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The World
After months of steep hikes in interest rates, the Fed is facing a surprising reality: The damage to financial markets and the broader economy has been relatively modest, and inflation is showing signs of easing. Bubbles in both the stock market and home prices are shrinking from their historic surge — but only gradually. Crypto’s implosion has barely caused a ripple. And beyond Wall Street, consumer spending has held up, factory orders are rising, and the job market is consistently beating expectations. (Politico)
EU Parliament ‘under attack’ as Qatar corruption scandal grows: Police launched a fresh wave of raids on political figures in Brussels over alleged corruption involving Qatari interests, in a scandal that threatens to trash European Union democracy. “The European Parliament,” said its president, Roberta Metsola, at a session in Strasbourg on Monday, “is under attack.” The focal point for that attack, for now, is the Parliament’s Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group. In Brussels, police raided the parliamentary office of Greek MEP Eva Kaili, who is currently in a jail cell as she awaits a court appearance. (Politico EU)
Peru's new president said she would submit a bill to Congress to bring general elections forward by two years, after the ouster of her predecessor sparked protests that have left at least three dead. (Reuters)
People queued outside fever clinics at Chinese hospitals for COVID-19 checks, a new sign of the rapid spread of symptoms after authorities began dismantling an apparatus they used to surveil residents and curtail movement. (Reuters)
Consumer Confidence in China Nears Series Lows as Beijing Starts to Unwind COVID-Zero Policies: Beijing is finally moving to loosen its COVID-zero policies, potentially removing a major headwind to consumer confidence and economic activity. (Morning Consult)
Microsoft will take a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange’s corporate parent and help shift the exchange’s financial data and trading platforms to the cloud, in a deal that reflects the growing use of data and tech in global finance. The deal revealed Monday calls for London Stock Exchange, owner of Europe’s biggest stock exchange by market value, to spend $2.8 billion over the next decade on Microsoft products, mainly its Azure cloud service. (Wall Street Journal)
Third graders struggling the most to recover in reading after the pandemic: Children in kindergarten when the pandemic broke out in the spring of 2020 are now roughly eight years old and in third grade this 2022-23 school year. A new report by the nonprofit educational assessment maker NWEA documents that third graders are currently suffering the largest pandemic-related learning losses in reading, compared to older students in grades four to eight, and not readily recovering. (Hechinger Report)
Economy
Global debt as a share of output fell by the most in at least 70 years last year, as economies rebounded from their sudden slowdown in 2020 and inflation soared, according to IMF data. The ratio of global public and private debt to GDP fell 10 percentage points in 2021 after surging by 29 points in the previous year. The figures highlight how massive government bailouts to pandemic-stricken economies triggered not only an increase in growth, but global inflation on a scale not seen in decades. (Financial Times)
Goldman Sachs is considering making hundreds of job cuts at its consumer business after chief executive David Solomon unveiled plans to scale back its “Main Street” banking ambitions, according to people familiar with the matter. Goldman is also planning to stop offering personal loans through its Marcus-branded retail banking platform, the people added. Personal loans, primarily for debt consolidation, were one of the first consumer products launched by Goldman in 2016. (Financial Times)
Global venture funding drops further in November: Global venture funding reached $22 billion in November 2022, down 69% from $70 billion in November 2021. Month-over-month funding is also down by 19%. This is the lowest funding month on record since February 2020 with $18.3 billion invested. (Crunchbase)
Nestle will invest 40 million Swiss francs ($42.88 million) to launch a new production facility in western Ukraine, the company said on Monday. Nestle is one of very few international companies to announce new investments in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. "This is an important move for Nestlé, taken in a very challenging time for the country," Alessandro Zanelli, Nestlé chief executive officer for South Eastern Europe Market, said in a statement. (Reuters)
Mars has embarked on a drive to convince developing country consumers to eat more chocolate, claiming it is on track to double the value of its confectionery sales in emerging markets in the five years to 2024. The word’s largest confectionery maker has developed local products such as a bacon Snickers in Brazil as it seeks to raise the amount of chocolate eaten by consumers in less wealthy countries closer to the European average of 7kg a year. (Financial Times)
Technology
China has launched a trade dispute at the WTO against the US over its chip export control measures. The US passed a sweeping set of regulations in October aimed at kneecapping China's semiconductor industry, prompting a complaint from a top China trade group. It added that the U.S. curbs "threatened the stability of the global industrial supply chains." (Nikkei Asia Review)
India and Vietnam could benefit as chipmakers shift away from China. (CNBC)
Twitter on Monday night abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the latest sign that Elon Musk is unraveling years of work and institutions created to make the social network safer and more civil. Members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council received an email with the subject line, “Thank You,” that informed them the council was no longer “the best structure” to bring “external insights into our product and policy development work.” The email dissolution arrived less than an hour before members of the council were expecting to meet with Twitter executives via Zoom to discuss recent developments. (Washington Post)
Elon Musk is no longer the richest person in the world. (CNBC)
Recent tech graduates and young talent are entering an unprecedented and shrinking job market: Hiring in tech, information and media is at its lowest level since July 2020, according to a report Thursday from LinkedIn, which cited “a painful recalibration of a sector that saw massive hiring gains throughout the pandemic.” That recalibration has shattered some people’s dreams about where technology is headed, as cryptocurrencies have crashed, self-driving cars have sputtered and the virtual-reality metaverse has struggled to take off. About 91,000 people have lost their jobs in the tech industry this year, according to an NBC News tally of layoffs at companies that cut 100 people or more. (NBC News)
Amazon Delays New Hire Start Dates in Latest Effort to Tame Headcount: Amazon is pushing back start dates for some new graduate hires by around six months, a company spokesman confirmed. The delays are another way Amazon is trying to rein in its corporate headcount, in addition to rescinding offers and layoffs that started last month. They also impact a range of roles at the most junior level, while job cuts so far have been focused on recruiters as well as specific divisions like Amazon’s devices unit. (The Information)
Smart Links
Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio invests in submarines for the ultra-rich. (Financial Times)
Keystone Has Leaked More Oil Than Any Other Pipeline in US Since 2010. (Bloomberg)
Chinese brands are worlds biggest spenders on on World Cup ads, sponsorships at $1.4b. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Pouring Through a Crisis: How Budweiser Salvaged Its World Cup. (New York Times)
UK economy grew 0.5% in October. (The Times)