fortune--2020-10-25--Germans want Trump to lose—but they don’t have high hopes for a Biden presidency

Germans overwhelmingly want Joe Biden to take the U.S. presidency from Donald Trump.
That much is clear from a poll earlier this month in which 71% of Germans favored the Democrat, and a prior survey months ago that showed 76% of Germans expect better U.S.-European relations under a Biden administration. Trump has repeatedly topped the list of German fears.
But some are cautious about expecting too much from a Biden win, which polls suggest is the likely outcome of the looming U.S. election.
On many of the issues that have seen the Trump administration butt heads with Berlin—the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia; Germany’s levels of defense spending; how to handle China—experts on the transatlantic relationship see little reason to expect big changes, whoever wins.
“The mood is sort of dampened,” says Sophia Becker, a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). “I have noticed that Germans are at the moment approaching [the election] with a coolness…Not everything is going to be roses and peaches if Biden is elected.”
Preexisting conditions
It is not difficult to explain Germans’ overall antipathy to Trump; the U.S. President has regularly approached the country with aggression. Shortly after coming into office, he was reported to have said that “the Germans are bad, very bad”—apparently a reference to Germany’s trade surplus.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose heavy tariffs on imports of German cars. And in 2018, his pick for ambassador to Berlin, Rick Grenell, began his new job by tweeting at German companies to “immediately” wind down their Iranian operations. (“Germans are eager to listen, but they will resent instructions,” replied Munich Security Conference chair Wolfgang Ischinger.)
But while Trump’s government may have shown Germany a snarl rather than the customary smile of preceding administrations, many of its underlying policies aren’t really so different.
Yes, Trump authorized sanctions on companies that help Russia’s Gazprom complete its Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany, leading the Baltic port town of Sassnitz—where many German jobs are tied to the project—to fear ruin.
But Barack Obama’s administration also opposed Nord Stream 2 with the same claim: that it would damage European energy security. Trump’s just the one who baldly stated that Europe should be buying American gas instead. (Rewind to the early 1980s, and you’ll also find the U.S. strong-arming European companies over their participation in a Russia-to-Western-Europe gas project.)
President Obama also laid into Germany and other NATO members over their failure to meet the alliance’s defense-spending commitments, just as Trump went on to do—though unlike Trump, Obama never went so far as to pull U.S. troops from Germany as punishment. (“We’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bills,” the current President said bluntly.)
Biden’s plans
In some respects, Biden’s policies toward Germany could mark a continuation of Trump’s.
“For too long, the global trading system has failed to keep its promises to American workers,” reads the Democratic election platform, in words that would not sound unfamiliar coming from Trump’s own mouth. Biden is also planning a “Buy American” campaign worth over $400 billion, and he says his administration wouldn’t conclude new international trade deals until that cash is spent.
That wouldn’t be good news for German exporters, who would dearly like to see progress in the U.S. and EU’s stalled trade negotiations.
“Whatever the outcome of the election will be, the U.S. remains one of the most important markets in the world for the German automotive industry,” says Hildegard Müller, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). “A comprehensive free trade agreement would be a great asset. However, the negotiations are currently making little progress. Hopefully, this will change soon.”
“America seems to be taking a more protectionist route on many issues,” says Jonathan Hackenbroich, the head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ (ECFR) task force for protecting Europe from economic coercion.
Lennart Preiss—Getty Images
Hackenbroich reckons the U.S. won’t stop using what he sees as coercive economic tactics, whoever wins in November. Here he includes the U.S. Cloud Act‘s demand that American cloud providers give U.S. prosecutors sensitive data that is stored on foreign servers. The ECFR this week warned that requests for the sensitive data of European companies could endanger “essential national or European interests.”
“What I’m expecting [in the event of a Biden win] is a certain three months’ relief, and then everyone will notice that in many of these aspects—and I’m just talking geoeconomics—the Biden administration won’t be fundamentally changing,” Hackenbroich says. “The tariffs won’t go away. The data-transfer coercion won’t go away. On sanctions, it’s not even clear 100% [whether Biden will lift them].”
And that lack of change, he suggests, could fuel the continuation of a European initiative that has gathered pace in recent years: the quest for “sovereignty.”
European sovereignty
Europe and the U.S. have had a very close relationship since the aftermath of the Second World War, when the Americans’ Marshall Plan aided the rebuilding of Western Europe. Relations between the two sides took a big knock during the Iraq War but recovered under the Obama administration.
Then came Trump, with his uniquely abrasive attitude toward American allies—plus China, whose increasing assertiveness, particularly regarding technology and corporate takeovers, now made it a systemic rival to the EU. So when Ursula von der Leyen became the first German President of the European Commission last year, she told her new team to prepare the defenses. To hammer home the point, she referred to them as a “geopolitical commission.”
“Ensure a level playing field in our economic relations with other partners, promoting Europe’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy in key value chains,” von der Leyen wrote to her new economy chief, Valdis Dombrovskis. “In doing so, you should pay particular attention to our trade and economic relations with our competitors and strategic partners.”
Last month, von der Leyen said the EU should lead reforms at the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization—two of Trump’s favorite punching bags.
“You have to credit Trump’s harsh approach,” says DGAP’s Becker of Europe’s newfound assertiveness. “It was a rude awakening, but it was certainly an awakening.”
However, talking about sovereignty is one thing—achieving it another. Looking at defense, for example, European security remains largely reliant on the U.S. muscle that comes with the NATO agreement.
As Becker notes, Trump has “singled Germany out in many ways as the prime scapegoat of his attack on European allies” over the issue of NATO contributions. And, almost a year ago, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government said that from 2021 it would match the U.S.’s own contributions to the alliance’s budget.
“If we look at the German defense budget, we don’t see an increase in the budget for the next couple years, given the economic situation,” says Becker. “Yes, [Trump] has driven at least a theoretical reckoning with European sovereignty, but I haven’t seen that countries like Germany have put their money where their mouth is.”
Last month, the New York Times reported that Trump is keen to withdraw from NATO if he wins a second term. “That would be devastating,” says Becker. “There is no way that Europe could replace the U.S. We don’t have the capabilities and the political capacity to replace the U.S.”
And that is where, for the German economy as much as its defense, a Biden win could make a significant difference—he’d probably dial down the antagonism.
“Joe Biden is known to be a multilateralist,” says Hackenbroich. “He’s someone who has appreciation for allies, which isn’t necessarily the case with the current one.”


fortune--2020-10-25--Our Nobel Peace Prize win is an honor and a tragedy

The polls are wrong .
The U.S. presidential race is a near dead heat , this A.I .
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Being selected to receive the Nobel Peace Prize is an honor and a humbling recognition of the critical work the World Food Program (WFP) is doing. But it is also impossible to celebrate.
My colleagues and I are well aware that we are receiving this award only because hundreds of millions of people are at the brink of starvation, and we are striving to keep them alive. This will not change until we commit to finding political solutions to conflicts so people can rebuild their lives and livelihoods.
While our world has been focused on the health aspects of COVID-19, hunger is the silent killer ravaging communities in the farthest corners of the globe. We don’t see these victims on the nightly news. We don’t keep a real-time tally of the lives lost. But this doesn’t make these mothers and fathers and children any less important, and it doesn’t minimize the grief of their families.
Despite our resolve to achieve zero hunger by 2030, the sad truth is that hunger has been rising over the past several years, and there is no end in sight. COVID-19 has only exacerbated an already bad situation. This Nobel Prize is a call to action at a critical time. COVID-19 is threatening to create a hunger crisis of biblical proportions—worse than anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes—unless we do something about it. This is not hyperbole; this is the blunt reality.
The impact of the coronavirus on world hunger is twofold. First, the virus is disrupting economies and supply chains, preventing access to food and limiting people’s ability to work. It is increasing conflict and violence, forcing many to abandon their land, homes, and jobs.
Second, COVID-19 is demanding government resources that might otherwise have gone toward fighting long-term global challenges related to nutrition, health, and education. Without immediate intervention, the number of chronically hungry people will continue to rise. COVID-19 is poised to set back the progress we have made against hunger by 15 years, according to WFP calculations.
The roughly $1 million that comes with the Nobel Prize will feed about 1.6 million people for a day. That’s far from enough. Despite the generosity of our current and past donors, we are well short of the resources we need to feed the growing number of people who need us.
It is time for the private sector to join the fight. We need to raise $5.1 billion more now to feed the people affected by the ripple effects of the coronavirus crisis for the next six months. I’m asking the wealthiest individuals and corporations among us to answer the moral call to promote global peace and prosperity by putting their resources into the fight against hunger.
This is not someone else’s responsibility just because the worst of it is occurring on someone else’s soil. It is our collective responsibility.
This is a pivotal moment in history, and it will either be one of our worst, or it will be one of our greatest. Despite the racial, political, religious, economic, and cultural divisions facing the U.S., we have an opportunity to come together in pursuit of an extraordinary goal. Food has long been one of the greatest peacebuilders in history. Maybe the peace and reconciliation we have been seeking starts with this.
In December, I will accept this award in recognition of the staff—at the World Food Program and related NGOs—who put their lives on the line every day to bring food and assistance to hundreds of millions of hungry children, women, and men across the world. This is not an easy task. They serve in the most dangerous and desperate regions of the world and count on the integrity of their mission to keep them safe. Some of them have not made it back.
We’re humbled by this incredible recognition, but we are cognizant of the enormous challenges that lie ahead. The job is far from over—but this, right now, can also be our finest hour.
David Beasley is the executive director of the World Food Program.


fortune--2020-10-25--This startup wants to help you prepare for America’s next disaster

There are few experiences more harrowing than an earthquake. Ask Dan Kessler. He obsesses about them.
Kessler is the chief executive of Harbor, a startup that aims to help Americans prepare—at least semi-calmly—for the next disaster, from how to pack a “go bag,” to how much water you should stockpile.
To be sure, there will be another disaster. That might not be good for your nerves, but makes for ideal timing for a disaster prep app. America is grappling with a pandemic, a financial crisis, a potentially contested presidential election, another historic hurricane season, and superpowered wildfires on the West Coast.
Harbor tackles two out of these—natural disasters and COVID-19—plus the usual ailments of modern life: car crashes and house fires. (Next on Kessler’s wish list? A surprisingly common scourge: hail.)
If that seems dark, Kessler, a former executive at meditation app Headspace, says he frames disaster preparedness as a “simple, healthy habit,” much like brushing your teeth. While he admits he doesn’t have a background in emergency management—he was brought on to run the app in January—he says risk aversion is “in his bones.”
“I grew up in a household where we always had several months of toilet paper,” he says. He also points out that he has lived through several of America’s national calamities. Living in Los Angeles, he has been evacuated for wildfires “seemingly every year” and was in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
“I am not unique,” he says grimly.
Dan Kessler, CEO of Harbor, says Americans will face more natural disasters in the years to come. (Courtesy of Harbor)
“Just where the world is headed”
When deciding which life-muddling events to include, Kessler says the company turned to what was statistically most likely. Outside of house fires, car crashes, and a pandemic—which was a late addition, just before the October launch—the emphasis at Harbor is on natural disasters. There’s certainly room to grow, he acknowledges.
“It is a big request from our members: school shootings, terrorist attacks…There’s militias now and civil unrest,” he says. “It’s definitely something people are thinking about.”
But he says the reality of hurricanes and destructive fires is that “you can count on a natural disaster to happen” and that the risk will be increasing as the country grapples with the impacts of climate change.
Climate scientists and the world’s largest insurance companies both acknowledge the risks from natural disasters are increasing. Munich Re registered 820 natural disasters causing insured losses in 2019, three times the amount from 30 years ago; in 2017 and 2018, another major insurer, Swiss Re, handed over $219 billion globally in checks.
“I don’t mean to fearmonger, but 2021 is going to be bad, 2022 is going to be bad. There’s going to be an increasing number of these events,” Kessler says. “That’s just where the world is headed.”
Hurricanes in the South, wildfires in the West
The emergency preparedness plan is not a new idea: It’s the standard, recommended advice of every government agency or service. In fact, FEMA runs an app and a website complete with tips on how to prepare for everything from explosions to extreme heat. (FEMA provides content and advisory services to Harbor.)
The app, which raised $5 million in seed funding in August, mostly just consolidates public and government advice, compiled using a host of national security and climate change advisers. But it takes a “gamify” approach, what Kessler calls “Duolingo for home safety,” with cute graphics and a tracker system to show how “prepped” you are. Its website also sells tools for go-bags and water filtration. The app will be funded on a “freemium” model, with basic free accounts, while users can also upgrade their subscription for more services.
The app is based on your household’s zip code. Whether you live in Galveston, Texas, or Los Angeles, the app will suggest a different list of recommended natural disasters you will be advised to prepare for, based on that region’s government-assessed risks. (You can also add your own extras, so if you live in Illinois you can, in fact, prepare for a remote event like a tsunami.)
Once a disaster does arrive, the app walks you through the basics of how to manage the crisis. (The advice can seem obvious to some, but no less vital—put on your shoes; keep an eye out for dangling electrical wires.) Households can all share an account, and it works offline, for those disasters that may cut cell service.
There’s a range of things the app doesn’t yet do, including an early warning system for disasters, and 911 calling inside the app. Both features, he says, are far more difficult to implement than they appear. For one, warning systems can sometimes conflict with each other, Kessler notes. Another potential area of expansion is, naturally, quotes for disaster insurance—a growing business.
“What’s going to happen next?”
For inspiration, Kessler admits that there are some cultures that are particularly good at prepping for disaster. He cites the Japanese systems around preparing for tsunamis, and another group closer to home: American Mormons.
“You could pull aside any Mormon family and they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, of course, I’ve got like six months of canned food down there,’” he says, with a laugh. “It’s really quite inspiring.”
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says it emphasizes “self-reliance” among its members, including preparing for illness, disaster, or other emergencies, and also runs home storage centers across North America.)
But if the effort to put a pragmatic, design-centric spin on the rising toll of climate change may seem strained, the app is part of a cohort of companies designed to address the unavoidable, but often taboo, sides of life. Those include apps for first aid and preparedness and even death: The web-based service Cake, for example, helps people plan for the end of their lives, from informing loved ones where to find critical documents, to instructing them on the preferred music at their funerals.
The pandemic has given Harbor a boost, the company says: In April, registrations were up 400%.
The pandemic has also opened people up to dealing pragmatically with disasters, Kessler argues. Simply put, that’s because Americans are already dealing with them, one way or another.
“People are not saying it could happen,” he says. “They’re saying, ‘What’s going to happen next?’”
This article has been corrected to reflect that the company received $5 million in seed funding.


fortune--2020-10-25--Stop doomscrolling on social media and read a book

2020 is the year I decided to cut back on empty brain calories. That’s right, I swore off the mindless junk from social media. Because we are all likely to conduct more and more doomscrolling as the election nears and 2020 continues its infamy, I urge you to stop ingesting digital junk, and start reading a book.
To say that this has been a stressful year is a gross understatement. Much has been written about how ill-prepared we were to confront the pandemic and cope with the change and stress it has brought to our lives. Many of us are settling into our eighth month of quarantine even as our social and political worlds change. I believe our focus in navigating the pandemic may have caused us to miss an opportunity to wrest control back over our mental health.
There has been a lot of discussion about how technology—for all its benefits including keeping us connected amid a time of social distancing—played its part in contributing to our confusion with cognitive overload and misinformation. Starved for time and with limited mental energy, we are endlessly scrolling, constantly searching for ways to fill the micro-moments in our busy lives or distract ourselves from things unfolding outside our doors.
I know for my part this constant sense of tethering has been destructive. There are days when mindless scrolling on social media caused me more anxiety than I would care to admit. Perpetual connectivity has led to a plethora of early social media apps that are designed to addict and distract us. It’s no wonder that Marc Benioff, the chair, CEO, and founder of Salesforce, has gone as far as saying that “Facebook is the new cigarettes for society.” Fatigued by the cantankerous digital town-hall model where the loudest voices win, people are craving deeper, more private, human connections online—but we struggle to find it there. Over-scheduled and under-rested, the mandate for mental wellness has never been more important.
Now more than ever, we must make mental wellness a priority and make the time for it. According to the CDC, mental and physical health are equal components of our overall health. Our mental health affects how we think, feel, and act and therefore plays a role in how we handle stress, make decisions and interact with others. Mental wellness and mental illness are not the same thing, just like physical fitness and physical health are different.
I’ve found the antidote for stress to be surprisingly simple: Reading fiction. Stories have been shown promote empathy, social perception, emotional intelligence and other cognitive abilities that can lead to better mental health. Reading has also been shown to alleviate common mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, phobias and eating disorders. Luminaries like Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, co-chairs of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are avid readers and publish their book recommendations for all of us to enjoy. Bill and Melinda shared with me in an email, “Every time you read a book, it teaches you something new or helps you see things differently.”
Reading isn’t the only key to mental wellness, of course. In the past few months, we all had to learn new coping skills for managing stress and unlearn a few old habits. Here are some tips from my personal experience.
Set a daily routine as much as possible with plenty of micro-breaks (lasting 10-15 minutes) so that the days don’t blur into one giant video call
Mix the day up a bit with short walks, reading and games
Make healthy eating choices and get enough sleep
Call friends and connect with people with an intent
Don’t be too hard on yourself; it’s normal to feel overwhelmed occasionally
Maybe you are swayed by the research on the benefits of reading or maybe you are skeptical. However, reading a great story does help leave behind the stress of the moment. Surely, we can permit ourselves a daily allowance of digital nutrition by reading a great story, and free our minds from the rabbit holes in social media!
Padmasree Warrior is the founder and CEO of Fable, a platform for reading books with friends. She currently serves on the boards of Microsoft and Spotify. She is the former CEO of NIO U.S, an electric car company, and former chief technology and strategy officer of Cisco.


fortune--2020-10-26--Facebook joins Microsoft, Google, and Amazon in cloud gaming

How a made-in-China COVID vaccine is dividing a country in two

Facebook, like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, is betting that the nascent business of cloud gaming will become a huge hit.
The social networking giant on Monday premiered a handful of video games that are streamed to people’s smartphones and personal computers.
Users can find the games in Facebook’s Gaming section or via their News Feeds. Some of the games that will be available for cloud streaming include the racing game Asphalt 9: Legends, PGA TOUR Golf Shootout, Solitaire: Arthur’s Tale, and WWE SuperCard.
Over the past couple of years, a long list of companies have piled into cloud gaming, a business that involves providing users with high-quality video games through online streaming. One of the advantages, according to the companies, is that players don’t need to buy expensive gaming consoles.
Unlike companies such as Google and Microsoft, Facebook is pitching cloud gaming as an incremental step. For instance, Facebook isn’t selling monthly cloud gaming subscriptions or hardware like game controllers.
Another difference, said Jason Rubin, Facebook’s vice president of special gaming initiatives, is that Facebook has no partnerships with game publishers for so-called AAA games, the equivalent of Hollywood blockbusters. And instead of courting avid gamers, Facebook is turning to occasional players who relax using simple online puzzle games and the like.
These kinds of casual games are generally free to play, but people who want extra features must pay.
With its cloud gaming service, Rubin said that Facebook users will be able to see if a friend is playing a certain game and then instantaneously join them. They’ll also be able to click on online ads for streamed games to automatically play without leaving Facebook.
Facebook hopes that game publishers looking to increase their users will therefore spend more on online ads at Facebook.
Although Facebook’s cloud streaming will be available through Facebook’s desktop app and Android mobile app, it’s not available on iPhones and iPads. Apple has barred cloud gaming services, including those from Google and Microsoft, from its mobile app store because it says it cannot screen individual games to make sure they adhere to the company’s policies.
“It’s just highly unfortunate and something we have to deal with,” Rubin said about Apple iOS users being unable to play Facebook’s cloud-based games.
“Apple treats gaming differently, and everybody just understands that,” Rubin added. “We have a large user base, so it’s not like we can’t find some users, and there’s people on desktops—there’s still value there.”
Lewis Ward, a gaming research director for IDC, said that cloud gaming is currently just a niche business that could take another 10 years to become a hit. Ward characterized Facebook’s cloud gaming initiative as an evolution of the company’s last big video game push called Instant Games, which made it easier for consumers to play more basic games that they had seen in their News Feeds.
But the technology powering Instant Games is limited, making it difficult for Facebook to offer more complex games that several people can play at the same time, Ward explained. To improve its gaming technology and offer more compelling games, Facebook in December acquired the small cloud gaming company PlayGiga for an undisclosed amount.
Ultimately, Rubin said Facebook must invest in gaming because people are increasingly forming “communities” with others who play and watch video games together. The idea is close to Facebook’s core social networking roots.
Said Rubin, “We have to be involved in games.”


fortune--2020-10-26--Curfews, closings and police clashes: Spain and Italy impose tough new measures as COVID cases spike

Europe took a step closer to the stringent restrictions imposed during the initial wave of the coronavirus pandemic as leaders struggle regain control of the spread.
Italy introduced its strongest virus restrictions since the end of a lockdown in May, and Spain will impose new measures, including a nationwide curfew. Germany will discuss its next steps on Monday, when Chancellor Angela Merkel convenes her crisis task force.
Cases have surged to record levels across Europe in recent days, and authorities are confronting increasing opposition to restrictions on movement. Italy’s new rules come into effect on Monday amid protests by the hardest-hit sectors, including restaurants and cinemas. In Naples, demonstrators plan to gather Monday evening in a central square after violence erupted over the weekend.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte approved a plan to limit opening hours for bars and restaurants, and shut entertainment, gambling venues and gyms. Italians will also be urged not to travel. The measures will remain in effect until Nov. 24.
“We must manage the pandemic without being overwhelmed,” Conte said at a press conference in Rome on Sunday. “If we respect the rules this month, we’ll keep the curve under control and face December and the holiday season with more serenity.”
Conte is preparing a new 5 billion-euro ($5.9 billion) relief package which is set to be approved by Tuesday, Italian daily La Repubblica reported.
Italy’s government is running out of options to avoid a full lockdown. New infections rose to a record 21,273 on Sunday and there are now more than 1,200 people being treated in intensive care units for the virus.
Spain: state of emergency
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s cabinet on Sunday approved a state of emergency and announced a national curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., except in the Canary Islands, where the infection rate is low. Regional administrations have leeway to slightly change the timing of the curfew, said Sanchez, who will discuss Spain’s virus response with the country’s 17 regional presidents and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in virtual talks on Monday.
Italy and Spain had managed to tamp down the initial outbreak with some of the world’s strictest lockdowns. The easing of measures before the summer travel season contributed to a new wave of cases in the region, where more than 200,000 people have died from the disease.
Sanchez also delegated to local authorities the power to limit travel in their regions. Spain has a highly decentralized political system and regional administrations have oversight on many policies.
The premier said he will ask Spain’s parliament to approve an extension of the state of emergency through May 9. Lawmakers are expected to vote on it as soon as this week. An extension through May would allow Sanchez to avoid repeatedly seeking approval for restrictions as he was obligated to do during during Spain’s lockdown earlier this year.
“Why six months? Because that’s the amount of time that experts expect we need not only to move beyond this second wave, in which we are immersed, but also to move beyond the most harmful stage of the pandemic,” Sanchez said in a nationally televised address.
In Germany, Merkel will chair a meeting of her special “coronavirus cabinet” after infections surged to fresh highs in recent days. The chancellor warned of “very, very difficult months” ahead during a weekend conference call with officials from her CDU party, according to local media.


fortune--2020-10-26--Gloria Steinem: ‘I’ve never seen this much activism in my life’

In the new documentary Not Done, filmmakers follow nearly every protest movement and fight for justice of the past half-decade, from the first Women’s March on Washington in 2017 to the Black Lives Matter movement to the founding of the anti–sexual harassment organization Time’s Up.
The work of the one-hour film, premiering on PBS on Tuesday night and later streaming via the media brand Makers, is to find the thread that connects these movements and show just how deeply they are intertwined. If there’s anyone who can follow that thread back even further into our past, it’s Gloria Steinem.
The activist and author appears in the film as one of several figures providing context for the growth of activism in the Trump era—and the central conceit that this work is, as the Nov. 3 election approaches, “not done.” “I’ve never seen this much activism in my life,” 86-year-old Steinem says on-screen.
Steinem spoke to Fortune about this surge in activism and the issues that she sees as the most urgent right now—from the potential confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to the presidential election. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Fortune: So much of your career has been about organizing and work that traditionally takes place in person. What have you made of how organizers have had to adapt during this time, whether by organizing virtually, or organizing with safety precautions, as we saw with this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests?
Safety precautions are obviously the single most important thing, but because we live in the age of Zoom, it is possible to organize in a way that would not have previously been possible. When I began, the mimeograph machine was kind of the height of technology. We are learning to innovate and invent. And I’m proud of the people who get out and march.
COVID is teaching us that we are all human—COVID doesn’t recognize class, sex, race. So why should we? It doesn’t recognize national boundaries. So why should we?
So much of this documentary, Not Done, connects the threads of the past half-decade or so, drawing these lines between the Women’s March, the Black Lives Matter movement, #MeToo, and up through events as recent as the speech that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave on the House floor. If you were to trace that thread a little further back, looking at your career and life experience over the past several decades, how would you extend that line?
I could carry the thread back further—like to the students at Cornell University who coined “sexual harassment” as a phrase to describe what was happening to them on summer jobs. We at Ms. Magazine then did a cover story about sexual harassment, which caused us to be put off the newsstands in supermarkets because it was too controversial. Then sexual harassment was written into sex discrimination law. And then there were two cases brought because of sexual harassment as sex discrimination by two Black women. And those cases were won. Given where I started, I just see the thread starting a little earlier, but it’s the same thread.
Looking at the events and movements covered by the documentary, which stood out to you as the ones that most directly continued that thread?
Well, I think the entire #MeToo movement has brought the issue of sexual harassment into the public sphere. What started with the coining of the phrase sexual harassment has now become a huge global movement. And this is important because it’s saying, basically, that women’s bodies belong to ourselves. And that is revolutionary, because we are the means of reproduction. And there has always been an effort to control reproduction and, therefore, to control women’s bodies. So to simply make that statement, that we are autonomous human beings and we get to decide what happens to our bodies, has huge implications. It actually is the beginning of a deep democracy, not just a superficial one.
In the documentary, Time’s Up cofounder Robbie Kaplan compares the original meetings a few years ago to form the organization to the consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s. What did you make of that comparison and have any recent events brought to mind similar parallels for you?
Consciousness-raising meetings seemed to me a little more fundamental, because we were discovering that we were adult human beings, that we did not have to play limited roles, limited domestic roles, and so on. We already know that, but it is certainly, as she said, a continuation of that, understanding that we have a right over our own bodies and to name practices that have been going on forever.
In the documentary, you say that you’ve never seen this much activism in your life. By what margin—and how—is this activism different from what we saw in earlier eras?
In earlier eras, it was more seen as peculiar to a particular movement. And now I think we are understanding that the movements are all connected. And that is very helpful, because otherwise we see people in silos, that you’re dealing only with issues of race or only with issues of sex. Now the demonstrations that would have been isolated are now participated in by a much broader range of people and are continuous.
What has been going through your mind as you’ve watched the recent confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett and the Supreme Court?
It is really, really discouraging to see the power of a President who is fundamentally unelected—he lost the popular vote by 3 million. He’s only there because of the accident of the electoral college. Because he is accidentally there, then he is putting on the court someone who does not represent the majority opinion of Americans and certainly not women.
This is a tragedy, because in the end, it will create disrespect for the court. As Martin Luther King said, if the rulings of the court are not just, we have a duty to disobey them—and we will simply disobey the court. The court has not been with us for most of my life, but it had become more with us. And it’s a tragedy to see it regress.
In the context of reproductive rights, what does the idea of disobeying unjust laws mean—when it’s often about the safety or danger of legal or illegal abortion?
Well, even when abortion was illegal, one in three American woman had had an abortion at some time in her life, but with much more risk. Now, it’s one in four with much less risk. But nothing is going to keep women from trying to control our own bodies, because it’s too fundamental.
But the tragedy is that, especially for women with little access to services in their state, inability to travel to another state where the services are better, it’s going to mean a lot of suffering. And it’s going to mean that we as a women’s movement, will have to be organized to offer women in one state transport to another state, for instance, where they’re able to exercise their rights.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, how do you expect abortion access to compare with the mid–20th century, before Roe v. Wade was decided? Will things be similar, or has enough changed that abortion not being legal on a national level won’t have the same effects?
All physicians never obeyed the laws of the past. I suspect that fewer will obey laws now, because we have become accustomed to practicing medical norms. There were always doctors who would disobey the law. I think now there are going to be many more.
What is at stake in your view in this election nationwide?
Well, pretty much everything. It’s hard to think of an issue that is not at stake. We have an accidental President, who is there only because of the archaic electoral college. He’s been enormously destructive, as destructive as he possibly could be. And we are seeing whether our system will hold, which I think it will, regardless of the efforts of the person at the top.
But I hope in some sense, this will have been useful, because in a way, Trump has shown us at a high level everything that’s wrong with the country. He has dramatically shown us the problems of sexism and racism, and favoring the rich over the poor. I hope the education, though painful, will be used in the future.
What does Sen. Kamala Harris’s presence on the Democratic ticket mean to you?
We’ve been leading up to this. To see at a high level, it does make a difference. It made a difference for us to see Obama as the honored President of the United States; it will make a difference to see Kamala Harris as the honored Vice President, having broken the boundaries of both gender and race. This changes consciousness and makes true democracy possible.
What does that phrase “not done” mean to you?
What it means to me is—are you kidding me? We are so not done. I can’t even contemplate the word “done.” Do women have control over their own bodies? On the question of giving birth, or just on the question of physical safety? Do we have the same safety as men do? And that’s very fundamental. Are we represented at every level of government?
Who in younger generations makes you feel optimistic about the direction that we’re heading in?
I feel so happy and relieved when I see the number and diversity and energy of young women who are just saying, “Wait a minute, this isn’t fair. I’m not taking it. I’m going to do something about it.” I always feel I just had to wait for some of my friends to be born. I’m so glad to see them. And they are going forward with an imagination and an energy that I could not have created.
Sometimes we get a case of the “shoulds”—what should I do? Instead of just getting up every morning and saying, “I’m going to do everything I can. Whatever that is, however small or large it is, I’m going to see every act I take as a platform for change.”


fortune--2020-10-26--Fortune and Refinitiv join forces to drive diversity reporting

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
I know it’s a truism, but it also happens to be true: What gets measured gets managed. That’s why Fortune and Refinitiv are teaming up to urge companies to take the first step toward achieving full racial and ethnic diversity and inclusion in the workplace: Measure Up.
Since the killing of George Floyd, we’ve seen an outpouring of concern by corporate leaders about diversity, equity and inclusion. In our recent CEO Survey, conducted in partnership with Deloitte, 96% of CEOs said DEI had become a strategic priority for them.
But here’s the thing: the vast majority of companies don’t publicly report metrics on how they are executing on their DEI commitments. Measure Up is an effort to change that. We will challenge companies to report these critical metrics, through Refinitiv’s environmental, social and corporate governance data systems. And we will include that data as part of our Fortune 500 list, and also next year publish a new list identifying the Most Progressive Companies in Racial Inclusion. We will work with Refinitiv to provide data-driven insights, and to host conversations with corporate leaders on critical issues related to the challenge.
Refinitiv CEO David Craig said he believes “the corporate world overwhelmingly wants to see change and understands how vital diversity is in building successful and sustainable companies. However, efforts to tackle minority under-representation in the workplace will fall flat unless companies first have an accurate picture of their racial composition.” Measure Up will help the corporate world “fulfill its promises and respond to the cries for change that have only grown louder in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.”
Craig and Fortune’s Ellen McGirt will unveil the new partnership later today at our CEO Initiative, which I wrote about Friday. It’s a busy day for us: After the CEO Initiative ends, we will move right into our virtual Fortune Global Forum. I’ll be interviewing CEO Larry Culp of one-time-giant General Electric about his efforts to turn the company around in the midst of a pandemic. (Send me your questions!) Other CEOs on the virtual stage at FGF tomorrow, in order of appearance: Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk, Synchrony CEO Margaret Keane, Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, Ariel Investments Co-CEO Mellody Hobson, Target CEO Brian Cornell, Natura CEO Roberto Marques, Carbon Engineering CEO Steve Oldham, Paypal CEO Dan Schulman, Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford, HP CEO Enrique Lores, CVS CEO Larry Merlo, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, ADM CEO Juan Luciano, Gap CEO Sonia Syngal, Schneider Electric CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Fosun CEO Guo Guangchang, AirAsia.com CEO Karen Chan, Grab CEO Anthony Tan, CanSino CEO Yu Xuefeng, and Sinovation Ventures CEO Kai-Fu Lee.
Long day. More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Facebook prepares
Facebook has internal tools that are designed to calm election-related conflict in various "at-risk" countries—such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar—and it's preparing to deploy them in the U.S. if necessary. The measures include slowing the spread of viral content that may be disinformation, and lowering the bar for the suppression of potentially inflammatory content. Wall Street Journal
Vaccine progress
AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's candidate COVID-19 vaccine has reportedly produced a "robust immune response" in elderly people, which is very promising news given the susceptibility of this demographic to the novel coronavirus. But let's wait for the full trial data before calling the vaccine safe for older people. It has already been shown that the candidate vaccine generates such responses in healthy adults between 18-55 years of age. Financial Times
European slide
SAP's shares fell more than 18% after the German business-software giant abandoned its medium-term profitability targets. The drop led a general slump in European markets, where the Stoxx 600 was down 0.6% at the time of writing late European morning, and Germany's DAX was down 2.2%. Rising coronavirus case numbers are obviously also a factor, as is the uncertain situation ahead of the U.S. election. Reuters
Looming default
Zambia has long-running economic problems, but the exacerbating force of COVID-19 has led it to suspend debt service payments to external commercial creditors, and now the southern African country seems likely to default if it does not make progress toward an IMF-backed reform package. That would make it the first country to default on its debts since the pandemic struck. A lot of Zambia's debt is Chinese, too, which raises the chances of a strategic or geopolitical Chinese bailout. CNBC
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Vaccine efficacy
The European Medicine Agency is likely to apply a lower threshold than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, when judging the efficacy of candidates COVID-19 vaccines for the purposes of approval. EMA staffers say the agency would approve a vaccine even if it worked less than half the time, whereas the FDA wants to see it working at least half the time (vaccines are never 100% effective.) WSJ
China's vaccine
China's still-to-be-approved COVID-19 vaccine is splitting Brazil in two. The governor of São Paulo state, João Doria, has called Sinovac's CoronaVac the safest and most promising of the candidate vaccines that are under development. But President Jair Bolsonaro refuses to purchase CoronaVac, partly due to its country of origin. As Fortune's Grady McGregor and Eamon Barrett put it: "The episode is fueling fears globally that geopolitics—not science—will shape mass immunization campaigns as COVID-19 vaccines start to gain market approval." Fortune
Germany waits
Germans overwhelmingly want Joe Biden to win the election, but they don't have particularly high hopes for his presidency. That's because many of the complaints President Trump has been hurling at Germany and Europe—over things like defense spending levels and Russian gas—have been around for longer than the Trump administration has; he just delivers them with a snarl rather than a smile. Fortune
Peace Prize
The World Food Program won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, but executive director David Beasley sees the award as both an honor and a tragedy. He writes for Fortune: "My colleagues and I are well aware that we are receiving this award only because hundreds of millions of people are at the brink of starvation, and we are striving to keep them alive. This will not change until we commit to finding political solutions to conflicts so people can rebuild their lives and livelihoods." Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-10-26--Menopause is a $600 billion opportunity, report finds

Responding to the needs of women experiencing menopause is a $600 billion opportunity for companies, according to a new report by venture capital firm Female Founders Fund.
Of the $254 million invested in technology for women’s health over the past decade, only 5% has gone to menopause treatments; the lion’s share of that funding was devoted to reproductive health and fertility. “Women in this life stage continue to be sorely underserved,” says Female Founders Fund investor Adrianna Samaniego. “And it’s not like the maternity experience where it’s nine months—this can last for 10 to 30 years.”
There’s a $600 billion opening for businesses, the report found, based on an average $2,000 a year that the 1 billion women expected to be in menopause worldwide by 2025 spend on prescriptions, doctor visits, treatments, devices, and products to address symptoms like night sweats, loss of libido, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating. Menopause is defined as as the end of a woman’s menstrual cycle and is diagnosed after a woman has gone 12 months without a menstrual period.
Female Founders Fund, which has invested in women’s health and fertility startups including the Maven Clinic, began studying this space in part because of the investors’ own interest in finding a startup to back. The fund has not yet invested in a company working on women’s post-reproductive health. The firm surveyed 250 women to determine which pieces of the menopause experience they want products and services to address.
The biggest opportunities, the investors found, are products like creams and supplements meant to target aging; telemedicine; and digital communities for women in this demographic to connect to.
While some startups responding to pieces of this puzzle have debuted over the past year—from the telemedicine men’s health brand Roman’s offshoot Rory to the startup Kindra, which sells supplements and creams—Samaniego and Female Founders Fund founder Anu Duggal say they haven’t yet seen a company they believe has cracked the code on this space.
Seventy-eight percent of respondents to Female Founders Fund’s survey said menopause had interfered with their lives to some degree, and only 36% said they felt prepared for menopause. In a sign of perhaps the biggest unaddressed opportunity, 71% of respondents said they would benefit from a community around the menopause experience.


fortune--2020-10-26--Economists expect historic GDP numbers this week, but it’s unlikely to help Trump

On Thursday, the government will announce what will almost surely be the strongest economic growth number in U.S. history. Yet it will do President Trump little, if any, good.
The number will be third-quarter GDP growth. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Chicago Fed, the Conference Board, and Goldman Sachs all estimate it will be between 30% and 35%. Even if the real number is substantially lower, it will still be historic. Such an explosion of economic activity in the world’s largest economy is unprecedented in the history of GDP calculations, which goes back to the Great Depression.
Data like that coming five days before a presidential election ought to be a priceless gift to the incumbent. That’s especially true considering that the economy is by far the No. 1 issue with voters. The latest Gallup poll finds that 89% of registered voters consider it “extremely” or “very” important, with little difference between Democrats and Republicans. But in this, as in so many ways, 2020 is different.
That staggeringly large expected growth number is possible only because it was preceded by an economic disaster in the previous quarter, when the economy shrank at a similarly historic 31.4% annualized rate. Growth of 35% in the third quarter isn’t enough to get the economy back to where it was before that cataclysmic second quarter, and not nearly enough to get back to pre-pandemic levels.
The message to voters: “Great news! The hole you’re in isn’t as deep as it used to be.” Not exactly compelling.
Still, Trump could argue that the economy is recovering strongly and is on the right track. But even that argument probably won’t get him far.
The best scenario is set out by Republican strategist Scott Jennings, who thinks a strong growth number would help Trump with a subset of voters already leaning his way. “The voters who are left in the pool are more moderate to conservative, including some suburban Republicans who approve of Trump on policy but not style,” he says. “A last-minute reminder of why they support him—the economy—would help mightily.”
But two problems will blunt even that benefit for Trump. One is time. “It is very difficult to get a boost five days before Election Day,” says Democratic strategist Patti Solis Doyle. “It is just not enough time for news to impact the average voter in the states that matter.”
The other problem is the extraordinary number of votes already cast by mail or in early voting—more than 50 million as of Friday, plausibly reaching 60 million by Thursday. That’s nearly half the total votes cast in the 2016 election. “The math and the clock are just not on Trump’s side,” says Doyle. “Even if we had a full economic recovery by Thursday, I’m not sure it beats the clock.”
The rational way to regard Thursday’s announcement, historic though it will likely be, is that it’s indeed excellent news, but it’s just the first step on a very long road back to the prosperity we once knew.


fortune--2020-10-26--Global stocks fall, dollar rises as stimulus talks fade and COVID cases spike

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.
Good morning. We are a mere eight days to Election Day. Curfews, COVID and crumbling stimulus talks are conspiring to create a deeply risk-off mood, dragging down global stocks and U.S. futures.
Reminder: it’s a packed calendar for corporate earnings this week. Will that be enough to lift investors’ spirits?
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are mostly lower in afternoon trading with Shanghai down 0.8% .
are mostly lower in afternoon trading with down . The recent rally in global solar and wind producers can primarily be pinned to China’s pledge to go carbon neutral by 2060. The S &P Global Clean Energy index is up more than 20% since President Xi Jinping’s big carbon-cutting vow on Sept. 22, the Financial Times reports.
in global solar and wind producers can primarily be pinned to China’s pledge to go carbon neutral by 2060. The S is up more than since President Xi Jinping’s big carbon-cutting vow on Sept. 22, the Financial Times reports. Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, one of Asia’s most influential businessmen, passed away at 78. He transformed the Korean conglomerate into a giant in tech, shipping and insurance. His death, however, may create something of a headache for his heirs who now face a $10 billion inheritance tax bill.
Europe
The European bourses sank out of the gates with Germany’s DAX down a whopping 2.7% at the open on COVID concerns and weak corporate earnings news. SAP reported a giant miss that saw its stock fall 20% in early trading.
sank out of the gates with down a whopping at the open on COVID concerns and weak corporate earnings news. SAP reported a giant miss that saw its stock fall in early trading. Italy and Spain introduced new measures to try to combat the brutal second wave of COVID cases. In Spain, there’s now a nationwide 11 p.m. curfew while Italy will shut bars and restaurants every evening and is urging Italians not to travel through Nov. 24 .
and introduced new measures to try to combat the brutal second wave of COVID cases. In Spain, there’s now a nationwide while Italy will shut bars and restaurants every evening and is urging Italians not to travel . Shares in AstraZeneca were up 0.7% at the open on promising news that its COVID vaccine, being developed by Oxford University, has produced “a robust immune response” in the elderly, the FT reports, citing unnamed people in the know.
U.S.
U.S. futures are solidly in the red this morning. That’s after the major exchanges all closed lower for the week last week. They’re still positive for the month, however.
are solidly in the red this morning. That’s after the major exchanges all closed lower for the week last week. They’re still positive for the month, however. COVID cases are again spiking in the United States with a second straight day of record infections reported. That’s an ominous sign for the Trump campaign . It’s uncanny how Trump’s standing in the polls align with the ups and downs of the pandemic. Fortune has charted the correlation, dating back to March.
are again spiking in the United States with a second straight day of reported. That’s an ominous sign for the . It’s uncanny how Trump’s standing in the polls align with the ups and downs of the pandemic. Fortune has charted the correlation, dating back to March. For the few of you wondering about stimulus talks … The only development this weekend was more finger-pointing between the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi .
… The only development this weekend was more finger-pointing between the and House Speaker . It’s a huge earnings week with reports coming from all five FAAMG stocks, plus Pfizer, Caterpillar, AMD and Chevron. Thursday is a particularly busy day for Big Tech shares.
Elsewhere
Gold is down, trading around $1,900/ounce .
is down, trading around . The dollar is up.
is up. Crude is down with Brent futures trading below $41/barrel.
***
Our uncertain path to normal
Pandemic economics is a tough field, even for the pros. That’s mainly because we all have a different level of risk we’re willing to tolerate. That makes sense. You may have cut back on eating out and refuse to get on an airplane while your neighbor is proceeding as if it’s still 2019. These differing attitudes towards risk, taken across an entire economy, can make forecasting the recovery anything but straightforward.
I spoke last week with Chris Murphy, President & Global Lead of Market and Brand Strategy at Ipsos, the polling and consumer sentiment specialists. They’ve been tracking since the early days of the pandemic public attitudes towards COVID—specifically, whether people are ready to return to some level of normalcy, or whether they prefer to hunker down and limit contacts in an effort to keep themselves and their families COVID-free. Ipsos tracks these attitudes weekly across 16 countries, including the U.S., Germany, France, China, Brazil and the U.K.
No matter where you look, it’s not a pretty picture. In the Ipsos chart below, you see that virus is still front and center in the minds of most panelists. The percentage of respondents who say that they’re adapting to the restrictions of life with COVID is the most prominent grouping, as represented by the big hump in the center of the chart. Nearly one-third (31%) of respondents would put themselves in the “acclimation” grouping.
Everything to the right of that “acclimation” point reflects a trend line towards greater confidence in reopening/re-starting/returning to normal. In other words, if the economy were truly on the no-looking-back road to recovery we would see relatively high response rates here. Instead, we see the responses at fairly deflated levels, and even growing more pessimistic over time, since the summer.
Back in March, Murphy notes, 80% of U.S. respondents expressed their confidence that the pandemic threat would all but fade away by June. Remember those days? “Now,” he says, “the return to normal just keeps extending. It just withdraws further and further into the future.”
As second and third waves grip much of the developed world, many of us are are filled with a sense of foreboding and uncertainty. Will things improve by Christmas? By the spring? Should I put off that business trip? When will they reopen the schools? When can I start going back into the office?
These questions come up time and again as new lockdown measures are announced, and we have to recalibrate when things will be safe enough to embark on a new normal.
In reviewing IPSOS’ findings, I thought about something UBS chief economist Paul Donavan wrote a few weeks ago as the COVID numbers started spiking again across Europe last month and new curfews and restrictions were reintroduced. “The economic impact of fear of the virus,” he wrote, “is greater than restrictions.”
That’s not meant to be a knock on this latest round of tightening measures. It’s just that the longer the pandemic goes on, the greater the uncertainty in the minds of the public. And that’s the thing that usually keeps market-based economies from growing to their full potential.
***
Postscript
It’s that time of year again.
At dinner last week, the girls broke the news to my wife and me that the school headmaster had laid down the law: there will be no Halloween celebrations at the school this year.
The headmaster, Padre Giulio, is fighting a losing battle. And he must know it. Romans are crazy about Halloween.
In the 15 or so years I’ve been living here I’ve seen the holiday grow from a fringe curiosity celebrated by American expats to a full-blown cultural phenomenon. In fact, I struggle to think of an American cultural import that’s grown quite so big so fast. All manner of businesses—hairdressers, dry cleaners, hardware stores, pasta shops—in my neighborhood are decorated in some variation of the ghost-goblin-witch-pumpkin schtick these days. The bakeries sell orange-tinged jack-o-lantern cookies. Despite COVID, the kids on the street plan to trick-or-treat, I overheard a bunch saying the other day.
(In Italy, the kids tend shout at whomever answers the door, “dolcetto, scherzetto!” It comes out as an order, not a this-or-that question).
In casa Warner, the only Halloween tradition we faithfully keep is that of carving the pumpkin. There’s usually a crowd of cheering children egging me on. In a town full of Bernini masterpieces, the modest jack-o-lanterns I sculpt—their crooked smiles and woefully off-center eyes—are hailed as true wonders. This always baffles me. More baffling still, I typically get repeat requests from parents the following year. “Faraí la zucca ancora quest’anno?,” they ask, code for: Can we come to your house this year to see you do your Halloween thing?
A few years ago, when my daughter was recovering in the hospital from a tricky surgery, I smuggled pumpkins and knives into the nephrology ward, thinking I could put on a little pumpkin-carving show for the kids. Word spread fast and a film crew showed up to shoot my handiwork. It was one of my worst efforts, but my daughter was over the moon excited. (You can view what they shot here. Just don’t judge my carving skills, or the production team’s musical choice for the score.)
Back to Padre Giulio … if the girls were disappointed by the headmaster’s order, they did a decent job of concealing it. Or, at least they weren’t nearly as bothered by the news as my wife. She’s no flag-waving fan of Halloween, but she hates the misinformation that many devout Italian Catholics attach to the event—that it’s some demon-worshipping American pagan holiday. Halloween’s roots are Celtic, and historians credit Irish Catholics in the 19th Century for popularizing it in America. Eventually, it took off and became a global hit.
Truth is my kids are as much Irish-American as they are Roman. And so it’s important they understand the real story behind Halloween, my wife tells them in Italian over a meal of pasta Amatriciana.
I can’t see my girls publicly challenging Padre Giulio on his edict. They adore him, partly because he’s hardly the dogmatic type. I don’t know him all that well, but the girls tell me he’d get a kick out of watching me carve a pumpkin.
Maybe next year.
***
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
As always, you can write to bullsheet@fortune.com or reply to this email with suggestions and feedback.
Today's reads
Lost generation. Which demographic has been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic? You could start with recent college graduates and their peers. The unemployment rate for Americans aged 20 to 24 was 12.5% in September, the highest among adults. Their job prospects are dismal, and if the Great Recession of 2008-2010 is any indicator, it could be years before they find decent employment and can begin to pay off their student loans.
EV bubble? There's been a veritable traffic jam of electric vehicle startups to have gone public this year, scoring multi-billion-dollar valuations despite never coming close to reaching profitability. Should investors be nervous about these high-flyers? Fortune's David Z. Morris examines the IPO frenzy and waves a caution flag.
Crash position. Nobel laureate Robert Shiller has for years presided over a number of investor sentiment gauges, and some of them are beginning to flash red. "An overwhelming majority of investors said there was a greater than 10% probability of an imminent crash—really, a remarkable indicator that people are quite worried," Shiller writes in his New York Times column.
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
Quote of the day
“Our recent performance sucks. And our record over most of the last five years has been so sucky that even if we outperformed mightily over the next five, we would still have—at best—a drab return looking back over those 10 years.”
That's Ted Aronson, legendary investor and founder of the the Philadelphia-based value-investing firm, AJO, speaking to the Wall Street Journal. He recently decided to give back $10 billion to his clients and shut down his firm, a bad sign for value-investing advocates.


fortune--2020-10-26--How Lyft became the company with nine lives

Only during COVID-19 is a 50% decline in business considered progress.
But that’s exactly the environment that John Zimmer, president and cofounder of Lyft, says the ride-sharing company is facing. At its worst, business was down 75%, he says, and the company had to reduce its workforce by about 17% earlier this year.
And yet Zimmer remains optimistic. “We’re in a very strong position to weather this storm, and the storms that we have weathered previously were much more difficult,” he says on this week’s episode of Reinvent, a podcast about fighting to thrive in a world turned upside down by COVID-19.
Reinvent cohost Adam Lashinsky describes Lyft as “the company with nine lives” that continuously faces “these knockdown moments” but keeps getting back up.
Lyft’s struggles have included facing off against its archrival, Uber. Zimmer says that when Uber raised more than $3 billion in 2016, Lyft was told it couldn’t compete. And then before the pandemic hit, Zimmer says the company was “marching toward profitability.”
“Lyft has been improved through adversity and will continue to get stronger,” Zimmer says. “And I do genuinely think we will be stronger on the other side of this.”
Zimmer thinks that there will be an increase in demand for ground transportation post-pandemic as people want “to come together to have a sense of community.”
Ridership is already creeping back up, and Zimmer says that certain demographics—like frontline workers—are using Lyft more than they were pre-pandemic. The company’s bike-sharing programs have also been a bright spot, which have surpassed pre-COVID levels of ridership.
Unlike Uber, Lyft hasn’t diversified its business into areas like food ordering and delivery. “We don’t think the world needs another one of those,” Zimmer says. “It’s also not our specialty. Our focus is on transportation—on going deep on personal transportation.”
However, he noted that delivery as a way for drivers to earn more money is interesting to the company. Lyft has heard directly from retailers and restaurants that they don’t want to pay the 20% to 30% being charged by a service like Uber Eats, he says. “They’re coming to us and saying how could we help them with delivery for their customers,” he adds.
In addition to dramatically decreased ridership, ride-share companies like Lyft are simultaneously facing big regulatory hurdles. The California state legislature passed a bill last year requiring that gig-economy companies treat their workers like employees rather than contractors. Lyft, Uber, and other companies are sponsoring a ballot initiative—Proposition 22—that attempts to override that state law.
Whether or not Prop 22 passes, Lashinsky notes that, at some point, companies like Lyft are bound to get more regulated. “If it doesn’t happen this time in November, it’ll happen increasingly in other ways in other years,” he says.


fortune--2020-10-26--After Samsung chairman’s death, his heirs are facing a $10 billion tax bill

The heirs of Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who died Sunday, could face billions of dollars in inheritance taxes. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll have to cede control over the group by selling shares.
South Korea’s richest man had an estimated fortune of $20.7 billion, with the bulk of it comprised of his stakes in four Samsung units, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. With the country’s levy of as much as 60% on inherited shares for large shareholders and 50% on real estate and other assets, Lee’s family could owe a tax bill of about $10 billion — which could be Korea’s largest — based on Friday’s closing prices.
The heirs are unlikely to sell stock to finance the charge, according to Chung Sun-sup, chief executive officer of Seoul-based corporate-analysis firm Chaebul.com. On Monday, speculation that Samsung Group companies will increase dividends to help pay for it lifted their shares.
“Share sales can cause trouble as they would reduce the family’s control over the group. No conglomerates would do so,” Chung said. “Instead, most of them opt to make the cash payment over five years. Cash can be prepared through means such as dividends or salaries.”
That’s how Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, who took over the reins of LG Group in 2018 after his father’s death, is doing it: He and family members are paying their 921.5 billion won ($817 million) inheritance tax over five years.
While Samsung Electronics declined to comment on how the family plans to pay and split the fortune, it said “all taxes related to the inheritance will be transparently paid as required by law.”
Lee’s stakes included a 4% holding in the world’s biggest producer of smartphones, televisions and memory chips and 21% of Samsung Life Insurance Co., which owns the second-biggest chunk of Samsung Electronics.
His only son, Jay Y. Lee, has been leading the conglomerate since a heart attack incapacitated his father in 2014. Should he inherit all of the late leader’s shares in Samsung Electronics and Samsung Life Insurance, he may use dividends and financing from family members to prepare for the tax payment, said Jongwoo Yoo, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.
“It’s uncertain how much cash assets the family holds now, but dividend income won’t be enough to cover the tax charge,” he wrote in a note. “Therefore, it’s also highly possible that the family will rely on personal financing.”
The younger Lee is mired in legal troubles linked to a controversial merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015 that cemented his control of the group. While he holds less than 1% in Samsung Electronics, through the union he secured a 17% control in Samsung C&T Corp., which in turn directly owns 5% of the tech company.
Lee is awaiting a final ruling on a bribery case that sent him to prison in 2017, and he’s facing a separate trial on financial-fraud charges including stock-price manipulation to facilitate his succession. While he has denied any wrongdoing, he made a personal apology for the recurring corruption scandals at Samsung and pledged not to hand down leadership to his children.
“I give my word here today that from now on, there will be no more controversy regarding succession,” Lee said at a press conference in May. “There will absolutely be no infringement against the law.”
Samsung is the latest among a growing number of powerful Korean family-run conglomerates transitioning to the next generation. Earlier this month, Hyundai Motor Group named Euisun Chung as chairman in a move that completed his takeover of all top titles from his father.
The heirs will need to prove how they can bring changes as the so-called chaebols have often come under fire in recent years following a series of corruption scandals, according to Chaebul.com’s Chung.
“So it’s important to see how the Samsung family will take care of the inheritance issue,” he said.
–With assistance from Pei Yi Mak, Sohee Kim, Heejin Kim and Min Jeong Lee.


fortune--2020-10-26--China to impose sanctions on Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon over arms sales to Taiwan

China will impose unspecified sanctions on the defense unit of Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Raytheon Technologies Corp. after the U.S. approved $1.8 billion in arms sales to Taiwan last week.
The sanctions will be imposed “in order to uphold national interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters Monday in Beijing. “Boeing Defense” would be among those sanctioned, he said.
The State Department last week approved $1.8 billion in new weapons for Taiwan and submitted the package to Congress for a final review. The submission comes two months after the U.S. and Taiwan completed the sale of 66 new model F-16 Block 70 aircraft from Lockheed, and as tensions between the two superpowers continue to escalate ahead of the American election.
Boeing Defense is one of the broader company’s three business units, according to its website. A spokesperson for Boeing emphasized the firm’s relationship with China in the aviation space.
Boeing has “worked together successfully with the aviation community in China for almost 50 years to support Chinese efforts to ensure a safe, efficient and profitable aviation system to keep pace with the country’s rapid economic growth.”
“It’s been a partnership with long-term benefits and one that Boeing remains committed to,” the spokesperson said in the emailed statement.
Representatives from Raytheon weren’t immediately available for comment outside of normal U.S. business hours.
Zhao condemned Lockheed’s F-16 Block 70 sale at the time, saying it violates the One China principle, interferes in China’s internal affairs and will have a “major impact” on U.S.-China relations. Taiwan’s presidential office thanked the U.S for the sale. In July, China — which considers Taiwan part of its territory — had announced sanctions on Lockheed Martin for a previous arms sale to the island.
U.S. arms manufacturers face strict limitations on what kind of business they can do with countries deemed by Washington to be strategic rivals, such as China. Lockheed generated 9.7% of its revenue in the Asia-Pacific region last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, though that’s not broken down by individual countries.
For Boeing, China’s action comes at a delicate time. The company, reeling from the hit to air travel from the coronavirus pandemic, is trying to get its besieged 737 Max plane back into the air after two fatal crashes saw it grounded around the world. China was the first place to ground the plane, and also has the world’s biggest 737 Max fleet.
Europe’s top aviation regulator said earlier this month the plane will be safe enough to fly again before the end of this year, while U.S. Federal Aviation Administration chief Steve Dickson flew the Max in September and said the controls were “very comfortable.”
China, which had nearly 100 Max planes in operation prior to the grounding, doesn’t have a clear timetable for allowing the plane back into the air, Feng Zhenglin, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told reporters in Beijing last week.
–With assistance from Kyunghee Park.


fortune--2020-10-26--How a made-in-China COVID vaccine is dividing a country in two

A Chinese-developed COVID-19 vaccine is not approved for wide-spread use yet, but already it appears to be dividing a country in two.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro has launched a crusade against the governor of Brazil’s largest state, São Paulo, over a Chinese-made vaccine that ultimately could help the country combat the pandemic that’s infected 5.3 million Brazilians and killed 157,000.
“The Brazilian people will not be anyone’s guinea pig…That is why I have decided not to purchase this vaccine,” Bolsonaro wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday, refuting reports that the Health Ministry would purchase 46 million doses of the vaccine that São Paulo’s governor recently called the “most promising.”
The vaccine in question, CoronaVac, is being developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. In railing against CoronaVac, Bolsonaro cited its country of “origin” specifically. The episode is fueling fears globally that geopolitics—not science—will shape mass immunization campaigns as COVID-19 vaccines start to gain market approval.
‘Safest, most promising’
With the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, Brazil has become the ultimate testing ground for coronavirus vaccines. Companies behind five of the ten vaccines currently undergoing late-stage phase III trials are testing their candidates in the South American country because they need a high rate of infection to determine if their experimental doses work. Early last week, Brazilian officials signaled their favorite: Sinovac’s candidate, CoronaVac.
“The first results of the clinical study conducted in Brazil prove that among all the vaccines tested in the country, CoronaVac is the safest, the one with the best and most promising rates,” said João Doria, the governor of São Paulo.
Doria—a vocal Bolsonaro critic—negotiated a partnership between Sinovac and the Butantan Institute, a Brazilian vaccine research center, to develop and test CoronaVac in Brazil.
The day after Doria declared CoronaVac the “most promising,” Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello announced that the federal government would purchase 46 million doses of the vaccine from the Butantan Institute as part of a national immunization program. The deal is dependent on the vaccine getting approval from federal drug regulator, Anvisa.
The next day, Bolsonaro intervened.
Campaign against CoronaVac
Bolsonaro derided CoronaVac as “João Doria’s Chinese vaccine,” in response to a Facebook question about it, and said “for sure we will not buy the Chinese vaccine.”
Later the same day, the Health Ministry said in a statement that reports of the 46 million dose purchase were a “misinterpretation” of Pazuello’s remarks. According to the statement, the ministry had simply signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” with the Butantan Institute to buy the vaccines.
Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil looks on during the launch ceremony of the “Mineracao e Desenvolvimento” Program on September 28, 2020 in Brasilia, Brazil. Andre Borges—Getty Images
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro has continued his anti-CoronaVac campaign.
On Wednesday the president posted a video of himself alongside Pazuello. The health minister, who currently has the coronavirus, seemed to comply with the president’s demand to cancel the purchase, saying “the boss commands and we obey.”
Later the same day, Bolsonaro told a radio show that Brazil “won’t buy [a vaccine] from China” because people wouldn’t feel safe using it “due to its origin.”
Then on Saturday, Anvisa, Brazil’s health regulator, approved the import of 6 million doses of CoronaVac for phase III trials. Doria said discontinuing late-stage testing of the vaccine would be “criminal.” He found an ally in Rodrigo Maia, the speaker of Brazil’s lower legislative house, who urged Bolsonaro to reconsider his objection to the vaccine.
Politcal game
Bolsonaro has had a mercurial relationship with China. He started his term as a brash China hawk—dubbed the ‘Tropical Trump’—but he warmed to China as a trade partner during the pandemic, as exports to China have been an economic lifeline for Brazil.
Gustavo Romero, professor at the University of Brasilia and coordinating doctor for tests of the Sinovac Biotech vaccine, shows the vaccine to journalists amidst the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic at the University Hospital on August 5, 2020 in Brasilia. Andressa Anholete—Getty Images
Recently, the Brazilian president seems to have turned more towards the U.S., pledging support for Trump’s re-election and reportedly considering a ban on Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom manufacturer that the Trump administration considers a security threat.
Bolsonaro’s outright rejection of a Chinese vaccine—despite it reportedly being the safest option to date—appears to be another political move. His government is instead throwing support behind a vaccine developed by the U.K.-based AstraZeneca.
The Brazilian government has invested over $350 million in the British vaccine, and AstraZeneca’s doses are included in the national immunization plan.
Bolsonaro has accused Doria of playing a “political game” by backing the Sinovac vaccine.
Doria has hit back, claiming that Sinovac’s vaccine is “Brazil’s vaccine” because the Butantan Institute is helping develop it. He warned governments against “evaluat[ing] vaccines on political or ideological criteria.”
Brazil’s failure
Doria is not the only Brazilian governor affronted by Bolsonaro’s rhetoric. Maranhao state Governor Flavio Dino has said there is “general outrage” among state leaders.
Many see the president’s refusal to consider a promising vaccine as only the latest federal misstep.
A volunteer at the Emilio Ribas Institute for Infectiology is vaccinated with a corona vaccine from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. This is the third test phase of the active substance. Andre Lucas—picture alliance/Getty Images
Brazil recorded its first case of coronavirus on Feb. 25, one day before the U.S. detected its first instance of human-to-human transmission. Since then, Brazil has accumulated one of the highest tallies of COVID-19 cases in the world.
On Tuesday, a group of Brazilian scientists condemned Brazil’s response to the pandemic in The Lancet, a highly-respected British medical journal, arguing that Brazil’s federal government failed at every stage to implement any coordinated plans to combat the virus.
“The conclusion that Brazil has shown one of the worst responses to the pandemic is unequivocal,” the researchers wrote.
For its part, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stressed that China remains committed to working with Brazil in developing a vaccine.
“China and Brazil have been cooperating amid COVID-19,” foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a Thursday press conference. “With the phase III of vaccine clinical trials jointly launched by both sides smoothly progressing in Brazil. We believe our cooperation will help people in China, Brazil and across the world to defeat the pandemic.”
Brazil’s internal debate over the Chinese vaccine may prove a microcosm of how the global vaccine race plays out in months to come.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Fortune this week that U.S.-China tensions during COVID-19 has created ripe conditions for a “divided” vaccine world.
“You will find that OECD countries will prefer U.S.-made vaccines and many developing countries will have no other choice but to use Chinese-made vaccines,” Huang said.


fortune--2020-10-27--Trump eyes hosting Election Night party at his DC hotel

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President Donald Trump has his eye on hosting an election night party at his own hotel in the nation’s capital.
Over the past several days, the campaign has pushed out fundraising emails in the president’s name offering donors the chance to enter a drawing “to join Team Trump at the Election Night Party in my favorite hotel,” in Washington, suggesting he will use his luxury hotel as the backdrop for reacting to election results. The campaign has also spotlighted plans for the party in fundraising blasts from the president’s son Donald Trump. Jr.
“November 3rd will go down in history as the night we won FOUR MORE YEARS. It will be absolutely EPIC, and the only thing that could make it better is having YOU there,” Trump said in a fundraising solicitation.
For Trump, an election night party at his own hotel is symbolic for a businessman who leveraged his celebrity as a reality star and New York real estate magnate to win the nation’s highest office.
Critics see it as one more reminder of how the president has used his office to personally profit as foreign leaders, conservative supporters and administration officials use the lobby of Washington’s Trump International Hotel as an unofficial clubhouse for the Trump presidency.
Since 2017, the president and Republican National Committee have held several fundraisers at the president’s Washington hotel in the historic Old Post Office building, which the president’s company leases from the federal government.
Over the course of his presidency, the Trump campaign, the RNC and their joint-fundraising committees have spent over $7.4 million at Trump-branded properties.
The Washington hotel, which is blocks from the White House, has been sold out for weeks for Election Day as well as the days before and after Nov. 3. A basic room then is going for $1,200 a night, nearly triple the $476 room rate on Monday.
“Donald Trump has spent his entire presidency funneling taxpayer, campaign, special interest and foreign government money into the business that he still owns,” said Donald Sherman, deputy director of the nonprofit government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “In some ways, election night is going to be the pinnacle of his self dealing.”
The White House referred questions on the president’s election night plans to the Trump campaign, which did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s unclear how big Trump’s election night party will be. The District of Columbia, under coronavirus protocols, has capped mass gatherings at 50 people.
The president has sidestepped the district’s rules, which hold no weight on federal property, at other recent events. The president hosted hundreds of people on the White House grounds for an Independence Day weekend celebration, for his Republican National Convention speech in August and again at last month’s Rose Garden announcement of the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Several attendees, including Trump, tested positive for the coronavirus in the days following Barrett’s event. Few guests wore masks.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters on Monday that she had heard of plans for an election night party and added, “We will be in touch with our licensee, which is the hotel.”
Bowser also more broadly questioned Trump’s wisdom in holding large gatherings at a moment when cases are spiking in the U.S. Trump was expected to host a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday after an anticipated Senate vote to confirm Barrett.
“You can believe that you can go to the White House and get COVID and that nothing’s going to happen to you. Perhaps,” Bowser said. “Or you can die from it.”
Trump held his 2016 election party in his then-hometown of New York. But he booked his victory party at New York’s Hilton in Midtown Manhattan because his own nearby Trump International Hotel & Tower didn’t have a big enough room.
It’s unclear how much of a presence Trump himself will be in the election night festivities this time. With a significant portion of the electorate opting to mail in their ballots, that could delay tabulation of results.
Sherman noted that Trump, whenever he leaves office, will have a Secret Service detail for the rest of his life like other past presidents. With every Trump trip to one of his properties, taxpayers will cover the tab of agents protecting the 45th president.
“I have a high level of confidence that Donald Trump will find a way to have government or special interest money go to his hotels regardless of the outcome of next week’s election,” Sherman said.


fortune--2020-10-27--Eli Lilly’s antibody treatment proves unhelpful for advanced COVID cases

A paused clinical trial of an Eli Lilly & Co. experimental antibody therapy won’t resume after federal researchers concluded the drug likely wouldn’t help hospitalized Covid-19 patients with advanced cases.
The National Institutes of Health researchers who initially halted the trial due to a safety concern, however, didn’t find that the treatment caused any harm, which may bode well for a regulatory review of the antibody’s use in a different setting.
While the decision to end the NIH-sponsored trial means Lilly’s antibody treatment may not work for the most extreme cases, other trials are ongoing to determine whether it helps patients earlier in the disease’s course. Notably, the finding that there wasn’t a safety issue in the hospital trial could remove a potential roadblock to emergency authorization that Lilly is seeking for using the antibody in patients outside of the hospital.
On Oct. 13, an independent data-safety monitoring board for the so-called ACTIV-3 trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH, recommended the study be paused due to a safety concern. The board has since found no difference in safety risks between the groups of patients receiving the antibody, known as LY-CoV555, and those who didn’t.
That means there is no longer a possibility that the hospital trial had unearthed an unexpected safety problem that could spill over into non-hospitalized patients, where the antibody has shown promising results.
Antibody therapies are being developed by a handful of companies, including Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., AstraZeneca Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and its partner Vir Biotechnology Inc., and are seen as a bridge to a coronavirus vaccine. The class of drugs has come into the spotlight as President Donald Trump received Regeneron’s experimental antibody therapy to treat his bout of Covid-19. Regeneron also approached U.S. regulators earlier this month for an emergency use authorization.
ACTIV-3 was testing a high-dose version of the antibody treatment Lilly is developing with Canadian biotech AbCellera Biologics Inc. in combination with the antiviral drug remdesivir, yet there was no indication it was effective, leading an independent panel to recommend stopping enrollment. The study signed up a total of 326 participants who were hospitalized with Covid-19.
In contrast to the hospital trial results, a company-sponsored trial with patients with less-severe cases of Covid-19, taking lower doses of LY-CoV555, produced promising early results in September. That became the basis of an approach to U.S. regulators for an emergency use authorization for those deemed “high risk” with mild-to-moderate Covid-19.
The announcement is an indication that monoclonal antibodies may only work if given early in the course of a coronavirus infection, before the virus has had a chance to penetrate deep into the lungs and cause serious damage.
Clinical studies of the experimental antibody therapy in the outpatient setting, as well as a preventive treatment in nursing homes, have continued unaffected. The independent data-safety monitoring board overseeing ACTIV-3 didn’t recommend any changes to another government-run trial, known as ACTIV-2.
The Indianapolis-based drug giant said in a statement Monday that it remains confident LY-CoV555 may prevent progression of disease. Lilly executives are expected to give an update on its experimental antibody program on Tuesday morning as the company reports third-quarter earnings.
Lilly is currently in talks with Operation Warp Speed for supply, Chief Executive Officer David Ricks told Bloomberg earlier in the month.


fortune--2020-10-27--Gap CEO: We’re not leaving all malls

Gap CEO: We’re not leaving all malls

Sonia Syngal took on the top job at Gap Inc. at the onset of the pandemic in March, a crisis that would have tested even the most battle-scarred chief executive. So far, Syngal has proved herself to be more than up to the challenge: The company’s share price has tripled since the spring, in part because of bold decisions.
Those decisions include closing 350 of the company’s Gap and Banana Republic stores in North America by 2023. The move will mean that only 20% of its Gap shops will be in malls—the place where most consumers first encountered the brand.
Speaking at Fortune’s Global Forum online event on Monday, Syngal offered further context about the decision.
“Stores matter…This is not to say we’re leaving all malls,” said Syngal, explaining the company’s strategy would be about “choosing the right real estate” and focusing on the most relevant malls where consumers are showing up.
Syngal, who had been at Gap for 15 years prior to her promotion, added that the pandemic had resulted in a crash course in e-commerce—an experience that forced the company to reconsider its value proposition.
“The Gap brand is a lot bigger than the way we were monetizing the brand,” she said, pointing to new partnerships and licensing initiatives, including a 10-year-deal with Kanye West that will see the company introduce a “Yeezy Gap” apparel line.
Syngal stressed that clarity of vision, relevance, and “releasing trapped energy” would be among the company’s priorities in coming years.
Syngal also addressed the role of social activism within the company, whose other brands are Old Navy and Athleta. She explained recent initiatives—which include paying workers to help at election poll stations and donating apparel to help people keep a foothold in the workplace—as examples of “inclusivity by design,” a corporate value that Syngal described as encouraging participation in all aspects of society.


fortune--2020-10-27--Senate confirms Amy Coney Barrett to U.S. Supreme Court

The Senate voted 52-48 Monday to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, giving the court a 6-3 conservative majority that could determine the future of the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights.
All Democrats in the chamber voted against Barrett’s confirmation, as did Republican Susan Collins of Maine, who agreed with Democratic objections to confirming a justice so close to the Nov. 3 election.
President Donald Trump and his GOP allies in the Senate pushed for a quick confirmation of Barrett, and it came just 38 days after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who for 27 years anchored the court’s liberal wing. Trump had said he wanted his replacement for Ginsburg in place to avoid a deadlocked court should the outcome of the presidential election depend on a ruling, as was the case in 2000.
A White House swearing-in ceremony for Barrett is being planned for Monday evening with Justice Clarence Thomas set to administer the oath of office.
The highly partisan vote on the confirmation mirrors the divisions in the country leading up to the election and on some of the issues that will be before the high court in the near future. Those issues include the validity of the Affordable Care Act and the status of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion rights nationwide, as well as voting and civil rights.
The court is scheduled to hear arguments on the ACA, the law known as Obamacare, a week after the election. The Trump administration is urging the court to declare the law invalid, including its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
The Mississippi attorney general, meanwhile, has pitched the court to take up her state’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks in a case that could sharply limit Roe and for the first time let states outlaw the procedure before a fetus becomes viable.
Trump has said he wants the justices he’s selected for the court — there are now three of them — to invalidate Obamacare and overturn Roe v. Wade.
The court is already addressing pre-election skirmishes over the rules for casting and counting ballots in the contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
Just last week, the court deadlocked 4-4 on how many days Pennsylvania could wait after Election Day for mail-in votes to arrive, leaving in force a three-day extension for the receipt of absentee ballots in the pivotal state. Barrett could provide the fifth vote to overturn any state court ruling that expands voting, or otherwise favors Democrats.
The court also is scheduled to hear arguments Nov. 30 on Trump’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census, a case that could determine the allocation of House seats and federal dollars.
Barrett, 48, has served on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals since 2017 and taught at Notre Dame Law School. In three days of testimony during her confirmation hearings, Barrett stressed she would be independent, while asserting she had no agenda but to follow the Constitution and the law. She deflected questions on how she might rule on issues such as abortion, despite having the clearest anti-abortion record of any nominee in decades.
Barrett’s nomination so close to the election and the rapid confirmation process drew an angry response from Democrats, who pointed to the refusal of Senate Republicans to even give a hearing to President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill a vacancy that arose in February 2016 because it was an election year.
While the number of justices has been set at nine since 1869, that experience and the Barrett nomination has ignited a campaign by Democratic activists to expand the court in retaliation, though that idea hasn’t been embraced by Biden or Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.
Biden has said he would appoint a commission to consider court reform, while Schumer has said everything would be on the table next year if Democrats take back the Senate.
Republicans have long seen court battles as a key motivator for turning out their base, and Republican senators including Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are pinning their re-election hopes in large part on their successful efforts to shift to the courts to the right.
They won’t have to wait long see whether their efforts bear fruit at the ballot box.