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The World
A plan by Senate Democrats to impose a tax targeting 700 billionaires to partly pay for president Joe Biden’s $2tn spending plan hit resistance among moderate members of the party, raising doubts about its political viability. Ron Wyden, the chair of the Senate finance committee, said it would apply to taxpayers who earn more than $100m in annual income or hold more than $1bn in assets for three consecutive years. But within hours, his House of Representatives counterpart, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, said the idea appeared to be too complex to succeed, and key Democratic senators voiced concerns about the plan: “I don’t like the connotation that we’re targeting different people,” Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, told reporters. (Financial Times, Reuters)
Democrats drop paid leave from their $1.75 trillion proposal: The White House is hosting influential senators as talks continue on the healthcare, education and climate-change package, and a proposed tax on billionaires faces hurdles. (Wall Street Journal)
As they hunt for revenue to pay for their sprawling spending bill and try to unite a fractured caucus, Democrats are attempting to rewrite the U.S. tax code in a matter of days, proposing the kind of sweeping changes to how America taxes businesses and individuals that would normally take months or years to enact. The effort has effectively discarded trillions of dollars of carefully crafted tax increases that President Biden proposed on the campaign trail and that top Democrats have rolled out in Congress. Instead, lawmakers are throwing a slew of new proposals into the mix, including a tax on billionaires, hoping that they can pass muster both legally and within their own party. (New York Times)
For the first time, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed that the U.S. has troops stationed on the island. American troops are training local forces, Ing-wen said, adding that Taiwan has support of ‘the people of the US as well as Congress.’ (South China Morning Post)
China’s testing of a hypersonic missile designed to evade American nuclear defenses was “very close” to a “Sputnik moment” for the U.S., Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in the first official confirmation of how Beijing’s demonstration of its weapon capabilities had taken American officials by surprise. The tests, which could revive fears of a Cold War-like arms race, come as Beijing is spending heavily to modernize its military and may be seeking to expand its nuclear arsenal. A “Sputnik moment” refers to the start of the U.S.-Soviet Union space race when Moscow launched the world’s first artificial satellite in 1957. (New York Times)
President Biden told Southeast Asian nations the U.S. would stand with them in defending freedom of the seas and democracy and called China's actions towards Taiwan "coercive" and a threat to peace and stability. Speaking at a virtual East Asia Summit attended by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Biden said Washington would start talks with partners in the Indo-Pacific about developing a regional economic framework. (Reuters)
Poland has been told by Europe’s top court to pay a fine of €1m a day for ignoring an order to suspend part of its contentious judicial reform. The European Court of Justice has imposed the penalty until Warsaw suspends an element of a regime for disciplining judges. It is part of a far-reaching battle between Brussels and Warsaw over reforms to the country’s judicial system that the EU says threatens the rule of law and the independence of judges. The stand-off has led to calls from other member states to cut tens of billions of euros in funding to the country, and even raised questions about Poland’s long-term future in the EU. (Financial Times)
Poland intends to more than double the strength of its armed forces to at least 250,000 full-time soldiers in response to what it regards as a growing threat from Russia. The leader of the ruling Law and Justice party said that the country needed its own “serious and independent deterrent force” because NATO might not be able to mobilize troops against Russian aggression swiftly enough. (The Times)
Financial incentives, public-health messages and other tactics used by state and local governments and employers to encourage people to get the Covid-19 vaccine didn’t have a noticeable impact on vaccination rates among those who already were hesitant about getting the shot, new research shows. What’s more, the strategies sometimes had the opposite effect of their intended design on certain groups of people, according to a recent NBER-published study. (Wall Street Journal)
The daily number of COVID-19 deaths in Russia hit another high amid a surge in infections that has forced the Kremlin to order most Russians to stay off work starting this week. Ukraine and Bulgaria also reported record daily death tolls. (Associated Press)
L.A. City Council OKs plan that cuts unvaccinated city workers more slack. (Los Angeles Times)
Officials in Northern California closed a second Bay Area In-N-Out Burger after employees repeatedly failed to check customers eating indoors for proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test result. (Los Angeles Times)
Economy
Daniel Loeb’s Third Point has amassed a large stake in Royal Dutch Shell and called for a break-up to end the oil major’s efforts to be “all things to all people.” Third Point accused Shell of attempting to “do it all” amid conflicting demands for the Anglo-Dutch group to invest in renewable energy while capitalising on its legacy oil and gas assets. hell should be split into at least two businesses, Third Point argued on the eve of the company’s latest results, to draw a line under a “difficult two decades” for its shareholders. The New York-based hedge fund’s stake in Shell is said to be worth close to $750 million. (The Times)
Brazil’s central bank delivered its biggest interest rate increase in almost two decades, signaling rates above 10% soon. (Bloomberg)
After sweeping job and benefits cuts led to a stampede of employee exits across the company, Exxon CEO Darren Woods is dangling pay hikes to stop the bleeding. (Bloomberg)
McDonald’s raises menu prices as U.S. worker wages climb: The burger giant says it is trying to keep pace with rapidly growing costs, with wages alone up at least 10% so far this year at U.S. restaurants.
Starbucks plans a pay hike in a bid to keep U.S. hourly workers. (Bloomberg)
Lights on, nobody applying: skills shortage bites as Australia reopens. Government statistics show the number of non-resident workers in the country -- often travelers with work visas -- was down by two-thirds in the June quarter of 2021 from the start of 2020. (Reuters)
UK car production hits 39-year low. (The Times)
The U.S. is fast becoming the new global hub for bitcoin mining. After a government crackdown in China, many miners are betting on reliable access to energy and a more predictable regulatory environment in the U.S. More than a third of the global computing power dedicated to mining bitcoin is now drawn from machines in the U.S., up from less than a fifth last spring. (Wall Street Journal)
As closed-door arbitration soared last year, workers won cases against employers just 1.6% of the time. U.S. companies are increasingly relying mandatory arbitration to settle employee and consumer grievances during the pandemic — companies closed nearly 14,000 arbitration cases in 2020. That’s 17% more filings year over year. Family Dollar closed 1,135 such cases last year, up from three in 2019. (Washington Post)
Commercial real-estate sales and values surge to records: Purchases of apartment buildings, life-science labs and industrial properties, which serve as e-commerce distribution centers, rocketed commercial sales to more than $193 billion in the third quarter. That is up 19% compared with the same three months in 2019, before the pandemic, and the biggest quarter for commercial property sales ever. (Wall Street Journal)
Three polls, split conclusions:
On the one hand: U.S. consumer confidence increased in October following three months of declines, as the wave of Covid-19 cases due to the Delta variant started to ease. The consumer confidence index increased to 113.8 in October from a revised 109.8 in September, according to Conference Board data. The indicator came in above economists’ 108.0 estimate. (Wall Street Journal)
However, CEO optimism fell to a 12-month low in October, as a growing number of CEOs is disillusioned with short-term economic recovery, and the list of issues disrupting business continues to grow. The last time the indicator was this low was in November 2020, pre-vaccine approvals. Polled CEOs say frustration with Congress, supply chain disruptions, labor constraints, inflation pressures and the fact that the pandemic is still impacting business are part of the long list of reasons for their declining optimism. (Chief Executive)
And further, Americans' confidence in the economy continues to weaken, and their mentions of a variety of economic issues as the nation's most important problem are rising -- even as a record-high 74% say it is a good time to find a quality job. The current -25 reading is the lowest since -33 in April 2020 and -28 the next month, when unemployment was spiking. The index has now fallen at least marginally for four consecutive months. (Gallup)
Technology
LinkedIn launched its freelance services marketplace globally after picking up 2M users in a quietly run US beta, to compete with the likes of Fiverr and Upwork. (TechCrunch)
Uber is acquiring 50,000 Tesla vehicles to rent to its drivers as part of an ambitious plan to electrify its fleet in the US by 2030. The ride-hailing company is working with rental car company Hertz, which announced it had ordered 100,000 Teslas. The move comes as car companies and transportation providers around the world are coming under regulatory pressure to phase out gas-powered vehicles in favor of those that produce zero emissions. (The Verge)
Nvidia suffered a setback as EU antitrust regulators opened a full-scale investigation into its $54 billion bid for British chip designer ARM on concerns the deal could lead to higher prices, less choice and reduced innovation. Britain's competition agency is also probing the deal for the country's most important technology company, warning that it could damage competition and weaken rivals. (Reuters)
Spotify cited Edison Research and its own internal data to claim it “recently became” the most-used podcast platform in the US and says it has 3.2M podcasts. Spotify’s monthly active users overall grew 19% year-over-year to reach 381 million in the quarter, up from 365 million last year. Premium subscribers also grew 19% to reach 172 million, up from 165 million last year. (TechCrunch)
Smart Links
Graduate degree that pays off: The M.B.A.; WSJ analysis found 98% of programs leave students with manageable debt loads. (Wall Street Journal)
MIT expert on work says any boss who thinks employees will return to offices is dreaming. (Washington Post)
The 10 best global universities of 2022, via U.S. News & World Report (Spoiler: Harvard is No. 1). (CNBC)
Cigarette sales rose last year for the first time in two decades. (Washington Post)
What Sequoia gains by blowing up the VC fund structure. (The Information)
Microsoft nearly overtakes Apple as most valuable company. (Reuters)