Monthly Archives: August 2021

As the world continues to contend with COVID-19, much about the virus remains uncertain, including its interactions with cannabis.

In the early months of the pandemic, various studies linked pot to both adverse and beneficial results. The trend continues today, with little conclusively known about the cannabis-COVID medical connection if indeed there is one.

That said, it is much clearer to see that the pandemic created a significant beneficial impact on the marketplace.

Almost All Conclusions Require Additional Data

Several physicians and researchers tell Benzinga that little has been concluded regarding any cannabis-COVID connections, beneficial or adverse.

Dr. Samoon Ahmad is a professor of psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he serves as the unit chief of the inpatient unit at Bellevue Hospital. He said that "Unfortunately, not a lot" is certain at this time.

Dr. Robert Milanes, a California-based cannabis physician of telehealth platform Heally, stated, "One thing we know conclusively is that cannabis cannot cure COVID-19."

Despite his assertion, cannabis entrepreneurs, like retired NFL player Kyle Turley, have claimed CBD can cure COVID-19. In late March 2020, the FDA warned Turley about making such claims.

Milanes pointed out that cannabis use increased during the pandemic. He noted a Margriet W. van Laar et al. study that saw 41.3% of respondents saying their cannabis use increased during the lockdown.

Beyond that, no one considered any findings to be verifiable at this time.

Ahmad, the author of a medical cannabis clinical handbook and an upcoming Wolters Kluwer-published book delving into the pandemic's psychosocial effects, noted that several studies of interest had been published in recent months.

He cited additional studies with various adverse and beneficial conclusions. They include possible elevated rates of adverse outcomes for older patients using the synthetic drugs nabilone and dronabinol to treat severe breathing problems. Ahmad countered the results, stating, "This is indirect evidence and tenuous at best."

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He also cited studies linking heavy cigarette use to worsened COVID symptoms, hypothesizing that heavy cannabis smoke could have the same effect. He warned that vaping risks are even more tenuous.

"I would err on the side of caution and recommend that individuals use tinctures or edibles should they choose to use cannabis, particularly if they have comorbidities associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes," Ahmad added.

Milanes also discussed various studies and their outcomes.

The physician cited one study that concluded cannabis users could be more vulnerable to contagion and worsening conditions due to COVID. He noted additional analyses that found people predisposed to cannabis use disorder saw an increased likelihood of hospitalization from the virus while other studies concluded that CBD might play a substantial role in lessening the severity of a cytokine storm. This is when the body's immune system goes into overdrive, of sorts, signaling an influx of cytokines to fight a pathogen.

Milanes called the occurrence "the most dangerous and potentially life-threatening event related to COVID-19."

Ahmad added, "Preclinical evidence suggests that THC and CBD may reduce the severity of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), but clinical evidence is still lacking."

Good For Health, Probably Not. Good For Business? Yep. Sales Boomed During Pandemic

Though little to no medical research links cannabis use with COVID-19 relief, that is definitely not the case in business where the pandemic proved to be a boon for the emerging industry.

Jessica Lipton, a cannabis researcher and founder of gummies brand Elevate Delta 8, said

the essential status given to much of the industry led to significant expansion.

"Businesses boomed and were encouraged to maximize cash flow, develop contingency plans and hire more people," Lipton said. She expects the trend to continue, especially for brands selling both THC and CBD products.

Delivery services also increased or were introduced across most markets to adhere to social distancing rules.

"Although the relaxation of these guidelines is temporary, the success that we've seen may encourage legislative adjustments in the future," Lipton added.

An August 2021 report found sales increased between 2019 and 2020 across Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington during COVID-19.

Photo: Artem Podrez from Pexels

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2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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The Cannabis-COVID Connection: What We Know And What We Don't Know - Yahoo Finance

After nearly two decades in public service, James Stewart, a science teacher from Maryland, is fighting an uphill battle to deal with $122,000 in student loans.

It can be overwhelming, the Dorchester County Public Schools teacher told Yahoo Finance, explaining that he managed to avoid student debt for his undergraduate education and master's degree but took on loans for his doctoral degree in educational leadership at the for-profit chain University of Phoenix.

When he applied for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) a few years ago, he held around $104,000 in loans. That pile continues to grow.

Stewart is just one of many educators facing this problem: Educators across America are heavily weighed down by student debt, according to a new report from the National Education Association (NEA).

(National Education Association)

The union's report, which surveyed nearly 2,500 educators between October 30 and December 14 of 2020, looked at educators loan status, repayment type, payment difficulties, debt relief and loan forgiveness, and personal negative impacts of student loan debt.

No matter what we look like, where we live, or whats in our wallets, all of us should be able to pursue our dreams at an affordable college or university, NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement. But today, the cost of college imposes a teacher penalty on educators, saddling them with a lifetime of debt before they even enter the classroom.

Tuition inflation in the 21st century has led to heavy borrowing and a student debt crisis that some lawmakers are urging the White House to address through broad cancellation of some federally-backed debt.

According to the NEA, 45% of educators took out student loans averaging $55,800 to attend college. Out of this group, 14% with unpaid student loan debt have a current balance of $105,000 or more. And educators of color and younger educators have been particularly impacted.

Pringle called on the Education Department to immediately forgive all outstanding debt for educators with 10 or more years of experience as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was designed to do."

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The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program was designed by Congress to help government and nonprofit employees with federally-backed student loans apply for forgiveness after proof of 120 monthly payments under a qualifying repayment plan. It's also notoriously painful to navigate and regularly rejects the vast majority of applicants.

A mother wearing a mask walks with her daughter wearing a mask, cap and gown amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 14, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

I'll be working still during my very last days, I guess, to pay the thing off, Stewart said about his debt. Unless I get lucky and become like a [Amazon CEO Jeff] Bezos or whatever.

Payments on federally-backed student debt are paused until January 31, 2022. Nevertheless, some lawmakers have expressed concern about whether borrowers will be able to smoothly transition back to repaying their loans or if the resumption of payments will cause spikes in delinquencies and defaults.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) have repeatedly called on Biden to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt immediately via executive order.

The NEA noted significant disparities between the debt levels held by white borrowers and borrowers of color.

The study found that 56% of Black educators have taken out student loans, as compared to 44% of white educators. Black educators also took out significantly more debt than other groups, with an average initial total of $68,300, as compared to $54,300 taken out by white borrowers and $56,400 by Latino borrowers.

Furthermore, about 16% of Black borrowers with student loans hold more than $105,000 in debt, as compared to 11% of white borrowers.

(National Education Association)

There's also a generational divide in terms of how much student loan debt educators take on: 65% of educators between 18 and 35 have taken out student loans, as compared to just 27% of those above 61.

For younger educators, paying the debt off has impacted their ability to buy a home, go back to school, or start a family, the report said.

That said, older educators are also being impacted by student debt. More than a quarter of educators above the age of 61 who took out student debt still have a balance. And almost four in ten have $45,000 or more left to pay off, the report noted.

For this age group, two-thirds of educators with outstanding student loans also said their debt has affected their ability to save for retirement.

(National Education Association)

One consumer advocate recently called for immediate action after a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) report flagged legal violations by student loan servicers that administer the PSLF program.

In October 2019, the New York attorney general sued the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), the loan servicer who handles the PSLF program, for "failing to properly administer" the program. The suit alleged that the servicer engaged in "deceptive, unfair, and abusive practices in administering the federal program."

New York Attorney General James speaks at the Protecting Student Loan Borrowers and the Economy in Upcoming Transitions hearing.

In response, PHEAA recently announced that it was quitting the business as of December this year.

"The federal government should take action to cancel a substantial amount of federal student debt," Attorney General James stated. She also noted that she co-led 17 state Attorneys General in February this year, urging the adoption of House and Senate resolutions that call for the cancellation of up to $50,000 in federal student debt for all federal student loan borrowers.

"Canceling this debt will help free borrowers burdened by loan payments, and allow them to move forward with their lives, as well as helped to close the racial and gender wealth gap," James added. "The student debt crisis has been exacerbated by misconduct by student loan servicers."

Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at aarthi@yahoofinance.com. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.

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Student loans: A 'teacher penalty' is crushing generations of educators with debt - Yahoo Finance

By Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury

For more than a generation, America has underinvested in the public goods that are the foundation of our economic growth: infrastructure, education, childcare.

Our funding for them has been on a downward trajectory for nearly forty years. In 2019, it was about three-quarters of what it was in the 1970s. On Tuesday, the United States Senate began to turn the page on this unfortunate chapter in our economic history and, with two pieces of legislation, started building the economy that Americans should and can have.

The first development happened in the late morning when the chamber passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which as its name indicates will commence the largest modernization of American infrastructure since Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System.

Its history is written in concrete and fiber optic cable. In addition to repairing roads and extending transit lines, the bill will connect every home to broadband internet and dot the American landscape with half-a-million electric vehicle charging stations, part of a down payment on a greener, more resilient economy.

Later Tuesday evening, the Senate made history a second time when it began consideration of a broader set of investments, including childcare, education, health care, and housing. This broader legislation and the infrastructure package are pieces of President Bidens Build Back Better family of proposals.

Its important to understand how Build Back Better fits into our economic history. During the postwar years, the United States was almost certainly the best place to start a business or a family. But about a generation ago, economists started to observe a set of worrying trends that threatened the proposition.

Some have asked: 'Are we overinvesting here?' My response is 'no,' and there are at least three compelling reasons.Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary

The percentage of prime-age workers who participated in the labor force started declining. There was a divergence in wages. High-earners saw pay go up, while lower-earners watched it stagnate. The racial wealth gap remained stubbornly persistent. When I started studying economics in 1963, the average Black familys wealth was roughly 15 percent of the average white familys. Six decades later, the data point is the same.

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Underinvestment in public goods like infrastructure and childcare likely didnt set these trends in motion, but it has perpetuated that motion and in some cases, like the decline in labor force participation accelerated it. More women leave the workforce in America than in many other wealthy countries, meaning that our economy loses out on their talents, and their families lose out on a paycheck. One study looked at the connection between this trend and our nations lack of funding for family-friendly policies like paid parental leave and childcare. It found that underinvestment in things that help parents balance work and life accounted for nearly one-third of the decline in U.S. womens labor force participation.

Fortunately, fiscal policy works both ways. The lack of it can amplify destructive economic forces, but its ambitious use can unwind them. That is the big idea underneath President Bidens economic proposals. The Build Back Better agenda, much of which is contained in the reconciliation bill expected to move through the Senate this fall, will increase labor force participation because it makes those long-overdue investments in families. It expands access to high-quality childcare, provides universal pre-K, and expands the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit all of which reduce the cost of raising families.

The Verrazzano-Narrows bridge connecting the Brooklyn and Staten Island boroughs is pictured in morning fog in New York City, New York, U.S., June 26, 2021. Picture taken June 26, 2021. REUTERS/Nick Zieminski

This new bill makes community college tuition-free for two years, which will help workers especially younger ones better compete in the labor market. And it will help Americans whove never been able to build wealth obtain the most important asset for doing so: the family home. The Build Back Better agenda calls for half-a-million new affordable homes, and one million new rental units (which should alleviate the housing crisis).

As the Senate moves forward, I know there is a good-faith debate about how much spending is too much. The Senate just passed a once-in-a-generation infrastructure funding bill, and now were proposing another set of ambitious investments.

Some have asked: Are we overinvesting here? My response is no, and there are at least three compelling reasons.

First, if we are going to make these investments, now is the right time. Real interest rates are currently negative, and payment on our public debt, as a share of the economy, is expected to remain below historic levels for at least a decade.

Second, the Build Back Better proposals are fiscally responsible. The investments are spread out over time, and total around one percent of our gross domestic product over the course of the decade. Theyre also paid for over the long-term through a reformation of the tax code that will make it fairer, without touching Americans who make less than $400,000 a year.

Third, and most importantly, we have to consider the opportunity cost of not making these investments. Weve grown used to America as the worlds greatest economic power, but we arent destined to stay that way.

U.S. President Joe Biden meets virtually with governors, mayors, and other state and local elected officials to discuss the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 11, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

I question whether we can if we remain a country where renting a home eats up the lions share of your paycheck, and owning one is out of the question; where young people cant gain the skills to compete in the job market because they cant afford the tuition bill; or where Americans must make a choice: have children or have a job.

The Build Back Better agenda will address these challenges. It will bolster our economic growth and productivity, while bringing down some of the largest cost drivers for American families.

Indeed, the crucial question isnt What if we make these big investments? It is: What if we dont?

We are now engaged in the most important economic project in recent history: Repairing the broken foundations of our economy, and on top of them, building something stronger and fairer than what came before.

Janet Yellen is the former Federal Reserve Chair and the current 78th United States Secretary of the Treasury.

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Janet Yellen: Biden's infrastructure plan is a down payment on the economy America can and should have - Yahoo Finance

Krispy Kreme (DNUT) will look to take a price increase in September as it battles to protect margins from higher costs for key commodities such as edible oils and sugar.

CEO Mike Tattersfield said on Yahoo Finance Live the price hikes won't be exorbitant, owing likely to the price-sensitive consumer that frequents the donut-hawking brand.

"We are really disciplined on pricing. We are a dozens business, so we do always pay attention to an accessible price point. So when you think about the pricing that will happen on a dozen you won't really see it that much," explained Tattersfield on the looming price increases.

Tattersfield said the cost for an individual donut will still be about a $1.

"We do have pricing power, and we are really thoughtful," Tattersfield added.

Krispy Kreme CEO Mike Tattersfield talks during the doughnut company's IPO at the Nasdaq Opening Bell, Thursday, July 1, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Despite the pressure on the business, Krispy Kreme notched a solid second quarter its first since going public in July.

Organic sales growth clocked in at 22.5% from a year ago as the company gained more shelf space at the likes of Walmart in the U.S. and also saw strength at international stores. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) rose 77.8% year-over-year.

Here is how Krispy Kreme performed compared to Wall Street estimates for the second quarter:

Krispy Kreme shares settled at $13.77 in Wednesday's session, below the $17 pricing of its IPO. The stock had hit a high of more than $21 soon after its July market debut.

For the full year, Krispy Kreme sees sales rising 19.4% to 23% to a range of $1.34 billion to $1.38 billion. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in a range of $178 million to $185 million, or up 22.4% to 27.2% from a year earlier.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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Krispy Kreme is raising prices in September because of inflation - Yahoo Finance

A new Morgan Stanley (MS) report projected that environmental, social, and corporate government (ESG) concerns will become more central to the collateralized loan obligation (CLO) market by 2026.

The report concludes that ESGs have been a defining theme of 2021. The number of ESG-focused fixed income funds globally has nearly doubled over the past five years from ~630 at end-2016 to ~1,200 currently, the authors said in the report.

The MS report is the latest research to support the growing sentiment which holds that an ESG revolution is coming to the CLO market. Citigroup (C) projected earlier this year that 20%-40% of U.S. CLO managers will incorporate ESG themes into new issue CLOs in the next two years.

Wall Street has taken a more aggressive interest in ESG investments as of late. Earlier this month JPMorgan (JPM) announced that a greater focus would be placed on investment products with environmental, social and governance themes, and a new ESG was added for derivatives in an effort to promote sustainability.

ESG adoption is still in its infancy within the CLO market, the report notes, as there is a considerable dearth of clarity surrounding ESG guidelines for most companies.

[A] lack of ESG-related disclosures from private companies and significant manager discretion make it difficult for ESG CLO investors to hold other parties accountable, the report explained. No CLOs have yet been issued with thematic exposure or impact investing guidelines.

Europe has dominated ESG investments for the past decade, accounting for more than 70% of the total number of ESG-focused fixed income funds worldwide for 2021 year-to-date. The United States and Asia Pacific, the next two largest regions by number of ESG-focused fixed income funds, each accounted for less than a fourth of Europes share.

At this point, it is clear that CLOs globally are still in the early days of ESG adoption, with the European market more advanced than the U.S. market, the report noted.

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Bullish projections for the future of ESG-focused CLOs are supported by the recent stimulation of ESG interest among consumers and a rise in related inbound calls, the Morgan Stanley report said. The frequency and tone of conversations around this topic have shifted substantially since the end of last year: inbound calls have gotten both more frequent and more rigorous as market participants across the ecosystem have begun digging in and looking for ways to align investments with ESG objectives.

ESG conceptual image depicting the connection among its strategies

The report breaks ESG products into four categories: negative screening, positive screening, thematic exposure, and impact investing. Negative screening describes the act of managing undesired ESG exposure by phasing out the use of controversial products or sectors, like tobacco, fossil fuels, or opioids. Positive screening allows for investing in all sectors of the market, but only choosing the most sustainable products within each asset class.

Thematic exposure describes a deliberate focus on products which give exposure to specific sustainability themes. The report gives low carbon and affordable housing as examples.

The last category, impact investing, is intended to maximize an investments impact. This involves investments with the intent to deliver a measurable positive social or environmental impact.

With these terms, researchers have attempted to give a lens through which ESG involvement can be assessed. Most ESG investments are examples of negative screening, the report found. While many deals (especially those issued on the European side of the market) include negative screening, only a handful (exclusively on the European side) include positive screening No CLOs have yet been issued with thematic exposure or impact investing guidelines.

The report notes that the authors' optimistic, yet realistic view, is that within five years, a majority of the CLO universe will eventually utilize a mix of negative and positive screening.

Ihsaan Fanusie is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @IFanusie.

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A new study argues that skyrocketing college costs are a result of university leadership not prioritizing college affordability over profit.

The report by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), which looked at data from more than 1,500 four-year public and private, nonprofit colleges and universities, found that even though institutional spending has risen over the years alongside tuition, four-year graduation rates have not kept up.

"The spending habits of higher education have gotten us very poor results," ACTA President Michael B. Poliakoff told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "We are taking a system of higher education that has been called 'the envy of the world' into a situation in which it seems to be engineering its own meltdown."

Poliakoff added that colleges were not financially strapped due to diminishing state and federal funding, but rather due to the "investment in bloated administration and student services programs that keep ratcheting up the price of tuition while not increasing that most important outcome, which is completion of the degree."

Tuition inflation in the 21st century has led to heavy borrowing and a student debt crisis that some lawmakers are urging the White House to address through broad cancellation of some federally-backed debt. Some schools are even leveraging federal funding from coronavirus relief packages to cancel debt owed by their students.

A female college student wearing a square academic hat made of one-dollar banknotes, US, 1981. (Photo by Alfred Gescheidt/Getty Images)

Poliakoff highlighted a couple of examples of schools that he believed got the balance right.

"Purdue has kept its tuition frozen for ten years," Poliakoff noted. "It has lowered administrative costs under the leadership of President Mitch Daniels." He also highlighted Arizona State University and Florida State University as schools that lowered administrative expenditure.

However, overall, "our colleges and universities are not doing it right," he added. "They need to look towards those positive examples, and their trustees have to be absolutely meticulous and ask those hard questions. It's wonderful to spend money on programs and to have new offices, but they have to ask what will be the impact of this."

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The cost of college tuition over time. (Source: College Board, NCES, IPEDS)

Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at aarthi@yahoofinance.com. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.

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College in America is 'engineering its own meltdown' with tuition inflation - Yahoo Finance

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) may be holding above $46,000 Monday, but one prominent Wall Street strategist is still somewhat skeptical of the cryptocurrency.

At a recent Yahoo Finance Plus webinar, Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, explained her principle misgiving about bitcoin, being careful to emphasize she doesn't completely dismiss the cryptocurrency altogether.

"I am an admitted skeptic to some degree. I'm not on either end of the spectrum meaning I'm a skeptic, but I'm not [saying] this is complete nonsense ... I have yet to get a very compelling answer to the question I ask all the time of whether it's crypto experts or crypto fanboys, so to speak which is what problem is this solving for? And I get myriad answers, but none that at least resonate with me to a significant degree," she said.

Sonders lists the common responses by bitcoin enthusiasts, beginning with a mistrust of the global fiat currency regime. Sonders explains that she trusts the keepers of the extant financial system more than she trusts cryptocurrency miners.

"I still put some faith in the entire U.S. financial system, the banking system, all of its protections as well as the power of the central bank, the Federal Reserve to sort of control the fiat currency that is also the global monetary standard and the world's reserve currency versus, say, bitcoin miners," she said.

To people who like bitcoin as an inflation hedge, Sonders points out that there haven't been any major bouts of price inflation in the history of bitcoin until very recently. "Bitcoin has been around since 2009, and the only burst of inflation that we've gotten since that period of time was during a three-month period where bitcoin was cut in half. So you sort of lose that argument."

Sonders also revealed a deeper concern about bitcoin positioning namely, concentration an issue that has recently roiled financial markets. At least twice this year, putatively-savvy institutional investors have amassed undisclosed whale-sized positions that suddenly took a turn for the worse taking out entire hedge funds and bruising brokers to the tune of billions of dollars. Sonders details these incidents and relates them to bitcoin.

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"The implosion of Melvin Capital with GameStop was a short concentration issue. The implosion of Archegos and stocks like CBS Viacom was a concentration issue in that case on the long side. The latest data that I've seen is the top 2% of bitcoin holders own somewhere between 90% and 95% of bitcoin. And then there's leverage associated with a lot of this," she said.

Sonders explains this is a largely unappreciated risk with respect to bitcoin investing.

"I think that thread of leverage and concentration arguably can weave its way through a lot of these areas where you've seen tremendous amount of speculation," Sonders said. "And I'm not suggesting it's some moment-in-time house of cards, but I just don't think that there is yet enough connecting those concentration and leverage dots, and [that] could be a risk factor that is underestimated right now."

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Jared Blikre is an anchor and reporter focused on the markets on Yahoo Finance Live. Follow him @SPYJared

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Facebook (FB) is plowing ahead with plans to shake up the cryptocurrency-based payment system, even as the company contends with new accusations by the federal government that it is abusing its market power.

On Wednesday, David Marcus, the Facebook guru spearheading its crypto efforts, unveiled new details about Novi, the digital wallet side of the initiative he called a challenger in the payment industry.

In a lengthy post on Medium, Marcus revealed that Novi has secured licenses or approvals in nearly every state. It will offer free peer-to-peer payments domestically and internationally and earn profits from merchant services similar to other crypto wallets.

Marcus' post came a day before the Federal Trade Commission refiled a claim that accused Facebook of running an illegal "buy or bury" scheme. Amid widespread concerns surrounding the company's business practices, it's unclear whether the FTC's action could impact Facebook's ambitions in the blockchain sector.

Formerly known as Libra, Diem is the cryptocurrency and blockchain-based payment system Facebook first announced in June 2019. After facing major backlash from global regulators and industry players, the tech giant dramatically scaled back its plans and rebranded the project as "Diem."

Yet unlike Bitcoin (BTC-USD)and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (ETH-USD) and Dogecoin (DOGE-USD), Diem will run on a permissioned-blockchain. Instead of using governance models such as Bitcoins proof-of-work or Ethereums Proof-of-Stake mechanism, which rely on mining cryptocurrency, Diem proposes to use the Switzerland-based Diem Association to process transactions.

The cadre of private companies encountered trouble after losing many of the associations starting members such as PayPal (PYPL), Mastercard (MA), Ebay (EBAY) and Visa (V), just months after the projects initial 2019 announcement. Regulatory concern over consumer privacy and potential antitrust risks have further slowed the project's launch.

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In May, Diem announced a partnership with Silvergate Capital Corporation (SI), a bank holding company whose subsidiary, Silvergate Bank, provides banking for companies in the crypto space. The partnership stated Silvergate would become the exclusive issuer of the Diem stablecoin, which will have its value pegged to the U.S. dollar. However, some analysts think Facebook's creation will face more regulatory roadblocks.

David Marcus, CEO of Facebooks Calibra, testifies to the House Financial Services Committee hearing on "Examining Facebook's Proposed Cryptocurrency and Its Impact on Consumers, Investors, and the American Financial System" on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., July 17, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

According to Marcus, the current payment infrastructure in the U.S. has remained "broken," and in need of fixing. To service the 62 million Americans and 1.7 billion people worldwide who are still without a bank account, America needs to step up, he declared.

And the executive stated that stablecoins like Diem should at least be given a fair shot in providing the answer.

Basically cryptocurrencies backed by governments, other fiat currencies or even exchange-traded commodities, stablecoins have little to no price volatility when compared to unpegged cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

And thanks to lower volatility, stablecoins arguably provide a better medium of exchange than other cryptocurrencies. Chinas digital yuan, a government-backed cryptocurrency developed by the countrys central bank, has already been deployed in real-world trials since early 2021.

Contrary to many points of view, stablecoins with strong control at the network and wallet levels unlock enormous opportunities to innovate in this area, wrote Marcus. Along with 1 to 1 reserves, a well-designed stablecoin offers better consumer protections than a fiat balance held in any wallet available in the US right now.

The topic of stablecoins has gotten hotter in finance, and with good reason. With a market capitalization of $64 billion, Tether (USDT-USD), the largest stablecoin, has been criticized for not providing audits of its reserves.

Marcus also argued that well-designed stablecoins and their ecosystem of wallets have the potential to improve traditional controls for anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing sanctions and tax compliance. In short, they can make the financial system more transparent, increase consumer protection and curb dark money floating around the system.

The argument for Diem has gotten a slight boost from El Salvador, which in June announced plans to make Bitcoin legal tender in the country. While Bitcoin is not a stablecoin, its proposed use in El Salvador overlaps with some of the possible benefits and risks associated with stablecoins such as financial inclusion, transparency and legality.

One main goal with the Salvadoran law is to lower the cost of cross-border remittances, which make up 20 percent of the countrys gross domestic product (GDP). Currently, it proposes to do this by using Bitcoins lightning network, a payment protocol on top of Bitcoin that makes transactions faster, cheaper and more private.

Gabor Gurbacs, Director of Digital Assets Strategy at the global investment manager, VanEck, thinks that given the right approach, the Facebook initiative will work.

Facebook has roughly 2.9 billion users. Their efforts and trajectory in digitization may become one of the most important social media developments for the western hemisphere. I hope regulators allow technology companies to innovate, Gurbacs said.

One model for how this could work might be found in the digital company, Square, which owns the mobile payment service Cash App.

David Hollerith is a Blockchain and cryptocurrency reporter for Yahoo Finance.

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Facebook pushes ahead with crypto wallet plan in bid to 'fix broken payment system' - Yahoo Finance

In the largest community of Afghan refugees in America, anger and frustration is boiling over about the U.S. withdrawal and a return to Taliban rule.

"There was not a strategy. There was no plan. There was nothing, Rona Popal, executive director of the Fremont, California-based non-profit Afghan Coalition, told Yahoo News.

Since 1996, Afghan Coalition has provided a range of services to refugees from Afghanistan, helping settle thousands in the Bay Area town that is considered a part of Silicon Valley. But when reports began coming in over the weekend that Taliban fighters were quickly taking over as U.S.-trained security forces melted away in some cases without a fight the non-profit's phones began ringing non-stop.

Theyre calling in 24 hours: Whats going on? What they should do? And especially mostly they are calling [for] how they can bring their family members to the United States, Popal said.

Like many Afghan-Americans, Popal said she is struggling to understand the sudden reversal of U.S. policy in her former homeland.

The United States already said they cant do anything, they just want to bring those people. But how you going to bring them and how many of them are you going to bring?" she said. "There are the whole people who lived in Kabul, working with different agencies, NGOs, embassies. How many of them you can bring? It doesnt make sense and its not right.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., whose district includes part of Fremont, has acknowledged the anger and dismay being expressed by my Bay Area residents of Afghan descent.

Popal confirmed that the communication between U.S. officials and the Afghan community had been almost non-existent in recent days.

We just got one message from the United States from their embassy that they gave them one link to go ahead and fill out a form for the ones who want to bring family members or if they are SIV [Special Immigrant Visa]," Popal said. "The people dont usually understand how to get them here and they need help.

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More than 60,000 Afghans have relocated to the Bay Area over recent decades, with most settling in East Bay communities like Fremont, Hayward, Union City and San Jose. Popal and her husband fled Afghanistan ahead of the Soviet invasion in December of 1979 and eventually founding Afghan Coalition in Fremont.

They love Fremont," Popal said of the recent arrivals. "They feel at home because there is a lot of restaurants, grocery stores, banquet halls so that they can do their weddings.

The immigrants from Afghanistan have come in four waves, Popal said: following Russia's invasion, during the civil war of the 1990s, when the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, and this year's expansion of the SIV program.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., also represents a district that includes part of Fremont, and tweeted Sunday that his office was ready to help those seeking to help family members escape Afghanistan.

Yet Swalwell has also been sharply critical of the Trump administration for brokering a deal with the Taliban for the exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

With the Taliban poised to re-impose strict Islamic law in Afghanistan, the urgency of helping loved ones get out has become palpable. On Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid vowed that the religious group now running the country would honor womens rights in as much as they were covered under Islamic law. For Popal, that assurance rang hollow.

We dont believe it right now, because weve seen what they have done to woman before, she said.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid holds a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 17, 2021. (Photo by Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

For Bay Area resident Naid Fattahi, the Taliban's return to power is proving especially traumatic.

She fled Afghanistan in 1994, when the Taliban assumed power. She was 14, and entered into a marriage with a foreigner so as to be able to get out of the country.

"My life changed as a result of them, their policies and their agendas," she told NPR of the Taliban in a recent interview. "And what I'm fearful for is that the lives of many teenage girls and woman will change for the worse as well."

The first Afghan immigrant elected to public office in the U.S., Hayward City Council member Aisha Wahab echoed those misgivings.

"I think women and children are going to be the biggest casualties," she told NBC News Bay Area. "They have made the strides and made in education and the workforce will be lost if the Taliban does not phase pressure from the international world."

While Popal also laments that the progress women have made will evaporate, she also blames what she sees as a fundamental disconnect in how foreign countries view Afghanistan.

"The United States really does not understand our culture, our people, whats going on in Afghanistan. In the beginning when they came and said we want to bring democracy. We want to bring womens rights. And whats the womans rights? To take off the burka. Thats not OK in a country that is 99 percent Muslim, in a country that is very conservative, how can you go and do that?" Popal said. "And now they say, we want to go and negotiate with Taliban about your peace. Excuse me? You told us for the past 20 years that Taliban is a terrorist group and now you want to go negotiate with them? I think the whole world betrayed the Afghan people and its really sad.

Taliban members patrol the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan on August 17, 2021. (Photo by Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations probe into 11 crashes of Teslas (TSLA) using the companys Autopilot mode could prove to be more than a black eye for the electric automaker. According to experts, it could slow the deployment of advanced driver-assistance technologies, and erode the trust people have in them, something thats incredibly important for such new, high-tech systems.

Announced Monday, the investigation into the crashes, which occurred from 2018 to 2021 and involved Teslas using Autopilot, or the companys Traffic Aware Cruise Control, that came into contact with emergency vehicles, sent Teslas stock tumbling more than 9% from $717.28 to $649.48 by midday Tuesday. The companys shares recovered slightly Wednesday afternoon, rising about 4% to $690

A Tesla sedan is shown after it struck a parked Laguna Beach Police Department vehicle in Laguna Beach, California, U.S. in this May 29, 2018 handout photo. (Image: Reuters)

And while the impact of the probe could range from Tesla having to implement greater limitations of the use of its vehicles driver-assistance capabilities, or even the outright disabling of the features, the harm it may have done to consumers confidence in the still relatively new technologies could take years to rebuild.

Trust is built over time and eroded quickly, Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, told Yahoo Finance. We need to fully build this trust, and overselling things doesn't help us over the long run.

According to multiple polls, Americans are still wary of self-driving cars. A 2020 Partners for Automated Vehicle Education poll of 1,200 American adults found that nearly three quarters of people dont think self-driving cars are ready for primetime. Another 48% said they would never get into an autonomous cab, though the survey found that educating users improved their overall faith in the technology.

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Still, according to Reimer, the NHTSAs probe could directly impact the trust of some of Teslas most important users: the early adopters who have flocked to its technology.

I think it hurts the trust in the system as a whole, but not to as large a degree as many might fear because...this isn't a focus point for the average consumer at this point. It's a focus point for the elite adopter or the tech savvy consumer, he said.

Reuters journalist Paul Ingrassia sits in the drivers seat of a Tesla S-Type in Autopilot mode in San Francisco, California, U.S., April 7, 2016.

If drivers lose faith in the autonomous systems that are supposed to be the key to a future of self-driving cars that eliminate traffic deaths, it could result in lower interest in the technologies, which could slow its adoption in the long run.

The probe is, an industry issue and there will be a trend of higher scrutiny on advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomy across the sector, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas told Bloomberg Wednesday.

Outside of driver trust, Loop Ventures Gene Munster said the governments involvement could stymie the deployment of future self-driving systems.

Unfortunately, it's going to slow things down, Munster said. "Whenever the government meddles it adds extra layers. It's probably more of an industry slowdown, than Tesla specific.

Of course, the probe itself could still spell serious trouble for the automaker.

Its a cause for concern and clearly shows there will be speed bumps before reaching the holy grail of full self-driving, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Yahoo Finance.

According to Reimer, the NHTSA investigation could result in Tesla having to recall its driver-assistance technology entirely.

I think they are highly vulnerable. And I think that it's anything from a black eye to an absolutely detrimental impact to the organization, he said. NHTSA does have the ability to order a recall on the whole system of which you would then have consumer outrage.

Teslas Autopilot and Full Self Driving modes arent exactly what their names imply. According to Reimer, who also serves as associate director of the New England University Transportation Center, the automakers systems are far from the point of allowing drivers to sit back and let the car take control.

Photo by: STRF/STAR MAX/IPx 2021 8/16/21 Tesla's Autopilot under federal investigation following crashes. Here, a Tesla Dealership is seen in White Plains, New York.

On the Society of Automotive Engineers Levels of Driving Automation scale, which ranges from Level 0, or totally driver dependent, to Level 5, or full autonomy, Teslas capabilities are only Level 2. That means while Teslas equipped with Autopilot or Full Self Driving mode have advanced sensors and capabilities that can help keep your car in its lane, slow down when other cars are in its way, and make certain turns, you still need to be in control.

In fact, Tesla says as much on its customer support page for both Autopilot and Full Self Driving. But that doesnt come across very clearly when the name of the technology is, well, Autopilot or Full Self Driving.

We do not need overhype, we need to actually move consumers, over time, to trust highly automated technologies as part of their daily lives, Reimer said.

It doesnt help that Autopilot is nothing like General Motors' (GM) Super Cruise system. That system has head-tracking technology that can determine if youre not paying attention to the road and eventually slows the car to a stop and calls OnStar services to determine if youre experiencing any issues. Teslas system requires a certain amount of pressure on the steering wheel, which can be defeated with something as simple as weight attached to the wheel.

I think that one of the things that's really important here is that it's not only the system's impact on a driver that's the concern, it's the fact that the decisions here impact other road users, Reimer said.

For now, Tesla will have to await the outcome of the NHTSA investigation to determine its next steps. As for drivers, if the automakers driver-assistance systems are found to be a problem, theyll have to begin rebuilding consumers' confidence from scratch.

Daniel Howley is tech editor at Yahoo Finance.

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Tesla Autopilot probe could hurt the technology more than the carmakers bottomline - Yahoo Finance