Business news of the day: Fuel prices were kept unchanged for 20th day in a row.
The government is likely to bring a bill in the winter session of the parliament, that will begin on November 29, 2021, to bar all cryptocurrencies in India, barring a few exceptions, and create a framework to regulate digital currency issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In response, all major digital currencies saw a fall of around 15 per cent and more, with Bitcoin down by around 18.53 per cent, Ethereum fell by 15.58 per cent, and Tether down by 18.29 per cent. In other news, petrol and diesel prices were kept unchanged for the 20th consecutive day on Wednesday.
Here are the trending business news stories:
Market Update: Sensex, Nifty Flat; Reliance Infosys Fall, TCS, HDFC Bank Gain
The Indian equity benchmarks were trading on a flat note on Wednesday as gains in HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, Axis Bank and Larsen & Toubro were offset with losses in Reliance Industries, Infosys, HDFC, ICICI Bank and Hindustan Unilever. The Sensex traded in a band of around 300 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 17,561 and low of 17,485 amid mixed global cues. Share markets were jittery in early Asia on Wednesday as trading was buffeted by a step-up in U.S. Treasury yields as well as volatile oil prices in the face of price-cooling moves by the United States and other nations.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid 0.24 per cent, while Japan’s benchmark Nikkei stock price index fell 1.13 per cent, as it returned from holiday and caught up with global falls the day before.
After Paytm Tumble, These Are The Indian IPOs Under Investor Scrutiny
At least a dozen Indian companies working on initial public offerings are now under extra investor scrutiny following the disastrous debut of digital payments startup Paytm, the country’s biggest ever IPO.
Government Seeks To Block Cryptocurrencies In New Bill To Be Presented In Winter Session
Good Morning! Welcome To NDTV’s Business News LIVE Blog. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, is listed for introduction in the Lok Sabha during the winter session, scheduled to start from November 29. The Bill seeks to “create a facilitative framework for the creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the RBI. It also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.
Following certain thumb rules can sort out your finances broadly. Thumb rules may not always give you an accurate picture but can steer you in the right direction as they are usually time-tested processes. They are something that are easily learnt, remembered, and applied.
“Thumb rules help in streamlining our finances. Basically, when we form a rule and follow a time-tested process, our probability to reach financial freedom increases,” says Anant Ladha, founder, Invest Aaj For Kal, a financial planning firm.
Here are five popular personal finance thumb rules that you can follow to sort out your money life. However, ensure they suit your personal circumstances instead of following them blindly.
1. Maintain an emergency fund equivalent to 6 months of your salary: You know how important it is to create an emergency fund. It always comes to the rescue when you are in crisis. This should include regular expenses, EMIs, and your insurance premiums.
While six months is the general thumb rule, it differs from case to case. For instance, those with secure jobs can look at three months of emergency money, while the self-employed or those into freelance assignments, who face higher uncertainty, can keep aside expenses that can last up to a year.
2. Take a term insurance 10 times of your annual income: The purpose of a life insurance is to replace the income of the insured in case of his or her unfortunate demise. While there are ways to calculate your insurance requirements, the thumb rule is that you should buy life insurance that is equal to at least 10 times your annual income.
It is recommended that you buy a pure term plan as these plans offer a higher coverage at a lower premium.
3. The rule of 100: This thumb rule suggests that the percentage of equity in your portfolio should be 100 minus your age. So, when you are 30, the equity portion of your portfolio should be 70 per cent. When you are 40, it should be 60 per cent and when you are 50, it should be 50 per cent, and so on. This thumb rule is based on the fact that equity investments deliver good returns over a longer time period as market volatilities even out. So at the start of your career, you should have a higher proportion in equity and reduce your equity exposure as you near retirement.
4. The 35 per cent rule: Some loans like home loans and educational loans are good loans. However, other debt like credit card dues may put a strain on your finances. As a thumb rule, EMI as a percentage of your income should not exceed 35-40 per cent. Anything above that might put a strain on your finances. In case you EMI is more than that, you should avoid taking any more loans.
5. The rule of 72: This thumb rule gives you an indication of how much time it will take you to double your money when you are investing in a certain instrument. It says 72 divided by the rate of return is the time taken for your money to double. So, if your rate of return is 8 per cent, your money will double in nine years and if it is 12 per cent, it will double in six years. Remember, it is important to earn a rate of return that beats inflation. Also, where you invest would depend on your risk appetite and the time to a certain goal.
Thumb rules are meant to act as broad guidelines and are not meant to be followed to the tee. “It is important to remember that everyone is unique. At times according to your financial situation some adjustments need to be made and it’s absolutely acceptable. At times, you may also deviate from the goal, and try to get back on track,” says Ladha.
Duy Hoa Tran, a retired Vietnamese schoolteacher, arrived in Los Angeles in February 2020 to visit his daughter and 2-month-old grandson. Two weeks later, the door closed behind him. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, Vietnam shut its borders. No commercial flights would be allowed into the country for the next 18 months.
Tran’s daughter, An Tran, who has a doctorate in business administration and teaches marketing at the University of La Verne, did what she thought was necessary to ensure medical coverage for her then-65-year-old father during the pandemic. But the only option for a visitor on a tourist visa was travel insurance. In early March 2020, An Tran found and purchased a policy, for about $350 a month, from a company called Seven Corners.
She might as well not have bothered.
The elder Tran had been staying at An’s home in Diamond Bar about a year when he told his daughter he was having trouble seeing out of his right eye. A visit to an ophthalmologist produced a solemn verdict: Tran had severe glaucoma and would quickly go blind unless he got surgery.
Seven Corners gave written preapproval for the procedures recommended by Dr. Brian Chen. To be safe, An Tran called the insurer “many times” to confirm it would cover the expense, but no one she spoke with would give her a definitive answer, she said. Chen, however, assured An that insurance companies typically covered the treatment, which was pretty routine.
On April 19, Tran underwent the first of three eye surgeries to resolve the glaucoma. The surgeries — the last was on July 19 — were successful. And then on Aug. 5, Seven Corners sent An Tran a denial of service letter.
The company’s policy excluded coverage for any “preexisting condition,” by which it meant any condition “whether or not previously manifested, symptomatic, known, diagnosed, treated or disclosed,” the letter said.
An Tran and her father were on the hook for nearly $38,000 in medical bills, although Seven Corners had preauthorized the surgery and she had paid around $6,000 for the insurance over the previous year and a half.
As for the bill, “my dad obviously can’t pay it,” Tran said. His $260 monthly pension from the Vietnamese government isn’t enough even for him to live on in Vietnam, she said.
The surgical procedures Duy Hoa Tran received are quite routine in the United States, said Dr. Davinder Grover, an ophthalmologist in the Dallas area and clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Medicare would generally pay about a quarter of the $37,896.83 that Tran was billed for the surgeries, Grover said. If Tran’s daughter had known beforehand that insurance wouldn’t cover the procedures, the physician’s practice might have been willing to charge something like $12,000, he said.
The policy An Tran purchased had no deductible and offered coverage of up to $100,000 in medical bills, including COVID-19 care. But travel insurance generally covers only emergency or urgent medical expenses, according to the California state insurance commission, which regulates policies in the state.
Megan Moncrief, chief marketing officer for Squaremouth, which aggregates various companies’ travel insurance plans — including some from Seven Corners — and offers them through its website, said the policy language was not unusual for travel insurance. She noted the policy’s stipulation that it covered some acute conditions only if the patient sought treatment within 24 hours of the initial symptoms.
Moncrief said the fact that Tran did not seek treatment immediately may be the reason his surgeries weren’t covered. (Seven Corners refused all comment on the case.) She acknowledged it was hardly surprising he hadn’t dashed to the doctor at the first sign of discomfort: “I don’t know that I would have done that either, if I just had blurry vision.”
As for Seven Corners’ refusal to pay despite precertification, this is not uncommon, she said. By precertifying, the insurer verifies that a procedure is a covered benefit, but doesn’t guarantee the insurer will cover it for that particular patient.
Travel insurance typically offers little protection for any health problem linked to a preexisting condition, regardless of whether that condition has ever been diagnosed, says Susan Yates, general manager in the U.S. for Falck Global Assistance, an international insurer.
“For visitors to the U.S., especially those who are not permanent residents or citizens, it can be difficult to obtain health insurance,” she said. The Affordable Care Act doesn’t cover tourists, though some resident noncitizens can buy coverage.
“It’s usually better for a visitor to buy travel insurance from their country of origin, but in some countries (Vietnam being one), the insurance market is not developed,” Yates wrote in an email.
Tran had tried unsuccessfully for months to fly home to his town near Ho Chi Minh City, where his wife lives with another grandchild. On 14 occasions, An bought him tickets on regular commercial flights that were subsequently canceled. He was also unable to get a seat on charter flights arranged by the Vietnamese government; those tickets generally were available only through third parties charging up to $10,000.
The eye surgeon, Chen, offered to discuss the case with KHN, but his medical group’s counsel said it had a policy against discussing insurance issues with reporters, even with the patient’s consent.
After KHN approached him to discuss the issue, Chen told An Tran that he was waiving his $8,144 fee for the surgeries. The Acuity Eye Group, where he practices, would not immediately confirm Chen’s offer, but told An Tran it was seeking approvals to waive his fee and all other charges as well.
On Sept. 15, Duy Hoa Tran finally managed to get on a charter flight back to Vietnam. He’s happy to be home, An Tran said.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), an endowed nonprofit organization that provides information on national health issues.
Stocks were mixed on Tuesday with technology stocks under further pressure, as investors further mulled the market implications of Federal Reserve Jerome Powell’s renomination to lead the central bank.
The S&P 500 ended slightly higher. The Nasdaq lagged as investors further turned away from technology and growth stocks. The Dow — which is heavily weighted in cyclical stocks — gained more than 150 points, or 0.4{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}, during afternoon trading as energy and financials shares outperformed.
U.S. West Texas intermediate crude oil futures (CL=F) recovered losses and rose 2{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} after dropping more than 1{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} earlier in the morning. The move came after the White House announced it would be releasing a total of 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), in tandem with similar moves from China, Japan, India and South Korea and the U.K., to try and ease rising energy prices with additional supply. In a speech on Tuesday, Biden said the reserve releases “will not solve the problem of high gas prices overnight but will make a difference.”
Shares of Zoom Video Communication (ZM) slid even after the company posted better-than-expected quarterly revenue growth and full-year guidance, with usage of the video conferencing company’s software slowing amid the reopening. Companies including Nordstrom (JWN), The Gap (GPS) and Autodesk (ADSK) are set to report quarterly results on Tuesday.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s renomination to the top leadership position at the central bank captured market attention this week, with many investors reacting favorably to the likelihood that the Fed’s previously telegraphed monetary policy framework would remain in place with Powell’s reappointment. That includes expectations for current asset-purchase tapering to take place through the middle of next year, and for at least one interest rate hike to take place before the end of 2022.
“Continuity at a time of such extraordinary uncertainty is certainly welcome news. We have extraordinary uncertainty because we’re pivoting from the phase of the cycle where the Fed had been shoring up the recovery from the pandemic-induced recession, and … it did avoid a meltdown in financial markets,” Diane Swonk, Grant Thornton chief economist, told Yahoo Finance Live. “But now we’ve got very easy financial market conditions and we’re dealing with inflation. And having to pivot to dealing with inflation and tamp it down without derailing the recovery — that’s a very hard thing to pull off. We’ve not seen the Fed actually chase inflation down since the early 1980s.”
President Joe Biden also nominated Fed Governor Lael Brainard – previously viewed as a potential candidate for the Fed Chair position to replace Powell — as Vice Chair of the Board of Governors for the Fed. With these two nominations in place, market participants have turned their attention to who might fill he three vacant and soon-to-be vacant seats on the Fed Board, which includes the key Vice Chair for Supervision role. Biden said in a press statement Monday morning he expected to announce those appointments “beginning in early December.”
“Political decisions like this are competitions between affinity — you like someone in your own party — and convenience — what can you get the Senate to do for you, and will markets receive it well? You have to view the Powell-Brainard picks as part … of a bigger package,” Vincent Reinhart, Dreyfus-Mellon chief economist and macro strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live. “The White House is going to have three new governors to appoint, and presumably that’s going to tilt more progressive. So bottom-line, six months from now, the group of people that Chair Powell has to wrangle to make decisions is going to be more dovish than it is today.”
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4:07 p.m. ET: Stocks end mixed as tech rout extends: Nasdaq drops 0.5{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} while Dow gains 195 points, or 0.6{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}
Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:07 p.m. ET:
S&P 500 (^GSPC): +7.76 (+0.17{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to 4,690.70
Dow (^DJI): +194.55 (+0.55{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to 35,813.80
Nasdaq (^IXIC): -79.62 (-0.50{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to 15,775.14
Crude (CL=F): +$2.01 (+2.62{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to $78.76 a barrel
Gold (GC=F): -$15.50 (-0.86{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to $1,790.80 per ounce
10-year Treasury (^TNX): +4.2 bps to yield 1.6670{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}
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1:55 p.m. ET: Ark Innovation Fund on track for worst 5-day drop since March as tech rout deepens
Cathie Wood’s Ark Innovation Fund (ARKK) was pacing for its worst 5-day performance in eight months, as the fund heavily weighted in growth stocks was hit by this week’s technology stock rout.
The exchange-traded fund was off by about 12.3{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} over the last five days through intraday trading on Tuesday. That’s come as some of the fund’s biggest holdings have posted significant declines over that period: Teledoc Health and Zoom Video Communications, comprising a 5.97{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} and 4.95{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} weight in the ETF, respectively, have each dropped more than 24{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}. Other holdings including Roku, Square and Twilio have also dropped by double-digit percentages over that period.
One notable exception has been Tesla, or the largest holding in the ETF. Shares of the electric-vehicle maker have risen 2.4{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} over the last five days through Tuesday afternoon.
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9:49 a.m. ET: U.S. services PMI falls to two-month low, while manufacturing PMI rises to two-month high: IHS Markit
Closely watched indices tracking economic activity in both the U.S. services and manufacturing sectors showed a divergence in early November, with the supply constraints and rising prices dampening growth especially in private service industries.
IHS Markit’s preliminary November U.S. services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) unexpectedly fell to 57.0 from 58.7 in October, marking the lowest level in two months. Consensus economists had been looking for the index to rise to 59.0, according to Bloomberg data. Readings above the neutral level of 50.0 indicate expansion in a sector.
The firm’s manufacturing PMI, however, rose to a two-month high of 59.1 and matched expectations. The manufacturing PMI had been at 58.4 in October. Taken together with the drop in the services PMI, the composite PMI for November fell to 56.5 from 57.6 in October, in a sign of slowing overall growth.
“The slowdown underscores how the economy is struggling to cope with ongoing supply constraints,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist for IHS Markit, wrote in a press statement. Although supplier delivery delays eased to the lowest for six months, the lengthening of lead times remains far greater than anything seen prior to the pandemic, restricting output relative to demand and once again causing prices to rise sharply.”
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9:34 a.m. ET: S&P 500, Nasdaq extend declines as tech drop continues
Stocks open mixed on Tuesday, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq declining as technology stocks added to Monday’s losses.
The Dow hovered little changed, with financials and other cyclical stocks rising further following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s renomination to keep his role as leader of the central bank. Goldman Sachs, Chevron and JPMorgan Chase outperformed in the 30-stock index, while Microsoft, Salesforce.com and Nike weighed to the downside.
Treasury yields also gained across the long end of the curve. The benchmark 10-year yield rose more than 2 basis points to drift just below 1.646{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}.
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7:33 a.m. ET Tuesday: Stock futures mostly lower
Here’s where markets were trading Tuesday morning:
S&P 500 futures (ES=F): -1 point (-0.02{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}), to 4,678.75
Dow futures (YM=F): +21 points (+0.06{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}), to 35,592.00
Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): -26.75 points (-0.16{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to 16,355.25
Crude (CL=F): -$0.42 (-0.55{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to $76.33 a barrel
Gold (GC=F): -$9.30 (-0.51{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to $1,797.00 per ounce
10-year Treasury (^TNX): +2.6 bps to yield 1.651{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}
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6:06 p.m. ET Monday: Stock futures open slightly higher
Here’s where markets were trading Monday evening:
S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +7.5 points (+0.16{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}), to 4,687.25
Dow futures (YM=F): +49 points (+0.14{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}), to 35,620.00
Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +28.5 points (+0.17{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a}) to 16,410.50
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., November 8, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Tiffany Nelson knew little about cryptocurrency when she first happened upon a temporary labor job in 2019. A Canada-based company called Westblock was recruiting “labor hands,” in Nelson’s words, to help unload boxes in a data center facility on land belonging to the Navajo Nation.
A Navajo living on tribe land, Nelson considered the job rare for its proximity to her home. With a total tribe population of 400,000 people, only about 170,000 live on the reservation. That’s most often attributed to poor economic conditions and scarce employment opportunities, especially for women.
While grateful for the opportunity, Nelson’s employer didn’t initially tell her what the company’s business on the New Mexico reservation was.
Another Navajo woman, Kennette Phillips, who was hired around the same time, recalled similar misgivings surrounding the mysterious business of her employer.
As security guards kept watch over the site, Phillips, Nelson and another employee unloaded boxes and then began setting up the machines inside.
“When we opened the boxes, we found these machines that looked like toasters,” Phillips recalled. “We weren’t told what they were for. It seemed a little sketchy… we didn’t know if what we were doing was legal.”
Tiffany Nelson (Photo courtesy of Compass Mining)
Part of their growing concern was spurred by the crisis-level rates indigenous women have been kidnapped or murdered across Canada and the U.S.
When the two women, both single mothers, finally asked their employer what the site would be used for, they discovered with much relief, the company intended to use the toaster-like machines to mine bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining is the computationally-heavy process of computers validating bitcoin’s network of transactions. While the cryptocurrency’s supply is limited at 21 million coins, it distributes a small sliver of that supply to miners for contributing computer power, thereby securing the network.
The work can be lucrative, especially as the price has more than tripled over the last year. Mining bitcoin requires specialized computers, the infrastructure to house them, plus a robust and stable power supply.
“Oh, wow. Okay,” Nelson remembered thinking with relief. She didn’t claim to understand the full extent of how bitcoin worked back then, but she knew it was a cryptocurrency, “like internet money.”
Three years later, Nelson and Phillips manage operations for the site full-time. In addition to two other full-time managers who together keep the operation running day and night, the facility also employs four to six security guards to protect their expensive mining equipment, which is valued in the tens of millions of dollars, according to Westblock’s CEO Ken Maclean.
Tapping into unused power sources
Like many other bitcoin mining operations, this project benefits from tapping into energy that otherwise went unused. After the shutdown of a nearby coal-fired power plant, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA), a tribe-owned nonprofit, possessed an extra 15-megawatt load of electricity for which they were eating the cost.
According to Westblock’s Maclean, the power the operation draws from NTUA comes from a mix of solar, hydroelectric, nuclear power and natural gas, with 60{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} of it attributed to renewable energy. The situation reflects the Navajo Nation’s broader and economically difficult energy transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources over the last decade.
Critics of bitcoin mining’s high energy consumption are quick to point out that bitcoin now accounts for 1{1b90e59fe8a6c14b55fbbae1d9373c165823754d058ebf80beecafc6dee5063a} of the planet’s energy consumption. While direct comparison can be tricky, the computational power directed toward securing bitcoin consumes more power than all the refrigerators in the U.S. but less than the total energy used to produce paper and pulp worldwide, according to the University of Cambridge’s Center for Alternative Finance.
Additionally, Westblock’s bitcoin mining project currently uses 7 megawatts of the NTUA’s power with plans to eventually use all 15 megawatts in the near future. Relative to other regions within the Navajo Nation, the project’s energy consumption suggests some economic disparity.
A three-hour drive West from the site, in the Nation’s Black Mesa region, many residents live without electricity and running water.
Kennette Phillips (Photo courtesy of Compass Mining)
Navajo Nation’s need to diversify its economy
But the effort of transferring power from one part of the nation to another is not so simple, according to Carl Slater, a delegate with the Navajo Nation’s Tribal Council. Roughly the size of West Virginia, the Navajo Nation is the largest independent authority of land within the U.S. and its power grid isn’t connected evenly dispersed or connected throughout its 17 million square acres.
Surprised, to say the least, when he first heard a developer was mining bitcoin on Navajo land, Slater told Yahoo Finance the opportunity could be an economic boon for the nation, if the revenues paid to its utility can end up serving the nation’s residents.
“The utility that the nation owns would have just had to eat the cost of that power. To make use of it in a way that generates revenue back to the nation is good, but I think there’s a shared responsibility between the nation, utility and developer to figure out a process whereby more of the revenue can be directed to our local communities,” said Slater.
Andrew Curley, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Arizona, said the Nation’s move to bitcoin mining is just the latest iteration of their long-standing need to diversify its economy.
“The tribal leaders are trying to make the reservation a place where companies, outside of those in extractive industries, can do business and hire people,” said Curley, a Navajo Nation member himself, who lives off the reservation.
A sociologist by training whose research focuses on the Navajo Nation’s energy transition, Curley called the bitcoin mining project an “interesting prospect” but also acknowledged that the Nation’s energy disparity is relative to different local communities. While some communities remain without power, he said the utility companies bare the brunt of the responsibility, explaining that overall, the Navajo Nation “by far under-consumes the amount of energy it produces.”
When thinking of other economically struggling nations that have or are considering adopting cryptocurrency more broadly, such as El Salvador, Curley is quick to point out the obvious problem with making cryptocurrency play a larger rule in the Nation’s economy.
“There is an innate problem and challenge when asking poorer people to take riskier transfers of technology,” said Curly.
Though Westblock’s mining operation opened in 2020, this year marks the first time the project has gained a material profit. On the other hand, the tribal utility NTUA has yet to disclose its total revenue from the effort, but should in early 2022. In addition to monthly revenues for internet and electricity paid to the NTUA, Westblock also pays taxes, rent for its land lease in addition to scholarships set aside for the local community.
A person familiar with the Navajo-based operation said the revenue generated from the project this year is “in the millions,” and that Westblock is working with NTUA along with other tribal chapters to find other sites on the land, which might be used for bitcoin mining.
“I’m just happy to have a job close to home, especially since so many people lost their jobs during the pandemic,” Tiffany Nelson added. “It’s been a good ride and something that I’m proud to be a part of.”
David Hollerith covers cryptocurrency for Yahoo Finance. Follow him @dshollers.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Read the latest cryptocurrency and bitcoin news from Yahoo Finance
In December 2019, Sharon Farrell flew from Florida to visit her brother Stephen at a New Jersey nursing home, where, she said, she found “disgusting” conditions. “I told the nurse, ‘I am calling the state,'” she said. “I’m paying $9,000 a month, and I wouldn’t let my dog live like this.”
Farrell said that four months later, as Covid-19 was spreading rapidly, she repeatedly called the facility to ask how her brother was doing. When she finally reached someone, she said, she was told he was fine. Within a few days, however, he was dead.
It has been 19 months since the discovery of 17 bodies in a tiny morgue at the Andover Subacute II nursing home in Sussex County, New Jersey, in April 2020. The federal government fined the owners $221,115 for not being in “substantial compliance,” and the attorney general’s office began an investigation.
But the owners are still in business. They changed the names of Andover and its sister facility and installed new signs out front. As of Friday, there were 25 residents of Andover with Covid, according to state data.
And the owners are still being paid by Medicare and Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded programs that pay most costs for U.S. nursing home operators — even though one of the owners, Louis Schwartz, helped run a chain called Skyline Healthcare, which collapsed in 2019 amid accusations of neglect and financial mismanagement, which the chain denied.
Andover Subacute Facility I and II was renamed Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center at Andover.NBC News
“The individuals that ran Skyline should not ever be in charge of a nursing home again, and yet here we are,” said David Grabowski, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. He said the pandemic exposed an industry already in crisis, with a lack of resources and regulation.
“Different names, same practices,” Grabowski said. “We need to ensure that there aren’t these kind of back doors, that nursing homes aren’t able to simply put a new name on the building and continue to operate as is.”
Some family members of those who died at Andover say they are frustrated, and some are suing over the facility’s alleged lack of preparation to deal with Covid and for mingling the infected and the healthy.
Farrell joined a lawsuit with other families but said: “I couldn’t care less about the class action. I want these guys out of business.”
Before Covid
At its peak, Skyline Healthcare had more than 100 facilities and oversaw the care of more than 7,000 elderly residents. But from 2017 to 2019, the chain began a slow-motion collapse, and more than a dozen Skyline-operated nursing homes shut their doors, throwing residents, vendors, employees and state regulators into chaos.
Many homes ran out of money. Others were shut down over neglect documented in government records. In one Arkansas nursing home regulators identified maggots in a resident’s catheter, according to an inspection. Fourteen homes were forced to close permanently, displacing more than 900 residents to new facilities, sometimes hours away.
Skyline’s main owner, Joseph Schwartz, and his son Louis did not return multiple messages and emails requesting comment in 2019. They have denied the allegations of neglect.
The Schwartz family has not left the nursing home business. While Skyline is defunct, Joseph Schwartz is still listed as the owner or a co-owner of four facilities, according to federal nursing home ownership data.
Louis Schwartz and Chaim Scheinbaum have ownership stakes in at least seven nursing homes between them, including the facility once known as Andover Subacute II.
In January 2020, New York health officials recommended against allowing Scheinbaum to take over a nursing home in upstate New York, citing an “ongoing investigation” and noting that they disapproved of his “character and competence,” according to a Health Department document. Scheinbaum did not respond when asked to comment about the recommendation.
A year before the Covid outbreak, a female Andover resident with dementia walked out of the facility through two broken doors and was found at 4:30 a.m. sitting in the snow with severe frostbite, according to a federal inspection. Terri Thompson, her daughter, sued the facility, alleging violations of the minimum standard of care. The lawsuit is pending, and the owners have denied the claims.
Dante Maglioli said that in early 2020, his father, Joseph, complained about the quality of care at Andover. The family was talking about moving him to another facility.
As Covid began to spread, Maglioli said, he heard his sister and his father talking on the phone. His father was saying he was not sure Andover could cope if he came down with the deadly new disease. And then, Maglioli said, “my sister never talked to my dad again.” Maglioli’s father died April 9, 2020.
Schwartz and Scheinbaum did not respond when asked to comment about the conditions at Andover before the pandemic.
When the pandemic arrived, nursing homes in New York and New Jersey, including Andover, took the early brunt. Eighty-three of the home’s 539 residents, or almost 1 out of every 6, died of Covid in the first four months of the pandemic. Farrell’s brother was among the casualties.
Health care officials prepare to load a patient into an ambulance at Andover Subacute and Rehab Center in Andover, N.J., on April 16, 2020.Stefan Jeremiah / Reuters file
Preston Nicolai, then a 20-year-old maintenance worker at the facility, said it was “horrific.”
“We were losing sometimes between 10 and 12 people a night,” he said.
Before the bodies began to pile up at Andover, Nicolai said, he was told to move residents from room to room, even though the facility did not know who had Covid and who did not. “I do believe it helped spread the cases of Covid throughout the building,” he said.
Nicolai said he was told to stack bodies on top of one another in a small room as the facility struggled to deal with the surge in deaths.
On Easter Sunday, April 12, Nicolai said, he went to work and found the body of a woman in an outdoor maintenance shed, next to shovels, rakes and a lawn mower. He said there was no more room for corpses inside the nursing home.
“I was so morally devastated,” he said. “It felt so wrong to put someone’s loved one out in the shed.”
He moved the body back inside the facility, but he cannot shake the images. “I have had really bad dreams, and I don’t have the money to pay a therapist,” he said.
‘They do not even know what they do not know’
Documents newly obtained through an open records request by NBC News show how the facility struggled to cope with the outbreak in April 2020.
Emails from Andover staff members to Sussex County officials document repeated requests for personal protective equipment, or PPE, like masks and gloves, some of which was delivered to the facility.
A summary of an inspection from the early morning hours of April 12 written by Kyle Wilson, a registered nurse, and addressed to the Andover Township chief of police describes in detail conditions inside the facility days before the first story broke about bodies stuffed into the tiny morgue. Wilson is employed part-time at the police department, according to a dispatch operator. He did not return a call seeking comment.
Wilson wrote that protective equipment delivered to the facility by the Sussex County Sheriff’s Office was unaccounted for. He said an Andover employee said the facility was “aware of a batch of PPE ‘donated by the Sheriff’s office’ but could not account for its whereabouts or the inventory of the facility’s existing PPE, if such an inventory exists.”
Wilson wrote, “Staff were observed to be touching their PPE (face shield, gown, mask) and their face with bare hands.” He wrote that he “confronted [the nurse on duty] about this observed behavior. She assured me that it was okay because she was ‘not in a room.'”
Wilson wrote that there was no Covid testing at the facility and that the staff had not segregated the patients suspected of having Covid. He wrote: “It is my opinion that the acquisition of PPE alone will not resolve the rate of spread at this facility. … [S]taff are undoubtedly contaminated throughout their shift. While the staff are tangibly scared, a culture of safety is not present in this facility. They have not been educated. They do not even know what they do not know.”
Two days later, a federal Department of Health and Human Services administrator working in Sussex County, Carol Novrit, emailed county officials to say Andover staff members had told her that residents were “not being fed,” that residents had “open wounds” and that the deaths of both residents and staff members were not being reported to public health officials. She wrote that the staff told her “there is no infection control now.”
Schwartz and Scheinbaum did not respond when asked to comment about the documents obtained by NBC News.
Federal inspection reports conducted in mid-April 2020 showed similar observations, noting that residents who had symptoms were intermingled with those who were asymptomatic.
‘Impossible to know’
Representatives for the owners said that at that time it was “often impossible to know who had Covid and who did not because of a lack of testing capability.”
In a statement, the owners of Andover, now known as Woodland Behavioral, said that “the safety and health of our residents has always been the top priority for Woodland Behavioral,” adding: “The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges, and our heroic staff faced those challenges as best as they could. We continue to thank them for everything they did (and continue to do) to protect our residents.”
Representatives for Scheinbaum and Schwartz said they asked for help from multiple government agencies, including two verbal requests to the National Guard on April 11 and April 15, but were told by military officials that they could not provide any assistance.
A spokesperson for the New Jersey National Guard disputed their assertion. “The National Guard does not have any information indicating that the Andover Subacute facility made a request for assistance, much less one that was turned down.” The spokesperson said that at the outset of Covid, the Guard “supported every single mission request we received.”
The National Guard did respond to a request for emergency aid that Sussex County officials sent to the governor on May 6. Two days later, 22 members of the Guard went to Andover and performed nonmedical tasks, like cleaning the facility.
The owners say problems identified in the federal inspections from spring 2020 have been resolved with state and federal regulators.
A spokesperson for an industry trade group, the American Health Care Association, said, “Even the best nursing homes with the most rigorous standards could not stop this highly contagious and invisible virus. Many lives were lost because long-term care was not made a priority by public health officials, especially in the initial months of the pandemic. Critical resources were directed toward hospitals, leaving long-term care facilities at a severe disadvantage.”
The investigation continues
Preston Nicolai said he was fired four months after the overstuffed morgue was discovered, accused of improperly disposing of medical waste.
He said he believes the owners were looking for an excuse to get rid of him after what he saw. He said he has not been contacted by the attorney general’s office. Sharon Farrell, however, was contacted this April.
Asked when the attorney general’s office would complete its investigation, a spokesperson said, “As is our standard practice, we will not provide updates on the investigation or release any additional information unless and until we bring an enforcement action or close the matter.”
The spokesperson said the Andover inquiry is part of a larger investigation of “facilities with high numbers of Covid-related deaths and below-average track records for health inspections, staffing, and quality of care.”
The class-action lawsuit filed by some relatives of the deceased, including Maglioli and Farrell, recently won a legal ruling allowing the lawsuit to stay in state instead of federal court, said the families’ attorney, Daniel Marchese. Marchese said that is good for the plaintiffs, who can plead their case before a local jury instead of being referred to a federal compensation program set up through the PREP Act, which shields businesses from some forms of liability after natural disasters like Covid.
Maglioli said: “I think that these gentlemen, their corporation, whatever it is, needs to pay the price. And I don’t mean in a financial way.”
