During this holiday week, we’ll mix in some longer reads. Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
President Trump abruptly signed the economic relief bill providing $900 billion in pandemic aid and funding the government through September, ending last-minute turmoil he created over legislation that will offer an economic lifeline to millions of Americans and avert a government shutdown. The package will provide billions of dollars for the distribution of vaccines, funds for schools, small businesses, hospitals and American families, and money needed to keep the government open for the remainder of the fiscal year. The enactment came less than 48 hours before the government would have shut down and just days before an eviction moratorium and other critical pandemic relief provisions were set to expire. But it also came after two critical unemployment programs lapsed, guaranteeing a delay in benefits for millions of unemployed Americans. (New York Times, Washington Post)
In coordinated actions, European countries including France, Germany, Italy and Spain began vaccinating older, at-risk people and frontline medical and care staff, while warning that in the immediate future restrictions were likely to be tightened rather than relaxed. In Ireland, Covid-19 hospital admissions have increased 70% in the past two weeks. (Financial Times, The Times)
Southern California will likely face an extended stay-at-home order after a holiday surge in coronavirus cases pushes hospitals to the breaking point — and as L.A. County reports nearly 30,000 cases over two days. (Los Angeles Times)
Chinese financial regulators moved to rein in Ant Group, the financial-technology giant controlled by billionaire Jack Ma, telling it to switch its focus back to its mainstay payments business and rectify problems in faster-growing areas such as personal lending, insurance and wealth management. China’s central bank criticized Ant for its behavior toward competitors and consumers, and what regulators said was problematic corporate governance. (Wall Street Journal)
Public support for Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government has gone underwater for the first time, as Suga slips to 42% approval rating, while 59% disapprove of the government's handling of the pandemic. (Nikkei Asian Review)
The Atlantic Council outlined its top risks and opportunities for the next year. (Atlantic Council)
Risks: 1) The COVID-19 crisis deepens amid a slow vaccine rollout; 2) The Biden presidency is stifled; 3) Another global financial crisis, driven by debt, breaks out; 4) Western countries struggle with a slow economic recovery; 5) North Korea manufactures a crisis; 6) The confrontation between the US and Iran intensifies; 7) The US and China clash over Taiwan; 8) The worst food crisis in decades ravages the world; 9) The expansion of the global middle class comes to an end; 10) Neo-Ottoman Turkey goes more rogue.
Opportunities: 1) The World Trade Organization experiences a rebirth; 2) Multilateralism gets updated for the 21st century; 3) The US and Russia pursue a relationship built on mutual interests; 4) The new Sunni Arab-Israeli alignment expands and deepens; 5) The United States leads an expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership; 6) The US and its allies build new international structures for digital governance; 7) Artificial intelligence breeds new forms of cooperation, not just competition; 8) A “Manhattan Project” emerges for battery-storage breakthroughs; 9) A universal coronavirus vaccine is developed; 10) Transatlantic ties are renewed to cooperate on technology and counter China.
Economy
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted the Brexit trade deal failed to meet his ambitions on financial services, as Brussels signaled that the City of London must wait until after January 1 to learn what market access it will have in future. The Johnson government intends to set out its plans for how to use Britain’s new regulatory freedom to diverge from the bloc’s rules — including on financial services — but has yet to provide details. (Financial Times)
Margin debt reaches a record: Some investors, tempted to chase bigger gains, are borrowing against their investment portfolios, pushing margin balances to the first record in more than two years. (Wall Street Journal)
Vietnam will strive for 2021 economic growth of 6.5%, a goal that would exceed its official target of 6% growth for next year. (Bloomberg)
North Dakota’s shale prospects look bleak after the gold rush: North Dakota entered 2020 at record production levels. Output was second only to Texas as it pumped out almost 1.5m barrels of oil a day, or 12% of the nation’s total. Then came March. That was when a Saudi-Russian crude price war erupted and stay-at-home orders imposed across the country to stem the spread of Covid forced cars off the roads and grounded planes, crippling oil demand. US oil traded in negative territory for the first time. North Dakota operators shut almost a quarter of their wells, four in five rigs were laid down and production slid 40%. (Financial Times)
Technology
Companies are shifting their corporate disclosure language in an attempt to influence machine learning: More and more companies realize that the target audience of their mandatory and voluntary disclosures no longer consists of just human analysts and investors. A substantial amount of buying and selling of shares [is] triggered by recommendations made by robots and algorithms which process information with machine learning tools and natural language processing kits. (VentureBeat, NBER)
A new batch of search engine start-ups positioning themselves as potential rivals to Google is hoping that growing regulatory pressure will finally reverse two decades of the search giant’s dominance. The latest challengers include Neeva, launched by two former Google executives, and Youdotcom, founded by Salesforce’ former chief scientist, as well as Mojeek, a UK-based start-up with growing ambitions to build its own index of billions of web pages. (Financial Times)
Not even 5G could rescue smartphone sales in 2020. (TechCrunch)
Marc Andreessen On Productivity, Scheduling, Reading Habits, Work, and More: “The typical day for me right now is quite literally following the calendar very closely. I’m trying to have as ‘programmed’ a day as I possibly can.” (a16Z)
Smart Links
BMW aims for 20% of its vehicles to be electric by 2023. (Reuters)
2019 vintage Burgundy report: the best year since 1865? (Financial Times)
Why does Oreo keep releasing new flavors? The brand’s strategy is stunning in its simplicity. (New York Times)
Instagram’s favorite New Yorker Cartoons of 2020. (New Yorker)
Household heat sharing system is growing beneath France. (Next City)