SWC’s Fast Five

We’re taking a couple of trips today as we find rental cars rare as hens’ teeth and psychedelics get research love as a lasting cure for depression. Meanwhile, lots of us give money to strangers, the regs say business can require employee vaccination and the economy gets less neurotic as confidence grows.

So, here’s this week’s Fast Five:

1 One in three give to crowd funding

In a first-of-its-kind study, the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and Indiana University reported that people were more likely to give to family or close friend appeals. Among those who have given to crowd funding previously nearly half said they had contributed to a stranger the previous year.

2 Businesses can require employee proof of vaccination

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has already weighed in, holding that, “generally,” employers have the right to require their employees to get one of the approved vaccines. “Businesses have a legal and ethical obligation to provide a safe environment,” Georgetown Law professor and public health expert Lawrence Gostin told CBS News.

3 Ford Fiesta for $117/day – if you can get one

Rental car companies sold hundreds of thousands of vehicles to survive the pandemic. Now prices soar as they can’t get cars onto their lots fast enough to meet the new demand, especially with car factories stalled by semiconductor shortages. The shortage, and high prices, are expected to last into mid-2022.

4 Consumer confidence in March recorded its biggest one-month gain in nearly a decade

After months of false starts, evidence is mounting that the economy has definitively turned a corner. Morgan Stanley said Thursday that it expected the economy to grow 7.5 percent in 2021, after shrinking 3.5 percent in 2020. That would be the strongest growth rate for a calendar year since the 1950s.

5 Magic mushrooms outperform antidepressants in beating depression

At week six, 57 percent of psilocybin patients had depression scores so low they were considered to be in remission v. 28 percent of antidepressant patients. Encouraged, researchers stressed more work is needed to understand psilocybin as a depression therapy. They also discouraged people from self-medicating with magic mushrooms.