Category: NEWS
Why is the Senate race between J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan in red state Ohio so close?
You might think that J.D. Vance, the GOP venture capitalist and author Trump endorsed in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, would be well ahead of Rep. Tim Ryan, his Democratic opponent. But polls show the race is tight.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-09-29/ohio-senate-vance-ryan-polls
Germany presents new €200 billion relief plan in response to soaring energy prices
Germany’s ruling coalition has come up with a plan to reduce the impact of spiraling energy costs on consumers. The measures include a cap on gas prices, which have soared amid fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Anxiety screenings recommended by US task force will cause overdiagnosis, overprescription, psychologist warns
Pushing primary care doctors to screen all patients for anxiety will lead to overdiagnosis and overprescribing, as well as exacerbate existing shortages in mental health resources, a psychologist said.
“It’s the wrong solution at the wrong time,” Dr. Jonathan Shedler, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, told Fox News. “You can’t just carve the world into disorders and think you’re doing an adequate job of determining someone’s mental health needs.”
Earlier this month, the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended that all adults under 65 get screened for anxiety as more Americans report symptoms of mental health issues following the COVID-19 pandemic. The advisory group, which released the guidance as a draft, said the purpose was to help prevent mental health disorders from going undetected and untreated.
“It’s simply terrible care to give somebody a seven-question questionnaire in the office and write a prescription on that basis without addressing the bigger picture,” Shedler, who has authored over 100 scholarly and scientific papers in psychology, said.
US LIFE EXPECTANCY FELL AGAIN IN 2021, LARGELY DUE TO COVID-19
More than 30% of adults reported symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder this summer, the National Center for Health Statistics estimates. The share of adults who received mental health treatment increased to nearly 23% in 2021, up from 19% in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Shedler worries that mass screening will lead to misdiagnosis, causing doctors to prescribe anxiety medications to patients who may not need them.
“Primary care is not the place to get mental health care,” Shedler said. “The physicians don’t have the time. They don’t have the resources. They don’t have the training.”
The psychologist pointed to a similar recommendation made by the panel in 2002 to standardize depression screenings, which was followed by a rise in people diagnosed with and prescribed anti-depressants. In 1996, roughly five million people were on anti-depressants. That number steadily rose to 13 million in 2015, according to a study by Frontiers in Psychiatry.
FLORIDA PARENTS SOUND ALARM ON MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS AFTER TEEN DAUGHTER COMMITS SUICIDE
A member of the federal task force, American Psychological Association CEO Arthur C. Evans, told The Wall Street Journal that the group’s recommendation “is a really important step forward” in the country’s ongoing battle with mental health. “Screening for mental health conditions is critical to our ability to help people at the earliest possible moment,” he said.
Shedler, who has done extensive research on these types of standardized screening tests, said they are ineffective at identifying mental health disorders.
“Psychiatric difficulties don’t exist in a vacuum,” the psychologist told Fox News. “I think for vast numbers of people, the world is feeling increasingly unsafe and unpredictable.”
“There’s a difference between anxiety and fear,” he added. “On the screening questionnaires, there’s no distinction.”
Shedler said he’s concerned that simplified screenings will yield false positives.
“This kind of screening is going to diagnose huge numbers of people with a disorder and a good number of them are going to end up on a lifelong path of one medication and one treatment after another,” the doctor said. “When, in fact, they’re responding to realistic circumstances in the world.”
“There’s a lot of things going on in society, in culture, financially, politically, that leave people feeling extremely vulnerable,” Shedler told Fox News. He said fear often stems from these external dangers, while anxiety “is a response to internally arising dangers, psychological dangers.”
“If it’s not anxiety, but fear of something out there, psychological treatment isn’t going to be the answer,” he said.
EFFORTS TO PREVENT MILITARY SUICIDE PLAGUED BY INCOMPLETE DATA AND CONTINUED STIGMA, EXPERT SAYS
Additionally, as mental health issues increase, doctors have raised concerns over a shortage of resources for those seeking help.
“We have a chronic shortage of psychiatrists, and it’s going to keep growing,” Saul Levin, MD, CEO and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association said during a May briefing. “People can’t get care. It affects their lives, their ability to work, to socialize, or even to get out of bed.”
By 2024, the U.S. will be short between 14,280 and 31,109 psychiatrists, and psychologists, social workers, and others will be overextended as well, according to a study published in Psychiatry Online.
Shedler said the lack of proper mental health care will only be made worse if the federal task force’s recommendation is finalized, as the number of patients seeking treatment will increase without proportionately adding mental health professionals.
He also highlighted that health insurers frequently don’t cover mental health treatment. When they do, it’s often only low-quality care that is covered, creating another barrier for those seeking treatment, according to Shedler.
“A competent, skilled mental health professional has the expertise to tease apart what’s a psychological difficulty that we can deal with in psychotherapy, where is medication a reasonable part of a comprehensive treatment and when isn’t it,” he told Fox News.
“That’s what we’re in the business of doing. It’s not what a primary care physician can do with a seven-question questionnaire,” Shedler said.
The proposed draft guidance is open to public comment through Oct. 17.
Good Samaritans save elderly Florida man from flooded car during Hurricane Ian
A group of Good Samaritans rushed into action to save a man from his flooded car as Hurricane Ian battered Florida’s southwestern coastline on Wednesday.
NASA spacecraft will fly by an ocean world orbiting Jupiter
A NASA spacecraft will fly by one of the most intriguing ocean worlds in our solar system on Thursday.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/29/world/nasa-juno-europa-jupiter-scn/index.html
Las Vegas bomber who escaped from prison captured
Police arrested convicted bombmaker Porfirio Duarte-Herrera, 42, in Las Vegas on Wednesday, five days after he escaped from a medium-security prison with the help of battery acid and a cardboard dummy.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/las-vegas-bomber-who-escaped-from-prison-captured/
NWSL shows up Women’s Bundesliga on and off the pitch
Every match will determine a playoff slot as the US National Women’s Soccer League heads into the final weekend of its 10th season. The NWSL is the third attempt to launch a women’s league in the US — and it’s working.
Revised Q2 GDP Surprises With Unexpectedly Hot Personal Consumption, Core PCE
Revised Q2 GDP Surprises With Unexpectedly Hot Personal Consumption, Core PCE
Traditionally the third and final US GDP estimate is the most irrelevant and meaningless economic data print as it looks at a data point that was relevant some 3 months ago, but today may have been an exception because alongside the actual data the BEA release comprehensive data revisions going back years, which materially changed some of the US economic make up, if not the bottom line number: the BEA reported that (after two revisions), the Q2 GDP dropped -0.6%, in line with expectations and unchanged from the previous, 2nd estimate.
But while the headline GDP number was unchanged from the previous estimate, personal consumption was notably revised to have risen 2.0% in 2Q after rising 1.3% prior quarter, its contribution to the bottom-line change in GDP at 1.38% in 2Q, up from 0.99% one month ago and almost double the initial Q2 personal consumption estimate of 0.70% back in July. This means that the BEA has pulled much more spending from the current quarter into Q2 and Q3 – and Q4 – are going to get really messy.
Among the other updates to the GDP data, the biggest change was the upward revision to consumer spending that was offset by a downward revision to exports. Imports were revised down
Looking at the details, we find the following change:
- Personal Consumption contributed 1.38% to the bottom line, up from 0.99% in the 2nd estimate
- Fixed investment subtracted -0.92%, vs -0.84% last
- The change in private inventories subtracted -1.91% vs -1.83% last
- Net exports (exports less imports) added 1.16% to the bottom line number, vs 1.43% last. With the dollar exploding higher, don’t expect this to be repeated.
- Government consumption was flat at -0.29%, vs -0.32% last.
Some more details on the qualitative changes:
- The decrease in inventory investment primarily reflected a decrease in retail trade (led by “other” general merchandise stores).
- The decrease in housing investment primarily reflected a decrease in brokers’ commissions.
- The decrease in federal government spending primarily reflected a decrease in nondefense spending.
- The decrease in state and local government spending was led by a decrease in investment in structures (notably, educational and highway and street structures).
- The increase in imports reflected an increase in services (led by travel).
- The increase in exports reflected increases in both goods (led by industrial supplies and materials) and services (led by travel).
- The increase in consumer spending reflected an increase in services (led by food services and accommodations as well as “other” services) that was partly offset by a decrease in goods (led by food and beverages).
Today’s release includes estimates of GDP by industry, or value added—a measure of an industry’s contribution to GDP. Private goods-producing industries decreased 10.4 percent, private servicesproducing industries increased 2.0 percent, and government decreased 0.2 percent. Overall, 9 of 22 industry groups contributed to the second-quarter decline in real GDP.
- The decrease in private goods-producing industries primarily reflected decreases in construction and nondurable goods manufacturing (led by chemical products manufacturing).
- The increase in private services-producing industries primarily reflected increases in health care and social assistance (led by hospitals); professional, scientific, and technical services (led by computer systems design); real estate and rental and leasing (led by real estate); and accommodation and food services (led by food services). Partly offsetting these increases was a decrease in wholesale trade.
- The decrease in government reflected decreases in federal (led by federal government enterprises) as well as state and local governments.
Finally, there was another key post-revision surprise: the headline price index rose 9.0%, above the 8.9% estimate, while core PCE increase 4.7%, also above the 4.4% estimate.
In kneejerk reaction, S&P futures extended losses after the revised GDP data signaled the Fed will likely need to keep tightening, due to the hotter-than-expected 2Q core PCE and personal consumption figures. Also, as noted earlier, weekly jobless claims unexpectedly fell to the lowest since April as well, another sign the labor market remains tight.
Of course, the GDP data is dramatically backward looking which is why we expect the market’s fascination with the stronger components to fade quickly as attention then turns to just how ugly the GDP will be in the current quarter. And speaking of that, we will get the final Q3 Atlanta GDP print tomorrow: as of Sept 27 it was 0.3%. The question is whether the data since then was ugly enough to push it into red signifying a 3rd consecutive quarter of declining GDP which not even Biden will be able to pretend is not a recession.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/29/2022 – 08:56
The global bond market is having an awful year
The global bond market is having a historically awful year.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/29/investing/premarket-trading-stocks/index.html
Border crisis coverage in past year dwarfed by CBS, NBC, ABC interest in DeSantis Martha’s Vineyard story
After months of minimal coverage on the border crisis raging at the U.S. southern border, major left-leaning media networks ran wall-to-wall coverage of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ move to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, far exceeding media minutes spent on immigration in the past year.
In just one week since the story broke, the network evening news across NBC, CBS, and ABC dedicated more time to DeSantis, as well as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R., sending migrants to major Democrat-led cities, than they did to the border crisis across any single month since September 2021.
Many of these segments included discussions about border crossings, the state of the U.S. immigration system, and the hazardous conditions that migrants face when crossing into the country—conversations which infrequently arose in the months prior.
FENTANYL CRISIS CONTINUES TO RAVAGE US COMMUNITIES AS BORDER DRUG TRAFFICKING HITS NEW RECORDS: MEMO
From September 14-21, ABC’s evening news broadcasts spent roughly 20 minutes on the issue, while NBC dedicated 14 minutes, and CBS another 17 minutes, based on a review of Grabien transcripts, for a total of about 51 minutes.
MAJORITY OF TEXAS VOTERS SUPPORT MIGRANT BUSING, HISPANICS LIST BORDER AS TOP ELECTION ISSUE: POLL
The minutes spent across the three networks on Republican governors sending migrants across the country exceeds coverage of the border on any given month since September 2021, where the border crisis received a combined 54 minutes from ABC “World News Tonight,” NBC “Nightly News,” and CBS “Evening News.” Coverage of DeSantis almost beat out this monthly number in just one week.
The story saw the networks rip into DeSantis and Abbott, with ABC personalities describing the move as a cruel stunt that used human beings to “score political points.” CBS figures used similar wording, and teased a segment on how migrants ended up being “used for politics” in an “inhumane” way.
This level of coverage topped the total network coverage from April, which stands at approximately 26.95 minutes, a month when border crossings were continuing to reach record highs month-over-month. A rise in coverage this month was also likely the result of the Biden administration’s attempt to lift Title 42, the Trump administration policy that allowed for immediate removal of migrants attempting to cross the border.
Additionally, coverage of the border crisis in the month of April was larger than the previous five months combined, according to a study by the Media Research Center, which provided much of the 2021-22 data found in this story. Coverage of the DeSantis story in the first week nearly doubled April coverage, and thus, the first five months of the year.
The border crisis received 0 minutes of coverage from the evening news in November 2021, as well as January and February of this year.
MEDIA, DEMS POINT FINGERS AT REPUBLICANS FOR BORDER CRISIS, SKIRT AROUND PLACING BLAME ON BIDEN
In late June, news broke that 53 migrants, who were the victims of human trafficking, were found dead after suffocating in a large truck at the southern border. It was the deadliest human smuggling incident in U.S. history. The evening news shows on ABC, NBC, and CBS quickly dropped the story by June 30. During that time period, the three networks had a combined coverage time of just under 14 minutes.
By contrast, the evening news continued to cover the story on Republican governors’ “political stunt” most nights of the week up until September 27, when media focus shifted largely to Hurricane Ian.
The number of migrant encounters at the southern border this fiscal year has now exceeded two million, a milestone not hit before at the border. Last year, migrant encounters also hit an all-time high, with 1.7 million encounters.
The migrant crisis escalated around the time the Biden administration took office, jumping from around 72,000 encounters at the end of 2020 to 173,000 by March 2021. The numbers have not come close to dipping below the 150,000 encounters-a-month mark since then.
The networks didn’t reply to a request for comment.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.