POLITICS

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Re: POLITICS

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REUTERS

"White House offers to talk to Minaj about vaccines"


Reuters

September 16, 2021

WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The White House is willing to set up a call for American rapper Nicki Minaj about the safety and effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine after she said she wanted to do more research on vaccines before getting one.

"As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine," said a White House official.

Minaj had said in a tweet that she had not been able to complete enough research of her own on the COVID-19 vaccines to get one in time for the Met Gala, a star-studded fundraiser for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Later, Minaj added that she will get vaccinated to be able to tour.

Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Stephen Coates

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white- ... 021-09-16/
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Re: POLITICS

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THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 AT 5:22 PM

Paul Plante says:

By way of background, U.S. health care spending grew 4.6 percent in 2019, reaching $3.8 trillion or $11,582 per person.

As a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 17.7 percent.

According to the Investopedia article “6 Reasons Healthcare Is So Expensive in the U.S. And why we get less bang for our bucks” by THE INVESTOPEDIA TEAM, Reviewed by MICHAEL J BOYLE on April 27, 2021, we have on that subject as follows:

The Bottom Line

The pressure on our sprawling healthcare system in the U.S. has never been greater.

end quotes

Keeping in mind that this is the same sprawling “healthcare” system that failed the nation and its people greatly since January of 2020, when it was put on notice by the CDC that COVID was coming.

Getting back to the article:

There’s an urgent need to expand testing and treatment for COVID-19 to all residents who need it, regardless of health insurance status.

Massive federal cash influxes have sought to shore up hospitals sagging under the weight of the coronavirus burden and the related cessation of elective surgery and regular medical care.

end quotes

Ah yes, privatize profits, socialize losses.

That’s the way you do it, because as Hussein Obama was always fond of saying, in a capitalistic country with a for-profit healthcare system, it’s the right thing to do.

Getting back to it:

Long before this crisis, the U.S. led other industrialized nations in high spending on healthcare and getting a low bang for the buck in terms of health outcomes and the percentage of the population served.

Life expectancy in the U.S., for example, is 78.8 years, while it ranges from 80.7 to 83.9 in 10 other high-income countries, according to an influential study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

And only 90% of the population in the U.S. has health insurance, compared to 99% to 100% of the population in the other industrialized countries examined.

One reason for high costs is administrative waste.

Providers face a huge array of usage and billing requirements from multiple payers, which makes it necessary to hire costly administrative help for billing and reimbursements.

Americans pay almost four times as much for pharmaceutical drugs as citizens of other developed countries.

Hospitals, doctors, and nurses all charge more in the U.S. than in other countries, with hospital costs increasing much faster than professional salaries.

In other countries, prices for drugs and healthcare are at least partially controlled by the government.

In the U.S. prices depend on market forces.

Costly Healthcare Hurts Everyone

The high cost of healthcare affects everyone, sick or well.

It has depressed individual spending power for the past few decades.

Salaries for American workers have risen, but net pay has stayed the same because of increasing charges for health insurance. 

1. Multiple Systems Create Waste

“Administrative” costs are frequently cited as a cause for excess medical spending.

The U.S. spends about 8% of its healthcare dollar on administrative costs, compared to 1% to 3% in the 10 other countries the JAMA study looked at.

The U.S. healthcare system is extremely complex, with separate rules, funding, enrollment dates, and out-of-pocket costs for employer-based insurance, private insurance from healthcare.gov, Medicaid, and Medicare, in all its many pieces.

In each of these sectors consumers must choose among several tiers of coverage, high deductible plans, managed care plans (HMOs and PPOs) and fee-for-service systems.

These plans may or may not include pharmaceutical drug insurance which has its own tiers of coverage, deductibles, and copays or coinsurance.

For providers, this means dealing with myriad regulations about usage, coding, and billing.

And, in fact, these activities make up the largest share of administrative costs. 

2. Drug Costs Are Rising

On average, Americans shell out almost four times as much for pharmaceutical drugs as citizens of other industrialized countries pay.

High drug prices are the single biggest area of overspending in the U.S. compared to Europe, where drug prices are government regulated, often based on the clinical benefit of the medication.

With little regulation of drug prices, the U.S. spends an average of $1,443 per person, compared to $749, on average, spent by the other prosperous countries studied.

In the U.S. private insurers can negotiate drug prices with manufacturers, often through the services of pharmacy benefit managers.

However, Medicare, which pays for a hefty percentage of the national drug costs, is not permitted to negotiate prices with manufacturers.

3. Doctors (and Nurses) Are Paid More

The average U.S. family doctor earns $218,173 a year, and specialists make $316,000 — way above the the average in other industrialized countries.

American nurses make considerably more than elsewhere, too.

The average salary for a U.S. nurse is about $74,250, compared to $58,041 in Switzerland and $60,253 in the Netherlands.

U.S. managed care plans (HMOs and PPOs) may succeed in lowering healthcare costs by requiring prior authorization for seeing a high-priced specialist.

Use of a nurse practitioner instead of a family doctor can also save money.

4. Hospitals Are Profit Centers

Hospital care accounts for 33% of the nation’s healthcare costs.

Between 2007 and 2014, prices for inpatient and outpatient hospital care rose much faster than physician prices, according to a 2019 study in Health Affairs.

U.S. prices for surgical procedures in hospitals greatly exceed those of other countries.

A typical angioplasty to open a blocked blood vessel, for example, costs $6,390 in the Netherlands, $7,370 in Switzerland, and $32,230 in the United States.

Similarly, a heart bypass operation in the U.S. costs $78,100 compared to $32,010 in Switzerland.

Today, many hospitals are on the brink financially.

What’s more, the cessation of elective surgery and severely declining provider visits because of the coronavirus lockdown account for a big part of the decline in the overall economy.

5. U.S. Healthcare Practices Defensive Medicine

Both physicians and hospitals have an interest in preventing lawsuits, so “just in case” tests and scans may be ordered.

And these tests can be costly!

While a CT scan costs just $97 in Canada and $500 in Australia, the average cost is $896 in the U.S.

A typical MRI scan costs $1,420 in the United States, but around $450 in Britain.

Researchers have concluded that it’s not the sheer number of tests and procedures but their high price that explains why it’s so expensive to be sick in the U.S.

6. U.S. Prices Vary Wildly

Because of the complexity of the system and the lack of any set prices for medical services, providers are free to charge what the market will bear.

The amount paid for the same healthcare service can vary significantly depending on the payer (i.e. private insurance or government programs, such as Medicare or Medicaid) and geographical area.

For COVID-19, for example, the cost of an urgent care visit and lab tests averages $1,696, but can range from a low of $241 to a high of $4,510 depending on the provider.

end quotes

Nothing like having a good Pandemic to capitalize on when the taxpayers are guaranteeing your profits!

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Re: POLITICS

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THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 AT 7:58 PM

Paul Plante says:

And let us be crystal clear on something here, people – while I have been focusing in on what went on in a state with the third highest number of COVID deaths in the nation, behind California and Texas as of today, because with my limited time on the computer, it was a full time job just keeping up with what was going on in that state, the 8 January 2020 CDC Health Alert Network warning on COVID went out to state and local health officers, state and local epidemiologists, state and local laboratory directors, public information officers, HAN coordinators, and clinician organizations in EVERY state, including Virginia, with its tally as of today of 819K COVID cases and 12,170 COVID deaths, and Mississippi, with 468K COVID cases and 9,100 COVID deaths, putting them all on notice that COVID was on its way and to get prepared for it.

So once again, we have to ask ourselves this question – what went wrong?

With that warning in hand, how could this massive healthcare system
failure have happened all over the United States of America, especially when on March 2, 2020, Democrat Andy Cuomo of New York, with its 54,693 COVID deaths as of today according to Statista, the Talk-Show Pandemic Media Darling of America, told us in a press release on that date that “We have the best health-care system in the world, and we are leveraging that system to help contain any potential spread of the novel coronavirus in New York?”

If we have the best health-care system in the world, and the system was being leveraged to help contain any potential spread of the novel coronavirus, why did so many people end up dying?

What is it that we are missing here?

And for Joe Biden’s highly partisan political answer to that question, let us fast forward one hundred eighty-two (182) days into the future from March 2, 2020, when Democrat Andy Cuomo of New York, the Pandemic Media Darling of America, told us in a press release that “this isn’t our first rodeo – we are fully coordinated, we are fully mobilized, and we are fully prepared to deal with the situation as it develops,” and Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin in another press release on the same day informed people therein that with confirmed cases of coronavirus in the nation and the state, Rensselaer County health officials had taken part in calls with the Centers for Disease Control and the New York State Department of Health regarding the issue, and at that time, there were no confirmed cases of coronavirus in the county, and that Federal and state health officials had termed the spread of the illness nationally and in the state as “isolated” cases so that there was no need for undue concern or worry and that Rensselaer County officials had been informed that New York State remains at a low risk for coronavirus, this just before New York state became the epicenter for the COVID outbreak that killed 54,693 people in the state with 12,913 COVID cases in Rensselaer County alone, to August 31, 2020 and a toxic, poisonous, highly partisan political speech Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden made in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which state as of today according to the New York Times has 1.36M COVID cases and 28,696 COVID deaths, at Carnegie Mellon, where we had this spew of political poison from Joe, as follows:

Joe Biden: I want to thank Carnegie Mellon for providing this space and all the promise it holds for future jobs in the high tech world.

In recent days, we’ve had a lot of talk about who’s going where and how I’ve decided to come to Pittsburgh to talk a little bit about what’s going on right now.

In the early days of World War II, Franklin Roosevelt told the country, and I quote, “The news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better and better.”

“And the American people deserve to have it straight from the shoulder.”

Straight from the shoulder.

The job of a president is to tell it straight from the shoulder, tell the truth, to be candid, to face facts, to lead, not to insight.

end quotes

And let’s stop right there and ask Joe this pertinent question that the main-stream media who fawn on Joe failed to ask him – IF the job of a president is to tell it straight from the shoulder, tell the truth, to be candid, to face facts, to lead, not to insight, why are you “insighting” instead of telling us the truth?

IF the job of a president is to be candid and to face facts, then why aren’t you doing either?

Why are you feeding us poisonous political pig poop, instead?

And in the United States of America, Joe, the job of the president is to “take care that OUR laws are faithfully enforced.”

This America – in America, the president does not lead, and the people, who are as yet a free people, do not follow!

If we go to the “Congressional Oversight Manual” by the Congressional Research Service, https://crsreports.congress.gov , RL30240, updated January 16, 2020, we find the following with respect to the “job” of an American president, to wit:

Summary

Today’s lawmakers and congressional aides, as well as commentators and scholars, recognize that Congress’s lawmaking role does not end when it passes legislation.

Oversight is considered fundamental to making sure that laws work and are being administered in an effective, efficient, and economical manner.

This function is seen as one of Congress’s principal roles as it grapples with the complexities of American government.

Purposes, Authority, and Participants

Throughout its history, Congress has engaged in oversight — broadly defined as reviewing, monitoring, and supervising the implementation of public policy by the executive branch.

end quotes

If you are reading that as saying that the job of Joe Biden as president is the implementation of public policy set by Congress, not by Joe Biden who is not our “leader,” perish that thought, then there is absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever with your reading comprehension.

The CRS Oversight Manual, which one would think Joe Biden would be thoroughly and intimately familiar with, front to back, from all the years he spent in Congress, continues as follows:

Congress’s oversight role is also significant because it shines the spotlight of public attention on many critical issues, which enables lawmakers and the general public to make informed judgments about executive performance.

Woodrow Wilson, in his classic 1885 study Congressional Government, emphasized that the “informing function should be preferred even to its [lawmaking] function.”

He added that unless Congress conducts oversight of administrative activities, the “country must remain in embarrassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important it should understand and direct.”

First, oversight is an implicit constitutional responsibility of Congress.

According to historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the Framers believed “it was not considered necessary to make an explicit grant of such authority.”

“The power to make laws implied the power to see whether they were faithfully executed.”

Purposes

Congressional oversight of the executive is designed to fulfill a variety of purposes, such as those outlined below.

Ensure Executive Compliance with Legislative Intent

Congress, of necessity, must delegate discretionary authority to federal administrators.

To make certain that these officers faithfully execute laws according to the intent of Congress, committees and Members can review the actions taken and regulations formulated by departments and agencies.

Protect Individual Rights and Liberties

Congressional oversight can help safeguard the rights and liberties of citizens and others.

By revealing abuses of authority, oversight hearings and other efforts can halt executive misconduct and help prevent its recurrence through, for example, new legislation or indirectly by heightening public awareness of the issue(s).

Authority to Conduct Oversight

U.S. Constitution


The Constitution grants Congress extensive authority to oversee and investigate executive branch activities.

The constitutional authority for Congress to conduct oversight stems from such explicit and implicit provisions as:

 The power to organize the executive branch.

Congress has the authority to create, abolish, reorganize, and fund federal departments and agencies.

It has the authority to assign or reassign functions to departments and agencies and grant new forms of authority and staff to administrators.

Congress, in short, exercises ultimate authority over executive branch organization and generally over policy.

end quotes

So that should make it patently clear that Joe Biden is not “our leader,” which takes us back to his toxic, poisonous political speech on 31 August 2020, where he took great pains to politicize the COVID pandemic for partisan political purposes totally unrelated to protecting the public’s health from COVID, as follows:

That’s why I’m speaking to you today.

The incumbent president (Trump) is incapable of telling us the truth, incapable of facing the facts and incapable of healing.

He doesn’t want to shed light, he wants to generate heat and he’s stroking violence in our cities.

This is a tragic fact of the matter, how he’s dealing with this perilous hour in our nation.

* * * * *

We need justice in America.

We need safety in America.

We’re facing multiple crises.

Crises that under Donald Trump have kept multiplying.

COVID, economic devastation, unwarranted police violence, [inaudible] white nationalists, a reckoning on race, declining faith in the birth of the right American future.

There’s no reason why we can’t just do so much more than we’re doing.

The common threat, the incumbent president who makes things worse, not better, an incumbent president who sows chaos rather than providing order.

An incumbent president who fails in the basic duty of the job, which is to advance the truth that all of us know, that we’re all born with the right to life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

That’s right.

end quotes

Yes, indeed, people – RULE ONE of American politics: DO NOT ever let a crisis go to waste without exploiting it for all it is worth!

Regardless of what really happened, COVID was all Trump’s fault, period!

And that brings us to the present time, to wit:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Remarks by President Biden on Fighting the COVID-⁠19 Pandemic


SEPTEMBER 09, 2021

5:02 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: So before I outline the new steps to fight COVID-19 that I’m going to be announcing tonight, let me give you some clear information about where we stand.

First, we have cons- — we have made considerable progress in battling COVID-19.

When I became President, about 2 million Americans were fully vaccinated.

Today, over 175 million Americans have that protection.

Before I took office, we hadn’t ordered enough vaccine for every American.

Just weeks in office, we did.

The week before I took office, on January 20th of this year, over 25,000 Americans died that week from COVID-19.

Last week, that grim weekly toll was down 70 percent.

And in the three months before I took office, our economy was faltering, creating just 50,000 jobs a month.

We’re now averaging 700,000 new jobs a month in the past three months.

This progress is real.

end quotes

Sounds like Joe Biden was sent to us by Heaven, does it not, to save the soul of America in our hour of need!

And there we are seeing what the politicization of a public health matter in the United States of America looks like in real life.

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Re: POLITICS

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REUTERS

"U.S. retail sales surprise to upside in strong boost to economy"


By Lucia Mutikani

September 16, 2021

Summary

* Retail sales increase 0.7% in August

* Core retail sales surge 2.5%; July revised down

* Weekly jobless claims increase 20,000 to 332,000


WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales unexpectedly increased in August, likely boosted by back-to-school shopping and child tax credit payments from the government, which could temper expectations for a sharp slowdown in economic growth in the third quarter.

The surprise rebound in retail sales reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday defied slumping consumer confidence.

Sales were driven by a surge in online purchases, which offset a continued decline at auto dealerships.

But sales in July were much weaker than initially estimated.

Economists have been downgrading their gross domestic product estimates for the current quarter, citing plunging motor vehicle sales, which are the result of an acute inventory shortage, and a flare-up of COVID-19 infections fueled by the Delta variant of the coronavirus.

"U.S. consumption is not slowing as quickly as it appeared a month ago despite the fading stimulus, and the Delta variant did not much affect the industries feeding into retail sales," said Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial in New York.

"The economy continued to hum in August."

Retail sales rose 0.7% last month.

Data for July was revised down to show retail sales declining 1.8% instead of 1.1% as previously reported.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales would drop 0.8%.

Sales increased 15.1% from a year ago and are 17.7% above their pre-pandemic level.

They are holding up even as spending is shifting back from goods to services like travel and entertainment.

Retail sales are mostly goods, with services such as healthcare, education, travel and hotel accommodation making up the remaining portion of consumer spending.

Online retail sales rebounded 5.3% after tumbling 4.6% in July.

Most school districts started their 2021-2022 academic year in August, with in-person learning resuming after last year's shift to online classes because of the pandemic.

Qualifying households in mid-July started receiving money under the expanded child tax credit program, which will run through December.

Sales at clothing stores edged up 0.1% last month.

There were strong gains in receipts at building material and furniture stores.

But sales at auto dealerships tumbled 3.6% after declining 4.6% in July.

An ongoing global shortage of microchips is forcing has automakers to cut production.

The semiconductor crunch, which has been worsened by the latest COVID-19 wave, is also causing shortages of some electronic goods.

There is also congestion at ports in China.

Sales at electronics and appliance stores fell 3.1%.

There was also a decrease in receipts at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and book stores.

With coronavirus infections surging, the flow of traffic to restaurants and bars ebbed, keeping sales flat.

Restaurants and bars are the only services category in the retail sales report.

Excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, retail sales rebounded 2.5% last month after a downwardly revised 1.9% decrease in July.

These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely to the consumer spending component of GDP.

They were previously estimated to have dropped 1.0% in July.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading lower.

The dollar rose against a basket of currencies.

U.S. Treasury prices fell.

GROWTH ESTIMATES

The National Retail Federation said the rise in sales despite the headwinds reflected the continued strength of the American consumer and the resilience of the nation's retailers.

"We maintain our confidence in the historic strength of consumers and fully expect a record year for retail sales and a strong holiday season for retailers," NRF President Matthew Shay said.

Americans are sitting on at least $2.5 trillion in excess savings accumulated during the pandemic.

Wages are rising as companies scramble to fill a record 10.9 million job openings.

A separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed initial claims for state jobless benefits rose 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 332,000 for the week ended Sept. 11.

Claims were likely boosted by Hurricane Ida, which devastated U.S. offshore energy production and knocked out power in Louisiana.

Ida also drenched Mississippi and caused historic flooding in New York and New Jersey.

The number of people continuing to receive benefits after an initial week of aid fell 187,000 to 2.665 million in the week ended Sept. 4, the lowest level since mid-March 2020.

The expiration of federal government-funded benefits early this month is expected to boost the labor pool.

"There is no evidence here that the surge in COVID cases related to the Delta variant is forcing a retrenchment in the economy," said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital in New York.

A third report from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve showed its business activity index jumped to a reading of 30.7 in September from 19.4 in August.

A reading above zero indicates growth in manufacturing in the region, which covers eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware.

Manufacturers reported a moderation in input prices, which fits in with recent data suggesting that inflation had probably peaked.

They also increased hours for workers as they struggled to find labor.

Though expectations moderated, manufacturers were upbeat about business conditions over the next six months.

Tanking motor vehicle sales and struggles by businesses to replenish stocks have prompted economists to slash their GDP growth estimates for the third quarter.

A fourth report from the Commerce Department on Thursday showed inventory accumulation slowed in July.

On Wednesday, economists at JPMorgan again trimmed their third-quarter GDP growth forecast to a 5.0% annualized rate from a 7.0% pace.

The Federal Reserve's "Beige Book" report last week showed "economic growth downshifted slightly to a moderate pace in early July through August."

But after the release of the retail sales report on Thursday, economists at Morgan Stanley raised their third-quarter GDP growth estimate to a 5.0% rate from a 3.3% pace.

Goldman Sachs raised its forecast to a 4.5% pace from a 3.5% rate, having lowered it to a 5.25% pace early this month.

The economy grew at a 6.6% rate in the second quarter.

Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-ret ... 021-09-16/
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Re: POLITICS

Post by thelivyjr »

CNBC

"Fed Chief Powell, other officials owned securities central bank bought during Covid pandemic"


Steve Liesman @STEVELIESMAN

PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 17 2021

KEY POINTS

* Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has ordered a review of ethics rules for the central bank after an outcry over officials owning individual securities.

* CNBC found Powell owned municipal bonds of the same type bought by the Fed during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

* Two regional Fed presidents likewise owned assets of the same type the Fed was buying as the coronavirus threatened the U.S. economy’s health.

* The central bank’s code of conduct says officials “should be careful to avoid any dealings or other conduct that might convey even an appearance of conflict between their personal interests, the interests of the system, and the public interest.”


Amid an outcry about Federal Reserve officials owning and trading individual securities, an in-depth look by CNBC at officials’ financial disclosures found three who last year held assets of the same type the Fed itself was buying, including Chairman Jerome Powell.

None of these holdings or transactions appeared to violate the Fed’s code of conduct.

But they raise further questions about the Fed’s conflict of interest policies and the oversight of central bank officials.

Powell held between $1.25 million and $2.5 million of municipal bonds in family trusts over which he is said to have no control.

They were just a small portion of his total reported assets.

While the bonds were purchased before 2019, they were held while the Fed last year bought more than $5 billion in munis, including one from the state of Illinois purchased by his family trust in 2016.


Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren held between $151,000 and $800,000 worth of real estate investment trusts that owned mortgage-backed securities.

He made as many as 37 separate trades in the four REITS while the Fed purchased almost $700 billion in MBS.

Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin held $1.35 million to $3 million in individual corporate bonds purchased before 2020.

They include bonds of Pepsi, Home Depot and Eli Lilly.

The Fed last year opened a corporate bond-buying facility and purchased $46.5 billion of corporate bonds.

Among those questions: Should the Fed have banned officials from holding, buying and selling the same assets the Fed itself was buying last year when it dramatically widened the types of assets it would purchase in response to the pandemic?

The Fed’s own code of conduct says officials “should be careful to avoid any dealings or other conduct that might convey even an appearance of conflict between their personal interests, the interests of the system, and the public interest.”

In response to CNBC questions asked in the process of our research, a Fed spokesperson released a statement Thursday saying Powell ordered a review last week of the Fed’s ethics rules surrounding “permissible financial holdings and activities by senior Fed officials.”

A Fed spokesperson told CNBC that Powell had no say over the central bank’s individual municipal bond purchases and no say over the investments in his family’s trusts.

A Fed ethics officer determined that the holdings did not violate government rules.

Barkin declined to comment but he did not appear to have any say over the individual corporate bonds purchased by the Fed.

Rosengren has announced he would sell his individual positions and stop trading while he is president.

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan, who actively traded millions of dollars of individual stocks, also said he would no longer trade and would sell his individual positions.

But he said his trade did not violate Fed ethics rules.

A spokesman for Rosengren told CNBC that he “made sure his personal saving and investment transactions complied with what was permissible under Fed ethics rules.”

But Dennis Kelleher, CEO of the nonprofit Better Markets, said if some of these Fed actions are not against the rules, the rules need to change.

“To think that such trading is acceptable because it is supposedly allowed by Fed’s current policies only highlights that the Fed’s policies are woefully deficient,” Kelleher told CNBC.


While trading by Rosengren and Kaplan was not conducted during the so-called blackout period, when Fed officials are not allowed to talk publicly about monetary policy or trade, Kelleher said during a crisis like last year, “the whole year should be considered a blackout period” because Fed officials are constantly talking and crafting policy in response to fast-moving events.

Correction: The Fed itself bought $5 billion to $6 billion in municipal securities last year. The previous figure used in the story incorrectly included money that came from the Treasury used to buffer against losses.

Data also provided by Reuters

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/fed-off ... licts.html
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Re: POLITICS

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REUTERS

"Analysis-Torrid Moderna stock rally cools over booster shot doubts"


By Lewis Krauskopf

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Debate over the need for COVID-19 booster shots is clouding the outlook for Moderna Inc’s high-flying shares after the U.S. biotechnology company’s stock price soared as much as 360% this year, making it the best performer in the S&P 500.

A panel of expert outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday voted to recommend here COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for Americans 65 and older and those at high risk of severe illness, but rejected a request for broader approval.

The application for boosters for all Americans age 16 and older had been brought by Pfizer Inc for the vaccine it developed with German partner BioNTech SE.

Moderna, whose vaccine is based on a similar messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, applied earlier this month here to allow use of a booster dose.

Moderna has benefited from being one of the dominant coronavirus vaccines, but its shares have pulled back 11% since hitting a closing high of $484.47 in early August.

One factor in the rally stalling, analysts said, is a muddier outlook for additional booster COVID-19 shots, on top of the initial two-dose regimen.

“When (the stocks) ran up, I think it was expecting a booster shot to be given to everyone,” said Jeff Jonas, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds.

“Now I think it’s maybe a little less certain that that extra demand is going to be there.”


The U.S. government had said it plans to start offering booster shots here widely as soon as next week.

But experts have questioned whether there is evidence to back such a plan.

This week, leading scientists, including two departing U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials, said in an influential medical journal that additional booster shots are not needed here for the general population.

In a note earlier this week, SVB Leerink analysts estimated that the booster market is likely to add another $3 billion to $4 billion in U.S. revenue potential for existing vaccines.

Substantial booster revenue for the companies “are already contemplated in consensus estimates,” the Leerink analysts said, “making the stock impact for Moderna in particular dependent on the breadth of the recommended population and boosting interval.”

An already powerful rally in Moderna shares went into overdrive this summer, as index fund managers were forced to buy the stock after it was added to the S&P 500, and as concerns rose over a resurgence in COVID-19 cases due to spread of the virulent Delta variant of the virus.

The stock has been volatile since joining the index in mid July, with Moderna shares being either the biggest daily percentage gainer or loser in the S&P 500 in 10 trading days since the stock joined - a quarter of all the sessions over that time.


Analysts overall appear to be cautious about the stock, even as the company is developing other products, including a vaccine that combines a booster dose against COVID-19 with its experimental flu shot here.

The median price target for Moderna shares among 12 analysts is $391, according to Refinitiv, over 11% below Thursday’s closing price of $440.65.

Using earnings estimates for the next 12 months, Moderna shares trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.8, according to Refinitiv Datastream.

That is more expensive than the 11.4 times P/E of S&P 500 biotech companies overall, but cheaper than the 17.7 of the S&P 500 healthcare sector.

However, Moderna is also trading at about 15 times estimates of its sales in five years - a valuation level that large biotech stocks with one key product have peaked at historically, according to Hartaj Singh, a biotech analyst at Oppenheimer.

Singh downgraded his rating on the stock to “neutral” in August.

“I don’t expect the stock to go down unless there is some unequivocal bad news that comes across,” Singh said.

“But I do think that a lot of the good news is already in the stock valuation.”

Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Bill Berkrot

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN2GD1OB
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Re: POLITICS

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CNBC

"FDA panel recommends Pfizer’s Covid booster doses for people 65 and older after rejecting third shots for general population"


Berkeley Lovelace Jr. @BERKELEYJR Robert Towey @ROBERTTOWEYCNBC Rich Mendez @RICHMENDEZCNBC

PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 17 2021

KEY POINTS

* An influential FDA advisory committee on Friday rejected a proposal to distribute booster shots of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to the general public.

* The panel pared back those plans to unanimously recommend the third shots to people age 65 and older and other vulnerable Americans.


An influential Food and Drug Administration advisory committee on Friday rejected a proposal to distribute booster shots of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to the general public, paring back those plans to unanimously recommend the third shots to people age 65 and older and other vulnerable Americans.

“It’s likely beneficial, in my opinion, for the elderly, and may eventually be indicated for the general population."

"I just don’t think we’re there yet in terms of the data,” said Dr. Ofer Levy, a vaccine and infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital.

The panel voted 16-2 against distributing the vaccines to Americans 16 and older, before unanimously embracing an alternate plan to give boosters to older Americans and those at a high risk of suffering from severe illness if they get the virus.

That’s previously included people with diabetes, heart disease, obesity and other so-called comorbidities.

Pfizer’s stock closed down 1.3%, while shares of BioNTech fell 3.6%.


The nonbinding decision by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee comes as the Biden administration has said it wants to begin offering booster shots to the general public as early as next week, pending authorization from U.S. health regulators.

While the agency hasn’t always followed the advice of its committee, it often does.

A final FDA decision could come in a matter of hours.

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has scheduled a two-day meeting next week to discuss plans to distribute the third shots in the U.S.

“We are not bound at FDA by your vote, just so you understand that."

"We can tweak this as need be,” Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, reminded the panel after the votes.


He asked the group for suggestions on what other populations the FDA should consider for boosters, like front-line health workers and other occupations that face more exposure to Covid.

The committee vote was expected to be a controversial one as some scientists, including two senior FDA officials who were involved in the meeting Friday, have said they aren’t entirely convinced every American who has received the Pfizer vaccine needs extra doses right now.

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said he wasn’t surprised they didn’t recommend the shots for people 16 and older.

Fauci, who has publicly backed boosters, hesitated in an interview Friday on “Closing Bell” to guess what the committee would ultimately decide.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the advisory committee at the time that they’re deliberating,” he said.


In a paper published days before the advisory committee meeting, a leading group of scientists said available data showed vaccine protection against severe disease persists, even as the effectiveness against mild disease wanes over time.

The authors, including two high-ranking FDA officials and multiple scientists from the World Health Organization, argued Monday in the medical journal The Lancet that widely distributing booster shots to the general public is not appropriate at this time.

In outlining plans last month to start distributing boosters as early as next week, Biden administration officials cited three CDC studies that showed the vaccines’ protection against Covid diminished over several months.

Senior health officials said at the time they worried protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death “could” diminish in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk or were inoculated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout.

Before the vote, some committee members said they were concerned there wasn’t enough data to make a recommendation, while others argued third shots should be limited to certain groups, such as people over age 60 who are known to be at higher risk of severe disease.

Some members raised concerns about the risk of myocarditis in younger people, saying more research is needed.

Dr. Hayley Gans, a voting member, said she was “struck” that the FDA was asking the committee to look at the totality of the evidence presented Friday because some data, including on safety, was still insufficient.

Another member, Dr. Paul Offit, said he would support boosters for people over 60, but had trouble backing third shots for younger groups due to a higher risk of myocarditis.

Before the vote Friday, the committee listened to several presentations on data to support the wide distribution of booster shots, including from health authorities from Israel, where officials began inoculating the nation’s population ahead of many other countries and began offering third shots to their citizens in late July.

Phil Krause, an FDA vaccine regulator and a co-author of The Lancet paper, was critical of the findings presented Friday, saying much of the data had not been reviewed by the federal agency or had not been peer-reviewed.

He said the models used were complex and scientists have to ensure it “is giving you the correct results.”

“That’s part of the difficulty at looking at this kind of data without having the chance for FDA to review it,” he said.

In documents made public by the FDA on Wednesday, Pfizer said an observational study in Israel showed a third dose of the Covid vaccine six months after a second shot restores protection from infection to 95%.

The data was collected from July 1 through Aug. 30 when the fast-spreading delta variant was surging throughout the country.

In a presentation Friday, Dr. Sharon Elroy-Preiss of Israel’s Health Ministry argued that if officials there had not begun distributing boosters at the end of July, the nation likely would have exceeded its hospital capacity.

Health officials began to see a trend, she said, of individuals in their 40s and 50s who were fully vaccinated become critically ill with Covid.

“We didn’t want to wait to see those results and we knew that we needed to vaccinate a larger portion of the population in order to get the numbers down quickly,” she told the committee.

Israeli health authorities expected severe cases to average 2,000 by late August, she said.

“We were able to dampen that effect and our severe cases are roughly 700 or less and have stayed stable, even though we still have days at 10,000 confirmed cases.”


She also said the booster shots were well tolerated by many people, citing data that showed there was only one case of myocarditis, a rare heart inflammation condition that’s been linked to mRNA vaccines, out of roughly 2.9 million people who received the extra doses.

Pfizer’s booster side effects are also comparable with those that emerge after receiving the second vaccine dose, Dr. Joohee Lee, an officer at the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, said during the meeting.

Of the 289 booster recipients ages 18 to 55 monitored in Pfizer’s phase three trial, 63.8% developed fatigue, 48.4% had headaches and 39.1% experienced muscle pain.

The FDA studied side effects in 2,682 recipients of Pfizer’s second Covid dose, ranging from 16 to 55 years old, reporting fatigue among 61.5% of patients, headaches among 54% and muscle pain among 39.3%.

One adverse event — swelling of the lymph nodes — occurred in 5.2% of booster recipients but just 0.4% of those who received their first two doses.

“The majority were mild to moderate and they did resolve,” Lee said of the lymphadenopathy cases.

“Although one is reported to be ongoing at this time.”


https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/fda-pan ... ublic.html
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Re: POLITICS

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CNBC

"After years of being ‘squeaky clean,’ the Federal Reserve is surrounded by controversy"


Jeff Cox @JEFF.COX.7528 @JEFFCOXCNBCCOM

PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 17 2021

KEY POINTS

* The Federal Reserve has a big meeting on tap next week, one that will be held under the cloud of an ethical dilemma.

* Reports in recent days indicate that Fed officials have been trading stocks and bonds that could be influenced at least indirectly by their decisions.

* The Fed lives on its credibility, and some of the recent problems could dent that.


The Federal Reserve has a big meeting on tap next week, one that will be held under the cloud of an ethical dilemma and a policymaking committee that finds itself with fairly pronounced divisions about the path ahead.

Markets largely expect the Fed to follow the two-day session with no major decisions, but rather just the first but significant nods that the historically easy-money pandemic-era accommodation is coming to an end soon if slowly.

“Tapering” will be the word of the day when the post-meeting statement is issued Wednesday, at which time individual officials also will release their forecasts on the future arc of interest rates as well as economic growth and inflation.

All of that will be set against a backdrop of controversy: News reports in recent days indicate that Fed officials have been trading stocks and bonds that could be influenced at least indirectly by their policy decisions.

At the same time, speeches over the past several weeks indicate a schism between those who say the time is now to start tightening policy and those who’d rather wait.


For the normally staid Fed, the present circumstances are unusual and could yield some interesting dynamics.

“I think it’s embarrassing for the Fed."

"It had such a squeaky-clean reputation,” Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments, said of the trading controversy that largely involved regional presidents Robert Kaplan of Dallas and Eric Rosengren of Boston.


“But I don’t think it’s going to change policy in any regard at all."

"I think it will be rearview mirror pretty soon, assuming there’s no other shoe to drop.”

Valliere did note that the issue will help fuel Fed critics such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who had been a vocal critic of the Fed’s looser regulatory approach in the years since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

A matter of credibility

More than that, though, the Fed lives on its credibility, and some of the recent problems could dent that.

There’s the market credibility issue – Wall Street and investors need to believe that the Fed is at least mostly unified in its monetary policy approach to setting interest rates and associated moves that have market impact.

Then there’s the public credibility – at a time when faith in Washington’s institutions has plunged, ethical missteps only add to that and can have repercussions, especially at such a delicate time.

“The ethics here look bad."

"They should have known better,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist for the Americas at Natixis and former chief economist of the National Economic Council during the Trump administration.

“Once you lose that moral authority, it’s a problem.”


Rosengren, Kaplan and any other Fed officials who traded stocks didn’t violate any laws or policies.

In fact, that’s become part of the criticism leveled in some circles – that following the financial crisis the Fed didn’t do a housecleaning when it came to internal rules to make sure it avoided the kinds of conflicts that came to light during the financial crisis.

“Keep in mind, they already have [trading] rules they imposed on banks, for example, and yet the Fed’s governors don’t live by those same rules,” said Christopher Whalen, a Fed veteran and now chairman of Whalen Global Advisors.

“After Dodd-Frank [the post-crisis banking reforms], every agency in Washington tightened up little conflicts like insider trading."

"And yet the Fed is somehow exempt from those rules?"

"They look ridiculous.”


For its part, the Fed has noted that it is following rules for other government agencies and has supplemental rules as well.

Still, a spokesman for the central bank said Thursday that Chairman Jerome Powell has directed Fed staff “to take a fresh and comprehensive look at the ethics rules around permissible financial holdings and activities by senior Fed officials,” a spokesman said.

“This review will assist in identifying ways to further tighten those rules and standards."

"The Board will make changes, as appropriate, and any changes will be added to the Reserve Bank Code of Conduct,” the official added.

The controversy comes against a delicate backdrop for the Fed.

The central bank is preparing to take its first steps to normalize policy again, after slashing benchmark interest rates to zero and doubling the size of its balance sheet through more than $4 trillion in bond purchases.

Fed officials are divided on policy: By Goldman Sachs’ count, six officials who have spoken publicly on the issue of tapering asset purchases are for it and six are against.

On inflation, while Powell has said he expects price pressures to recede fairly soon, at least six Fed officials, including Governor Christopher Waller, have said they expect inflation to remain above the central bank’s 2% target beyond 2021.

One more complication thrown into the mix is that Powell’s term is set to expire in February, and President Joe Biden is expected to announce soon his preferred choice to lead the bank ahead.

Most on Wall Street expect Powell to be nominated again, but there’s growing sentiment that Biden will move out Randal Quarles as vice chairman in charge of bank supervision and replace him with Governor Lael Brainard, who likely would use a heavier hand in bank regulation.

Amid all those pressures, Powell will have to make sure the Fed gets policy right and is able to clear away some of the contentiousness of late.

“It’s not a fait accompli that Jerome Powell is reappointed,” said LaVorgna, the Natixis economist.

“The administration is understandably going to wait and see how the Fed handles the taper and what the markets do."

"That could be the determining factor in whether he’s reappointed.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/after-y ... versy.html
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Re: POLITICS

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CNBC

"Moderna Vaccine More Effective Than Pfizer, J&J, Especially After 4 Months: CDC"


NBC 4 New York

PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 17 2021

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is slightly more effective than Pfizer’s or Johnson & Johnson’s in preventing hospitalization, though the gap widens substantially four months after vaccination, the CDC said Friday.

The report comes just as the FDA considers whether to endorse a contentious plan to roll out booster shots for the fully vaccinated.

The data, collected from nearly 3,700 people at 21 hospitals in 18 states over five months (including Montefiore in the Bronx), add to a growing body of evidence that while all the vaccines work well, the Moderna shot remains the most effective over time.

Overall, the study said, the Moderna vaccine was 93% effective at preventing hospitalization for COVID among American adults without compromised immune systems.

Over the same study period (March 11-August 15), the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective and the J&J vaccine was 71% effective.

But those were overall figures.

The study also broke out effectiveness, also called VE, for the period of 14-120 days after vaccination, as well as after the 120-day mark.

It was there that the numbers diverged more significantly.

The Moderna vaccine remained 92% effective against hospitalization after 120 days, but the Pfizer vaccine was down to 77% effectiveness.

(There was no similar calculation for the J&J vaccine, though the CDC did note that efficacy dipped to 68% more than 28 days after vaccination.)

“Understanding differences in VE by vaccine product can guide individual choices and policy recommendations regarding vaccine boosters."

"All FDA-approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide substantial protection against COVID-19 hospitalization,” the study authors wrote.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/moderna ... s-cdc.html
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Re: POLITICS

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THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Nancy Pelosi - $16.0 million minimum net worth

House Minority Leader Pelosi’s (D-San Francisco) minimum net worth dropped $16 million over the last year due to a new $5 million mortgage and an $11 million decrease in assets.

Pelosi’s spouse, Paul Pelosi, owned about $27 million in assets, mostly in real estate — $18 million spread among nine properties.

Pelosi listed a new mortgage of $5 million on an existing vineyard in St. Helena.

In previous years, Pelosi had listed a $1 million mortgage for the same property.


https://www.latimes.com/projects/how-mu ... cy-pelosi/
REUTERS

"U.S. Speaker Pelosi: Capitalism has not served our economy as well as it could"


Reuters

September 17, 2021

LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Capitalism has not served the U.S. economy as well as it could have, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday, saying that the system needed to be improved.

"In America, capitalism is our system, it is our economic system, but it has not served our economy as well as it should," she told a Chatham House event.

"So what we want to do is not depart from that, but to improve it."

"You cannot have a system where the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest, and we have to correct that."

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, writing by William James

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustai ... 021-09-17/
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