Nevin Manimala

We’re in the middle of a big backlash against the internet, the kind that often appears when you start taking a technology’s benefits for granted. It doesn’t help that a lot of those benefits don’t show up in our official statistics. 

Goldman Sachs’s economic research team has found that a lot of the innovation Silicon Valley generates isn’t captured by standard measurements of GDP. For example, while email, direct messaging, and Google Maps clearly make all kinds of work easier or more efficient, they’re free, so GDP doesn’t include the value consumers gain from using them. It’s telling that a recent MIT study found that the median person would be willing to pay more than $40 a month for Facebook. Just because users don’t pay for a service doesn’t mean they don’t value it. 

The Goldman Sachs researchers also had issues with how we measure consumer inflation. Sometimes when a good or service increases in price over time, that doesn’t mean you’re paying more for the same standard of living; it means the quality of the good or service has improved. A cell phone in 2000 could do a lot less than a cell phone can today. 

On the whole, the researchers estimate that these blind spots (most of which are tech-related) lead us to underestimate real GDP growth in the United States by 1 percentage point. In 2018, that would mean the economy grew almost 4 percent after adjusting for inflation instead of by almost 3 percent. And the gap has gotten larger over the past two decades: According to their estimates, GDP growth was underestimated by just .35 percentage points in 2005. 

Similarly, Amazon is often criticized for putting brick-and-mortar retailers—mostly big-box stores, but also smaller operations—out of business. But the flipside is that Amazon and other tech companies have created ways for many types of small businesses to expand their reach beyond what they could before. Amazon makes it much easier for small businesses to sell to customers around the world, and so do eBay, Google, and Facebook. Instead of just a storefront facing Main Street, these enterprises can now reach the whole internet, with very low barriers to entry. 

“Thanks to large online platforms, for less than $10, a small business can reach thousands of potential customers and target them more accurately than ever,” Carl Szabo of NetChoice, a trade association of e-commerce businesses, testified to the House Judiciary Committee last week. Szabo highlighted the story of a woodworker in Albany, New York, who can now sell his craft to buyers around the country thanks to Etsy.

According to the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank, companies can get the same impact for $3 of digital advertising as they could with $5 of print advertising. 

Small businesses aren’t the only beneficiaries here. Greater competition and lower advertising costs translate to lower prices for consumers, too. An analysis by the London-based firm Frontier Economics found that eBay helps consumers save around 24 percent of what they would otherwise spend in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. That translates to 1.1 billion Euros in savings per year.

All this suggests that the idea of “secular stagnation“—the notion that productivity growth has slowed down dramatically and will stay low for the foreseeable future—is overblown. It also helps quantify the real but easily forgotten improvements that free technology has made in peoples’ lives.

75,150 students in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including Jerusalem) took the Palestinian matriculation exams and 52,108 (69.34 percent) passed. The success rate for the literature track, in which 47,467 students were tested, was 64.1 percent; in the sciences, 19,724 students took the exams and 83.63 percent passed. The results were announced Thursday. In other areas, such as business and entrepreneurship, sharia and vocational tracks, where few students were tested, the pass rate was about 60 percent.

The matriculation is one important area where the institutional split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has failed, thank God, and identical exams were administered in both places.

The top 15 scores in the literature track were all recorded by girls, with Dalia Malayisha of Qabatiyah in the West Bank (average 99.6 percent) and Nur Khadura of Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip (99.3 percent) heading the list. In the science track, the top 15 included 12 girls and three boys. Heading the list were two girls from the Gaza Strip, who each earned an average score of 99.7 percent: Alaa Abd al-Aati and Hala Mohana.

>> Time for Palestinian culture to go beyond nationalism | Opinion

The celebrations, too, were similar in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. They began at 6 A.M. Thursday, with fireworks that sounded like gunfire, and continued throughout the day. The authorities in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip prohibit live gunfire, but nevertheless there were injuries as a result of the fireworks: Five people suffered injuries in the West Bank (including a boy whose hand was severed). In the Gaza Strip, 12 people were hurt.

In demonstrations at four sites in the Gaza Strip on Friday 118 Palestinians, who were unarmed and did not pose a threat to the lives of soldiers, were injured by gunfire and other violent means, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Among the wounded were at least 45 children, three journalists and four paramedics: one at each site.

In demonstrations east of Jabalya, 20 people were wounded: five from live fire and shrapnel, including two minors; 14 from rubber-coated metal bullets — including Khalid Suhail Ali Abed, a paramedic; and one from a tear gas canister. In the demonstration east of Gaza City, where a number of young men threw stones at soldiers, 10 were wounded by live fire, four by direct hits by tear gas canisters and one by a rubber-coated steel bullet.

Eyad Ahmed ‘Essa Zeyadah, 14, was dozens of meters from the border fence when a soldier shot him in the head, inflicting serious injuries, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported.

In the demonstration east of the Bureij refugee camp, protesters set tires on fire, burned Israeli flags and flew kites. Dozens of demonstrators approached the border fence at a range of between two and 70 meters, and some of them tried to throw stones at soldiers. In that incident, 25 were wounded by the soldiers’ live fire. Seven were wounded by rubber-coated metal bullets. They included a volunteer paramedic, Ahmad Wishah, who was hit in the left foot; a news photographer, Sami Masran, who was severely wounded in the face, and a female reporter, Safenaz al-Louh, who was struck in the back. Among the wounded were 16 children. Four of the injuries were described as serious.

The number of demonstrators east of Khan Yunis was smaller Friday than on previous weeks. Some protesters burned tires. Seven were wounded by live bullets shot by soldiers, five by shrapnel and 10 when they were struck by tear gas canisters. One of the canisters struck a volunteer paramedic, Fatma Najjar, 29, in the hand.

Some 1,600 protestors took part in the demonstration in the southern Gaza Strip. They approached the fence east of the village of Shoka, threw stones and set Israeli flags on fire. The soldiers sprayed them with hot water and foul-smelling “skunk water,” and fired live bullets, rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas. As a result, 34 civilians, including 10 children, were injured: 11 by live fire and shrapnel, 21 by rubber-coated metal bullets and two by tear gas canisters. Abd al-Rahman Siam, 16, suffered serious injury when a bullet struck his abdomen. A volunteer paramedic, Saqer al-Jamal, suffered moderate injuries after being hit in the head by a live bullet and in the left shoulder by a rubber-coated metal bullet.

In the first quarter of the year the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip was 46 percent, compared to 16 percent in the West Bank, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported. The average work week was 37.2 hours in the Gaza Strip, compared to 43.6 hours in the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, 20 percent of women work outside the home, compared to 18 percent in the West Bank.

Three-fourths — 76 percent — of employees in the private sector in Gaza earn less than minimum wage (1,450 shekels a month, or $410), compared to just 12 percent in the West Bank.

In the first quarter, 103,000 Palestinians worked in Israel proper. An additional 24,000 worked in settlements. The average wage of Palestinians working in Israel and in the settlements was 247 shekels per day.

In eight incidents of violence carried out by Jewish settlers between July 2 and July 15, two Palestinians were injured — one in Hebron and one in Hizmeh — and some 200 olive trees were damaged in Susya and in Turmus Aya, according to OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Settlers let their sheep and goats graze in fields belonging to the Palestinian villages of Yanun and Deir Jarir and planted with wheat and barley. Settlers also entered the villages of Deir Qaddis and Awarta, puncturing the tires of residents’ vehicles and spraying slogans in Hebrew.

Social media usage continues to grow, as social platforms reach into new regions and become an even bigger part of day-to-day life. However you may feel about social media, and the way it both unifies and divides in varying measure, the fact of the matter is that it’s not going away – in fact, it’s becoming more embedded into more societal elements, making it an essential connective tool.

So how significant is social media in 2019? That’s what this infographic from the team at Oberlo is all about. The listing below includes insights into overall social media usage, platform-specific trends, popularity by demographic group, and more.

If you’re looking to get a better handle on the ‘why’ of social media for your business, this graphic will help, while it may also inform your overall strategic planning.

You can read Oberlo’s full report here, or check out the graphic below.

Updated: May 25, 2018:

JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.

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Information for EU and Swiss Residents

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Privacy Officer
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Privacy Officer
JD Supra, LLC
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Sausalito, California 94965

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Half Year 2019 YTD Maui Statistics
and the Breakdown of Costs for Buyers and Sellers

We are halfway through 2019 and the numbers are in!

While number of sales are down for homes, condo and land on Maui, the median prices all went up, $740,000, $522,000 and $495,000, respectively. Almost 40% of the deals that recorded in 2019 happened in South Maui. The most number of homes sales recorded in Central Maui (173); South Maui had the most condo sales (420) and Upcountry had the most number of recorded land transactions (23).

What Buyers And What Sellers Pay

In Hawaiʻi, there is the Hawaiʻi Association of REALTORS Standard Form (Revised 2/19 Released 5/19) that specifies the closing costs that are paid by either the buyer or the seller.

Principals use this written and signed contract and the items on the contract are negotiated between both parties. In Hawaiʻi, for title insurance costs, the standard practice is for Buyers to pay for 40% of the premium for standard coverage title insurance and any additional costs relating to the issuance of extended coverage policy (including a lender policy). (Title fees are based on the liability amounts and are filed and in compliance with the insurance code of the State of Hawaiʻi). Sellers pay for 60% of the premium for standard coverage title insurance. The escrow fees charged by title companies for handling the transaction are split evenly between principals.

The following is a list of customary closing costs and is NOT intended to be all-inclusive.

NOTE: In most cases, there is a real estate commission involved in the sale of real property. The agreement is separate from the closing costs above and is a signed agreement between seller and real estate brokerage. Customarily in Hawaiʻi, the seller pays the real estate commission; however, the commission can be negotiated between principals and brokerage firm.

*All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed, and should not be relied upon without independent verification. All properties are subject to prior sale, change or withdrawal. Neither listing broker(s) or information provider(s) shall be responsible for any misprints, typographical errors, or misinformation and shall be held totally harmless. Listing(s) information is provided by the REALTORS Association of Maui Inc (C) and is for consumer’s personal, non-commercial use. Information on this site was last updated (insert publication date). This is not intended as legal or tax advice, and readers are urged to consult with the appropriate professionals to determine the accuracy of information.

Reta Chin-Chiarella, AVP of Strategic Business Development with Fidelity National Title & Escrow is a contributing writer to Maui Now. Reta’s experience in the Maui escrow/title/real estate industry dates back to 1990. She was named “Affiliate of the Year” by the Realtors Association in 2000 and has also received multiple sales awards. Fidelity National Title is recognized as the leader in the industry, ranked 302 in the Fortune 500 list. Fidelity is the highest rated and largest title insurance company nationwide, underwriting one of three policies. Her office is located at the Shops at Wailea, at 3750 Wailea Alanui, Suite 22EW in Wailea.

Offices of Fidelity National Title & Escrow are available in: Kahului (808) 893-0556; Lahaina (808) 661-4960; Upcountry (808) 573-0110; and Wailea (808) 891-2404.

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas (AFNS) —

Air Force officials have selected 9,467 staff sergeants for promotion to technical sergeant out of 29,328 eligible for a selection rate of 32.28% in the 19E6 promotion cycle.

Of the 9,467 selected, 18% had promote now recommendations, 26% had must promote recommendations and 56 % had promote recommendations.

Selectees’ average time in grade was 4.04 years and time in service was 9.06 years. The average selectee overall score was 354.93, based on point averages of 211.16 for enlisted performance reports, 4.85 for decorations, 70.83 for the promotion fitness examination and 65.77 for the specialty knowledge test.

The technical sergeant promotion list is available on the Enlisted Promotions page of the Air Force’s Personnel Center website, the Air Force Portal and myPers. Airmen can access their score notices on the virtual Military Personnel Flight via the AFPC secure applications page.

Those selected will be promoted beginning Aug. 1, according to their promotion sequence number. Prior to posting the list, AFPC provided commanders, senior raters and trusted agents with advanced knowledge of their Airmen’s selection.

For more information about Air Force personnel programs, visit the AFPC public website.

The alleged lack of efficacy for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in mild to moderate depression may be due to statistics rather than pharmacology, new research suggests.

An analysis conducted by investigators at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, does not support restricting SSRIs to patients with severe depression.

It also highlights the importance of reconsidering how depression rating scales are used to define depression severity and assess treatment response as well as interpreting group-level meta-analyses with caution, the investigators note.

The study was published online July 11 in Lancet Psychiatry.

Ongoing Controversy

“A number of previous analyses that have had marked impact on the field claimed that antidepressants are effective (if at all) only in the most severe cases, and for many debaters and clinicians this still seems to be a well-established truth,” study investigator Elias Eriksson, MedDr, professor of pharmacology, told Medscape Medical News.

These previous analyses typically used a disputed measure of improvement — a decrease in the sum-score of the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17) — and were based on group-level rather than patient-level data, he explained.

“We, and others, have demonstrated the inadequacy of the conventional HDRS-17 measure of response in antidepressant trials, one problem being that many of the items on this scale are rated zero already at baseline in many patients, and hence cannot possibly display any drug-induced improvement,” said Eriksson.

“We hence believed that the severity vs response issue must be addressed using each individual symptom rather than the sum score of the Hamilton scale as outcome measure, which to our knowledge had not been done before,” he added.

The investigators conducted an item-based, patient-level, post-hoc analysis of pooled data from 8262 adults with major depression from 28 acute-phase, placebo-controlled HDRS-based trials of three SSRIs — citalopram, paroxetine, and sertraline.

“To our knowledge, this is the largest patient-level study assessing the possible association between baseline severity of depression and response to SSRIs to date, and the first including comprehensive analyses of outcome measures other than HDRS-17 sum scores,” the researchers write.

Refuting previous claims that antidepressants are ineffective for non-severe depression, the investigators found no difference between patients with the lowest baseline HDRS-17 sum score compared with those with the highest sum score with respect to SSRI-induced decrease in the 6-item HDRS subscale (HDRS-6) symptoms of depression. The HDRS-6 includes depressed mood, guilt, work and interests, psychomotor retardation, psychic anxiety, and general somatic symptoms.

However, effect sizes for non–HDRS-6 symptoms were notably lower in patients with non-severe depression than in those with severe depression, which may partly be the result of the sparsity of these symptoms at baseline in this subgroup compared with the severe depression subgroup, the researchers say.

These results suggest that the “apparently lower effect size in cases defined as ‘non-severe’ is largely due to the fact that these patients report fewer symptoms at baseline, and therefore cannot show any improvement in symptoms that are absent from start,” said Eriksson.

“Moreover, since some of the symptoms that are often absent at baseline, such as gastrointestinal problems, are common SSRI side effects, these patients may even report some deterioration with respect to these symptoms, which may mask an antidepressant response when using the sum rating of all items as effect parameter,” he noted.

He also noted that key symptoms of depression, such as depressed mood, are “almost as common and severe at baseline in cases defined as non-severe as in those defined as severe, and that the effect of SSRIs is just as good in cases defined as non-severe. The common assumption that SSRIs are useless in moderate depression thus seems entirely unfounded.”

Experts Weigh In

Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News, Irving Kirsch, PhD,  associate director of the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and author of the book The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, which claims there are no clinical differences in the effectiveness of antidepressants vs placebo in depression, said the study is “interesting, but there are some problems with it.”

“First, the HDRS-6 that they depend on for their conclusion excludes two of the defining diagnostic criteria of depression in DSM-5: weight change and suicidal ideation.

“The argument that one should do so because mildly and moderately depressed people do not have these symptoms seems specious to me. Of course, the exclusion of core features of severe depression lessens the ability to find differences in improvement it as a function of severity. That’s why they should be included, not excluded,” Kirsch said.

“Second, differences associated with baseline severity are very small, even in the studies in which they are shown to be statistically significant. What the data show is that antidepressant–placebo differences are very small at all levels of depression,” he added.

In a commentary published with the study, Toshi Furukawa, MD, PhD, of Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine/School of Public Health in Japan, notes the study “opens up some fundamental questions. What is depression? How can we measure it most adequately and appropriately? And what do we mean to treat when we treat people with depression? As this field of science grows, and the more we know, the more of the unknown we have to explore.”

The study was supported by Swedish Medical Research Council, AFA Insurance, the Swedish Brain Foundation, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Bertil Hållsten’s Foundation, and Söderberg’s Foundation. Eriksson has previously been on advisory boards, received speaker’s honoraria, or research grants from Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, H Lundbeck, and Servier.  Kirsch has disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Furukawa has received personal fees from Meiji, Mitsubishi-Tanabe, Merck Sharp & Dohme, and Pfizer; a grant from Mitsubishi-Tanabe; and has a patent pending for smartphone apps.

Lancet Psychiatry. Published online July 11, 2019. Abstract, Editorial

 

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By Sonia Fernandez for UCSB | July 16, 2019 | 10:31 a.m.