Loopholes are generally seen as exceptions which allows a system to be circumvented or avoided. These exist in many forms in society and it's always illuminating to me when I discover one. Some loopholes exist in plain sight while others are so hidden you wouldn't even believe it because it's buried in such complexity. I found a few this past week.

Health"care" or Health"caution"

The American system of private health insurance, with varying coverage and sometimes high premiums, deductibles or co-payments, is a stark contrast to the public systems in places like New Zealand, Australia and Britain, where government-subsidized access to doctors and many services is universal.

Some expats say their health insurance options in the United States are so poor that they have instead used travel insurance as their primary coverage. Others, like Ms. Inglis, have only the most basic level of health coverage in New York, but back home, that is not a consideration.

“I feel reassured by the New Zealand political system,” she said. “Hopefully, the system can cope better than the New York system is currently.”

This intuition to flee the United States, and its health care system, during a pandemic may be a good one.

“The U.S. has been a leader in so many other areas, but when it comes to the health care system, it is behind,” said Adam Kamradt-Scott, a global health security expert at the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.

Bartering for less is sometimes more

Finance is the new creative: Balance-sheet crunch leads ad and media businesses to seek new liquidity avenues - Digiday

First came the shock. Then came the bills. Advertising and media companies may have to explore creative finance options -- or beg forgiveness.

Eager to maintain positive free cash flow as the coronavirus crisis enters a new month, every publisher or agency CFO is looking to prioritize two things: 1) Ensuring clients pay up any outstanding bills as quickly as possible. 2) Moving fast to pare down the bills flowing out from their own businesses — or finding a way to kick those cans down the road.

Some sources even predicted a surge in popularity of good old-fashioned barter...

Barter also doesn’t often get a lot of attention in ad land, despite the fact that most holding companies have a barter division. Those operations typically work by helping brands unload unsold products or other assets — like a fleet of corporate cars, for example. In exchange, the barter agency can offer for media inventory, which was usually bought by the holding company at a discount. Barter gained traction during the 2007-2009 financial crisis and experts in the space told me it’s likely barter could gain prominence during this difficult economic period too.

Learned more about this loophole in this old article here:

Barter agencies originally set up to help brands unload unsold products in exchange for media. For example, an audio products maker may have 1,000 unsold headphones with a total face value of $50,000 at the end of the year. The company doesn’t want to keep those headphones on the books. It transfers them to a barter agency in exchange for media space bought at a discount. The barter agency then resells the goods through other channels.

No refunds

Online, fans are fuming about being unable to get refunds for concerts that have been postponed, often with no rescheduled dates in sight. As they see it, ticketing outlets are being greedy at a time of crisis, holding billions of dollars in consumers’ cash that people now need for essentials.

Their anger is being stoked by the sense that some vendors switched their refund policies mid-crisis to avoid repaying consumers. Fans have drawn attention to the fact that Ticketmaster recently adjusted the language on its website. Whereas a few weeks ago, it said that people can get refunds “if your event is postponed, rescheduled or canceled,” now it only lists cancellation as a basis for getting your money back, though it suggests there may be other circumstances in which refunds might be considered.

Debt Forward

WSJ

Gymboree Group Inc. entered bankruptcy as a failed children’s clothing chain. If all goes according to plan, it will leave in the next few months with a new line of business and millions in tax breaks—an amount so large that it could operate tax-free for years.

Gymboree is seeking court approval for a plan to buy an art-authentication tech venture that would launch the company in a new direction and possibly unlock the benefit of more than $250 million in federal net operating losses that could be used to wipe out future taxes.

Gymboree, now renamed Gemstone Solutions Group Inc., still has a handful of employees on the payroll who would continue to try monetizing various financial assets, such as sales tax refunds, still on the books...

But at the same time, the skeleton staff would run a tech venture that would become Gemstone’s main operating business. Goldman Sachs is providing $10 million more in financing, and less than $1 million of that would be used to buy a stake in a startup called Certified Art & Collectibles, which is partly owned by Jon Kimmins, Gemstone’s chief financial officer, a role he also held at Gymboree.

Certified Art would target the fine arts and memorabilia sectors, where counterfeiting is rampant. Mr. Kimmins would help lead Certified Art and try to monetize Gemstone’s remaining financial assets. And Certified Art would be renamed LuxVerity.