Financial pressures on American consumers continue to rise

 It is the untold story of how inflation affects America’s households: credit card debt. 

When hikes in basic food, clothing, energy, utility, and insurance costs started to hit families three years ago, many families who lived paycheck to paycheck across the United States had to make a decision: “Go without” or go into debt to take care of their basic needs.

To put this in perspective: A whopping 65% of respondents indicated that they live paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent “Your Money International Financial Security Survey” by CNBC and SurveyMonkey, which polled 498 U.S. adults. 

That 65% could include your neighbor, your family member, your child’s soccer coach, or you.

It is not even a debt of frivolity. It is a debt born of necessity, and it is only going to get worse.

Last Tuesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said that U.S. residents as a whole owe $1.14 trillion on their credit cards, with the average balance being over $6,000. That’s not all. With more people depending on credit cards to purchase their food, pay their utility bills, fill up at the gas pump, and pay their skyrocketing home and care insurance premiums, delinquencies are up, too, jumping 7% in the second quarter. And car loan delinquencies are at the highest number in 14 years.

Our country’s growing debt problem spares no one. Young people, married people, single people, and our growing retired population are all struggling to make ends meet, falling deeper into debt and finding no way out. 

All this is happening while current absentee President Joe Biden is snoozing at the beach and Vice President Kamala Harris pretends she had no hand in supporting or promoting Bidenomics while the national press are unwilling to call Harris out on it.

Two days after Harris was here with her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), highlighting her ties with labor unions at the Local 900 union hall in Motor City with United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, the Stellantis company, which makes Jeeps, announced it was set to lay off just under 2,500 workers this year at the Ram Classic factory just outside the city. The layoffs are set to start at the beginning of October. 

Last year, the UAW, led by Fain, conducted a strike against the Big Three automakers. At the end of the strike, Ford and Stellantis said they had a positive outlook about their coming earnings. But for Stellantis, that has not been the case. During its 2024 first-half earnings call with CEO Carlos Tavares, the Jeep and Dodge automaker reported bleak sales, which led to the workforce downsizing to stabilize their investors.

Additionally, the Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio, has been on pause since the first week of July, with expectations that production will be back up on Monday.

If you are a member of the UAW and live paycheck to paycheck, none of this is good news — especially if you had to run up credit card debt to pay for your basic bills or bought a home or a car in the past three years with high interest rates. Odds are, there is a considerable number of people who have a five-year-old car worth half or less than what they financed it for, making them even further upside-down in their financial stability.

It is a no-way-out situation, which is why, here in Michigan, bankruptcy filings rose by 12 percentage points for the year, according to court data.

Our economic problems in this country are rarely addressed in a meaningful way. When inflation first started to climb, Biden called it transitory. When it stuck around for a while, Biden said, “The plan is working.” When the prices remained high, he said it was “the world’s best economy.” 

Slate wrote breezy stories, including one titled “The real reason no one is giving Biden credit for how good the economy is right now,” and CNN had an article titled “Why Biden’s strong economy feels so bad to most Americans.”

All the while, the public kept telling them it wasn’t good. And the debt kept rising. Now we have Harris, who started running for the presidency in July and still has not one economic policy page on her website, telling voters she will bring the economy back.

The question is: What has she been doing the past four years while the financial pressures have crushed Middle Americans? The other question is: Will anyone in my profession ask her? 

Salena Zito joined the Washington Examiner in 2016 as a Pittsburgh-based columnist and reporter. She is the author of The Great Revolt. She previously wrote for the Atlantic and spent 11 years at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as both a reporter and a columnist covering national politics. Before that, she worked for the Pittsburgh Steelers and held staff positions for both Democratic and Republican elected officials in Pennsylvania. She has interviewed every president and vice president in the 21st century. In the 2016 election cycle, she interviewed 22 presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/3119621/financial-pressures-on-american-consumers-continue-to-rise/

'Lilly demands doctors stop selling copycat weight-loss drugs'

 Eli Lilly has sent cease-and-desist letters to U.S. healthcare providers in recent days to stop the promotion of the compounded versions of its drugs for weight loss and diabetes, as their supply increases, the company said on Wednesday.

The letters were sent to telehealth companies, wellness centers and medical spas selling compounded versions of the drugmaker's popular treatments Zepbound and Mounjaro, a spokesperson told Reuters.

"When FDA-approved medicines are 'commercially available', compounders cannot regularly make 'essentially a copy' of them," the company said in its emailed statement.

Compounded drugs are custom-made medicines that are based on the same ingredients as branded drugs. Because Zepbound and Mounjaro, both known chemically as tirzepatide, were in short supply, they could be legally produced by licensed pharmacies in the U.S.

However, surging demand for Lilly and Danish rival Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drugs, which can cost more than $1,000 for a month's supply, has prompted numerous sellers to offer compounded versions at lower prices.

Lilly and Novo have previously sued more than three dozen medical spas, weight-loss clinics, compounding pharmacies and online sellers in total to stop them from selling products claiming to contain the active ingredients in their drugs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has listed all doses of Lilly's drugs as available but has not removed them from the shortage list.

The FDA said in an emailed response that it was currently working to determine if the available supply of tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound, would meet its definition of a resolved shortage.

Last month, the FDA warned patients and doctors about dosing errors associated with compounded versions of Novo Nordisk's weight loss and diabetes drugs.

The health regulator said it had received reports of adverse events, some requiring hospitalization, that may be related to overdoses due to patients incorrectly self-administering the compounded drug and healthcare providers miscalculating doses.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lilly-demands-doctors-stop-selling-151447334.html

'US undercounts bird flu in cattle as farmers shun testing: 12 Reuters interviews'

 The U.S. bird-flu outbreak in dairy cattle is much larger than official figures suggest due to farmers' reluctance to test their animals and risk the economic consequences of a positive result, according to Reuters interviews with dairy experts, veterinarians, and farmers in six states with known cases.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has counted bird flu in about 190 dairy herds in 13 states since March. The virus's jump from birds to cows heightened concerns that it could adapt to spread among humans. Scientists have warned that limited surveillance could weaken the U.S.' ability to respond to further human spread.

Thirteen dairy and poultry farm workers have been infected with bird flu this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Reuters spoke with more than a dozen researchers, veterinarians, farmers, and livestock industry groups to understand whether the bird-flu spread in dairy cattle is being accurately tracked.

State animal and human health experts in three states who work closely with veterinarians and farmers said the government tally is likely an undercount because farmers are fearful of the economic hardship brought by a positive test, including being restricted from selling their milk or cattle for weeks.

The virus reduces milk production in cattle. The U.S., the world's second-largest cheese producer after the European Union, is the only country with known infections in cows.

"While we have nine official positives, there are many, many, many more farms that are impacted or infected that are just not testing," said Joe Armstrong, a veterinarian and cattle expert at the University of Minnesota, who has spoken with farmers across the state.

A more accurate cattle case count for Minnesota would be three to five times higher, Armstrong said.

A USDA spokesperson said the agency has encouraged testing by requiring negative tests for cows being shipped over state lines since April and offering a voluntary program for testing farmers' milk supplies weekly. Twenty-four dairy herds are participating in that program, of roughly 24,000 farms nationally that sell milk, according to agency data.

Six farmers, veterinarians, and other experts said farmers were reluctant to test because they did not believe the virus is a serious concern, or because government incentives to test did not offset their expected losses.

Colorado farmer Terry Dye, 78, said his two dairies were infected this summer and he did not notify the state because he wanted to handle it privately. State agriculture officials eventually heard about the infections and quarantined his animals, he said.

"Sometimes it's more convenient to not know," said Dye.

USDA offers to compensate farmers with infected animals for veterinary care and 90% of lost milk production. Forty-seven herds have signed up for agency financial assistance, though that total includes farms without infections that are seeking support for biosecurity costs.

USDA tests raw milk from cows to identify the virus in herds. The Food and Drug Administration has separately tested commercial milk supplies and says pasteurization kills the virus, so milk is safe to drink.

TOUGHER TESTING

Some said ways to better track the spread include more states mandating raw-milk testing or higher compensation to farmers.

Michigan and Colorado have taken aggressive approaches to containing bird flu in cattle, though experts there still think cases are being missed.

Phil Durst, an educator with Michigan State University who has spoken with farmers whose herds contracted the virus, said Michigan's 27 positive herds are likely an undercount by at least a third.

Jenna Guthmiller, an assistant professor of immunology at the University of Colorado who has studied the virus, said Colorado's 63 positive herds are also likely an undercount.

After a series of outbreaks, Colorado on July 22 became the only state to require dairy farms to test bulk supplies of milk each week. The tests have uncovered 10 infected herds that have been quarantined.

"Once we better understand the scope and scale of the outbreak, we can put measures in place to mitigate further spread," said Maggie Baldwin, Colorado's state veterinarian.

Some farmers do not test because they distrust government officials or information about the risks of bird flu to cattle and humans, four sources said.

"There's plenty of dairy farms that I've heard about that just don't believe it," said Jason Schmidt, a dairy farmer in eastern Kansas.

In Oklahoma, a dairy that suspected it was infected in April did not submit stored milk samples to USDA for testing until July, according to the state. The herd had recovered by the time testing confirmed an outbreak, and Oklahoma has not had other reported cases, the state said.

In states with few or no infected cows, farmers and veterinarians are concerned that when the virus arrives or resurges, they won't be able to track it.

"The longstanding adage is that the cure for fever is don't take a temperature. So, if we don't test, then we're not positive," said Mark Hardesty, a dairy cattle veterinarian in Ohio, which reported one dairy herd infection in April.

Wisconsin, the No. 2 milk-producing and top cheese-producing state, has not reported any bird-flu cases in cattle. Dairy farmers likely would not test even if they suspected symptoms in their herds, said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

"It's still cheaper to just go through a herd outbreak, recover, and move on down the road," Poulsen said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-undercounts-bird-flu-cattle-101036414.html

'Harris to focus on grocery costs, child tax credit in economic agenda, advisers say'

 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris's economic agenda will focus on lowering the cost of groceries, housing and healthcare, bolstering the child tax credit and drawing a contrast with Republican Donald Trump on tariffs and taxes, aides and advisers said.

Harris, the U.S. vice president, plans to lay out some details of her economic plan in a speech in North Carolina on Friday that will touch on lowering costs and "price gouging," a sign of how important consumer prices are to voters in the Nov. 5 election.

Inflation fell to below 3% for the first time in nearly 3 1/2 years in July, the Labor Department said on Wednesday, but high prices of groceries and consumer goods remain well above their pre-pandemic levels.

The economy remains a top concern for U.S. voters, who generally see Republicans as better economic stewards.

Harris will call for a federal law banning corporations from setting excessive prices and call out the practices of meat processing companies, the Harris campaign said late on Wednesday.

Her proposal would allow the Federal Trade Commission to investigate abuses and impose penalties in the food and grocery industry, while her administration would put more scrutiny on merger activity in the space. Other Harris plans will deal with prescription drug costs and housing costs.

Harris' economic platform closely mirrors that of President Joe Biden and aims to appeal to the middle class. Her campaign will pay special attention to what plays well with voters in battleground states, with less than 90 days from the presidential election, advisers said.

"Same values, different vision," said one aide, describing how Harris' economic agenda will be different from Biden's. "She's not moving far away from him on substance, she will highlight the ones that matter most to her."

The Trump campaign has been mulling new tax cuts for middle class households, and Trump proposed eliminating taxes on tipped wages - something Harris did as well in Las Vegas last week.

Harris cares a lot about "pocketbook issues for working families, in particular those with small kids," one Harris adviser told Reuters. She was a champion of the child tax credit, which reduces the tax burden for lower-income families.

"She's going to embrace that," the adviser said.

Progressive economic ideas often poll well with voters, but they have proven tough to pass into law. Most of Harris' and Trump's economic priorities need to go through Congress. A child tax credit bill passed the House but stalled in the Senate this year.

Not all elements of Harris' economic agenda will make it to the Friday speech, a draft of which is still in the works. Her campaign wants to avoid dividing voters and attracting attacks from business groups over granular details, and will be "strategically ambiguous" in areas like energy.

Harris no longer supports measures from her short-lived 2020 presidential bid such as a fracking ban, or Medicare for All, advisers said.

She will push plans to cut costs of rental housing and homeownership, including funding more affordable housing and building climate resistant communities.

"She does have a focus on housing because we know and she knows very, very clearly that housing is a crisis in this country," said Marcia Fudge, a Harris adviser and the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Biden.

Harris will also draw contrasts with Trump on tax policy and tariffs, and maintain Biden's promise not to raise taxes on people who make $400,000 or less a year, advisers said. Trump slashed the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% and implemented other tax breaks that are set to expire next year.

Trump has promised to make the tax cuts permanent and suggested new across-the-board tariffs on imports, an idea Harris rejects. Trump's campaign on Wednesday tied Harris to Biden's economic record.

"America cannot afford another four years of Kamala’s failed economic policies. President Trump has a proven track record of making this country prosperous and affordable, and Americans can trust him to put more money back in their pockets again,” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/harris-focus-grocery-costs-child-225356485.html

'Google brings AI answers in Search to new countries'

 Google parent Alphabet said on Thursday it was expanding its AI-generated summaries for search queries to six new countries, just two months after it rolled back some capabilities following a problem-riddled launch.

The search giant made AI Overviews - which are displayed atop a search results page before traditional links to the Web - available to all U.S. users in May after spending one year trialing a limited earlier version.

The feature was widely panned after screenshots of factually inaccurate answers circulated across the internet, such as a pizza recipe that listed glue as an ingredient and an answer claiming that former U.S. President Barack Obama is Muslim.

Google acknowledged the "odd and erroneous overviews" and announced updates to the product in a blog post in late May. These updates added restrictions to which queries would display AI answers and curbed user-generated content from websites like Reddit from serving as source material for answers.

"I have enough evidence to say that quality is only improving," Hema Budaraju, a senior director of product at Google told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. She pointed to data Google collects internally, which showed that users with access to the feature reported higher levels of satisfaction and searched for longer queries than users who did not.

AI Overviews is now coming to the Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and Britain, in local languages such as Hindi and Portuguese.

Google is also adding hyperlinks to the feature. Websites will be displayed to the right side of the AI-generated answer. The company is also internally testing a further update that would add links directly within the text of the overview.

The updates come amid concerns voiced by the media industry about the possibility of losing out on referral traffic from consumers who clicked through to publishers' websites. Budaraju said the new update would have a "three-way benefit" for Google, consumers and publishers.

Last week a U.S. judge ruled Google had an illegal monopoly on search, clearing the way for a trial that could force the breakup of Alphabet. AI advances from rivals like Microsoft-backed OpenAI could pose an even bigger threat.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-brings-ai-answers-search-100206919.html

Britain says Ukraine can use donated weapons inside Russia

 British weapons can be used by Ukrainian forces in operations on Russian territory, Britain's Ministry of Defence said on Thursday, but restrictions on the use of long-range Storm Shadow missiles remain.

In the last two weeks, Ukraine has carried out the biggest foreign attack on sovereign Russian territory since World War Two, which one Ukrainian official has said is designed to create a buffer zone to protect its population against attack.

Britain's then foreign minister David Cameron said in May that Ukraine had a right to use weapons provided by London to strike targets inside Russia, but the government had not commented before on Ukraine's use of the donated weapons by ground forces on Russian territory.

Setting out the use of weapons deliveries in some of the most explicit terms to date, a spokesperson for Britain's Ministry of Defence said that Ukraine had a "clear right of self-defence against Russia's illegal attacks" and "that does not preclude operations inside Russia".

"We make clear during the gifting process that equipment is to be used in line with international law," the spokesperson said.

The policy means that British tanks, anti-tank missiles, and other military equipment given to Ukraine can be used inside Russia as part of Ukraine's defence against Russia's invasion.

Restrictions on the use of British supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which can only be used within Ukraine's internationally accepted borders, remain in place.

Using swarms of drones, heavy artillery and tanks, Ukraine says it has captured more than 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq miles) of Russian territory since Aug. 6 in a move that Russian leader Vladimir Putin called a "major provocation".

A British source said Ukrainian troops are thought to have used British Challenger 2 tanks inside Russia.

The Ministry of Defence declined to comment on the use of British tanks inside Russia.

Britain has pledged 7.6 billion pounds ($9.77 billion) in military assistance for Ukraine since February 2022 when the Russia invasion began, according to the House of Commons library, which publishes research.

This includes 14 of Britain's main battle tanks last year along with armoured vehicles, ammunition, air defence systems, electronic warfare equipment and artillery.

But Britain, like other Western governments, has so far refused to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons because of the perceived risk of escalation in the conflict.

Russia has said it would respond if Britain allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with British weapons.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy again this week urged Western allies to permit long-range missile strikes into Russia.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/britain-says-ukraine-donated-weapons-121131100.html

Bluebird Hit With Slow Uptake of Sickle Cell, Beta-Thalassemia Gene Therapies

 

Likely to miss its initiation target, bluebird bio has renegotiated the loan deals of its agreement with Hercules Capital, giving it until June 30 next year—at the latest.

Despite pioneering gene therapies in several diseases, bluebird bio has had a tough time starting enough patients on its treatments, the biotech revealed during its second-quarter 2024 earnings report posted on Wednesday.

Since winning approval in December 2023, bluebird’s sickle cell disease treatment Lyfgenia (lovotibeglogene autotemcel) has only been initiated in four patients, from whom cells have already been collected. Likewise, four patients have started treatment with the cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy gene therapy Skysona (elivaldogene autotemcel).

Meanwhile, 19 patients have been started on the beta-thalassemia therapy Zynteglo (betibeglogene autotemcel), which was approved in August 2022.

This underwhelming rollout has disappointed analysts, investors and financing partners. In reaction, bluebird’s shares dropped by as much as 22% on Wednesday. In addition, the biotech was forced to renegotiate its standing loan agreement with Hercules Capital.

First announced in May 2024, the original Hercules loan arrangement, which includes an initial $75 million tranche, would have given bluebird $25 million in additional funding if the biotech had been able to initiate 35 patients on Lyfgenia by the end of September 2025, or 55 patients by the end of the year.

Under the renegotiated terms, bluebird has extended its deadline—the biotech now needs to start Lyfgenia treatment in at least 50 patients by March 31, 2025, or 70 patients by June 30, 2025, for it to unlock the additional tranche from Hercules, CFO James Sterling explained in the company’s investor call. Bluebird also needs to secure $75 million in gross additional financing by Dec. 20, 2024.

Still, the biotech seems reasonably optimistic about hitting this target. By the end of the year, bluebird expects to start treatment in 85 patients across its portfolio of three gene therapies. “We are seeing clear evidence that our commercial launch is accelerated,” CEO Andrew Obenshain said in a statement, noting that the biotech has “more than 40 additional patients already scheduled to initiate the treatment journey” by the end of this year.

However, William Blair analyst Sami Corwin said in an investor note said that while bluebird has “excelled” in its activation of qualified treatment centers, “patient starts and infusions still lags behind.” Competitive pressure will continue to be a major factor for bluebird, Corwin wrote, with Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics’s sickle-cell disease gene therapy Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel) likely proving to be a “headwind.”

In Q2, bluebird hit total net revenue of $16.1 million, up from its $6.9 million revenue during the same period in 2023. Zynteglo sales accounted for the growth. As of June 30, bluebird had $193 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash balance, which should be enough to keep the company running into the second quarter of 2025.

https://www.biospace.com/business/bluebird-hit-with-slow-uptake-of-sickle-cell-beta-thalassemia-gene-therapies