Why Shark Attacks Have a Silver Lining
While recent headlines about the above average number of shark attacks in the U.S. this year may have rethinking your summer vacation, the incidents could be good news for the ocean’s ecosystem.
Conservation measures implemented to prevent the decline of great white sharks are paying off, scientists have found. The global population of great whites has been in recovery since 1990.
One of the key components in this environmental success story is the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. With the legislation, seal and sea lion populations began to rebound along the West Coast. Great white sharks eat both seals and sea lions and having more food available most likely boosted their comeback.
A healthy shark population makes for a more balanced ecosystem, leading to healthier oceans that support all lives, both human and non-human. Oceans produce over half of the oxygen in the atmosphere and absorb the majority of carbon in it.
The increase in the number of sharks suggests that some of the damage humans have caused in the oceans has been reversed. However, it will take a while for sharks to rebuild their populations completely. It takes sharks at least eight years to reach a reproductive age and gestation periods can last 18 months.
Even though “Sharknado: Oh Hell No!” is getting awful reviews this week, everyone should applaud this other bit of shark-related news.
Stat of the Day: 0.2%
The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley tweets: “In order to raise enough revenue to start paying down the debt, Trump would need tariffs to be ~4% of GDP. They're currently 0.2%.”
Read Tankersley’s full breakdown of why tariffs won’t come close to eliminating the deficit or paying down the national debt here.
Number of the Day: 44%
The “short-term” health plans the Trump administration is promoting as low-cost alternatives to Obamacare aren’t bound by the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to spend a substantial majority of their premium revenues on medical care. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of short-term plans, according to Axios, which provided this interesting detail on just how profitable this type of insurance can be: “United’s short-term plans paid out 44% of their premium revenues last year for medical care. ACA plans have to pay out at least 80%.”
Number of the Day: 4,229
The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers on Wednesday updated their database of false and misleading claims made by President Trump: “As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.”
The tally, which works out to an average of almost 7.6 false or misleading claims a day, includes 432 problematics statements on trade and 336 claims on taxes. “Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history,” the Post says.
Number of the Day: $3 Billion
A new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services finds that Medicare’s prescription drug program could have saved almost $3 billion in 2016 if pharmacies dispensed generic drugs instead of their brand-name counterparts, Axios reports. “But the savings total is inflated a bit, which HHS admits, because it doesn’t include rebates that brand-name drug makers give to [pharmacy benefit managers] and health plans — and PBMs are known to play games with generic drugs to juice their profits.”
Chart of the Day: Public Spending on Job Programs
President Trump announced on Thursday the creation of a National Council for the American Worker, charged with developing “a national strategy for training and retraining workers for high-demand industries,” his daughter Ivanka wrote in The Wall Street Journal. A report from the president’s National Council on Economic Advisers earlier this week made it clear that the U.S. currently spends less public money on job programs than many other developed countries.
