FOR PROFIT CARE

Assisted-care facility executives charged in 14 deaths from COVID-19 outbreak

By Joe Fisher

COVID-19 is especially dangerous for older people, even if they are vaccinated (like those in L.A. in 2020, pictured). Despite the risks, though, an assisted-care facility in Los Angeles is accused of taking in a patient from New York City in March 2020 without testing them for COVID-19. New York City healthcare facilities were in the throes of a rampant COVID-19 outbreak at the time. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

March 14 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles County prosecutor has announced charges against three executives of an assisted-care facility for a COVID-19 outbreak that led to the deaths of 14 people, including 13 residents.

In a press release Tuesday, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced charges against Jason Russo, Kimberly Butrum, and Loren Shook of Silverado Senior Living Management. They are charged with 13 felony counts of elder endangerment and five felony counts of violations causing death.

The facility is accused of taking in a patient from New York City in March 2020 without testing them for COVID-19. New York City healthcare facilities were in the throes of a rampant COVID-19 outbreak at the time.

After being admitted, the patient allegedly began displaying symptoms of COVID-19 infection and then tested positive, yet they were not quarantined from other residents. The facility is also accused of not prohibiting the entry of visitors who had traveled to places where COVID-19 was reported during the previous 14 days

ABC 7 Los Angeles reports that more than 100 residents were infected. At least 60 were residents and 45 were employees. One of those who died was an employee at the facility.

Gascon launched an investigation into the facility after the death of the employee, who ABC News identified as 32-year-old Brittany Ringo. She allegedly was ordered to admit the patient from New York City, who had arrived directly from the airport. She then tested positive on March 25 and died less than a month later.

"The investigation revealed that the Silverado management team was aware of the risks associated with admitting a new resident from a high-risk area and failed to follow the appropriate procedures to protect their employees and the vulnerable people in their care," Gascon said in a statement.

"These careless decisions created conditions that needlessly exposed Silverado staff and its residents to serious injury and -- tragically -- death."

FOR PROFIT HEALTHCARE
Most medical debt in America is owed to hospitals

By Cara Murez, HealthDay News

Photo by Romy/Pixabay

When Americans have medical debt, it's typically to a hospital, according to new research.

The Urban Institute found that more than 15% of non-elderly adults in the United States have past-due medical debt. Nearly 73% owe some or all of that money to hospitals.

"These findings highlight the persistent challenge of medical debt in America, and the role of hospitals as a key source of that debt," said Michael Karpman, Urban Institute principal research associate.

"Understanding the experiences of people with past-due medical bills can inform discussions around new consumer protections to alleviate debt burdens," he added in an institute news release.

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Data came from the Urban Institute's Health Reform Monitoring Survey of adults aged 18 to 64 in June 2022.

Although federal regulations stipulate that nonprofit hospitals must provide charity care and other community benefits, these organizations determine their own charity eligibility criteria. Financial assistance policies are often difficult to find and understand, the investigators noted.

About 60% of U.S. hospitals are nonprofit organizations. For-profit hospitals are exempt from these consumer protections.

RELATED Pandemic funding eased medical debt for many Americans

The survey also found that about 28% of adults with past-due medical debt owe all of their debt to hospitals. About 45% owe their debt to hospitals and other providers.

More than 20% owe at least $5,000 and most owe at least $1,000. Adults with past-due hospital bills were more likely to have much higher total amounts of medical debt than adults with only debt from non-hospital providers, according to the survey.

Almost 61% had been contacted by a collection agency.

RELATED More Americans with employer-sponsored insurance can't afford healthcare

Those who had incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level ($57,575 for a family of three) were no more likely to avoid being referred to debt collection or receive discounted care when compared to higher-income earners, the findings showed.

"High rates of medical debt underscore the challenges millions of families and adults -- especially families and adults struggling to make ends meet -- face trying to pay their medical bills," said Gina Hijjawi, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"We see that individuals with disabilities, and Black and Latino adults are disproportionately represented among adults carrying past-due medical debt. Consumers need standards in place that protect them from undue medical debt and help them obtain affordable care," she added.

The research was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

More information

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has more on medical debt.

Copyright © 2023 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

RACIST MEDICINE U$A
More Black patients die of pulmonary fibrosis at younger ages

By Cara Murez, HealthDay News

Black patients with pulmonary fibrosis were consistently younger at the time of their first hospitalization, lung transplant and death, a recent study showed. Photo by Thomas G./Pixabay

Black patients are dying of pulmonary fibrosis, a devastating disease marked by progressive scarring of the lungs, at significantly younger ages than White patients.

A new study probes factors contributing to earlier onset of disease, hospitalization and death in Black patients.

The disease involves a thickening and scarring of lung tissue, making it hard to breathe. It could come from exposure to toxins, medications or autoimmune disorders. About half of patients die within five years of a pulmonary fibrosis diagnosis.

"Pulmonary fibrosis is a deadly disease, and people are often diagnosed right around the time they retire," said lead author Dr. Ayodeji Adegunsoye, assistant professor of medicine at University of Chicago Medical Center.

RELATED Black, Hispanic, publicly insured patients get shorter primary care visits

"You can imagine how devastating it would be, to work diligently all your life and then as you are about to retire, you're diagnosed with a disease with a life expectancy of around three years," he said in a center news release.
The researchers looked at data from four U.S. hospitals, following outcomes of more than 4,500 patients between January 2003 and April 2021.

On average, Black patients were diagnosed at 57.9 years of age, White patients at 68.6.

RELATED Black, Hispanic patients less likely to be treated for complications of stroke

Black patients were more likely to be female and more likely to be hospitalized than White and Hispanic patients, researchers found. Black patients were consistently younger at the time of their first hospitalization, lung transplant and death.

Adegunsoye said his work with patients on Chicago's impoverished South Side prompted the study.

"This disease has no clear cause and no cure, but it is not a cancer; the poor prognosis made me wonder if Black patients are as affected by this disease as Whites, and whether or not they experienced different outcomes," Adegunsoye said. "And we saw that Black patients' experience with the disease is accelerated by about 10 years."

The disparities may be linked to lifestyle and socioeconomic factors that put Black patients at higher risk, according to the study.

"For example, Black people are more likely to live along transit corridors, exposing them to more air pollution," Adegunsoye said. "They're also more likely to be underinsured or uninsured. Being Black is not the health risk; it's the environmental and societal factors that make it difficult for Black patients to access high-quality care."

Risk factors for the disease include air pollution, jobs in which there is a higher risk of inhaling particulate matter and smoking.

Adegunsoye called the findings so profound that everyone should be screened earlier for the disease, especially those who have risk factors.

"If you can pick up the disease sooner, the outcomes will improve," he said. "We know more about the disease now than we did even 10 years ago, and while there is no cure, there are treatments available -- some of them are as simple as changing your environment or wearing a mask to reduce environmental exposure, but there are also drugs that can slow the progression of the disease."

While not all coughs are a sign of pulmonary fibrosis, patients and their care teams need to evaluate symptoms carefully, he said.

His team is now investigating the role of molecular mechanisms and environmental exposures play in the racial disparities.

Understanding how pollution, diet and stress can alter human biology may help clarify why and how certain patients end up with pulmonary fibrosis, researchers said.

They are also investigating whether having COVID-19 adds to pulmonary fibrosis risk.

Adegunsoye said he simply wants patients to get what they need when they need it, including information about how protecting their lungs from pollutants and irritants is an easy way to preventing many types of pulmonary fibrosis.

"Something as simple as wearing a mask if you're working in a refinery or factory could help," he said. "People should understand that breathing clean air, as simple as it sounds, can make a huge difference."

Study findings were published recently in JAMA Network Open.

More information

The American Lung Association has more on pulmonary fibrosis.

Copyright © 2023 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

CRYPTO CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
FTX transferred $3.2 billion to Bankman-Fried, documents show

Story by Investing.com • By Geoffrey Smith

FTX transferred $3.2 billion to Bankman-Fried, documents show

© Provided by ca.investing.com

Investing.com -- FTX transferred over $3 billion to founder Sam Bankman-Fried and his inner circle before its collapse in November, according to a statement issued by the bankrupt exchange's administrators late on Wednesday.

FTX Trading Ltd. issued late on Wednesday what are known as Schedules of Assets and Liabilities and Statements of Financial Affairs (the "Schedules and SOFAs") for all of the entities involved in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The 'Schedules and SOFAs' filed describe $3.2 billion in payments and loans to founders, chiefly from Alameda Research the hedge fund which FTX vainly tried to keep afloat as its bets on cryptocurrency went wrong last year.


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The payments included $2.2B to Sam Bankman-Fried himself, around $587M to Nishad Singh, $246M to Gary Wang and $6M to Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried's sometime girlfriend, whom he installed as CEO of Alameda.

All of the above except Bankman-Fried have already pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, and are likely to receive more lenient sentences in exchange for cooperation in the prosecution of Bankman-Fried.

The new management of FTX, under John J. Ray, noted that this didn't include $240M spent to buy luxury property in the Bahamas, or the millions paid in political donations by Bankman-Fried and others in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"Although some of the property purchased with the proceeds of these transfers is already in the control of the FTX Debtors or governmental authorities with whom the FTX Debtors are cooperating, the amount and timing of eventual monetary recoveries cannot be predicted at this time," the statement said.

Two other senior executives, Sam Trabucco and Ryan Salame, received $25M and $87M, respectively, the SOFAs showed.

Brazilian researchers find ‘terrifying’ plastic rocks on remote island

Story by Reuters • 

The geology of Brazil’s volcanic Trindade Island has fascinated scientists for years, but the discovery of rocks made from plastic debris in this remote turtle refuge is sparking alarm.

Melted plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the island, located 1,140 km (708 miles) from the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, which researchers say is evidence of humans’ growing influence over the earth’s geological cycles.

“This is new and terrifying at the same time, because pollution has reached geology,” said Fernanda Avelar Santos, a geologist at the Federal University of Parana.

Santos and her team ran chemical tests to find out what kind of plastics are in the rocks called “plastiglomerates” because they are made of a mixture of sedimentary granules and other debris held together by plastic.

“We identified (the pollution) mainly comes from fishing nets, which is very common debris on Trinidade Island’s beaches,” Santos said. “The (nets) are dragged by the marine currents and accumulate on the beach. When the temperature rises, this plastic melts and becomes embedded with the beach’s natural material.”


Brazilian researchers find ‘terrifying’ plastic rocks on remote island

Melted plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the island. 

- Rodolfo Buhrer/Reuters

Trindade Island is one of the world’s most important conservation spots for green turtles, or Chelonia mydas, with thousands arriving each year to lay their eggs. The only human inhabitants on Trindade are members of the Brazilian navy, which maintains a base on the island and protects the nesting turtles.

“The place where we found these samples (of plastic) is a permanently preserved area in Brazil, near the place green turtles lay their eggs,” Santos said.

The discovery stirs questions about humans’ legacy on the earth, says Santos.

“We talk so much about the Anthropocene, and this is it,” Santos said, referring to a proposed geological epoch defined by humans’ impact on the planet’s geology and ecosystems.

“The pollution, the garbage in the sea and the plastic dumped incorrectly in the oceans is becoming geological material … preserved in the earth’s geological records.”

Advocates push for gender surgery funding within Alberta amid years-long backlog in Montreal

Story by Katarina Szulc • 2h ago

For most transgender Albertans, genital surgery procedures are usually done at a private clinic in Montreal and paid for by the Alberta government.


Statistics Canada shows Alberta's transgender population tops the national average, despite only offering out of province gender affirming surgeries.

© Peter Evans/CBC News

But for those not willing to hop on the four-year waiting list or who might prefer a different procedure method to the one offered at the Centre Métropolitain de Chirurgie, their options are limited and expensive.

Albertans getting surgery within the province or internationally have to pay out of pocket for costs upwards of $20,000. Advocates say in-province surgery should be funded by the provincial government to increase accessibility.

Donna Battaglia, 54, was overdue for a procedure to remove her bladder and scrotum, which were damaged by cancer treatments.

During a consultation, she mentioned to her surgeon that she was desperate for bottom surgery.

Battaglia had already transitioned and had breast surgery but was left waiting for an operating date in Montreal. She also had been given the green light by two psychologists and received funding from Alberta's Gender Reassignment Surgery Program.

Although Alberta does not fund in-province bottom surgery or have specialized clinics for the procedure, there are qualified and trained doctors in the province who can perform it.

Battaglia's surgeon was one of them. He agreed to perform genital surgery along with her cancer correction surgery.

"Here we have the people and the skill and the talent to do it," Battaglia said.

The surgeon who performed Battaglia's genital surgery declined an interview.

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Expanding Medicare coverage for transgender community a group of
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Cathy Flood is a urogynecologist who specializes in bottom surgery recovery and most often treats patients who have had operations in Montreal.

She said having specialized clinics funded in Alberta would change the experience entirely.

"I feel like we could get a program going. We have the interest, we have the surgeons," Flood said. "But there has not been a push to get it done here from what I can see."

CBC News asked Alberta Health why the province does not have widespread genital surgery or dedicated clinics. Spokesperson Scott Johnston said genital surgery is "a specialized field and there are very few surgeons in Canada who perform this procedure."

Flood said the years-long wait time for people to get their surgeries in Montreal can take an immeasurable toll on their mental health, something Battaglia can attest to.

"For myself and most of the other people I know this is something that we needed to do or we were going to be dead," she said. "I came close to suicide twice over it."

So far, clinics that specialize in gender-affirming genital surgery are only in Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto. Montreal is the only location that accepts out-of-province patients.

Flood said her Edmonton-based clinic has seen over 300 patients who have had surgery in Montreal since 2018. She said those could have been surgeries done in the province.

But she also said the Centre Métropolitain de Chirurgie does not offer training to interested surgeons. That means if a doctor wants to get trained in genital surgery, they have to travel to select places overseas.

Flood said trained practitioners in Alberta usually do not solely practice gender-affirming surgeries but the demand to do so is overwhelming.

"I think a lot of it is that there's just not the initiative, and we would be ready to start training tomorrow if we got the OK."

Because of the lengthy process, Battaglia worries many transgender people will suffer a poor quality of life.

"Before the surgery my entire body and my entire being felt like I was made of barbed wire and I was trying not to get stabbed, hurt, and poked by it all the time," she said.

Since her surgery, Battaglia says she finally feels complete.

"I was blown away, I never thought I'd be able to feel so complete in my body."

Rio Tinto appoints directors with mining, renewable energy experience

Story by Reuters • 

(Reuters) - Rio Tinto has appointed two non-executive directors, the miner said on Thursday, in response to its chairman's call for more members with experience in mining and renewable energy on the company's board.


Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual conference in Toronto© Thomson Reuters

Dean Dalla Valle and Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, the latest appointments, will join Rio's board on June 1, the miner said.

Valle was previously chief commercial officer of BHP Group. and CEO of Australian rail freight operator, Pacific National.

Earlier this month, he was appointed as chair of hydrogen electrolyser technology company, Hysata.

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Lloyd-Hurwitz served as the chief executive officer and managing director of ASX-listed property firm Mirvac Group for a decade before stepping down recently.

Most of the directors on Rio's board are experienced in finance, capital markets, law and oil and gas.

Chairman Dominic Barton said last October that Rio needed more members with mining and renewable energy experience and with a more diverse geographical background.

"Dean and Susan will deepen the board's capabilities and experience in key areas we had identified that needed strengthening," Barton said in a statement.

(Reporting by Harish Sridharan in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Savio D'Souza)

ITS THE LEAK THAT'S THE PROBLEM NOT PRESS RELEASES

Federal and Alberta governments to study oilsands tailings leak communication

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 

EDMONTON — The Alberta and federal governments say they will work together to understand what happened around a nine-month delay in notifying the public about toxic seepage from an oilsands tailings pond.


Federal and Alberta governments to study oilsands tailings leak communication

© Provided by The Canadian Press

" (Alberta Environment) Minister (Sonya) Savage and (federal Environment) Minister (Steven) Guilbeault reiterated a dual commitment to review information exchange processes and committed to maintaining open communication channels with Indigenous communities in the area with updates on water sampling and other monitoring results," said a news release Wednesday from the Alberta government.

The release contained no direct quotes from Savage. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.

"Minister Guilbeault underlined that Imperial Oil’s own stated failures of communication were unacceptable and have raised broader concerns regarding the efficacy of (Alberta's) existing notification systems," said Kaitlin Power, Guilbeault's spokeswoman.

Tuesday evening, Savage and Guilbeault discussed seepage and a leak from Imperial Oil's Kearl oilsands mine about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta.

The seepage was discovered in May, but neither politician was told about it until nine months later. They learned of it from an environmental protection order issued by the Alberta Energy Regulator after a second release of 5.3 million litres of oilsands wastewater at Kearl from a catchment pond.

Area First Nations have also said they were not updated after initial notification of discoloured water found on the site.

Power said Ottawa also wants to see a federal-provincial-Indigenous working group, with participation from the oil companies, to address the immediate concerns around the Kearl releases "to restore trust and give transparency."

Details on that group are expected soon.

Savage has repeatedly promised to get to the bottom of how it took so long for news of the significant leaks to be released.

"It’s an unfortunate incident that happened at Kearl, and I think we need to learn from it and do better," Savage told a legislature committee on March 9.

"I think there are probably some gaps that need to be looked at and processes fixed and improved."

But New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt said the public deserves to know what questions will be asked and how those fixes will be made.

"Be forthright with what the scope of the investigation is," he said Wednesday. "Tell us when they expect it will be concluded."

Aside from what he called "clues" in the environmental protection order, Schmidt said, it's not even clear what is being investigated.

Savage has said she couldn't say anything for fear of affecting the regulator's investigation.

Schmidt also called on the government to release the basis for its repeated assurances that no wildlife or waterways were affected by the seepage.

"They need to release all of the data they have to this point," he said. "I think they're hiding the data."

He said the province should take responsibility for dealing with the problem itself.

"The provincial government is clearly washing its hands of it and asking the federal government to take care of the problem," he said.

The province's news release Wednesday said Alberta Environment and Protected Areas has sent officials to the site to conduct independent water sampling, in addition to monitoring already in place.

Environment Canada, which has said the released tailings are harmful to fish, also has inspectors on the site.

"Environment and Climate Change Canada will be closely engaged with the Alberta Energy Regulator to review Imperial Oil’s remedial action plan to ensure it complies with the Fisheries Act," Power said in an email.

Imperial released an update Wednesday evening that said it has toured community leaders and government officials through the affected area and has nearly 200 people working on seep mitigations and cleanup, including on the overflow at Kearl.

The company said the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo has declared drinking water to be safe in the community of Fort Chipewyan and that its own monitoring and water sampling data shows no impacts to local waterways or drinking water.

Imperial said there has been no indication of effects on wildlife or fish.

"All seven Indigenous communities have been invited to site for tours and to conduct independent monitoring and water sampling; in-community meetings are occurring," the release said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 15, 2023.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

How the last banking tumult fuels today’s populist politics

“There are no libertarians in the financial crisis,”

By WILL WEISSERT

yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Pence and Bernie Sanders are hardly political allies.

But in the aftermath of two large bank failures, the conservative former vice president and the democratic socialist senator are striking remarkably similar tones. Pence, a Republican, bemoaned that “we live in a world where certain politically favored businesses are propped up, backstopped and bailed out by government.” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said “we cannot continue down the road of more socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for everyone else.”

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Their sentiment reflects the populism that has coursed through both political parties in the 15 years since shaky financial institutions last spurred anxiety about the broader economy. The 2008 financial crisis unleashed a political realignment that rejected perceived elites and establishment figures, often with unpredictable results for Democrats and Republicans alike.

“There is rising discontent with corporate greed, which is less about left versus right than top versus bottom,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was the first national group to endorse Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s populist-infused 2020 presidential campaign.

In the wake of the 2008 crisis, the Republican Party was overtaken by the tea party movement, which clamored for smaller government and limits to federal spending. Donald Trump was eventually elevated at the expense of more established leaders like Jeb Bush, John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

Among Democrats, Occupy Wall Street activists drew attention to the party’s longstanding ties to big business and went on to help energize Sanders’ aggressive challenge to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Warren rose from a Harvard University bankruptcy expert to a national political figure who helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That was such a centerpiece of her White House bid that supporters sometimes chanted “CFPB” at her rallies.

Meanwhile, a new generation of younger lawmakers aligned with democratic socialists, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, joined Congress, often toppling longtime incumbents.

The result is a deeply fractured political environment in which members of each party are responding to a base of voters who are skeptical of institutions and uninterested in the political niceties that once ruled Washington.

At the White House on Monday, President Joe Biden sought to navigate those forces by insisting that taxpayers won’t be on the hook for any assistance to failing banks.

“This is an important point: No losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” said Biden, whose early days as vice president under Barack Obama were consumed by the response to the financial crisis.

The current turmoil is different from that era. While the 2008 crisis centered on souring mortgages held by many banks, this week’s trouble seems more narrowly confined to institutions that weren’t properly prepared for rising interest rates.

And while some of Wall Street’s most prominent firms, including Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns, collapsed in 2008, there’s little concern now about the strength of firms that are considered “too big to fail.” That’s because reforms adopted in the wake of the crisis intensified the scrutiny of such institutions, subjecting them to greater regulation, tougher capital requirements and regular stress tests that examine whether they can survive sudden traumas.

Some of the most dramatic moments of the 2008 crisis — including a rare White House meeting between then-President George W. Bush, Democratic nominee Obama and GOP nominee John McCain — happened just weeks before the election. This time, the instability is playing out with the presidential campaign in its infancy.

But those eyeing the White House in 2024 are nonetheless stoking many now-familiar populist themes.

Pence, who has yet to formally declare a presidential campaign, said Biden was “disingenuous” in saying that taxpayers wouldn’t ultimately be responsible for the government’s response to bank failures.

Nikki Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador who declared her presidential campaign last month, was more direct: “The era of big government and corporate bailouts must end.”

Trump, who is mounting his third presidential campaign, turned to stoking fear, predicting another a 1930s-style depression, in a way similar to how he did amid the 2008 crisis.

“WE WILL HAVE A GREAT DEPRESSION FAR BIGGER AND MORE POWERFUL THAN THAT OF 1929,” he wrote on his social media platform. “AS PROOF, THE BANKS ARE ALREADY STARTING TO COLLAPSE!!!”

Asked about Warren and other top Democrats arguing that banking regulations imposed after the 2008 crisis, which Congress reduced during his administration, helping to prevent current problems, Trump told reporters Tuesday that “rollback was a good thing.”

“Otherwise you’d have a lot more banks right now in trouble because they were being eaten alive by regulation,” said Trump, who also complained that interest rates were too high.

Ahead of a widely anticipated presidential campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed the GOP’s populist bent into so-called culture wars around race and gender. Without presenting any evidence to support his claim, he said diversity, equity and inclusion requirements at the failed Silicon Valley Bank “diverted from them focusing on their core mission.”

Green said that, just as Warren rode outrage over the 2008 crisis to national political prowess, “Donald Trump clearly has a strategy of out-flanking fellow Republicans and neutralizing Joe Biden on economic populist issues, like he did with Hillary Clinton.”

If regulators are able to quickly tame the current banking tumult, the longer-term political implications may be limited. But the force of populist politics will endure, especially as Congress must decide later this year whether to raise the debt limit, a once routine ritual that now threatens to become a standoff if Republicans refuse to lift the nation’s borrowing authority. Failure to do so would cause a potentially devastating default.

James Henry, a global justice fellow at Yale University and managing director at Sag Harbor Group, an information technology consulting firm, blamed Silicon Valley Bank’s failure on decades of weakened regulations and a “tiny elite” of venture capitalists and bankers connected to top leaders of both parties.

But Henry also said the Biden administration had no choice but to step in, given potentially greater financial threats spreading throughout the tech sector — making the failure fallout difficult to diagnose along ideological lines.

“There are no libertarians in the financial crisis,” Henry said. “Both sides are trying to be bailed out.”

In low-wage Portugal, Europe’s housing crisis bites deep

By HELENA ALVES and BARRY HATTON

1 of 20
A woman cries after her makeshift house was demolished by municipal workers in Loures, outside Lisbon, Monday, March 6, 2023. Seven families, mostly immigrants from Sao Tome & Principe, were evicted and had their illegal houses demolished. They had built their houses in the last couple of years when unable to pay the rising rents being asked coupled with the increasing cost of living. 

(AP Photo/Armando Franca)

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Like a growing number of people in Portugal, Georgina Simoes no longer earns enough money to afford a place to live.

The 57-year-old nursing home carer earns less than 800 euros ($845) a month, as do about a fourth of the country’s workforce. For the last decade, she got by because she’s been paying just 300 euros a month for her one-bedroom apartment in an undistinguished Lisbon neighborhood.

Now, with rents soaring in the capital, her landlord is evicting her. She says she’s not budging because finding another place near work will be too expensive.

“You live in this state of anxiety,” she says in her apartment with its partial view of the River Tagus. “Every day you wake up thinking, ’Am I staying here or do I have to leave?”

Simoes and many others, increasingly including the middle class, are being priced out of Portugal’s property market by rising rents, surging home prices and climbing mortgage rates, fueled by factors including the growing influx of foreign investors and tourists needing short-term rentals. Deepening fears in recent days about the health of financial institutions, as well as the prospect of continuing high inflation, have added more uncertainty.

Portugal’s center-left Socialist government last month unveiled a package of measures to address the problem, and some of them are set to be approved by the Cabinet on Thursday.

Between 2020 and 2021, house prices in Portugal shot up by 157%. From 2015 to 2021, rents jumped by 112%, according the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat.

But the rising cost of real estate tells only part of the story.

Portugal is one of Western Europe’s poorest countries and has long pursued investment on the back of a low-wage economy. Just over half of Portuguese workers earned less than 1,000 euros ($1,054) a month last year, according to Labor Ministry statistics.

Across the EU, the recent spike in inflation, especially rising food and energy prices, and the lingering economic and labor consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have aggravated the housing dilemma in the 27-nation bloc.

More than 82 million households in the EU have difficulty paying their rent, 17% of people live in overcrowded accommodations and just over 10% spend more than 40% of their income on rent, the the bloc says.

Hit hardest by unequal access to decent, affordable housing are young people, families with children, the elderly, those with disabilities and migrants.

In Portugal, the problem has been magnified by tourism, whose robust growth before the pandemic has come roaring back, as well as an influx of foreign investors who found relatively low real estate prices in Lisbon and have been driving up prices that force local people out of their neighborhoods.

After attracting a record 25 million foreign tourists in 2019, Portugal drew 15.3 million last year — a 158% rise after the previous year of pandemic restrictions. Analysts expect a 33% rise this year.

For some people, that long-awaited national success with foreign vacationers is a case of being careful what you wish for.

Rosa Santos, a 59-year-old born and raised close to Lisbon’s 14th-century St. George’s Castle overlooking the port city, says most homes in her neighborhood are occupied by short-term vacation rentals, largely for foreign tourists. It’s common to see and hear visitors dragging suitcases over the cobblestones.

Daisy, background right, and Vania, foreground left, argue with riot policemen supporting municipal workers arriving to demolish the two women's makeshift houses, in Loures, outside Lisbon, Monday, March 6, 2023. Seven families, mostly immigrants from Sao Tome & Principe, were evicted and had their illegal houses demolished. They had built their houses in the last couple of years when unable to pay the rising rents being asked coupled with the increasing cost of living.

 (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

The locals’ rich traditions are gone, and there’s not even a bakery or grocery store there now, Santos says.

“It’s not a neighborhood anymore,” she said. “This isn’t a city, it’s an amusement park.”

On a recent rainy day, police helped municipal workers using backhoes demolish several illegal makeshift dwellings on Lisbon’s outskirts with no power or running water. The families forced by necessity to live in them pleaded for them to stop.

The shacks stood just a few kilometers (miles) from luxury condominiums being built on the Lisbon waterfront, where a four-bedroom apartment sells for 2.4 million euros.

Not far away, in the Camarate low-income district close to Lisbon airport, missionary worker Jose Manuel helps needy families, some of whom can’t afford to pay for a room, let alone a house, and are consequently being pushed out of the city.

“We are talking already of a room in Camarate for 400 euros, a house for 600 or 700 euros,” he said. “Those who are on a minimum wage cannot afford a house.”

Prime Minister Antonio Costa says cities that lose their inhabitants forfeit their “authenticity” and become “a Disneyland” for tourists.

Among the measures that his government hopes will bring about a market correction:

— Forcing the owners of unoccupied properties to rent them out, granting priority to renters under 35, single-parent families or families whose income has dropped by more than 20%.

— Capping increases in new rental contracts to 2% above the previous contract.

— Ending the government’s “golden visa” program, which grants residence permits to wealthy foreign investors who buy property in Portugal

— Halting new licenses, except in rural areas, for short-term vacation rentals through tourist accommodation platforms.

— Switching commercial property to housing use.

The proposals have stirred controversy: Some see them as heavy-handed and misguided, others say they lack detail on how they will work. And some are angry.

Hugo Ferreira Santos of the Portuguese Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors said foreign investment has ground to a halt as people wait to see how the golden visa changes shape up.

“What I have been hearing from international investors is that Portugal is not a credible country,” he said. “It is a country that changes the rules of the game halfway through and a country where foreign investment is not welcome.”

Small-time investors in apartments for short-term vacation rentals also are aggrieved.

“There are people that left their lives, set up their own businesses, generated jobs, have workers and suddenly one day they are knocked down without any prospect,” said Eduardo Miranda, head of a Portuguese association representing their interests, said.

Some measures will require parliament’s approval, and others could be sent to the Constitutional Court for vetting.