Wednesday, August 05, 2020
THIRD WORLD USA
80% of older Americans can't afford to retire - COVID-19 isn't helping
More than 25 million older Americans are financially insecure - living at or below the federal poverty level.
We spoke with a few senior citizens who shared about their economic challenges.
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- COVID-19 isn't helping
THIRD WORLD USA
Some lower-income households can’t fully afford bills, medical care or food because of COVID-19 — and many didn’t get stimulus checks
‘Most of these hardship impacts cost additional money for the households who can least afford it’
‘Most of these hardship impacts cost additional money for the households who can least afford it’
Published: Aug. 5, 2020 By Meera Jagannathan
Nearly 43% of households in a new survey reported seeing income reduction due to the coronavirus.
Nearly 43% of households in a new survey reported seeing income reduction due to the coronavirus.
MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
As lawmakers negotiate a second relief package to mitigate COVID-19’s health and economic toll, a new study sheds light on how lower-income Americans have fared during the pandemic — including those who missed out on the first round of stimulus checks.
“Most of these hardship impacts cost additional money for the households who can least afford it,” wrote report authors Guillermo Cantor and Stephanie Landry, citing costs like late fees and interest charges. “They also leave families vulnerable to additional risks, including eviction or foreclosure, utility shut-off, damage to credit reports and scores, account closure, and/or cycles of borrowing predatory lending products.”
“These disparities are especially troublesome as communities of color and low-income communities, which are already vulnerable, are disproportionately bearing the brunt of this financial crisis and yet have been less likely to receive a major piece of the federal government’s financial relief,” the report said.
Possible reasons for not receiving a stimulus check include the Internal Revenue Service not having a person’s bank-account details on file, debt collectors seizing money that suddenly appears in a bank account, or a person’s immigration status complicating their payout, MarketWatch previously reported.
As the present study points out, the federal government extended the tax-filing deadline, allowed people to register for stimulus payments as a “non-filer” and sent some payments as prepaid debit cards rather than checks to help lower-income families access their payments. It also waived tax-filing requirements for recipients of some federally administered benefits, though this automatic-payment approach still leaves out about 12 million Americans, said the Prosperity Now report, citing an estimate from the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
As lawmakers negotiate a second relief package to mitigate COVID-19’s health and economic toll, a new study sheds light on how lower-income Americans have fared during the pandemic — including those who missed out on the first round of stimulus checks.
Nearly half of lower-income U.S. households report being unable to completely pay for at least one basic expense because of the coronavirus, according to a survey conducted by the research and policy organization Prosperity Now and sponsored by H&R Block HRB, 0.14%.
About 24% of respondents said they had skipped paying bills or paid late because of the pandemic’s economic blow; some also said they had forgone essential medical care (17%), couldn’t afford the kind or quantity of food they needed (17%), or didn’t pay their full rent or mortgage amount (10%). Another 10% reported having overdrafted their bank account or borrowed from a payday lender, pawn shop or car-title lender.
“Most of these hardship impacts cost additional money for the households who can least afford it,” wrote report authors Guillermo Cantor and Stephanie Landry, citing costs like late fees and interest charges. “They also leave families vulnerable to additional risks, including eviction or foreclosure, utility shut-off, damage to credit reports and scores, account closure, and/or cycles of borrowing predatory lending products.”
About 84% of the lower-income households in the survey said they received a stimulus check from the government. But while the $2.2 trillion CARES Act did provide a much-needed cash infusion to many families, “many households were not able to access these supports or were excluded from them entirely,” the report said.
For example, lower-income households who fell into relatively higher income brackets were more likely to land a stimulus check than their lowest-income-bracket counterparts. Some 87% of households making $25,000 to $49,999 a year said they had received a stimulus payment, compared to just under 79% of households making less than $25,000
Meanwhile, white low-income households (88%) were more likely than their Black (80%), Latino (79%) or Asian (77%) counterparts to say they received an economic-impact payment — suggesting the payments “did not reach different segments of the population evenly,” Cantor and Landry wrote.
“These disparities are especially troublesome as communities of color and low-income communities, which are already vulnerable, are disproportionately bearing the brunt of this financial crisis and yet have been less likely to receive a major piece of the federal government’s financial relief,” the report said.
The survey sample included 2,252 lower-income households with a similar demographic distribution to the overall U.S. population. The report defined “lower-income households” as those making $49,999 or less in annual income.
Possible reasons for not receiving a stimulus check include the Internal Revenue Service not having a person’s bank-account details on file, debt collectors seizing money that suddenly appears in a bank account, or a person’s immigration status complicating their payout, MarketWatch previously reported.
As the present study points out, the federal government extended the tax-filing deadline, allowed people to register for stimulus payments as a “non-filer” and sent some payments as prepaid debit cards rather than checks to help lower-income families access their payments. It also waived tax-filing requirements for recipients of some federally administered benefits, though this automatic-payment approach still leaves out about 12 million Americans, said the Prosperity Now report, citing an estimate from the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
All told, almost 38% of lower-income households surveyed said their finances were either “somewhat” or “much” worse off because of the pandemic — a figure that tracked with the nearly 43% of households that reported seeing income reduction due to the coronavirus. About 35% of both Black and white survey respondents said they felt worse off, while 44% of Latino respondents and 47% of Asian respondents said the same.Days after the CARES Act’s $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit ran dry, congressional leaders were still hashing out a coronavirus relief package. While Republicans and Democrats disagree on the extra $600 in unemployment, both sides have proposed sending Americans a second round of stimulus payments.
Future energy systems need to be climate proof
by Delft University of Technology AUGUST 4, 2020
More information: Seleshi G. Yalew et al. Impacts of climate change on energy systems in global and regional scenarios, Nature Energy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-020-0664-z
Journal information: Nature Energy
Provided by Delft University of Technology
by Delft University of Technology AUGUST 4, 2020
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Climate policy for future energy systems typically focus on the challenge to make them carbon neutral to avoid climate change. However, it will also be critically important to make them climate proof to ensure that they are resilient to future climate change. This is the key conclusion of a literature review published in Nature Energy, analyzing 220 peer-reviewed articles. Climate proofing of energy systems is becoming more important as energy systems are expected to become more sensitive to climate change.
Over the last few years, the number of articles looking at the possible impacts of climate change on energy systems has increased substantially. However, a comprehensive understanding of the potential impacts of climate change on energy systems, particularly at regional and global scales, was lacking. Now, an extensive review was published in Nature Energy analyzing the results of 220 articles. The research was led by Utrecht University with contributions of research teams worldwide, including those from the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology.
A substantial body of literature has focused on climate impacts on cooling and heating energy demand. While heating energy demand is expected to decrease (possibly by up to 20% worldwide), cooling demand is expected to increase substantially (possibly by over 30%). This could also lead to very different seasonal and daily patterns for energy demand.
On energy supply, most articles focus on possible impacts on renewable energy (mostly hydro and wind power). An important motivation is that an increasing share of renewable energy will make future energy systems also more sensitive to climate change. Most studies project (small) decreases in hydropower and thermal energy at the global scale. For other energy resources, results are much more mixed. Impacts at the regional scale are still relatively uncertain, but strongest impacts are reported for South Asia and Latin America.
Dr. Seleshi Yalew (the main author of the study, now working at Delft University of Technology) says that, as the review highlights, the field is still not well developed: studies still use a wide range of different methods, assumptions, and data sources. For a more comprehensive assessments of climate impacts, more consistent multi-model assessments on consequences of potential climate changes are needed for energy planning.
Explore further Uncertain climate future could disrupt energy systems
Climate policy for future energy systems typically focus on the challenge to make them carbon neutral to avoid climate change. However, it will also be critically important to make them climate proof to ensure that they are resilient to future climate change. This is the key conclusion of a literature review published in Nature Energy, analyzing 220 peer-reviewed articles. Climate proofing of energy systems is becoming more important as energy systems are expected to become more sensitive to climate change.
Over the last few years, the number of articles looking at the possible impacts of climate change on energy systems has increased substantially. However, a comprehensive understanding of the potential impacts of climate change on energy systems, particularly at regional and global scales, was lacking. Now, an extensive review was published in Nature Energy analyzing the results of 220 articles. The research was led by Utrecht University with contributions of research teams worldwide, including those from the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology.
A substantial body of literature has focused on climate impacts on cooling and heating energy demand. While heating energy demand is expected to decrease (possibly by up to 20% worldwide), cooling demand is expected to increase substantially (possibly by over 30%). This could also lead to very different seasonal and daily patterns for energy demand.
On energy supply, most articles focus on possible impacts on renewable energy (mostly hydro and wind power). An important motivation is that an increasing share of renewable energy will make future energy systems also more sensitive to climate change. Most studies project (small) decreases in hydropower and thermal energy at the global scale. For other energy resources, results are much more mixed. Impacts at the regional scale are still relatively uncertain, but strongest impacts are reported for South Asia and Latin America.
Dr. Seleshi Yalew (the main author of the study, now working at Delft University of Technology) says that, as the review highlights, the field is still not well developed: studies still use a wide range of different methods, assumptions, and data sources. For a more comprehensive assessments of climate impacts, more consistent multi-model assessments on consequences of potential climate changes are needed for energy planning.
Explore further Uncertain climate future could disrupt energy systems
More information: Seleshi G. Yalew et al. Impacts of climate change on energy systems in global and regional scenarios, Nature Energy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-020-0664-z
Journal information: Nature Energy
Provided by Delft University of Technology
TikTok’s Top U.S. Competitor ... Is Also Chinese-Owned
John Koetsier Senior Contributor Consumer Tech
John Koetsier is a journalist, analyst, author, and speaker.
Likee has more new app installs over the last six months than Triller, Dubsmash, and Byte. APPTOPIA
President Trump wants to ban TikTok in the U.S., but he’ll consider allowing a U.S. company to purchase it. As long as, in a novel twist, the U.S. government gets a cut. Meanwhile, U.S.-owned Triller is positioning itself as the biggest beneficiary to India’s TikTok ban, with 40 million new installs, and by extension, the likely winner of an American ban.
But in this latest episode of Meet the Kardashians, White House edition, they’re all potentially being played.
Because the fastest-growing non-TikTok short-form video entertainment app is also Chinese-owned. Economic and trade policy, meet Whack-A-Mole.
“What you think you know is that if TikTok gets banned in the US, Triller, Byte, or Dubsmash may take over as the primary/preferred short-form video social networking app,” says app analytics firm Apptopia’s Adam Blacker. “Though neither of those is the current leader in the clubhouse as the top competitor to TikTok in the world, or the United States.”
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The top non-TikTok short-form video social entertainment apps, including Likee, Triller, Byte, and ... [+] APPTOPIA
Instead, Tiktok’s current top competitor is Likee. And it’s massively outpacing its perhaps better-known (in the press) competitors. In the past six months, Likee has more than twice as many app installs in the U.S. as the next leading contender, Triller.
Likee: 7.25 million installs
Triller: just under 3 million
Dubsmash: just under 2 million
Byte: 1.75 million
Even more telling, Likee has more more daily active users — a key measure of an app’s health and ability to keep users engaged — than all three combined.
And yes, Likee is owned by a China-based company.
“Likee is a very similar app to TikTok with very similar content,” Blacker says. “It’s published by BIGO Technology, which is owned by Joyy. Joyy is a company based in China that is competitive with Bytedance and it trades on the NASDAQ under ticker YY.”
Which brings up a point.
Kids are going to go where they want to go, both online and in apps. And things change quickly in mobile. While TikTok is by far the giant of the category right now — 47.46 million app installs in the same six months as the others above — that could change quickly. Very quickly of course, with a ban, but also somewhat quickly even without a ban.
Which does make you wonder what policy might be best for banning apps or forcing foreign companies to divest properties.
To be clear, there are reasonable motives for regulating Chinese — or other foreign countries — activities in the the U.S. After all, U.S. companies do not enjoy anything like free access to China ... just ask Google, or Amazon, or Microsoft. Trade and foreign relations are often, therefore, tit-for-tat.
But a more reasoned and holistic approach might be appropriate.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.
John Koetsier
I forecast and analyze trends affecting the mobile ecosystem. I've been a journalist, analyst, and corporate executive, and have chronicled the rise of the mobile economy. I built the VB Insight research team at VentureBeat and managed teams creating software for partners like Intel and Disney. In addition, I've led technical teams, built social sites and mobile apps, and consulted on mobile, social, and IoT. In 2014, I was named to Folio's top 100 of the media industry's "most innovative entrepreneurs and market shaker-uppers.”I live in Vancouver, Canada with my family, where I coach baseball and hockey, though not at the same time.
Consumers don't fully trust smart home technologies
Smart home technologies are marketed to enhance your home and make life easier. However, UK consumers are not convinced that they can trust the privacy and security of these technologies, a study by WMG, University of Warwick has shown.
\The 'smart home' can be defined as the integration of Internet-enabled, digital devices with sensors and machine learning in the home. The aim of smart home devices is to provide enhanced entertainment services, easier management of the home, domestic chores and protection from domestic risks. They can be found in devices such as smart speakers and hubs, lighting, sensors, door locks and cameras, central heating thermostats and domestic appliances.
To better understand consumer's perceptions of the desirability of the smart home, researchers from WMG and Computer Science, University of Warwick have carried out a nationally representative survey of UK consumers designed to measure adoption and acceptability, focusing on awareness, ownership, experience, trust, satisfaction and intention to use.
The article, "Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK," published in PLOS ONE, reveals their results, with the main finding that the business proposal of added meaning and value has not yet achieved closure from consumers, as they have highlighted concern for risks to privacy and security.
Researchers sent 2101 participants a survey, with questions to assess:
- Awareness of the Internet of Things (IoT)
- Current ownership of smart home devices
- Experiences of their use of smart home devices
- Trust in the reliability and competence of the devices
- Trust in privacy
- Trust in security
- Satisfaction and intention to use the devices in the future, and intention to recommend it to others
The findings suggest consumers had anxiety about the likelihood of a security incident, as overall people tend to mildly agree that they are likely to risk privacy as well as security breach when using smart home devices, in other words they are unconvinced that their privacy and security will not be at risk when they use smart home devices.
It also emerged that when asked to evaluate the impact of a privacy breach people tend to disagree that its impact will be low, suggesting they expect the impact of a privacy breach to be significant. This emerges as a prominent factor influencing whether or not they would adopt smart home technology, furthermore making it less likely.
Other interesting results highlight:
- More females than males have adopted smart home devices over the last year, possibly as they tend to run the house and find the technology helpful
- Young people ages 18-24) were the earliest adopters of smart home technology, however older people (ages 65+) also adopted it early, possibly as they have more disposable income and less responsibilities – e.g. no mortgage, no dependent children
- People aged 65 and over are less willing to use smart home devices in case of unauthorised data collection compared to younger people, indicating younger people are less aware of privacy breaches
- Less well-educated people are the least interested in using smart home devices in the future, and that these might constitute market segments that will be lost to smart home adoption, unless their concerns are specifically addressed and targeted by policymakers and businesses.
Dr. Sara Cannizzaro from WMG, University of Warwick says, "Our study underlines how businesses and policymakers will need to work together to act on the sociotechnical affordances of smart home technology in order to increase consumers' trust. This intervention is necessary if barriers to adoption and acceptability of the smart home are to be addressed now and in the future.
"Proof of cybersecurity and low risk to privacy breaches will be key in smart home technology companies persuading a number of consumers to invest in their technology."
Professor Rob Procter, from the Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, says, "Businesses are still actively promoting positive visions of what the smart home means for consumers (e.g., convenience, economy, home security)… However, at the same time, as we see from our survey results, consumers are actively comparing their interactional experiences against these visions and are coming up with different interpretations and meanings from those that businesses are trying to promote."Researchers find ways of securing 'internet of things' security problems in the smart home
More information: Sara Cannizzaro et al. Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK, PLOS ONE (2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.023161
Computers on verge of designing their own programs
Computer programmers may soon design the ultimate program: A program that designs programs.
Last week, a team led by Justin Gottschlich, director of the machine programming research group at Intel, announced the creation of a new machine learning system that designs its own code. They call the system MISIM, Machine Inferred Code Similarity.
Gottschlich explained, "Intel's ultimate goal for machine programming is to democratize the creation of software. When fully realized, machine programming will enable everyone to create software by expressing their intention in whatever fashion that's best for them, whether that's code, natural language or something else. That's an audacious goal, and while there's much more work to be done, MISIM is a solid step toward it."
The system analyzes a snippet of code and, because it can "understand" what the code is trying to accomplish, it seeks out code from its repository and searches for code designed for similar tasks. It can then offer suggestions for faster or more effective coding to achieve the same task.
John Carmack, the brilliant computer programmer responsible for such games as Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom, and Quake, recently observed that despite so much progress in numerous areas of machine programming, the field of automatic computer-generated code had not always been a priority.
"I used to say that AI research seemed to have an odd blind spot towards automation of programming work, and I suspected a subconscious self-preservation bias. The recent, almost accidental, discovery that GPT-3 can sort of write code does generate a slight shiver."
He was referring to the recently unveiled Generative Pretrained Transformer 3—GPT-3 for short—that, like MISIM, has successfully created code in multiple programming languages. The artificial intelligence laboratory OpenAI has been making significant inroads with machine learning models such as GPT-3. It was trained with a repository of 175 billion parameters and is capable of generating code from simple non-technical instructions. Instructed to design "a button that looks like a watermelon," for example, GPT-3 generated HTML code for a web page presentation, complete with an interactive watermelon prompt.
GPT-3's capacity to write in numerous programming languages is of particular interest to institutions relying on aging computer systems built on programming that is nearly obsolete. Some U.S. government agencies have computer systems designed decades ago.
The team behind MISIM includes researchers from Intel, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
MISIM is not the first system to compare code snippets, but its creators say its accuracy rate was up to 40 times that of its nearest competitors.
Veselin Raychev, CTO at the Swiss-based company DeepCode, said that machine learning poses an exciting step forward in streamlining tremendously time-consuming bug-detection processes. DeepCode specializes in advanced bug-detection software. But, Raychev says, machine learning generates too many false positives.
"Practically they're not there yet," he said, "by a very big margin."
One reason for false positives is that AI is not good at spotting bugs unless they have been defined as such. But the MISIM system does not rely on such definitions. Instead, by comparing a new program with code previously established as correct, it can raise a flag when significant differences, which could be errors, are detected.
As MISIM matures and broadens its ability to translate plain English instructions into programming code, Gottschlich says, everyone will be able to design their own programs.
"Building little apps for your phone, or things like that that will help your everyday life—I think those are not too far off," Gottschlich said. "I would like to see 8 billion people create software in whatever way is most natural for them."
Explore further
Why more software development needs to go to the machines
More information: newsroom.intel.com/news/intel- … ty-system/#gs.bwmxoe
singularityhub.com/2020/08/02/ … -can-write-software/
© 2020 Science X Network
what could possibly go wrong?!
by Peter Grad , Tech Xplore
by Peter Grad , Tech Xplore
Computer programmers may soon design the ultimate program: A program that designs programs.
Last week, a team led by Justin Gottschlich, director of the machine programming research group at Intel, announced the creation of a new machine learning system that designs its own code. They call the system MISIM, Machine Inferred Code Similarity.
Gottschlich explained, "Intel's ultimate goal for machine programming is to democratize the creation of software. When fully realized, machine programming will enable everyone to create software by expressing their intention in whatever fashion that's best for them, whether that's code, natural language or something else. That's an audacious goal, and while there's much more work to be done, MISIM is a solid step toward it."
The system analyzes a snippet of code and, because it can "understand" what the code is trying to accomplish, it seeks out code from its repository and searches for code designed for similar tasks. It can then offer suggestions for faster or more effective coding to achieve the same task.
John Carmack, the brilliant computer programmer responsible for such games as Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom, and Quake, recently observed that despite so much progress in numerous areas of machine programming, the field of automatic computer-generated code had not always been a priority.
"I used to say that AI research seemed to have an odd blind spot towards automation of programming work, and I suspected a subconscious self-preservation bias. The recent, almost accidental, discovery that GPT-3 can sort of write code does generate a slight shiver."
He was referring to the recently unveiled Generative Pretrained Transformer 3—GPT-3 for short—that, like MISIM, has successfully created code in multiple programming languages. The artificial intelligence laboratory OpenAI has been making significant inroads with machine learning models such as GPT-3. It was trained with a repository of 175 billion parameters and is capable of generating code from simple non-technical instructions. Instructed to design "a button that looks like a watermelon," for example, GPT-3 generated HTML code for a web page presentation, complete with an interactive watermelon prompt.
GPT-3's capacity to write in numerous programming languages is of particular interest to institutions relying on aging computer systems built on programming that is nearly obsolete. Some U.S. government agencies have computer systems designed decades ago.
The team behind MISIM includes researchers from Intel, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
MISIM is not the first system to compare code snippets, but its creators say its accuracy rate was up to 40 times that of its nearest competitors.
Veselin Raychev, CTO at the Swiss-based company DeepCode, said that machine learning poses an exciting step forward in streamlining tremendously time-consuming bug-detection processes. DeepCode specializes in advanced bug-detection software. But, Raychev says, machine learning generates too many false positives.
"Practically they're not there yet," he said, "by a very big margin."
One reason for false positives is that AI is not good at spotting bugs unless they have been defined as such. But the MISIM system does not rely on such definitions. Instead, by comparing a new program with code previously established as correct, it can raise a flag when significant differences, which could be errors, are detected.
As MISIM matures and broadens its ability to translate plain English instructions into programming code, Gottschlich says, everyone will be able to design their own programs.
"Building little apps for your phone, or things like that that will help your everyday life—I think those are not too far off," Gottschlich said. "I would like to see 8 billion people create software in whatever way is most natural for them."
Explore further
Why more software development needs to go to the machines
More information: newsroom.intel.com/news/intel- … ty-system/#gs.bwmxoe
singularityhub.com/2020/08/02/ … -can-write-software/
© 2020 Science X Network
Microsoft could be 'white knight' for TikTok—or fall flat
A deal allowing Microsoft to buy social media phenomenon TikTok could be transformative for the US tech giant's efforts to become more consumer-focused— if it can overcome the business and political risks.
Microsoft appeared to be in position to acquire the Chinese-owned app which is under national security review, after President Donald Trump said he would approve such a tie-up if completed by mid-September.
Buying TikTok could make Microsoft a hipper, more youth-focused company after years of shifting to enterprise services and cloud computing, say analysts.
Microsoft has had limited success in social media, although it did acquire the business-focused network LinkedIn.
Debra Aho Williamson, an eMarketer analyst, said Microsoft has long had ambitions for consumer networks and even sought to acquire Facebook at an early stage.
"Getting TikTok would give it another chance to get in on a fast-growing, youth-oriented social media property and be a way to try to get back at Facebook for spurning its advances," she said in a research note.
Williamson said TikTok could help Microsoft boost its position in digital advertising while noting that "it's just potential at this point. TikTok is very early in the development of its ad business, and there's no guarantee that it will attract a large share of ad dollars."
President Donald Trump had threatened to ban TikTok, then indicated he would approve a deal selling the video-sharing app to Microsoft or another US firm by September 15
Daniel Ives at Wedbush Securities said TikTok could be a golden opportunity for Microsoft, with the current value appearing to be around $40 billion but which "could reach a valuation in the $200 billion area code given the steep user and engagement trajectory of TikTok."
Ives said in a research note that Microsoft "would be making an aggressive bet to transform its consumer strategy with a major social media bet."
Analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates said he was skeptical of a Microsoft-TikTok marriage that would put the US firm in unfamiliar territory.
"Microsoft frankly has never been all that good at running a consumer-focused social network, they've tried it before," Gold said.
Gold said the monetization outlook for TikTok is still murky and that Microsoft has had difficulties in the digital ad sector.
"Most of the (TikTok) users are kids—what does Microsoft want with that group?" Gold said. "I don't understand the synergies."
It is possible that "Microsoft is doing the government a favor by pickup up TikTok," according to Gold, who added that "it's also a defense move against Google or Facebook acquiring TikTok."
The talks on splitting TikTok from its Chinese parent ByteDance come amid rising US-China tensions and increasing fears voiced by US officials and lawmakers that the social platform could be used for espionage, despite repeated denials by the company of any links to the Beijing government.
The moves also come with Washington stepping up scrutiny of Big Tech firms for dominating key sectors of the economy, raising the prospect of potential breakups or spinoffs of some of the major companies.
Chinese counters?
A deal that gives TikTok to Microsoft or another US firm could also inflame tensions with China which are already high in light of the Trump administration's ban on Chinese-based Huawei and other issues.
The Chinese government pushed back at Trump's move on TikTok this week, calling it "outright bullying" and counter to World Trade Organization "principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination."
"There are a lot of angry people in China," Gold said. "TikTok is a big success story—the Chinese see this as world-class and a success story."
If Microsoft buys TikTok, "there will be a backlash," Gold added. "It could be from the government, or it could be boycotts. The company (Microsoft) won't be seen very nicely in the eyes of the Chinese."Microsoft confirms talks seeking to buy US arm of TikTok
© 2020 AFP
Supporters of religious violence are more likely to claim they’re familiar with religious concepts that don’t exist
2020/8/4 ©PsyPost
Individuals who claim knowledge of fake religious concepts are more supportive of religious aggression, while individuals with accurate religious knowledge are less supportive, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
“Although many quote the Christian Bible, few have read it. Thus, religious books are often incorrectly cited or cited in a way that serves personal prejudices and/or distorted worldviews,” said study author Daniel N. Jones, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada Reno.
“Not only do people ‘pick and choose’ the stories of a religious book to support their worldview, they inaccurately attribute messages and interpretations to that Holy Book. Thus, we wanted to determine the consequences of this tendency towards overconfidence in religious scripture.”
For their study, Jones and his colleagues recruited 409 American participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, 351 students from a university in Iran, and 209 individuals living on the Juarez/El Paso border region between Mexico and the United States.
The two American samples were provided with a list of stories, concepts, and people — and were told that they all appeared in the Christian Bible. The participants were then asked to indicate how familiar they were with each item. But many of the items on the list, such as The Army Seventeen and Soren’s Temple, did not actually appear in the Bible. The Iranian sample completed a similar task regarding concepts from the Quran.
The researchers found that those who claimed to be familiar with concepts that did not exist also tended to report being more supportive of religious aggression. In other words, individuals who claimed to have knowledge of fictitious religious concepts were more likely to agree with statements such as “I would shoot someone if I believed God wanted me to” and “The modern world needs a no mercy attitude toward the wicked.”
“Overconfidence in what you think God supports or what scripture says is toxic. Thus, humility is a critical feature that is needed to bring out the best and most benevolent aspects of religion,” Jones told PsyPost.
“Further, although overclaiming is toxic, actual religious knowledge (or admitting what you did not know) has the reverse effect such that it correlates with a peaceful disposition. In this way, knowing true vs. false stories in one’s Holy Book is associated with peaceful attitudes whereas claiming familiarity with false stories from one’s Holy Book is associated with violent attitudes.”
“It is important to note that all of these findings are similar in Islam (with the Quran) and Christianity (with the Bible). Muslim participants were peaceful when they were accurate in their knowledge of the Quran (or at least honest about what they did not know), and supported violence when they were overconfident in their knowledge of the Quran; identical findings emerged for Christian participants with the Bible,” Jones explained.
But there is still much to learn about the relationship between overclaiming religious knowledge and religious aggression.
“We still need to understand the mechanisms behind why these correlations emerge. In other words, we need to further research what exactly drives religious overclaiming and why religious overclaiming translates into violent attitudes,” Jones said.
“Further, we need to determine if these attitudes are merely supporting a violent agenda in the name of God, or if they actually predict real violent behavior. Finally, we need to know why religious accuracy predicts peaceful attitudes, and if indeed learning one’s Holy Book (accurately) can reduce violence and violent attitudes.”
“The idea for this study was partially inspired by the fantastic work of my PhD mentor, Del Paulhus, who generated the overclaiming technique,” Jones added.
“However, the impetus to further develop the idea emanated from a discussion I had with my mother. In a way, the origin of the idea was partially predicated on a bet with her. Origin notwithstanding, the outstanding team of researchers on this paper made tremendous contributions, and because of them, it became a far better paper.”
The study, “Religious Overclaiming and Support for Religious Aggression“, was authored by Daniel N. Jones, Adon L. Neria, Farzad A. Helm, Reza N. Sahlan, and Jessica R. Carre.
(Image by StockSnap from Pixabay)TrendMD v2.4.8
2020/8/4 ©PsyPost
Individuals who claim knowledge of fake religious concepts are more supportive of religious aggression, while individuals with accurate religious knowledge are less supportive, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
“Although many quote the Christian Bible, few have read it. Thus, religious books are often incorrectly cited or cited in a way that serves personal prejudices and/or distorted worldviews,” said study author Daniel N. Jones, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada Reno.
“Not only do people ‘pick and choose’ the stories of a religious book to support their worldview, they inaccurately attribute messages and interpretations to that Holy Book. Thus, we wanted to determine the consequences of this tendency towards overconfidence in religious scripture.”
For their study, Jones and his colleagues recruited 409 American participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, 351 students from a university in Iran, and 209 individuals living on the Juarez/El Paso border region between Mexico and the United States.
The two American samples were provided with a list of stories, concepts, and people — and were told that they all appeared in the Christian Bible. The participants were then asked to indicate how familiar they were with each item. But many of the items on the list, such as The Army Seventeen and Soren’s Temple, did not actually appear in the Bible. The Iranian sample completed a similar task regarding concepts from the Quran.
The researchers found that those who claimed to be familiar with concepts that did not exist also tended to report being more supportive of religious aggression. In other words, individuals who claimed to have knowledge of fictitious religious concepts were more likely to agree with statements such as “I would shoot someone if I believed God wanted me to” and “The modern world needs a no mercy attitude toward the wicked.”
“Overconfidence in what you think God supports or what scripture says is toxic. Thus, humility is a critical feature that is needed to bring out the best and most benevolent aspects of religion,” Jones told PsyPost.
“Further, although overclaiming is toxic, actual religious knowledge (or admitting what you did not know) has the reverse effect such that it correlates with a peaceful disposition. In this way, knowing true vs. false stories in one’s Holy Book is associated with peaceful attitudes whereas claiming familiarity with false stories from one’s Holy Book is associated with violent attitudes.”
“It is important to note that all of these findings are similar in Islam (with the Quran) and Christianity (with the Bible). Muslim participants were peaceful when they were accurate in their knowledge of the Quran (or at least honest about what they did not know), and supported violence when they were overconfident in their knowledge of the Quran; identical findings emerged for Christian participants with the Bible,” Jones explained.
But there is still much to learn about the relationship between overclaiming religious knowledge and religious aggression.
“We still need to understand the mechanisms behind why these correlations emerge. In other words, we need to further research what exactly drives religious overclaiming and why religious overclaiming translates into violent attitudes,” Jones said.
“Further, we need to determine if these attitudes are merely supporting a violent agenda in the name of God, or if they actually predict real violent behavior. Finally, we need to know why religious accuracy predicts peaceful attitudes, and if indeed learning one’s Holy Book (accurately) can reduce violence and violent attitudes.”
“The idea for this study was partially inspired by the fantastic work of my PhD mentor, Del Paulhus, who generated the overclaiming technique,” Jones added.
“However, the impetus to further develop the idea emanated from a discussion I had with my mother. In a way, the origin of the idea was partially predicated on a bet with her. Origin notwithstanding, the outstanding team of researchers on this paper made tremendous contributions, and because of them, it became a far better paper.”
The study, “Religious Overclaiming and Support for Religious Aggression“, was authored by Daniel N. Jones, Adon L. Neria, Farzad A. Helm, Reza N. Sahlan, and Jessica R. Carre.
(Image by StockSnap from Pixabay)TrendMD v2.4.8
WHY IT'S CALLED BUSINESS UNIONISM
Ohio UAW director accused of harassment resigns, avoiding union trial
2020/8/5
©Detroit Free Press
Ohio UAW director accused of harassment resigns, avoiding union trial
2020/8/5
©Detroit Free Press
UAW headquarters, also known as Solidarity House, on July 20, 2017, in Detroit. - Junfu Han/Detroit Free Press/TNS
A UAW regional director representing union members in Ohio and Indiana who had faced a possible union trial over harassment claims is resigning.
The news of Region 2B Director Rich Rankin’s resignation, which was effective immediately, as both regional director and a UAW employee was announced in a joint statement from the UAW and Rankin Tuesday afternoon. The union said it was withdrawing with prejudice the union charges under Article 30 of the UAW constitution, and Rankin did not admit wrongdoing.
“Director Rankin’s resignation was a personal decision and does not reflect an admission of any kind. Director Rankin is proud of the work that he has performed advocating for workplace rights of men and women in Region 2B over two decades in various UAW leadership positions. No Article 30 hearing will be held,” according to the statement sent by UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg.
Rankin, who had a gross salary of $179,430, according to a recent Labor Department filing, had previously been outspoken in his defense.
“I adamantly deny the baseless allegations of workplace harassment. I cooperated fully with the internal investigation conducted by the legal counsel hired the UAW. I have always supported the rights of workers to be free from workplace harassment. I am shocked and dismayed that the UAW Executive Board has decided to pursue Article 30 charges based upon a vague and unsubstantiated lawyer’s report accusing me of conduct that I did not commit,” he said previously in a statement.
The union said in March that the UAW International Executive Board was moving forward with Article 30 charges against Rankin — the only member of the board not to sign off on the charges — after a report substantiated workplace harassment allegations, which it did not detail.
The Free Press reported previously that the union hired a law firm to investigate allegations that Rankin sexually harassed two female union leaders.
Article 30 sets up rules for bringing charges and holding a union trial, and Rankin could have faced removal from office. Rankin was suspended at that time, with his region placed under the direction of the UAW International.
The UAW said Tuesday that the region has been under the direction of Assistant Director Wayne Blanchard and the UAW President’s Office, with Jeff Schrock as the liaison. The vacancy is to be filled in a regional delegate meeting.
Region 2B includes the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plant in Toledo, where the Jeep Wrangler is built.
Rankin had been director of Region 2B since June 2017, and he joined the UAW as a member of Local 1112 at General Motors in Lordstown, Ohio, in 1997, according to the UAW’s website.
———
©2020 Detroit Free Press
A UAW regional director representing union members in Ohio and Indiana who had faced a possible union trial over harassment claims is resigning.
The news of Region 2B Director Rich Rankin’s resignation, which was effective immediately, as both regional director and a UAW employee was announced in a joint statement from the UAW and Rankin Tuesday afternoon. The union said it was withdrawing with prejudice the union charges under Article 30 of the UAW constitution, and Rankin did not admit wrongdoing.
“Director Rankin’s resignation was a personal decision and does not reflect an admission of any kind. Director Rankin is proud of the work that he has performed advocating for workplace rights of men and women in Region 2B over two decades in various UAW leadership positions. No Article 30 hearing will be held,” according to the statement sent by UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg.
Rankin, who had a gross salary of $179,430, according to a recent Labor Department filing, had previously been outspoken in his defense.
“I adamantly deny the baseless allegations of workplace harassment. I cooperated fully with the internal investigation conducted by the legal counsel hired the UAW. I have always supported the rights of workers to be free from workplace harassment. I am shocked and dismayed that the UAW Executive Board has decided to pursue Article 30 charges based upon a vague and unsubstantiated lawyer’s report accusing me of conduct that I did not commit,” he said previously in a statement.
The union said in March that the UAW International Executive Board was moving forward with Article 30 charges against Rankin — the only member of the board not to sign off on the charges — after a report substantiated workplace harassment allegations, which it did not detail.
The Free Press reported previously that the union hired a law firm to investigate allegations that Rankin sexually harassed two female union leaders.
Article 30 sets up rules for bringing charges and holding a union trial, and Rankin could have faced removal from office. Rankin was suspended at that time, with his region placed under the direction of the UAW International.
The UAW said Tuesday that the region has been under the direction of Assistant Director Wayne Blanchard and the UAW President’s Office, with Jeff Schrock as the liaison. The vacancy is to be filled in a regional delegate meeting.
Region 2B includes the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plant in Toledo, where the Jeep Wrangler is built.
Rankin had been director of Region 2B since June 2017, and he joined the UAW as a member of Local 1112 at General Motors in Lordstown, Ohio, in 1997, according to the UAW’s website.
———
©2020 Detroit Free Press
“Trading Can Be Profitable but Vaccines Are Not”: How Boom-Bust Vaccine Speculation Kneecapped the U.S. Coronavirus Response
Executives at Moderna, a leading contender for a COVID-19 vaccine, have pocketed millions, and the value of biotech companies has exploded. “People feel they can take risks,” says one expert—but for some it could all come crashing down.
BY JESSICA CAMILLE AGUIRRE JULY 30, 2020
Executives at Moderna, a leading contender for a COVID-19 vaccine, have pocketed millions, and the value of biotech companies has exploded. “People feel they can take risks,” says one expert—but for some it could all come crashing down.
BY JESSICA CAMILLE AGUIRRE JULY 30, 2020
GETTY IMAGES.
One early morning in mid-May, biotech company Moderna announced preliminary results from its Phase I test of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, and its stock value soared. A relatively young company focused on developing technology to use genetic material to cure or prevent disease, Moderna hasn’t yet brought any of its products to market. Nevertheless, it is overseeing multiple trials for a potential vaccine and its chief executive, Stepháne Bancel, was one of the first at the forefront of the crisis.
For its prescience and unique approach, the company has been hailed as one of the most promising among those working on a COVID-19 vaccine. The May announcement, though, was unorthodox. It came in the form of a press release instead of the typical publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It was followed, hours later, by an announcement that the company would aim to raise about $1.3 billion by selling more than 17 million additional shares of stock. Two days later Bancel sold some of his shares in the company, pocketing $1.2 million.
Executives at Moderna, it turned out, had reportedly sold $89 million in shares since January. When news of the sales got out, Moderna stock sunk, and one analyst called for an SEC investigation. It was later reported that the sales had been scheduled in advance. As for the release’s timing, Moderna chief corporate affairs officer Ray Jordan said the company published results because of comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the cochair of the White House’s coronavirus vaccine project, Moncef Slaoui—who had to drop millions in Moderna stock and step back from its board when he took the program’s helm. “Both Tony Fauci and Moncef had mentioned, you know, good-looking data,” Jordan said.
In some ways, the story of Moderna—including its reported more than 300% jump in stock price since the start of the year, and its $30 billion valuation despite having zero product on the market—perfectly exemplifies the pitfalls of private vaccine investing. There’s a lot of expectation, a lot of risk, and not a huge amount of clarity about the payoff. Although Moderna’s vaccine looks promising, and launched Phase III of its clinical trial earlier this week, there’s no guarantee it will reach the market. As Citron Research, the platform of activist short seller Andrew Left, tweeted: “trading can be profitable but vaccines are not.”
“If you look at the investment side of this, the risk is so high that you’re investing in maybe 19 companies that will fail and one that’ll be your jackpot,” said Supriya Munshaw, a senior lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. “But the jackpot can only be if you have a cancer medication or something that you’re going to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So with vaccines, it baffles me. It’s not going to be that profitable.” Because investor interest wanes when the potential market for a vaccine peters out, much of the research needed for development is also subject to volatile financing. Companies working on coronaviruses during the MERS and SARS outbreaks still haven’t produced functional vaccines, which, had they existed, could have jump-started the process for COVID-19.
Right now, though, the proverbial iron is hot. According to data compiled by Equilar for the New York Times, insiders at 11 pharmaceutical companies sold shares worth more than $1 billion since March—often right after their companies made positive announcements about progress. Moderna’s is only one of the more than 165 COVID-19 vaccines currently in development, but it is among the handful of companies backed by the White House effort, Operation Warp Speed. The nearly $10 billion federal initiative also poured $1.6 billion into another biotech company, Novavax, that has yet to bring a product to market. Even companies not anointed by Operation Warp Speed have seen big bumps in their valuations on the private market. “I think it’s driven by speculation,” said Les Funtleyder, a portfolio manager at E Squared Capital Management. “The investment environment is benign enough that people feel they can take risks.”
Since the Moderna controversy, some of the leading companies developing COVID-19 vaccines have followed suit, presumably aiming to get in while the getting is good. Last week, Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech announced early positive results from their vaccine trials before the data had been peer-reviewed, days before it was announced that the U.S. government would pay Pfizer nearly $2 billion for the first 100 million doses of its vaccine, pending FDA approval. Just a few months into the pandemic, the value of the eight biotech companies in the S&P 500 had gone from $130 billion to $600 billion.
During previous coronavirus outbreaks, including the MERS outbreak in 2012 and SARS in 2003, investors made similar calls about some of the biotech companies researching potential vaccines and a few stocks soared, only to crumble again as it became clear that the viruses’ scale would be limited. Even when vaccines do reach the market, they don’t necessarily generate the kind of windfall that would make sticking around, as an investor, worth it. Ben Yeoh, a senior portfolio manager at RBC Global Asset Management, told me that the problem with vaccine pricing is a function of contradictory ideas about the value of saving a life, and perceptions around how accessible life-saving therapies should be. “Nobody cares that your iPhone 10 cost you a thousand dollars, right? Even though it doesn’t cost that much to make. Yet we worry that a drug costs a thousand dollars,” Yeoh said.
With COVID-19, the scale of the pandemic is such that it will likely keep investors making big bets on biotech companies for now, especially given the federal government’s outsize role in the market. While some investors are likely to stick around for the long-term research prospects, others have already reaped rewards—including the Moderna leadership. “It’s a little bit tough to argue with selling stock when you have a $30 billion market cap and no data,” Jefferies analyst Jared Holz told me, referring to the fact that Moderna’s May press release didn’t contain full data sets. “So this management team was probably being opportunistic and using the stock price to essentially take profit like any other investor would.”
Depending on how the virus itself develops, it could become lodged into the regular annual cycle of sickness, much like the flu. Moderna’s Jordan told me that the company is fully expecting that most of the first batches of any vaccine will be bought by governments, but if COVID-19 becomes a seasonal outbreak, he noted there may be potential to generate regular revenue.
Until then, the race for a COVID-19 vaccine has already made at least one newly minted billionaire. “All of the vaccine stocks have proven to be pretty profitable, since the onset of the pandemic,” Holz said. “Since early or mid-January of this year, there have been multiples made on all of these stocks so far.” Because the actual vaccine market will ultimately be beholden to ideas about fair pricing and the degree of government intervention, the best chance for many biotech companies to cash in on the vaccine race could end up being before a vaccine becomes available. If demand drops off, investors could flee as they did with previous outbreaks. “Human nature being what it is,” Funtleyder said, “the market can be a little bit fickle.”
For its prescience and unique approach, the company has been hailed as one of the most promising among those working on a COVID-19 vaccine. The May announcement, though, was unorthodox. It came in the form of a press release instead of the typical publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It was followed, hours later, by an announcement that the company would aim to raise about $1.3 billion by selling more than 17 million additional shares of stock. Two days later Bancel sold some of his shares in the company, pocketing $1.2 million.
Executives at Moderna, it turned out, had reportedly sold $89 million in shares since January. When news of the sales got out, Moderna stock sunk, and one analyst called for an SEC investigation. It was later reported that the sales had been scheduled in advance. As for the release’s timing, Moderna chief corporate affairs officer Ray Jordan said the company published results because of comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the cochair of the White House’s coronavirus vaccine project, Moncef Slaoui—who had to drop millions in Moderna stock and step back from its board when he took the program’s helm. “Both Tony Fauci and Moncef had mentioned, you know, good-looking data,” Jordan said.
In some ways, the story of Moderna—including its reported more than 300% jump in stock price since the start of the year, and its $30 billion valuation despite having zero product on the market—perfectly exemplifies the pitfalls of private vaccine investing. There’s a lot of expectation, a lot of risk, and not a huge amount of clarity about the payoff. Although Moderna’s vaccine looks promising, and launched Phase III of its clinical trial earlier this week, there’s no guarantee it will reach the market. As Citron Research, the platform of activist short seller Andrew Left, tweeted: “trading can be profitable but vaccines are not.”
“If you look at the investment side of this, the risk is so high that you’re investing in maybe 19 companies that will fail and one that’ll be your jackpot,” said Supriya Munshaw, a senior lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. “But the jackpot can only be if you have a cancer medication or something that you’re going to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So with vaccines, it baffles me. It’s not going to be that profitable.” Because investor interest wanes when the potential market for a vaccine peters out, much of the research needed for development is also subject to volatile financing. Companies working on coronaviruses during the MERS and SARS outbreaks still haven’t produced functional vaccines, which, had they existed, could have jump-started the process for COVID-19.
Right now, though, the proverbial iron is hot. According to data compiled by Equilar for the New York Times, insiders at 11 pharmaceutical companies sold shares worth more than $1 billion since March—often right after their companies made positive announcements about progress. Moderna’s is only one of the more than 165 COVID-19 vaccines currently in development, but it is among the handful of companies backed by the White House effort, Operation Warp Speed. The nearly $10 billion federal initiative also poured $1.6 billion into another biotech company, Novavax, that has yet to bring a product to market. Even companies not anointed by Operation Warp Speed have seen big bumps in their valuations on the private market. “I think it’s driven by speculation,” said Les Funtleyder, a portfolio manager at E Squared Capital Management. “The investment environment is benign enough that people feel they can take risks.”
Since the Moderna controversy, some of the leading companies developing COVID-19 vaccines have followed suit, presumably aiming to get in while the getting is good. Last week, Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech announced early positive results from their vaccine trials before the data had been peer-reviewed, days before it was announced that the U.S. government would pay Pfizer nearly $2 billion for the first 100 million doses of its vaccine, pending FDA approval. Just a few months into the pandemic, the value of the eight biotech companies in the S&P 500 had gone from $130 billion to $600 billion.
During previous coronavirus outbreaks, including the MERS outbreak in 2012 and SARS in 2003, investors made similar calls about some of the biotech companies researching potential vaccines and a few stocks soared, only to crumble again as it became clear that the viruses’ scale would be limited. Even when vaccines do reach the market, they don’t necessarily generate the kind of windfall that would make sticking around, as an investor, worth it. Ben Yeoh, a senior portfolio manager at RBC Global Asset Management, told me that the problem with vaccine pricing is a function of contradictory ideas about the value of saving a life, and perceptions around how accessible life-saving therapies should be. “Nobody cares that your iPhone 10 cost you a thousand dollars, right? Even though it doesn’t cost that much to make. Yet we worry that a drug costs a thousand dollars,” Yeoh said.
With COVID-19, the scale of the pandemic is such that it will likely keep investors making big bets on biotech companies for now, especially given the federal government’s outsize role in the market. While some investors are likely to stick around for the long-term research prospects, others have already reaped rewards—including the Moderna leadership. “It’s a little bit tough to argue with selling stock when you have a $30 billion market cap and no data,” Jefferies analyst Jared Holz told me, referring to the fact that Moderna’s May press release didn’t contain full data sets. “So this management team was probably being opportunistic and using the stock price to essentially take profit like any other investor would.”
Depending on how the virus itself develops, it could become lodged into the regular annual cycle of sickness, much like the flu. Moderna’s Jordan told me that the company is fully expecting that most of the first batches of any vaccine will be bought by governments, but if COVID-19 becomes a seasonal outbreak, he noted there may be potential to generate regular revenue.
Until then, the race for a COVID-19 vaccine has already made at least one newly minted billionaire. “All of the vaccine stocks have proven to be pretty profitable, since the onset of the pandemic,” Holz said. “Since early or mid-January of this year, there have been multiples made on all of these stocks so far.” Because the actual vaccine market will ultimately be beholden to ideas about fair pricing and the degree of government intervention, the best chance for many biotech companies to cash in on the vaccine race could end up being before a vaccine becomes available. If demand drops off, investors could flee as they did with previous outbreaks. “Human nature being what it is,” Funtleyder said, “the market can be a little bit fickle.”
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