fortune--2020-07-09--Advertisers boycotting Facebook will eventually set aside their wokeness

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Civil-rights leaders met with Facebook’s leaders this week to present a list of demands to get the publishing giant to remove hateful messages from its platform. Rather than satisfaction, they say Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg gave them platitudes and spin.
I am shocked, shocked that these two titans of Silicon Valley pressed nuance over action. The next day, Facebook released the results of an outside civil-rights audit. Unsurprisingly, the auditors found Facebook to be a denizen of hateful speech. Sandberg says the company is on a “journey” to improve that.
This isn’t a new trip. It merely is getting to be a marginally less pleasant one for Facebook. Perhaps mindful that next week is when Fortune would have gathered in Aspen, Colo., for Brainstorm Tech, I re-watched a powerful speech from last summer by Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League and one of the activists who met with Facebook.
The video still resonates. Greenblatt called for audits. He called for the so-called social-media companies—I call them publishers—to stop profiting from hate. (That theme has been picked up in the current campaign to convince advertisers to boycott Facebook.) He also made the most powerful point of all: Facebook, at the end of the day, is just a business. It can ban whatever it likes, as surely as a burger joint or a hotel would toss out someone spewing hateful filth.
Here’s how I see all this playing out: Congress will fulminate but do little. Facebook will do just enough to give the appearance of change. Advertisers will set aside their wokeness when they think they can get away with it, and return to Facebook, because it’s a really effective place to advertise.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
A fictional interlude:
KBerg: Hey, I've been rereading The Da Vinci Code and I just realized that we could use the Fibonacci sequence in our new marketing–
The Whit: Jeffrey, focus. Did you see our conversion rate at the end of Quibi's 90-day free trial was less than 10%?
Kberg: IT'S ALL CORONAVIRUS. I blame the virus.
The Whit: That's only like 72,000 paying subscribers, Jeffrey. What are we going to do?
Kberg: Should have called it Omakase. I'm just saying...
In Philadelphia it is worth $50 bucks. Speaking of the young and reckless, it seems that the gaggles of inexperienced stock traders on Robinhood really do take a lot of risks with their money. The New York Times has the tale of the guy who took out two home equity loans to cover losses and some stats about how common risky investment strategies are on the platform.
Time is a flat circle. More crazy stock trading stories, you say? In case you had stopped worrying about possible bubbles in the market, Chinese startup QuantumCTek debuted on the Shanghai Star market today and promptly saw its stock price rise tenfold. That catapults the company, which develops secure communications via quantum technology, to a market vale of over $4 billion with trailing annual revenue of about $37 million, Business Insider notes. That's not going to end well. Oh, and a bunch of folks on TikTok drove up the price of cryptocurrency Dogecoin 60% in two days. Just 60%? Yawn. And back in the USA, LGBTQ dating app developer BlueCity went public and jumped 46% in its debut. Double yawn.
Pay to play. Back in the real world of potentially good ideas, Twitter is considering adding a subscription platform so that people could monetize their own posts, a la Substack for newsletters or Patreon for podcasts. Twitter's stock price jumped 7% on the rumor, giving it a modest 10% gain for the year.
Dream a little dream. Speaking on Thursday at an A.I. conference, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is promising self-driving cars real soon now. “I’m extremely confident that level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen and I think will happen very quickly,” Musk said (via video) at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. "We will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year.”
Blow us all away. The case for 5G phones has always seemed a little shaky. Sure, you can download things 10 times faster than with 4G, but are we really downloading much to our phones? This week, I got to try out the first 5G laptop, Lenovo's $1,400 Flex 5G, and suddenly it all makes sense. Also, the battery life is BANANAS. More thoughts and my final verdict in my full review.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
You probably know that the apps on your phone report back tons of data about you to advertisers. Recode reporter Sara Morrison has a deep dive into why apps include so many software development kits, or SDKS, that hoover up your personal info.
Location data gets the most attention because it feels the most invasive (as the New York Times put it, “Your apps know where you were last night, and they’re not keeping it secret”), but there are plenty of other ways to track you or make inferences about who you are to target ads to you. Companies want to put their SDKs in as many apps as possible in order to collect as much information from as many people as possible. Even developers may not know (or care) when and how their users’ privacy is being invaded.
“If I’m a startup, I’m bootstrapping an app really quickly — I need to make something fast. I just bundle a bunch of SDKs in there, compile the app, and ship it off to the App Store,” Sean O’Brien, founder and executive director of the Yale Privacy Lab, told Recode. “And I may not even be aware, literally, as a developer, what is in my own app.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Walmart’s reported $98 annual subscription service could fuel the chain’s explosive e-commerce business By Danielle Abril
Magic Leap’s Peggy Johnson long aspired to be a CEO. Too few women set that intention By Claire Zillman and Emma Hinchliffe
How Apple and Stanford are speeding up medical discoveries By Maria Aspan
Are wearables like Fitbit a key to earlier detection of COVID-19? By Lance Lambert
Why messy data is a big problem in the fight against COVID-19 By Jonathan Vanian
The fastest mobile network in the U.S. right now By Aaron Pressman
Tech giants are aligned against Hong Kong’s security law. Apple is a holdout By Grady McGregor
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
One of the sweetest shows of the 1980s, The Wonder Years, is coming back. ABC's reboot will alter the setting for our times, shifting the focus to a middle-class Black family in Alabama. Empire co-creator Lee Daniels is executive producing with Fred Savage, the star of the original series. Original version co-creator Neal Marlens is on board as a consultant. But the real question, to me, is who replaces actor Daniel Stern as the wise and wry voiceover narrator? I like Donald Glover for the part.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-07-09--5 health experts on how to build trust and find inspiration in the pandemic

Everything we just learned about how Joe Biden would run the economy

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! A Supreme Court ruling threatens access to birth control, the 1619 Project partners with Oprah, and Fortune taps into a health care brain trust. Have a lovely Thursday.
– Trust and inspiration in the pandemic age. Fortune hosted its first-ever virtual Brainstorm Health conference this week and one question was top of mind: What’s gone so wrong with the U.S. response to the pandemic?
On Tuesday, Agnes Binagwaho, Rwanda’s former health minister and now a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School, provided some insight by comparing the Rwanda’s “decentralized health care system” to that of the U.S. Rwanda’s approach has meant distributing community health workers across the country and getting commitment to health goals from everyone, from educators to law enforcement. The U.S. system, by contrast, has seen investment in community and public health deteriorate in recent decades, said Sheila Davis, CEO of Partners in Health.
Rwanda’s system has bred deep public trust in health institutions and authorities; the country has the highest level of trust in clinics and hospitals in the world. The U.S., meanwhile, is a hotbed of distrust, where even the value of face masks is questioned.
“[The U.S. doesn’t] have the benefits of a community health system like they have in Rwanda,” Davis told the Brainstorm audience.
The consequences of that shortcoming came up in another conversation with Dr. Julie Gerberding, EVP and chief patent officer at Merck, who flagged the U.S.’s waning public trust in vaccines. “Trust isn’t going to come from the top down, especially in this political environment,” she said. She said even the name of the project to accelerate U.S. vaccine development—Operation Warp Speed—is potentially problematic since it seems incongruous with safety. Inoculating the U.S. population, when a coronavirus vaccine is ready, will require grass-roots campaigns to assuage any public doubts, Gerberding said.
There are a few bright spots in this pandemic, and Brainstorm guests highlighted those, too. FitbitHealth SVP and general manager Amy McDonough said Fitbit users are getting fewer steps; the elimination of American’s commutes is likely a factor. But another type of exercise—purposeful activity—is on the rise. “[T]hat is resulting in…statistically significant decreases in things like resting heart rate,” she said. Plus, data from more than 30 million users show people are also getting increased rest and more consistency in their sleep—both keys to maintaining robust immune systems.
Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, a women’s and mental health advocate and wife of Canada’s prime minister, called attention to the collective trauma of the pandemic. “We’re all one trauma away from one another,” she said. But she’s also drawn inspiration from the empathy at play in the crisis. “Having studied empathy and development in babies, we tend to be happy,” she told Brainstorm attendees. “Our true nature is to be loved and understood for who we are. And we want to express freely our own creative selves. And in situations of fear and stress and anger and divide, I think human goodness is being triggered and ignited.”
You can find more coverage of Brainstorm Health here.
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Ruling on religion. The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 yesterday that the Trump Administration was permitted to create a "religious or moral objection" exemption to the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employers cover birth control for their workers. "Today, for the first time, the Court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent. Seventy thousand women are expected to lose access to birth control because of the ruling. Fortune
- Long-awaited lawsuit. Does this story sound familiar? Drisana Rios, a former insurance brokerage account executive, says she was working "harder than [she] ever ha[d] in [her] entire career" after transitioning to remote work in March—while also caring for her two children. Now, in a lawsuit, Rios alleges that she was fired because her children made noise while she was on business calls at home during the pandemic. The company, Hub International, declined to comment. New York Times
- Oprah + 1619. Nikole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize and changed the way the United States thinks about its history with the 1619 Project, named for the year enslaved Africans arrived on American shores. Now, Hannah-Jones and the New York Times have partnered with Oprah Winfrey and Lionsgate to produce a portfolio of film and television projects based on the work. The Root
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Coty, the cosmetics company recently in the news for its deals with the Kardashians, named L'Oréal vet Sue Nabi CEO; she's the company's fourth chief executive this year. The company also hired Princess Anna of Bavaria as chief corporate affairs officer. Crate & Barrel named former Williams-Sonoma exec Janet Hayes CEO; she succeeds departing CEO Neela Montgomery. Earnest hired AnitaB.org's Victoria Hughes as chief people officer. The cruise industry, led in this by Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., assembled a "Healthy Sail" panel of public health experts including Julie Gerberding, a former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the current chief patient officer of Merck, and Helene Gayle, a longtime CDC veteran and former CEO of CARE. Highlights named Justice for Girls' Lece Lohr president of Highlights Consumer Business.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Early departure? Away employees are protesting the leadership of co-CEO Steph Korey; the beleaguered luggage brand had said she would depart by the end of the year, but employees are asking for her immediate resignation after a photo surfaced of Korey dressed as a Native American. The Verge
- Paris chic. Lindsey Tramuta is the author of the new book The New Parisienne: The Women and Ideas Shaping Paris. In this excerpt, she profiles Clémence Zamora-Cruz, a trans activist and one of the many women changing the stereotypical definition of what it means to be a French woman. Fortune
- Book club. Eagerly awaiting whistleblower Mary Trump's book about her uncle Donald? This NYT piece has seven takeaways, including Trump's motivation for writing the book. Trump also reveals how she became the Times' source for the President's tax returns.
- 'Unlucky charms.' What happened to bracelet dynasty Alex and Ani? This longread chronicles the rise and fall of the jewelry brand founded by Carolyn Rafaelian-Ferlise. It involves a gender discrimination lawsuit against Bank of America (Alex and Ani withdrew the suit about lending practices last month), the use of astrology and numerology to make business decisions, and the long history of costume jewelry in Rhode Island. Marker
ON MY RADAR
Phoebe Robinson to launch book imprint at Penguin Random House Vulture
For Black women in media, a 'dream job' is a myth Refinery29
Deutsche Bank agrees to $150 million penalty for Jeffrey Epstein dealings Fortune
Where are all the women-owned firms on the list of PPP loan recipients? Boss Betty
PARTING WORDS
"I was the only young woman and a bit of an outsider."
-Historian Alexis Coe on writing a biography of George Washington


fortune--2020-07-10--Uncle Sam wants you! To report stimulus fraud

Why Berkshire Hathaway is partly to blame for the S & P 500 being in the red this year

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
Uncle Sam wants you!
To report fraud and abuse of government bailout funds, that is.
In a video released Thursday, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, urged Americans to “please inform us” of any “information that taxpayer dollars intended to help Americans during this crisis have instead been subjected to waste, fraud, or abuse.”
Congress has approved >$3 Trillion in federal spending to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Help us ensure your tax payer dollars are being spent efficiently, effectively, & equitably.
Report any waste, fraud or abuse online at https://t.co/ssxqKs9fg5 or by calling 202-225-4400. pic.twitter.com/UBBAhhNdas — James E. Clyburn (@WhipClyburn) July 9, 2020
Rep. Clyburn said in the video that the committee was charged with ensuring the more than $3 trillion in federal funds “are spent efficiently, effectively, and equitably.”
The open call for whistleblowers comes after a deluge of data was released Monday from the Small Business Administration and Treasury about loans for the $670 billion Paycheck Protection Program—a key piece of the multitrillion-dollar coronavirus stimulus package. The data included the names and addresses (as well as loan amounts in ranges for loans above $150,000) of businesses that received the emergency taxpayer funds. But based on early analyses of the data, it appears many entities receiving the funds raised eyebrows.
According to a Fortune analysis of the data, at least 38 publicly traded companies kept PPP loans, despite earlier guidance from the SBA and Treasury that it was “unlikely” public companies “with substantial market value and access to capital markets will be able to make the required certification in good faith,” and therefore be eligible for such funds. Meanwhile, reports of private equity and venture capital firms receiving aid were rampant early this week, but some firms, at least, were mistakenly listed as recipients. (Indeed, many companies that were listed in the SBA data denied receiving loans.)
The PPP has long drawn the ire of government watchdogs, outside groups, and members of Congress alike for the lack of transparency from the start about who received loans. It’s unclear what the repercussions will be for businesses that took loans they didn’t need. Previous guidance issued by the SBA and Treasury suggested such loans would not be forgiven and would need to be returned, but the Justice Department has already mounted several cases, alleging brazen fraud.
So far, the PPP has provided nearly 4.9 million small businesses with forgivable loans of up to $10 million each.
Now we’ll see what, if anything, whistleblowers have to say about any of them.


fortune--2020-07-10--TikTok is the home of viral dance videos—and geopolitical controversies

Good morning. This is Katherine, filling in for Alan, from London.
The rise, and rise, and rise of the short video app TikTok has been nothing short of fascinating. It seemed to shoot to meteoric popularity almost out of nowhere. First, it was a niche source of viral dance clips and comedy sketches with a growing userbase among American teens. Next, it was a star-making machine for some of those same teenagers, and drawing even established comedians into the fold. Now, it’s reached the next milestone—finding itself at the centre of major geopolitical flash points.
How did this happen? Naomi Xu Elegant, one of Fortune’s reporters in Hong Kong, dug into the app’s dramatic rise, and its relationship with its parent company, China’s ByteDance.
“TikTok is by far one of China’s most successful Internet exports, but its high-profile global presence has made it a bugbear for wariness of the Chinese government and a geopolitical hot potato,” Naomi writes. “TikTok is attempting to distance itself from its owner, but growing global suspicion of Big Tech in general, and of Chinese government influence in particular, spell trouble for the app.”
That has included a ban on TikTok by the Indian government—as the app’s largest market, the country was a source of 89 million monthly active users—after a clash with Chinese soldiers. And then there was the app’s departure from Hong Kong, a small but symbolic market, in light of the new National Security Law. And now, there’s the threat by President Donald Trump to ban the app as retaliation against China, a move that is already drawing the ire of millions of American teenagers.
(The army of angry teens effect is nothing to be sniffed at: remember the activism of K-pop fans for the Black Lives Matter movement, and their controversial role in Trump’s Tulsa rally bust last month?)
The TikTok saga is just one part of the story of Big Tech caught in geopolitical crosshairs, and it’s a story the Hong Kong team has been avidly covering. You can follow Naomi’s reporting here, Grady McGregor’s dispatches here, and Eamon Barrett’s here.
Katherine Dunn
@katherine_dunn
katherine.dunn@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
HK sanctions threaten banks
International banks in Hong Kong are conducting emergency audits to identify Chinese and Hong Kong clients and companies that could fall under a new U.S. sanctions law. The law is expected to be signed into force as early as next week, and could force banks to choose between doing business with either China or the U.S., lawyers said. FT
By December
German biotech firm BioNTech says it will be ready to seek regulatory approval for a vaccine by year-end. The company's chief executive says several hundred million doses could be approved even before regulatory approval is granted. The company is one of 17 worldwide that has started human trials for a vaccine. WSJ
Wirecard scandal gets weirder
The plot thickens. Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek, who disappeared last month in the run up to the unravelling of the German payments company, had reportedly touted secret documents to traders, including ones that contained the exact formula of a Russian nerve agent, and boasted of links to intelligence agencies. FT
Seoul mayor
The mayor of Seoul, South Korea's second-most important figure and a potential presidential candidate, was found dead, local police confirmed early Friday. The body of Park Won-soon was found in northern Seoul after his daughter reported him missing, sending political shock waves across the country. New York Times
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
'Automatic triggers'
A group of more than 150 economists have signed a letter calling on Congress to issue "automatic triggers for cash stimulus payments" to help the U.S. recover economically from COVID-19. These economists would like to see the federal government send additional stimulus checks to U.S. families until the economy reaches a certain threshold of recovery. "Congress absolutely has to send out more money", said Claudia Sahm, one of the signatories. Fortune
Students and teachers
Universities are getting creative in their efforts to prevent international students from being deported under rules that would rescind their immigration status if classes are not held in person. Not having those students affects the talent pipeline at U.S. post secondary institutions—and threatens those same institutions' financial future, writes Fortune's Michal Lev-Ram. “It is in everybody’s interest that we protect these students,” said one professor. Fortune
Robot butchers
Facing the fallout of large outbreaks of COVID-19 among meatpacking plants, where deboning livestock was dangerous and labor-intensive work even pre-pandemic, Tyson Foods is exploring robotics, a development the industry has been slow to adopt. The team includes designers who used to work in the automotive industry. WSJ
'Eat out to help out'
The U.K. government's announcement earlier this week that it would offer Britons half-off vouchers for restaurants meals—which came with plenty of conditions, including that it will cover the food in a pub, but not the alcoholic drinks—was just one of a series of efforts by European governments to inject spending back into their economies: including an Italian vacation credit to rouse the struggling tourism industry. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by Katherine Dunn.


fortune--2020-07-10--French handbags, wine and cheese are on Trump’s tariff list as the fight over digital taxes escalate

French handbags, wine and cheese are on Trump’s tariff list as the fight over digital taxes escalates

France held firm on its plans to resume collection of a national digital tax that hits technology giants including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc., saying it wouldn’t be swayed by threats of U.S. sanctions.
The U.S. plans to announce further details in the long-running battle with France over taxes on technology giants as soon as Friday. The tariff list to be released will be in the ballpark of $500 million to $700 million in goods, according to two people familiar with the matter. The items targeted could include levies on French wine, cheeses and handbags.
“France’s response will be unchanged,” the Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in Brussels. “If there is no international solution by the end of 2020, we will, as we have always said, apply our national tax.”
While a U.S. announcement may come Friday, the U.S. may delay the implementation of the duties until France starts collecting its tax later this year, one of the people said.
Read more about France’s plan to tax digital companies.
Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, indicated such a move was imminent at an event Thursday, according to Politico.
“We’re going to announce that we’re going to be taking certain sanctions against France, suspending them like they’re suspending collection of the taxes right now,” the Washington-based website reported Lighthizer as saying in a webcast hosted by Chatham House, a London-based policy institute. Le Maire said he would speak to Lighthizer by telephone later Friday.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin early Thursday said that he and Lighthizer had completed an extensive review before the Friday deadline to make a determination within a year of a Section 301 investigation. As of early Thursday, the pair had not discussed the matter with the president for a final decision, Mnuchin said.
The U.S. withdrew last month from international talks over a digital-tax deal after failing to reach an agreement on developing a global levy, Lighthizer said last month during a Congressional hearing.
At the time, Treasury Department spokeswoman Monica Crowley said in a statement that the U.S. suggested “a pause in the talks” so that governments can focus on responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and reopening their economies.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has been trying to find agreement among almost 140 countries on a global tax overhaul to address how multinationals — particularly big tech companies — are taxed in the nations where they have users or consumers. An international deal would prevent dozens of countries implementing their own versions of levies.
Several European countries — including Austria, France, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Turkey and the U.K. — have already announced plans for a digital services tax. Many others have discussed implementing one and India in April expanded such a levy that it uses.
“We call on the U.S. to return to the OECD negotiations on taxing digital giants,” Le Maire said. “Sanctions are not a way of operating between countries that are friends, as the U.S. and France are.”


fortune--2020-07-10--Why Beijing is trying to tame China’s runaway stock markets

French handbags , wine and cheese are on Trump ’ s tariff list as the fight over digital taxes escalates

China’s stock markets marked their first decline in eight days on Friday, ending a run more than a week long that saw some stocks reach multiyear highs and featured record-breaking initial public offerings.
Bullish encouragement from Chinese state media kicked off the mainland’s stock market rally. State media outlets then tempered their tone late this week in an attempt to rein in speculation, telling investors to think about the long term, days after predicting a “healthy” bull market.
China’s securities regulator also issued a note of caution on Wednesday when it warned investors of risks in margin financing, a practice in which brokers lend money to investors to buy stocks.
The regulator listed 258 margin lending groups that it said were illegal and told investors not to use such financing. Margin financing is rising at the fastest rate since 2015, according to Bloomberg data, and illegal margin lending is seen as a primary reason for China’s 2015 stock market crash.
Some analysts said the initial bullishness from state news outlets was to help boost consumer spending and China’s economic recovery from the coronavirus slowdown, the Financial Times reported.
But the frenzy of trading this week raised fears of a repeat of the stock market bubble that formed in late 2014 and burst in June 2015.
State media had also encouraged bullish investors in the run that preceded the 2015 crash, when the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges fell more than 40% in the following months. Altogether, the collapse wiped $5 trillion in market cap off China’s exchanges. Beijing ousted the head of the securities regulatory commission, on whose watch the crash occurred, in February 2016.
Stock markets in China are dominated by millions of individual investors. They account for 70% of stock transactions across China’s exchanges and are known for sometimes contributing to market volatility by trading on rumor and a get-rich-quick mentality. Since June 30, China’s stock market has added more than $1 trillion in value.
The Shanghai Composite rose 16.5% for eight days straight on Thursday. Even with Friday’s dip, it’s still up 17.8% since its June low. (The Nasdaq is up 8.4% for the same time period.) Friday’s trading was likely also dampened by the U.S. government’s decision to sanction Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses against the Uighur ethnic minority group, a move that will ratchet up U.S.-China tensions. China has already said it would retaliate.
The week’s market frenzy led to some remarkable listings. One Chinese tech firm, QuantumCTek, surged 924% on its trading debut in Shanghai on Thursday, setting a record for the largest first-day jump of any Chinese IPO. The Star board, which QuantumCTek debuted on, has no trading limits on the first five days of a company’s IPO.
Hopeful economic recovery data coming out of China also buoyed investor confidence this week. China’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose for a fourth straight month in June, according to official data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
Manufacturing PMI, which represents factory activity, is taken as an important indicator of economic performance. The figure plunged 14.3 percentage points in February during nationwide coronavirus shutdowns.


fortune--2020-07-10--China flags another imported food as possible COVID-19 carrier

China said samples of imported shrimp tested positive for the coronavirus, raising questions again over whether the pathogen can spread through food or frozen products.
The virus tested positive on both the inside and outside of the shrimp packaging, said China’s General Administration of Customs. The samples were from three Ecuadorian plants, and imports from those processors will be halted, it said.
“The test result doesn’t mean the virus is contagious, but reflects the loopholes in companies’ food safety regulations,” said Bi Kexin, director of the food import and export safety bureau in the customs department. “Customs will further strengthen control of the origins of imported cold-chain food.”
China last month pointed to imported salmon as a possible culprit for Beijing’s fresh Covid-19 outbreak, sparking a boycott of the fish as supermarkets took the produce off their shelves. China also began mass testing of cold food imports at ports, and blocked shipments from meat plants abroad that reported infections among workers.
However, Chinese officials have also agreed with global experts that imported food poses a low risk of transmitting the virus. That’s led to confusion overseas over why China is continuing to test and halt shipments.
The tests are “an important measure to prevent the risk of the virus being transmitted from imported cold chain food channels,” Bi said. “This is a necessary measure taken to protect the health of the people and does not interrupt normal international trade.”
Employees in some countries are still working even after becoming infected with the virus, raising the risk of food contamination, Bi said. Because there are epidemic clusters at some overseas facilities, China halted meat imports from a total of 23 plants, including Brazil, the U.K., the U.S. and Germany, he said.
China’s customs authorities also tested a total of 227,934 samples and the rest of the samples were negative, it said. The shrimps that tested positive were delivered to ports in Dalian and Xiamen and have been destroyed, it said.


fortune--2020-07-10--‘Crazy’ bull market: Why a warning shot about China’s bull run is spooking global investors

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Happy Friday, Bull Sheeters. The Shanghai Composite’s red-hot eight-day stocks rally has come to a resounding end with state-backed funds selling off their gains, sending a very public message to retail investors: Don’t get too carried away with this “crazy” bull market. The douse of cold water has extended to U.S. futures, too.
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major indexes are all in the red, with the Shanghai Composite’s off 2% .
Composite’s off . The tech startup QuantumCTek embodies Chinese investor exuberance. It made its trading debut yesterday, and promptly soared 924% . It was a record for Shanghai’s Star market. The previous record had been set just two days prior.
embodies Chinese investor exuberance. It made its trading debut yesterday, and promptly soared . It was a record for Shanghai’s Star market. The previous record had been set just two days prior. Hong Kong will close schools again to combat a surge in coronavirus cases.
Europe
It looked to be a risk-off day as European bourses dipped out of the gates. But an hour into the trading session, stocks turned higher with Germany’s DAX up 0.4% .
dipped out of the gates. But an hour into the trading session, stocks turned higher with Germany’s up . I hope you’re not a fan of French wine, cheese or handbags . The Trump Administration appears dead set on slapping tariffs of as much as $700 million on France in retaliation for its digital tax plan .
or . The Trump Administration appears dead set on slapping tariffs of as much as on France in retaliation for its . Summer beer sales are in jeopardy, says Danish Brewer Carlsberg after it announced dismal first-half results this morning.
U.S.
The Nasdaq was the lone major index to eke out a gain yesterday. The crummy jobless claims numbers put investors in a selling mood. Futures are pointing to a negative open .
was the lone major index to eke out a gain yesterday. The crummy numbers put investors in a selling mood. Futures are pointing to a . It’s not an exaggeration to call Tesla the most-hated stock in the world . The total value of short positions on the electric-carmaker are within a whisker of $20 billion , a record. A reminder: shorts keep losing their battle with Elon Musk.
. The total value of on the electric-carmaker are within a whisker of , a record. A reminder: shorts keep losing their battle with Elon Musk. Gold at $1,950? That’s one of the more bullish calls on the shiny yellow stuff. And, no, it has nothing to do with inflation fears.
Elsewhere
On cue: Gold is up.
is up. As is the dollar .
. Crude is down, in line with equities; Brent has sunk to below $42/barrel.
By the Numbers
47.3 million. It’s the classic Goldilocks dilemma. Are weekly jobless claims too high, pretty low, or bang in line with expectations? Yesterday, weekly jobless claims came in at a slightly better-than-expected 1.31 million. But investors are finally starting to fret about the stubbornly high numbers, sending the Dow and S&P lower. For 16 straight weeks now, more than 1 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance, all but dashing hopes of a brisk V-shaped recovery. In the last week, United Airlines, American Airlines, Wells Fargo and Harley Davidson have all warned about job cuts. This is what the carnage in the labor markets looks like:
17.8%. The Shanghai Composite closed in the red on Friday, but it’s on an incredible bull run. In late trade today, I calculated, the index was up 17.8% since its June 15 low. (In the same period, the Nasdaq is up a mere 8.4%). Dominated by individual investors, the Chinese equities markets are not for the faint of the heart. And, sure enough there are jitters on the mainland that the rally has grown too big, too fast. Just today, the state-run China Economic Times warned about the dangers of a “crazy” bull market, Bloomberg reports. In the meantime, behold this incredible chart of the SHCOMP, the Shanghai, courtesy of Bloomberg.
Bloomberg
62.197. I leave this here without comment.
HT to The Market Ear for this tally ^^.
***
Postscript
Will be back on Monday.
***
Have a nice weekend, everyone. I’ll see you here on Monday.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
Today's reads
Free lunch. Stimulus spending plans look a bit different in Europe. Rather than rain helicopter money on the people, alá the CARES ACT checks, they tend to resemble something closer to an oddball gameshow prize: hotel stays, meals out, even babysitters. Fortune's Katherine Dunn explains the latest measure the Brits have cooked up.
More stimulus. Speaking of those taxpayer goodies... The big debate in Washington is whether to send out a second version of the CARES ACT checks to Americans in need, an idea that keeps deficit hawks up at night. But a group of over 150 economists thinks such deficit spending is a great investment. There's a catch, though. Instead of doing just another one-time cash payment, "Congress should pass a bill that includes automatic economic triggers for stimulus payments," one of the lead economists tells Fortune's Lance Lambert.
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a discount offer for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
Market candy
Crypto bull run
Those mischievous TikTokkers are at it again. "Day traders on viral video app TikTok are encouraging people to speculate on a joke cryptocurrency called Dogecoin," reports Fortune's Robert Hackett, sending it up 95% in less than a week. But before you consider liquidating your big Nasdaq or Shanghai Composite bets, you should read this: Dogecoin is a bad investment!


fortune--2020-07-10--There’s more evidence linking TB vaccines and lower COVID-19 death rates

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A tuberculosis vaccine may be linked to a lower risk of dying from COVID-19, but researchers caution that it’s not time to stock up on a supply.
In a study published Thursday, researchers found links between populations who had high levels of bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccinations, a common tuberculosis vaccine, and lower levels of COVID-19 mortality. The link provides some early evidence that the BCG vaccination may protect against COVID-19 deaths, according to the peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The purpose of using the BCG vaccine to protect from severe COVID-19 would be to stimulate a broad, innate, rapid-response immunity,” Luis Escobar, one of the study’s authors and a disease ecologist at the Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources and Environment, told Medical Xpress. The report would seem to challenge the World Health Organization’s position, released in April, that there is “no evidence” that the BCG vaccine protects against COVID-19.
The BCG vaccine was first used on humans in 1921, and became widely used around the world through the 1970s. Many countries in Europe, however, stopped routine inoculation of newborns in the 1970s amid falling levels of tuberculosis infections, according to the study. Escobar and his colleagues examined data from countries with high BCG vaccination rates, such as Brazil and Mexico, with places that have lower rates, like the United States, where the BCG vaccine was never widely used.
After adjusting the data to account for differences such as relative age and the health of various populations, the researchers found that BCG vaccination rates may explain, at least partly, why death rates in countries like Italy, France, and Spain are much higher than in countries like Greece, Hungary, and Poland.
The authors of the study warn that the link they found doesn’t mean that countries should immediately begin stockpiling BCG supplies.
“We’re not looking to advise policy with this paper,” Escobar said, who explained that the purpose of the study was to instead call for more research into the relationship between the BCG vaccine and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to a previous study showing similar results in June, researchers at the Center for Economic Policy Research, a think tank based in the U.S., cautioned that a spike in demand for the BCG vaccine could leave millions across the world vulnerable to deadly tuberculosis infections.
“The BCG vaccine is already in low supply,” the researchers wrote. “[It’s] an important tool in the fight against tuberculosis—a lethal disease that killed 1.5 million people in 2018.”
If more research adds evidence to the notion that the BCG vaccine may help protect against the most severe cases of COVID-19, the world may have to ramp up BCG vaccine production rather than divert existing supplies from areas vulnerable to tuberculosis outbreaks.
“Production would have to increase to meet the sudden spike in vaccine demand in order to prevent a delay in distribution to countries that very much need it to fight tuberculosis,” Carolina Barillas-Mury, an author of the study and a disease researcher at the U.S. National Institutes of Health told Medical Xpress.


fortune--2020-07-10--How TikTok became a geopolitical flashpoint

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In a remote Himalayan valley on June 15, Chinese and Indian military troops engaged in a deadly clash over disputed territory that resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese casualties.
By the end of the month, India, citing data security concerns, had banned 59 Chinese mobile apps, including the popular video platform TikTok.
Since then, officials in the U.S. and Australia have called for bans of the app over concerns that the Chinese government can access TikTok’s user data, since the app is owned by Beijing-based tech firm ByteDance Ltd.
Before the government ban, India was TikTok’s largest market with 81 million monthly active users (MAUs). The loss of the U.S. market and its 30 million MAUs would prove another huge blow.
TikTok is by far one of China’s most successful Internet exports, but its high-profile global presence has made it a bugbear for wariness of the Chinese government and a geopolitical hot potato. TikTok is attempting to distance itself from its owner, but growing global suspicion of Big Tech in general and of Chinese government influence in particular spell trouble for the app.
A geopolitical bugbear
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the U.S. is considering a ban on TikTok, a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Americans should not use TikTok unless they want their data “in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, in response to a question about the possible ban during a Wednesday press conference, said that “some people in the U.S.” should “stop employing state power to oppress Chinese companies.”
“The Chinese government always asks Chinese companies to observe laws and regulations when doing business overseas,” Zhao said. “If we follow the logic of the U.S. side, can we say that American social media companies, with a large number of users globally, pose a grave security threat to all other countries in the world?”
TikTok has been an object of scrutiny in the U.S. for months. The government launched a national security investigation of ByteDance in November, and later that month, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said TikTok was “compromised by the Chinese Communist Party.”
TikTok is not available for download in mainland China; ByteDance operates a China-only version of the app called Douyin within the mainland.
“TikTok is led by an American CEO, with hundreds of employees and key leaders across safety, security, product, and public policy here in the U.S.,” a company spokesperson told Bloomberg on Wednesday. “We have never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked.”
Cybersecurity firm Check Point published research in January that found TikTok had security vulnerabilities that would have opened user data up to hackers. TikTok learned of the research in November 2019 and said it had fixed the vulnerabilities by Dec. 15 of that year.
Officials and activists have also criticized TikTok for allegedly censoring content deemed politically sensitive or controversial in China, including videos related to Tibet, Taiwan, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. TikTok has denied the censorship allegations.
“Even though ByteDance has claimed that the operation of TikTok is separate from Douyin, some recent incidences seem to indicate that they’re still under pressure from Chinese censors,” said Yun Jiang, a researcher at the Australian Center on China in the World at the Australian National University.
TikTok collects users’ location, Internet address, and browsing history; it can also store phone numbers, age, and payment information if users opt in. The company told the Wall Street Journal it collects less personal data than U.S. companies like Facebook or Google.
“TikTok, like all social media companies, collects users’ data,” Jiang said. “There are concerns that because it is owned by a Chinese company, it will be difficult for the company to refuse information requests from the Chinese government.”
Such concerns, Jiang said, are similar to those leveled at Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies in recent months. Several countries have banned Huawei networking equipment and Washington blacklisted the company in May 2019 after trade negotiations with China broke down.
Dev Lewis, a fellow at Hong Kong–based research think tank Digital Asia Hub, is wary of comparisons between TikTok and Huawei because the companies are so different: The former is a highly visible social media app with huge name recognition in the U.S., and the latter is a telecom equipment manufacturer that, despite being the second-biggest smartphone maker in the world, is largely unfamiliar to U.S. consumers.
People gather in Hyderabad, India, on June 30, in support of the Indian government’s ban of TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps over data security concerns. NOAH SEELAM/AFP via Getty Images
“As long as trust in Beijing continues to fall, trust in any Chinese company will continue to decline, and so in that sense you can paint them in the same brush,” Lewis said.
This week, scrutiny of TikTok extended beyond India and the U.S. when Australian Sen. Jim Molan, deputy chair of Australia’s Foreign Interference Through Social Media Committee, said that TikTok may be “a data collection service disguised as social media,” and another official said Australia should ban TikTok and other Chinese apps. TikTok’s general manager in Australia told the Guardian that TikTok does not share data with foreign governments. Representatives for TikTok did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
Part of TikTok’s susceptibility to government scrutiny is its immense popularity outside China—unprecedented for a Chinese app.
The Tencent Holdings–owned social platform WeChat is globally popular, but its user base is mostly limited to Chinese diaspora communities and people with business or research ties to China. TikTok, on the other hand, has spawned a lucrative influencer culture in the U.S.; the platform’s most popular faces are American teenagers with talent agency contracts, tens of millions of followers, and dating lives that make headlines.
“TikTok is really the first Chinese app that’s actually been embedded in local culture around the world,” Lewis said.
TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, 16, during an interview on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in March. D’Amelio’s is the most-followed account on TikTok with more than 69 million followers. Andrew Lipovsky/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Lewis said the growing global skepticism toward Big Tech, set off by data security scandals and disinformation campaigns, contributes to government suspicion of TikTok.
“You really have this double trend of no trust, and fear of Beijing and what Beijing may do, plus general apprehension of how Internet companies govern,” Lewis said.
“Until TikTok, the U.S. has never had to deal with this problem—they’ve never had a foreign country with a successful app in their country,” Lewis added. “Most countries outside the U.S. have been dealing with this.” Countries like India “have been struggling with [these questions] for years,” he said.
Independence from ByteDance
In 2018, after the Chinese government criticized ByteDance-owned news aggregation app Jinri Toutiao for “vulgar content” and temporarily banned it from app stores, ByteDance’s billionaire founder Zhang Yiming issued a long public apology and said Toutiao would hire more staff for its internal censorship division.
Zhang’s pledge to comply with government content regulations is another reason behind the effort to assert TikTok’s functional independence from ByteDance. Senior ByteDance executives are considering setting up a headquarters for TikTok outside China and creating a new management board for the app, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
TikTok’s chief executive, Kevin Mayer, is an American who left a senior role at Disney in May to lead the short video app. Mayer is also chief operating officer of ByteDance and lives in Los Angeles but travels frequently to Beijing.
TikTok withdrew from the Hong Kong market this week after Beijing enacted a sweeping national security law in Hong Kong under which authorities can demand tech firms provide user data and remove content.
Lewis said the withdrawal was “a direct result of the national security law” and a signal to the global market that TikTok is “truly separate from Beijing; that [TikTok is] not going to be holding servers in areas and jurisdictions where Beijing can request data.”
Hong Kong is a small, money-losing market for the platform. The decision means Google and Apple app stores will no longer offer TikTok to Hong Kong users. Users who previously downloaded the app are no longer able to access it. On Thursday evening in Hong Kong, users who opened the mobile app received a pop-up that said, “We regret to inform you that we have discontinued operating TikTok in Hong Kong.” The home page was a black screen.
The TikTok app now displays this pop-up notification when users in Hong Kong open it. Naomi Xu Elegant
Lewis said it’s unlikely that TikTok’s decision to pull out of Hong Kong will assuage the concerns voiced by the governments of India, Australia, and the U.S.
ByteDance forecasts a loss of more than $6 billion resulting from the India ban, which restricted TikTok and two other ByteDance apps, Chinese business magazine Caixin reported. ByteDance—considered the world’s most valuable startup—generated $17 billion in revenue and $3 billion in net profit last year.
TikTok on Wednesday debuted a new advertising platform focused on small businesses; the global political controversy around TikTok is expected to be a challenge to the success of the launch. ByteDance earned $5.6 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2020 through ad sales mostly from Douyin, its mainland China app, Reuters reported.
“The only solution” that might ease suspicions of Chinese government involvement in the app would be if ByteDance sells TikTok to another company “that’s considered acceptable to the U.S. or other major markets,” Lewis said.
India’s decision to ban TikTok may “start a precedent for democratic countries,” Lewis said, and U.S. and Australian bans of the app are “very much in the realm of possibility.”
He added that Europe may soon be TikTok’s “friendliest market,” in part because the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) protects European users’ data and gives companies like TikTok clear rules of conduct, unlike the U.S. or India, which do not have GDPR-like protections.
Otherwise, Lewis said, as long as geopolitical tensions between China and other countries continue to rise, “TikTok will undoubtedly be caught in the middle.”


fortune--2020-07-11--The price for publicly supporting President Trump is much more expensive than a can of Goya beans

Map : It ’ s not just Florida , Texas , California , and Arizona driving the new record high @ @ @ @

Will B corporations save capitalism? Also, Goya’s CEO fails to read the room, and the Fed’s Beige Book is a little too beige. Oh, and guess who’s not coming for dinner? Americans.
But first, here’s your commemorative week in review in Haiku.
Take a moment for
Ola Mae Spinks, who made sure
we knew all our true
stories, which had been
left in boxes and baskets,
unattended to.
“I went to school one
day in my life,” said William
Jackson, once enslaved.
Her grandfather was
fed from a pig trough. She saved
that story, too. Now
for her homegoing:
#SayTheirNames and bear witness,
like she did for us
Have an organized and righteous weekend.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On point
Out with the shareholders, in with society You'd be forgiven for thinking a global pandemic that's decimated the economy would prompt companies to prioritize the bottom line. And make no mistake, some have done just that. But others are using the moment to accelerate progress with their social and environmental impact goals, rather than just preserving profits. On the latest episode of Fortune's Leadership Next podcast, Alan Murray spoke with Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Fortune Global 500 food giant Damone. The company is on the path to become a certified B Corporation (the "B" stands for beneficial), a credential that Faber says will give Damone a competitive advantage both socially and financially. Anthea Kelsick, co-CEO of B Lab U.S. and Canada—the nonprofit that awards the B Corp certification—told me she agrees, especially as businesses reckon with not only the coronavirus, but systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd. “There is no better tool than B Corp certification to measure and also manage how to deliver that value,” Kelsick said. “Being armed with the right tools to put that thinking into practice is so incredibly important right now.”
Fortune
#BoycottGoya trends as company CEO offends todo el mundo Goya products are a staple in Hispanic cuisine and often, but not only, found in the pantries of many Latinx homes. That hegemony is in peril thanks to comments made by Robert Unanue, the CEO and grandson of the company’s founder, at a Rose Garden event yesterday. “We are all truly blessed, at the same time, to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder,” he said standing near Trump. Almost immediately, #BoycottGoya, #GoyaFoods, and delightfully, #Goyaway, began trending on Twitter. Se cancelan.
Fortune
The Beige Book is, well, too beige It may seem obscure, but the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, an analysis of the local economies generated by the 12 regional Fed banks, is a real page-turner for economists. And that's a problem. “It’s written from the perspective of people selling products, not the people buying the products, consumers,” Andrew Levin, a former Fed economist tells Marketplace. “It doesn’t really reflect people of color — it’s just missing a lot of the reality of what’s happening to real people in the real world in ordinary communities.”
Marketplace
Want more diverse corporate boards? White directors, investors, and executives need more Black friends. This is the smart takeaway from Seth Levine, the managing director of the Boulder, CO-based tech investment firm, the Foundry Group. The feedback loop is embarrassingly small for talent at that level. “Companies typically look for new board directors on their own (meaning they typically don’t engage a search firm) and the result is that most new board members are either directly connected to their existing board or management team or one degree away,” he says. Folks who consider themselves dialed-in, typically are not. As he looks to diversify his own network, he notes that he sits on 14 (!!) boards and stays an average of five years, but longer on several. The solution may lie in both a conscious effort to diversify personal networks, and then, get out of the way.
VC Adventure
What’s an American passport worth? This terrifying piece lays out life in the now plague-ridden U.S. and the consequences for international travel. Even if you factor in countries, like Ireland, who still require U.S. citizens to quarantine for 14 days on arrival, easy, visa-free travel is a thing of the past. “Americans have gone from having access to most of the world to being banned from most of it,” says Sri Lankan-based writer Indi Samarajiva. It’s not personal, though. “The point of a passport is that a sovereign power vouches for its bearer, but America can’t vouch for the health of their citizens at all,” he writes. “Americans have poor hygiene (low masking rate) and at least 40% of the population can’t be trusted to even believe that COVID-19 exists, let alone to take it seriously. They’re likely to refuse testing, not report symptoms, break quarantine, and generally follow rules.” Ouch.
Medium
On background
A little poetry for your soul Dr. Matthew E. Henry has logged nearly two decades of teaching philosophy and literature at predominantly white institutions. His debut collection of poetry, Teaching While Black, is deeply autobiographical and speaks eloquently to this moment in time. “There are poems that are 100 percent accurate to things that have happened in the (school) building,” he tells the Lesley University blog. He’s been called the n-word, been forced to explain why all lives don’t evidently matter, and has been encouraging candid conversations about race in his classroom. “Seeing this utter breakdown of civility, I can only watch so many videos of someone dying and not say something,” he says. “[My poetry], it’s definitely more Malcolm than Martin right now.”
Lesley University
We need to talk about white liberals This is the opinion of Betsy Hodges, former mayor of Minneapolis, who points out that while erstwhile liberal Democrats have run large and medium-sized cities for decades, vital socioeconomic outcomes continue to vary widely between Black and white populations. “White liberals, despite believing we are saying and doing the right things, have resisted the systemic changes our cities have needed for decades, says Hodges, the white Democratic mayo of Minneapolis from 2014 to 2018. “We have mostly settled for illusions of change, like testing pilot programs and funding volunteer opportunities.” It feels good to be on the right side of things on paper, “but fundamentally change little for the communities of color whose disadvantages often come from the hoarding of advantage by mostly white neighborhoods.” Then, she takes on the police.
New York Times
A documentary charts the portrayal of “American Indians” in Hollywood Reel Injun is a surprising 2009 documentary directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond, that explores Hollywood’s portrayal of the Indian over the century long history of film. There are many jaw-dropping surprises; some of the earliest films ever made were made by Indigenous people celebrating their own culture. Then along came John Wayne. Though a meaningful Indigenous filmmaker movement is established and growing, they continue to struggle to counteract the deep cultural damage that John Wayne and bigoted Hollywood image-making has wrought. If you’re new to the debate on racist mascots, this is a great place to get you started. Streaming all over, or head over to PBS for clips, below.
PBS
raceAhead is edited by Aric Jenkins.
Today's mood board
Tropical Storm Fay hit the east coast today, and it's a doozy. Stay dry out there, folks.


fortune--2020-07-10--Elon Musk just surged past Warren Buffett on the list of the world’s richest people

The price for publicly supporting President Trump is much more expensive than a can of Goya beans

Subscribe to Bull Sheet for no-nonsense daily analysis on what’s happening in the markets, delivered free to your inbox.
Elon Musk is now richer than Warren Buffett.
The fortune of Tesla Inc.’s founder rose $6.1 billion on Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after the carmaker’s stock surged 11%. Musk is now the world’s seventh-richest person, also ahead of tech titans Larry Ellison and Sergey Brin.
The 49-year-old owns about a fifth of Tesla’s outstanding stock, which comprises the bulk of his $70.5 billion fortune. His majority ownership of closely held Space-X accounts for about $15 billion.
Shares of the electric car-maker have risen 269% this year. The firm’s booming valuation helped Musk land a $595 million pay-day earlier this year, making him the highest-paid CEO in the U.S.
Musk is the latest tech entrepreneur to rise above Buffett in the rank’s of the world’s richest. Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft Corp. CEO, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Brin also have leapfrogged the Oracle of Omaha. Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani also surpassed Buffett this week.
Mike Novogratz, the longtime money manager who now runs digital currency investor Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd., warned that valuations of technology companies are getting way too high and that small investors should get out of the market before it crashes.
“We are in irrational exuberance—this is a bubble,” he said Friday in a Bloomberg Television interview. “The economy is grinding, slowing down, we’re lurching in and out of COVID, yet the tech market makes new highs every day. That’s a classic speculative bubble.”
Buffett’s fortune dropped earlier this week when he donated $2.9 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock to charity. The 89-year-old has given away more than $37 billion of Berkshire shares since 2006.


fortune--2020-07-10--Trump administration quietly rolls back protections against predatory payday loans

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President Donald Trump quietly ended a rule intended to protect low-income Americans from predatory high-interest payday loans this week. The move reverses a banner Obama-era initiative that required lenders to make sure that someone taking out a loan could afford to repay it.
The rule, which was instituted and then reversed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would have held payday lenders to the same basic rules that banks must abide by, evaluating someone’s income and monthly payments before handing them a personal loan.
Democrats and other advocates say that the Trump administration is removing essential protections for vulnerable populations in the midst of a global pandemic and recession.
“By eliminating the ability-to-repay protections, the CFPB is making a grave error that leaves the 12 million Americans who use payday loans every year exposed to unaffordable payments at annual interest rates that average nearly 400%,” said Alex Horowitz, senior research officer with Pew Charitable Trusts’ consumer finance project.
Elizabeth Warren, who led the creation of the bureau following the 2008 financial crisis called the decision “appalling.”
The interest rates on payday loans average at 400% nationally but often exceed 600%, compared to personal loan rates that typically range between 10% and 28%. About 80% of people who take out payday loans aren’t able to pay them back within two weeks and have to take out another loan, perpetuating their indentureship to these loan companies, according to the CFPB. The industry also has a history of purposefully targeting communities of color.
In 2017, the Obama-appointed CFPB approved a rule to limit loans of this nature after conducting five years of research and hearing public comments. The rule was set to be implemented in 2018 but was delayed by Trump’s former CFPB head Mick Mulvaney and then overturned entirely by current-head Kathy Kraninger.
“Our actions today ensure that consumers have access to credit from a competitive marketplace, have the best information to make informed financial decisions, and retain key protections without hindering that access,” said Kraninger in a statement.
No new research was done by Kraninger to justify the rollback and some ex-CFPB staffers allege that some Trump appointees manipulated data around payday loans when proposing the rollback.
Mike Hodges, the CEO of Advance Financial, one of the country’s largest payday lenders has donated well over $1.25 million to Trump and said in an online webinar last year that his donations have given him access to administration officials where he pled his case to rollback the rule.
“I’ve gone to [Republican National Committee chair] Ronna McDaniel and said, ‘Ronna, I need help on something,’” Hodges said during the online seminar, hosted by industry consultant group Borrow Smart Compliance.
“She’s been able to call over to the White House and say, ‘Hey, we have one of our large givers. They need an audience,’” he said. “I have gone to the White House and … the White House has been helpful on this particular rule that we’re working on right now. In fact, it’s the White House’s financial policy stance to remove the rule and even the payments piece.”
Senator Sherrod Brown related the rule change directly to Hodges’ donations this week, saying that “the CFPB gave payday lenders exactly what they paid for by gutting a rule that would have protected American families from predatory loans that trap them in cycles of debt.”
Presidential candidate Joe Biden indicated in a recent tweet that if elected president he would fire Kraninger from her role. “Here’s my promise to you: I’ll appoint a director who will actually go after financial predators and protect consumers,” he wrote.


fortune--2020-07-10--Map: It’s not just Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona driving the new record high in U.S. COVID

Map: It’s not just Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona driving the new record high in U.S. COVID cases

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The U.S. hit another grim record this week as new coronavirus cases reached a single-day high of nearly 60,000—a figure that the New York Times reported was the sixth single-day record in 10 days. On Thursday alone, Alabama, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, and Texas set all-time highs.
According to a Fortune analysis of New York Times data, 17 states have seen an average daily increase of at least 200 cases when compared with two weeks ago, led by more than 5,000 in Florida, with California and Texas both tallying more than 3,000. Only Arkansas and New Jersey saw declines, while Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming were all flat.
While the national death toll from the coronavirus has been trending down for nearly three months, there are now concerns that big increases in deaths in the southern region of the U.S. could turn that number positive. California (80), Texas (68), and Florida (56) have the highest seven-day moving average, ended July 9, of deaths from the coronavirus.
The number of daily deaths nationally from the coronavirus is still well below its peak in April, but the declining death toll had been one of the few improvements the U.S. has been able to tout in its fight against the coronavirus.
Experts have suggested that the death toll has not increased at the same rate as new cases for a number of reasons, outlined by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic yesterday: The average COVID-19 patient is getting younger, deaths lag behind diagnosed cases, and increased testing may be capturing less lethal cases in the data.
State-by-state breakdown of daily new cases New cases based on a seven-day average State June 25 July 9 Change Alabama 714.3 1294.7 580.4 Alaska 25.1 42.4 17.3 Arizona 2795.1 3612.6 817.4 Arkansas 590.6 568.1 -22.4 California 4896.9 7902.6 3005.7 Colorado 225.3 324.1 98.9 Connecticut 79.1 80.4 1.3 Delaware 68.7 114.3 45.6 District of Columbia 36.6 41.3 4.7 Florida 4013.1 9087.4 5074.3 Georgia 1393.7 2316.9 923.1 Guam 7.4 4.1 -3.3 Hawaii 12.3 26.1 13.9 Idaho 160.7 415.7 255 Illinois 693.4 825.9 132.4 Indiana 328.4 468 139.6 Iowa 346.4 436.7 90.3 Kansas 188.7 400.7 212 Kentucky 200.3 315.1 114.9 Louisiana 574.6 1490.4 915.9 Maine 27.4 22.6 -4.9 Maryland 365.4 431.7 66.3 Massachusetts 202.1 222.7 20.6 Michigan 311.3 484.9 173.6 Minnesota 350.1 422 71.9 Mississippi 499.1 688.7 189.6 Missouri 369.7 602.3 232.6 Montana 21.1 54.7 33.6 Nebraska 133 168.9 35.9 Nevada 392.4 740.6 348.1 New Hampshire 26.9 21.6 -5.3 New Jersey 563.3 286.4 -276.9 New Mexico 148.4 247.3 98.9 New York 661.7 652.1 -9.6 North Carolina 1301.7 1591.4 289.7 North Dakota 29 58.3 29.3 Northern Mariana Islands 0 0.1 0.1 Ohio 647 1023.6 376.6 Oklahoma 370.4 565.3 194.9 Oregon 171.7 270.7 99 Pennsylvania 492.9 704.4 211.6 Puerto Rico 109.4 179.1 69.7 Rhode Island 53 43.1 -9.9 South Carolina 1067.7 1570 502.3 South Dakota 52.9 63.3 10.4 Tennessee 727.3 1479.3 752 Texas 4872.3 8252.1 3379.9 Utah 504.1 595.1 91 Vermont 8 6.4 -1.6 Virgin Islands 1.1 6.6 5.4 Virginia 529.7 607.6 77.9 Washington 476.4 635.4 159 West Virginia 39.3 110.4 71.1 Wisconsin 370.4 640.3 269.9 Wyoming 26 32 6


fortune--2020-07-10--Gilead says remdesivir slashes coronavirus deaths. But it’s complicated

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Shares of biotech giant Gilead spiked more than 2% in Friday trading after the company claimed that its coronavirus treatment, remdesivir, slashed the risk of death from COVID-19 in a new study. But there’s a lot of nuance and unanswered questions about the data, as the company itself and public health experts pointed out, and the drug still shouldn’t be perceived as a silver bullet.
Remdesivir was the first treatment given Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency authorization for treating critically ill patients with COVID-19. Several trials—including a randomized study conducted in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—have shown that remdesivir can reduce the amount of time very sick patients have to spend in the hospital. But whether or not it reduces the risk of dying from COVID-19 is way more complicated.
In its latest release, Gilead says that its study shows that remdesivir may lower mortality risk for coronavirus patients by 62%. That figure, however, is an assessment of relative risk, which is different from absolute risk.
Without wading too deep into the mathematical weeds, what this generally means is that comparing percentages of patients who die with one therapy versus another treatment course isn’t the be-all and end-all of a treatment’s effectiveness. You can lower a death rate from 10% to 8%. That’s technically a 20% relative reduction; but on an absolute level, you still have 8% of people dying.
In Gilead’s case the company claims that for patients being treated with remdesivir, after 14 days the mortality rate fell to 7.6% versus 12.5% for those being treated with existing standard-of-care options.
That’s a noticeable difference. But the nuances persist, as stated by experts in Gilead’s own press release. The study was not randomized (meaning, it pitted different data pools together, which can lead to discrepancies), and there wasn’t a placebo arm to test true efficacy on the mortality front.
That doesn’t mean that it’s completely insignificant information. But it does mean that a whole lot more data in more rigorous clinical settings, along the lines of the NIH trial showing remdesivir can at least cut down the recovery time for severely ill COVID patients, would be required.
“While not as vigorous as a randomized controlled trial, this analysis importantly draws from a real-world setting and serves as an important adjunct to clinical trial data,” said Dr. Susan Olender, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, in Gilead’s statement.
Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb echoed the sentiment about balancing hope and scientific caution in a tweet. “This is very encouraging but needs to be confirmed in a prospective trial,” he wrote, referring to the need to conduct a trial that isn’t based on analyses from disparate sources.


fortune--2020-07-10--Facebook may ban political ads ahead of November election

Facebook is considering imposing a ban on political ads on its social network in the days leading up to the U.S. election in November, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.
The potential ban is still only being discussed and hasn’t yet been finalized, said the people, who asked not to be named talking about internal policies. A halt on ads could serve as a defense against misleading election-related content spreading widely right as people prepare to vote. Still, there are also concerns that an ad blackout could hurt “get out the vote” campaigns, or limit a candidate’s ability to respond widely to breaking news or new information.
Facebook doesn’t fact-check ads from politicians or their campaigns, a point of contention for many lawmakers and advocates, who say the policy means ads on the platform could be used to spread lies and misinformation. The social-media giant has been criticized in recent weeks by civil rights groups that say it doesn’t do enough to remove efforts to limit voter participation, and a recent audit of the company found Facebook failed to enforce its own voter suppression policies when it comes to posts from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Hundreds of advertisers are currently boycotting Facebook’s advertising products as part of a protest against its policies.
Advertising blackouts before elections are common in other parts of the world, including the U.K., where Facebook’s global head of policy, Nick Clegg, was once deputy prime minister. A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment.
In 2016, Russian operatives used Facebook to spread misleading and divisive ads and posts, and the company has made a series of changes since then to tighten up its political ad process, including the implementation of stricter requirements for buying marketing spots and the addition of a searchable ad archive.


fortune--2020-07-10--Coronavirus exposes the trouble of scientific unknowns

TGIF, readers.
If you missed any of our coverage for the first-ever virtual Brainstorm Health conference, look no further—we have a comprehensive roundup ready for you right here. From NBA commissioner Adam Silver to Seema Verma, the administrator of the powerful Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), to numerous Fortune 500 CEOs, it was an extraordinary meeting of minds.
It’s no surprise that the coronavirus pandemic took up a lot of the conversation. And while Americans may have started to get fatigued with the onslaught of COVID news (trust me, it’s exhausting on my end, too), there’s a very clear reason for the focus: There’s simply just so much we still don’t know.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the NIH leader who has become one of the most prominent faces in America’s response to the pandemic, highlighted some of those uncertainties today. “I have never seen a virus in which you have 20% to 40% of individuals who could have no symptoms at all, to individuals who get mild illness and do not need to go to a hospital, to people confined to their beds at home for weeks with multiple postviral syndromes,” he said during an International AIDS 2020 press conference this week.
Is the virus airborne, or is the bigger problem droplets from the nose and mouth which contain the virus and spread via surfaces and close contact? We still have more work to do in figuring that out, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Scientists across the globe have differing opinions and data on that very issue.
The WHO has been cautious about the issue of airborne transmission, especially outside with social distancing and masks. But updated guidance released on Thursday suggests it could be more of a concern indoors.
“There have been reported outbreaks of COVID-19 in some closed settings, such as restaurants, nightclubs, places of worship or places of work where people may be shouting, talking, or singing,” wrote the agency. “In these outbreaks, aerosol transmission, particularly in these indoor locations where there are crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces where infected persons spend long periods of time with others, cannot be ruled out.”
The WHO went on to add that more studies are urgently needed about how coronavirus transmission works.
For now it still appears that close and insulated contact, as well as droplets which may collect on surfaces, are still the major problem. But the fact of the matter is that it will take significantly more time to understand this pathogen’s full nature.
Read on for the day’s news, and have a wonderful weekend.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
Do Americans trust Big Tech with their health data? Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and other tech giants have been rushing into the digital health field, including through apps that aim to deliver patients' personal health data directly to their phones and save them the hassle of having to fax a doctor for a medical record. But do Americans actually trust these firms with that task? My colleague Lance Lambert reports on a Fortune survey of nearly 1,300 American adults to see which firms are considered most trustworthy by the public. Key takeaways? 31% said they trusted Apple with their personal health information, 18% said they trusted Alphabet/Google Health (the lowest figure for any tech company in the survey), and 30% said they believe Amazon will be the most disruptive Big Tech firm in health care in the next five years. (Fortune)
INDICATIONS
Gilead says remdesivir slashes death risk. It's complicated. Gilead shot out a press release on Friday claiming that its COVID-19 treatment, remdesivir, significantly lowers the risk of death among critically ill patients (to the tune of 62% reduced mortality risk). But that figure, and the release itself, is filled with nuances. For one thing, that 62% topline figure is "relative risk" rather than "absolute risk," an important nuance in clinical studies. And then there's the issue of the study, which was not a randomized clinical trial. It's still encouraging stuff, but as Gilead and several prominent health experts have pointed out, we're going to need a lot more information before hailing this study as a significant victory.
BioNTech reportedly thinks its coronavirus vaccine could be ready for approval by December. The German biotech BioNTech is bullish about its experimental coronavirus vaccine's chances, according to the Wall Street Journal. BioNTech, which is partnered with American drug giant Pfizer, believes that the vaccine candidate could prove effective in time to apply for regulatory approval by December, setting up mass manufacturing by 2021. But the company's CEO also cautioned that it will take years to fully contain the pandemic given how many people across the world have already been infected. (Wall Street Journal)
THE BIG PICTURE
More than 20 states now require wearing face masks in public. As cases continue to swell in the U.S., more than 20 states have now issued face mask requirements in public. The mask mandates have been issued in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, according to NPR. (NPR)
REQUIRED READING
Gold is booming during COVID-19. Smuggling is too. by Jeremy Kahn
There's more evidence linking TB vaccines and lower COVID death rates, by Grady McGregor
How IBM Watson computers are speeding up the search for a COVID-19 vaccine, by Jen Wieczner
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fortune--2020-07-10--Big investors, we can’t fight poverty or protect the planet without you

When the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were first adopted by global governments at the United Nations in 2015, they were designed as an ambitious universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure growing global prosperity, with a target of the year 2030. With 10 years left to fulfill these goals and the broader 2030 agenda, the SDGs have never been more relevant.
Today, as we grapple with an unprecedented global health crisis and the economic consequences that follow, we are also seeing many fractures within society, with tens of thousands taking to the streets across the globe in a historic display of outrage over racial inequality. The potential real-world consequences of falling short in delivering on the SDGs could not be clearer.
Many investors and corporate leaders, along with elected officials and governments, clearly recognize their inherent responsibility to respond to these tumultuous times with solutions that foster change and help us to address some of the most pressing and urgent issues we face, ranging from climate change, human rights abuses, inequality, and social inclusion. However, while public sector leaders who neglect the imperative of addressing issues that the SDGs seek to mitigate can be held accountable at the ballot box, those in the private sector have traditionally not had the same level of scrutiny.
Thankfully, this is starting to change. Our private sector model that has been built around Milton Friedman’s economic theory and a shareholder-first, profit-first mindset is moving toward a more inclusive “stakeholder capitalism” approach. This approach moves beyond shareholder primacy and considers a wider set of stakeholders including employees, suppliers, and communities, as evidenced by the Business Roundtable’s statement on the purpose of the corporation.
On the investor side, at the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), we are seeing an increasing number of signatories send strong messages to companies through their engagement and proxy voting activities on their expectations around the incorporation of ESG issues into a company’s strategies and business plans, as well as the role they expect them to play in our broader society.
However, with the sheer scale of the challenges we now face, things are not changing fast enough, and we need to see more action to back up these words. We need to know that these words are worth more than the paper they are written on. The SDGs clearly have a role to play in aligning the demands of governments, business, and investors with civil society, which is why the PRI has released a new framework on Investing with SDG Outcomes to support those signatories that are seeking to shape outcomes in line with the SDGs.
All investments have outcomes in the real world that can be both positive and negative, and investors have the ability to shape both the positive and negative outcomes of pressing global issues. This means looking beyond financially material environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues alone, and tackling societal and environmental factors on a systemic level as part of their investment strategies, and wider collaborative actions, to support the achievement of the SDGs by 2030. It means not just thinking about the returns they make for their beneficiaries and clients, but also to consider the world in which those beneficiaries live and want to retire into.
The framework emphasizes that investors can use key levers, including investment decisions, stewardship of the companies they invest in, and engagement with key stakeholders to shape outcomes in line with the SDGs—and the critical role for collective action.
As a starting point, investors can begin by understanding the unintended outcomes from their current investments. But to have a real impact, they will need to set policies and targets to shape outcomes in line with the SDGs, including a focus on both increasing positive outcomes and decreasing negative ones. If the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing unrest around racial inequality has taught us anything, it is the importance of working together toward our common goals. That is why the PRI’s framework also encourages investors to collaborate with stakeholders such as businesses, governments, academia, NGOs, the media, and the broader public in order to achieve outcomes in line with the SDGs.
Some investors are already successfully implementing systems to align investments with the SDGs. Investment managers such as Actis in the United Kingdom have developed in-house tools to identify, measure, and monitor the positive social and environmental outcomes of their investments. U.K.-based Aviva Investors applies an ESG-balanced scorecard approach to analyze proposed real assets transactions, complemented by an impact overlay to consider a project’s potential contribution to the SDGs.
Ultimately, no person is an island, and no investor or business can thrive in the long term in a world that faces continued upheaval and uncertainty. It’s time investors recognize the unique role they have to play in addressing the biggest challenges we face.
It’s time they start playing a bigger role in being part of the solution.
Fiona Reynolds is CEO of Principles for Responsible Investment, a United Nations–supported nonprofit made up of institutional investors committed to integrating environmental, social, and governance issues into investment decision making.


fortune--2020-07-10--Amazon instructs employees to delete TikTok from phones, then retracts the order

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Amazon’s IT department told its workers they must remove TikTok, the popular video-sharing app, from their phones by today if the device in question has access to the company’s corporate email.
A source who did not wish to be named informed Fortune of the order on Friday morning, saying the company told him by email that it knew he had the app installed on his phone. Meanwhile, a reporter from the tech news site The Information tweeted a screenshot of the order:
🚨: Amazon’s IT department has told *all staff* to delete TikTok from their phones over “security risks”….. pic.twitter.com/HxzlK8RKgi — Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) July 10, 2020
The source who contacted Fortune said the message in the tweet above is accurate.
Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the alleged order or why it decided to issue it. But late on Friday afternoon, a spokesperson for the company sent a statement saying the email had been sent “in error” and that “there is no change to our policies right now related to TikTok.”
The reported decree by Amazon is likely to increase scrutiny of TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. Critics say the app’s users are vulnerable to spying by authorities in China, where many companies lack independence from the ruling Communist Party.
The Amazon email, which stated employees could continue to access TikTok on their laptops, was sent in the same week that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump have called for banning TikTok. It’s unclear that a broad-based ban would be constitutional in the U.S., and civil rights lawyers have noted that the federal government may be able to do little more than forbid its employees from using TikTok.
TikTok has pushed back against claims that it is vulnerable to Chinese spying, and has pointed to its operations in the U.S. to indicate that it acts as an American company.
“While Amazon did not communicate to us before sending their email, and we still do not understand their concerns, we welcome a dialogue so we can address any issues they may have and enable their team to continue participating in our community,” said the company in a statement.
Update: This story now contains Amazon’s statement that the email was sent in error.


fortune--2020-07-10--To beat COVID-19, working families need a national paid leave program

As the Senate considers the Heroes Act—a $3 trillion stimulus bill recently passed by the House to stem the spread of COVID-19 and stave off a full-fledged depression—millions of families across America continue to suffer the health and economic impacts of the pandemic. And during this unprecedented time, working families across the country are speaking out about the specific challenges they face, exposing a common and disturbing theme: a lack of access to paid leave.
One mom who spoke to Paid Leave for the U.S. Action Fund (PL+US Action)—the leading national campaign to win a federal paid leave policy—talked about potentially being “forced to choose between employment and childcare.” Another was worried that our current system forces workers to “choose between getting paid and your health.” And many were concerned about unknowns that lie ahead. As one mother put it, “If my job transitions back into a non–work-from-home position, I don’t know what I will do as a single mom who can’t leave her kids home alone all day.”
Working families are voicing these fears as the pandemic demonstrates the importance of paid leave as an economic necessity. But now, we are also clearly seeing paid leave as a public health issue. Similarly, essential workers—disproportionately people of color with higher exposure to the virus—in many cases do not have access to paid leave and paid sick days and need time to get healthy. For example, only 8% of grocery store employees can take the two weeks doctors recommend to recover from COVID-19 without losing at least some pay.
Virtually every family in America is feeling the economic and health consequences of a system unprepared for workers who need time to recover from serious illness, care for a sick family member, or look after a child when schools and day-care centers are shuttered. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike are simultaneously experiencing the need for paid leave firsthand. Voters across demographic and partisan lines are making their voices heard, and they want to see action.
A recent PL+US Action poll of likely 2020 voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Iowa, and North Carolina has helped shed more light on attitudes about paid leave and the impact of the pandemic. The survey found that 83% of voters support a national paid leave policy and see paid leave as one of the top solutions to the pandemic. It’s easy to see why: One in four of those voters also expected to take unpaid leave as a result of COVID-19.
Both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have shown an openness to expanding paid leave. Last year, Congress and President Trump extended 12 weeks of limited paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child to federal workers. Vice President Joe Biden has included paid leave in his presidential platform, and last month, announced his support for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. The momentum has been building, but the pandemic has made the need for action even more urgent.
There are affordable, tested solutions for providing paid leave that are entirely within reach. Five states and Washington, D.C., have used social insurance models as the basis for their paid family leave programs, creating systems where everyone pays in a little, and the financial support is there when employers and individuals need it—just like Social Security or unemployment insurance. Three more states will be soon following suit. This type of model is the most affordable way to provide the highest-quality federal paid family and medical leave program, reducing the financial and administrative burdens on businesses while increasing retention and improving equity in the workplace.
States like California with established paid leave programs were well positioned to provide needed support to working families through this pandemic. But Congress should pass federal legislation like this to ensure all workers have access to high-quality paid leave. And the President should sign it into law.
In its current form, the Heroes Act would extend eligibility for paid family, medical, and sick leave benefits by removing exemptions to the program under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). It would expand access to employees at businesses with fewer than 50 or more than 500 employees, as well as to first responders and health care workers, and would allow workers to take emergency leave for a wider range of circumstances. It’s another substantive step in the right direction, but by no means does it represent the end of our shared efforts to secure paid leave for every person who calls the United States their home. For our work to be done, we’ll need a permanent, sustainable, national program that truly supports the workers who represent the financial backbone of this country.
We should always be able to put our families first—not just during global health threats. But right now, paid leave is absolutely crucial for ending the COVID-19 pandemic and this economic crisis. We need to ensure workers can stay home when they or a family member are sick, and give consumers the confidence to return to businesses knowing that employees are only at work if they’re healthy.
We have an unprecedented opportunity before us to rebuild an economy that supports all working families. But that starts and ends with strong, inclusive paid leave policies. With the lives of families across the country hanging in the balance, we simply cannot address this paid leave crisis with short-term solutions. The time for long-term, bipartisan-backed paid leave is before us. And it’s time to seize the moment.
Jimmy Gomez represents California’s 34th congressional district as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Katie Bethell is the executive director and founder of Paid Leave for the U.S. (PL+US) and PL+US Action Fund.


fortune--2020-07-10--Muji U.S. joins the growing list of companies filing for bankruptcy during the coronavirus pandemic

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Retailers are feeling the pain.
On Friday the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese retailer Muji, operated by Ryohin Keikaku Co., became the latest household name to announce it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In a statement the company said it will remain open for business on its website and currently operating retail locations as it begins “constructive discussions with its lenders and other stakeholders regarding the terms of a financial restructuring plan.”
The news comes on the heels of Sur La Table’s announcement Thursday that it had filed for bankruptcy and had a buyout offer from Fortress Investment Group LLC. The chain said it planned to sell 70 stores to Fortress, close another 51, and keep operating cooking classes and its web business. Earlier in the week, preppy retailer Brooks Brothers, founded in 1818, also filed for bankruptcy.
“We are seeing an acceleration in bankruptcies that is unprecedented,” said James Hammond, CEO of New Generation Research, which runs BankruptcyData. For 2020, he says, “I’m pretty confident we will see more bankruptcies than in any businessperson’s lifetime.”
Ranked by assets alone, says Hammond, the magnitude of bankruptcies this year has already surpassed that of 2008. And that’s not including what could happen when the government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which aims to keep small businesses up and running with loans that can be converted to grants if certain terms are met, runs out.
The largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy so far has been that of car-rental company Hertz. Unable to hold on after the travel industry effectively hit the brakes, the company is now selling off much of its fleet in a bid to meet demands from creditors. Others in sectors ranging from oil and gas to retail and aviation have similarly suffered in navigating the pandemic.
Notably, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing means a company is struggling but doesn’t mean that it will cease operating.
“You have an enormous pile of corporate debt that has been accumulating, which the debt and restructuring world had been concerned about for a couple of years. And all of a sudden, in the space of almost no time at all, investors are asking questions about the ability to service debt,” says Hammond. “[From] 2008 to 2009 was a financial crisis. This is now everywhere.”
By sheer number of bankruptcies, restaurants have been the hardest hit, per rankings from BankruptcyData. Recently, CEC, the company behind restaurant and entertainment venue Chuck E. Cheese, closed down locations and filed for bankruptcy protection as the coronavirus shuttered restaurants and challenged live-events companies.
Even as the U.S. reopens, Hammond is not optimistic. Bankruptcy filings, he notes, are a lagging indicator. Now, he says, “we are at the waterfall.”
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