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The World
Prompted by growing concerns about the Omicron variant, the CDC said that all American adults “should” get booster doses of the available coronavirus vaccines. Adults aged 18 and older should get a booster shot when they are six months past the initial immunization with the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or two months after the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the agency said. (New York Times)
China will deliver another 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa and encourage Chinese companies to invest no less than $10 billion in the continent over the next three years. President Xi said 600 million doses would be donations and 400 million doses would be provided through other means such as joint production by Chinese companies and relevant African countries. China will also build 10 health projects in Africa and send 1,500 health experts. (Reuters)
The sudden emergence of the Omicron variant is adding pressure on vaccine makers to ensure their shots are available worldwide, but it remains unclear whether the companies will provide the intellectual know-how and technology that could help boost global production. After the coronavirus appeared last year, wealthy nations quickly snapped up supplies by signing lucrative contracts and, in some cases, providing development funding to manufacturers. By doing so, however, a wide gulf opened up between rich and poor countries, leading to warnings that “vaccine inequity” would come back to haunt the world if large swaths of humanity remained unvaccinated. The Omicron variant is a “We told you so” moment. (STAT News)
Travel stocks crumble amid Omicron fears. (Statista)
China’s top security official touts its common prosperity campaign and points to the ‘hidden peril’ of the wealth gap. Guo Shengkun, secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, vows to crack down on illegal income, while analysts expect new regulations to be rolled out to support the strategy. (South China Morning Post)
The Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress could vote as early as Wednesday to continue funding the federal government, according to congressional aides, avoiding what would be a politically embarrassing partial shutdown. Negotiators were working out how long to extend government funding, with sources saying the target ranged from mid-January to as late as February. Congress needs to buy time to tackle another looming crisis - the risk of the federal government defaulting on its $28.9 trillion debt if lawmakers do not extend it. (Reuters)
A Pentagon review of military resources world-wide plans to make improvements to airfields in Guam and Australia to counter China but contains no major reshuffling of forces as the U.S. moves to take on Beijing while deterring Russia and fighting terrorism in the Middle East and Africa. The review aims to sharpen the link between U.S.’s vast military capabilities and the Biden administration’s strategic priorities—countering China’s military buildup and more assertive use of power chief among them. (Wall Street Journal)
Sunday was the busiest day for air travel since the start of the pandemic: The airline industry breathed a sigh of relief after a busy holiday travel period that ended with more than 2.4 million people moving through airport security checkpoints Sunday, the busiest day for domestic air travel since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. (Washington Post)
Economy
Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will tell lawmakers today that inflation is likely to last well into next year and that the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus creates more uncertainty around the economic outlook. The remarks by Powell, who will testify before the Senate Banking Committee alongside Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, convey a sense of wariness at a time when price increases are running at their fastest pace in three decades. (New York Times)
German inflation rose 6% in November from a year earlier, its highest level since 1992, increasing the pressure on the European Central Bank to explain why it thinks it would be premature to tighten its ultra-loose monetary policy. Inflation in the country was last this high shortly after its reunification three decades ago. (Financial Times)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sold about half of his shares in the company last week, according to a federal securities filing. Nadella sold 838,584 shares over two days, down from close to 1.7 million shares, yielding more than $285 million for Nadella. Analysts said the move could be related to Washington state instituting a 7% tax for long-term capital gains beginning at the start of next year for anything exceeding $250,000 a year. (Wall Street Journal)
Goldman Sachs is introducing several new employee benefits, part of a bid to attract and keep employees in a pandemic that has made many people re-evaluate their careers. Goldman is now offering paid leave for pregnancy loss and expanding the amount of time employees can take for bereavement leave. It is also introducing an unpaid sabbatical for longtime employees. Goldman is also increasing its retirement fund matching contributions for U.S. employees to 6% of total compensation, or 8% for employees making $125,000 a year or less. Additionally, the firm is eliminating the one-year waiting period before matching employee contributions. (Wall Street Journal)
Workers in the U.S. resigned from a record 4.4 million jobs in September. Many Americans are leaving roles for better working conditions and pay amid a historically fast economic recovery. The wave of resignations hasn’t been uniform across the country, though. States in the West, including Hawaii, Montana, Utah and Oregon, saw the largest growth in quits in September, according to the Labor Department. Eighteen states broke or tied their records for quits levels in September. Industries experiencing high turnover rates drove quits in the Western U.S. in September and led many Northeastern states to see a more rapid increase in quits since the start of this year. Quits in the education sector—which accounts for a larger share of employment in Northeastern states than many others—have risen at the fastest pace of any industry since January. Reopening timelines and vaccination rates have also helped spur employer demand for workers in the Northeast this year. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
Jack Dorsey’s crypto portfolio hints at his next move: Dorsey’s decision to step down as CEO of Twitter has left many wondering whether his next move will be to dive further into crypto. He may have hinted at this when he spoke at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in June. He said that there’s nothing more important to work on in his lifetime than bitcoin. “If [bitcoin] needed more help than Square or Twitter, I would leave them for bitcoin,” he said. Some contenders that he’s already taken a stake in: 1) Lightning Labs: The startup built the Lightning Network, a protocol designed to make payments faster and easier on the Bitcoin blockchain. 2) Blockstream: A solar-powered bitcoin mining facility. 3) Celo: A startup that developed a mobile phone application for making crypto payments and accessing decentralized finance platforms. 4) CoinList: A platform that allows crypto projects to list and sell their tokens. (The Information)
Who is Twitter's new CEO Parag Agrawal? Agrawal, 37, is the youngest CEO in the S&P 500, nudging out Zuckerberg. He is an IITian from Mumbai and completed his doctorate at Stanford. Agrawal joined Twitter in 2011, and in 2017 became its CTO. (Bloomberg, India Today)
Dorsey’s abrupt departure was welcome news to the company’s long-suffering shareholders—until it wasn’t. A 10% uplift in Twitter shares that was triggered by the initial headline evaporated shortly after Twitter identified his successor as CTO Parag Agrawal. Twitter shares ended the day down 2.7%. Dorsey’s six-year stint won’t go down in any record books. He took over at a point when confidence in the company had cratered after a slowdown in user growth. Not a whole lot changed during his tenure. The pandemic gave Twitter a bit of a bump in growth, but that appears to be petering out now. (This chart shows daily user growth since 2017, the first time Twitter began releasing daily instead of monthly user numbers). (The Information)
The UK competition regulator is expected to block Meta’s $315m acquisition of online gif platform Giphy in the coming days in an escalation of the watchdog’s assault on Big Tech. The Competition and Markets Authority is set to reverse the deal according to individuals close to the matter, in what would be the first time the CMA has unwound a Big Tech deal. (Financial Times)
Concrete’s role in reducing building and pavement emissions: MIT researchers find emissions of U.S. buildings and pavements can be reduced by around 50% even as concrete use increases. (MIT News)
Getir CEO plans to bring rivalry with DoorDash and Gopuff to the U.S. West Coast: Nazim Salur, the founder and CEO of six-year-old Getir, expects to offer the startup’s 10-minute grocery-delivery services to major cities on the West Coast within one year. The Istanbul-based company, which made its U.S. debut in Chicago earlier this month, has amassed almost $1 billion in funding in the past year alone and is now valued at $7.6 billion. But it’s facing stiff competition from more mature delivery providers Gopuff and DoorDash, as well as other instant-delivery startups like Jokr. (The Information)
Smart Links
U.S. Cyber Monday sales top $7 billion. (Reuters)
Plant-based meat loses its sizzle in US as sales fall. (Financial Times)
NY Fed launches fintech research wing. (CoinDesk)
Workers quit jobs in droves to become their own bosses. (Wall Street Journal)
Millennials confront high inflation for the first time. (New York Times)
Messi wins record seventh Ballon d'Or. (ESPN)