February 28 2024
DNA
FLASH Trump, Biden win respective Michigan primaries
1 Consumer gloom due to high interest rates
2 Govt opens monopoly probe into healthcare giant UnitedHealth
3 Labor shortage could raise travel costs
4 Cartels, violence advances in Mexico as US downplays potential corruption
5 North Korea supplying Russia with ammo for Ukraine
2/28/1953 Chemical structure of DNA discovered
see ad astra on x @greg_loving
1 Consumer gloom due to high interest rates
The gloomy mood of US consumers amid a surprisingly strong economy has befuddled many economists, but a paper by researchers from the IMF and Harvard University, including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, proposes that elevated borrowing costs may solve the mystery. The paper argues that increases in the cost of living due to higher financing expenditures faced by consumers — which are not factored into inflation — underpin the recent divergence between official inflation data and consumer sentiment. Quite simply, consumers are including the cost of money in their perspective on their economic health, while economists are not, the researchers found.
Bloomberg
2 Govt opens monopoly probe into healthcare giant UnitedHealth
The Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth, owner of the biggest U.S. health insurer, a leading manager of drug benefits and a sprawling network of doctor groups.
The UnitedHealth investigation is taking aim at a healthcare giant that has been a previous antitrust target, though the company was able to beat back a Justice Department challenge to an acquisition two years ago. UnitedHealth, based in Minnetonka, Minn., had $372 billion in revenue last year. Its insurance unit covers about 53 million people, across a range of plans including employer, Medicaid and Medicare coverage. After years of acquisitions, Optum includes about 90,000 physicians, as well as surgery centers, an array of health data and technology units, and one of the largest pharmacy-benefit managers.
WSJ
3 Labor shortage could raise travel costs
Hotel owners have been on an epic hiring spree. Yet even after clawing back hundreds of thousands of jobs during the past two years, the industry is still light on staff and often struggling to adapt. Daily housekeeping for all guests, room service and other amenities that were reduced or eliminated during the pandemic are still lacking at many properties. At the same time, hotels across the U.S. have held their daily room rates near all-time highs this winter, in part to offset the increase in wages to lure workers back. Hotels will collectively pay $123 billion in compensation this year, up more than 20% from 2019, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Some hotel owners now fret that a guest backlash could be building as smaller staffs can compromise the level of service and higher wages threaten to push the cost of travel even higher.
WSJ
4 Cartels, violence advances in Mexico as US downplays potential corruption
Criminal gangs behind the U.S. drug epidemic are seeing accelerated growth, commanding greater control over more territory in Mexico, where they are largely free to murder rivals, neuter police, seize property and strong-arm municipalities into giving them public contracts. Gangs affiliated with Mexico’s two largest drug cartels—battling to the death over market share—have grown in number and influence since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in 2018. He eased up under a policy he called “hugs, not bullets.” Arrests by Mexico’s national guard, created under López Obrador to replace federal police, fell to 2,800 in 2022 from 21,700 in 2018, according to the national statistics agency. Mexico’s retreat from interdiction opened the door to an expansion of criminal enterprises by cartels whose most lucrative business remains the production and transport of fentanyl and methamphetamine to the U.S. Softening prices for cocaine and marijuana have squeezed profits, prompting cartels to broaden extortion rackets and pursue new moneymaking schemes
WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/drug-cartels-expand-murder-extortion-trafficking-146ede54
Officials with the justice department and the Biden administration have downplayed a report that US law enforcement spent years looking into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, were investigated for taking millions of dollars from drug cartels after the president took office.
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/23/us-investigation-amlo-mexico-cartel
Ed note: Ad Astra reported on the cartel links several weeks ago
5 North Korea supplying Russia with ammo for Ukraine
North Korean munitions factories are operating at full capacity to supply weapons to Russia in exchange for much-needed food and other necessities, South Korea's defense chief has said. Defense Minister Shin Won-sik made the assessment as concerns have heightened about North Korea's alleged arms supply to Russia for its war in Ukraine while the war-torn nation is facing shortages of munitions due to delayed Western military aid. "While North Korea's arms factories operate at 30 percent capacity due to shortages of raw materials and power, certain factories are operating at full capacity, which primarily produce weapons and shells for Russia," Shin said in a meeting with reporters Monday.
en.yna.co.kr
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240227002800315
2/28/1953 Chemical structure of DNA discovered
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