This is The Morning Press from Cast Iron Brains, a Brain Iron dot com production. Here’s eleven minutes or less of news for today, Thursday, December 14, 2023.
Samantha Woll, the Jewish community leader and president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in Detroit who was found stabbed to death outside her home on October 21, was killed by a stranger to her, a man named Michael Jackson-Bolanos, according to charges filed on Wednesday. Woll’s murder, coming just two weeks after the events of October 7, drew speculation that her killer was perhaps motivated by anti-Jewish bias, though investigators insisted all along that that did not appear to be the case. Jackson-Bolanos came to the attention of police while they were investigating a series of break-ins in the area of Woll’s home. He has been charged with felony murder, home invasion, and lying to police, and has entered a plea of not-guilty.
A Swedish nationwide study published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry found that people with hypochondriasis—a psychiatric anxiety disorder that causes a persistent preoccupation about having serious and progressive physical illnesses—actually have an increased risk of death from both natural and unnatural causes. The study compared the mortality rates of 4,129 diagnosed hypochondriacs against 41,290 demographically-matched people without the disorder, and found that those with hypochondriasis were 1.6 times more likely to die of natural causes and 2.43 times more likely to die of unnatural causes. The study further found that people with hypochondriasis were at four-times an increased risk of death by suicide. In cases of natural death, being a diagnosed hypochondriac increases the risk of death by all causes, except cancer, perhaps suggesting that the chronic stress associated with the disorder has a profoundly negative impact on all of the body’s functions, but doesn’t grow tumors. The excess mortality identified in the study can be generally classified as preventable, the authors say, and they suggest that reducing the stigma of the diagnosis, and better treatment of the disorder, could have an impact on reducing mortality for this group.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2812786
The Federal Reserve, in their final public pronouncement of the year, left interest rates where they currently are—targeted between 5.25 and 5.5 percent—but indicated that they would aim to cut the Federal Funds Rate three times in 2024, to 4.6% by the end of next year. The shift indicates that the Fed believes inflation is coming under control, though Fed Chair Jerome Powell came nowhere near declaring victory over inflation—a uniquely politically fraught issue that consumers feel more acutely than almost any other market force. But with inflation rates plateauing and a perhaps very slightly cooling job market, the time has apparently come to ease borrowing costs. The news appeared to drive markets higher on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing at an all-time high. The Biden administration has struggled to convince Amercians that the economy is as good as many economists say indicators suggest that it is—a recent poll showed that six in ten Americans believe the economy is in recession, despite the fact that the widely predicted downturn never materialized. It’s possible that interest rate cuts, slowing inflation, and a growing economy that is still adding jobs will begin to change negative perceptions, and on Friday the University of Michigan announced that its consumer sentiment index bumped up 13 percent in December, a decent indication that the so-called vibe-cession might finally be coming to an end.
A brief editorial aside: In 1992, Democratic political strategist James Carville coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid,” as a messaging-focusing dictum for the Clinton campaign. Implicit in the now-cliche is that public opinion isn’t some big, complicated, impenetrable mystery, but that it just comes down to how people feel. You can’t convince the public that what they’re feeling is wrong with reference to charts and numbers and facts, about the economy or anything else. The way that most people experience what they would call the economy, is mostly just through the day-to-day fact of employment status and wages, the cost of groceries, and the giant, lighted signs on every other street corner advertising the price of a gallon of gas. According to Google data, in 2022 the most common “Why is BLANK so expensive” search in the United States was for gas. This year, Google has revealed that the phrase “Why are eggs so expensive” was the most frequent “why expensive” query in all 50 states and DC. The Carville-informed answer of why the Biden administration continues to struggle to convince Americans that the economy is good, actually, comes straight out of our collective search history—during the Trump years, the most common “why expensive” search was COLLEGE; since then, it’s two items that most people interact with every single day. That’s the economy, stupid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/business/economy/federal-reserve-interest-rates.html
https://www.why-expensive.com/country/US
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/14/inflation-egg-prices-expensive-2023
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin faced questions from reporters and some pre-selected members of the public on Thursday in his annual year-end news conference, returning to a tradition that was skipped last year in the face of mounting bad news about the country’s war on Ukraine. With prospects looking better on that front this winter, Putin’s decision to perform the news conference could be seen as a show of strength, and he took the opportunity to state that Russia’s goals remain unchanged—that there will not be peace until they achieve their goals of the quote “de-Nazification, de-militarization and a neutral status” of Ukraine—a series of goals that runs the gamut from incoherent to highly unlikely to be achieved without the fall of the country’s legitimately elected government. In a brief concession to reality—or perhaps in an attempt to ground the authoritarianism of his regime in concern for the plight of his people—Putin fielded one question from a group of children about a leaky roof in their local sports hall, and another about the soaring price of eggs. Putin recently announced that he will seek another term as president of Russia, which would extend his rule through the end of this decade. Should he maintain power that long, Putin would surpass Joseph Stalin as the longest-serving leader in Russian or Soviet history. In perhaps related Russian news this week, Alexey Navalny, the jailed opposition leader has been disappeared from his prison camp, and his allies say that Russian authorities refuse to reveal where he has been taken. Putin enjoys an 80% approval rating in Russia, according to the independent polling firm Levada Center, though a full picture of public opinion is perhaps difficult to ascertain in a country where those who speak out against Putin are, at least occasionally, assassinated, jailed, or disappeared.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-vladimir-putin-president-election-f68dfd9139d232929e3da8db639a55c4
On this day in history, 1979, English rock band The Clash released their third studio album, London Calling. The double-album is widely considered their definitive masterpiece, and produced two of their biggest hits—the title track, and Train in Vain. The album’s themes of alienation from modern urban and suburban life, paranoia, and general disaffection resonated with audiences enduring both the Cold War and a period of general economic decline the world over. The album sold approximately two million copies upon its release.
December 14 also marks the anniversary of the last time a human being set foot on the lunar surface. Apollo 17 astronauts lifted off from the surface of the moon on this date 51 years ago, in 1972. Gene Cernan, who died in 2017, aged 82, said the following as he prepared to step off the moon for the final time: America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. The Artemis program is currently scheduled to return astronauts to the moon two years from now, in December of 2025, but a recent report from the US Government Accountability Office indicated that NASA and its partners have fallen behind schedule, and a lunar landing is not likely until at least 2027. NASA is relying on private contractors to develop major aspects crucial to the mission, including SpaceX, for getting astronauts to and from the lunar surface, and Axiom Space, tasked with developing new space suits. SpaceX appears to be behind schedule in the development of the system that would launch giant tanks of propellant up to an orbiting refueling station, which would then be used to blast the ship off to the moon.
Also on this date, 224 years ago, the first president of the United States, George Washington died at his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia. His last words were spoken following a conversation with his personal secretary regarding his burial arrangements. “Tis well,” he said. He was 67 years old.
Now, here’s a look at the weather.
Personal circumstance today dictates an expression of shrouded sorrow, for now, some inscrutable mournfulness, for a brief moment. There is nothing so delicate and precious and deserving of our gratitude in this world as a single breath. The impossible, immeasurable grief for what has been lost is overwhelming but will prove, in time, utterly incommensurate with the gift of just that single breath—of having loved so fully for even just a moment, a love that blooms timeless and infinite forever from its conception—from even the shortest, seemingly cruelest allowance of grace and beauty, here, springs a miracle of unimaginable depth and certainty. How lucky we are, to experience that love, to know it, to share it, to hold onto that one precious breath for the afterwards of eternity. In grief, for this breath, lies the gratitude.
That’s the weather from here—how’s it look out your window?
The Morning Press is a production of the brainiron.com multinational media empire. Please direct comments and complaints to brainironpodcast@gmail.com, or visit the website at brainiron.com. For a transcript of today’s episode and links to the stories referenced, find The Morning Press at brainiron.substack.com. Thanks, and barring the sudden onset of the inevitable, we’ll talk to you tomorrow.
The Morning Press for Thursday, December 14, 2023