🚨 Wooden Ships – January 20 2023

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm AM. 

The Lead: The U.S. Breaks a New Record, Not a Good One

senator rand paul stands with the 4,155 page budget. credit: wsj

The U.S. Treasury now has to resort to “extraordinary measures” to meet its financial obligations after hitting the debt ceiling on Thursday. 

Lawmakers will have to agree on raising the debt ceiling yet again but Republicans in the House say that they will not do this unless some spending cuts are agreed upon. Democrats do not seem willing to concede to this. 

So what are these “extraordinary measures”? Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that the government may have to cut contributions to retirement plans. So, take from the people in order to meet debt obligations? 

If the U.S. cannot meet its debt obligations, it risks the nation’s credit rating being downgraded, which would affect its ability to borrow more in the future. 

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

credit: wef

This panel called “Ready for Brain Transparency” at the Davos World Economic Forum made us pretty nervous and it turns out, with good reason. 

In this panel, Duke University researcher and self-described "futurist" Nita Farahany predicts that in the future, even healthy adults will use implanted technology in order to collect data from their brain for insights and convenience. Like, “Hey, if I can implant this device that plays music and takes calls directly into my brain, I won’t lose it and that’s convenient. And also, upload my private thoughts to a server. I’m sure that’s fine.” 

Farahany presents this nice use case: brain technology can decode your ATM passwords so you don’t have to remember it. Also, the implants can be the primary way we interact with all of our technology instead of a mouse. 

If we hand over the data from our brains, researchers will get better at decoding complex thought, she says. She calls for something called “cognitive ergonomics” in the workplace. Like, “Let's make sure work is comfortable for your brain by letting us in there.” 

Farahany admits there is a dystopian element to all of this because if it is “done poorly, it could be the most oppressive technology we’ve ever introduced in a wide scale across society.” 

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Now You Can Sponsor a Refugee

credit: getty

The U.S. is trying to privatize the refugee crisis by asking citizens to sponsor refugees. The program is called Welcome Corps. 

U.S. citizens can request to be matched with refugees who have been approved for resettlement in phase one. In phase two, the private sponsors “will be able to identify refugees to refer to the [program] for resettlement and support the refugees they have identified.” Meanwhile, these refugees will be able to apply for permanent status. This is a much better deal for Ukrainians who are currently offered two years of residency through Uniting for Ukraine. 

Refugee centers in the U.S. are packed, even though the U.S. has resettled the lowest number of refugees since 1980. So can this program improve through privatization? The State Department calls this “the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades.” 

What's Trending?

Andy Murray yelling at the umpire credit: twitter

Andy Murray is trending because he played a match at the Australian Open that lasted five hours and 45 minutes. He requested a pee break at 3 a.m. and it was denied and he was pissed off. Get it? Pissed off?? He did eventually win the match. 

Taco Bell rat poisoning is trending because a man in Colorado was hospitalized after eating at the fast food restaurant and claims that his food contained rat poisoning. That has yet to be confirmed. 

Ted Lasso is trending on news that Season 3 will premiere this Spring and this first look at what is coming. 

News By The Numbers

23. That is how old Spike is. He was recently named the world’s oldest living dog. 

37 million. That is how many T-Mobile users had their data stolen in a breach that the company admits happened last November. 

180,000. That is how many excess deaths occurred in Germany during the three years of the pandemic. 

4%. That is how much inflation rose in Japan last month, hitting a 41-year high.

Journalistic Integrity? 

credit: pa real life

Can we talk about gender pronouns for a minute? I can’t stop thinking about this story about a deceased woman whose husband transitioned to a woman after her death. Is it right to call the woman “her wife” given she was never married to a woman? Can we assign someone a same-sex marriage posthumously? 

This is a news article about a man whose wife died of breast cancer. He calls her death his “eureka moment” and decides to start living as a woman because he has always wanted to BE his wife. In telling this story, the author repeatedly refers to the deceased woman as “her wife.” 

It is the journalistic integrity that I cannot reconcile. She was never “her wife.” She was “his wife.” Is it ethical to rewrite her story to validate his? Whose story do we respect? The living or the dead? 

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