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The World
The world’s biggest businesses were doing fine until Covid-19 arrived. Now they’re doing even better. The top 50 companies by value added $4.5 trillion of stock market capitalization in 2020, taking their combined worth to about 28% of global gross domestic product. Three decades ago the equivalent figure was less than 5%. (Bloomberg)
The Biden administration has signaled it will accept a 15% global minimum tax on large multinational companies, in international talks aimed at increasing revenues from corporations that operate across borders. The US plans for a tax regime overhaul, set out in April, proposed applying a new tax based on sales in each country to the global profits of the very largest companies, including big US technology groups, regardless of their physical presence in a given country. (Financial Times)
The European Parliament voted to freeze discussions on an investment deal with China until Beijing removes the retaliatory sanctions it imposed on EU officials, diplomats, academics and researchers in March. The motion stalls a deal that was agreed to much fanfare by top EU and Chinese leaders in December. The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) needs the parliament’s blessing before it becomes law, but members voted not to even consider this while the sanctions remain in place. (South China Morning Post)
A tentative ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is holding this morning, its tenuous nature highlighted with violence and threats continuing until minutes before the deadline. President Biden promised to replenish Israel's Iron Dome system and to help rebuild Gaza. (Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post)
Nearly 70% of Japanese firms want the Tokyo Olympics either cancelled or postponed, underscoring concerns that the Games will increase coronavirus infections at a time when the medical system is under heavy strain. With just nine weeks to go before the Games, states of emergency have been imposed in much of Japan until the end of the month. (Reuters)
E.U. agrees on covid certificates to sweep away barriers on travel between countries. (Washington Post)
Covid-hit Taiwan shuts down all shareholder meetings through June. TSMC and Foxconn among companies forced to reschedule by spike in infections. (Nikkei Asian Review)
Comfort spikes among vaccinated Americans following big shift in CDC guidance: Vaccinated Americans’ largest upticks in comfort came toward dining at a restaurant (up 11 points) and shopping at a mall and socializing in public places (up 9 points). The upward shift among vaccinated Americans drove the overall level of consumer comfort to a record high of 49%. (Morning Consult)
Marine Le Pen, head of France’s far-right National Rally party, is once again up against the current president, Emmanuel Macron, for the April 2022 presidential elections. In the US, she is known by many Americans as a politician who has built her political identity surrounding ideals such as xenophobia and anit-semitism. Recently, she has been rebranding her image in order to win more votes. The rebranding is centered around three main strategies: shifting her policies to attract more center votes, dropping her tough, warrior-like persona to a softer one, and triumphing on Macron’s unpopularity. (GZERO Media)
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy faced his second criminal prosecution in three months yesterday when a Paris court began trying him on charges that he benefited from fraud during an election campaign. Sarkozy is among 14 former members of his Republicans party and its PR executives accused of breaching campaign finance rules. (The Times)
North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and its stockpile of fuel have roughly doubled in the past four years, a steady rise that proceeded even as President Trump held high-drama meetings with Kim Jong-un. The best unclassified estimates are that the North has at least 45 nuclear weapons, and appears headed to an arsenal roughly the size of Pakistan’s, another nuclear state the U.S. once demanded must disarm, and now has all but given up that it ever will. (New York Times)
A year and a half after millions poured into the streets of Santiago to protest inequality and the vestiges of the Pinochet dictatorship, Chileans voted to elect the 155 people who will rewrite the country's constitution. Voters punished the right — and the broader political establishment in a shock for Chilean conservatives: the ruling center-right coalition got fewer delegates than their traditional leftist rivals, and failed to secure the one-third of the vote necessary to veto any radical changes. Meanwhile, independent candidates, most of them left-leaning, won a surprising majority in a similar rejection of the entire political class. (GZERO)
Climate change has pushed the American West into “megadrought” territory as it braces for a hot, dry, and dangerous summer. The US Drought Monitor states that nearly 85% of the West is suffering through drought conditions. Regions are already working to address the foreseeable dangers. CA Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a $5 billion spending plan to meet emergency water needs. (MIT Technology Review)
As record heat scorches western Russia and central Canada, climate alarm bells ring: Temperatures are already close to 90 degrees near the Arctic Circle, while wildfires rage in Canada’s interior provinces. (Washington Post)
First-generation college graduates lag behind their peers on key economic outcomes: College graduates without a college-educated parent have lower incomes and less wealth, on average, than those with a parent who has a bachelor’s or higher degree. (Pew Research Center)
Economy
Optimism is rising as 60% of small business owners expect to see a rise in revenue. With a widely available vaccine and/or herd immunity, 79% of business owners expect business to return back to normal while 15% say business is already back to normal. (Bank of America)
Net inflows of funds into China reached $88.5 billion, their highest in seven years, during 1Q21, as a wide interest rate spread drew global bond investors to the world's second-largest economy. (Nikkei Asian Review)
Morgan Stanley chief executive James Gorman kicked off a succession battle with a string of leadership changes at the US bank, including promoting two top deputies, Ted Pick and Andy Saperstein, to be co-presidents. Gorman, 62, has told Morgan Stanley’s board, which he chairs, and the bank’s senior management team that he is committed to staying on at least three more years. (Financial Times)
Bank of America ‘willing to pay what it takes’ to hire best talent, CEO says. (CNBC)
The Treasury Department announced that it is taking steps to crack down on cryptocurrency markets and transactions, and said it will require any transfer worth $10,000 or more to be reported to the I.R.S. (CNBC)
As Amazon, McDonald’s raise wages, small businesses struggle to keep up. Companies forgo investment and turn down contracts as they compete with jobless benefits and wage increases at larger firms. (Wall Street Journal)
WeWork’s losses almost quadrupled to $2.1bn in 1Q21, as the co-working company hemorrhaged more than a quarter of its members over the past year and shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars to restructure its property portfolio. (Financial Times)
Manhattan’s apartment-vacancy rate is stubbornly high: More than one in 10 Manhattan rental apartments is vacant, raising the prospect that discounted rents and other tenant deals could persist through at least the summer. The borough’s apartment vacancy rate rose in April to 11.6%, up from 2.42% one year ago. (Wall Street Journal)
Jay Powell accelerated the Fed’s consideration of a possible digital version of the dollar that would be controlled by the US central bank. The Fed chair said it would seek public comment on the idea amid pressure from some US lawmakers and growing interest in so-called central bank digital currencies. (Financial Times)
Technology
Black women in tech make 90 cents for every dollar a white man makes in the same role. In 2019, that number was 87 cents, and in 2016 it was as low as 79 cents. (Recode)
Tim Cook takes the stand today in the trial over App Store ‘monopoly’. Cook will be among the final witnesses in the month-long trial, scheduled to end on Monday, in which Epic argues that Apple abuses its allegedly dominant position by forcing developers to distribute applications through the App Store, where it takes a commission of 15-30%. (Financial Times)
Federal regulation on face recognition could come as early as next week. Amazon and others are indefinitely suspending police use of face recognition products, but proposed legislation could make bans bigger or more permanent. (MIT Technology Review)
One in 10 US police departments can access videos from millions of privately owned homes without a warrant. How are they doing this? Through Amazon’s Ring. Once Ring users agree to release their information to law enforcement, there’s no way to evoke access and very few limitations on what happens to that content afterwards. For an estimate on how massive this network is, 400,000 Ring devices were sold in December 2019—before the boom in sales brought upon by the pandemic. Suddenly, it has become one of the largest civilian surveillance networks in the US. (The Guardian)
Twitter is relaunching its public verification program, allowing anyone to apply for a coveted blue check mark. The company also previewed potential changes coming to profiles and the upcoming label for automated accounts. To make the grade for verification, users will have to meet Twitter’s revamped verification criteria, which includes having an account of public interest that falls under one of six different types of categorizations as well as being “authentic, notable, and active.” The six categories of accounts that can qualify for verification:Government; Companies, brands and organizations; News organizations and journalists; Entertainment; Sports and gaming; Activists, organizers, and other influential individuals. (The Verge)
Smart Links
U.S. weekly jobless claims decline further. (Reuters)
Apple launches an affiliate program for paid podcast subscriptions. (TechCrunch)
Scientists map gene changes underlying brain and cognitive decline in aging. (Science Daily)
Why do we hate the sound of our own voices? (The Conversation)
How space weather could wreck NASA’s return to the moon. (MIT Technology Review)
Microsoft and Apple wage war on gadget right-to-repair laws. (Bloomberg)
Bitcoin’s growing energy problem: ‘It’s a dirty currency’. (Financial Times)