Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Stress is weathering our bodies from the inside out: Physicians and public health experts have pointed to one culprit time and again when asked why Americans live shorter lives than peers in nations with similar resources, especially people felled by chronic diseases in the prime of life: stress. (Washington Post)
• Is This How Amazon Ends? An open embrace of cheap foreign products has helped Amazon take over the world. It also might guarantee Amazon’s eventual obsolescence. (The Atlantic) see also The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok: Or how, exactly, platforms die. (Wired)
• Serious Medical Errors Rose After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals: A new study shows an increase in the rate of inpatient complications, including infections and falls, though patients were no more likely to die. (New York Times)
• The underbelly of electric vehicles: What goes into making EVs, where it comes from and at what human cost. (Washington Post)
• With a Deadline Looming, the United Methodist Church Breaks Up: A quarter of the denomination’s churches have left, as the faith divides over L.G.B.T.Q. policies. (New York Times)
• Liars, expulsions and near-fistfights: Congress plumbs the depths in 2023: From removing a House speaker and expelling an indicted member, it was not a great year for America’s representatives. (The Guardian) see also House Republicans’ humiliating year, explained: Even by House GOP standards, 2023 was absurd. (Vox)
• Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade: This is the inside story of how the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion. Most of the justices — including the woman chosen by President Donald J. Trump to help undo it — opposed even hearing the case. The justices transformed a long-shot case into a historic turning point — shooting down compromise and testing the boundaries of how the law is decided. (New York Times)
• Biden Knew Carter Was in Trouble in 1979. Now He’s in the Same Boat. Both presidents faced inflation and foreign-policy challenges as they sought a second term (Wall Street Journal)
• Top Trumps: The 10 worst things the former president said this year: Hard to keep track of all the racist, unhinged, authoritarian comments by the former president? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. (The Guardian)
• The Only Thing More Dangerous Than Authoritarianism: The forces of Christian nationalism are now ascendant both inside the Church and inside the Republican Party. (The Atlantic)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, which manages $1.5 trillion dollar in client assets. She has worked at FT since 1988, and held leadership roles in investment management, distribution, technology, operations, and high-net-worth clients. Franklin Templeton oversees more than 9000 employees and 1300 investment professionals. Johnson is on the list of most powerful women (Barron’s, Forbes, American Banker, and more). She has been CEO February 2020.
Measles is again on the march across the world, thanks to anti-vaxxers such as RFK Jr.
Source: Los Angeles Times via Yahoo Finance
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Light posting over the next few weeks as I am still on vacation/book leave — back January 15!
