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The World
The Federal Reserve closed a chapter on its aggressive, pandemic-driven stimulus when it approved plans Wednesday to begin scaling back its bond-buying program this month amid concerns that inflationary pressures could last longer than officials expected earlier this year. Fed officials agreed to wind down their $120-billion-a-month asset-purchase program by $15 billion each in November and December, a pace that could phase out the purchases entirely by next June. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said officials had pulled forward, relative to market expectations earlier this year, the potential end-date for the bond-buying program in case they decide they need to raise interest rates next year to cool down the economy if inflationary pressures broaden. (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street stocks climbed to record highs while Treasury prices slipped as the Federal Reserve confirmed plans to scale back its substantial pandemic-era monetary stimulus.The announcement had been widely expected, and stock markets reacted positively despite earlier concerns that the pull back in crisis-era stimulus could derail the recent equities rally. The S&P 500, which had slipped slightly earlier in the day, swung to a gain after the Fed’s announcement and climbed higher as Jay Powell spoke to reporters. (Financial Times)
House Democrats added Paid Leave and the State-and-Local Tax deduction back into their social spending bill. The proposal gives four weeks of leave to parents, the sick and caregivers, and raises $10,000 cap on SALT deduction to $72,500. (Wall Street Journal)
China plans to quadruple its nuclear stockpile by 2030, according to a Pentagon assessment that points to a shift in Chinese policy with big implications for the balance of military power. The US defense department said China could have 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027 and would boost its stockpile — currently estimated in the low 200s — to at least 1,000 warheads by the end of the decade. The projection marked a dramatic increase from last year’s estimate when the Pentagon said China was on course to double its stockpile. (Financial Times)
Hong Kong travelers could be allowed to visit mainland China as early as next month without having to quarantine under a plan to gradually reopen the border, the Post has learned, but movement will be limited to Guangdong province, with Shenzhen as the only entry point. A mainland health official familiar with talks on the resumption of cross-border travel said a daily quota would be set, and visitors’ health codes, issued by the mainland and a similar system proposed for Hong Kong, would have to be green – indicating a low risk of Covid-19 infection. (South China Morning Post)
COVID-19 prevalence in England rose to its highest level on record in October, Imperial College London said, led by a high numbers of cases in children and a surge in the south-west of the country. Nearly 6% of school-aged children had COVID-19. (Reuters)
Americans are more optimistic about the pandemic’s trajectory: The percentage of Americans who now say the U.S. COVID-19 situation is improving has more than doubled between September and October, to 51%. Over the same period, worry about contracting the virus has edged down four percentage points, to 36%. Although the public is more optimistic about the current state of the pandemic, a majority thinks the disruption to life will continue throughout 2022 or longer than that. (Gallup)
Talks aimed at reviving the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six other nations are to resume this month. Iran's chief negotiator Ali Baqeri Kani said that his government had agreed to meet in Vienna on 29 November. The discussions have been on hold since the election of Iran's new hard-line president in June. (BBC News)
The US Department of Commerce blacklisted two Israeli phone spyware companies, NSO Group and Candiru, adding them to the list of foreign companies that engage in malicious cyber activities. NSO Group and the lesser-known Candiru, considered its competitor in the cyber-surveillance market, were accused of providing spyware software to governments that was ultimately turned on journalists and activists. (Times of Israel)
Economy
China’s debt-to-GDP ratio falls again, but the pace of deleveraging eases as economy falters. Total debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) fell to 264.8% in 3Q21, from 265.4% in 2Q21, but this was primarily because GDP output also declined, diluting the effects of China’s deleveraging. (South China Morning Post)
Total new investments in cryptocurrency products and funds have reached a record $8.7 billion so far this year, which is already 30% higher than the total for 2020. VCs alone invested record $6.5B in crypto and blockchain in Q3. (The Information, Coindesk)
Why Andreessen Horowitz might go public: Historically, VC firms were too small to go public. But that may soon change. Amid a massive upheaval in venture capital, the largest firms are starting to look more like public companies in size and structure. Among them, Andreessen Horowitz stands out. (The Information)
Early U.S. holiday spending plans look similar to 2020: Gallup's initial measure of Americans' 2021 Christmas spending intentions finds consumers planning to spend an average $837 on gifts this season. That is statistically similar to the $805 they estimated spending for the 2020 holiday season at the same time a year ago. Both pandemic-era estimates are lower than what Gallup found in the preceding few years, including the record-high $942 recorded in 2019. (Gallup)
Technology
The New York Times Company said that it added 455,000 new digital subscriptions in 3Q21, a gain that keeps the publisher on pace to reach its stated goal of 10 million subscriptions by 2025. Of the new digital subscriptions, 320,000 signed up for The Times’s journalism. The rest came for Games, Cooking and Wirecutter, the product review site that started offering subscriptions in September. (New York Times)
Facebook is backing away from facial recognition. Meta isn’t. The social network is scaling back facial recognition, but similar technology could show up in the metaverse. (Recode)
Q&A with Meta's Andrew Bosworth on how metaverse content will be ranked and displayed, balancing between private conversations and moderating content, and more: “There’s going to be way more to do in the metaverse, especially when you can instantaneously travel to any of the many cities that we kind of imagine ultimately populating the place. You’ll definitely need to have services that help you with what’s new, what’s hot, what’s trending, and what’s going on. What are other people doing? What are your friends doing? How can you plan things? Can you schedule things? So all those services are going to exist and we’re super excited about them. But I do think that it’s a little bit cart before the horse. Before I can figure out how I need to rank content for you, I need to have content for you. That’s just the sequencing that has to happen.” (The Verge)
On-demand telehealth is booming, even as a fierce competitor remains: the doctor’s office. 72% of U.S. adults who have used telehealth said they’ve accessed virtual care through their regular provider or health plan, while another 17% have gotten care through a direct-to-consumer platform and 11% have used both types of services. 53% of U.S. adults said they’d rather use in-person health care than telehealth moving forward, but that share fell to 45% among those who have used telehealth in the past. (Morning Consult)
Smart Links
Wharton School is accepting cryptocurrency for tuition payments. (EdScoop)
Crypto investors buy 40 acres of land in Wyoming to build blockchain city. (Vice)
Play-to-earn games could take crypto mainstream. (Protocol)
Basketball star Kevin Durant launches $200 million SPAC. (Reuters)
Kentucky basketball team will get payouts from FTX in new deal. (Bloomberg)
Oxford college to change its name after £155m donation: Linacre College to rename itself Thao College after funding offer from Vietnam’s richest woman. (The Guardian)
14.3 million people watched the Atlanta Braves win the 2021 World Series. (CNBC)