July 9 2024
Boomers; Biden defiant; health insurance: noncompetes; Battle for Eurasia
1 Baby boomers control 70% of US wealth
2 ELECTION 2024 Biden defiant, “fully committed” to staying in race
3 Misdiagnoses add billions to government healthcare costs
4 Noncompete ban in limbo after Supreme Court tosses “Chevron”
5 BATTLE FOR EURASIA Chinese military in Europe, Modi in Moscow
7/9/1942 Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the attic
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1 Baby boomers control 70% of US wealth
Older Americans are emerging as major drivers of the economy. Their stock portfolios, retirement savings and paid-off homes have swelled in value over decades of growth. Hours once spent raising young children and working can now be devoted to golf, concerts and brunch. Today, Americans 55 and over control nearly 70% of U.S. household wealth, according to the Federal Reserve. In 1989, the first year of available data, they controlled just 50%. Their dollars amount to 45% of U.S. personal spending, according to Moody’s Analytics, up from 29% three decades ago.
Article Source: WSJ
2 ELECTION 2024 Biden defiant, “fully committed” to staying in race
President Biden on Monday dared his critics to “challenge me at the convention” if they want him out of the presidential race, refusing to step aside in a defiant letter to Democratic members of Congress and in fiery remarks on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. Declaring himself “frustrated by the elites” who have called for his exit from the race, Mr. Biden engaged in an offensive blitz aimed at saving his candidacy. But it also did little to mollify restless Democratic lawmakers and laid bare the fractures in his party over whether his position as its standard-bearer will help or hurt its fortunes this fall.
Less than an hour before Monday’s interview, Mr. Biden’s campaign released a letter to congressional Democrats in which the president wrote that he was “firmly committed to staying in the race,” a pointed answer to allies on Capitol Hill who have been increasingly going public with calls for him to drop out.
Article Source: NYT
3 Misdiagnoses add billions to government healthcare costs
Private insurers involved in the government’s Medicare Advantage program made hundreds of thousands of questionable diagnoses that triggered extra taxpayer-funded payments from 2018 to 2021, including outright wrong ones like Lee’s, a Wall Street Journal analysis of billions of Medicare records found. The questionable diagnoses included some for potentially deadly illnesses, such as AIDS, for which patients received no subsequent care, and for conditions people couldn’t possibly have, the analysis showed. Often, neither the patients nor their doctors had any idea. Medicare Advantage, the $450-billion-a-year system in which private insurers oversee Medicare benefits, grew out of the idea that the private sector could provide healthcare more economically. It has swelled over the last two decades to cover more than half of the 67 million seniors and disabled people on Medicare. Instead of saving taxpayers money, Medicare Advantage has added tens of billions of dollars in costs, researchers and some government officials have said. One reason is that insurers can add diagnoses to ones that patients’ own doctors submit. Medicare gave insurers that option so they could catch conditions that doctors neglected to record. The Journal’s analysis, however, found many diagnoses were added for which patients received no treatment, or that contradicted their doctors’ views.
Article Source: WSJ
4 Noncompete ban in limbo after Supreme Court tosses “Chevron”
Employers face a summer of uncertainty about the legality of noncompete agreements. A federal judge last week backed a challenge to a nationwide ban on the pacts, which restrict workers’ ability to join rival firms. The ruling came days after the Supreme Court gave judges more latitude to challenge federal agencies’ rule-making authority. The Federal Trade Commission’s ban was set to go into effect in September.
Article Source: WSJ
5 BATTLE FOR EURASIA Chinese military in Europe, Modi in Moscow
Chinese military personnel are to begin joint “anti-terrorist training” with their counterparts in Belarus on Monday, close to the border with Poland. The “Eagle Assault” exercises by the two Russian allies amid the war in Ukraine will be held over 11 days in the border city of Brest, Belarus, and will involve tasks such as hostage rescue and anti-terrorism operations, China’s Ministry of National Defence said. It comes days after Belarus officially joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by China and Russia, deepening their coordination on military, economic and political matters. The Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko has been a key ally of Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, holding tactical nuclear drills with Russia last year and agreeing to store tactical nuclear warheads for Moscow on its soil.
Guardian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India arrived in Moscow on Monday to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a visit that signals the Indian leader’s determination to stick to his own diplomatic path even as the West continues to isolate Moscow over its war on Ukraine. For Mr. Putin, Mr. Modi’s visit will be a way for Russia to show that the Kremlin continues to have a strong partnership with India, despite India’s deepening relationship with the United States. India’s purchases of discounted Russian petroleum have helped fill Russia’s coffers depleted by international sanctions over the war, and Russia has sought to cast India as a partner in reshaping the Western-dominated global order.
NYT
Article Source: Guardian, NYT
7/9/1942 Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the attic above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse
Sources
1. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/baby-boomers-drive-economy-d4b72e40?mod=us-news_lead_pos1
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/us/politics/biden-letter-congress.html?smid=url-share
3. https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/medicare-health-insurance-diagnosis-payments-b4d99a5d?mod=hp_lead_pos7
4. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/the-noncompete-clause-moves-deeper-into-limbo-7916261e?st=dv2izxi2pesvixq&reflink=article_copyURL_share
5. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/08/ukraine-war-briefing-chinese-troops-hold-military-exercises-with-belarus-on-polish-border; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/08/world/asia/modi-putin-russia-india.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
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