Washington Post (June 25)
“Governments around the world are scrambling for ways, often at great fiscal cost, to slow or even reverse their baby busts. From cash incentives to paid leave, the results have been disappointing.” They would do better to quit fighting and focus on adaptation. After 17 years of population decline, Japan “now offers a surprisingly hopeful counter that an aging economy can still offer growth and prosperity.” Recent analysis by Goldman Sachs found that in Japan “the demographic decline that once drained vitality is now creating a ‘virtuous cycle’ of tightening labor markets, increased worker bargaining power and more investment in productivity-enhancing tech. These trends are helping prop up the economy even as it weathers a shock from the U.S.-led trade war.”
Tags: Adaptation, Aging economy, Baby busts, Cash incentives, Cost, Demographic decline, Goldman Sachs, Governments, Growth, Investment, Labor markets, Paid leave, Population, Prosperity, Reverse, Scrambling, Tech, Virtuous cycle
South China Morning Post (September 16)
“The European Union is scrambling to answer SOS calls from its hi-tech industries to fend off the challenge of China’s manufacturing juggernaut. From electric vehicles (EVs) and solar panels to wind turbines and hi-tech batteries, European businesses say they are being eaten alive by Chinese imports sold well below market rates.”
Tags: Batteries, Challenge, China, EU, EVs, Hi-tech, Imports, Manufacturing juggernaut, Market rates, Scrambling, Solar panels, SOS, Wind turbines
Nature (March 29)
Companies are scrambling to turn” CO2 “into useful products — but will that slow climate change?” On the surface, converting CO2 emissions holds more promise than sequestration, yet there are numerous issues and debate is far from settled. There is, however, “at least one point of broad agreement: that CO2 recycling technologies should eventually draw as much of their feedstock as possible from the atmosphere, rather than from waste industrial gases.”
Tags: Atmosphere, Climate change, CO2, Companies, Converting, Emissions, Feedstock, Promise, Recycling technologies, Scrambling, Sequestration, Useful, Waste industrial gases
Washington Post (October 17)
“While Americans are leaving their jobs at staggering rates — a record 4.3 million quit in August alone — hundreds of thousands of workers with similar grievances about wages, benefits and quality of life are…choosing to dig in and fight.” Empowered by the Great Resignation, union action is up sharply in 2021. “Workers are now harder to replace, especially while many companies are scrambling to meet heightened demand for their products and manage hobbled supply chains. That has given unions new leverage, and made striking less risky.”
Tags: Benefits, Demand, Great Resignation, Grievances, Jobs, Leverage, Quality of life, Risky, Scrambling, Staggering, Striking, Supply chains, U.S., Unions, Wages, Workers
Boston Globe (April 5)
“After a year of forced dormancy, the restaurant industry is scrambling to get ready for an expected boom this summer…. Despite a massive labor pool, some restaurants say they are having trouble finding people willing to return to the business. The pandemic, it seems, prompted some to reconsider life in an industry notorious for difficult working conditions.”
Tags: Boom, Dormancy, Industry, Labor pool, Notorious, Pandemic, Reconsider, Restaurants, Scrambling, Summer
Washington Post (January 10)
“As spending climbs and revenue falls, the coronavirus” is forcing “a global reckoning.” The resulting “debt tsunami” will threaten “even stable, peaceful middle-income countries.” Costa Rica is just one such country “scrambling to stave off a full-blown debt crisis, imposing emergency cuts and proposing harsher measures that touched off rare violent protests last fall.” The “progressive, eco-friendly nation is weighing desperate solutions — including open-pit gold mining, even oceanic fracking.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Costa Rica, Crisis, Cuts, Debt tsunami, Desperate, Eco-friendly, Global reckoning, Mining, Open-pit, Peaceful, Progressive, Protests, Revenue, Scrambling, Spending, Stable, Threaten, Violent
LA Times (January 5)
“The coronavirus crisis battering Los Angeles County’s medical system is reaching increasingly desperate levels, with healthcare providers running low on equipment, ambulance operators being told not to bring patients who have virtually no chance of survival to hospitals, and officials scrambling to ensure they can provide enough lifesaving oxygen for critically ill patients.”
Tags: Ambulance, Battering, Coronavirus, Crisis, Desperate, Equipment, Hospitals, LA County, Medical system, Oxygen, Patients, Scrambling, Survival
