Employers wary of "immunity" tests for workers

U.S. employers have cooled to the idea of testing workers for possible immunity to the coronavirus as they prepare to reopen factories and other workplaces......»»

'We’re Not Permitted To Make The Connection': Social Worker Shares Aftermath Of COVID Vaccine Injury Authored by Carly Mayberry via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), As a social worker known for her expertise when handling high-stress conflict management cases, Angela Loerzel Swafford figured she’d navigate her own concerns when it came to addressing her employers’ vaccination mandate last fall. And she definitely had concerns.  (Photo courtesy of Angela Loerzel Swafford) Like many hospitals and health systems across the nation during that time, the hospital where the 46-year-old was and is still employed required their health workers to get the jab. But Swafford suffers from a venous malformation, a condition where veins in the body develop in an unusual way. Because the abnormality can increase the risk of developing blood clots and deep vein thrombosis, she was hesitant about getting the COVID jab.  Still, worried about the possibility of losing the job she loved, the licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) practicing in both Oregon and Washington, was willing to do what was needed to protect her patients from COVID-19. “I love that job,” said Swafford who had always gotten the flu vaccine every year to protect the vulnerable patients she visits in hospice care. “I have this concern about my own safety but I also understand what I need to do to protect the community.”  “It stops with you,” she added, or so she had always been told. No Space for Questions Swafford reached out to a few of her health providers, asking which vaccine would be best for her situation. However, she claimed that she didn’t feel supported during her inquiry and decision-making process.  “I think there should be space that we can be curious and pause and ask questions,” she said, noting she did express her health concerns but that her employer and health providers didn’t really allow any questions. “I feel that the physicians had a script and I was not heard and was kind of pushed through.” Seizure-like Symptoms, Blurred Vision  After being one of the last of her cohort of colleagues to receive the first Pfizer shot, what transpired next for Swafford was nothing short of horrifying.  Four hours later she started noticing pain in her upper body and difficulty charting her patients. Driving home that night, she lost orientation as to where she was. “Taking the exit to my house, I remember it felt like my face was exploding in pinpricks–like I had all of these sharp needle feelings all over my face,” she recalled. “My tongue, lips, and face felt swollen, my vision was blurred and I wasn’t processing information.” Once home, the strange sensations were followed by a repeated jerking of her whole body, what she said resembled Tonic-Clonic seizures. She also experienced blurred vision and terrible headaches. “The biggest thing was my vision, confusion in my thinking, trying to walk with coordination and dizziness,” she went on. “I couldn’t figure things out.” During some neurology psychiatry testing, Swafford said she fell under the two percentile of the people in her peer group when it came to her “processing speed” and “impaired ability to learn new information.” “They found I’m not encoding new information–that my processing is really slow,” she explained. Ultimately, Swafford was diagnosed with a severe adverse reaction to the mRNA vaccine. Now, more than a year later after undergoing numerous lab tests, MRIs, CT scans, and a plethora of visits to healthcare professionals (including neurologists, an epidemiologist, an occupational medicine specialist, a speech therapist, and others), Swafford continues to suffer cognitively, from an abrupt change in her vision and sleep abnormalities. She doesn’t drive because of double vision and a loss of peripheral vision and hasn’t returned to work. Doctors: Neurological Side Effects Have Been More Unusual Meanwhile, despite cases of myocarditis having made the headlines in terms of adverse reactions to the vaccines, neurological side effects like the ones experienced by Swafford, haven’t gotten the same attention.  That, along with what she described as her health providers’ lack of acknowledgment, has been frustrating for both her and her husband.  “We kept running into providers in every system saying, ‘We’re not permitted to make the connection’ or ‘It doesn’t mean anything until studies support it’ or ‘It doesn’t exist until the scientific community writes about it,” recounted Swafford. “One of the saddest things I see is the diagnosis of functional neurologic disorder (FND) lumped together for these patients,” said Dr. Diane Counce, medical director of neurology and neurodiagnostics in Alabama, noting that such a diagnosis makes patients feel like “it’s all in their head.” Counce describes Swafford’s symptoms as neurological.  Data from the Center for Disease Control’s Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS) calculated through Oct. 28, 2022, has shown a total of over 37,000 reported neurological symptoms.  In terms of neurological symptoms similar to Swafford’s, there have been 4,659 cases of balance disorder, 10,190 cases of migraines, 5,192 seizures, and 573 seizure-like phenomena on VAERS. Also documented among many other neurological incidents were 4,737 cases of visual impairment. “When you have a patient like Swafford who within four hours is having symptoms that she’s never experienced before, clearly this is not just a migraine,” added Counce, noting the number of physicians that aren’t willing to take on patients like her or don’t know how to treat such patients. “She’s one of the more severe cases I’ve heard of experiencing multiple things including confusion, headaches, visual, hearing, mood, and behavioral changes.” After reviewing Swafford’s case, epidemiologist, professor, and author Daniel Halperin also concluded that as a young, healthy person who experienced these symptoms soon after receiving the shot, the most likely explanation for the health ailments must be vaccine-related.  Like many experts, Halperin, who has written myriad peer review education articles and the book, “Facing COVID Without Panic: 12 Common Myths and 12 Lesser Known Facts about the Pandemic: Clearly Explained by an Epidemiologist,” acknowledges that no vaccine is 100 percent safe. “Early on, we thought vaccination was important not only to help people be protected from death or severe illness, but also because it could greatly cut down on the transmission of COVID,” Halperin said, noting the common sense approach and the belief that health professionals should get the vaccine not just for themselves but for their patients and others they might be exposed to. “Now that we know they don’t actually do very much to prevent transmission, I’m not sure how convincing that argument is anymore,” he added.  Prescribing a Vaccine Injury Regimen For her part, Counce is working with Swafford and has prescribed a regimen for her that includes intermittent fasting—known to have a strong effect on promoting immune system homeostasis, taking probiotics and certain supplements including vitamin D, resveratrol, melatonin, and omega-3 fatty acids. “It’s frustrating we don’t have specific labs to check these things,” Counce added, noting that when she started seeing patients developing negative symptoms from the vaccinations, injuries seemed to be all over the place. But, she said when she sees a vaccine-injured patient, she has ruled it down to about five different things that could be going on with their body. These include decreased immunity, autoimmune response, inflammatory/histamine response (similar to Mast Cell Syndrome), fibrin activation causing micro clotting, and amyloidosis (a disease that occurs when a protein called amyloid builds up in organs). Counce said it’s been shown by an electron microscope that damage has been done to the cells’ mitochondria, which likely contributes to brain fog and fatigue that patients experience. As a neurologist, she reported seeing an increasing number of vaccine-injured patients with personality changes, sleep issues, and nerve and muscle issues, among others. “It’s hard to say,” said Counce, who has been treating Swafford for the last month, as to what her prognosis is and if she will ultimately improve or not. “All vaccine injuries respond so differently,” said Counce. “This is a brave new world for us.” ‘I’m Really Out’ Meanwhile, Angela Loerzel Swafford and her family wish she could get a “do-over” when it comes to getting that jab. “I did the shot to keep everything and more so to protect the community I work in because that’s what they were telling me, but in the end, I lost everything,” she said. “I am not the same.” “Angela would like people to understand that there are folks out there that have actually suffered a vaccine injury and it’s totally okay to say ‘Yep, that happened,’” said her husband. “Too many doctors are willing to say ‘There are no studies to support that,’ instead of gathering the evidence.” “I think it was either you’re vaccinated and you’re with us or you’re not,” recalled Swafford, regarding the mood at the time. Now, she said, most of her friends don’t know how to be with her because she’s so different from who she once was.  “It became you’re in or you’re out and I’m really out,” she said. Tyler Durden Thu, 11/10/2022 - 23:00.....»»

These are Insider's biggest healthcare stories for November 11. Hello,Welcome to Insider Healthcare. I'm healthcare editor Leah Rosenbaum, and today in healthcare news:One year after the megamerger between Teladoc and Livongo, the united company is still overcoming challenges;An immunocompromised man has had 4 COVID-19 booster shots, but is still susceptible to the virus;The US had a potential vaccine against Lyme disease, but it got pulled from the market decades ago. If you're new to this newsletter, sign up here. Comments, tips? Email me at lrosenbaum@insider.com or tweet @leah_rosenbaum. Let's get to it... Livongo's IPO in July 2019. Livongo Teladoc acquired Livongo to recreate healthcare. A rushed union, a wave of senior exits, and sky-high expectations are testing the $14 billion bet.It's been one year since Teladoc's megamerger with the chronic-care company Livongo. The goal is to build one app that covers primary care, chronic care, and other services. Teladoc has faced internal and external pressure, and more than 110 Livongo employees have left.Read the Insider investigation>> Registered nurse Alix Zacharski, left, receives a Pfizer COVID-19 booster shot from Douglas Houghton, right, at Jackson Memorial Hospital Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Miami. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky An immunocompromised man had 4 shots of COVID-19 vaccine but still appears to have poor immunityAn Ohio man registered "no antibodies whatsoever" after four COVID-19 shots, per CNN.Andrew Linder, who is immunocompromised, is isolating and limiting contact with people.The antibody test he took has some limitations as a proxy for immunity.Dive in>> Deer ticks can cause lyme disease if left untreated/ Photon Illustration/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images The US had a Lyme disease vaccine decades ago - but the CDC, lawsuits, and conspiracy theories derailed itSince 1998, confirmed Lyme disease cases in the US have risen roughly 40%.GlaxoSmithKline developed a Lyme vaccine in the 1990s. It went off the market by the early 2000s.A new anti-Lyme injection (not a vaccine) is coming. But it could take years to be fully approved.Read more>> More stories we're reading:Pfizer CEO calls people who spread misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines 'criminals because they have literally cost millions of lives' (Insider)Moderna wants to leave the government scientists it worked with off the company's COVID-19 vaccine patent (Washington Post)Some employers with just under 100 staff are wary of hiring more workers and being sucked into Biden's vaccine mandate, according to a report (Insider)Here's what public health experts thing about going to the gym, movies and upcoming holiday gatherings (STAT)-LeahRead the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Biden Plays Chicken With Semitruck Drivers Authored by Jackson Elliott, Cara Ding, Allan Stein, Steven Kovac, Jannis Falkenstern and Nick Ciolino via The Epoch Times, American truckers don’t like taking orders. But the Biden administration has increased pressure on them to take the vaccine—willing or unwilling. All through the pandemic, truckers endured hardships to keep America’s infrastructure running. They waited in line for hours in sight of bathrooms they weren’t allowed to use. On the road, some died alone of COVID-19. Now, with supply chains disrupted, Americans need them more than ever. But faced with the prospect of a forced vaccination, many drivers are considering quitting. “I’d fight it,” said veteran trucker Mike Widdins, referring to vaccine mandates. “I think a lot of us will be quitting. Who likes to be forced to do stuff you don’t want to do?” Widdins isn’t alone in his willingness to leave trucking if forced to vaccinate. Polls by trucking publications Commercial Carrier Journal and OverDrive indicate that up to 30 percent of truckers will seriously consider quitting if forced to vaccinate. If they quit, the consequences for America may be massive. US Transport estimates that 70 percent of American freight goes by truck. “It would hurt shipping big-time,” Widdins said. Narrowing Lanes The Sept. 9 mandate establishes an “emergency standard” which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is allowed to issue if it determines workers are in “grave danger.” Currently, the White House Office of Budget and Management’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is reviewing the mandate. The review process can take as long as 90 days. Most of the trucking industry will be unaffected by the Biden vaccine mandate, which demands that all companies with over 100 employees require vaccination or weekly COVID-19 tests. Most truck companies have six trucks or fewer, according to the American Trucking Associations. Independent drivers make an average of $50,000 more per year than drivers at large companies. Some experts say the selective reach of the mandate makes it ineffective. Barbara Smithers, vice president of the Indiana Motor Truck Association, told The Epoch Times via email that it makes little sense to “cherry pick” who to vaccinate based on company size. “Truck drivers spend most of their work hours alone in the cab of a truck—literally one of the safest places possible during a pandemic—so why do they need to be regulated in this way?” she said. “Testing hundreds of thousands of truck drivers moving across the country every day is a virtual impossibility.” For mandate-affected companies, Biden’s decision may drive away employees at a time when America needs them most. The American Trucking Associations estimates that America needs 80,000 more truckers to meet transportation needs. Recently, supply chain crises have left many Americans in need. Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg said the shortage will last as long as there’s a pandemic. With backups unloading goods at America’s ports, shortages already threaten consumers. But if long lines of trucks waiting to ship goods suddenly become shorter, the crisis will become far worse. Whether America runs short on trucks depends on the Biden administration’s orders and how truckers respond. Joe Trucker and Joe Biden The average trucker is a big, bearded guy with a sturdy, American name like ‘Joe.’ Joe Trucker is friendly given the chance, and he thinks of his job as his little service to America. He has a relative in the military somewhere, or he served himself. Toward government, he holds a strong suspicion that increases the more pressure he feels from it. Joe Trucker doesn’t usually like interviews. If he doesn’t feel open to talking, he drops four-word answers like he tosses peanut shells from his window. In exchange for long hours away from home, he gets low pay, independence, and the nation’s best sunsets. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus hasn’t been kind to Joe Trucker. At a time when many Americans hunkered down at home, he was still on the road. Trucking life during the pandemic was a series of frustrating restrictions, said trucker Victor Morales at a Georgia One9 truck stop. Morales has driven trucks for 25 years. After a long day on the road, Morales would wait for hours to drop off a truckful of deliveries at a warehouse. But warehouse owners didn’t allow truckers to leave their cabs for any reason. “You’re almost forced, like a second-class citizen,” he said. “They want the goods and services you got, but they don’t even want you to get out of your truck.” If they arrived hungry, they waited hungry, he said. They weren’t even allowed to use the toilet only steps away. “You can literally see a bathroom right there behind the glass. But you can’t get out,” said Morales. In the eyes of drivers, Biden’s mandate is the last step in a long line of restrictions that don’t consider their needs or wants. “It’s unconstitutional,” said one trucker who preferred to remain anonymous. “We’ll just buy our own damn trucks and run our own company. All we’ve got to do is shut down and the country doesn’t exist no more.” For many drivers, the vaccine mandate may prove the final straw. Some drivers don’t trust the vaccine because of how new it is. Some distrust it for personal medical reasons. Others distrust it because they don’t trust the government. “I had cancer years ago,” said trucker Jack McGregory. “I don’t want to put something that I don’t know exactly what it will do into my body. If I die, I want to die with a little more time on my hands than that.” McGregory said that he would rather quit than vaccinate. But even those who take the vaccine say they oppose the mandate. At the Pilot Truck Stop at I-69 and Wadhams Road in Michigan, all 10 truckers interviewed by The Epoch Times said they took the vaccine but oppose a vaccine mandate. Kevin Hambrick, a longtime driver with Fortune 500 transportation company J.B. Hunt, opposes the mandate. “Each guy should make his own choice,” Hambrick said. In Arizona, Florida-based truck driver Juan Martinez said that he knows life without freedom, having lived under Cuban communism. He also received a COVID-19 shot and opposes the mandate. “You have to decide for yourself,” he said. “People should do whatever they want to do.” Many drivers feel pressured by their employers. After a year of difficult pandemic restrictions, it seems to them that COVID-19 rules grow ever more invasive. In Flagstaff, Arizona, a long-distance truck driver in his late 20s asked not to be identified, fearing reprisal by his employer. “There’s no place in the middle right now,” he said, adding “if you want to put something in your body, it’s your personal choice.” Other truckers who did not want to be named said they felt angry at those who mandated the vaccine. “We run our country,” one said. “They don’t give a [expletive] about this country.” Roads to Health According to the Biden administration, America needs the new vaccine to increase protection against the CCP virus. “The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing,” president Joe Biden said in a press conference. But more people should get vaccinated, he added. The current available vaccines block COVID-19 in most cases, according to CDC statistics. Today, 79 percent of Americans over 18 are vaccinated, according to the CDC. Experts say that this number might be enough to achieve herd immunity. But as the number of unvaccinated people has dwindled, pressure to increase vaccination numbers has increased. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” Biden said to unvaccinated people. “Your refusal has cost all of us.” Some medical experts say clusters of unvaccinated people allow the virus to mutate into a form that can bypass the vaccine. “It’s perhaps just a matter of time,” University of Alabama at Birmingham medicine professor Dr. Michael Saag said. “A new variant could emerge where we won’t be so fortunate, and the existing vaccines won’t work.” Another recent executive order suggested that the White House fears a truck shortage. On Oct. 20, Biden announced an executive order that temporarily lifts weight restrictions on trucks and encourages more people to become truckers. The White House announced this order soon after the vaccine mandate. Neither the White House nor the Department of Transportation responded to repeated requests for comment on this story. Collision Course Truck industry experts say that truckers with the option to quit will do so if forced to take the vaccine. Joe Sculley, the president of Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, said that he sees a scenario playing out for those who oppose or refuse to comply with the mandate. “Drivers will leave bigger companies and look for smaller ones that do not have to comply with the mandate, or they will quit altogether and look for another profession,” he said. Right now, the supply chain crisis, the number of drivers who oppose forced vaccination, and the driver shortage leave the best cards in the hands of drivers, Sculley added. “Drivers have leverage,” he said. “It won’t be an empty threat. Nobody is going to be quickly replaced.” Jim Ward, president of D.M. Bowman and Chairman of the Truckload Carriers Associations, agreed that truckers are serious about quitting because of vaccine mandates. “With driver availability already limited, any exodus due to compliance with a vaccine mandate would put our nation and its economy in an even more precarious situation,” he said. Ward added that drivers who quit can’t easily be replaced. They require training. “Our nation’s professional truck drivers are the safest, most well-trained operators on the road today. Replacing any driver who leaves the industry is not an overnight process,” he said. Biden’s best chance to bring in new drivers comes from a pilot program in his recent infrastructure bill. The program would create a “test group” of 18- to 21-year-olds who would be followed to “see how they would perform,” Sculley said. However, the American trucking industry has long faced a driver shortage. Long hours away from home and mediocre pay doesn’t attract new drivers to the business, even when they have the right skills. Impact New workers also might not compare with longtime professionals. Experienced truckers thread their trucks through a complex ballet of traffic conditions and federal regulations to arrive on time. Football games, the Kentucky Derby, hurricanes two states over, and other issues can all mean higher traffic along a route, said Morales. “I’m not a sports fan. But I know when the playoffs are,” he said. If Biden’s mandate goes through, the most experienced truckers are most likely to quit, Morales said. In 10 years, nearly 30 percent of truckers will be 65 or older, according to Department of Transportation statistics. Often, these drivers make more money and have cash saved up, said Morales. “The mandate is going to affect the older drivers that have been here a while,” he said. “They’re gonna have a choice.” If these drivers retire early, it will be a challenge to replace them. To become a trucker, a driver must pass his commercial driver’s license (CDL) test, a process which usually takes four to seven weeks. During the pandemic, many truck driving schools closed, and training schools issued at least 100,000 fewer CDLS. Short-term truckers are often unreliable, said small truck company owner Pete Falkenstern. He calls them “cowboys.” “If somebody’s done it for a long time and hasn’t had a lot of accidents, they’ve been pretty safe,” he said. “They probably take some pride in what they do.” If 20 percent of truckers quit because of the mandate, America will lose about 15 percent of its transportation capacity. America’s infrastructure relies most on trucks. As a transportation system, trucks are incredibly flexible. They can go anywhere at any time, can carry many kinds of goods, and are the most cost-effective form of transportation over short to medium distances. “I love this industry, but without us this country would shut down in three days,” said trucker Jack McGregory. Even so, the trucking industry has a high turnover rate. Backing Up The vaccine mandate will only directly affect companies with over 100 people, but small truck companies won’t have the required resources to absorb many additional drivers, Falkenstern said. “I would love to be able to accommodate 30 people, but the work is not here to support that many,” he said. “I don’t want to operate any more than what I have because of insurance regulations.” Large truck companies also tend to be cheaper, said Falkenstern. They can buy things in bulk and self-insure. “A lot of the bigger companies can keep prices down,” he said. “They can get a lower cost because it’s in bulk.” Cathy Roberson, the founder and president of Logistics Trends and Insights LLC, said it’s unclear right now what the long-term impact of the vaccine mandate will be. If truckers quit, the mandate could damage America’s logistics system, Robertson said. But if they switch to smaller companies, Biden’s executive order might only reshuffle employees. “It really hurts the larger trucking companies more than anything else,” Robertson said. Whatever the case, the mandate will exacerbate current supply chain issues, she said. Already, logistics workers wrestle with the worst supply chain issues ever seen, said Lisa Anderson, the president of logistics group LMA Consulting. “It’s unprecedented. It’s never happened before,” she said. Right now, logistics issues have made it difficult to find replacement parts for trucks, she said. Businesses find themselves in a catch-22 situation; To fix their trucks, they need trucks to transport parts. The supply chain feeds itself. Anderson said the vaccine mandate will almost certainly worsen the driver shortage. Truckers are independent-natured. “They are more of a lone wolf, always navigating complex situations on their own,” she said. “They don’t like to be told what to do.” Delays Ahead If truckers follow through with what they say they will do, America’s supply chain crisis may soon become far worse. From a perspective based purely on material benefits, it seems like it’s only logical to obey the mandate. Truckers can take an effective vaccine, keep their jobs, and keep the national supply chain running. But human beings often want to assert that they amount to more than mere links in a chain, pulling on command from the federal government. The logic of individual freedom doesn’t calculate for material benefits. “It’s just that shoving-it-down-your-throat part,” Morales said. “Our first instinct will be to push back.” Tyler Durden Mon, 10/25/2021 - 19:10.....»»

The "coffee-cup test," where job applicants get rejected if they don't pick up after themselves, hits on fears that tech like AI will make hiring more opaque. The "coffee-cup test" might play into some of our fears about a hiring process that's often not transparent. The rise of artificial intelligence can add to those concerns. vgajic/Getty ImagesThe "coffee-cup test" has resurfaced online as a symbol, for some, of opaqueness in hiring.The secret nature of the test can raise similar concerns to the use of AI in hiring.Both the coffee test and AI can make the process of getting a job feel arbitrary and nontransparent.Years ago, I heard a story about a recruiter who would hold up résumés to a light to see whether the watermark stamped onto the paper was facing the right direction.Some background: Résumés used to be printed on paper. Fancy résumé stock often carried a faint image known as a watermark that would speak to the paper's fine pedigree — or at least how much you'd paid for it.The legend went that even swanky paper wasn't enough for this loathsome recruiter. If the watermark was upside down or facing backward, it was an indicator of the candidate's slapdash approach to life. Into the trash it went.For another boss man, today's litmus test isn't paper but ceramic. The hiring manager shows those who show up for interviews where the kitchen is, offers them a coffee, and then rejects those who don't bus their dishes afterward.The coffee-cup test, like the watermark check before it, can feel like a trivial way to toss candidates who might otherwise be qualified. Little surprise, experts on interviewing often dismiss the gotcha approach.Yet one reason these stories keep resurfacing online, even years later, is because they speak to our fears that we're hurtling toward a hiring environment with more unfairness and even trickery — trappuccino, anyone? — thanks to technology.Today, the bogeyman is artificial intelligence. AI can seem just as arbitrary in its decision making as the coffee-cup test."One of the reasons people are nervous about AI is that the algorithms used are very blackbox," Josh Millet, an expert on hiring, told Insider. "The applicant has no idea how they're being evaluated."It's a similar feeling that some might get from the coffee-cup standard. "No one should have secret tests," he said.AI, of course, could make a hiring process that's still way too subjective that much less so. Yet some worry that ruthless bots will rely on mysterious algorithms to yank job candidates' from consideration because of invisible infractions or minor deficiencies.Millet, who's founder and CEO of Criteria, a Los Angeles company that works to help companies reduce bias and increase efficiency in hiring, said the promise of AI is to strip unfairness from the recruiting process and make it just about the data. Yet for that to happen, the data sets on which the AI is trained can't be biased. That's a big challenge."There's great promise, but there's also risk that it not be used ethically and responsibly," Millet said, referring to AI.When AI sits in on the interviewThere have been notable examples of AI fails when it comes to hiring. Perhaps one of the best known was a trial in which Amazon tested using AI in recruiting. But because the training was done using résumés largely from men, the AI discriminated against female candidates. The company shut down the project."There's been some really high-profile faceplants on AI," Millet said. It's little wonder, then, that job seekers would be concerned about the increase in digital gatekeepers. In a survey of some 1,200 employed US adults, about half said that AI tools used in recruiting are more biased than people. The online survey was conducted in June by the Harris Poll for the American Staffing Association.People are even more squeamish about the notion of our AI overlords getting to make a final call on whether a candidate gets hired. A Pew Research Center survey of 11,000 US adults in mid-December 2022 found that seven in 10 Americans are against letting AI make the ultimate hiring decision.Sandra Sucher, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, told Insider it's understandable why people would have concerns given the record of bias in AI."Those aren't imaginary concerns. Those are absolutely appropriate concerns," she said, adding that work remains to address those challenges."The promise of equitable hiring is there," Sucher said. "I genuinely would worry about perpetuation of bias depending on the age and the nature of the data set."Yet the misgivings by some workers and others don't seem to be keeping employers from bringing on AI to do more of the work of hiring. That includes interviewing — presumably without the java.In one survey of representatives from some US companies, 43% reported that their organizations are using or plan to use AI in the interview process by 2024. The online poll, conducted in June by Resume Builder, involved about 1,000 people who are part of the hiring process at their employers.Secret tests might not say much about a candidateThe coffee-cup test, then, can feel to critics like another way that people are being judged on things that don't pertain to their jobs. Of course, some have argued the test is a good measure of how considerate a candidate is in the workplace. One Reddit user wrote, "My guess is the people raging against it are the same ones that leave their dirty dishes for other people."Yet, Millet said, tests that are designed to be a "soul read" into what a person is really like, or how much integrity the candidate has, can often fall short. These measures, for one, don't take into account how nervous a candidate might be in the interview.Instead of relying on hidden metrics, Millet said those doing the hiring should use standardized questions across candidates and a rubric to score people's answers. For insights into people's character or,  preferably, their work ethic, Millet said it's best to use questions that pose scenarios and see how candidates respond. Essentially, anything interviewers do to assess character, personality, or ability should be structured and objective, he said.Millet said a good rule of thumb for hiring is that the selection criteria should be relatively transparent. "If I want to know something about you, I should ask you a question about it."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Billionaires including Steve Jobs' widow and LinkedIn's cofounder are behind the "California Forever" project. Next, they must win over the skeptics. Rio Vista, California is a rural area, but billionaires want to utilize the land to erect a new city.AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez Silicon Valley billionaires revealed plans to build a new city after buying $800 million in land. The land was quietly purchased in Solano County, a rural area near San Francisco and Sacramento.  Many locals and lawmakers are wary of the project, especially given its initial secrecy. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Silicon Valley billionaires behind a secretive $800 million land-buying spree in Northern California have finally released some details about their plans for a new green city, but they still must win over skeptical voters and local leaders.After years of ducking scrutiny, Jan Sramek, the former Goldman Sachs trader spearheading the effort, launched a website Thursday about "California Forever." The site billed the project as "a chance for a new community, good-paying local jobs, solar farms, and open space" in Solano, a rural county between San Francisco and Sacramento that is now home to 450,000 people.He also began meeting with key politicians representing the area who have been trying unsuccessfully for years to find out who was behind the mysterious Flannery Associates LLC as it bought up vast swaths of land, making it the largest single landholder in the county.An all-star roster of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are backing the project, including philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. The New York Times first reported on the group's investors and plans.Left to right: Marc Andreeseen, Lauren Powell Jobs, and Michael Moritz are some of the prominent Silicon Valley investors who have backed Flannery Associates's pursuit to build a new city in California.Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle; Jemal Countess/Getty Images for TIME; Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity FairCalifornia Forever, the parent company of Flannery, has purchased more than 78 square miles of farmland in Solano County since 2018. Most of the land purchased is in the southeastern portion of the county, with parcels stretching from Fairfield to Rio Vista. According to the website, Sramek fell in love with the area over fishing trips and he and his wife recently purchased a home in the county for their growing family.The project issued a poll to residents last month to gauge support for "a new city with tens of thousands of new homes," solar energy farms, and new parks funded entirely by the private sector.But to build anything resembling a city on what is now farmland, the group must first convince Solano County voters to approve a ballot initiative to allow for urban uses on that land, a protection that has been in place since 1984. Local and federal officials still have questions about the group's intentions.Two area congressmen who sought for years to find out whether foreign adversaries or investors were behind the buying spree around a US Air Force base vital to national security and the local economy are furious that Flannery kept its identity hidden for so long. The website says 97% of its funding is from U.S. investors and the rest are from the United Kingdom and Ireland."The FBI, the Department of Treasury, everyone has been doing work trying to figure out who these people are," US Rep. Mike Thompson, who represents much of the county, said this week after meeting with Sramek. "Their secrecy has caused a lot of problems, a lot of time, and a lot of expense."The investment group said secrecy was required until enough land was purchased, in order to avoid short-term speculation, but that it is now ready to hear from Solano households via a mailed survey and the creation of a community advisory board. Past surveys showed parents were most concerned about their children's future, the website said."Instead of watching our kids leave, we have the opportunity to build a new community that attracts new employers, creates good-paying local jobs, builds homes in walkable neighborhoods, leads in environment stewardship, and fuels a growing tax base to serve the county at large," it said.Billionaires want to build a new city in rural California, but they're encountering wavering support from locals and lawmakers.AP Photo/Terry CheaCalifornia is in dire need of more housing, especially affordable homes for teachers, firefighters, and service and hospitality workers. But cities and counties can't figure out where to build as established neighborhoods argue against new homes that they say would congest their roads and spoil their quiet way of life.In many ways, Solano County is ideal for development. It is 60 miles (96 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco and 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of California's capital city of Sacramento. Solano County homes are among the most affordable in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a median sales price of $600,000 last month.But Princess Washington, mayor pro tempore of Suisun City, said residents deliberately decided to protect open space and keep the area around Travis Air Force Base free of encroachment given its significance.She's suspicious that the group's real purpose is "to create a city for the elite" under the guise of more housing."Economic blight is everywhere. So why do you need to spend upwards of a billion dollars to create a brand new city when you have all these other things that can be achieved throughout the Bay Area?" she said.Flannery further infuriated locals in May when it sued several landowners in court, accusing them of conspiring to fix prices for their properties. The company disclosed it had purchased or was under contract to buy about 140 properties for more than $800 million.Then last week, residents began receiving a push poll gauging voter support for "a major new project" that would include "a new city with tens of thousands of new homes." The poll asked if they would be more likely to support the project if county residents were given priority and financial assistance to lease or purchase one of the new homes.Thompson, the congressman, was unimpressed after meeting with Sramek, saying that the developer was vague on details and failed to display an understanding or appreciation of the county or its values.Asked how he would help residents finance new homes, Thompson said Sramek told him he planned to use "all of his knowledge as a finance guy" to generate savings. Development in California is convoluted, but Thompson said Sramek told him they're hoping for expedited permitting "because their project is so good and their intentions are so great.""He doesn't have a plan, he's not there yet," Thompson said.US Rep. John Garamendi, whose district includes Travis and immediate areas around it, said base and county officials reached out roughly five years ago for help in figuring out who was buying up land. Garamendi, who is scheduled to meet with Sramek on Friday, was appalled to learn who was backing the project."You big wealthy Silicon Valley billionaires, you're party to all of this. This is the kind of people you are? This is how you want to operate?" he said. "What they've managed to do is to totally poison the well."Hoffman and Andreessen did not respond to emailed requests for comment, nor did Jobs through her business Emerson Collective.Project developers said they will protect the military base and farmers who want to keep farming on their parcels can do so.Flannery has purchased virtually all the land surrounding the small city of Rio Vista, said Mayor Ron Kott.He suspects older people who make up half of the city's 10,000 residents won't appreciate the added congestion and noise, but others might like the improved medical care, nightlife, and shopping that a sophisticated city nearby might bring."If it's done correctly, I think there's a lot of opportunities for the county. Their tax revenue base will increase quite a bit. So there's going to be a big windfall from that. Property values would probably go up around here as well even further. And so I think from those perspectives it's good," Kott said."But again, I think you're giving up a quality of lifestyle that's kind of unique to this area."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Before, workers making under $36,000 were eligible for time and a half. Now the DOL wants people making under $55,000 to get that boost. Now Hiring signs are displayed in front of restaurants in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on March 19, 2022.STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images The Department of Labor proposed a new rule that would update who's eligible for overtime. Currently, workers making under about $36,000 can get extra pay for extra hours. Under the new proposal, that threshold would rise to $55,000, benefiting millions of workers. The Biden administration's labor department wants to make sure you get paid for extra hours you're working — even if you're in a salaried position. Under the Department of Labor's new proposed rule, salaried workers who make less than $55,000 a year, or $1,059 a week, will become eligible for overtime. Currently, that threshold stands at $35,568 a year, or $684 a week, a Trump-era adjustment from $455 a week. The DOL estimates that the rule will make 3.6 million salaried workers eligible for overtime protections. The threshold would also get automatically updated every three years based on workers' earnings."The current salary threshold beneath which all workers are entitled to overtime is pitifully low," Judy Conti, government affairs director at the National Employment Law Project, told Insider. There are complex tests that employers have to use to determine if an employee earning above $35,568 should be eligible for overtime, Conti said, such as whether they're performing work that requires advanced knowledge or imagination. One study found that some firms give out fake manager titles to try and avoid paying their workers overtime.That means that the salary threshold is "the clearest, easiest way for both workers and employers to determine who should be paid overtime and who should not," according to Conti — making it particularly significant that the DOL is stepping in to raise it."For over 80 years, a cornerstone of workers' rights in this country is the right to a 40-hour workweek, the promise that you get to go home after 40 hours or you get higher pay for each extra hour that you spend laboring away from your loved ones," Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said in a statement. "I've heard from workers again and again about working long hours, for no extra pay, all while earning low salaries that don't come anywhere close to compensating them for their sacrifices." Currently, full-time workers earn median weekly wages of $1,100, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means a sizable chunk would be eligible for overtime pay under the new $1,059 weekly threshold. Higher thresholds might also benefit historically disadvantaged populations: Women earn a median $993 a week, and median Black and Hispanic workers both earn below the new $1,059 proposed threshold.It's not the first time that a Democratic administration has targeted the overtime threshold. President Barack Obama attempted to raise the cut-off in 2016, aiming for $47,476, but that was ultimately blocked by a federal judge over states' concerns that the new threshold would increase their costs. The DOL's latest proposal is not a done deal yet; a comment period will be open for 60 days, with hopes that the rule will be finalized by April 2024, according to Conti. For workers under that new threshold, a final implementation will mean one of two things, Conti said."If their employers want to keep working them more hours than 40, they're going to get more money," Conti said. "Or, if their employers don't want to pay them more money, then these workers are only going to work 40 hours a week — and they're going to get their lives back."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

The Positive Feedback Loop: How Totalitarians Instill Fear & Restrict Human Rights Authored by Scott Sturman via The Brownstone Institute, Totalitarians describe a world dominated by positive feedback loops, where the slightest perturbation to a system expands unchecked and leads to instability and chaos. It is a world defined by an airplane wing in the midst of a low speed stall, where a pilot is given only one flawed, aerodynamic choice—to raise the nose of the aircraft by instinctively increasing the wing’s angle of attack. But this maneuver increases the drag on the aircraft out of proportion to the increase in lift, and without corrective action leads to catastrophe.   Totalitarians, who exploit and manipulate the physical and social sciences to restrict personal freedom and human rights, promote subjective science which is convenient to their needs and unbalanced. Protective negative feedback loops are ubiquitous in nature and force systems towards stability and equilibrium but are ignored or marginalized in order to engender a sense of futility and fear in the general population. The ensuing desperation leads to political choices based on emotional and imperfect information and results in unanticipated excesses, persecution, and tyranny. Marx, the unrepentant and frustrated anti-capitalist, never understood capitalism’s ability to self-correct. He mistakenly envisioned the free market as a system dominated by avarice and static behavior— a simplistic dialectic and zero-sum game that led to the exploitation of the workers and accumulation of great wealth by employers. The Marxist mindset fell victim to the presumption that positive feedback loops dominated capitalism, and the corrective, sustaining elements of negative feedback were nonexistent in a system predicated on efficiencies and flexibility to distortions in the market.  The same erroneous assumptions pervade the ideologies of the neo-Marxists and critical theorists, which have manifested in critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These philosophies are steeped in nihilism, victim oppression, and power structures based on phenotype. They are designed to exploit positive feedback loops, where any attempt of reconciliation or constructive dialogue is dismissed a priori as accentuating the problem. The solutions are predictable—the segregation of all subjective identity groups, the abrogation of individual rights in favor of state control, the confiscation of all personal property, and the moratorium on freedom of speech.  The Covid-19 debacle provided an opportunity for the pharmaceutical companies, government health regulatory organizations, and the rank-and-file medical establishment to exaggerate the effects of positive feedback loops and minimize the protective outcomes of negative feedback loops in the biologic setting. To achieve these aims, it was necessary to discard centuries of medical science and the understanding that biological systems are inherently self-corrective, and infectious diseases are not an exception.   Authoritative sources informed the public that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was destined to become more lethal as it mutated, a stunning departure to the lessons of virology. The use of therapeutics was described as a hopeless act of resignation, patients were instructed to avoid medical attention until gravely ill, and the coup de grâce—this, of all viruses, was not susceptible to the protections of natural immunity. Fear prevailed, the public panicked, and totalitarians were given free reign to do what they do best.  The purveyors of climate change hysteria are masters of using computer modeling to introduce mass formation into all aspects of society. The models are incomplete and disregard the mitigating variables of cloud formation, climatic cycles, and the solar influences. Data is cherry-picked, paleoclimatic results ignored, and the fundamentals of heat transfer and its relationship to the electromagnetic spectrum treated as an afterthought.   Climate change advocacy is the sine qua non of subjective science run amok. By politicizing science and dismissing detractors as heretics, the movement has successfully exploited a doomsday scenario based on exaggeration and conjecture. Its victims unwittingly forfeit their personal freedoms and economic security for themselves and much of the people of the Third World, who without access to plentiful, inexpensive energy are relegated to a life of poverty and destitution.  Free speech serves as the bedrock of a free people. It is the purest form of a negative feedback loop. Its participants willingly participate in the exchange of ideas, where unsavory, illogical, and preposterous thoughts are judged in the public forum and soon discarded. Beneficial ones are nurtured, fine-tuned, and restated until they are transformed into workable solutions made possible by open public debate. The great excesses of political drama that have befallen mankind are a result of censored and skewed speech that is sheltered from the stabilizing, collective intellect and commonsensical insights of a free society. The French Revolution demonstrated that not one single zealot was too pure for the revolution.  This perversion of perspective led to outrageous examples of political absolutism. This scenario played out during the Russian Revolution and Stalinism, the National Socialism of Nazi Germany, the 20th century military warlords of imperial Japan, Maoist China, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot. Millions have died and suffered from despots who controlled all aspects of communication. The democracies and constitutional republics of the world are being censored at the behest of elitists, who claim they alone know the “greater good.” Leo Strauss’s “noble lie” is rationalized as an excuse for the promotion of dishonestly to further what those in control define as noble.   We are informed that free speech is dangerous and that it leads to hate, instability, and mayhem. But this disingenuous argument is the argument of tyrants, who gaslight and use words as weapons to disable a free people. Free speech is the salvation of an open, prosperous, and civil society and the embodiment of the sustaining benefits of negative feedback loops.   Tyler Durden Mon, 08/28/2023 - 02:00.....»»

Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz said Elon Musk sucked up resources from competitors by overpromising the capabilities of Teslas. Dustin Moskovitz (left) had some harsh words for Elon Musk (right).PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images and Chesnot/Getty Images Dustin Moskovitz said Elon Musk's successful companies could be seen as "scams he got away with." The Facebook cofounder said Musk sucked up resources from others by overpromising with Tesla. Moskovitz pointed to Musk's promises on autonomous cars, and a report that he exaggerated Tesla ranges. Apparently Mark Zuckerberg isn't the only Facebook founder that's wary of Elon Musk. Facebook cofounder and Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz took a jab at the billionaire on Thursday.Moskovitz said people often argue Musk makes up for his antics through the value his companies Tesla and SpaceX bring to the world, but the Asana CEO said he's not sure the billionaire's success is legitimate."The point is I don't really see these companies as dispensating impact, or at least don't give nearly as much credit to him as others do," Moskovitz said on Threads. "If they were really built on outward lies, rather than just self-deceptions (rose-colored glasses), then we should really see them as scams he got away with."Moskovitz said that he believes Musk accelerated the development of EVs by one to two years at most and he thinks the Tesla CEO might actually have delayed it by "overpromising." Moskovitz said that Musk attracted customers, workers, and funding through his lofty promises for EV ranges, as well as autonomous driving and automated assembly plants.Moskovitz pointed to a recent report from Reuters that claimed Tesla, through a direct order from Musk, had exaggerated the expected range for its EVs on the vehicle's dashboard. Moskovitz added that the higher ranges made Teslas "look heads and tails above the competitors and that was not true."Neither Musk nor Tesla have responded to Reuters' report.Reuters did not indicate how far off Tesla's advertised range estimates were from its actual range, but cited third-party tests that indicated meaningful differences in real-world testing. The electric-car maker dominates the US market in large part because legacy automakers like Ford and General Motors have only begun to scale production for their own EVs. Tesla also no longer has the longest advertised range on the US market for electric cars. The Lucid Air has a range of about 516 miles, while Tesla's longest range vehicle, the Model S, has an estimated range of about 405 miles per a full charge.Dustin Moskovitz said on Threads that he's not convinced of the legitimacy of Musk's success.Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesMoskovitz — who has never worked in the automotive industry but says he comes at the issue from a software perspective — said that Musk's "big promise" of fully autonomous cars has also contributed to the company's ability to suck up resources at the potential expense of competitors. The Facebook cofounder pointed out that Musk has been promising self-driving software for years, but the carmaker still only offers an admittedly buggy beta version of FSD that requires a licensed driver to operate the vehicle."I work in software, I get that delays happen. But these are *the* claims that positioned Tesla as massively ahead of the competition and created a belief that Elon can pull forward the future through sheer grit and ingenuity," Moskovitz wrote. "The *belief* in those claims and the accelerated timelines is what made Tesla look like a leader so quickly; then they turned that cache into actual resources with fundraising. Estimating correctly wouldn't have looked revolutionary."Moskovitz argued that Musk has a tendency to overpromise and under-deliver, which sucked up resources from other companies like BYD, Toyota, Nikola, and Rivian. It's important to note that many of these automakers did not start making EVs until several years after Tesla began selling its first vehicle in 2008 after the company was founded in 2003. For example, Chinese automaker BYD didn't start building EVs till 2010, EV startup Nikola wasn't launched until 2014, and Rivian wasn't founded until 2009.Moskovitz said he had similar thoughts regarding Musk's work at SpaceX, a company that is privately valued at about $150 billion, but said he'll "try to enumerate at some point in the future."He did not respond to a request for additional comment from Insider ahead of publication.Not everyone agreed with the Facebook cofounder's hot take — he received some pushback from users in response to his post."I am no Elon fanboy, but one could argue that without Tesla showing the way and pushing the industry (even with simply false and grandiose advertising), none of the existing car makers would have tried to update their existing cash cow line ups as they have now," one Thread user wrote.Musk has also said that he does not want to discourage competition whether through Tesla's price wars or his updates to X, formerly known as Twitter."The goal of my companies is simply to be as useful as possible, never to kill the competition," Musk tweeted on Thursday in response to a meme about X. "Competing to serve the people is a good thing."Spokespeople for Tesla, SpaceX, and Musk also did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

In this article, we discuss 25 big companies that don’t drug test employees. If you want to skip our detailed discussion on the topic, head directly to 5 Big Companies That Don’t Drug Test Employees.  Using cannabis can affect attention, memory, and learning, same as alcohol. It is understandable that employers prefer workers to be […] In this article, we discuss 25 big companies that don’t drug test employees. If you want to skip our detailed discussion on the topic, head directly to 5 Big Companies That Don’t Drug Test Employees.  Using cannabis can affect attention, memory, and learning, same as alcohol. It is understandable that employers prefer workers to be lucid during work, be it drugs or alcohol. However, workplace drug testing can only detect recent cannabis or drug use, and it does not necessarily determine potential safety problems in the future. Other substances like opioids, antidepressants, and medically prescribed marijuana can also cause impairment. If an employee offers a valid prescription, the employer has to legally accept their use of these medications. Similarly, with recreational drugs, unless employees come to work visibly stoned or with their mental faculties impaired, should it really matter to employers what they do on their own time? CBD products that don’t cause a high in users may also contain elements that trigger a positive response on a drug screening test.  While many states approve of pre-employment drug testing, some instruct employers to inform applicants beforehand. An SHRM report highlighted that courts have decreed that pre-employment drug testing is not the same as medical examinations as per the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission demands that these drug tests be carried out after employees receive a conditional job acceptance. This is because the employer may need to make further medical inquiries to applicants based on the test results. Employers should also take into consideration local regulations. For example, conducting random drug tests is prohibited unless mandated by federal law in San Francisco. In California, the state constitution allows individuals the right to privacy, which means drug screenings without proper basis, such as random tests, are permitted in very exceptional circumstances. Similarly, employers must submit a written request to the labor commissioner in Connecticut, stating the reasons for performing random drug screenings, and get approval for the process. Don’t Miss: 15 States With the Biggest Drug Problems in 2023 Moreover, the legalization of adult-use cannabis across a majority of states is also disrupting the “Just Say No” era when it comes to employment. One significant factor behind the decision to relax drug testing policies is the lack of young blood in the aging workforce. This extends to the federal government and military as well. Per a New York Times report, the US military has allowed 3,400 candidates who failed to meet the drug screening criteria to try for recruitment again over the last five years. Similarly, the FBI and CIA are also relaxing their drug policies and allowing the use of marijuana among job applicants. Moreover, the Biden Administration is aiming to be more lenient when it comes to security clearances, given that over half of the American population has indulged in recreational or medicinal cannabis, and most believe that it should be completely legal. According to Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin:  “We don’t want to be disqualifying half of the population, tens of millions of people, for having done something that most of our recent presidents have done. You’re taking huge numbers of people off the field.” Similarly, multiple changes have been made to drug testing policies by government agencies. The CIA, beginning from April 2022, reduced the marijuana abstinence period for new candidates to just 90 days, down from one year. The FBI also lowered its marijuana abstention requirement for potential candidates from three years to one year in 2021. In December 2021, Avril D. Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, announced that past recreational marijuana use should be considered “relevant” but not the sole factor in determining an individual’s suitability for sensitive national security positions. In this article, we discuss 25 big companies that don’t drug test employees. These include Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).  Our Methodology  For this article, we selected the most prominent firms whose websites don’t explicitly state the need for pre-employment drug screening or random drug testing for employees. For companies whose websites were unclear, we researched on LinkedIn, Indeed, Reddit, and Zippia, and relied on majority consensus to shortlist firms that don’t drug test employees.  It is important to note that most companies reserve the right to perform drug tests on employees who are involved in workplace accidents which could normally be prevented, or individuals who show up to work with their mental faculties very clearly impaired.   Copyright: antonioguillem / 123RF Stock Photo Big Companies That Don’t Drug Test Employees 25. Twitter Twitter, an American social media company, is against drug testing for its employees. This especially became a norm during COVID-19, when remote work was encouraged. Twitter also implemented a remote work structure after the pandemic restrictions were lifted, which meant that drug testing was not necessary at all for employees. However, ever since Elon Musk took over the company on October 27, 2022, the future of the company and its policies – including drug testing – remain uncertain.  In addition to Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Twitter is one of the big American companies that don’t drug test employees.  24. Michaels Michaels is a private American-Canadian arts and crafts store chain. The company offers arts and crafts supplies, wall décor, and related merchandise for do-it-yourself house decorators and professionals. Michaels is one of the top companies that do not believe in drug testing its employees.  23. Whole Foods Market Whole Foods Market is a Texas-based multinational supermarket chain that primarily provides organic foods without artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. Whole Foods Market, now an Amazon subsidiary, is one of the big companies that don’t drug test employees.   22. Trader Joe’s Trader Joe’s is a California-based chain of grocery stores spread across the United States. It provides private label staple foods, organic foods, and specialty products. Trader Joe’s is known for its relaxed drug testing policies with employees.  21. In-N-Out Burger In-N-Out Burger is an American fast food restaurant company with outlets mostly located in California and the Southwest. It is a privately held company that does not drug test its employees.  20. LA Fitness International LA Fitness International is an American gym chain with presence in the US and Canada. The company was established in 1984, with its headquarters in Irvine, California. LA Fitness International does not drug test its employees.  19. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.  Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. is a specialty retail company that markets and sells bed linens, bath items, kitchen textiles, and home furnishings. The company is known for its relaxed drug testing policies for new and existing employees.  18. Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFM) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 20 Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFM) offers fresh and organic food products in the United States. On May 1, Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFM) offers reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $0.98, beating market estimates by $0.13. However, the revenue of $1.7 billion missed Wall Street consensus by $20 million. Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFM) is one of the big American companies that don’t drug test employees.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 20 hedge funds were bullish on Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFM), compared to 18 funds in the prior quarter. D E Shaw is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 1.10 million shares worth $38.6 million.  Here is what ClearBridge Small Cap Value Strategy has to say about Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFM) in its Q3 2022 investor letter: “We exited a number of stocks during the period, including Sprouts Farmers Market (NASDAQ:SFM). Strong investor sentiment for consumer staples helped bolster Sprouts’s stock price to a level we believe reflected the fair value of the company, and we exited the position to capture the positive returns on the stock.” 17. The Gap, Inc. (NYSE:GPS) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 25 The Gap, Inc. (NYSE:GPS) is an American apparel retailer that sells its clothes, accessories, and personal care products under the Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta brands. The Gap, Inc. (NYSE:GPS) is one of the biggest companies that believe in equal opportunity employment and therefore does not drug test its employees.  On May 25, The Gap, Inc. (NYSE:GPS) reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $0.01, outperforming Wall Street consensus by $0.17. The revenue of $3.28 billion was in-line with market estimates.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 25 hedge funds were bullish on The Gap, Inc. (NYSE:GPS), compared to 28 funds in the earlier quarter. Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management is the largest position holder in the company.  16. Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:PLNT) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 35 Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:PLNT) was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Hampton, New Hampshire. The company owns, manages, and franchises fitness centers under the Planet Fitness brand. It is one of the top companies that do not believe in employee drug testing.  Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:PLNT) forecasts that its revenue will increase by approximately 13% to 14% and its adjusted EBITDA will grow approximately 17% to 18% in 2023. The company also expects its EPS to climb between 33% to 36%. Planet Fitness also announced new financial targets for the next three years. The company is aiming for revenue growth in the low to mid-teens, adjusted EBITDA growth in the high teens, and adjusted EPS growth in the low to mid-20% range. According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 35 hedge funds were bullish on Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:PLNT), compared to 32 funds in the prior quarter.  Baron Small Cap Fund made the following comment about Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:PLNT) in its Q4 2022 investor letter: “Shares of Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:PLNT), the leading franchiser and operator of low-cost fitness centers, rose after reporting strong results. The company reported system-wide same-store sales increased 8.2%, raised estimates for growth in net income, and authorized another large share repurchase. Membership grew to an all-time record, now fully recovered from the pandemic lows. New gym openings are somewhat constrained by availability of HVAC units, but we envision the pace of growth will accelerate and that the base of gyms can still double over time from 2,000 to 4,000. We believe that EBITDA can grow at a mid-teens rate long term on a declining share count and that the trading multiple can modestly expand, which will drive continued good stock performance.” 15. Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 38 Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) operates discount retail stores throughout the United States and Canada. Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) does not engage in employee drug tests. On May 25, the company reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $1.47, missing Wall Street estimates by $0.07. The revenue of $7.33 billion outperformed market consensus by $60 million.  According to Insider Monkey’s Q1 data, Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) was part of 38 hedge fund portfolios, with collective stakes worth $2.40 billion. Paul Hilal’s Mantle Ridge LP is the largest position holder in the company, with 11.3 million shares worth $1.6 billion.  Madison Funds made the following comment about Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) in its fourth-quarter 2022 investor letter: “Our largest individual detractors were Brookfield Corporation, Alphabet, Amazon, Black Knight, and Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR). Alphabet’s price-to-earnings multiple continues to contract due to concerns about the potential for revenue to be more economically sensitive than it has been historically, given the vast size of the business today. At Amazon, cost pressures and slowing AWS growth weighed on its share price. The regulatory status of Intercontinental Exchange’s pending acquisition offer for Black Knight remains a concern, while in the interim, business conditions have deteriorated given the slowdown in the mortgage market. Lastly, Dollar Tree’s margin outlook disappointed as management is investing to drive traffic to their stores and improve Family Dollar operations.” 14. DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 43 DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) operates as a sporting goods retailer in the United States. The company provides sporting goods equipment, fitness equipment, golf equipment, hunting and fishing gear, as well as athleisure and accessories. DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) does not drug test its employees.  On May 23, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) declared a $1.00 per share quarterly dividend, in line with previous. The dividend is payable on June 30, to shareholders of record as of June 16.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 43 hedge funds were bullish on DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS), compared to 40 funds in the prior quarter. Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital is the biggest stakeholder of the company, with 4.5 million shares worth $647.8 million.  Here is what Baron Fund has to say about DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. (NYSE:DKS) in its Q1 2022 investor letter: “Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. was the first stock Michael recommended to us shortly after he joined Baron Capital in 2003. Dick’s share price has since increased about nine-fold. Unfortunately, we sold our investment in Dick’s about six years ago and, although it was a successful investment, we did not realize the full benefit of Michael’s recommendation. We sold too soon because I was concerned that competition from internet retailers would have a permanent negative impact on Dick’s stores’ profitability. I was wrong. Dick’s stock price so far has about doubled after we sold…and its prospects have brightened! We sold even though we considered Ed Stack, Dick’s Chairm”n and CEO, a terrific retailer, a great entrepreneur and a special person. Ed had built Dick’s from three bait and tackle stores his dad started into a uniquely positioned, nationwide chain of 730 sporting goods stores. In fact, Dick’s is now the largest nationwide sporting goods chain. Ed had purchased the three bait and tackle stores, the foundation of Dick’s business, from his dad. Ed’s mother loaned him the money to buy his dad’s stores! I’m not exactly sure what that signifies. But it may have something to do with Carl Icahn’s proclamation that “everything I have is for sale except my children…and maybe my wife.” Ed and his newly appointed CEO Lauren Hobart visited us last month. Ed asked for the meeting to introduce us to Lauren, as well as to discuss the prospects for Dick’s new, large format stores with attached outdoor, student athletic fields. Lauren then described how well its new format stores were doing in two smaller communities. We also spoke about the successes of Dick’s omni-channel retailing efforts and how desirable Dick’s stores have become to shopping centers trying to lure shoppers to return to their malls.” 13. The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 43 The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) is a food and drug retailer in the United States. It is one of the big companies that don’t drug test employees. On June 22, The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) declared a $0.29 per share quarterly dividend, an 11.5% increase from its prior dividend of $0.26. The dividend is payable on September 1, to shareholders of record on August 15.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 43 hedge funds were bullish on The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR), compared to 42 funds in the preceding quarter. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is the leading stakeholder of the company, with 50 million shares worth $2.46 billion.  Oakmark Fund made the following comment about The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) in its Q1 2023 investor letter: “The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR is the second-largest grocery retailer in America, behind only Walmart. Although the grocery industry is highly competitive, Kroger’s scale advantages allow it to offer a more compelling value proposition than smaller peers and earn higher returns on capital. In recent years, the market has assigned Kroger a lower multiple due to concerns that e-commerce would disrupt traditional brick-and-mortar grocery businesses. However, we believe Kroger’s performance through the pandemic highlighted that its store footprint, distribution infrastructure, technology investments and strong brand all position the company well for a world with higher online grocery adoption. The stock trades for just 10x our estimate of next year’s EPS, which we believe is attractive given Kroger’s competitive positioning and earnings growth outlook. The pending merger with Albertsons has the potential to drive accelerated earnings growth and further scale advantages. If the merger is not approved, the company will have the capacity to return over 25% of its market cap to shareholders.” 12. Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 46 Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) is a general merchandise retailer in the United States. It is one of the biggest American companies that refrain from drug testing employees. On June 15, Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) declared a $1.10 per share quarterly dividend, a 1.9% increase from its prior dividend of $1.08. The dividend is payable on September 10, to shareholders of record on August 16.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 46 hedge funds were long Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), compared to 48 funds in the earlier quarter. Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates is a prominent stakeholder of the company, with 664,382 shares worth $110 million.  Madison Sustainable Equity Fund made the following comment about Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) in its Q1 2023 investor letter: “Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) reported a solid fourth quarter, exceeding expectations. Same store sales were positive with better-than-expected margins resulting in earnings for the quarter ahead of expectations. At the same time, Target provided guidance for 2023 that was below expectations, which sets them up to meet or exceed expectations after a difficult 2022. Target expects same store sales for 2023 to range from a low single digit decline to a low single digit increase, with operating margins in the 4.5% to 5% range. We continue to view Target as well positioned for long-term growth with its strong owned brand strategy and omnichannel offerings.” 11. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 47 Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) owns and operates Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants. It is known for having relaxed drug testing policies with its employees. On April 25, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $10.50 and a revenue of $2.4 billion, outperforming Wall Street estimates by $1.55 and $60 million, respectively. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG)’s in-restaurant sales experienced a notable growth of 22.9%, whereas digital sales accounted for 39.3% of the total revenue generated from the food and beverage segment. According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 47 hedge funds were bullish on Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG), compared to 42 funds in the prior quarter. Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square is the largest stakeholder of the company, with more than 1 million shares worth $1.75 billion.  Ensemble Capital made the following comment about Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) in its Q1 2023 investor letter: “Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) (+23.12%): The company continues to attract loyal customers to their all natural, fresh food alternative to the highly processed junk food sold by most fast food companies. Despite needing to raise prices by double digit rates to offset inflation in food prices and higher labor costs, the company has seen resilient customer demand. While digital orders have fallen from peak COVID levels, digital sales stabilized in the fourth quarter at approximately 40% of all orders or twice the volume seen pre-COVID. The company has remained busy opening new locations with a focus on those that can support a Chipotlane, the company’s drive through concept that leverages customers’ ability to order ahead on their phones to make pick up times very short. Today, 18% of all locations have a Chipotlane pick up option compared to just 3% pre-COVID.” 10. International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 49 International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM), an American multinational technology corporation, is one of the biggest companies that don’t engage in drug testing employees. On June 26, International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) reached an agreement to purchase Apptio, an enterprise software company, from Vista Equity Partners. The acquisition will be made using IBM’s existing cash reserves and will amount to $4.6 billion. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of 2023. According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 49 hedge funds were bullish on International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM), compared to 43 funds in the prior quarter. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management is a prominent stakeholder of the company, with 680,290 shares worth $89 million.  Diamond Hill Long-Short Fund made the following comment about International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) in its Q4 2022 investor letter: “New positions initiated in Q4 included shorts International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM), Acushnet Holdings (GOLF) and elf Beauty (ELF). Since diversified information technology company IBM’s 2019 acquisition of Red Hat, the company has aggressively pursued a hybrid cloud strategy. Though IBM and its new management team have made solid progress on this pivot, we believe the company still meaningfully lags the cloud hyperscalers and other cloud-native companies. Management has also laid out aggressive long-term targets for revenue growth and free cash flow, both of which we believe the company will struggle to achieve as it faces intense competition in its hybrid cloud business and structural headwinds in the company’s legacy businesses.” 9. Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 53 Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) is a prominent American discount retailer that does not drug test employees. On June 1, Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) declared a $0.59 per share quarterly dividend, in line with previous. The dividend is payable on July 25, to shareholders of record on July 11.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 53 hedge funds were long Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG), compared to 59 funds in the earlier quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 1.6 million shares worth $344.45 million.  Aristotle Atlantic Focus Growth Strategy made the following comment about Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) in its Q1 2023 investor letter: “Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG shares underperformed on a rotation out of more defensive consumer names at the start of the year despite growing concerns of a slowdown in the economy and the coinciding effects on consumer spending. During the first quarter, Dollar General reported solid comps, as their core lower-income consumer remained resilient despite rising inflation.” 8. McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 64 McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) is one of the biggest companies that don’t drug test employees. On April 25, McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $2.63 and a revenue of $5.9 billion, topping Wall Street estimates by $0.29 and $320 million, respectively. During the first quarter, there was a rise of approximately 13% in comparable sales across all segments, both globally and within each individual segment. According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 64 hedge funds were bullish on McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD), compared to 57 funds in the earlier quarter. Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace LLP is the biggest stakeholder of the company, with 1.6 million shares worth $459.2 million.  7. Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 67 Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is an American multinational that specializes in enterprise software, business software, cloud computing, computer hardware, and consulting. Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is known for being one of the big companies that don’t drug test employees.  On June 12, Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) reported an FQ4 non-GAAP EPS of $1.67 and a revenue of $13.84 billion, outperforming Wall Street estimates by $0.09 and $110 million, respectively. The company also declared a per share quarterly dividend of $0.40, which is payable on July 26 to shareholders on record as of July 12.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 67 hedge funds were bullish on Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL), compared to 65 funds in the prior quarter. Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 20.6 million shares worth nearly $2 billion.  6. Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 69 Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX), the American coffee giant, is against drug testing its employees. On June 21, Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) declared a $0.53 per share quarterly dividend, in line with previous. The dividend is distributable on August 25, to shareholders of record on August 11.  According to Insider Monkey’s first quarter database, 69 hedge funds were bullish on Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX), compared to 61 funds in the prior quarter. Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates is a prominent stakeholder of the company, with a position worth $259 million.  Like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) does not drug test its employees.  Polen Global Growth Strategy made the following comment about Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX) in its Q4 2022 investor letter: “We also liquidated our remaining position in Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX). While the company remains a unique and resilient franchise, China is a very important growth market for the company, and zero-COVID policies have made it challenging for the company to operate in this important market. While we expect China to return to more “normal” operation at some point, any COVID flare-ups, in China or other markets, present a very real headwind to Starbucks’ profitability. L’Oreal, Estée Lauder, and other holdings continue to have meaningful exposure to China, but in each of these cases, our research indicates they’re able to better adapt to these operating challenges and realize the growth opportunity in China through their online businesses. In short, we think there are better risk-reward opportunities.” Click to continue reading and see 5 Big Companies That Don’t Drug Test Employees.    Suggested articles: Top 20 Countries With Highest Drug Consumption 20 Most Commonly Used Recreational Drugs in America 15 Most Profitable Drugs In The World   Disclosure: None. 25 Big Companies That Don’t Drug Test Employees is originally published on Insider Monkey......»»

Intelligence has a new dimension in contemporary times. Intellect is no longer limited to academic excellence and business acumen. Today, ... Read more Intelligence has a new dimension in contemporary times. Intellect is no longer limited to academic excellence and business acumen. Today, to be successful, you also need emotional intelligence along with IQ. In fact, in the times to come, emotional intelligence will be an essential prerequisite for employees and employers. EQ’s idea in the workplace has gained of late is set to increase manifold in the coming years. It is interesting to note that many companies are now conducting EQ tests for hiring. According to Mitrefinch Inc’s insights, almost 90 percent of businesses will be using EQ tests for selecting the best-suited candidates in times to come. This is for the simple reason that companies realize the importance of emotional intelligence for success. Find A Qualified Financial Advisor Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to 3 fiduciary financial advisors in your area in 5 minutes. Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. If you’re ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now. Companies now look at EQ as an imperative professional skill that their workforce must possess. As an employer, you too understand the need for fostering a culture of EQ within your organization. This blog puts forth some worthwhile strategies for promoting EQ in the workplace to help you with that. Before that, just to be on the same page, let us concisely revise EQ’s definition. What is Emotional Intelligence? According to an article by Linkedin, emotional intelligence has a 56 percent contribution to the professional success of a person. This proportion again speaks for the vitality of EQ in attaining success and streamlining growth. Further, on average, people with high EQ earn USD 29000 more per year than people with low EQ. This is a testament to the great prowess that the skill of EQ holds. In a literal sense, it can change the fortunes of a person and make him far more successful than he will be without EQ. But what exactly is emotional intelligence? What does it mean to have this significant trait that can add so much to a person’s success? People who have good EQ have a great understanding of their emotions and themselves. Besides, having EQ means being full of self-awareness and having the ability to manage his emotions and decisions. To add, the salient dimensions of EQ include empathy, self-regulation, and various social skills. The definition can be subjective as different people have different understandings of intelligence. However, in a general sense, EQ is the ability of a person to work with his emotions and decisions to make success-oriented choices. Next, let us look at the various ways to cultivate a culture of EQ in your company. Ways To Reinforce EQ In The Workplace Create Awareness  The first step towards teaching a new virtue in the workplace is to create awareness about it. It is possible that a few of your employees may not be familiar with the notion of EQ. Besides, given the subjectivity or confusion around the concept, they may not have a clear idea. Hence, you need first to create awareness about emotional intelligence. Your employees should know about EQ, its benefits for success, and its relevance in the workplace. The idea should be presented to them as something benefiting their professional growth and development. The concept can be explained during orientation sessions or other training modules to aware the staff members of EQ’s significance. When employees learn about EQ during their orientation training, it will be beneficial. They will know that the company works around EQ’s core values and expects the same from its employees. You will not be able to incorporate a new culture unless you create great importance around it. So, making EQ a part of the training modules and workplace discussions will be a perfect way. Model Self-Regulation  People with high EQ are known for their efficacy in self-regulation. They constructively regulate their emotions and feelings. Besides, they know how to regulate their temperament while facing challenging situations that test them to the core. Needless to say, if a person is not able to manage his feelings in the workplace, his vulnerability can negatively impact him. Furthermore, this will have negative repercussions for the organization as well. Even the best professional certificates will have a limited impact if a person cannot control his feelings.  Being a leader, you need to lead by example. You ought to model self-regulation for your employees. When they see you maintaining your calm in challenging situations and not letting your emotional mix affect your work, they will feel inspired. You have to lead from the front and be neutral in situations. This does not mean you cannot show your emotions or you need to hide them. However, while setting the benchmark for self-regulation, you need to set goals for your staff to manage emotions skillfully. They need to learn that emotional vulnerability should not interfere with their critical thinking skills. You are a role model for them, and their best chance of learning is from your persona. So, show them the way and lead them towards effective self-regulation! Promote Empathy In The Workplace Remember, empathy is a salient attribute of emotional intelligence. We have all been together in these unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were all caught up in apprehensions and anxieties set in by the pandemic. The world for sure has realized the importance of empathy in this pandemic than ever before. Given that, empathy has now become a vital feature of a healthy and conducive work environment. To substantiate, as per the State of the Workplace Empathy Study’s findings, 96 percent of workers expect the exhibition of empathy from their employers. Given that, to foster an EQ culture within your organization, you need to meet empathy expectations. When you fulfill these expectations, empathy will reflect in the holistic company culture. To promote empathy better, you need to win the trust of your employees. You should convey to them that they can approach you with all their concerns. You have to show the willingness to understand their feelings and emotions. This can also be done by initiating wellness programs. Further, it is a given fact that work stress is for real, and it is making professionals prone to mental health issues. You can also promote better stress management techniques for employees. When they see their employer care for their wellness and mental well-being, they will be motivated to have the same for their colleagues. In the larger picture, it will establish better EQ in the workforce. Empathy is one of the most significant driving forces behind EQ, after all. Train For Better Self-Awareness  To learn EQ and to benefit from it, employees need extraordinary acumen in self-awareness. They should be able to understand themselves better and reflect on their previous decisions. Moreover, they should have a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. Here the focus is more on emotional strengths and weaknesses. For that, you need to train the employees to be more reflective of themselves. This self-awareness will be crucial for them when they receive feedback from their superiors. When your team members have better self-awareness, they will be able to contribute better. This is another vertical where you need to lead from the front. You have to stimulate self-awareness and train the employees to master it. Further, this self-awareness can be promoted through healthy competition, team-building activities, and performance reviews. A vital part of self-awareness will also involve training your employees to deal with failures. Failures often have emotional impacts on the motivation and spirits of people. Such discouragement makes them fragile when it comes to emotions and affects their confidence. Henceforth, employees should know how to deal with failures and look beyond them. Prioritize Social Skills  Social skills are complementary to emotional intelligence. While employees should understand their own and each other’s emotions, responding appropriately is also significant. Better understanding and support from each other have a direct correlation with communication skills. Employees should be able to socialize among themselves and express themselves better. Other crucial social skills include active and effective listening, understanding non-verbal cues of communication, and conflict resolution. Therefore, you have to improve these skills in your teams to achieve the objective of creating a culture driven by IQ. You can also refine the hiring process accordingly and hire candidates that endorse impressive and flamboyant social skills. To conclude, the future shall belong to those businesses who invest in the idea of building a workforce inspired by EQ. As mentioned above, emotional intelligence has different virtues that need to be reinforced in the workplace. There are various ways in which you can achieve that. But in most of these strategies, you will have to lead the way. The positive changes that you incorporate into your personality will set the standards for all workers. At last, you need the IQ to think outside the box and make EQ a practical reality for your organization. The post Five Effective Ways to Foster a Culture of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace appeared first on Due......»»

Companies are putting up more hurdles for prospective candidates, lengthening the process. There was a time, not too long ago, when employers were in such a rush to hire workers that they were doing anything they could to make it easier for people to apply. That time has passed. Job hunting was becoming more miserable even before the pandemic, as the amount of time companies took to hire stretched out and as they asked candidates to undergo more and more interviews. Labor shortages during the pandemic gave a temporary reprieve, but now, as fears about a recession grow, companies are going back to their old habits of putting candidates through a grueling process. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] More from TIME [video id=KyLky1eV autostart="viewable"] “It’s frustrating and tiring—job hunting has never been this hard,” says Michael Cook, who was laid off from a gaming company in December after more than a decade in the professional labor market, and who has applied to hundreds of jobs since. One company had him go through six rounds of interviews over multiple months; another asked him to create a project that they then used on their website but didn’t pay him for his work; others sent him take-home tests or asked him to record videos of himself answering pre-set questions. He has not received any offers. Part of the difficulty stems from a tightening labor market especially in fields like tech that have had hundreds of thousands of layoffs in the last nine months. There is now, on average, one job opening for every two applicants on LinkedIn, a big change from early 2022, when there was one job opening per applicant on average. Read More: Empathetic Employers Were a Pandemic Blip But it’s not just the economy causing companies to change their hiring processes in ways that make them take longer, says Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The pandemic increased the use of one-way video interviews, in which applicants are asked to record a video of themselves answering a list of pre-set questions, because interviews couldn’t be done in person. But the proliferation of these interviews just gives companies a lot more content to sort through. Meanwhile, as companies prioritize equity, they’re getting more people involved in the hiring process, inviting upper-level managers and the peers of a would-be colleague to weigh in, which adds time. Companies who laid off human resources staff are now delegating interviewing and hiring to line managers who aren’t familiar with the process. None of this, Cappelli says, means employers are getting better candidates, but it has lengthened the time it takes to hire. The amount of time it takes to hire a new employee reached an all-time high of 44 days in early 2023, according to a report released this month by the Josh Bersin Company and AMS, a workforce solutions firm. “Make no mistake, the hiring market is not going to get easier any time soon,” said Jim Sykes, global managing director of client operations at AMS, in a statement. Many job seekers told me that they’d been targeted by scams in which supposed hirers offered them an appealing-sounding job, and even set up Zoom calls and interviews—but turned out to be people posing as recruiters looking for candidates’ personal information and job accounts. Even legitimate companies are posting “ghost jobs” that they don’t actually ever fill, according to a survey by Clarify Capital. Employers post ghost jobs to get a pool of candidates that they may use someday, to give the impression that their company is growing, and to keep current employees motivated, according to the survey of 1,045 managers involved in the hiring process. The miserable job market appears to be worse for people with a college degree, according to a Harris Poll conducted on behalf of TIME.   It found that 51% of job seekers with bachelor’s degrees who had at least one interview completed the interview process without receiving an offer, compared to 35% with at most a high school diploma. Those with a bachelor’s degree were also more likely than those with a high school diploma to be asked to complete a job skills assessment; to be asked to do a one-way interview in which they record themselves answering pre-set questions; and to report inconsistencies between the job requirements and salary range listed in the posting vs. what they were told later on in the interview process. Companies’ commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion appears to be gone too, with Black job seekers having particularly bad experiences. In one recent survey of 1,200 U.S.-based employees conducted by the recruiting firm Greenhouse, though two-thirds of respondents overall reported having been ghosted after a job interview, candidates from historically underrepresented groups faced a 25% higher chance of being ghosted when compared to white candidates. Candidates frustrated with the rigamarole are applying to more positions, creating a vicious cycle in which the job market is even more saturated with applications and employers turn to software to sort through these applications that lengthens the process even more. Job seekers are sending out 40% more applications than they did last year at this time, according to Rand Ghayad, head of economics and global labor markets at LinkedIn. “Workers are losing some of the bargaining power they had over the last few years,” he says. “The balance of power is drifting back to employers.” Part of this changing balance of power is related to uncertainty in the economy. Hiring managers and human resources personnel may think that they have the budget to hire one week, and then find out, after they’ve posted the job and even conducted interviews, that the company has changed its mind. The barriers in the interview process may explain why more people seeking employment are turning to freelancing and part-time jobs—perhaps they are trying to avoid wasting their time jumping through companies’ hoops when they aren’t likely to get a job. Read More: Why Americans Want Part-Time Jobs Again Cierra Reid has applied to at least 10 jobs a day since getting laid off from her job as a customer success manager in November. She’s had a few interviews, but her experience has mostly been frustrating. Recruiters will schedule interviews and then cancel, saying that the company froze hiring or that the role has been filled internally. If the interviewing and recruiting process wasn’t already exhausting enough, Reid delivers for DoorDash 7-8 hours a day to earn money. For Reid, the worst part of the job hunting process are the scams. Someone will reach out to her with an email address that looks like it’s from a well-known company and ask her to download a third-party application, but when she looks closely at their email address she sees that it is missing a letter or suffix and is clearly trying to impersonate the company. Sometimes the scammers will take the name of the real recruiter at the organization. Reid has been tricked: she’s filled out applications and answered interview questions for jobs that she later learned were scams when they asked her to send her bank account info. “You can’t ever be confident it’s a real job reaching out to you,” she says. “These companies are getting really good, and people are so desperate they could be vulnerable.” One time, Reid, skeptical at this point, reached out to the recruiter independently to make sure the interview was real, and received a message back informing her the email address was “fraudulent and from someone trying to scam people.” Now, she spends a lot of time deleting scam emails that reach her via LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter, and searching messages from recruiters to catch grammar or spelling errors that may signal a scam. LinkedIn said in a statement that it uses technology and teams of experts to find and remove unsafe jobs and those that don’t meet their standards. In May, the company said it would start to show verifications related to a job post, meaning that the information has been verified as authentic by the job poster, LinkedIn, or its partners. That technology may be helpful in scanning for scammers, but both Reid and Cook say there’s a downside. They’ve both had the experience lately of applying for a job and getting a form rejection email within minutes—a sign, they both say, that no human looked at their application and that some sort of software filtered them out. When you get a form rejection at 2 a.m. after you’ve applied for a job at midnight, Reid says, you can be pretty sure software is sending that message. As frustrating as long and onerous interview processes are, the increasing reliance on artificial intelligence, with it’s lack of nuance and context, could be even worse for job seekers.” It’s an ironic twist, since both Reid and Cook worked in tech and had long known of the threat AI posed to their jobs. They had worried that software would replace them, not that it would make it almost impossible to get a job......»»

Companies are putting up more hurdles for prospective candidates, lengthening the process. There was a time, not too long ago, when employers were in such a rush to hire workers that they were doing anything they could to make it easier for people to apply. That time has passed. Job hunting was becoming more miserable even before the pandemic, as the amount of time companies took to hire stretched out and as they asked candidates to undergo more and more interviews. Labor shortages during the pandemic gave a temporary reprieve, but now, as fears about a recession grow, companies are going back to their old habits of putting candidates through a grueling process. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “It’s frustrating and tiring—job hunting has never been this hard,” says Michael Cook, who was laid off from a gaming company in December after more than a decade in the professional labor market, and who has applied to hundreds of jobs since. One company had him go through six rounds of interviews over multiple months; another asked him to create a project that they then used on their website but didn’t pay him for his work; others sent him take-home tests or asked him to record videos of himself answering pre-set questions. He has not received any offers. Part of the difficulty stems from a tightening labor market especially in fields like tech that have had hundreds of thousands of layoffs in the last nine months. There is now, on average, one job opening for every two applicants on LinkedIn, a big change from early 2022, when there was one job opening per applicant on average. Read More: Empathetic Employers Were a Pandemic Blip But it’s not just the economy causing companies to change their hiring processes in ways that make them take longer, says Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The pandemic increased the use of one-way video interviews, in which applicants are asked to record a video of themselves answering a list of pre-set questions, because interviews couldn’t be done in person. But the proliferation of these interviews just gives companies a lot more content to sort through. Meanwhile, as companies prioritize equity, they’re getting more people involved in the hiring process, inviting upper-level managers and the peers of a would-be colleague to weigh in, which adds time. Companies who laid off human resources staff are now delegating interviewing and hiring to line managers who aren’t familiar with the process. None of this, Cappelli says, means employers are getting better candidates, but it has lengthened the time it takes to hire. The amount of time it takes to hire a new employee reached an all-time high of 44 days in early 2023, according to a report released this month by the Josh Bersin Company and AMS, a workforce solutions firm. “Make no mistake, the hiring market is not going to get easier any time soon,” said Jim Sykes, global managing director of client operations at AMS, in a statement. Many job seekers told me that they’d been targeted by scams in which supposed hirers offered them an appealing-sounding job, and even set up Zoom calls and interviews—but turned out to be people posing as recruiters looking for candidates’ personal information and job accounts. Even legitimate companies are posting “ghost jobs” that they don’t actually ever fill, according to a survey by Clarify Capital. Employers post ghost jobs to get a pool of candidates that they may use someday, to give the impression that their company is growing, and to keep current employees motivated, according to the survey of 1,045 managers involved in the hiring process. The miserable job market appears to be worse for people with a college degree, according to a Harris Poll conducted on behalf of TIME.   It found that 51% of job seekers with bachelor’s degrees who had at least one interview completed the interview process without receiving an offer, compared to 35% with at most a high school diploma. Those with a bachelor’s degree were also more likely than those with a high school diploma to be asked to complete a job skills assessment; to be asked to do a one-way interview in which they record themselves answering pre-set questions; and to report inconsistencies between the job requirements and salary range listed in the posting vs. what they were told later on in the interview process. Companies’ commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion appears to be gone too, with Black job seekers having particularly bad experiences. In one recent survey of 1,200 U.S.-based employees conducted by the recruiting firm Greenhouse, though two-thirds of respondents overall reported having been ghosted after a job interview, candidates from historically underrepresented groups faced a 25% higher chance of being ghosted when compared to white candidates. Candidates frustrated with the rigamarole are applying to more positions, creating a vicious cycle in which the job market is even more saturated with applications and employers turn to software to sort through these applications that lengthens the process even more. Job seekers are sending out 40% more applications than they did last year at this time, according to Rand Ghayad, head of economics and global labor markets at LinkedIn. “Workers are losing some of the bargaining power they had over the last few years,” he says. “The balance of power is drifting back to employers.” Part of this changing balance of power is related to uncertainty in the economy. Hiring managers and human resources personnel may think that they have the budget to hire one week, and then find out, after they’ve posted the job and even conducted interviews, that the company has changed its mind. The barriers in the interview process may explain why more people seeking employment are turning to freelancing and part-time jobs—perhaps they are trying to avoid wasting their time jumping through companies’ hoops when they aren’t likely to get a job. Read More: Why Americans Want Part-Time Jobs Again Cierra Reid has applied to at least 10 jobs a day since getting laid off from her job as a customer success manager in November. She’s had a few interviews, but her experience has mostly been frustrating. Recruiters will schedule interviews and then cancel, saying that the company froze hiring or that the role has been filled internally. If the interviewing and recruiting process wasn’t already exhausting enough, Reid delivers for DoorDash 7-8 hours a day to earn money. For Reid, the worst part of the job hunting process are the scams. Someone will reach out to her with an email address that looks like it’s from a well-known company and ask her to download a third-party application, but when she looks closely at their email address she sees that it is missing a letter or suffix and is clearly trying to impersonate the company. Sometimes the scammers will take the name of the real recruiter at the organization. Reid has been tricked: she’s filled out applications and answered interview questions for jobs that she later learned were scams when they asked her to send her bank account info. “You can’t ever be confident it’s a real job reaching out to you,” she says. “These companies are getting really good, and people are so desperate they could be vulnerable.” One time, Reid, skeptical at this point, reached out to the recruiter independently to make sure the interview was real, and received a message back informing her the email address was “fraudulent and from someone trying to scam people.” Now, she spends a lot of time deleting scam emails that reach her via LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter, and searching messages from recruiters to catch grammar or spelling errors that may signal a scam. LinkedIn said in a statement that it uses technology and teams of experts to find and remove unsafe jobs and those that don’t meet their standards. In May, the company said it would start to show verifications related to a job post, meaning that the information has been verified as authentic by the job poster, LinkedIn, or its partners. That technology may be helpful in scanning for scammers, but both Reid and Cook say there’s a downside. They’ve both had the experience lately of applying for a job and getting a form rejection email within minutes—a sign, they both say, that no human looked at their application and that some sort of software filtered them out. When you get a form rejection at 2 a.m. after you’ve applied for a job at midnight, Reid says, you can be pretty sure software is sending that message. As frustrating as long and onerous interview processes are, the increasing reliance on artificial intelligence, with it’s lack of nuance and context, could be even worse for job seekers.” It’s an ironic twist, since both Reid and Cook worked in tech and had long known of the threat AI posed to their jobs. They had worried that software would replace them, not that it would make it almost impossible to get a job......»»

Most Americans don't know much about ChatGPT, but employers want workers with AI experience. Here are six fun ChatGPT prompts for beginners. Getty Images Despite ChatGPT's surge in popularity, most Americans don't know much about it. Companies are already seeking out workers with ChatGPT experience. Here's a list of six prompts ChatGPT beginners can use to familiarize themselves with the AI tech. If you never experiment with artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, it might negatively influence your career down the road. So why not give it a chance?Since launching in November, the OpenAI-owned chatbot has taken the world by storm, reaching over 100 million active users by the end of January. In the working world, ChatGPT has helped users apply for jobs and be more productive once they land them. While some companies have resisted AI like ChatGPT, many, including Snapchat, Slack, and Duolingo, have incorporated ChatGPT-powered tools into their businesses. But the AI isn't poised to affect just the tech industry. Roughly 300 million jobs across the globe could be influenced by generative AI, Goldman Sachs estimated, and in this future, workers who have familiarity with AI tools could be in high demand.Ninety-one percent of the 1,187 business leaders surveyed in an April Resume Builder study said they're looking to hire workers with ChatGPT experience in roles such as customer service, sales and finance, human resources, and marketing.But despite the expected importance of this technology for workers, 62% of Americans in a March Marist poll of 1,327 US adults — and 45% of Gen Zers and millennials — said they had little or no knowledge of ChatGPT. In the future, workers might be replaced not by ChatGPT but by their fellow humans who manage to familiarize themselves with and use emerging AI technologies.Oded Netzer, a Columbia Business School professor, told Insider: "You will not be replaced by AI but replaced by someone who knows what to do with AI. The people who know what to do with AI will become more efficient in what they do."In April, Insider published a step-by-step guide on how to access and use ChatGPT. Once you're ready to play around with it, here are six fun prompts ChatGPT beginners can use to familiarize themselves with the technology.Once you get the hang of it, you might be able to use it to make your job easier.Ask ChatGPT to write a story or songChatGPT - Jacob ZinkulaIn April, Insider's Spriha Srivastava detailed how she used ChatGPT to come up with bedtime stories for her 5-year-old son. "A few nights ago, my son said he wanted a story about Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and himself," she wrote. "We dictated a prompt to ChatGPT, and I saw my son's eyes light up as the story got populated within seconds. 'Wow, that's like magic,' he screamed with joy. I did too, if only to myself."In March, Shannon Ahern, a high-school math and science teacher, told Insider that she started out treating ChatGPT as a joke — and used it to write poems about the Pythagorean theorem and a song about math in the style of Taylor Swift.She said her students enjoyed them, which motivated her to seek out other ways she could use the AI, including for making lesson plans and worksheets.Example prompt: Write a bedtime story about the Disney princesses.Providing ChatGPT further clarification can help it generate the best and most relevant reply. Example follow-up prompt: Add a twist ending.Ask ChatGPT to plan your next vacationChatGPT - Jacob ZinkulaYenyi Fu, the head of product at Kimkim, an online travel agency, asked ChatGPT to plan a 10-day vacation in Costa Rica for her and her family, she told Insider in March."For someone who doesn't know the destination well, it seems pretty amazing," she said. While she eventually found some flaws in the chatbot's plan — its itinerary ended the trip too far from the airport — she said it was "super easy to use" and helpful for brainstorming. Example prompt: Plan me a four-day vacation in Rome.Example follow-up prompt: Make the trip family friendly.Ask ChatGPT to come up with a recipeChatGPT - Jacob ZinkulaInsider's Lauren Edmonds was curious whether ChatGPT could help her get creative in the kitchen.After creating an account, she asked ChatGPT: "Can you create an upscale pasta recipe with shrimp and garlic for me to make?" She said the chatbot generated a recipe with 12 ingredients and nine steps within three minutes.When she gave it a chance, she was impressed by how comprehensive and easy the recipe was. "I didn't know what to expect when I requested the recipe, but it was actually put together very well and tasted just as good," she said.Example prompt: Create an Italian recipe for my upcoming party — give it an original name.Example follow-up prompt: Give me a recipe that will take less time to make.Ask ChatGPT to play a gameChatGPT - Jacob ZinkulaNext time you're bored, open up ChatGPT. The chatbot is capable of producing games like 20 questions, hangman, and tic-tac-toe — all you have to do is ask. It's also capable of producing more complex choose-your-own-adventure games if prompted correctly.It can even create entirely new games. In March, Daniel Tait, a 28-year-old software developer from Scotland, asked ChatGPT to generate a game tailored to Sudoku fans.After the chatbot produced a list of five games he was already familiar with, Tait prompted it to create a puzzle game from scratch. ChatGPT then created a game it called "Sumplete," which Tait described as a "reverse Sudoku.""I was surprised every step of the way when I asked if it could make a puzzle," Tait previously told Insider. "It instantly came up with an idea."Example prompt: Let's play a game of tic-tac-toe.Example follow-up prompt: Let's play a game that's more challenging.Ask ChatGPT to write emails and messagesChatGPT - Jacob ZinkulaSome users have asked ChatGPT to help them draft emails, cover letters, and essays. Insider's Jordan Parker Erb even used ChatGPT to reply to messages on her Hinge dating app. She said it wasn't a smooth talker, though."The replies that ChatGPT offered were often lengthy, impersonal, and, frankly, bizarre," she wrote in January. Example prompt: Write a message to let someone know that I will have to cancel our plans for this weekend because I'm sick.Example follow-up prompt: Make the message less formal.Ask it the questions you'd typically ask GoogleChatGPT - Jacob ZinkulaPerhaps the easiest way to try out ChatGPT is to use it as an alternative to Google searches. The chatbot doesn't always provide accurate information, and the knowledge it does have is only up to date through 2021, but it still can be a valuable resource.While one should be wary of asking it for medical advice, 78.6% of medical experts in a new study preferred ChatGPT's answers to patient questions over those of a physician. Example prompt: How do airplanes work?Example follow-up prompt: Explain it to me like I'm 5 years old.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Clean Vs. Dirty: A Way To Understand Everything Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute, The other day, I listened to as much National Public Radio as I could stand and one point stood out to me. The experience was anodyne. The topics were nothing that mattered. It felt like a gentle ooze of news that always came to the proper conclusion at the end of the well-produced bit.  By proper, I hope you know what I mean. It confirmed the listeners’ biases. And everyone knows who they are: wealthy, mostly white professionals in urban centers with high-end salaries to match their educational credentials. Probably 90 percent Biden voters last time and next time, not because he is a great president but rather because he inherits the anti-deplorable mantle of his predecessor nominee.  NPR was raising money on that particular day, which they do despite the taxpayer subsidies. If you give money, you can get an NPR umbrella or be given a bit of nature trail to adopt or perhaps acquire a coffee mug for your desk to proclaim your loyalties to your co-workers or just reinforce your opinions while eating your breakfast of Whole Foods granola and soy milk.  The experience happened even as I’m reading, with great joy, Fear of a Microbial Planet by Steve Templeton. The book is about the ubiquity of germs, trillions of them everywhere. They can be a threat but they are mostly our friends.  Exposure, his thesis goes, is the path to health. Without it we will die. And yet, over the last three years, avoiding exposure has been the main goal of policy and culture throughout the world. “Stop the spread” or “Slow the spread” or “Socially distance” or “Stay home, stay safe” have been entrenched as slogans to govern our lives.  The phrases still have gravitas. It has been a maniacal fixation on a single pathogen to the exclusion of trillions of others that are truly everywhere in us and around us. It is like going back before the invention of the microscope when we didn’t know that every surface of everything is covered in creepy crawling things. We further indulge the completely unscientific fantasy that by doing some hopping-around dance to avoid others, plus covering our face and getting a shot, would keep us forever clean, meaning free of the bad pathogen. Dr. Templeton’s view is that this is a potential disaster for human health. And he explains the point with great erudition and examples from all of history. He picks up on the extraordinarily keen insight of Dr. Sunetra Gupta, who has traced longer life expectancy in the 20th century to more exposure to a greater heterogeneity of pathogens as a result of transportation and migration. We don’t just need to learn to live with Covid. We need to live with them all and orient social and political organization around the reality of their ubiquity.  Now, what precisely is the connection between NPR’s sanitized “news” and the thesis of the Templeton book? It suddenly dawned on me. It is possible to understand nearly everything going on today – the Covid response, the political tribalism, the censorship, the failure of the major media to talk about anything that matters, the cultural and class divides, even migration trends – as a grand effort by those people who perceive themselves to be clean to stay away from people they regard as dirty.  And not just people but ideas and thoughts too. This goes way beyond some reemergence of Puritanism, though this is a species. The desire for purification extends to the whole of the physical and intellectual world. It’s the reason for the cancellations, the purges, the demographic upheavals, the loss of liberties, and the threat to democratic norms. It covers everything.  Let me see if I can persuade you.  The attacks on Elon Musk’s curbing of censorship on Twitter have been relentless. One might suppose that once he revealed that Twitter was operating as a censor for the Deep State, there would be outrage and a renewed celebration of free speech. The opposite has happened. As Musk opened the place up more and more, and non-conventional opinions started gaining traction, we saw panic ensue.  Sure enough, now we see all the usual suspects quitting the platform in a huff. More likely, individuals at these organizations are creating fake accounts so they can keep up with the news. Otherwise, they preserve their fan accounts on Zuckerberg and Gates’s platforms. Why might they be doing this? They do not want their organizations to inhabit (or be seen to inhabit) the same space with dirty opinions that they don’t like. They believe their own platforms will do their best to avoid being infected by them. They would rather hide out in their country-club social spaces in which everyone is woke and everyone knows what to say and what not to say. At least the algorithms are skewed in their favor.  The line they use is that they want to be around those who are “house trained” but consider what that means. They don’t want pet waste on their carpet, thus comparing ideas with which they disagree with a nasty pathogen. They are seeking to stay clean.  In this case and in every case, they are glad for the government to operate as the clean-up crew. It’s dirty ideas and people who hold them they oppose. They don’t want to have friends who articulate them or live in communities where such people live.  They put out yard signs as signals to neighbors about where they stand. The issue in its particulars doesn’t matter (BLM, Support Ukraine, Water Is Life [huh?]). All that matters is the signaling system: Team Clean instead of Team Dirty. We all know what those slogans are and what they really mean and for whom they are displayed.  The coronavirus panic played right into this. Stay home and get the dirty people to bring you groceries, leaving them on the doorstep to air out before you pick them up. If there is a pathogen on the loose, better that they get it than us. To be sure, the people on the front line are heroes so long as we can cheer them from our windows.  This is why when it came to the vaccine, the nurses had to get them too despite having natural immunity. Vaccines were seen as an extra bar of soap to make sure that the dirty people whom we might encounter are extra free of the bad germ itself. Everyone had to get them. Those who refused, what can they say? At least we know who they are.  The virus too was a metaphor for an infected country, a land soiled by a bad president. Of course there was an outbreak. That’s why we had to lock down and wreck everything including our kids’ education. Anything to rid the country of the pestilence of Trump. And can we really be surprised that it was South Dakota that never locked down? It’s a dirty red state and they do dirty things like ride motorcycles, shoot animals with guns, and raise cows.  For the clean people, it was hardly a surprise that Georgia, Florida, and Texas opened first, since they were already intellectually infected by right-wing thought. And they were also places where vaccine uptake was low.  In the fall of 2021, the New York Times proved that red states that Trump won had lower vaccination rates: they are hopelessly blechy already. Look at the sheer number of evangelical churches, and AM radio stations, in those places where icky people gather to sing stupid songs about God.  The clean vs. dirty symbolism explains the whole of the vaccine push and even the mandates, since getting the shot was nothing but a gesture of tribal loyalties. This is why it didn’t matter when it turned out that the vaccine protected neither against infection nor spread. Who cares, since the vaccine does what it is supposed to do: separating us from them? For a while, the clean ruling classes in New York and Boston even sealed off their cities to dirty people by forbidding them from going to movies, libraries, restaurants, bars, and museums. What a blessed world it became for the sanitized among us that they could navigate their favorite institutions in absence of the untouchables! This was to them how life should be.  No need to elaborate on the wild fashion for sanitizer and plexiglass. The meaning of those are obvious. Everyone needs to douse themselves as a precaution, especially when others are watching. And as customers we don’t want to be anywhere near the face of the merchant class. And for two years and more, every surface needed spraying with disinfectant after any human contact. Then there is the sudden fetishistic longing for “contactless” menus, checkouts, and everything else in this corrupt and sinful world. Somehow it has become an ideal never to touch anything or anybody, as if we long to be followers of the Prophet Mani and evolve into Pure People of the Spirit. After all, only dirty people would pick up a menu or handle cash, because god only knows whom else has held it. Remember the jars for clean vs. dirty pens at the hotel check in that still requires signatures? No need to elaborate on that one. It’s all part of the ethos of the untouchables, or the Dalit or Harijan in the old caste system. To inhabit a “contactless” world recreates the same thing under a different label. Reflect on the masking practices for a moment. Why is it ok to take off your mask when seated but the server had to wear one when standing? Because the seated are already proving their cleanliness because they are paying customers and being served and hence well-to-do. It’s the servers who have to work for a living who are in doubt. And then if you got up to go to the restroom, of course you had to mask up because you might accidentally have a brush with a cook, cleaner, or server.  When the inflation started, one might have supposed that the people who shop at Whole Foods would have shifted en masse to Aldi or WalMart. But this prediction misunderstands the whole point of shopping at Whole Foods for a certain class. The point is that we don’t want to be around dirty people who buy dirty food. No need for the clean to buy in bulk to alleviate the inflation squeeze. Rather, the higher cost of groceries is worth it to stay apart from soiled, unvaccinated patrons, otherwise we could get infected.  Plus, to have the resources to spend 50 percent more on clean food bought by other clean people works to give off the all-important signal. All the better that the owner of Whole Foods was a huge supporter of lockdowns as a way to beat the competition.  Notice the way we talk about energy too: clean vs. dirty. Oil and gas, with their fumes and methods of processing, are contrary to the ethos of highly sanitized people. Electric cars make less noise so they are surely better, never mind that coal is also a fossil fuel and that batteries are a massive environmental hazard in disposal and even use more energy overall. Facts don’t matter. Only symbolism and clean-class identity carry the day.  To be sure, it’s not always obvious who is and who isn’t clean enough for social interaction. That’s why we need constant surveillance of ideas since views on matters like religion, politics, and even issues like trans rights are proxies to demarcate the difference between us and them. Surveillance makes the invisible visible and that enables the construction of whole systems to punish the unclean and reward the cleanly compliant.  All of this came to light with the pandemic of course since having a virus on the loose perfectly illustrates the core point that Anthony Fauci made in his August 2020 article in Cell. The emergence of migration thousands of years ago, and the building of cities over hundreds of years, mixed up the populations too much and created terrible epidemics of cholera and malaria. The solution was obvious to him: get rid of sports events, crowded urban conditions, pet ownership (blech), and mass population movements. Lockdowns were just the first step toward “rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence.” We’ve all been startled that there hasn’t been more of a shift in mainstream media coverage despite the obvious failure of conventional “Covid science,” the revelations of endless scandals of the Bidens and pharma, and even the plummeting profits of major media venues. Even when BuzzFeed News goes belly up, places like CNN, the New York Times, and Vanity Fair continue on their merry way as if nothing were happening.  The reason is simple. The clean people are convinced they are right. They have no doubt about it. And they simply will not soil themselves with bogus ideas like objective journalism or unbiased coverage of actual news. That would be the equivalent of wallowing in mud, wrecking all that they have worked for their whole lives and the whole agenda of their profession, which is to purge their institutions of infectious ideological disease.  This is also why the basics of cell biology that previous generations learned in the 9th grade seemed lost on these people. The idea that you would allow yourself to be exposed to germs in order to protect against more severe outcomes strikes at the very heart of their manichean worldview. The point is to stay away, not mix it up. Their germophobia applies not only to the microbial kingdom but to society and the world of ideas as well. The notion of sanitization is a worldview that admits not natural immunity via infection, since that would only mean that you have the bad thing inside of you. The science be damned. It was long ago trumped by the cultural predisposition to live in a germ-free world: purged curricula, purged cultures, and purged politics. Of course the spread needed to be slowed and stopped. Of course the curve needed to be flattened. Of course there should be social distancing instead of random milling around. The elites need to minimize exposure to everything in a time when the masses are so obviously unwashed.  When the Great Barrington Declaration proposed focused protection based on age, while letting everyone else go about life as normal, that was nothing but a scandal. Anyone can and will get old, whereas they wanted class distinctions based on social and political rank in order to more closely approximate clean and unclean, which is their real ideal.  This is also, by the way, why protests against racism in the summer of 2020 got a pass: people gathering for the right cause are more likely to be among the ideologically clean. And today, this demarcation is all around us, both physically and intellectually. Salmon: farmed is dirty and wild is clean, so it is far more expensive. And with work: from home is clean, while going into the office is dirty.  What can we make of all of this? Dr. Templeton in his book tells the fascinating story of two cities in Finland, one on the poor Soviet side and one on the Western side. After the end of the Cold War, researchers were able to compare health between the two cities, one dirty and one clean.  Although the two populations shared a similar ancestry and climate, there were some stark differences. The border between these two regions marks one of the steepest gradients in standard of living in the world, even steeper than the border between the United States and Mexico. Finland had become modernized as other countries in Europe after World War II, while isolated Karelia had remained impoverished under communism and stuck in the 1940s (and arguably wasn’t in the 1940s during the 1940s).  The researchers in the Karelia Allergy Study noticed some striking differences in the data they collected and analyzed. In Finnish Karelia, asthma and allergies were over four times more prevalent compared to Russian Karelia. Positive skin prick tests, which measure rapid swelling and allergic inflammation in response to common allergens injected under the skin, were also much higher in Finnish people.  Differences in children were even more striking, with a 5.5-fold increase in asthma and eczema diagnoses in Finland, and a 14-fold increase in hay fever. Russian children with allergies, as well as their mothers, also had much lower soluble IgE levels, indicating a significant decrease in the antibody isotype that rapidly induces allergic inflammation. Autoimmune diseases like type-1 diabetes were also 5-6 times higher in the Finnish population when compared to their Russian neighbors. Not surprisingly, the microbial environments of people living in Russian Karelia were markedly different from that of Finnish Karelia. Russian Karelians drank untreated and unfiltered water that exposed their guts to orders of magnitude more microbes than their Finnish counterparts. Household dust samples from both locations revealed that Russian house dust contained more Firmicutes and Actinobacteria species with a coincident 20-fold increase in the gram-positive cell wall component muramic acid and a 7-fold increase in animal-associated bacterial species. In contrast, Gram-negative species, mainly Proteobacteria, were predominant in Finnish household dust.  Clearly the Russians lived in a much more diverse and abundant microbial ecosystem than the Finns, and these environmental differences were associated with decreased allergies and asthma. So the dirty people were healthier people in particular ways. Fascinating, right? It’s only the beginning of what you will discover in this book. If I were to summarize, Templeton proves that there is no such thing as clean in the way that term is popularly understood, and every attempt to bring it about carries with it grave risks to human health. A naive immune system is a killer. This thesis could also be a metaphor concerning the attempts to clean up the public mind too: the more we censor, the more stupid we become. The more we cancel, the less fully human and safe are our lives.  The clean vs. dirty distinction was once an indicator of class, perhaps a desiderata of germaphobic pathology, even a harmless eccentricity. But in 2020, the obsession became extreme, an aesthetic priority that overrode all morality and truth. It then became a fundamental threat to liberty, self-government, and human rights.Today this demarcation has invaded the whole of our lives, and it threatens to create a horrifying caste system consisting of those who enjoy rights and privileges vs those who do not and serve (at a distance) the elites.  We need to see it clearly in order to stop it from happening. Freedom is rooted in an ethical presumption of equal rights, a cultural respect for the dignity of all human persons, a political deference to government by the people, and an economic experience of class mobility and meritocracy. Replacing those presumptions with a simplified, crude, aesthetic, and unscientific lurch into a neo-feudalism not only takes us back to pre-modern times; it overthrows basic postulates of what we call civilization itself.  Tyler Durden Wed, 04/26/2023 - 22:00.....»»

Futures Violently Unchanged As Busiest Week Of Earnings Season Begins In what is shaping up as yet another unchanged open, futures are set up to open violently unchanged after earlier sliding as much as 0.6% following lackluster sentiment in Asia, but a reversal during European trading. Investors are bracing for a barrage of earnings ahead of the busiest reporting weak in Q1 earnings season which sees the likes of MSFT, GOOGL, Meta, AMZN and XOM all set to report amid rising interest rates and economic slowdown worries. S&P 500 contracts fell as much as 0.6% before paring the drop to unchanged as of 7:30 a.m. ET while futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 benchmark were 0.1% lower. In premarket trading, Bed Bath & Beyond sank as much as 52% after the home-goods retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with plans to liquidate and wind down by the end of June. BuzzFeed fell 6% in US premarket trading, extending a 30% drop last week triggered by the company’s move to shut its news operation. The now defunct Credit Suisse reported $69 billion outflows in the first quarter and a large writedown at its wealth management unit. Coca-Cola is due to report results before the market opens, while Whirlpool and First Republic Bank will update this afternoon. Here are some other notable premarket movers: Crinetics Pharmaceuticals is initiated with an overweight rating at Piper Sandler, with the broker saying that the disease acromegaly could be a potential blockbuster market opportunity for the biotech. Tremor has been downgraded to hold at Stifel, which says it would like to see the digital advertising firm spending more on research and development to keep up with larger platforms. The brokerage also cut its rating on sector peer Perion to hold from buy. Investors are bracing for a slew of economic data and big-tech earnings for insights into the damage from higher borrowing costs and slowing economy. Leveraged investors boosted net short positions on 10-year Treasury futures to a record 1.29 million contracts as of April 18, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission show. That’s an indication they think the Federal Reserve will keep raising rates to tackle inflation. A “mild recession” is likely in the US and that’s a reason to be more selective in the equity space, according to Laura Cooper, a senior investment strategist at BlackRock. “We think earnings estimates for the back half of the year in the US remain too optimistic,” she said. “We suspect that a lot of the rate cuts priced in toward the end of the year for the Fed have scope to be priced out.” Swaps markets continue to see Fed rates peaking in coming weeks before a series of cuts later this year. US GDP data is forecast to reveal slowing growth, while the so-called core PCE deflator, the central bank’s preferred inflation gauge, is expected to show price growth cooled. “We should take the Fed at face value when they say rates are not going lower this year,” said Kieran Calder, head of equity research for Asia at Union Bancaire Privée in Singapore, on Bloomberg Television. “Inflation, especially core inflation, remains really sticky.” A rally in US stocks leading up to this earnings season presents a near-term risk to equities given the prospect of further Fed rate hikes and fading profit growth, according to Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson. “We think this dynamic poses a near-term risk for stock prices given our more pessimistic outlook for earnings this year, especially as the liquidity picture becomes less accommodative,” Wilson wrote in a note on Monday, repeating his now traditional weekly sermon. European stocks are little changed as investors await another busy week of corporate earnings. The Stoxx 600 is flat with food & beverages, telecoms and energy the worst performing sectors. Here are the biggest European movers: Philips shares gain as much as 10% after an easing in supply chain snarl-ups helped drive a strong 1Q beat for the Dutch medtech. Morgan Stanley expects consensus estimates to rise after the report. Software AG shares jump as much as 50% to trade at the €30 level offered by private equity firm Silver Lake Management to acquire the German software company. Munters shares jump as much as 9.7% as the Swedish ventilation systems company was upgraded to buy at both Carnegie and Jefferies, with the former seeing early signs of improvement. Casino shares rise as much as 6% after Czech investor Daniel Kretinsky proposed a €1.1 billion equity investment in the French grocer. Getlink shares advance as much as 4.2% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the transport infrastructure group to buy from neutral on supportive power and carbon-price dynamics. Dunelm gains as much as 3% after being raised to buy from hold at Stifel, with the broker seeing an attractive medium-term opportunity in the UK homewares retailer. Wizz Air gains as much as 4.1%, outperforming other airline stocks, after Citi upgraded the stock to neutral, saying investors’ focus for short-haul airlines will shift to costs, where Wizz is showing improvement. Heineken gains as much as 1.4% after Deutsche Bank raised its price target for the Dutch brewer, saying it offers a “compelling” 10% operating profit growth story for fiscal 2025-2027. Avanza shares drop as much as 9.9%, with Citi saying net interest income for the Swedish online stockbroker missed expectations. Elmos Semiconductor falls as much as 7.6% after being downgraded to hold from buy at Hauck & Aufhaeuser, as an expected strong first-quarter report appears to be fully priced into shares. Earlier in the session, Asian stock markets was modestly lower at the start of the busiest week of the earnings season in the region, with shares in China and South Korea among the biggest decliners. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell as much as 0.5%, with tech and materials shares weighing the most on the gauge. Chinese stocks posted their biggest two-day loss this year as geopolitical tensions and signs of an uneven recovery spurred traders to pare exposure ahead of the Golden Week holiday. “One part of the reopening of China that we are concerned about is it’s also a reopening of geopolitical risks,” said Kieran Calder, head of equity research for Asia at Union Bancaire Privee. “Issues like this make it much harder to be outright overweight on China,” he told Bloomberg Television. In contrast, benchmarks in Japan and India climbed. The Nikkei 225 rose past its previous 2023 closing high ahead of new Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s debut policy decision on Friday.  This will be the busiest week in the latest Asian earnings season, with more than 800 companies scheduled to report results, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. China’s largest company Kweichow Moutai, the country’s biggest banks, Korean chipmaker Samsung Electronics and Indonesian ride-hailing firm GoTo Group are among the major companies set to announce earnings. Meanwhile, traders will also keenly watch Big Tech earnings out stateside this week to inform their exposure to the tech sector. “It really is the longer, medium term demand story that we want to get our heads around,” Calder said. The MSCI Asia gauge is down almost 6% from a peak hit in early January, trailing the S&P 500 on a year-to-date basis, as investors assess the outlook for the heavyweight chip sector and a rebound in Chinese consumption. Markets in Indonesia and Malaysia were closed for a holiday Japanese stocks edged higher in thin trading, as investor sentiment on the global economy was lifted by data showing increased US and European business activity ahead of heavy earnings reporting later this week.  The Topix rose 0.1% to close at 2,037.34, while the Nikkei advanced 0.1% to 28,593.52. Daiichi Sankyo contributed the most to the Topix gain, increasing 1.5%. Out of 2,158 stocks in the index, 1,325 rose and 715 fell, while 118 were unchanged. “There is a lack of direction ahead of corporate earnings announcements and the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting coming up,” said Hitoshi Asaoka, a senior strategist at Asset Management One. The new Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda will hold his first policy meeting later this week. The central bank is planning to review and inspect policies taken over the past decades as soon as this week’s meeting, Sankei newspaper reported Sunday. Australian stocks edged lower dragged by materials and energy shares as investors assess quarterly production reports. The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.1% to 7,322.00. In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.8% to 12,026.39. Indian markets advanced for the third consecutive session, led by gains in financials as top lenders continued to report earnings in line with consensus estimates. ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank were the latest to report March quarter numbers that matched analysts’ expectations, helped by robust demand for loans. Still, the lenders face the challenge of raising deposits to match the credit growth. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.7% to 60,056.10 in Mumbai, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index advanced 0.7%. The gauges are up an average of 2% each this month and close to erasing their losses for the year.  In FX, The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is up 0.1%, reversing an earlier loss. The Swiss franc is the best performer among the G-10 currencies, rising 0.4% versus the greenback. The yen lagged peers. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said at the parliament that the central bank is not at the stage to talk about how to normalize yield curve control. US GDP data is forecast to reveal slowing growth, while the so-called core PCE deflator, the central bank’s preferred inflation gauge, is expected to 0.3% growth on a monthly basis. The Fed is due to decide on its policy rate next week. Data Monday showed Germany’s business outlook unexpectedly improved for a sixth month as the economy gradually recovers from the energy shock. The euro zone probably resumed growth in the first quarter as all four of its biggest economies proved resilient enough to shake off the fallout from war on the region’s frontier. Treasuries have added to gains seen during Asian trading hours with 10-year yields down 4bps at 3.54%. German 10-year yields are flat while the UK equivalent rises 2bps. In commodities, crude futures decline with WTI down 0.3% to trade near $77.60. Spot gold gains 0.1% to around $1,985. Bitcoin is unchanged on the session, towards the lower-end of USD 27.99-27.14k parameters with pertinent macro updates somewhat limited in the European morning. Finally, turning to commodity markets. After four consecutive weeks of gains, crude oil retreated as data releases earlier in the week highlighted growing headwinds for the US economy. WTI crude fell -5.63% week-on-week, although regained ground on Friday following the PMI beat, climbing +0.75% to $77.87/bbl. Similarly, Brent crude broke its streak to finish down -5.39% week-on-week (+0.69% on Friday) to $81.66/bbl. On today's calendar, we get the April Dallas Fed manufacturing activity, and March Chicago Fed national activity index, Germany April ifo survey. A busy week for earnings will include The Cocal Cola Co., First Republic Bank and First Citizens Bank, the acquirer of Silicon Valley Bank. Tech companies will also be in the spotlight with those to report including Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Market Snapshot S&P 500 futures down 0.1% to 4,153.50 STOXX Europe 600 little changed at 468.62 MXAP down 0.2% to 160.83 MXAPJ down 0.4% to 516.19 Nikkei up 0.1% to 28,593.52 Topix up 0.1% to 2,037.34 Hang Seng Index down 0.6% to 19,959.94 Shanghai Composite down 0.8% to 3,275.41 Sensex up 0.5% to 59,957.80 Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.1% to 7,321.99 Kospi down 0.8% to 2,523.50 German 10Y yield little changed at 2.47% Euro little changed at $1.0992 Brent Futures down 0.2% to $81.50/bbl Brent Futures down 0.2% to $81.49/bbl Gold spot down 0.1% to $1,981.82 U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 101.74 Top overnight News from Bloomberg Growing concerns that China may be facing a new Covid wave fueled a surge in shares of the nation’s drugmakers Monday as the public fretted over waning immunity. Xinxiang Tuoxin Pharmaceutical Co. jumped as much as 20% in Shenzhen, while Hybio Pharmaceutical Co. rallied 15%. BBG Chinese consumers continue to demonstrate a willingness to spend money, w/travel bookings for the May Day holiday exceeding pre-pandemic levels. SCMP Ukraine’s state energy company, Naftogaz, is holding talks w/US energy firms like Exxon, Chevron, and Halliburton about dramatically ramping gas production as the country aims to replace Russia as the primary supplier into Europe. FT Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that if the G7 moved to ban exports to Russia, Moscow would respond by terminating the Black Sea Grain deal that enables vital exports of grain from Ukraine. RTRS ECB’s Pierre Wunsch warns that markets are underestimating how high rates will rise in the Eurozone (he said the tightening process will only stop once wage growth begins to fall). FT Fed’s index of common inflation expectations fell in Q1 to the lowest level in nearly two years, the latest example of disinflationary forces building throughout the economy. BBG The GOP is more serious than people realize about allowing a debt ceiling breach to occur. McCarthy won’t have enough support within the House GOP caucus to pass his debt ceiling bill in the coming week. WaPo / BBG Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and said it would eventually close all its 360 Bed Bath & Beyond and 120 Buybuy Baby locations. WSJ Moody’s downgraded 11 regional lenders, suggesting higher interest rates and recent bank failures have ushered in greater instability. The downgrades hit lenders including U.S. Bancorp, Zions Bancorp, Bank of Hawaii, Western Alliance Bancorp, First Republic Bank, Associated Banc-Corp., Comerica Inc., First Hawaiian Inc., Intrust Financial Corp, Washington Federal Inc. and UMB Financial Corp. WSJ Homebuilders appear to offer a particularly poor risk/reward. Homebuilding fundamentals have inflected higher from low levels in recent months. The NAHB Homebuilder Index has rebounded from its trough level of 31 in December to 45 in April. Housing starts and building permits have also increased from trough levels. Building material costs, which were a headwind to homebuilders in 2020- 21, have also declined. However, the equity market has already priced an improvement, and GS mortgage strategists forecast that residential mortgage rates – a key variable in housing demand – will finish the year at 6.5%, suggesting valuation downside risks for the group A more detailed market snapshot courtesy of Newsquawk APAC stocks were mixed after the lack of macro drivers over the weekend and as participants brace for this week’s key events including big US tech earnings and the first BoJ meeting under Governor Ueda’s leadership. ASX 200 was lacklustre as gains in tech and defensives were offset by underperformance in the mining-related industries  with notable losses in Fortescue Metals and South32 after weaker quarterly output updates. Nikkei 225 eked slight gains after source reports that the BoJ is likely to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy and dovish guidance, while it was also reported the BoJ is considering a comprehensive review of the impact of the monetary easing taken over the longer term and are planning to examine a quarter century of deflation. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were subdued despite the PBoC’s liquidity efforts and the announcement of policies to support trade by China’s Vice Commerce Minister who also noted that uncertainty in external demand remains the biggest restraint for China’s trade, while frictions lingered with the US reported to have urged South Korea not to fill China’s shortfalls if Beijing bans Micron chips. Top Asian News PBoC injected CNY 89bln via 7-day reverse repos on Sunday with the rate kept at 2.00% and it injected CNY 115bln via 7-day reverse repos with the rate kept at 2.00% on Monday. PBoC official said China’s yuan has a solid foundation to remain stable and the PBoC will improve the floating exchange rate system based on market demand and supply, according to Reuters. One of China's "big four" banks plans to cut some personal and corporate rates next week, according to sources; products affected include "call deposits" and "agreement deposits". Sources said the mechanism asked for a roughly 10bps cut to weighted average term deposit rates in the quarter from a year earlier. China urges banks to cut deposit rates, according to Reuters sources; message from Chinese regulators is to cut size of structured deposit business, lower rates of "innovative" products; Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wang said uncertainty in external demand remains the biggest restraint for China’s trade and said that China will actively satisfy funding demand from small and medium-sized exporters and importers, as well as support firms to explore diversified markets, according to Reuters. Chinese officials and analysts said deflation concerns are unnecessary despite the slower price growth since the start of the year and noted the economy is on a solid recovery track amid pro-growth policies, according to the State Council. US urges South Korea not to fill China shortfalls if Beijing bans Micron (MU) chips, according to FT. BoJ Governor Ueda said the BoJ must maintain monetary easing as trend inflation is still below 2% but added that if it can be foreseen that trend inflation will reach 2%, the BoJ must head towards policy normalisation. Ueda also said that how to revise YCC will depend on various factors such as economic conditions and the pace of inflation at the time and noted that he cannot say now how specifically the BoJ could tweak YCC. BoJ is considering conducting a comprehensive review of the impact of the monetary easing steps taken over the longer term with the central bank planning to examine a quarter century of deflation and could start discussions as early as this week’s policy meeting, according to a Sankei report which didn’t cite any sources. European bourses are posting marginal losses in a relatively slow start to the European weak, with mixed Ifo data somewhat overlooked, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.2%. Sectors are mixed and feature outperformance in Financial Services on the back of UBS while Phillips leads the Stoxx 600 after a strong Q1 update. Stateside, futures are pressured but the magnitude of the downside has eased slightly throughout the morning going into a particularly busy US week for earnings and data, ES -0.2%. Top European News UK PM Sunak will hold talks with major UK firms and investors on Monday under the new "Business Connect" forum as the government seeks to fill the void following the scandal and implosion of the CBI business lobby, according to Bloomberg and FT. UK government is set to introduce legislation in the approaching days to set up a new regulator to police the increasing dominance of the large technology platforms, according to FT. ECB's Wunsch said they are waiting for wage growth and core inflation to decline, along with headline inflation, before they can arrive at the point where they can pause on rates, according to FT. German Interior Minister said public workers agreed on a wage deal with employers, according to Reuters. Germany's Bundesbank says the economy grew in Q1 above expectations, after a rebound in industrial conditions. S&P affirmed the UK at AA; Outlook Revised to Stable from Negative, while it affirmed Greece at BB+; Outlook Revised to Positive from Stable and affirmed Italy at BBB; Outlook Stable. Geopolitics EU is set to propose banning many goods from transiting through Russia which would be part of the EU’s eleventh sanctions package, according to Bloomberg. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Medvedev warned that Moscow will terminate the grain deal if the G7 moved to ban exports to Russia, according to Reuters. Russia-installed head of Crimea said air defences had been activated on Saturday although there were no reports of damages or casualties, according to Reuters. Germany expelled over 20 Russian diplomats, while Moscow called Berlin's actions "hostile" and will expel at least 20 German diplomats in a tit-for-tat response, according to Russian state news RIA-Novosti. Baltic states were angered by China’s ambassador to France who questioned the legitimacy of countries formerly in the Soviet Union and are planning to summon Chinese diplomats to complain about the remarks, according to FT. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun lodged solemn representations with the South Korean ambassador to China about South Korean President Yoon’s ‘erroneous’ Taiwan remarks, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry cited by Reuters. China reportedly lashed out against the US-Philippines alliance with the decision by the Philippines to grant the US access to four military bases near Taiwan said to anger Beijing, according to FT. However, it was separately reported that Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said China is ready to work with the Philippines to implement a consensus between the two countries and the Philippines’ Foreign Minister commented that differences in the South China Sea are not the sum total of relations between the two countries, according to Reuters. US senior administration official said North Korea’s human rights situation is likely to come up at next week's US-South Korea summit and North Korea is now in many ways much more closely aligned with China than it was before. US said it is deeply concerned by Azerbaijan establishing a checkpoint on the only land route to the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to Reuters. US Secretary of State Blinken said US personnel and their dependents were safely evacuated from the embassy in Sudan. Furthermore, UK PM Sunak said British armed forces completed a rapid evacuation of British diplomats and their families, while the German military also conducted an evacuation of German citizens from Sudan. Turkey's Defence Minister is planning to meet his Russian, Syrian and Iranian counterparts in Moscow on April 25th, via Anadolu news. Japan says jet fighters/helicopters took off and landed on the Shandon Chinese carrier within the Pacific Ocean around 280 times between April 17th-23rd. EU Council President Michel says EU-China policy will be on the June European Council agenda. Earlier in the session, EU Foreign Representative Borrell says they will discuss how to recalibrate China relations. FX The Dollar has slipped towards the 101.50 mark from earlier 101.91 best to the mixed fortune of peers. CHF outperforms with safe-haven demand factoring amid the general risk tone and as attention on the US debt limit increases, USD/CHF at the lower-end of 0.8883-0.8928 parameters. EUR derived marginal and ultimately fleeting upside on the mixed German Ifo release and is now holding comfortably above the 1.10 mark but with ranges thin thus far while several ECB speakers have not impacted. Next best is the Kiwi, which is deriving support from AUD/NZD tailwinds rather than the lower RBNZ risk weighting for business growth; NZD above 0.6150 while AUD languishes below 0.67. PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.8835 vs exp. 6.8826 (prev. 6.8752) Fixed Income Gilts lead a broad retreat in debt ahead of UK public finance data as the 10-year bond retreats through 101.00 within a 101.24-100.70 range. Bunds off best levels between 134.21-133.68 parameters after a mixed German Ifo survey. T-note holds firm near 114-24+ overnight peak vs 114-14+ trough ahead of low-key agenda. GGBs have been lagging periphery peers somewhat, despite the outlook revision to positive at S&P as the rating was maintained as expected but disappointing some outside calls for an upgrade. Commodities WTI and Brent are off worst levels but remain softer overall in-line with broader risk sentiment; specifically, WTI is back in proximity to USD 78/bbl while Brent has reclaimed USD 81.50/bbl. Iran sets the May Iranian light crude price to Asia at Oman/Dubai +USD 2.80bbl (vs. prev. USD 2.50bbl), according to a Reuters source. Central banks reportedly loaded up on gold amid geopolitical tensions whereby reserve managers’ purchases rose 152% last year, while an annual poll of 83 central banks found that more than two-thirds thought their peers would increase gold holdings this year, according to FT. Head of Russian Grain Union says the Black Sea grain deal has not brought anything good to Russia so far; Russia could export around 60mln tonnes of grain (inc. 50mln tonnes of wheat) this season. Spot gold trades horizontally after finding some resistance around USD 1,985/oz overnight, with the yellow metal sandwiched to a USD 10/oz parameter amid a lack of clear catalysts. Base metals are mostly lower, although LME copper remains cushioned despite the broader subdued mood across markets; ING cites disruption to Codelco's copper operations. US Event Calendar 08:30: March Chicago Fed Nat Activity Index, est. -0.20, prior -0.19 10:00: Revisions: Retail Sales, Inventories 10:30: April Dallas Fed Manf. Activity, est. -11.0, prior -15.7 DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap Just when we thought it was safe to venture back fully into normal family life after my daughter Maisie's 2-year plus hip battle we got a minor setback at the weekend. At the end of last week, she had her first dance class (Street Dance) since being out of her wheelchair and in the warmup got overexcited and bashed her hand into a wall. To cut a long story short, after an A&E visit we found that she's broken a bone in her wrist. Literally 2 minutes into her first dance class back. Fortunately, it's a relatively minor break and she can ease back into things after the splint is off in three weeks! I really hope she doesn't inherit my injury record! Although as I tell my wife most high-performance athletes tend to pick up a lot of injuries. There’s a bit of everything for investors around the world this week. In the US Q1 GDP, the employment cost index (ECI), core PCE, and consumer confidence are the highlights with us now in the Fed blackout period ahead of next week’s FOMC. Meanwhile, we will see inflation and growth data in the Eurozone, and the BoJ's decision in Japan on Friday where DB has a non-consensus call (see below). Big tech (14% of S&P in 4 names), pharma and oil earnings will fill out a busy earnings week. Watch out for First Republic Bank reporting as well after the closing bell today. If we start in more detail now with the US, most of the key data is on Thursday and Friday. Before that tomorrow’s new home sales and consumer confidence are also important, especially the latter. The first reading of Q1 GDP is out on Thursday and our US economists expect a +2.2% print, versus +2.6% in the last quarter of 2022 with consumer spending (+3.6% vs. +2.5%) leading the way. However our economists suggest that Friday’s personal consumption and income data for March may well show that the bulk of the consumer boom in Q1 was in January and February due to warm weather. Within that report on Friday, the latest core PCE deflator will be a key report alongside the ECI. These will be the last big inflationary datapoints ahead of the FOMC. In Europe, growth and inflation data is due for key economies on Friday. These include GDP and CPI releases for Germany and France and GDP for the Eurozone. There will also be a plenty of sentiment gauges for the bloc. These include the Ifo survey for Germany today, consumer confidence for Germany and France on Wednesday and a list of metrics for Italy and the Eurozone on Thursday. Over in Asia, all eyes will be on Japan with both the BoJ decision and lots of key data including Tokyo CPI, labour market, retail sales and industrial production indicators all due on Friday. Our Chief Japan economist previews the central bank meeting, the first one for the new Governor Kazuo Ueda, here. Against the market consensus, he expects the BoJ to undergo a policy revision on the back of inflation risks, with potential outcomes including the termination of YCC, strengthening of forward guidance on short-term rates, and greater flexibility of JGB purchasing operations. For data releases, our economist expects unchanged unemployment and Tokyo CPI and a -0.4% MoM fall in industrial production (see full preview here). Earnings season continues apace this week, with Big Tech reporters taking centre stage. Comprising almost 14% of the S&P 500 by market cap, Microsoft and Alphabet tomorrow, Meta on Wednesday, and Amazon on Thursday will be among the most anticipated reports. The only one missing from the pack is Apple, which will report on May 4th. Other notable tech earnings this week include Texas Instruments (tomorrow), SK Hynix (Wednesday), Intel (Thursday) and Sony (Friday). In Europe the focus will be on key banks, including Credit Suisse (today) and UBS (tomorrow). The former will clearly be interesting given all that went on in Q1. Outflows will be worth watching just to see how serious the situation was at the time. In Asia, a number of Chinese banks report throughout the week. Meanwhile in the US, investors will be laser focussed on First Republic which report today. After trading in a 120-150 range in the first 2 and a bit months of the year, they have been in a 12-15 range over the last month. So they haven't broken back out of their depressed range but haven't deteriorated further. So these results could be important to the company and wider sentiment as this has been the perceived next weakest link. There are also some pharma heavyweights reporting, including Novartis (tomorrow), AstraZeneca and Sanofi (Thursday) in Europe. In the US, we'll hear from Eli Lilly, AbbVie, Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb (Thursday), among others. Consumer demand will be gauged from an array of earnings from companies including McDonald's, Chipotle, PepsiCo (Tuesday), Coca-Cola (today), Domino's, Mondelez (Thursday) and Hilton (Wednesday). In autos, the focus will be on BYD (Thursday), Mercedes-Benz (Friday) and GM (Tuesday). Investors will be particularly interested in EV rollouts and pricing. Among other economically-sensitive bellwether stocks, industrials reporting include UPS, Raytheon, General Electric (Tuesday), Honeywell, Caterpillar, Northrop Grumman (Thursday) and Boeing (Wednesday). After the volatility in energy markets this year, attention will turn to some of the largest players by end of next week. Big Oil reporters including Exxon, Chevron and Eni on Friday and TotalEnergies on Thursday. Pioneer, Hess, EQT (Wednesday) and Valero (Thursday) will also report. Elsewhere, notable names in utilities include NextEra (Tuesday) and Iberdrola (Wednesday) and Linde, BASF (Thursday), Vale (Wednesday), Dow Inc (Tuesday) and Newmont (Thursday) in materials. The focus will likely be on supply plans and Chinese demand for metals players in particular. The full day-by-day data, earnings and central bank speaker calendar is at the end as usual. Asian equity markets are mostly trading lower as we start the week. As I check my screens, the KOSPI (-0.88%) is the biggest underperformer across the region with the Hang Seng (-0.61%), the CSI (-0.45%) and the Shanghai Composite (-0.15%) also losing ground in early trade. Elsewhere, the Nikkei (+0.29%) is bucking the regional trend. In overnight trading, US stock futures are seeing losses with contracts on the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 both around -0.30% lower. Meanwhile, yields on 10yr USTs (-1.14bps) have edged lower, trading at 3.56% as we go to press. In a speech, the Bank of Japan Governor (BOJ) Kazuo Ueda indicated that consumer prices are likely nearing its peak, highlighting that he is “seeing it slowing ahead” while reiterating the need of keeping monetary policy expansionary ahead. Meanwhile, the BOJ Chief declined to specify how the central might phase out YCC, ahead of a two-day policy meeting that kicks off later this week. His overall comments don't suggest a root and branch review for Friday but there still might be some changes that we highlighted above. Elsewhere as we go to print, ECB governing council member Wunsch (from Belgium) has told the FT that he will only agree to halt rate hikes once wage growth starts to fall and that he wouldn't be surprised if rates go to 4%. So a hawkish start to the week on that front. In terms of recapping last week now, it was a relatively quiet week with risk off trying to dominate but with risk repeatedly making decent comebacks. Overall the S&P 500 retreated a very modest -0.1%, whilst 10yr Treasury yields gained +5.9bps over the week. On Friday, the US composite flash PMI for April came in above expectations to sit firmly in expansionary territory at 53.5 (vs 51.2 expected), driven by a significant beat in the services component (53.7 vs 51.5 expected), as well as a more modest upside surprise in manufacturing (50.4 vs 49.0 expected). Digging into the weeds of the print, we can see prices charged for goods and services in April rose at their sharpest level since September 2022, with an upturn in demand renewing price pressures. The release went against the stream relative to the softer US data published earlier in the week, with this sample featuring greater exposure to smaller and more domestically oriented firms. With the strong release highlighting real economy resilience despite the Fed’s historic hiking cycle, the probability of a 25bps hike in May priced in by the fed futures rose to 90.2%, up +8.9 percentage points week-on-week. Off the back of this, there was a small sell-off in US 10yr Treasuries, as yields rose +4.0bps on Friday, and +5.90bps week-on-week. The interest-rate sensitive 2yr yield climbed +3.9bps on Friday (and +8.3bps on the week). Europe saw a similar reaction earlier on Friday, with the composite PMI likewise beating expectations to land at 54.4 (vs 53.7 expected), although the manufacturing component fell back to 45.5 (vs 48 expected). The 10yr bund yield gained +3.6bps on Friday, and +4.2bps on the week. Against this backdrop, the S&P 500 traded largely flat on Friday, finishing just slightly higher (+0.09%). The index traded in a tight range over course of the week with the 5-day trading range just 55pts or 1.3%, with the index finishing the week just -0.10% lower overall. The lack of realized volatility was reflected in short-term implied volatility falling to its lowest levels in over 17 months, as the VIX volatility index finished Friday at its lowest weekly close (16.77pts) since November 2021. The cyclical sectors of consumer discretionary and staples outperformed following the release, up +1.20% and +0.75% on Friday respectively. On the flip side, the metals and mining sector slid -2.39% on the week as iron fell ore (-4.34% week-on-week and -3.24% on Friday) to its lowest level since December 2022. The STOXX 600 finished up a modest +0.34% on Friday (and +0.45% week-on-week). Finally, turning to commodity markets. After four consecutive weeks of gains, crude oil retreated as data releases earlier in the week highlighted growing headwinds for the US economy. WTI crude fell -5.63% week-on-week, although regained ground on Friday following the PMI beat, climbing +0.75% to $77.87/bbl. Similarly, Brent crude broke its streak to finish down -5.39% week-on-week (+0.69% on Friday) to $81.66/bbl. Tyler Durden Mon, 04/24/2023 - 08:10.....»»

How Fauci's Wife Used NIH Position To Backstop Her Husband’s Pandemic Health Directives Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via OpenTheBooks, It's the Washington, D.C. power couple that cost taxpayers nearly $1 million per year. While Dr. Anthony Fauci gave the nation its pandemic public policy prescriptions, his wife, Dr. Christine Grady, the Chief Bioethicist at Fauci’s employer, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided the moral framework. The Faucis are important to the center-left, because they represent the pinnacle moment of the administrative state – top-down public policy run by an elite group of government scientists. Conversely, to the center-right, the Faucis represent “the fatal conceit of the elites.” As Noble Laureate economist Friedrich Hayek theorized, the elites are no match for billions of free people acting in their own best interests. MEET THE FAUCIS While Tony Fauci was the top paid federal bureaucrat and out-earned the U.S. President at $480,654 per year, Christine Grady, as the chief bioethicist at NIH out-earned the U.S. Vice President ($243,749). When adding 35-percent in benefits, the couple cost taxpayers an estimated nearly $1 million per year. CHART: Tracking the Fauci household net worth which increased from $7.6 million to $12.6 million between the start of 2020 and the end of 2021. Source: OpenTheBooks.com lawsuit production from NIH on Fauci’s financial disclosures. It’s difficult to know where Anthony Fauci ends and Christine Grady begins. Here’s how Tony Fauci described Grady’s influence on his public policy decisions: “I've benefited greatly from this partnership of overlapping interest and common interest. So, a lot of the things that I do with regard to the development of vaccines, the development of therapies, being involved with outbreaks and pandemics, have ethical overtones to them. I can say that I am very blessed to be living with someone who is very likely, most people think, one of the most outstanding ethicists in the world. To have her in the house -- you know, as a consultant on ethical issues—is pretty advantageous.” So, the Faucis lived a conflict of interest at the breakfast table, the office, and back home around the dinner table. However, NIH has never acknowledged this. In fact, NIH forced our organization to file two federal lawsuits with the public-interest law firm Judicial Watch as our lawyers to finally bring transparency to the Fauci/Grady job descriptions, conflict of interest documents, financial and ethics disclosures, contracts, and other documents. Then, NIH slow-walked thousands of pages of production. Yet, no nepotism waivers were produced, no acknowledgement of conflicting interests, and no records documenting violations of federal ethics policy. Slide developed by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and presented by Dr. Christine Grady during her NIH presentation COVID Vaccines: Approaches to Vaccine Trial Design November 4 2020. Many of the prescriptions on this slide showed little efficacy in after-action studies. Source: FOIA While Grady’s work during the pandemic was described as “invaluable” by then-NIH director Francis Collins, the general public knows little about her day-to-day responsibilities.  An open records request for Grady’s job description reveals she, too, is meant to use her position to influence policy. Screenshot from Christine Grady’s job description, received. Source: FOIA Advocating Lockdowns Dr. Fauci knew that his “draconian policies” on social isolation and economic lockdowns would have “collateral negative consequences,” and admitted Christine Grady was a driving force behind his hardline approach. In a November 2021 interview with the couple, Fauci said that he gained strength from his wife’s support saying, “background and her experience in really core ethical principles [helped] me to really feel much more comfortable in what I was saying.” In the interview, Christine Grady described how she mind-mapped national policy with her husband: "But we've had conversations about the sort of consequences of telling people to stay home and what it would do for the economy. And there were a lot of people in those days that, and still who said, it's ruining the economy. It's much more important to just keep things going and not worry about transmitting virus…I said, that one of the messages should be, how many lives are you willing to sacrifice? And that message would be pretty stark and pretty brutal, but that's really what the trade-off was…And so we've had that kind of conversation over dinner more than once, actually.” Fauci replied that these conversations “sharpened [his] resolve” to move forward with lockdown policies. Social isolation was one of the individual sacrifices Grady and Fauci thought were necessary to make on behalf of “public health.” Vaccine Development & Public Safety Like her husband, Grady exclusively focused her attention and remarks on vaccine development rather than other potential ways to treat and combat the spread of COVID-19. One major paper she co-authored in 2020 advocated for vaccines to be distributed under emergency use authorization (EUA), which is how the federal government ultimately proceeded. In this paper, Grady’s advocacy for vaccines came with a troubling acknowledgement:  “even with mandated safety monitoring after EUA distribution, it would be difficult or impossible to ascertain vaccine-induced adverse events.” However, during most of her public presentations, she asserted that vaccines were developed in a fast, but “safe and rigorous” manner. Just one of many examples can be found here. By November 2021, she said the risk of unknown long-term effects were “not zero” but that “there is a balance between benefiting the public health now versus waiting for all the information we might get.” Despite these admissions, Grady often said she was “disturbed” by vaccine hesitancy, implying that safety concerns were somehow unreasonable. Vaccine Mandates Grady’s stance on vaccine mandates changed radically throughout the pandemic. In June 2020, a presentation she gave suggested “immunity passports” could cause “discrimination without much overall gain.” A passport system would allow businesses to limit or deny access to those who remained unvaccinated. Six months later, in January 2021, Grady said, “I do believe that healthcare providers, like everyone else, should have the choice” whether to take the vaccine or not. But by early October 2021, Grady had decided the choice facing health care workers was a drastically different one: whether to get the vaccine or lose their jobs. Later that month, she also flipped her position on vaccine passports. What once was a potential source of discrimination was recast as a way to access “social benefits” like restaurants and movie theaters. It’s a disturbing way to describe Americans free association of movement.    Grady went on to co-author a March 2022 report approving of social ostracization for the vaccine-hesitant and encouraging employers to pressure their workers: “While some employers might understandably feel hesitant to pressure employees to get vaccinated, our analysis suggests that it is often ethically acceptable to inform, encourage, strongly encourage, incentivize, and subtly pressure unvaccinated people to benefit them, the organization, and other employees.” In fewer than two years, Grady had completely altered her assessment of vaccine mandates and widespread restrictions on the behavior of unvaccinated Americans. Gone were concerns about discrimination and freedom of choice. As Dr. Fauci pushed and pressured the public to get vaccinated for the sake of their neighbors and family members, Grady began considering it ethical to fire workers who did not comply. Likewise, it became a “social benefit” to get a vaccine passport that would allow people to avoid government restrictions on their free movements. Screenshot of Tweet – Dr. Fauci and Dr. Grady maskless at the Washington National baseball game in summer 2020 after Fauci threw out the first pitch. Mask Mandates While her husband advocated masking and double masking—even when “fully vaccinated”—Dr. Grady consistently backed his position. In July 2020, during an InStyle interview, Grady answered questions about masking: Interviewer: Let me ask you, Chris, as a bioethicist, what do you make of this moment we're in, when even a mask has become more of a divisive issue? Grady: Well, I would say that masks shouldn't be divisive. It's a relatively easy way to protect one's self and others. And so for public health reasons, I think everybody should do it. From an ethical perspective there is always this tension between what you ask people to do that feels like a restriction of their liberty and what is required for public health. And in this case, it seems like a slam dunk. It's not restricting liberty much, and it's very helpful for public health. Grady was consistent and in November 2021 spoke to the ethical balancing test of public safety versus individual freedom and never viewed mask wearing to be much of an infringement on individual rights: “There's a classic tension between public health, and individual interests and freedoms. Where there seems to be this conflict to the things that we do to protect the public health, and to protect the population for the common good. Sometimes they are perceived to be, and sometimes they do in small ways, infringe on people's freedoms. There are principles of public health ethics that help you sort out the kinds of interventions that we should use: Things that are effective, that are proportional, where the benefits outweigh the risks that are necessary, that are least infringement possible, that are transparent, that we can publicly justify. …What's striking to me is that, the kinds of burdens that we've asked people to undertake, like putting on a mask, don't really infringe on one's freedoms very much. They're low burden and they have an effect. They do protect the person who's wearing the mask, as well as the people that are around them.” A recent credible study on mask wearing during the pandemic argued there is no clear impact of masking on Covid-19 infection rates. Patients Dying in Isolation During the pandemic, Grady revealed a default preference for government control over individual rights and responsibilities. Grady was an early proponent of one of the most heinous pandemic polices: patients dying in isolation. For example, while uncritically accepting dying in isolation as a fact of the pandemic, Grady’s primary solution was to expand funding for health care workers to have access to therapy and other resources to heal from their “moral distress.” As early as April 2020 Grady said:   “Because of visiting policies and fear of contagion sometimes when somebody is really sick their family cannot visit them, they can't see them…the stress and the sadness and the isolation on families is and is going to be great.”  In a November 2020 NIH presentation she called these “lonely” deaths “understandable:”   "It’s a lonely kind of death, many institutions, understandably have visitor policies which either restrict the number of visitors to one or zero so sometimes people are dying without having their family nearby and that puts an additional burden on the healthcare staff.”  In one co-authored paper urging healthcare workers to “temper these potentially dehumanizing scenarios with imaginative solutions that do not sacrifice compassion and equal respect on the altars of safety and efficiency.”  She interrogates the tension between individual freedom and community safety in a book published April 26, 2022, as a co-author proposing a radical “solidarity model” for ethics in healthcare, stating that rather than emphasizing a respect for individuals to make decisions in their own interest:   “We should recognize that there are times when solidarity takes precedence over individual liberties, and broadening our concept of “respect for persons” means uniting as a profession to protect all those who expect to receive care from nurses in whatever healthcare setting they find themselves.”  She co-edited a section in the same book arguing this extends to dying in insolation:  “The solidarity model may apply to restricted family visitation, which generated moral distress for nurses, particularly when patients died without loved ones present…” CONCLUSION – GRADY AND THE NEXT PANDEMIC As demonstrated by her own words, Grady’s record evinces an understanding of ethics that begs fundamental moral questions, regularly subordinates individuals beneath an amorphous “public health,” and relies on subtle but unacknowledged shifts to retain an alleged moral high ground. While some of her observations early in the pandemic did show an interest in providing nuance to policymaking—questioning the usefulness of immunity passports and highlighting issues with long-term vaccine effects under a EUA rollout—this quickly gave way to conformity to broader political zeitgeist, painting pushback as ignorant, uncaring, and simply wrong. By 2021 her public statements never suggested a limit to sacrifices the individual should ethically make on behalf of “public health,” from masking, to taking vaccines, to foregoing family gatherings even at the point of one’s own death. Both Fauci and Grady made clear that they wish for ethicists like Grady to have more power and more influence over political decision-making. As Grady remains the chief NIH bioethicist, Americans should ponder: does Grady’s philosophy advance what is “fair” and “just” in public health policy? What does her continued leadership mean for the future of American policy. Taxpayers compensate Grady generously, and they’re owed full transparency about her role, responsibilities and influence – during the pandemic and into the future. Note: We reached out to Dr. Christine Grady and NIH for comment. While acknowledging our requests, no statement or comment was received before publication. ADDITIONAL READING Dr. Anthony Fauci: The Highest Paid Employee In The Entire U.S. Federal Government Published January 21, 2021 | Forbes Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Little Known Biodefense Work. It’s How He Became The Highest Paid Federal Employee. Published October 20, 2021 | Forbes No, Fauci’s Records Aren’t Available. Why Won’t NIH Immediately Release Them? Published January 12, 2022 | Forbes Breaking: Fauci’s Net Worth Soared To $12.6 Million During The Pandemic – Up $5 Million (2019-2021). Published September 28, 2022 | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com HISTORIC RELEASE: Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Official Work Calendar (November 2019 – March 2020) | Published October 20, 2022 | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com ABOUT US OpenTheBooks.com – We believe transparency is transformational. Using forensic auditing and open records, we hold government accountable. In the years 2021 and 2022, we filed 100,000+ FOIA requests and successfully captured $19 trillion government expenditures: nearly all federal spending; 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America. Our works have been featured at the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, C-SPAN, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, NBC News, FOX News, Forbes, National Public Radio (NPR), Sinclair Broadcast Group, & many others. Our organization accepts no government funding and was founded by CEO Adam Andrzejewski. Our federal oversight work was cited twice in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida posted on YouTube received 3.8+ million views. Tyler Durden Wed, 03/22/2023 - 21:00.....»»

JPMorgan Curbs Employee's Use Of AI-Powered ChatGPT Since ChatGPT became available for public use late last year, it's created numerous questions for employers about use cases and how to integrate the tool into the workplace while not breaching compliance.  ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language platform where workers can write emails, produce code or even write reports in minutes, if not seconds. But the use in the workplace could be coming to a close for some employers.  JPMorgan Chase & Co. is one of the first and highest-profile companies to ban the use of ChatGPT in the workplace, according to Bloomberg, citing a person with direct knowledge.  The person said the reason for the move stemmed from the use of using third-party software and wasn't tied to any specific incident. We wonder just how many JPMorgan employees used the artificial intelligence language platform to create stock portfolios, write market reports, and construct emails for clients.  Here's ChatGPT's response when asked to write a stock market outlook for 2023:  "In the short-term, the market can be affected by many unpredictable events such as natural disasters, geopolitical tensions and so on. But in the long-term, it tends to be driven by the underlying health of the economy."  But the technology isn't perfect. And some tests found ChatGPT's responses were factually incorrect or had grammatical errors, to name a few -- all of which could've been problematic for JPMorgan employees.  Although ChatGPT can introduce workplace efficiencies, third-party software has many legal risks. JPMorgan might spark a trend among other companies to restrict chatbots in the office. Tyler Durden Wed, 02/22/2023 - 07:45.....»»

The Greatest Generation penny-pinched. Millennials got their own post-grad recession. Now Gen Z is living its own crisis. Call them Generation Quit. Gen Zers are job hunting, and that's not a bad thing.Carol Yepes/Getty Images For the last two years, it seems everyone has been quitting their jobs. Gen Z, who bore the brunt of early 2020 layoffs and job losses, led the way. Now, Gen Z is suffering from lack of mentorship, tenure, and stability at a pivotal point in their careers. The first time a close friend at work quit, I was heartbroken. The next time, I was rattled. After the fourth or fifth, though, I knew the drill.Of course, as a 20-something, I knew my work friends would move on someday. But I, like many others, was unprepared for the onslaught of resignations that began in April 2021. It reminded me of what teachers would say on the first day of AP history class: Look to your left, and now look to your right. By the end of the year, one of those people won't be here.The cascade of quits over the last two years created a generative machine: Workers see others quitting, then they quit in turn. Short-staffed companies work the remaining employees harder — leading them to quit.For a certain subset of younger workers, who entered the workforce as the Great Resignation picked up steam, quitting has become a way of life. That's created a vacuum of institutional knowledge and a set of managers who are focused on searching for new talent or leaving, too. When faced with those conditions, Gen Z has adapted to a new normal: When in doubt, find a new job. Welcome to Generation Quit. "What's really important here is that young adults are not getting the socialization to workplace norms, and they're also not getting mentoring," Pamela Aronson, a professor of sociology and an affiliate of women's and gender studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told Insider."There's so many more disruptions, and there's so much less of a sense that this is a place I want to be for a long time," Aronson said.The nearly 100 million people who have quit in the last two years were mentors, work wives, allies, and team membersJasmine, 22, a department store photographer, is familiar with my AP history metaphor.When she first started her role over the summer, she noticed that workers were hired in pairs of two. "Very rarely" did both end up staying, she said.It wasn't her imagination. A little over 47 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021, a record. Then 2022 said, hold my beer. Over 50 million workers said goodbye last year, and it's a trend that's shown no signs of slowing, based on the latest months' data.The Great Resignation was increasingly dominated by Gen Z. On a certain level, this made sense: The youngest workers were the first on the chopping block in 2020 layoffs, and quickly became attuned to the reality that no, your company is not your family.They weren't the only ones having that realization. As pretty much everyone began leaving, the workers left behind were more burnt out and overloaded. For people early in their careers, that meant mentors leaving, and remaining team members forced to plug holes left behind by the staff they were hemorrhaging. Recently, Jasmine's favorite coworker — who started just a week or so after her — left. It's been "disheartening" to see so many people leave, she said. Now, she's on her way out, boomeranging back to an old role where she has more guaranteed hours and opportunities to interact with photography students at her alma mater, where she's pursuing another degree."We don't owe any big businesses anything. The main reason why I want to go back to my college job is because I feel like I have great mentorship," she said."I love that job. I feel like I owe to give back to that and give back to that community. And that's how I'm going to do it."When your job doesn't pay enough to afford housing, why stay loyal?Gen Z has been accused of being flighty or disloyal to companies. 70% of those surveyed by Oliver Wyman who are loyal to their current jobs are still actively and passively looking for new roles. But the way they see it, they're not being any more disloyal than their employers.They're also wary that the firms promising pie-in-the sky salaries and benefits might quickly reverse course. Already, some are seeing tech offers rescinded, reminiscent of the early pandemic hiring reversals, and a drying-up tech landscape."Companies also have less commitment to people too, right?" Aronson said. "I mean, we just saw all those huge tech layoffs. Companies are not committed to people in the same way that they were."Instead, many Gen Z-ers are putting an emphasis on longevity outside of the workplace, even as they quit in record numbers. Look at the workers making life their full time jobs.Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh previously told Insider that he thinks we're seeing some workplaces adjust and stop workers from "shopping for jobs." He pointed to still-low layoff rates as companies learning their lesson from letting so many people go in 2020 and then struggling to get them back. "Ultimately, what we'd like to see is sustainability in the job place," he told Insider.Gen Z isn't quite feeling that yet, though. For many, quitting for a better-paying job, or one with better benefits or better hours, has been a response to an economy where increasing student debt costs and inflation have put a strain on their finances. When working a full-time minimum wage job isn't enough to afford housing in most parts of the country, it shouldn't be surprising that young adults are quitting over low pay, or little opportunity for advancement."When we're young, we're given this promise: Hey, if you work hard and you go to college, you give it your all, you're going to get your all back," Jasmine said."That's a lie," she said. "We've given it our all and we're not getting anything back unless we know someone or unless you have money."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

The class of 2023 can't find work in Silicon Valley — and that could cost Big Tech in the long run. The class of 2023 can't find work in Silicon Valley — and that could cost Big Tech in the long run.Tyler Le/InsiderOne night in December, Thu Dang, a college senior in Minnesota who is majoring in data science, arrived in New York City to attend her soon-to-be employer's holiday party. The company, a high-flying tech startup, had flown her out for the event ahead of her start date in July and had gone all out on the night's theme: the Netflix series "Bridgerton." There was a ballroom, an open bar, and an elaborate clue-by-clue treasure hunt. Everyone came in costume. The night ended in karaoke that lasted until 2 a.m.It marked a high point for Dang, who had come a long way from her home in Vietnam. Here she was at a glitzy party in the world's most glamorous city, preparing to start a job at a company whose mission she truly believed in. She had made it. But she was also nervous. The tech industry was teetering, and she wondered whether the future she had banked on would survive. "I was really worried, seeing the layoffs at Amazon and Meta and a lot of the small startups," she recalls.It turned out Dang was right to worry. In the new year, the company laid off a swath of its staff and called to tell her it was delaying her start date indefinitely. For Dang, who's attending school in the US on a visa for international students, it wasn't just the loss of her dream job — it meant she now faces the prospect of having to leave the country. If she doesn't have another offer by the time she graduates in three months, she'll have to return home to Vietnam. As Silicon Valley slashed some 100,000 jobs in the past six weeks in repentance for its pandemic-era hiring binge, much of the focus has been on those who suddenly found themselves out of work in the middle of their careers. But the hardest hit have been those who have yet to break into the industry: the college and graduate students who dreamed of getting lucrative tech gigs once they completed their degrees. On Handshake, a leading jobs board for college students, entry-level software positions in the tech industry slumped 14% last year. And the few openings that are being filled right now tend to be highly specialized engineering positions. "With budgets tightening, companies are focused on finding the right talent for specific roles, and more often than not that's a senior-level person," says Zuhayeer Musa, a cofounder of the tech salary site Levels.fyi. The job prospects in Big Tech are so grim that career counselors at even the most elite universities are urging students to consider positions at smaller companies and in less sought-after sectors, such as manufacturing or government. "There are still plenty of opportunities, and we try to get students to focus on how their skills can be used in other environments," says Sue Harbour, the executive director of the career center at the University of California at Berkeley. "It's typical of students in a top school, and particularly a top engineering school, to always want to seek out the best company. That's the part we're having to work with students on — not lowering their expectations, but adjusting their expectations."Several top-ranked engineering schools told me that many Big Tech giants had been noticeably absent at their careers fairs since September. That means the competition for the few remaining positions is fiercer than ever. "There are so many other new grads still looking for a job, and a limited number of junior positions that are available," says Jenny Koo, who lost her job offer with a tech company after completing her master's in computer engineering in December. "Distinguishing myself is really important. I've been utilizing my network a little more than I did last recruiting cycle, and I've been studying for coding tests again." The good news for aspiring engineers like Koo is that, outside Silicon Valley, the economy is going strong — and plenty of industries unaffected by the tech downturn still want coders. Many non-tech employers, in fact, are seizing the chance to recruit the kind of talent that is usually snapped up by Big Tech. On the jobs board Handshake, government agencies are looking for 36% more entry-level software workers than a year earlier, and the construction sector is looking for 28% more. In a survey conducted by Handshake last summer, just over a third of the class of 2023 said that, given the economy's uncertain outlook, they were open to working in industries they hadn't previously considered. "I'm finding that students are pivoting to organizations that have IT functions but are not in the tech industry," says Laura Garcia, director of career education at Georgia Tech. "It doesn't mean you can't work for Amazon one day. It may mean, how can I do a side step and gain a similar skill set that would be valued by Amazon, just in a different sector?"But that shift in thinking may prove to be bad news for Silicon Valley in the long run. Given the seismic downturn in tech, some students are rethinking their dreams of working for the Amazons and Googles and Metas of the world. Previously, the tech giants were seen as sure bets, largely because they were. Layoffs were rare: Once you were in, you were in. Sure, you had to work hard, but in return the company took great care of you. That was in part why, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the Valley overtook Wall Street as the destination of choice for the smartest kids at the best schools.But now, in the current round of layoffs, students have watched as tech companies have kicked thousands of employees to the curb — sometimes via middle-of-the night emails that left them with no chance to say goodbye to their coworkers. After that, it's hard not to see Big Tech in a different light. Suddenly, in the eyes of Gen Z, tech seems to be just as ruthless and unreliable of an employer as banking did to millennials who came of age in the Great Recession. "A student may have initially wanted to go to a FAANG company, but after witnessing some of the layoffs or job cuts, that doesn't feel so stable anymore," says Christine Cruzvergara, the chief education strategy officer at Handshake. "We know from our data that this particular class is really looking for stability." In Handshake's survey last summer, 74% of the class of 2023 said job stability would make them more likely to apply for a job — almost double the share of students who said they wanted to work for a well-known company (41%) or a business in a fast-growing field (39%). In times of turmoil, it turns out that young go-getters care about the same boring thing as older generations: a steady income.Dang, the student from Vietnam, is among those shaken by tech's sudden precarity. A year ago, given the choice between a job in the industry and a job outside it, she would have taken the industry role in a heartbeat. Now, she says, tech doesn't seem as glamorous to her as it once did."It looks so nice when everything's good," she says. "You have free food, free everything. A high salary. But with the layoffs, I now know that no matter how hard we work, they can still cut us overnight, you know? That's something that I'm worried about in tech." Aki Ito is a senior correspondent at Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»