WHO ARE INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS
Fossil fuel divestment gains momentum in philanthropy

Via AP news wire
Mon, November 1, 2021

Philanthropy Fossil Fuel Divestment ((C) Odessa American)

A movement to divest from fossil fuel is gaining support among foundations as activists push for funding to be shifted away from coal, oil and natural gas.

The call from activists to the charitable world is simple: Ditch fossil fuels and direct your investments into climate-friendly companies and funds.

The worldwide divestment campaign has sought commitments from universities, corporations and other entities. Now, two of the biggest names in philanthropy — the Ford and MacArthur foundations — are reorienting their investments away from fossil fuels, a move that leaders of the divestment movement hope will prove to be a tipping point for the charitable world.

“We’re calling on governments and corporations to act on climate aggressively and commensurate with the science,” said Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Global Fund and a leader in Divest-Invest Philanthropy, which is pushing the philanthropic community to dump its fossil fuel investments. “Why aren’t we asking ourselves if we’re doing that?”

The announcements from Ford and MacArthur came in the lead-up to the United Nations’ climate summit in Glasgow where activists, policymakers and scientists are pushing for far-reaching action on climate change. Both foundations are joining nearly 200 charitable organizations and firms that manage investments for wealthy families that have committed to divest, according to Divest-Invest Philanthropy.

“I’m glad that we were able to finally reconcile our financial imperative with our moral imperative as a foundation,” Darren Walker, president of The Ford Foundation, told The Associated Press.

About $1 trillion is sitting in endowments of private foundations, which are required to pay out only 5% of their assets annually. The rest is invested for growth. Traditionally, the two sides of their operations have been seen as separate: Grants were given to advance the foundations' mission. The foundations' money managers, meantime, sought high investment returns to maintain their organizations' financial health.

But in recent years, activists have argued that it's hypocritical for some foundations to fund initiatives that address climate change while potentially investing in fossil fuel-related companies. According to the ClimateWorks Foundation, global philanthropic funding for climate change mitigation totaled $6 to $10 billion in 2020, less than 2% of overall giving.

Critics of divestment counter that such changes could hurt investment returns and hinder foundations from maintaining their endowment size — thereby damaging what they set out to achieve. Ivo Welch, a finance professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that foundations that divest won't have much impact on the market and could even lose whatever leverage they might have with fossil fuel companies.

“I think it’s primarily a public relations exercise,” Welch said. “Let’s presume we really could bring fossil fuel companies to their knees, and they would be bankrupt now. The world would be in utter collapse. They cannot possibly want that.”

That said, many foundations see their shift away from fossil fuels as part of a broader effort to integrate the philosophies behind their donations with their investments.

“It was long overdue,” Walker said. “I don’t think The Ford Foundation deserves to be congratulated for doing the right thing.”

The Ford Foundation, which has $16 billion in assets, said in a statement last month that only 0.3% of its endowment is directly invested in fossil fuel-related companies. It said it has made no such investments since 2013 and won't do so anymore.

Instead, the foundation says, it will invest in funds “that address the threat of climate change, and support the transition to a green economy.” Within five years, Walker said, the organization will also wind down its indirect investments in fossil fuels through partnerships with private equity funds.

For outside observers, it’s often been difficult to determine where Ford and some other foundations have been directing their investments. Some have been transparent about where their investments are landing. Others provide little information apart from how many assets they hold in various investment categories.

John Seitz, a former Wall Street portfolio manager who runs FoundationMark, which tracks investment performances of private foundations, noted that foundations are limited in what they can share if they’ve invested in entities, like hedge funds, that are not typically transparent.

The Ford Foundation’s 990 forms, which it must file annually with the IRS, don’t provide a clear picture of where its investments are landing. Walker says many of Ford's investments are in private equity and hedge funds rather than directly in companies. He says the foundation will seek to be more specific about funds it invests in.

Another factor in the lack of transparency among foundations, Seitz suggested, is the desire to avoid outside scrutiny.

“It tends to create a lot of headaches,” Seitz said. “Because you’re just going to be questioned on every move you make.”

The AP reached out to a handful of sizable foundations that haven't made a pledge to divest. Spokespeople for three of them said they were reviewing their investment strategy. One didn't reply to an email seeking comment. Two others declined to speak on the matter.

The MacArthur Foundation, an $8 billion organization known for its “genius grants,” pledged two years ago to halt new investments in oil and gas. It went further in September, saying it would switch to U.S. index funds that exclude fossil fuel companies. And it's aiming to change its global index funds to do the same within a year.

John Palfrey, the foundation's president, didn’t specify how much money is involved but said the move was in “the billions.”

“Our goal is to be on a pathway to have zero fossil fuel-related companies in our portfolio over time,” he said.

Palfrey says the foundation had been working for a couple of years to divest more of its portfolio from fossil fuels. Recently, it chose to announce its plans partly to add momentum to the effort to address climate change at the U.N's climate conference.

Last month, the McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its $3 billion endowment by 2050.

Some other foundations have been quietly shifting investments away from fossil fuels.

Don Chen, president of the Surdna Foundation, which has about $1 billion in assets, says the foundation has been reducing its investments in fossil fuels over the past decade and plans to phase out more in coming years.

“I do recognize the importance of using our public platform, profile and also our influence to be able to join the chorus of folks who are really trying to do more with our endowment assets,” Chen said.

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AP journalist Emma H. Tobin contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Lilly Endowment for coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.


Is Your Junk Bond Spewing Carbon? Goldman May Have an Answer

Zijia Song
Mon, November 1, 2021



(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is rolling out a new tool for investors trying to figure out the carbon footprint of their financial holdings.

The move comes as world leaders gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 climate summit, widely viewed as a make-or-break moment for humanity to get the planet back on track to avoid devastating temperature increases.

“We have had incoming from clients asking about how to think about their portfolio from the carbon lens,” Sarah Lawlor, a Goldman trading executive focused on sustainability issues, said in an interview. With the new carbon analytics tool, investors will be able to measure their overall portfolio’s carbon emissions and dig into individual securities with the highest carbon-intensity levels, she said.

Available on Marquee, the bank’s portal for institutional investors, the tool allows Goldman clients to measure the carbon emissions of their portfolio, including public equity, junk bonds and other corporate debt. It also serves as a corporate engagement tool. Users can see if a company is on track of achieving their de-carbonization goals or net-zero objectives.

“Today we’re launching all U.S. assets and bonds,” said Anne Marie Darling, who leads sales strategy for Marquee. “In the next week or two we’re launching Europe.”

Investors can compare carbon-intensity levels of an investor’s securities across different companies, sectors and industries, as well as against a benchmark such as the S&P 500 index.

P3 PUBLIC PENSIONS FUND PRIVATE CAPITAL

A Huge Pension Sold Netflix, Bank of America, and Intel Stock. Here’s What It Bought.

By Ed Lin

Oct. 31, 2021 

A large U.S. public pension recently made significant changes in its stock portfolio.

State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio increased its investment in Alibaba Group Holding (ticker: BABA) CHINA, and cut positions in Netflix (NFLX), Bank of America (BAC), and Intel (INTC) in the third quarter. STRS Ohio, as the pension is known, disclosed the trades, among others, in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pension Funds Wade Gingerly Into Crypto Investments

Brandy Betz
Mon, November 1, 2021


The Houston Firefighters’ Relief and Retirement Fund (HFRRF) made news recently when it announced it was investing $25 million in bitcoin and ether, marking what was believed to be the first time a U.S. pension fund had put cryptocurrencies directly on its balance sheet.

Of course, $25 million is only a drop in the bucket compared to the $5.5 billion in total assets held by the fund – more precisely, it represents just 0.5% of its portfolio. But it still was a notable first step by the historically conservative investment fund. And if other pension and retirement funds follow suit, it could open up a huge source of additional demand for cryptocurrencies, with the funds collectively controlling trillions of dollars in global assets.

To be sure, the HFRRF was not the first U.S. pension fund to invest in crypto more broadly. That distinction appears to belong to the Fairfax County Police Officers Retirement System and Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System, which in 2018 began investing in funds managed by Morgan Creek Digital that would eventually add up to a combined $73 million. The Morgan Creek funds leaned more toward blockchain technology than bitcoin, however, so the pension funds considered the moves venture capital investments.

In September, news broke that the pension funds, which manage a combined $7.2 billion in assets, were planning to make a $50 million investment in Parataxis Capital Management’s main fund, which buys digital tokens and cryptocurrency derivatives. The investment has since been approved by the funds’ board.

Asked if the funds are considering further crypto investments and whether direct investments were on the table, Katherine Molnar, chief investment officer for the police officers retirement fund, said her organization is “considering further investments in the crypto/digital assets space.”

“We have not made a final decision as to what form that might take. We remain constructive on the expected growth of this area,” Molnar told CoinDesk in an email.
Growing investment trend?

Last week, Bank of America weighed in on pension investments in cryptocurrencies in a digital assets-focused research note.

“Our discussions suggest that many pension funds are still in the exploratory stage. State pension funds in the U.S. are significantly underfunded with ~$1.25 [trillion] in unfunded liabilities as of the end of FY19, which has led many to attempt to make up the shortfall between plan assets and obligations through investments. Pension funds globally held $35 [trillion] in AUM [assets under management] at the end of 2020, illustrating the potential tailwinds for digital assets if more pension funds begin to add exposure,” wrote analysts Alkesh Shah and Andrew Moss.

BofA referenced the HFRRF and Fairfax pension fund investments and noted that Queensland Investment Corporation, Australia’s fifth-largest pension fund, has expressed interest in cryptocurrency investments.

On the other hand, pension funds in South Africa could be prohibited from investing in cryptocurrencies under a rule change proposal published last week. Other overseas pension investments also face potential limitations on their ability to invest in crypto.

In the U.K., for example, pension funds hire specialized investment managers to invest on their behalf, with fund trustees unable to participate in the day-to-day management of the fund, Kerrin Rosenberg, CEO of U.K.-based pension management firm Cardano Investment, which is unrelated to the blockchain, told CoinDesk.

“I am not aware of any U.K. pensions actually considering a strategic allocation to cryptocurrency as an asset class. I would expect that most of the asset allocation models used by consultants don’t cover cryptocurrency, and, if asked, the consultants would probably argue,” Rosenberg wrote in an email.

“However, cryptocurrency investment could be made on a more tactical basis by investment managers as part of a wider mandate,” Rosenberg added.

James Stickland, CEO of London-based digital asset trading infrastructure developer Elwood Technologies, was also skeptical that the U.S. pension investment trend would make it to the U.K.

“In the U.K., we’re seeing rising institutional demand from banks, hedge funds, private companies and even family offices. Yet, it is unprecedented to see pension funds weighting even a small percentage of their portfolios to risk assets like bitcoin. I don’t think we will see them following the lead of pension funds in the U.S. anytime soon, but it’s certainly possible if inflation continues to be a concern,” Strickland said via email.

Connecticut City Asks Residents to Take $145 Million Pension Bet

Martin Z. Braun
Mon, November 1, 2021



(Bloomberg) -- Residents of Norwich, Connecticut, will vote Tuesday on whether to gamble with their tax dollars by issuing bonds to cover swelling pension obligations, amid a record year for sales of such debt.
Voters are being asked to approve issuing $145 million of securities to cover Norwich’s pension obligation, after retirement costs almost tripled in the past decade. With interest rates in the municipal market near historic lows, officials expect the earnings from investing that sum will exceed the borrowing cost.

“In my 63 years of existence, 32 years of which was in the banking industry, I have never seen interest rates this low,” said Michael Gualtieri, treasurer of the city of about 40,000 in southeastern Connecticut. “I don’t know if we will ever see them this low again or perhaps in my lifetime.”

Ninety-three municipalities have sold debt in 2021 to finance their unfunded pension obligations to retirees, the highest number year-to-date in records starting in 1999, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The combined amount of $11.4 billion is the most since a peak in 2003, which included a $10 billion Illinois sale.

The push comes amid expectations that the Federal Reserve will announce a taper of its bond purchases this week and raise its benchmark rate from near zero next year.

Norwich expects it can borrow at 3%, and earn 6.25% on its pension investments over the long term. The difference would net $43 million in savings in today’s dollars over 30 years. Norwich would break even if it earns 3% to 3.25% on its investments, said city Comptroller Josh Pothier.

“Pension-obligation bonds amount to gambling with future taxpayer funds,” said Lisa Washburn, a managing director at research firm Municipal Market Analytics. “If investment returns beat what the pension plan assumed, then the taxpayer has a lower obligation, and if not, the taxpayer owes more.”

$3.8 Trillion Gap

States and local-government pension funds have about $3.8 trillion less than needed to cover benefits promised to retirees, about the same as their bond debt, according to Fed data. The gap is a result of decades of underfunding, sub-par investment returns and record low bond yields that inflate liabilities.

Norwich’s annual pension costs have increased to $12.8 million this year from $4.7 million in 2012, forcing the city to cut other spending. The city’s pension lost 24% during the recession caused by the financial crisis of 2008, compounding years of contribution shortfalls.

“Councils kicked the can down the road,” said Gualtieri, the treasurer, who was elected in 2015.

The city council started increasing pension contributions in 2014 by as much as 15% a year, reaching the full actuarially required contribution last year.

Norwich also reduced its assumed rate of return on pension assets to 7.25% from 8.25% from 2013 to 2019, and will lower it further to 6.25% if voters approve the pension bond. It’s returned an annualized 6.98% over the past 20 years, according to data from Pothier.

Lowering the discount rate increases the value of a pension’s future liabilities. Wall Street and pension-fund managers have reduced expectations for future investment returns because of a long decline in interest rates and slow economic growth. Norwich’s $225 million pension is 59% funded, according to the city’s 2020 financial statement. That compares with about 73% for 200 major state and local government pension plans, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Backfire Scenario

Pension-bond deals can backfire if municipalities borrow and invest a lump sum right before stock-market declines, swelling their deficits. With stocks at record highs, the risk is acute.

To guard against that pitfall, Norwich will invest bond proceeds gradually into stocks, bonds and real estate over 18 to 36 months. It plans to sell the debt in February, according to Pothier.

The city is also putting $13.7 million, its budgeted pension payment next year, into a reserve fund to provide a buffer against big pension-cost increases if the market slumps. The city will tap the reserve if the annual pension cost increases more than 3%. In years where the pension contribution falls because investment returns beat targets, the savings will be used to shore up the reserve fund.

Milliman Inc., Norwich’s actuary, modeled 10,000 random investment-return scenarios over the next 30 years and found the city would exhaust the pension reserve in just 14% of them and would save money by issuing the pension bonds in 70%.

In addition to the risk of making an ill-timed investment, pension-obligation bonds reduce a municipality’s capacity to borrow and create a fixed cost that could reduce its ability to manage a budget crunch, S&P Global Ratings said in an October report. Cities with overfunded pensions could also face calls by public-employee unions to raise benefits that might now be perceived as affordable, according to the report.

Pothier said he he wasn’t concerned about a push to increase benefits. Since 2018, the city has lifted the employee contribution, eliminated or reduced survivorship benefits and cut the benefit multiplier, a factor that determines retirees’ annuity.

“The bargaining units understand the importance and seriousness of having a sustainable retirement plan,” Pothier said.

TikTok Owner ByteDance Mandates Shorter Working Hours

Zheping Huang
Mon, November 1, 2021


(Bloomberg) -- ByteDance Ltd. ordered its employees to end their day by 7 p.m., becoming one of the first tech companies in China to officially mandate shorter working hours.

Staff in China should only work from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Mondays to Fridays and will need to seek permission to stay beyond those hours at least one day in advance, according to an internal document on Monday that was seen by Bloomberg News. A representative for the TikTok and Douyin owner declined to comment.

The country’s grueling work pace -- known as “996” because employees often labor from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week -- was long celebrated by tech billionaires from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Jack Ma to JD.com Inc. founder Richard Liu. But it’s come under renewed scrutiny this year, fueled by deaths associated with overwork and a growing chorus of social media complaints. With President Xi Jinping calling on the country to work toward “common prosperity,” authorities have stepped up warnings against employers to refrain from unreasonable overtime and other violations.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says:

China’s “996” work ethic -- implying working hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week -- suggests 72-hour weeks have been typical at some companies. Courts are skeptical, and “996” may be at odds with labor laws in addition to being out of sync with President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” push. High turnover at Baidu and Bilibili may signal discontent with workaholic employers.

-- Matthew Kanterman and Tiffany Tam, analysts

Under the new policy, employees can apply to work overtime no more than 3 hours on a weekday or 8 hours on a weekend, according to the document. They will receive extra compensation of up to three times their normal wage for the overtime.

The new policy is the latest effort by ByteDance to improve worker welfare. Earlier this year, the social media giant, along with rival Kuaishou Technology, canceled an alternating system where employees just take one day off per week every two weeks.

A short-lived campaign last month saw some private sector workers, including those from ByteDance, come together to share their working hours in protest against the country’s excessive working culture.

Read more about the Worker Lives Matter campaign

Employers Can't Require People To Work 72 Hours A Week, China's High Court Says

August 30, 2021
BILL CHAPPELLTwitter

Commuters wait in line for public buses as they leave work in Beijing's business district on Aug. 27. China's Supreme People's Court has ruled that it's illegal for companies to subject employees to the practice known as "996," or working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Workers in China have earned a victory over employers' onerous work schedules, as the Supreme People's Court says a common schedule that requires people to work 12 hours a day for six days a week is illegal.

In recent years, several worker deaths have been linked to such schedules, which are common in the tech industry and in other sectors, such as logistics.

One case highlighted in the high court's recent decision revolves around a man named Zhang. He was hired by a courier company last summer, working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week — the schedule that has become notorious under the shorthand "996" label.

Under Chinese law, monthly overtime totals are essentially limited to 36 hours. Zhang refused to work illegal amounts of overtime — as dictated by his schedule — and was fired. The courier company said Zhang failed to fulfill the requirements of his probation period. But he disagreed, and an arbitration panel ordered his former employer to pay him a month's salary of 8,000 yuan (about $1,237).

The high court affirmed that decision last week, saying that Zhang had been fired illegally and that the company's work policies run afoul of the law.
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The ruling presents a prominent rebuke to the 996 schedule, which in recent years has sparked online protests and criticism.

Dissatisfaction with the long work hours made headlines early this year after a young woman dropped dead after working a string of excessively long shifts for a Chinese e-commerce startup called Pinduoduo. Many of the firm's employees came forward to say they regularly worked more than 300 hours each month — far surpassing legal limits.

The high court's decision is based on at least 10 cases in which workers said they were being unfairly denied overtime pay and related compensation, including payment for injuries incurred while working overtime. Some of the cases also centered on disputes that erupted after employers sought to use special agreements with their employees to circumvent labor laws.

Another case centers on a worker named Li, who the court said died from overwork in late 2018. The man worked for an employment service firm that sent him to work at an unidentified media company.

One year after he was hired, Li regularly worked about 300 hours or more each month. In a typical month, he was not given more than three days off work, a condition that the court said severely violated his right to rest.

Li fainted in a bathroom at work and died of a heart attack on Dec. 1 as he neared the end of a 12-hour overnight shift. His relatives sought compensation for his death as well as funeral expenses. In its ruling, the court affirmed that both the media company and the service company that directly hired Li bear joint responsibility for compensating the man's family.

The court acknowledged the intense competition that drives Chinese companies to maximize profits and cut labor costs. But, it added, extreme overtime harms workers' physical and mental health, their family life and their ability to pursue a social life.

Resistance to the 996 schedule sparked online protests in 2019, when put-upon workers connected with each other and exchanged information on a GitHub project called 996.ICU.

The organizers said that the name reflects "an ironic saying among Chinese developers, which means that by following the '996' work schedule, you are risking yourself getting into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit)."

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China Spells Out How Excessive ‘996’ Work Culture is Illegal Zheping Huang Bookmark August 27 2021, 7:06 AM August 30 2021, 8:18 AM (Bloomberg) -- China has issued its most comprehensive warning yet against the excessive-work culture that pervades the country’s largest corporations, using real and richly detailed court disputes to address a growing backlash against the punishing demands of the practice

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/china-s-top-court-says-excessive-996-work-culture-is-illegal
C

AND ALBERTANS VOTED TO KEEP IT

Daylight saving time is 'not helpful' 

and has 'no upsides,' experts say

Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY

Mon, November 1, 2021

To the relief of many Americans, the period of daylight saving time is finally coming to a close.

Sunday, people living in states that follow this practice will set their clocks back, gaining the hour of sleep they lost in the spring. For most of the U.S., daylight saving time starts at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and ends on the same time on the first Sunday of November.

The Department of Transportation, which is in charge of daylight saving time, says the practice saves energy, prevents traffic accidents and reduces crime. Sleep experts say the health consequences of losing sleep from daylight saving outweigh its value.

“There’s really no reason we should continue to do this back and forth,” said Erin Flynn-Evans, a consultant to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Public Safety Committee. “The negative health consequences and the negative effect on multivehicular crashes in the spring are just not worth it.”

In a 2020 position statement, American Academy of Sleep Medicine said the U.S. should eliminate daylight saving time in favor of a year-round standard time. Here’s why most health experts agree:

Why is sleep so important?

Like diet and exercise, health experts say, sleep is essential for a healthy lifestyle.

“It’s one of the pillars of good health,” said Dr. Bhanu Kolla, associate professor of psychiatry and a consultant for the center for sleep medicine at the Mayo Clinic.

Sleep has been shown to improve cognitive functions like learning, problem-solving skills, decision-making and creativity. Insufficient sleep causes inattention, poor focusing and inability to monitor behavior, said Judith Owens, co-director of the pediatric sleep program at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School.

“Individuals who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to take risks because they perceive less consequence,” she said. “For example, a child in elementary school darts out into the road because they are more impulsive and less vigilant.”

Getting a good night’s rest is also important for regulating emotion. Sleep deficiency has been linked to an increased risk of depression, bipolar disorder, substance use disorder and suicide.

“Sleep impacts how healthy you feel and how happy you feel because of its influence on those hormones and the shared areas,” said Melisa Moore, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia's division of pulmonary medicine and sleep center.

Sleep is also necessary for the body to heal and repair heart and blood vessels. Lack of sleep has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and stroke, experts say.

That well-rested feeling can also be impacted by a misaligned circadian rhythm, or the internal clock that tells a person when it’s time to be asleep and when it’s time to be awake, Kolla said. Every human’s internal clock naturally follows a 24.2-hour schedule with six to eight hours of sleep at night.

Every cell in the human body has its own internal clock that follows a “master clock” located in the brain. Studies have found people who go to bed or wake up outside of this circadian rhythm suffer many of the same health consequences caused by sleep deficiency.

“Shift workers also have an increased risk of cardiovascular events, diabetes and cancer. (They) have both circadian misalignment and lack of sleep,” Flynn-Evans said.

Cognitive consequences of DST

The DOT says the switch to daylight saving time prevents traffic accidents, but data seems to suggest the opposite is true immediately after the transition.

A 2020 study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology, determined the risk of fatal traffic accidents increased by 6% in the U.S. during the spring transition to daylight saving time. Researchers found this risk was highest during the morning on the West Coast.

Experts say this may be due to the lack of morning light during daylight saving time. Light is essential to circadian rhythm because it suppresses the brain’s release of melatonin (aka the "sleep hormone), experts say.

When does the time change in 2021?: Here's when to turn back clocks on daylight saving time

Winter blues: How to stay positive amid colder days, longer nights

Drivers are less alert without morning light. During daylight saving time, they also may be suffering from the cognitive impacts of sleep loss including inattention, inability to focus and the tendency to take risks due to the inability to perceive consequences.

“Increased ER visits, increased motor vehicle crashes and fatal crashes,” Flynn-Evans said. “A lot of people think of the evening benefit (of daylight saving) without considering the impacts of the morning.”

Physical consequences of DST

Mounting evidence from years of scientific research has suggested many health consequences of sleep loss have been associated with the switch to daylight saving time.

In a 2015 study published in Sleep Medicine, researchers in Finland compared the rate of stroke in more than 3,000 people during the week following a daylight saving time transition to the rate in nearly 12,000 people two weeks before or two weeks after that week.

They found the overall rate of having a stroke was 8% higher during the first two days following the transition to daylight saving from 2004 to 2013. People with cancer were 25% more likely to have a stroke after the switch compared to any other time of the year. Participants over the age of 65 were 20% more likely.

“These are the effects of living on a social time that’s mismatched from when your body is timed," Flynn-Evans said.

A 2019 report published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine analyzed seven studies on daylight saving time including more than 100,000 people and found a higher risk of heart attacks in the weeks following both the spring and fall transitions.

Daylight saving time is also associated with an increased risk of cancer in residents living on the West Coast, according to a 2017 study published by the American Association of Cancer Research journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

People are also more likely to miss medical appointments during daylight saving time, Flynn-Evans said, which may exacerbate medical emergencies and outcomes.

"There are detrimental effects... There are no upsides," Kolla said about daylight saving time.

Daylight saving consequences among kids, teens

Many of the cognitive consequences experienced by adults from the abrupt transition to daylight saving time also appear in children and adolescents, but health experts say it may have a greater impact on this population as school forces them to function earlier in the day.

“If we want our kids to be functioning as well as they can and be as happy as they can, then sleep is critical,” Moore said.

Sleep deficiency could affect kids' memory consolidation and learning of new tasks, Owens said. This could be hard on smaller children who are expected to learn at rapid rates.

“It also has to do with the inattention,” she said. “If the information doesn’t get in there in the first place, it doesn’t have a good chance of being retained.”

However, adolescents may be most impacted by daylight saving time because their internal clock runs later than other age groups. During puberty, hormonal responses to light exposure change, meaning teenagers want to stay up at later and sleep in.

How can parents protect their kids?: Facebook studies show the harms of Instagram for teenagers

How much for that textbook?: Five ways students can save on course books

This is called “sleep phase delay,” according to the Sleep Disorders Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Early school times and late-night studying exacerbate this naturally occurring phenomenon, Kolla said, so teenagers always feel sleep-deprived.

A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics looked at standardized testing scores at about 350 Indiana public high schools from 1997 to 2006. Researchers compared schools in counties that switched to daylight saving time to those in counties still on standard time.

After controlling for socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, they found SAT scores were negatively impacted by about 16 points in schools that transitioned to daylight saving time in the spring.

The switch to daylight saving time falls in the spring when schools are gearing up for the end of the year with final projects, standardized testing and exams, Moore said, creating an unnecessary burden for sleepy teenagers during an academically important time of year.

“(Daylight saving time) is not helpful and the impact on health and sleep is much greater than anything we could possibly gain,” Moore said.

Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fall back daylight saving time: It's dangerous and bad for your sleep

If Biden Won't Cancel Student Debt, Why Should We Go to College?

Lexi McMenamin

Mon, November 1, 2021

United States college enrollment is on track to drop by half a million students, according to data released last week by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. This rate is on track with 2020’s, when there was a drop of 400,000 students nationally, largely attributed to the coronavirus; if we continue apace, we’ll witness the largest drop-off in U.S. college enrollment in 50 years.

But it’s not just because of COVID: This follows a multiyear trend of declining enrollment, due in part to — you guessed it — the cost of college. The numbers are showing that Gen Z is asking a legitimate question: What is the price of a college education really worth in the U.S.? 

Student loan debt is deepening the racial wealth gap. Studies show it exacts a psychological toll on those trapped in its binds, limiting one’s ability to pursue homeownership, start a family, and other goals that having a degree should enable. Worse still, the current administration hasn’t acted on the issue even after Joe Biden won the election on a promise of student debt relief.

We know that Biden and his Department of Education have the power to end the burden of $1.7 trillion in loans for 44 million Americans. Congressional Democrats largely back at least some amount of loan forgiveness. Instead, come January 2022, we’re expected to start paying off our student loans again. It’s a slap in the face.

As the holder of a bachelor’s degree, let me be the first to say that I have some regrets. I have close to six figures of student loan debt, which I’ve considered paying off using a broad range of strategies, such as entering a TV competition with a cash prize (Jeopardy!, ideally) or donating my eggs. (Check out this guy, who ate lunch and dinner at Six Flags for seven years to pay off his loans.) 

Unsurprisingly, short of generational wealth, there aren't a lot of ways to come up with $100,000. I’m the eldest of five kids, and now two of my siblings have loans too. Yet another is in high school, unsure whether to take the risk. And why should they? There’s no reason to expect college will become more affordable. The best we can hope for is that elected officials see some sense, forgive student debt, and enact protections so students aren't exploited by exorbitant interest rates.

In the meantime, we’re stuck watching our generation’s livelihoods and futures get turned into a political football. On Friday, The New Yorker reported that the Department of Education’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request suggests that the White House has written a policy on student debt cancellation, but is essentially sitting on its hands.

This news is especially stinging given that a key college affordability policy within Biden’s Build Back Better bill, two free years of community college, was cut out because of obstruction from West Virginia senator Joe Manchin. That decision, says Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), will cause the student debt crisis to "absolutely be exacerbated."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) weighed in on October 28 via her Instagram Story, saying it was time to "bring the heat on Biden to cancel student loans." "He doesn't need Manchin's permission for that," AOC said. "Now that his agenda is thinly sliced, he needs to step up his executive action game and show his commitment to [delivering] for people."

On October 26, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told The Atlantic that “conversations are continuing” regarding student debt. That’s politician-speak for “nothing is really happening.” But Biden seemed to have a clear answer in mind when he told a crowd just a year ago, “I will eliminate your student debt.” Wonder what changed.

Scientists Get Nobel Prize for Explaining Ancient Women’s Medical Cure

While it might seem unfair that anonymous ancient women discover medically effective treatments only for modern men to get a Nobel prize for explaining how it works, research like this proves both that science and history can work hand in hand in the present. So-called “primitive” ancient cultures weren’t so primitive or clueless after all. 


Candida Moss
Sat, October 30, 2021

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND

This year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to David Julius, a physiologist at the University of California, and Ardem Patapoutian, a molecular neurobiologist at Scripps, for their work identifying the molecular and chemical bases of our sensory perception of temperature and touch. Or, to put it plainly, exactly what it is that gives chili peppers their kick and how the proteins involved could be used to combat chronic pain. The discovery brims with promise for studies of pain management. But in unlocking the chemical underpinnings of sensory responses to hot substances these scientists have done something else as well: they have solved a millennia-old mystery and rediscovered ancient women’s folk medicine.

As anyone who has eaten in a Mexican restaurant knows, chili peppers (or rather the chemical compound capsaicin found in them) are spicy, sometimes in gastronomically unpleasant ways—though we all know that scientists weren’t quite sure how this worked. Julius and Patapoutian, however, were able to explain the biology of the senses. They tracked the protein TRPV1 (the protein that is responsible for responding to painful heat) and identified the receptors in the body that respond to these forces. They weren’t the first to know about the medicinal and sensory effects of peppers, however: 2,500 years ago a rugged nomadic people known as the Scythians used the same techniques and insights to treat lifestyle ailments and protect their bodies from cold.

The Scythians flourished from roughly 800 B.C. to 500 A.D. and discoveries of their burials have been found throughout the vast Eurasian steppe region (the large area of unforested grassland that stretches from northern China, through Siberia, to the northern Black Sea). They were, as Stanford historian Adrienne Mayor has explored in her work, a nomadic people whose egalitarian lifestyle centered on horses, archery, and warfare. Both male and female Scythians were well known for their physical endurance and remarkable ability to withstand a life lived on horseback in the frigid temperatures of the region.

If you haven’t heard much about the Scythians it’s perhaps because their influence is felt in the legends that surround a much better known group: the Amazons. Mayor told me that “Ancient historians described Scythian women, comparing them to Amazons of myth, and ancient vase paintings show Amazons with Scythian-style woolen leggings and tunics, leather boots, felt hats with earflaps, and weapons. Similar clothing for cold weather, along with quivers full of arrows and horse gear, have been found in the graves of real women warriors of Scythia.” The real Amazons, in other words, were less the scantily clad Wonder Women of the silver screen and more the thermal leggings and hats crowd. Update your Halloween costumes accordingly.

A harsh lifestyle of riding and war, however, comes at a physical cost. The skeletons of these real-life Amazons bear the scars of battle: injuries like broken limbs from falls, bowed legs, arrowheads, and arthritis. In the world before unethically marketed opiates and over-the-counter-analgesics how did people survive? The answer, Mayor explains in The Amazons, comes from an obscure source. In his work On Rivers a third century A.D. author who claimed to be Plutarch discusses the Don River, which flowed through the Scythian heartland in the region north of the Black Sea. The Greeks called the river the “Amazon” and Pseudo-Plutarch mentions a little-known plant called “halinda” that grew on its banks. Apparently by “Bruising the plant and rubbing their bodies with the juice made the Amazons able to endure the extreme cold.”

Adrienne Mayor
Gruban/Wikimedia Commons

When she ran across this passage, Mayor was plunged into a world of botanical detective work. What was the halinda plant and how did it work? Pseudo-Plutarch had left a clue: he described it as similar to colewort, a kind of headless cabbage. This led her to “the Brassicaceae mustard family, the hardy, wild, winter cabbages of Russia and Siberia. Ancestors of today’s edible cabbages, kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard, and rapeseed/canola oil, these plants have been cultivated to reduce the mustard oils, sulphur-containing glucosinolates, which give the wild species their bitter taste. So the warrior women of Scythia must’ve crushed Brassica cabbages growing wild on the steppes around the Don River.”

Mayor told me that she contacted Dr. Simon Cotton, a chemist at University of Birmingham in the U.K. Cotton explained to the Daily Beast that plants make “hot” molecules in order to deter predators from eating them (this, by the way is the same reason that they make nicotine and cocaine). We humans are the only species that like hot food and so it is largely effective. “Many of these molecules have been identified” said Cotton, “like piperine, the active component of white and black peppers; capsaicin in chili peppers; and zingerone, the hot part of ginger.” The hotness of molecules like capsacin has been recognized for a long time but it is only recently that we have begun to understand the mechanics of how the hotness works.

This is precisely what’s significant about Julius and Patapoutian’s research, added Cotton. “The initial discovery found that there was a receptor (known as the TRPV1 receptor), a protein channel found in certain nerve cells, which ‘recognized’ and bound capsaicin molecules, causing calcium ions to enter the cells. This channel was also sensitive to temperatures above about 42°C. The brain gets the same message whether the channel has been opened by heat or by capsaicin, which is why capsaicin (and curries) are ‘hot’. Capsaicin and other ‘hot’ spice molecules don’t actually make you hotter – it just feels as if it does.”

What we now know, said Cotton, is that there are a variety of receptors sensitive to heat and cold. Take menthol, for example. The TRPM8 receptor is activated by cold and also switched on by the menthol found in mint. “This is why menthol gives a cooling sensation when applied to the skin or mucous membranes. It does not actually reduce your temperature, it just feels as if it does, when you have it in toothpaste or a mouthwash.”

What Julius and Patapoutian’s research explains are the mechanics of ancient Amazon women’s folk medicine. The brassica plant identified by Mayor contains a compound called allyl isothiocyanate, which activates the TRPV1 receptor. This, Cotton said, “would have made it an effective massage oil” that would have alleviated the painful cold of bathing in the River Don and, Mayor added, masked the pain signals from battle injuries and arthritis. Much like capsaicin from hot chili peppers is used in modern creams to relieve arthritis pains.

Mayor told me that it was “exciting it was to realize that the chemical mystery of the warrior women’s folk medicine, invented more than 2,000 years ago, was solved by the 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine!” The brassica cabbage, Mayor added, wasn’t the only way that saddle-sore Amazons learned to unwind and care for their bodies. Besides their discovery of warming massage lotions, the historian Herodotus says that they enjoyed steam baths featuring intoxicating cannabis vapors. They even used hemp to make their famous lassos. After hours on horseback in battle who doesn’t need a hot bath and some THC to take the edge off?

The process, if you were asking for a friend, is described in detail by Herodotus: “They toss handfuls of kannabis seeds onto the heated stones. These seeds smolder and smoke and create great clouds of steam.” In her forthcoming book, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws Mayor calls this the ancient version of hot boxing. Herodotus enthusiastically endorses it as far superior to Greek vapor-baths. Just as some use medical marijuana today, these uses of cannabis might also have helped with pain management but there’s no evidence that the Amazons used cannabis in battle. It was a work hard, play hard way of life.

The Amazons also made face masks using cypress, cedar and frankincense, proving that self-care can be a priority even for the busiest ancient warriors. Frankincense is an antiseptic with anti-inflammatory properties. Some recent research, Mayor told me, suggests that it may even help alleviate depression. Like the best modern beauty masks, the cosmetic paste was worn overnight and removed in the morning.

While it might seem unfair that anonymous ancient women discover medically effective treatments only for modern men to get a Nobel prize for explaining how it works, research like this proves both that science and history can work hand in hand in the present. So-called “primitive” ancient cultures weren’t so primitive or clueless after all. They may not have understood the chemistry of their treatments but, frankly, nor do most of us. While it’s unlikely that Julius and Patapoutian will divert time from their important research to investigate the anti-aging properties of cedar and frankincense, perhaps someone should.

Walmart is hiring 'supply chain associates' $20.37 per hour on average

Ines Ferré
·Markets Reporter
Mon, November 1, 2021

Walmart (WMT) is holding a supply-chain national hiring event later this week. The average wage for the retail giant's supply chain associates is $20.37 per hour.

The hiring event will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, November 3-4, in numerous states and locations. Job openings include equipment operators, repair technicians, freight handlers and order filler/lift drivers just to name a few.


A worker is seen wearing a mask while organizing merchandise at a Walmart store, in North Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S. July 20, 2020. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Walmart is beefing up its personnel amid a supply chain crunch felt across nearly every industry, coupled with a labor shortage squeeze.

In October, Walmart said it was navigating the supply chain ahead of the busy holiday season by sourcing holiday merchandise earlier than usual, chartering its own ships, and diverting shipments through less congested ports.

In September the company announced it was hiring 20,000 permanent supply-chain associates to meet growth demands.

Competitors Target (TGT) and Amazon (AMZN) are also looking to lure talent heading into the holidays. Amazon recently announced plans to hire 150,000 seasonal employees. The average salary for those seasonal jobs start at $18 per hour along with sign-on bonuses up to $3,000.

High-end retailer Nordstrom (JWN) announced plans to hire 28,000 seasonal and regular employees, offering extra incentives for those working in supply chain and fulfillment centers.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; USURY 

Consumer Reports investigates auto loans, finds bad news everywhere

A lot of buyers are paying way too much and don't know their options

JONATHON RAMSEY

Oct 31st 2021 

Consumer Reports spent a year on an investigative report into auto loans. The magazine's findings aren't exactly surprising to any car enthusiast — a frightening number of people are overcharged for car loans. But while we enthusiasts know this in our hearts, CR has the juicy, juicy data to back it up. 

CR gathered its information on almost 858,000 loans from 17 lenders, as well as borrower data including credit scores, income and employment status. These were obtained from mandatory filings submitted to the the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2019 and 2020 detailing asset-backed securities, which are car loans bundled into an asset investors can buy into. Obviously there are more than 858,000 outstanding car loans in the country, but CR could only look at the loans that required public disclosure.

To put the sample size in context, an Experian report from February of 2021 put total U.S. auto loan debt at $1.37 trillion and the average auto loan balance at $19,865. Multiplying CR's 858,000 borrowers by $20,000 gives us $17.1 billion — about 1.2% of the total outstanding debt. On top of the raw data, CR said it examined "thousands of pages of regulatory filings, court records, trade publications, industry reports, financial records, public documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and [interviewed] more than 90 federal and state regulators, advocacy organizations, consumers, lawyers, legal experts, academics, and industry groups."

Along with longer loans being the norm, CR said the average monthly payment is nearly $600, when 10 years ago it was about $450. Around 8 million Americans are more than 90 days late on those payments. And a regrettable number of loans start off badly, with CR saying 46% of the loans in the data it reviewed were underwater from the get-go, to the tune of $4,000 on average.

Buyers with the same credit scores would get charged wildly different interest rates, with "dealers and lenders setting interest rates based on what they think they can get away with." This was true even for people with prime and super-prime credit scores, the latter starting at 720 and above. It was also regardless of buyer race and ethnicity since that information isn't included in the SEC filings.

CR said around 21,000 borrowers in its data set with credit scores higher than 720 were paying off loans with APRs of 10% or more. Two California buyers, each with a prime credit score and each trying to buy a 2017 Chevrolet Trax, financed through GM Financial. One buyer got a loan with a 4.9% APR, the other a loan with a 14.1% APR.

A 2018 Toyota Camry buyer in Maryland, whose "sterling credit" would normally merit a 4.5% APR, instead accepted a six-year loan at 19%. If the buyer had paid off the loan, they would have spent $59,000 on the Camry by the end of 2025. Instead, the car was repossessed.

The issue has occasionally put dealers and lenders at odds with one another. For buyers in the data set, lenders verified income just 4% of the time, which was more often than they verified employment. When the banks don't do their diligence about a buyer's loan worthiness, such as verifying income or employment, the dealer can end up with skyrocketing repossessions. In one case in South Carolina, the lending bank even went after the dealership for the bad loans; the dealer then in turn sued the bank.  

One of the crucial takeaways here is the glaring need for consumer education. While the lenders that would go on record told CR buyers have options when it comes to financing, which is incontestably true, a large number of buyers are not aware of (and thus have not been informed about) their options or simply don't have the time or resources to properly research them. Car buyers are irrationally focused on the car's purchase price or the monthly payment, not how much they'll pay through the life of the loan. For some reason, many in the data set expect the dealer to do the best for the buyer.

How often do you suppose that actually happened?

Look no further than the fact that, per CR, at least 80% of car financing is arranged through dealers, who are legally allowed to mark up a lender's APR by 1%-2%. Paul Metrey, an SVP at the National Automobile Dealers Association, told CR "there is no financial incentive for dealers to present longer-term or more expensive credit options to consumers." But it seems absurd to us to think that GM Financial wouldn't find a way to reward a GM dealer who goosed a loan for an extra 2%. It's hard to turn down free money.

Head over CR to check out the entire story. It's long, but it should be required reading for everyone getting a loan from any lender to buy any kind of vehicle.

Warhol said, "Art is what you can get away with." So is auto financing.