Issue 16
December 27, 2023
1 Consumer sentiment and economic indicators out of sync
2 Serious errors increase after private equity buys hospitals: study
3 Gaza war could last ‘months’: Israeli official
4 Maersk to resume maritime shipping through Red Sea
5 Miners discover Ice Age mammoth tusk
1941 Office of Price Administration announces automobile tire rationing
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1 Consumer sentiment and economic indicators out of sync
The Misery Index is the simple summing of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. The increase in unemployment caused by the Covid crisis sent the Misery Index to its highest levels in nearly four decades in April 2020. Unemployment fell, but then inflation picked up, so in the middle of last year it still looked lofty. Since then, with inflation cooling and unemployment low, the index has fallen sharply. Yet measures of consumer attitudes have only recently picked up and are still pretty down in the dumps. This is curious. Historically, an inverted Misery Index—call it the Happiness Index—tends to rise and fall along with the sentiment index. But while over the past year the Happiness Index has risen a lot, the sentiment index hasn’t matched that improvement. (WSJ)
2 Serious errors increase after private equity buys hospitals: study
The rate of serious medical complications increased in hospitals after they were purchased by private equity investment firms, according to a major study of the effects of such acquisitions on patient care in recent years. The study, published in JAMA on Tuesday, found that, in the three years after a private equity fund bought a hospital, adverse events including surgical infections and bed sores rose by 25 percent among Medicare patients when compared with similar hospitals that were not bought by such investors. The researchers reported a nearly 38 percent increase in central line infections, a dangerous kind of infection that medical authorities say should never happen, and a 27 percent increase in falls by patients while staying in the hospital. (NYT)
3 Gaza war could last ‘months’: Israeli official
Israel insisted on Tuesday that its war in Gaza would not end soon and pledged to complete its mission of dismantling Hamas no matter how long it took, despite widespread international calls for a cease-fire. Israeli forces were “striking continuously” in the Gaza Strip, said Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the military’s chief of staff. The fighting, he added, would continue “whether it takes a week or months.” (NYT)
4 Maersk to resume maritime shipping through Red Sea
The operator of the world’s second-largest container ship fleet will resume sending vessels through the Red Sea after a US-led coalition began providing naval security against attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. (FT)
5 Miners discover Ice Age mammoth tusk
Sitting in the pile of rock — and somehow intact after being excavated and transported across the mine by heavy machinery — was the tusk of a mammoth that had been buried since the Ice Age. Its discovery by workers at Freedom Mine, a surface coal mine near Beulah, N.D., in May shocked state researchers and brought paleontologists and miners together to turn the mine into an archaeological dig site. Their work uncovered more than 20 additional bones, one of the largest discoveries of mammoth remains in the state, the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources announced this month. (Washington Post)
This day in history
1941 Office of Price Administration announces automobile tire rationing
