vaccinating 80% of its population against the coronavirus by the end of the year, tens of millions of children may have to start rolling up their sleeves.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks shook off a wobbly day of trading and ended modestly higher on Wall Street, giving the S&P 500 its third weekly gain in a row.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — How can governments keep multinational companies from avoiding taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries in low-tax countries?
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump's signature border wall project would lose much of its funding as well as the fast-track status that enabled it to bypass environmental regulations under a Biden administration plan announced Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of senators is eyeing an infrastructure deal with $579 billion in new spending as negotiators try to strike a nearly $1 trillion deal on President Joe Biden's top priority, according to those briefed on the plan.
LONDON (AP) — Imagine trying to make an impression on someone who's met, well, almost everyone.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department's internal watchdog launched an investigation Friday after revelations that former President Donald Trump's administration secretly seized phone data from at least two House Democrats as part of an aggressive leaks probe. Democrats called the seizures a "shocking" abuse of power.
THURSDAY, JUNE 10
VANDERBILT SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Vanderbilt Commodores are two wins away from returning to the College World Series and the chance to bookend the coronavirus pandemic with national championships.
SPORTS
The College Football Playoff announced Thursday that it will consider expanding from four to 12 teams to settle the national championship, with six spots reserved for the highest-ranked conference champions and the other six going to at-large selections.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NEW YORK (AP) — Carrie Underwood has another reason to rejoice — she extended her record as the most decorated artist in the history of the CMT Music Awards, thanks to her song "Hallelujah."
A list of winners at the 2021 CMT Music Awards, held Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee.
COURTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A longtime Tennessee judge who drew backlash from Republican officials for ordering an expansion of absentee voting during the COVID-19 pandemic won't seek reelection next year, saying it's a decision she made before GOP lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to remove her from office early this year.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The wife of a Tennessee lawmaker who died after a battle with pancreatic cancer is taking his place ahead of a special election to fill his seat.
WEST TENNESSEE
MEMPHIS (AP) — Health officials in Tennessee's most populous county are lifting most existing face mask usage requirements enacted as precautions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — What would you splurge on if you won the lottery? Most people have a dream car or two on their list, but alas, most people never win the lottery.
DETROIT (AP) — He plotted to steal up to $1.5 million in union dues, and the money he diverted was spent on golf clubs, vacation homes, booze and lavish meals, fostering a culture of corruption within the United Auto Workers union.
MEDIA
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities on Thursday ordered Facebook and the messaging app Telegram to pay steep fines for failing to remove banned content, a move that could be part of growing government efforts to tighten control over social media platforms amid political dissent.
BEIJING (AP) — China's Ministry of Commerce said Thursday that a U.S. move to revoke the Trump administration's executive orders intended to ban apps like TikTok and WeChat was a "positive step," amid strained relations between the two countries.
TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK (AP) — Do you own an Amazon smart device? If so, odds are good that the company is already sharing your internet connection with your neighbors unless you've specifically told it not to.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new $56,000-a-year Alzheimer's drug would raise Medicare premiums broadly, and some patients who are prescribed the medication could face copayments of about $11,500 annually, according to a research report published Wednesday.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
NEW YORK (AP) — The Biden administration has exempted most employers from long-awaited rules for protecting workers from the coronavirus, angering labor advocates who have spent more than a year lobbying for the protections.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Johnson & Johnson said Thursday that U.S. regulators extended the expiration date on millions of doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by six weeks.
MAIDENS, Va. (AP) — When Sherry Brockenbrough and her family opened a distillery on a leafy vista overlooking the James River on March 5, 2020, the coronavirus still seemed like a distant threat.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Health officials and experts in Asia have welcomed U.S. plans to share 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine with the developing world, but some say it would take more than donations alone to address huge vaccination gaps that threaten to prolong the pandemic.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany on Thursday started rolling out a digital vaccination pass that can be used across Europe as the continent is gets ready for the key summer travel season.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed higher Thursday, bringing the S&P 500 index to another record high and out of the red for the week.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $2.06 trillion through the first eight months of this budget year as coronavirus relief programs drove spending to all-time highs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI's director told lawmakers Thursday that the bureau discourages ransomware payments to hacking groups even as major companies in the past month have participated in multimillion-dollar transactions aimed at getting their systems back online.
NEW YORK (AP) — As more children go back to the physical classroom, families are expected to spend robustly on a wide range of items, particularly trendy clothing like cropped tops, for the critical back-to-school season, according to one key spending measure.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell for the sixth straight week as the U.S. economy, held back for months by the coronavirus pandemic, reopens rapidly.
WASHINGTON (AP) — American consumers absorbed another surge in prices in May — a 0.6% increase over April and 5% over the past year, the biggest 12-month inflation spike since 2008.
NEW YORK (AP) — After feeling the thrill of victory early this year by singlehandedly causing GameStop's stock to soar — only to get crushed when it quickly crashed back to earth — armies of smaller-pocketed and novice investors are back for more.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank left its key pandemic support for the economy running full blast even as the economy shows signs of recovery thanks to lower virus cases and fewer restrictions on activity in the 19 countries that use the euro currency.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Top European Union officials vowed Thursday to use all measures available to ensure that the United Kingdom respects the terms of its Brexit agreement with the bloc as tensions rise over trade involving Northern Ireland.
The world's largest meat processing company says it paid the equivalent of $11 million to hackers who broke into its computer system late last month.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is pursuing "multiple paths forward" as he looks to muscle his big infrastructure package through Congress — dialing up lawmakers from both parties in search of a bipartisan deal while imploring Democrats to be ready to go it alone if necessary.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Angela, Boris, Emmanuel, Justin, Mario, Yoshihide and a relative newcomer: Joe.
WASHINGTON (AP) — "SKYROCKETING MURDER RATES," claimed the National Fraternal Order of Police. "An explosion of violent crime," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Democrat-run cities across the country who cut funding for police have seen increases in crime," tweeted U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.
The Biden administration is laying the groundwork for a renewed push to encourage more Arab countries to sign accords with Israel and working to strengthen existing deals after last month's devastating war in the Gaza Strip interrupted those diplomatic efforts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House counsel Don McGahn told lawmakers in a closed-door interview last week that he regarded President Donald Trump's effort to have special counsel Robert Mueller fired as "a point of no return" for the administration if carried out.