Month: January 2023

Public Health Agencies Try to Restore Trust as They Fight Misinformation

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://khn.org/news/article/public-health-agencies-try-to-restore-trust-as-they-fight-misinformation/

Excerpt:

Across the country, health officials have been trying to combat misinformation and restore trust within their communities these past few years, a period when many people haven’t put full faith in their state and local health departments. Agencies are using Twitter, for example, to appeal to niche audiences, such as NFL fans in Kansas City and Star Wars enthusiasts in Alabama. They’re collaborating with influencers and celebrities such as Stephen Colbert and Akbar Gbajabiamila to extend their reach.

Some of these efforts have paid off. By now, more than 80% of U.S. residents have received at least one shot of a covid vaccine.

But data suggests that the skepticism and misinformation surrounding covid vaccines now threatens other public health priorities. Flu vaccine coverage among children in mid-December was about the same as December 2021, but it was 3.7 percentage points lower compared with late 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The decrease in flu vaccination coverage among pregnant women was even more dramatic over the last two years: 18 percentage points lower.

Other common childhood vaccination rates are down, too, compared with pre-pandemic levels. Nationally, 35% of all American parents oppose requiring children to be vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella before entering school, up from 23% in 2019, according to a KFF survey released Dec. 16. Suspicion swirling around once-trusted vaccines, as well as fatigue from so many shots, is likely to blame.

Author(s): Laurie Sausser

Publication Date: 3 Jan 2023

Publication Site: Kaiser Health News

Under Government Pressure, Twitter Suppressed Truthful Speech About COVID-19

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://reason.com/2023/01/02/under-government-pressure-twitter-suppressed-truthful-speech-about-covid-19/?utm_medium=email

Excerpt:

Twitter’s ban on “COVID-19 misinformation,” which Elon Musk rescinded after taking over the platform in late October, mirrored the Biden administration’s broad definition of that category in two important respects: It disfavored perspectives that dissented from official advice, and it encompassed not just demonstrably false statements but also speech that was deemed “misleading” even when it was arguably or verifiably true. In a recent Free Press article, science writer David Zweig shows what that meant in practice, citing several striking examples of government-encouraged speech suppression gleaned from the internal communications that Musk has been disclosing to handpicked journalists.

Twitter’s moderation of pandemic-related content was intertwined with government policy from the beginning. Even before Joe Biden was elected president and his administration began publicly and privately demanding that social media companies suppress speech it viewed as a threat to public health, the company’s guidelines deferred to the positions taken by government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And those rules explicitly covered “misleading information” as well as “demonstrably false” statements.

….

That July, Twitter sought to clarify “our rules against potentially misleading information about COVID-19″ (emphasis added). “For a Tweet to qualify as a misleading claim,” the company said, “it must be an assertion of fact (not an opinion), expressed definitively, and intended to influence others’ behavior.” Possible topics included “the origin, nature, and characteristics of the virus”; “preventative measures, treatments/cures, and other precautions”; “the prevalence of viral spread, or the current state of the crisis”; and “official health advisories, restrictions, regulations, and public-service announcements.”

That was a very wide net, potentially encompassing anyone who questioned the CDC’s ever-shifting guidance or criticized government policies, such as lockdowns and mask mandates, aimed at reducing virus transmission. While the intent requirement ostensibly allowed dissent as long as it was not aimed at influencing behavior, that limitation did not mean much in practice, since moderators were apt to infer the requisite intent when they encountered tweets that implicitly or explicitly deviated from the recommendations of “public health authorities and governments.”

….

Another example that Zweig cites: Last August, @KelleyKga, a self-described “public health fact checker,” responded to another Twitter user’s claim that “COVID has been the leading cause of death from disease in children” since December 2021. “What an excellent example of cherry picking!” @KelleyKga wrote. “If you narrow it down to only the specific months you specify, which include the largest Covid wave (seen across the world), AND you ignore all non-disease deaths, AND you ignore cancer, heart disease, SIDS, then COVID is ‘leading.'”

Author(s): Jacob Sullum

Publication Date: 2 Jan 2023

Publication Site: Reason

The Currency Swaps Time Bomb in Global Finance – Rob Johnson

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/01/the-currency-swaps-time-bomb-in-global-finance-rob-johnson.html

Excerpt:

Yves here. While this post gives an introduction to the problem of the magnitude of currency swaps, I suspect readers will find it a bit frustrating because it raises more questions than it answers. I feel I should provide far more than I do in this intro, but it is a big topic to address properly, so I hope to keep chipping away at it over time.

Some initial observations:

First, the size of the dollar-related swaps market belies the idea that the dollar is going to be displaced all that soon.

Second, and not to sound Pollyannish, but there was a lot of currency volatility last year, yet nothing blew up. That may be due to dumb luck. But also recall that the Bank of International Settlements has been a Cassandra. It first flagged rapidly rising housing prices and related increases in lending as a risk…in 2003.

Third, interviewer Paul Jay keeps pushing on the idea that shouldn’t this activity be regulated? Wellie, it never has been and I don’t see how you can put that genie in the bottle. Foreign exchange trading has always been over the counter.

And non-US banks are regulated not by the US but by their home country under what is called the “home host” practice. So it is France’s job to see that French banks fly right, even when they are trading dollars and other non-Eurozone currencies. If a French bank gets in trouble, even on its dollar exposures, it is France that has to bail them out or put it down. That is why, during the financial crisis, when French and even much more so German banks bought a lot of bad US subprime debt and CDOs and then had a lot of losses, they needed dollar funding to cover the holes in their dollar book (as in no one would provide them with short-term dollar funding to keep funding these dollar assets and no one would buy them at any reasonable price if they had tried to sell them). But the ECB could only lend dollars to these Eurobanks, which would not solve this funding problem. So the Fed opened up big currency swap lines with the major central banks. These central banks then swapped to get dollars so they could provide emergency dollar funding to their banks.

Author(s): Yves Smith, Rob Johnson, Paul Jay

Publication Date: 3 Jan 2023

Publication Site: Naked Capitalism, theAnalysis.news

Emails Show CDC Removed Defensive Gun Use Stats After Gun-Control Advocates Pressured Officials in Private Meeting

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://thereload.com/emails-cdc-removed-defensive-gun-use-stats-after-gun-control-advocates-pressured-officials-in-private-meeting/

Excerpt:

The Centers For Disease Control (CDC) deleted a reference to a study it commissioned after a group of gun-control advocates complained it made passing new restrictions more difficult.

The lobbying campaign spanned months and culminated with a private meeting between CDC officials and three advocates last summer, a collection of emails obtained by The Reload show. Introductions from the White House and Senator Dick Durbin’s (D., Ill.) office helped the advocates reach top officials at the agency after their initial attempt to reach out went unanswered. The advocates focused their complaints on the CDC’s description of its review of studies that estimated defensive gun uses (DGU) happen between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the United States–attacking criminologist Gary Kleck’s work establishing the top end of the range.

“[T]hat 2.5 Million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” Mark Bryant, one of the attendees, wrote to CDC officials after their meeting. “It is highly misleading, is used out of context and I honestly believe it has zero value – even as an outlier point in honest DGU discussions.”

Bryant, who runs the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), argued Kleck’s estimate has been damaging to the political prospects of passing new gun restrictions and should be eliminated from the CDC’s website.

Author(s): Stephen Gutowski

Publication Date: 15 Dec 2022

Publication Site: The Reload

FTX’s collapse mirrors an infamous 18th century British financial scandal

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://theconversation.com/ftxs-collapse-mirrors-an-infamous-18th-century-british-financial-scandal-196729

Excerpt:

The Charitable Corporation was established in London in 1707 with the noble mission of providing “relief of the industrious poor by assisting them with small sums at legal interest.”

Essentially, it sought to provide low-interest loans to poor tradesmen, shielding them from predatory pawnbrokers who charged as much as 30% interest. The corporation made loans available at the rate of 5% in return for a pledge of property for security.

The Charitable Corporation was modeled on Monti di Pietà, a charitable institution of credit established in Catholic countries during the Renaissance era to combat usury, or high rates of interest.

Unlike the Monti di Pietà, however, the British version – despite its name – wasn’t a nonprofit. Instead, it was a business venture. The enterprise was funded by offering shares to investors who, in return, would make money while doing good. Under its original mission, it was like an 18th century version of today’s socially responsible investing, or “sustainable investment funds.”

….

There are several key characteristics that stand out in the collapses of both the Charitable Corporation and FTX. Both companies were offering something new or venturing into a new sector. In the former’s case, it was microloans. In FTX’s case, it was cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, the management of both ventures was centralized in the hands of just a few people. The Charitable Corporation got into trouble when it reduced its directors from 12 to five and when it consolidated most of its loan business in the hands of one employee – namely, Thomson. FTX’s example is even more extreme, with founder Sam Bankman-Fried calling all the shots.

Author(s): Amy Froide

Publication Date: 21 Dec 2022

Publication Site: The Conversation

The Biden Bucks Blowout

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.city-journal.org/the-biden-bucks-blowout

Excerpt:

Not to worry: the Biden administration is coming to the rescue. The town of Palm Beach Gardens is using $2 million in federal money from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to build a $16 million public course, with a two-story clubhouse and driving range that should help at least partially slake the new thirst for golf. The city’s project, one of several golf-course investments that the Biden legislation is funding, is entirely within the spirit of the “rescue” act, which devotes only about 9 percent of its money to public-health causes that fight the virus but allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to local governments and schools for the vague task of providing “support for a recovery” and funding “investments in infrastructure.” As one wag at a South Florida newspaper observed, “If this keeps up much longer, Palm Beach Gardens may get an equestrian center from it.”

Showering local governments with unprecedented federal dollars, ARPA is the last of several emergency packages, totaling more than $5 trillion, to come from Washington in response to the pandemic. Though termed a “rescue bill” to enhance its appeal, the Biden legislation was more of a stimulus, designed to stoke spending by the country’s tens of thousands of local governments to boost economic activity. Signed by the president in March 2021, even as the economy was recovering and tax revenues were rebounding far faster than most analysts had predicted, ARPA allows for wide discretion in how to spend “Biden Bucks.”

The federal money has turned pols into the proverbial kids in the candy shop. They’re using it to restart parades, fund street performers, upgrade high school weight rooms and sports fields, and build bike paths, golf courses, pickleball courts, and other “essential” infrastructure. Billions of dollars are going to illegal aliens. Cities are testing efforts to give low-income residents guaranteed money that supporters say will end poverty. Municipalities are moving to construct their own broadband networks, in competition with the private sector. It’s all part of a program whipped up so quickly that it included billions of dollars for municipal governments that don’t even exist.

To many local officials, ARPA’s allocations seem like free money. But it comes at a cost to the United States. The act’s funds haven’t been generated by taxes or other federal revenues. Instead, they’re financed by “printing” new money (something done mostly via electronic keystrokes these days)—massively expanding the dollars in circulation and thus intensifying our current inflation, the highest in decades. Aside from the pain that the upward spiral of costs is causing ordinary Americans, inflation is also raising the price that governments pay for essential services like police and fire protection, even as politicians rush to spend their one-time Biden Bucks on ephemeral projects and untested programs. With a Federal Reserve–induced recession, sparked by high interest rates to curb inflation, now a distinct possibility, Biden Bucks may soon be remembered as the spending blowout that preceded a local government budget bust-up.

Author(s): Steve Malanga

Publication Date: Autumn 2022

Publication Site: City Journal

Why So Many Accountants Are Quitting

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-many-accountants-are-quitting-11672236016?st=c72oscxvc5a7nzk&reflink=share_mobilewebshare

Excerpt:

More than 300,000 U.S. accountants and auditors have left their jobs in the past two years, a 17% decline, and the dwindling number of college students coming into the field can’t fill the gap. 

The exodus is driven by deeper workplace shifts than baby-boomer retirements. Young professionals in the 25- to 34-year-old range and midcareer professionals between the ages of 45 and 54 also departed in high numbers starting in 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recruiters who have been luring experienced accountants into new roles say they are often moving into jobs in finance and technology.

The huge gap between companies that need accountants and trained professionals has led to salary bumps and more temporary workers joining the sector. Still, neither development will fix the fundamental talent pipeline problem: Many college students don’t want to work in accounting. Even those who majored in it.

Author(s): Lindsay Ellis

Publication Date: 28 Dec 2022

Publication Site: WSJ

To Attract In-Home Caregivers, California Offers Paid Training — And Self-Care

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://khn.org/news/article/california-paid-training-self-care-in-home-caregivers/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The class is a little touchy-feely. But it’s one of many offerings from the California Department of Social Services that the agency says is necessary for attracting and retaining caregivers in a state-funded assistance program that helps 650,000 low-income people who are older or disabled age in place, usually at home. As part of the $295 million initiative, officials said, thousands of classes, both online and in-person, will begin rolling out in January, focused on dozens of topics, including dementia care, first-aid training, medication management, fall prevention, and self-care. Caregivers will be paid for the time they spend developing skills.

Whether it will help the program’s labor shortage remains to be seen. According to a 2021 state audit of the In-Home Supportive Services program, 32 out of 51 counties that responded to a survey reported a shortage of caregivers. Separately, auditors found that clients waited an average of 72 days to be approved for the program, although the department said most application delays were due to missing information from the applicants.

The in-home assistance program, which has been around for nearly 50 years, is plagued by high turnover. About 1 in 3 caregivers leave the program each year, according to University of California-Davis researcher Heather Young, who worked on a 2019 government report on California’s health care workforce needs.

Author(s): Laurie Udesky

Publication Date: 9 Dec 2022

Publication Site: Kaiser Health News

Meet the Grinch Stealing the Future of Gen Y And Z

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-grinch-stealing-the-future-of-gen-y-and-z

Excerpt:

There’s one threat that gets far less attention, which has been impacting American workers since the 1970s: wages that just don’t keep up, despite increased productivity. Social Security was designed for wages that rise with inflation – but that’s not happening. In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Eric Laursen, author of The People’s Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan, breaks down how the program works, why wage stagnation represents a mounting threat, and what can be done to strengthen and update the program for the 21stcentury.

Lynn Parramore: Social Security has been America’s most successful retirement program for the last 87 years. Yet the public is constantly hearing that the program is going to “run out of money.” Is that actually true? Can Social Security actually go bankrupt?

Eric Laursen: No, and the word bankrupt is just about a complete misnomer when it comes to Social Security. The program is funded by contributions that participants and their employers make through their paychecks. It’s also backed by a Trust Fund which is accumulated over time.

That Trust Fund is dwindling now, and it’s expected to run out of money in the early 2030s. But Social Security can’t actually go bankrupt. If the situation arises where there is not enough money either in the Trust Fund or coming through from contributions to fund current benefits, then those benefits can’t be paid, perhaps as much as 25%. In that case, Congress would be faced with a choice to either cut benefits or increase contributions.

There’s a lot of pressure from people who want to cut Social Security to do it now rather than waiting for that point in the future, because at that point, Congress would be under a lot of pressure to make good on what people have been promised.

….

LP: What would you do to make sure that Social Security is protected and remains strong? Does it need to be modernized in some ways to keep it effective?

EL: There are a number of things that can be done. One is to raise the cap. More of income beyond the $147,000 threshold needs to be taxed for payroll tax purposes. Another thing that can be done is passing the Social Security Expansion Act that Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others have backed. There is a special minimum benefit for Social Security recipients that’s aimed at keeping people who have really low incomes during their lifetimes above the poverty level, and that needs to be improved. That’s not asking a lot. It should be done.

You can also change the rules for wealthy people. One of the differences between now and 40 years ago is that people in the really high income brackets get much more of their income from investments, stock options, and other business holdings than they do from salaries and wages. We need to figure out a formula for applying the payroll tax to at least some of that investment income – like capital gains and so forth. Definitely, the CPI-E needs to be instituted. There should be an expansion of benefits across the board for Social Security benefits. We need the CPI-E at a base level that’s more reasonable. Another thing I think is important: one of the changes that happened in ’83 that was really bad was that Social Security survivor benefits were ended for children of deceased or disabled workers above the age of 18. It used to be that you could get those until 22 and they would help you to go to college. That was abolished. It would be a very good thing if that could be reinstated so that more people have some level of security to pursue higher education.

Author(s): Lynn Parramore

Publication Date: 20 Dec 2022

Publication Site: Institute for New Economic Thinking