That "memory problem" also probably caused one to forget that there's a huge difference in "cleaning up"- as in a new financier having to PAY OFF the old debt, versus knowing that the debt was just "written off" as in never had payments made on it and was "negotiated away" apparently.
Kinda a big difference. Creditors, finance people, lenders, deal-makers, people who sign/enter in to legal contracts, whatever you like to call them: like to get paid back per the original terms, be it in agreed installments with interest, or in lump sums or whatever. It's the entire reason they enter "deals" with a "contract" and then expect a "return on their investment" -else, why even do it?
When one party "discharges" a debt/obligation via not paying it back, someone on the other end just took a "write down" or "write off" of an asset on their books, typically IMO. That asset of money they were owed, or money they would have been receiving is now probably moved to the "expense" side of the ledger- and all they can hope is it gains them maybe a tax off-set or something against any profits/earnings as far as I am aware of. But the loss they just took is still as real as it gets- it's real money they were owed/expected to receive to help their business, grow their business, pay their expenses or whatever and now it's just "gone". It's not just "funny money" or something- especially when it's in the $2 million plus range. Not like the guy supplying office paper or something wasn't paid a $472 bill due or something. $2 million dollars is sorta, IMHO a lot of money no matter who you're dealing with. Don't know what Beaumont Hospital's annual budget is for a yr- but I'd guess/speculate that $2 million plus dollars is pretty real and significant to them and their operations?
Learning the difference between paying back debt, versus having it discharged, negotiated away, gotten rid of (BK court for example) might be a good thing. Taking a statement in its most simpleton form, "such as XYZ reduced debt ABC" is not really getting the entire picture by a long shot IMO. Reading 140 character "tweets" versus the entire details in say, a SEC document is two different things entirely. Focusing only on one, and only promoting and boasting about one, versus the other is leaving a lot out of the true story IMO. Paying back, versus "discharging" or "negotiating a settlement" cause you can't and never will pay back the debt/obligation per the original terms, they're two different concepts entirely IMO. One has nothing to do with the other. Just "getting rid of debt" or saying a "debt was eliminated" has many, many connotations being left out of it, IMO.
