June 11 2024
US drug prices; blue-collar TikTok; tip taxes; Apple AI; war production
1 US RX drug prices highest in world
2 Blue-collar influencers promote trades on TikTok
3 ELECTION 2024 Trump proposes tax-free tips
4 Apple partners with OpenAI
5 US cannot make enough artillery shells
6/11/1963 University of Alabama desegregated
see ad astra on x @greg_loving
1 US RX drug prices highest in world
Americans spend more on prescription drugs than anyone else in the world. It’s true that they take a lot of pills. But what really has set the US apart is how much drugs cost. Unlike in most other countries, their prices are set without direct government intervention. A new law aims to change that for certain drugs for elderly and disabled patients who rely on the government’s Medicare health program. The pharmaceutical industry opposes the change, and the law faces a raft of lawsuits seeking to stop it from taking effect. Prices for drugs in the US in 2022 were nearly three times as high as the average in 33 other countries where incomes are high or relatively high, according to an analysis by the research group Rand Health Care. It’s a gap that has widened in recent years. In 2022, the annual cost of prescription medications was about $1,400 per person. Prescription drug spending in the US was about $634 billion in 2022, according to a study in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, and expected to grow as much as 8% in 2023. That includes drug coverage by insurers and government health programs like Medicare, as well as a significant contribution from out-of-pocket spending by consumers.
Article Source: Bloomberg
2 Blue-collar influencers promote trades on TikTok
Most of the time, when Lexis Czumak-Abreu is stripping cables in a ditch or troubleshooting a sparking outlet, the size of her fan base doesn’t mean too much to her. But then she’ll be strolling through the airport in Las Vegas, and a stranger will call her name. Some 2.2 million people on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook watch Czumak-Abreu do her work as an electrician in Cornwall, N.Y. Maybe you are one of them. Did you see her recently atop a bucket truck, adding utility outlets to power poles? Or fixing an electric panel in a water-damaged basement?
Czumak-Abreu’s path is one that more young Americans are considering. Skepticism about the cost and value of four-year degrees is growing, and enrollment in vocational programs has risen as young people pursue well-paying jobs that don’t require desks or so much debt, and come with the potential to be your own boss. The number of students enrolled in vocational-focused community colleges rose 16% last year to its highest level since the National Student Clearinghouse began tracking such data in 2018. Fostering that appeal are workers like Czumak-Abreu, whose short videos have racked up millions of views. Some skilled-trades influencers are so popular, they’re making more money as influencers than they do plumbing or wiring. Homeowners who’ve taken to watching do-it-yourself YouTube tutorials and attempting their own sink or ceiling-fan installations are also tuning in. Czumak-Abreu makes $200,000 a year from clicks and brand deals with companies like Klein Tools and Carhartt, though she continues to work, often seven days a week.
Article Source: WSJ
3 ELECTION 2024 Trump proposes tax-free tips
Donald Trump pledged not to levy taxes on tips at a campaign rally in Nevada, in an attempt to court the swing state’s many thousands of hospitality workers. Currently tips are taxed as regular income. Although Joe Biden won the state by a tiny margin in 2020, polls suggest Nevadans now favour Mr Trump ahead of this November’s election.
Economist
Article Source: Economist
4 Apple partners with OpenAI
Apple joined the AI arms race, saying Monday it plans to bring a more personalized version of artificial intelligence to its 2.2 billion device users—including striking a deal with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The new AI system, which it called “Apple Intelligence,” offered a preview to what many consider to be the holy grail of AI, a voice assistant empowered with enough personal user information to meaningfully help complete an array of tasks. Apple has partnered with OpenAI, and its ChatGPT, for some new AI functions, such as answering more complex queries or composing messages, capabilities that Apple’s AI can’t handle. The announcement comes after the iPhone maker saw its market value stagnate compared with rivals that were quicker to incorporate generative artificial intelligence into their core products.
Article Source: WSJ
5 US cannot make enough artillery shells
Ground wars are still won with bullets and artillery shells. The US can’t make the latter fast enough. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has evolved into a throwback to an earlier, ordnance-intensive era of warfighting—and the most important hardware on the battlefield is the 155 millimeter shell. At 2 feet tall, and weighing about 100 pounds (or a little more than half a meter and 45 kilograms), the shells are a standard munition among NATO countries. They also are in perilously short supply. Since the Cold War ended in the 1990s, the Pentagon has divested or neglected facilities once used to make everything from shells to explosive powder, and focused instead on transforming warfare with high-tech weaponry. What’s left is crumbling infrastructure, outdated machinery and a tiny workforce that can’t keep up with growing international demand. Before Ukraine was invaded, US production averaged 14,400 shells a month. The US is now spending more than $5 billion to overhaul aging factories from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to rural Louisiana to southwest Virginia, with the goal of cranking out 100,000 155mm shells every month by the end of next year. It is a mobilization that in its speed and breadth is unlike anything since World War II. The US once made 155mm shells in vast quantities. It entered the Korean War with more than 6 million rounds on hand, according to Parameters, a US Army War College publication. In 1980, defense planners said government plants could make as many as 84,000 shells a month—and ramp up to 438,000 a month if a war broke out. When the Cold War ended, that changed. The odds of an intense ground war looked remote. Facilities closed and workers lost their jobs.
Article Source: Bloomberg
6/11/1963 University of Alabama desegregated
Sources
1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-06-06/why-prescription-drug-prices-in-the-us-are-so-high?sref=QtwOtdAU
2. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/gen-z-plumbers-and-construction-workers-are-making-bluecollar-cool-0c386274?mod=hp_lead_pos11
3. Email
4. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/apple-wwdc-2024-ai-release-356c5303?st=w5e74u6ne3f285r&reflink=article_copyURL_share
5. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-us-global-war-weapons-race/?srnd=economics-v2&sref=QtwOtdAU
Thanks for reading!
