What we’re reading (3/15)
“A New Economic Power Is Emerging In Europe” (Business Insider). “Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk took a leaf out of President Donald Trump's book last month, turning to a controversial entrepreneur for support as he pushed for deregulation to help boost the economy. Presenting his government's economic plan in February, Tusk hailed ‘the moment when we can overtake everyone.’”
“Consumers And Businesses Send Distress Signal As Economic Fear Sets In” (Wall Street Journal). “Consumers are starting to freak out.”
“Cancer Patient's $100,000 Bill Shows Chaos Rocking Health Care” (Bloomberg). “Like countless Americans, Simons was caught in a conflict between her insurer and her provider. These clashes, long a fixture of the US health-care system, are intensifying as both care providers and insurers employ supercharged tactics to maximize their financial advantage. They’re turning to a growing brigade of middleman companies that face off over prior authorizations, denials, appeals and payments. Those businesses — sometimes backed by private equity, sometimes units of powerhouse incumbents — police the money insurers pay out or, on the other side, help hospital systems and medical practices boost their revenue.”
“How Elon Musk Lost The Plot: The Tycoon Is Flailing In Politics” (Richard Hanania). “To say Musk is biased in his posts or that he shows a disregard for the truth doesn’t come close to capturing the constant stream of nonsense he blasts out to the world. This isn’t a matter of being biased or getting things wrong like CNN occasionally does. His feed is more in the neighbourhood of InfoWars, where Alex Jones will typically point to a document that actually exists to make wild extrapolations about what Democrats or ‘globalists’ are up to. Musk is somehow more reckless: the things he regularly promotes lack even that kind of nexus to something based in reality.”
“Have Humans Passed Peak Brain Power?” (Financial Times). “In one particularly eye-opening statistic, the share of adults who are unable to ‘use mathematical reasoning when reviewing and evaluating the validity of statements’ has climbed to 25 per cent on average in high-income countries, and 35 per cent in the US.”
