December 20 2024

1. Government Shutdown Likely As GOP Plan Fails
2. America’s Healthcare: High Costs, Low Returns
3. Screen Time Before And After A School Cellphone Ban
4. Big Tech Bets On Nuclear Amid AI-driven Power Demand Surge
5. Battle for Eurasia Update: Has World War III Already Begun?
December 20, 1996: NeXT merges with Apple Computer, leading to the development of groundbreaking Mac OS

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1. Government Shutdown Likely As GOP Plan Fails

A. House Republicans’ slimmed-down plan to try to avert a government shutdown was defeated in a hastily called vote Thursday, as several dozen GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats in rejecting the proposal endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump. The revised legislation proposed extending government funding for three months and providing more than $100 billion in disaster relief and aid for farmers, while stripping out a series of other provisions, such as restrictions on investments in China, 9/11 healthcare funds and new rules on pharmacy-benefit managers. It also proposed suspending the nation’s borrowing limit for two years. It had 174 votes in favor and 235 against, with one member voting present, well short of the two-thirds supermajority required under special fast-track procedures. Crucially, it also was shy of a simple majority of the GOP-controlled chamber, dimming its chances of being brought to the floor again and marking an embarrassing setback for both Trump and embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.). The new legislation came in at 116 pages, down from the 1,547 pages in the original bill. As with the initial proposal, the bill would extend government funding until March 14.  

B. Betting markets give a shutdown a 68% chance   

Article Source: WSJ

2. America’s Healthcare: High Costs, Low Returns

Every country aims to control medical costs, and many wealthy nations—Switzerland, for example—also rely on private insurers to help manage care. What sets America apart is its patchwork system that pits loosely regulated, profit-driven players against each other. The result: enormous administrative waste, uncertainty for patients and little added value. The U.S. spends almost twice as much as comparable wealthy countries, including those with private insurers, on healthcare. Cracking down on insurance companies can only go so far in rectifying the disparity. That is because the bulk of America’s health bill stems from the high cost of hospital services, drugs and care in general. Even if we were to eliminate insurer profits, we wouldn’t make much of a dent in the high cost of U.S. healthcare. But that doesn’t mean the insurance system can’t work better. The roots of today’s fragmented system can be traced back to a quirk in U.S. history. Unlike most high-income countries, which created centralized government systems to ration care in the 20th century, the U.S. followed a different path shaped by historical circumstances. During World War II, wage controls prompted employers to offer health insurance as a tax-free benefit to attract workers.  Medicare and Medicaid, followed decades later by Affordable Care Act exchanges, were added over time to cover those who couldn’t get insurance through their job, creating a highly decentralized and convoluted system.

Article Source: WSJ

3. Screen Time Before And After A School Cellphone Ban

Masiah Short’s cellphone logged nearly 11½ hours of screen time one day earlier this fall. She received more than 700 notifications and spent more than four hours texting her friends and scrolling Instagram, some of it during the school day. Later that week, her Northern Virginia high school banned the devices. The program being tested at Wakefield requires students to store phones in magnetically locking pouches during the school day. Peter Balas, principal of the 2,200-student school, said teachers have reported less phone use in the classroom and higher engagement since the pilot launched in September. He’s seen fewer fights and less drama from social media. During visits to Wakefield and with the permission of parents and administrators, The Washington Post interviewed eight students about the effort and reviewed some of their screen-time reports to better understand how they used the devices before and after the pouches were distributed. Their reports varied, but some students, like Masiah, saw their screen time decrease at times after the program. Others saw little to no change. Many recorded significantly higher screen time on weekends, and usage frequently spiked at the end of the school day. 

Article Source: WaPo

4. Big Tech Bets On Nuclear Amid AI-driven Power Demand Surge

Oklo, a nuclear energy start-up chaired by Open AI’s Sam Altman, has struck a major corporate power supply deal as the industry rushes to meet the surging needs of artificial intelligence. The 20-year agreement with Switch Inc, a large privately held data centre operator, is to build reactors with a total capacity of up to 12 gigawatts — enough in total to power all 7.6mn households in New York state. The contract is the latest announced between nuclear developers and the technology industry, as the artificial intelligence boom creates a dire need for high-wattage, low-carbon energy supplies. Oklo is developing small modular reactors — new types of advanced nuclear plants with a capacity of 300 megawatts or less, which is about a third of standard facilities. Big Tech is increasingly betting that small reactors can deliver enough energy to run AI systems, even though no western company has yet successfully deployed the technology.

Article Source: FT

5. Battle for Eurasia Update: Has World War III Already Begun?

Editors note: This ongoing conflict pits the West, led by the United States, against an axis of adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. At stake is dominance over the vast and strategically critical landmass of Eurasia. The conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and rising tensions with China in East Asia are all interconnected, forming part of a larger struggle: the Battle for Eurasia. To dive deeper into my framework for understanding the Battle for Eurasia, see my article.

As Syrian rebels approached Damascus last weekend, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s main Arab ally, as a minor episode in a planet-wide struggle. The West, Lavrov said, clings to America’s decaying hegemony but is inexorably losing ground to the “free world”—his Orwellian term for the axis of autocracies led by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. “The fight of these two worlds, one phasing out and another emerging, is not going without clashes,” he remarked at a conference in Qatar. Though leaders in the West may scoff at Lavrov’s attempt to downplay Moscow’s geopolitical setback in Syria, they broadly agree with his view that the world is increasingly split into two rival camps. With Russia’s war on Ukraine nearly three years old, the Middle East ablaze on multiple fronts and tensions building up in East Asia, conflicts once thought to be disconnected have merged into what could be the opening shots of a third world war.

Article Source: WSJ

December 20, 1996: NeXT merges with Apple Computer, leading to the development of groundbreaking Mac OS

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Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-government-shutdown-spending-bill-republican-plan-08ba24ad?st=Lu3ds5&reflink=article_copyURL_share

2. https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/american-health-insurance-denials-4f09c751?st=xaQKtq&reflink=article_copyURL_share

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/20/schools-ban-cellphones-virginia-impact/

4. https://on.ft.com/4gDDwzF

5. https://www.wsj.com/world/has-world-war-iii-already-begun-16fb94c9?st=pyxYJG&reflink=article_copyURL_share