Issue 14
FLASH US-China military relations resume after more than year
1 Secret Chinese space plane releases 6 unknown objects
2 US healthcare spending continues inexorable climb
3 Falling US commercial property values threaten banks
4 US immigration reaches historic levels
5 OPINION By historical standards, today’s migration isn’t that bad
2001 “Shoe bomber” attempts to bomb flight
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FLASH US-China military relations resume after more than year
1 Secret Chinese space plane releases 6 unknown objects
China's reusable space plane just got a little more mysterious. Just four days after being launched on its third mission, China's Shenlong ("Divine Dragon") robotic space plane seems to have placed six objects into Earth orbit. Amateur spacecraft trackers around the world have been following the objects closely for days and have recorded emissions coming from some of them. The six mystery objects have been designated OBJECT A, B, C, D, E and F. According to satellite tracker and amateur astronomer Scott Tilley, OBJECT A appears to be emitting signals reminiscent of those emitted by objects that China's space plane has released on previous missions.(livescience.com, South China Morning Post)
2 US healthcare spending continues inexorable climb
The U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France combined spent to provide universal health care coverage to the whole of their population (335 million in total), which is comparable in size to the U.S. population of 331 million. Overall, health care spending grew 4% in 2022 from the previous year, accounting for 17.3% of gross domestic product. The increase was largely driven by growth in Medicaid and private health insurance spending. (Source: statnews.com)
3 Falling US commercial property values threaten banks
Falling commercial-property values are raising solvency risks for potentially hundreds of US banks, according to a new report prepared for the National Bureau of Economic Research. About 14% of all commercial real estate loans and 44% of loans on office buildings appear to be in “negative equity,” meaning the debt is now greater than the property value. That raises the risk borrowers won’t repay because their stakes are wiped out, according to the report. The distress “can induce anywhere from dozens to over 300 mainly smaller regional banks joining the ranks of banks at risk of solvency runs,” analysts wrote. US banks held about $2.7 trillion in commercial real estate debt at the end of the third quarter.(Sources: nber.org, bloomberg.com)
4 US immigration reaches historic levels
The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) shows that 15 percent of the U.S. population is now foreign-born — higher than any U.S. government survey or census has ever recorded. The 49.5 million foreign-born residents (legal and illegal) in October 2023 is also a new record high. Since President Biden took office in January 2021, the foreign-born population has grown by 4.5 million — larger than the individual populations of 25 U.S. states. Based on our prior estimates of illegal immigrants, more than half (2.5 million) of the 4.5 million increase in the foreign-born population since January 2021 is likely due to illegal immigration. If adjusted for those missed by the survey, the increase would be larger. (Source: cis.org)
5 OPINION By historical standards, today’s migration isn’t that bad
The vast majority of people who migrate do so voluntarily and without drama. For all the talk of record numbers and unprecedented crisis, the share of the world’s people who live outside their country of birth is just 3.6%; it has barely changed since 1960, when it was 3.1%. The numbers forcibly displaced fluctuate wildly, depending on how many wars are raging, but show no clear long-term upward trend. The total has risen alarmingly in the past decade or so, from 0.6% in 2012 to 1.4% in 2022. But this is only a sixth of what it was in the aftermath of the second world war. (Economist)
Today in history
2001 “Shoe bomber” Richard Reid attempts to detonate bombs on Paris-Miami flight, changing TSA forever
