fortune--2020-03-22--Why the U.S. oil and natural gas industry doesn’t want tariffs right now

In a first , NYSE will close its trading floor and conduct remote trading amid coronavirus pandemic

As the world grapples with the ongoing spread of the coronavirus, the decision by Russia and the OPEC nations to increase energy supplies while demand is dropping has contributed to ongoing market instability and delivered a shock to America’s evolving energy picture.
Since the late 2000s, the U.S. has emerged as the world’s leading producer of natural gas and oil—last month producing at estimated record levels of 13 million barrels of oil and 96.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas to meet consumer demand. Innovative technologies like hydraulic fracturing have enabled producers to reach abundant U.S. shale reserves, and thus changed America’s trajectory from energy scarcity to abundance and from importing energy to exporting it.
It is not surprising, then, that some global energy players are threatened by American energy leadership and have actively tried to prevent its progress. Russia and other nations’ push to increase global energy supply despite lower demand in the short term is a reaction to America’s new paradigm as a global energy superpower. This is a challenging situation, compounded by the impact of the coronavirus, but interventions like protectionist trade measures are not the answer.
While today’s headlines demonstrate that our nation isn’t shielded entirely from impacts to global energy markets, America is in a better economic and energy security position today than it was in the past two decades. If history and market fundamentals are any measure, the U.S. will emerge stronger and continue to provide necessary energy leadership to continue to meet the world’s long-term demand for natural gas and oil.
We’ve seen time and again that free market policies provide greater stability and growth. Certain reactions in times of global market unrest—such as tariffs or sanctions—ultimately hurt U.S. producers and consumers.
There are multiple reasons the oil and natural gas industry does not want the government to enact harmful trade measures like tariffs or quotas.
First, tariffs delay energy projects by increasing the price of critical production materials not available in the U.S., hurting American energy leadership. Imposing tariffs on foreign countries has already resulted in higher costs for vital industry inputs. We shouldn’t repeat those mistakes during a public health crisis.
Instead, the administration should resolve these issues diplomatically and engage with our global supply partners to address the currently oversupplied market environment.
Second, global energy demand has remained robust for decades, following periods of transitory economic duress and geopolitical jockeying. Prominent examples are the seminal global oil market events of the 1970s and 80s and every recession since then, including the financial crisis of 2008-09. Markets bounce back.
Short-term demand for our products may be down, but long-term energy needs across the globe remain strong. OPEC and the International Energy Agency recently cut short-term demand projections, but certain physical properties—light viscosity and low sulfur content—make U.S. oil an attractive international product, as it is well-suited for relatively simple and low-cost refining processes globally.
When you look at refining capacity and its growth around the world, the Asia Pacific region, and especially China and India, are the fastest-growing markets, with the most voracious appetites for light crude oil. Last year, despite trade tensions, the Asia Pacific region purchased 42% of U.S. crude oil exports. That won’t change as populations return to normal, economies expand, and living standards improve worldwide.
Third, this is an industry that has proven resilient and innovative through market downturns in the past. Technological innovation is leading to productivity gains and new pipeline infrastructure is a testament to the strength and staying power of the U.S. energy revolution.
Finally, the natural gas and oil industry has, by necessity, long-term planning and investment horizons that require continued capital commitments to ensure that energy demands are met no matter what. What hangs in the balance now for the U.S. are trillions of dollars in much-needed existing energy infrastructure and investments, plus billions more in capital projects construction.
There’s no sugarcoating the challenges that unexpected market shifts present to America’s energy industry, our employees, and the states and communities where we live, all of which are vital to America. All industries face difficult decisions in the coming weeks and months, as the coronavirus has unleashed significant uncertainty.
As a nation and industry, we have weathered complicated periods before. The natural gas and oil industry will stay steady as problem solvers focused on providing safe, reliable, affordable, and cleaner energy to overcome immediate and future challenges.
Mike Sommers is president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Financial crisis looms as corporate America presses for coronavirus bailout
—Tax deadline moved to July 15 due to coronavirus
—Death rate in China’s coronavirus epicenter is lower than previously thought
—How working parents are navigating childcare during the coronavirus pandemic
—As oil slides on coronavirus and price war, the market looks for the new normal
—Funerals in the time of coronavirus: How a pandemic is changing the industry
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
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fortune--2020-03-22--Italian winemakers grapple with the coronavirus lockdown

Why the U.S. oil and natural gas industry doesn ’ t want tariffs right now

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This should have been Marta Poli’s busiest time of year—a “time for excellence” as she describes it.
As export manager for Mirabella, a producer of Franciacorta sparkling wines a few hours northeast of Milan, Poli had been on a sales trip to the United States in late February, meeting with American distributors, journalists, and other tastemakers and clients to introduce them to the northern Italian winery’s latest vintages.
But when she returned home to Italy on March 6, the country was on the brink of lockdown.
“I found here a different situation, a different Italy,” she says. “Our life was changing, definitively.”
March is normally a busy period for most winegrowers, involving a lot of preparation, plowing, and binding of new baby vines for the spring planting season. It’s also when new vintages are often released, many of which had been bottled the previous fall. And as the temperatures warm up, wineries increasingly welcome visitors—tourists and clients alike—in the coming months.
Mirabella is a family-run winery, established in 1979. Courtesy of Mirabella Franciacorta
It’s also the opening of the sales season, which as for Poli, involves extensive traveling, tastings, events, and visits to importers and distributors both within Europe and worldwide. Many of them would have been preparing for a number of big trade fairs, including ProWein in Düsseldorf (which would have been this weekend), and Vinitaly in Verona this June.
“Basically, around this time of the year we are usually fighting for commercial success. Now we are fighting against coronavirus,” says Andrea di Fabio, the sales and marketing director for Cantina Tollo, a winery in Italy’s Abruzzo region along the Adriatic Sea.
COVID-19 is a new strain of coronavirus, a large family of viruses causing illnesses in humans ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV), according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Not previously identified in humans but believed to have been an animal-to-human transmission, it was first was discovered in late 2019 in Wuhan, China. Although most major airlines cut off flights from China at the end of January, the highly contagious disease continued to spread, and Italy has since become the worst-hit region outside of China in the last three weeks. The country has incurred approximately 47,021 confirmed cases and 4,032 deaths as of March 22, according to WHO.
Annalisa Zorzettig, who runs the family-owned Zorzettig winery in northern Italy near the Austrian and Slovenian borders, says she saw the first signals in January that 2020 would be anything but normal when the business saw a halt on shipments to China, Korea, and Taiwan, followed by a decline in Thailand, Japan, and Hong Kong. By March 10, shipments declined worldwide—notably across Europe and both North and South America. So far, she notes, markets that have been less impacted by uncertainty are Scandinavia and Russia.
Annalisa Zorzettig runs her family’s winery in the heart of the Italian winemaking region Colli Orientali del Friuli. Courtesy of Zorzettig
“Hospitality activities have stopped completely, both those regarding winery visits and stays at our [Relais La Collina hotel], which was already 100% booked for the season,” she adds. “This is the time of the year when tourists and wine lovers from Austria and Germany arrive.”
Di Fabio admits when the news about coronavirus started to become more prevalent in January to early February, he thought it would be limited to a specific area. “But quickly we understood that it was becoming a worldwide issue,” Di Fabio continues. “So at the beginning of January, we had to stop all our commercial trips to Asia, and later, at the end of February, we decided to stop immediately all trips of our sales team.”
Northern Italy, more industrial and the economic powerhouse for the country, was particularly hard hit first, prompting authorities to set up roadblocks and to quarantine specific regions, including Lombardy and Veneto first. By the beginning of March, the Italian government closed the borders altogether and implemented the most dramatic nationwide restrictions since World War II.
Supply chains, however, are not cut off, and shipments can still make their way in and out of the country. But winemakers are still going to suffer a major blow this year, and many of them are at a loss as to what adjustments they can make to generate enough income to bounce back.
Andrea di Fabio is sales and marketing director for Cantina Tollo in Abruzzo, Italy. Courtesy of Cantina Tollo
“I think there isn’t a really effective adjustment we can adopt to generate income in this period,” di Fabio says, instead focusing on the bigger picture for the country. “What we are trying to do is to prevent future further stops [to work], possibly deriving from the diffusion of the virus in other countries.”
Like all other nonessential businesses in Italy, Mirabella ceased all hospitality activities and closed the wine shop and called off tastings at the beginning of March. That also included shutting down the business office and production line. Poli suggests the best thing to do right now starts with simple planning and brainstorming new sales strategies.
“The world will change after COVID-19,” Poli says. “Trades will change, movements of goods, and people will change. And we’ll be ready to deal with this.” Poli is optimistic, noting that Mirabella is going ahead with some of its new projects, including promoting a new 100% Pinot Blanc wine made in the traditional method, the Anglophone term for méthode champenoise for all sparkling wines made like Champagne but outside of the French region. Until then, the winery is focusing on getting creative with sales and communications as the winery’s 10 employees work remotely for the time being.
“There are so many possibilities to improve our competences thanks to the web,” Poli says. “This is the perfect moment to do this. We can’t waste this opportunity, and we need to take advantage.”
Marta Poli with a bottle of Mirabella Franciacorta sparkling wine in New York City on Feb. 27, 2020. Rachel King
Zorzettig admits that in such an unprecedented moment in history, it is still difficult to imagine practical adjustments and answers. It’s even more daunting when winemakers are staring down forecasts predicting 20% to 30% in revenue loss for 2020.
“Crises are also a moment for new chances,” Zorzettig says, noting that e-commerce sales have gone up for the business, adding she hopes Italian tourists will be extra willing to support their country this summer, spending their vacation time locally while buying and enjoying Italian products.
Zorzettig also launched a proactive fundraising effort to support local hospitals. While Italy’s national health care system has been lauded as one of the world’s best in recent years, the onslaught of COVID-19 cases has overwhelmed the system to a breaking point. Noting that the winery survived World War II, the Zorzettig family organized a fundraising project aimed at economically supporting the intensive care unit of Hospital Santa Maria della Misericordia in Udine, Italy, which is at the forefront of the COVID-19 emergency.
Starting this week, the winery is selling a limited edition of its Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, made from the eponymous native red wine grape variety. Grown only locally, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso is well-known for being a resilient grape. Proceeds will be used to buy medical equipment. The bottle label will include the sentence “Andrà tutto bene,” which translates to “Everything will be all right,” in eight different languages—specifically eight as it is a lucky number in China, where the emergency started and but is also experiencing the first positive signs of recovery.
“In the future, this will be a reminder of a challenging time we were able to overcome and of a moment which has taught us, once more, how precious are little joys and beloved ones,” Zorzettig says.
Courtesy of Zorzettig
Cantina Tollo, which specializes in Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOP red wines, has 70 permanent employees year-round. Given the nationwide self-quarantine mandate, which is being implemented by governments across the European Union and North America this month, di Fabio notes they are experimenting with working from home for some employees, who have been provided laptops and access to a Citrix-based digital workspace. They’re also relying on WhatsApp for direct communications among one another and Skype for video communications with clients.
“I think—but I hope I’m wrong—we’ll have to face a decrease in demand for three to four months,” he predicts.
At the same time, di Fabio says the company’s priority is the health and safety of its employees, followed by keeping in touch with customers in order to fulfill their needs. “Obviously, the better our capacity to recover the business, the more likely the chance that the actual situation will not significantly affect wages,” di Fabio says.
Once the worst of the pandemic does pass, Zorzettig says the priority will be ensuring businesses and entire industries are supported to make as close to a full return to normal as possible. This includes ensuring employees don’t lose their jobs as well as evaluating future costs and expenses as a result of the downtime.
“The government has already adopted some immediate solutions, such as tax relief and help regarding mortgage payments,” Zorzettig says. “The role of the government will be crucial in providing concrete tools as well as a psychological and emotional recovery.”
Still, some winemakers expressed frustration with government officials—not only for their lack of support during the crisis but also suggesting they could have been more proactive in anticipating the crisis and subsequent fallout. Although EU member states have by and large promised to offer financial support for full-time employees, those assurances still leave some discouraged.
“We don’t want money,” di Fabio says. “We want to be able to work.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Financial crisis looms as corporate America presses for coronavirus bailout
—Tax deadline moved to July 15 due to coronavirus
—Death rate in China’s coronavirus epicenter is lower than previously thought
—How working parents are navigating childcare during the coronavirus pandemic
—As oil slides on coronavirus and price war, the market looks for the new normal
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—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-21--No quarter: Coronavirus is killing pinball halls—and all the other communal spaces we call home’

This article is part of a Fortune Special Report: Business in the Coronavirus Economy—a look at the impact of the pandemic on more than 50 industries.
Two miles southwest of downtown Denver, a fluorescent glow shone from the windows of a squat brick warehouse. It was nearly 3:30 a.m. on March 6, and inside, 17-year-old Colin Urban and 15-year-old Jason Zahler were about to find out which one would claim the title of North American Pinball Champion. After 15 hours of plunging, flipping, and nudging, suspense had built, and the end was near.
It took more spritzes of hand sanitizer than usual, but the crowd at the International Flipper Pinball Association’s North American Championship had trickled down to just a few family members, IFPA officials, and local organizers by the early morning final match. When Zahler and Urban stepped up to the arena—and a machine themed on Marvel’s Iron Man franchise—no one thought this would be the last pinball tournament they’d watch for the foreseeable future.
A few days earlier, just outside Urban’s hometown of Portland, Ore., officials had announced the state’s first COVID-19 diagnosis. When panic-buying neighbors cleared store shelves of hand sanitizer, Colin and his parents, Thomas and Sara, concocted a homemade substitute of aloe gel and rubbing alcohol.
The Urbans’ hygiene concerns weren’t new. The family had flown around the world as Colin competed in tournaments, and they had previously wondered about other players’ handwashing habits. But as “social distancing” because of the coronavirus had started to become a reality, they felt an increased urgency to keep clean—especially as the outbreak crashed headlong into tight-knit communities that bond over shared passions like competitive pinball.
In the past decade, the number of people competing in IFPA-sanctioned tournaments has grown annually by double digits. Last year, more than 7,000 such events took place, a 31% increase over the previous year. In pinball—or more accurately, the places it’s played—this increasingly large group has found a “third place,” a shared space away from home, work, and school, where widely divergent communities can coalesce organically.
Many of history’s best-known third places—from Prohibition-era gambling dens, to postwar bowling alleys, to ’80s arcades—have featured pinball machines. Modern-day “barcades,” dive bars, and entertainment centers even lured dedicated players from their private basement collection of machines to “location” play. There, an often-passionate, unexpectedly warm, and fast-growing global community of players turned to the game for escape, engagement, challenge, reflection, and camaraderie.
Until last week, that is.
“Pinball is somewhat unique in that it’s literally all of the bad things that you can do as far as personal health and cleanliness can go,” says Zoë Vrabel, one of Oregon’s IFPA state directors and a member of the IFPA women’s advisory board.
Unlike online video gamers and e-sports players, Urban, Zahler, and tens of thousands of other pinballers worldwide swap turns—and possibly worse—fingering flipper buttons and nudging machines with their bare hands. You can’t win a pinball tournament without pressing the same plastic buttons, leaning on the same metal lockdown bars, or nudging the same wooden cabinets that dozens or hundreds of opponents have already touched, leaned against, or nudged.
People play video games and pinball at the Replay FX festival in Pittsburgh in August 2019. The Replay Foundation, which hosts the annual 25,000-person event and a simultaneous 1,000-player “Pinburgh” pinball tournament, hasn’t yet decided whether to cancel this summer’s festival in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. Photo by Bill Lascher
When Zahler approached the Iron Man machine for his last of three balls, both he and Urban had won three games in the best-of-seven final round. After a bad bounce at the end of his final ball, Urban had finished the game with just over 5.6 million points. Zahler’s 2.1 million put him in striking distance. And with few key shots, he could still bring the title home to Long Branch, N.J.
But after Zahler plunged his final ball, it careened around the machine’s right side. Zahler trapped it on a flipper, aimed, flipped, and then watched as his hopes vanished. The ball ricocheted from a super-villain figurine, caromed right, and bounced back toward a ball-ending “outlane” near the teenager’s left hand. Unable to do anything to alter the ball’s trajectory, he shoved the 250-pound machine, wailed in frustration, and walked away, as useless warnings lit the score display.
“Danger,” the orange dot-matrix lettering flashed.
“Danger,” It flashed again.
“Tilt”
“Game Over”
Back in Portland, members of the pinball community watching online celebrated Urban, their hometown hero, with posts on the match’s Twitch live-stream and a Facebook group. “PDX!” they cheered digitally, and “Go Colin!”
But the new champion’s joy would be short-lived. By the time the Urbans returned to Portland, the world itself was hurtling toward a frenzy of social distancing and curve flattening. The goal, in this new game, was to keep the numbers as low as possible by making as little contact as possible.
The fear of the coronavirus’s spread started earlier in Portland and Seattle than in most American cities. At the time of the tournament, Seattle had the highest concentration of reported COVID-19 diagnoses in the U.S. Both Pacific Northwest cities, it so happens, are also home to two of the busiest competitive pinball scenes in the country.
“That was a vastly different world seven days ago,” said IFPA president, Josh Sharpe, a week after his organization’s championships. On March 16 he released a statement announcing that the IFPA wouldn’t sanction new tournaments until March 31—at the earliest.
Great, good game over?
“So many people have found their community in pinball,” says Vrabel, who owns pinball machines of her own. But it’s not the game itself that social distancing is destroying. Vrabel, whose job lets her work from home, calls pinball her excuse to go out into the world. “So much of what the pinball community is,” she says, “is going to bars with your pinball-playing friends. That’s evaporated.”
Vrabel, like people with other hobbies and hangouts, has lost her third place, a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 bestseller, The Great Good Place.
“The real value of a third place is that everybody is equal there,” Oldenburg says via phone from his Pensacola, Fla., home. “You don’t find that in any other kind of situation.”
Oldenburg has long lamented suburbia’s lack of third places, but in the age of the coronavirus and social distancing, residential isolation suddenly has a new value.
“The suburban world was built for the kind of problem we’re having right now with the virus, because the suburban world is designed for loneliness,” Oldenburg says. “There’s no public life.”
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While quarantining might help protected public health, it may also put third places at risk. Most of these spaces are more mundane than pinball halls, of course. Coffee shops, gyms, and neighborhood stores are just as valuable to their regulars. Third places are defined less by the walls enclosing them than by how people connect within them.
Near Oldenburg’s home, for example, Hardee’s fast-food restaurants are common third places, he says. At one location eight people gather for cups of coffee at 6 a.m., while an 8 a.m. group brings out six regulars.
“All they do is talk,” he says.
“The axis of my social life”
With the halt to public life, right now so much of people’s interaction is happening online, including on pinball-focused message boards like Tilt Forums and numerous regional Facebook groups. Anxiety in posts to these groups heightened as the first weekend of nationwide sequestering approached, and pinball events large and small were either canceled or postponed. Accounts of favorite pinball haunts shuttering and players laid off from their jobs were crippling for some to read. All anyone wanted was to get together to lament the closures together, and they couldn’t.
One post came from Dana Valatka, a drummer who lost his bartending job when another bar and arcade, Portland’s QuarterWorld, closed. Normally, Tuesday night is the highlight of the week for bartenders, restaurant servers, concert light riggers, and other locals who love pinball. That’s when a series of Flip City Weeklies take place around town. By March 17, the series had been put on hold indefinitely.
Valatka described himself as an introvert who generally feels relieved when plans get canceled. “But I’ve always [looked] forward to Tuesdays,” he wrote. “I get cranky when something makes me miss Flip City. Tuesday is the axis of my social life.”
Dana Valatka—a drummer and bartender recently laid off from Portland arcade QuarterWorld—competes in the playoffs at Pinburgh, the world’s largest pinball tournament. Valatka recently told fellow members of Portland’s tight-knit pinball community that he felt adrift after public health concerns forced organizers to suspend a series of tournaments at bars around Portland. Photo by Bill Lascher
Mario Small, a Harvard sociologist who writes about social networks, says online interactions haven’t eclipsed society’s need to interact in person.
“Physical space ends up being way more important than people realize,” Small says. “It has not ceased to be important in age of the Internet.”
Forced isolation to combat the COVID-19 outbreak will come with other costs. “What’s so ironic about this is that the thing we need most in order to preserve society,” Small says, “is abandoning the entities that we need to preserve society.”
When the owners of some pinball establishments started renting out pinball machines after closing their doors, a poster to another pinball Facebook group wondered how soon people would start opening their own “speakeasies” to play together.
The joke makes sense, says Small. “I would not be surprised if, a few weeks from now—especially here in a country where people are used to personal freedom and a strong sense of self-determination—people start coming up with alternative ways of gathering, quietly,” he says.
Carly Kocurek, an associate professor of humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology who studies the cultural history of video games, says arcades are community institutions that help players feel “like a whole person.”
But it remains to be seen how such institutions will look after this crisis, she adds: “I really hope that in 10 years we look back and see that we came up with valid solutions, and don’t just remember that time when all the restaurants closed, and all the bars closed, and all the arcades closed.”
Social creatures, solo players
Only 18 months ago, Chris Rhodes, a longtime Portland pinball operator and player, and business partner Alan Robertson opened Wedgehead, a bar, pinball parlor, and restaurant. They were just starting to feel the business turn a corner financially when the outbreak hit. Now they’re shutting their business down.
It’s a painful moment, but Robertson and Rhodes have been soothed somewhat by an outpouring of support. Robertson in particular hadn’t realized how important his business had become for its customers.
“People said things like, ‘This is our second home,’” he says. “When you run a gathering spot, it kind of takes on a mind of its own—you have a clientele that remembers all its times there.”
On March 17, instead of getting ready for a Kirk Russell birthday bash they host annually as a cheeky reply to ubiquitous Saint Patrick’s Day parties, Robertson and Rhodes spent the afternoon emptying coin boxes and liquidating whatever they could to make payroll. (Robertson stressed that as hard a hit as they were taking, it was equally hard, if not more so, for their employees.) As the coronavirus forces all nonessential business to grind to a halt, the duo can’t envision any scenario where they can reopen without some kind of business loan or other outside assistance.
“It does feel like a special part of being human is torn away from us, which is that social gathering aspect,” Robertson says. “There’s no normal coping, because we are social creatures. To be told that we can’t (gather with others) feels particularly cruel.”
Back in Denver, a week and a half and more than 200,000 confirmed coronavirus cases earlier, Sharpe presented Colin Urban with a gigantic pinball-shaped trophy, a plaque, and a golden key good for a free, brand-new pinball machine from Stern Pinball.
Urban was looking forward to playing in the IFPA’s 17th World Pinball Championship in Fort Meyers, Fla., at the end of May, as well as the Epstein Cup, a tournament that pits teams of the best pinball players from the U.S. and Europe against one another, later this year. Only top players qualify for the Epstein Cup, and Urban is worried about how long he can maintain his rank. “All the best players in the world are going to be there,” he says.
At least, they might be—Urban knows the event could be canceled tomorrow. He understands, but he’d be disappointed. Urban has played against his potential teammates in tournaments, and the Epstein Cup offers a rare opportunity to be a part of something much larger than his own point total: a team.
Now, instead of the usually busy summer tournament season, the only pinball Colin might play will be the Jurassic Park–themed game he hopes to ask Stern for as his tournament prize.
He’ll be by himself, but then again, so will everyone else.
And in that, at least, he won’t be alone.
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fortune--2020-03-23--Regeneron will start testing its Covid-19 treatment in June

Exit Interview : What Helena Foulkes learned about retail and leadership as CEO of HBC

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Good morning.
The United States may have a broken political system, a dysfunctional health care delivery system, and an excess of entitled people who don’t know when to stay off the beaches or out of the bars. But we do have one big thing going for us: the smartest and most creative entrepreneurs on the face of the earth.
One of them is George Yancopoulos, who 30 years ago helped found Regeneron, and continues today as its chief scientist. He is working the front lines in the war against Covid-19, and getting tantalizingly close to a cure. I had the opportunity to talk with him late last week, and left the conversation feeling far more optimistic about the course of this deadly disease. You can listen to the interview here.
Yancopoulos described a three-front battle against Covid-19. The first front are efforts to apply existing drugs to treat the disease–including a Regeneron rheumatoid arthritis drug that went into clinical trials against Covid-19 last week. The second is the search for a vaccine, which will likely take “a year or two,” because of the need for careful testing for safety.
The third approach is to develop a new treatment targeted directly at the disease. At Regeneron, that involves using a technique Yancopoulos developed and used to treat Ebola. The scientists implant human genes in mice, then infect those mice with the coronavirus, and then harvest, “clone” and purify the antibodies that result. While a vaccine provokes the body to create its own antibodies, Yancopoulos’ treatment would inject antibodies directly into the patient. The protection won’t last as long as that coming from a vaccine, but it could be extremely important in protecting frontline health care workers and high-risk individuals.
“We’ll begin testing in June,” he says. “We have the capacity to make hundreds of thousands of doses a month, and we could increase that tenfold.”
When I noted that Regeneron’s stock price has been heading north since the first of February, in part because of this work, Yancopoulos responded: “We don’t watch the stock. We pay attention to delivering important medicines to people. We are not a commercially driven company.”
“Really?” I challenged. “You aren’t focused on your bottom line?”
“If you deliver important drugs to people, the money takes care of itself,” he said. “Innovation has saved us before. That’s what we have to focus on again.”
And by the way, if you listen to the podcast, you will notice it says at the end that it was recorded at Fortune Media offices in New York. That’s no longer true. I safely recorded the Yancopoulos interview over a phone line at my home in Greenwich, Conn. (a town that was practicing social distancing long before it became a thing!).
News below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Dire predictions
James Bullard, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has predicted a possible halving of U.S. GDP (far worse than even Goldman Sachs's dire prediction of a 24% drop) and an American unemployment rate of 30% in the coming quarter. "There is more that [the Fed] can do if necessary," he said, referring to the Fed's existing authority. "There is probably much more in the months ahead depending on where Congress wants to go." Meanwhile, the OECD says the economic shock of the outbreak already outstrips the financial crisis. Bloomberg
Stimulus impasse
Senate Democrats have blocked a proposed $2 trillion stimulus deal that, they say, would have give given big business too much money with insufficient conditions and oversight. The Democrats, who are still in negotiations with the administration, want the cash to come with restrictions on executive compensation and stock buybacks—they also object to secrecy around which companies are getting the state aid. Financial Times
Markets wobble
The worsening impact of the coronavirus pandemic—over 340,000 confirmed cases, almost 15,000 dead—continues to alarm investors. Asian markets fell today, with the exception of the Nikkei 225 (up 2%), and the Stoxx Europe 600 fell 4.5% shortly after markets opened. U.S. futures also indicate another drop at open. AFP
NYSE closed
The New York Stock Exchange's trading floor is closed indefinitely as of today—the first time in its history that it has closed the floor while the markets are open. As Erik Sherman explains, IPOs are still possible though none are scheduled. Investors should not notice that traders and designated market makers are working from home. Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
EU plan
With the European Commission having triggered an "escape clause" in the EU's deficit rules, European national governments should now be able to pump as much money into the economy as they need to. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has however called for an EU-wide "Marshall Plan of reconstruction", arguing: "We are making an extraordinary fiscal effort, but it is important that it is not only at the national level." Politico
Olympic delay
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has conceded that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics may have to be postponed—but not cancelled. Abe: "If the [International Olympic Committee's] decision means it becomes impossible to hold [the Olympics] in a ‘complete form,’ as I have previously said, then a decision may have to be made to postpone them." Canada and Australia have said they won't be sending their sportspeople to the Games, and the former has called for a one-year postponement. CNBC
Icahn and Occidental
Carl Icahn is reportedly set to send his lieutenants into the Occidental board room as part of a truce with the embattled oil firm. Occidental would get to bring back former CEO Stephen Chazen as chairman, and current CEO Vicki Hollub would get to keep her job—Icahn had been trying to replace the entire board. Wall Street Journal
Hugo Boss boss
Hugo Boss is looking for a new CEO, after it announced the imminent departure of current chief Mark Langer at the end of Q3. Langer will stay on as a consultant until the end of the year, in order to help the German fashion house deal with the coronavirus crisis. Reuters
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-03-23--Global markets sink as U.S. Senate fails to deliver coronavirus rescue package

Regeneron will start testing its Covid-19 treatment in June

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We’re back in the red this morning. And there promises to be plenty of fireworks shortly after the opening bell in the U.S.
Let’s take a spin around the globe to see what’s moving markets.
Markets update
We begin in Asia where, with the exception of Japan’s Nikkei, all major indices are trading down this morning as India plans an unprecedented lockdown and Hong Kong seeks a ban of non-resident arrivals. But businesses there are at least beginning to give updates on the road to recovery, which is some progress. Yum China, which operates Pizza Hut and KFC, told Bloomberg TV that the “bulk” of its restaurants are now open in China. Still, it cautioned, a full comeback will take some time.
In Europe, the focus is on COVID-19 outbreak numbers as the death toll climbed yet again over the weekend in Spain and Italy, and Germany’s Angela Merkel is now in precautionary isolation after her doctor tested positive. The European bourses slumped at the open with Germany and the U.K. down more than 4%; AirBus and Royal Dutch Shell were among the big losers.
***
All eyes are on Washington D.C. after the U.S. Senate on Sunday night failed to ratify a coronavirus stimulus plan. The news tanked U.S. futures with the S&P 500 touching limit down before bouncing off those lows. They reconvene at noon.
It’s not just paralysis on Capitol Hill that’s spooking the markets. Analysts continue to run the numbers on recession forecasts, and the figures seem to get worse by the day. Morgan Stanley says it sees a 30.1% contraction in Q2, and 12.8% unemployment handle. Saint Louis Fed President, meanwhile, goes even lower. He says unemployment could hit 30% in Q2, and GDP could tumble by 50% if Washington fails to deliver.
***
The inaction in D.C. so far is sinking Brent crude, pushing it to a 17-year-low this morning. The dollar is flat, but holding on to last week’s historic gains.
***
With the global economy nearly shut down, everything’s hanging on lawmakers to push out trillions in stimulus measures to keep the laid-off and furloughed from losing their homes, and businesses from going insolvent. This is a very different bailout story from what we saw in 2008-2009. This time around, the aim is to get money into the hands of millions of consumers, rather than a few strategic industry sectors.
Until we see the details of these plans, analysts and economists are running range-bound forecasts that include a best-case and worst-case. One such forecast that jolted the markets came from Goldman Sachs on Friday. I plugged Goldman’s headline figures into today’s chart.
***
How bad will 2020 get?
Goldman sees a historically bad first half that puts the U.S. economy into a recession. That’s the bad news. The good? Things will improve dramatically in Q3 and Q4, but we’re still looking at a 3.8% GDP decline year-on-year. But again this is premature.
Until we see what Washington, Berlin and Rome can deliver, there’s almost no way to call a floor on global trade, or on these markets.
Postscript
In any crisis of this magnitude, there are always heroes and villains. On Fortune.com this weekend we had the impressive story of Siare Engineering, a small Italian firm that’s been working round the clock (and at cost) to make ventilators. The company has completely transformed its business, at no small cost, to keep its fellow countrymen alive. Please take a moment to read it.
Another heroic group are the doctors, nurses and hospital workers on the front lines, battling to keep people alive. They too have been working round the clock. And, sadly, many of them are succumbing to the virus. Of the more than 5,000 deaths in Italy, more than a dozen are doctors, the Italian media has reported.
And so the Italian government put out the call in recent days looking for 300 medical professionals to join the fight, and give the exhausted crews a break. The plea has been broadcasted on TV and radio for days. The result? Over 7,900 took up the call, including a team from Cuba. They got a hero’s welcome when they arrived in Milan this weekend.
Complimenti!
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
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Today's reads
A Wall Street first. You may notice something amiss today when you tune into markets coverage in the U.S. There will be no shots of traders (or journalists) on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as the Wall Street institution will be shutting its doors today for who-knows-how-long. The culprit? Yes, coronavirus. The NYSE assures the closure won't impact investors, but there are still a few things you should know about the disruption—and Erik Sherman is on the scene to explain what it all means.
King dollar. The dollar last week had its best week since 2008, the last time the world went through this kind of tumult. As Adrian Croft details in Fortune, the U.S. dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency against a basket of other currencies, has risen 8% in the last 11 days, hitting a three-year high. Strong dollar has huge implications on global trade and is a major headwind for multinationals. It's the last thing the global economy needs right now.
WeWork, we fight. The last time we checked in on the saga of the shared office space startup WeWork, its biggest backer, SoftBank, was getting cold feet over a $3 billion bailout plan. The clash is escalating now, the Wall Street Journal reports, with the WeWork board vowing to fight for every penny. This could get ugly fast. But SoftBank shareholders are delighted. Shares in the Japanese conglomerate are up nearly 20% today—a plan to sell $41 billion worth of assets is also lifting shares.
Market candy
Trillion-dollar coin
Make that two. In the past decade, the argument to mint a platinum coin valued at $1 trillion has been floated to get the country out of various financial messes—usually, debt ceiling fights. The background: Congress has the legal authority to order the creation of such a special coin to raise needed funds for emergency purposes. The pros: no need to raise the debt limit to do so. The cons: cue The Simpsons memes. Undaunted, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., is proposing a plan in which the U.S. Mint makes two $1 trillion platinum coins which would then pay for any coronavirus relief bill. It's not getting much love on Capitol Hill, but Bitcoin fans are all over the idea on Twitter.


fortune--2020-03-23--30% GDP drop: Morgan Stanley joins Goldman Sachs in upping estimates of coronavirus economic pain

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists said the coronavirus will inflict greater economic pain than they previously expected as they warned of a record plunge in the U.S. output in the second quarter and a deeper global recession.
Morgan Stanley’s U.S. economists led by Ellen Zentner told clients in a report on Sunday that they now see American gross domestic product falling 30.1% in April-June. That will drive up unemployment to average 12.8% over the period, they said.
At Goldman Sachs, Jan Hatzius’s team said in a report that they now expect the world economy to contract about 1% this year, which would be a bigger decline than even that witnessed in 2009 amid the financial crisis. They were already projecting a 24% drop in U.S. output in the next quarter.
The dire forecasts from two of Wall Street’s biggest banks reflects the sudden stop that the U.S. and European economies are witnessing following China’s slump at the start of the year.
Such predictions are raising fears of a depression, but Morgan Stanley economists said in a separate report that a sustained contraction should be avoided given the response of fiscal and monetary policy makers. Both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs anticipate a recovery beginning in the third quarter, although that is subject to risks.
“Economic activity has come to a near standstill in March,” the Morgan Stanley economists said. “As social distancing measures increase in a greater number of areas and as financial conditions tighten further, the negative effects on near-term GDP growth become that much greater.”
In a Bloomberg interview on Sunday, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard predicted the unemployment rate may hit 30% in the second quarter because of shutdowns to combat the coronavirus, with an unprecedented 50% drop in GDP.
Elsewhere, Bank of America Corp’s base case is for a near 25% drop in second quarter U.S. GDP, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasts a 14% decline.
Those forecasts come as economists warn that the world is already in recession, its first since 2009’s 0.8% contraction.
For China, most see the worst hit in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase have flagged a 40% plunge in Chinese gross domestic product in the first quarter from the previous three months, the biggest contractions in at least 50 years.
Chinese officials, including Premier Li Keqiang, have pointed to claims the outbreak has been controlled and signs of a resumption of activity as reasons for optimism with regards to China’s outlook.
“Economic indicators will likely show significant improvement in the second quarter and the Chinese economy will return to its potential output level rather swiftly,” People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Chen Yulu told reporters in Beijing on Sunday.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—This famed economist doesn’t think we’re headed for another Great Recession
—These estimates of how much COVID-19 will hurt the economy are terrifying
—With the markets in turmoil, the ECB readies a bond-buying bazooka
—Here’s where Goldman Sachs predicts the stock market will bottom out—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: What’s causing the looming recession
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-23--‘We’re fiddling here:’ Coronavirus bailout bill paralyzed as Senate spars over big corporate aid

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Republicans and Democrats in Congress stumbled in their attempt to engineer a quick jolt to a sinking economy with a $2 trillion stimulus despite the rising coronavirus death toll, plunging financial markets and dire predictions of a deep recession.
Negotiations to break the impasse over the stimulus legislation continued into the night Sunday after Senate Democrats voted to reject Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s latest version of the plan, which had been the product of frenzied bipartisan negotiations a day earlier.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer met several times Sunday night, including at 11:45 p.m., with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has been conducting what amounted to shuttle diplomacy between the two sides.
While many details of the plan had been hashed out, some fundamental differences hadn’t been bridged. The recriminations began immediately after McConnell’s bid for a procedural vote failed.
An incensed McConnell cited plummeting stock futures to express the urgency to act Monday, and the Kentucky Republican ripped Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“We’re fiddling here. We’re fiddling with the emotions of the American people, fiddling with the markets,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “This obstruction achieves nothing.”
Schumer complained that McConnell’s bill was partisan. He said it amounts to “a large corporate bailout” with insufficient oversight, and shortchanges the health-care response to the pandemic. He said there should be “much more money” for hospitals for equipment that is rapidly becoming in short supply.
Still, President Donald Trump sounded an optimistic note after the failed vote. “I think we’ll get there,” he said. “To me it’s not very complicated. We have to help the worker, we have to save the companies.”
Financial markets have been roiled by the impact of the pandemic as it forces businesses to shutter and governments to keep people inside. S&P 500 futures dropped 5% at the opening of Asian markets, triggering a trading stop. While they recovered later, they were still down nearly 3.8% as of 3 p.m. in Tokyo.
McConnell at one point threatened to use the market turmoil to force the hand of Democrats, saying he would schedule another procedural vote for 9:45 a.m. Monday, “15 minutes after the markets open, and see if there’s a change of heart.” The Senate later adjourned until noon.
The prospect of an election-year market meltdown will revive memories for many lawmakers of the standoff over the bank rescue plan amid the 2008 financial crisis.
In September of that year, the House unexpectedly rejected President George W. Bush’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Plan to bail out banks in the wake of the subprime mortgage collapse and to restore confidence in credit markets. The defeat was the result of a revolt by rank-and-file Republicans against their own president and it sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down almost 7 percent.
McConnell and then-Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid worked to usher it through the Senate on a solid 74-25 majority two days later. Then on Oct. 3, the House reversed and narrowly cleared the legislation and sent it to Bush for his signature.
Until Sunday’s procedural vote on the stimulus plan, Republicans insisted that an agreement with Democrats was close to fruition.
To attract Democrats, McConnell had agreed to many of their demands, adding hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh spending, including a $600 per week increase per worker in unemployment benefits, a $75 billion public health package, and tens of billions more for transit, education, nutrition and assorted other programs.
But Democrats, including Schumer and Pelosi, who flew into Washington Saturday, said a $500 billion chunk of the bill that can be used to help corporations, including airlines, gave too much discretion to the Treasury secretary and that it lacked transparency and accountability. They also said the aid for state and local governments and health care providers fell far short of what is needed.
Republicans and Democrats have differed from the start on how much of the money should go toward traditional aid programs like unemployment insurance, food aid and similar programs.
Many of those differences appeared to be resolved during the day Saturday as four groups of senators worked out differences. But sticking points remained, particularly when it came to final details such as who would oversee the disbursement of the aid for companies and how that would be disclosed. One Democratic aide said the package could theoretically be used to bail out the president’s own company without voters knowing about it for months.
The total package includes about $2 trillion worth of proposals, including $350 billion for small businesses, a $500 billion chunk of the bill that can be used for loans to larger corporations including airlines or state and local governments, extensive corporate tax breaks and tax deferrals, and direct payments of $1,200 for middle-class and low-income Americans.
Pelosi left a meeting in McConnell’s office earlier Sunday saying they had no deal and the House would write its own package — a move that could add days of partisan wrangling. Pelosi later told House Democrats that the Senate bill was “very different” from the package they were crafting.
Even before the defeat of the Senate’s procedural motion, House Democratic leaders were not planning to call the chamber’s members back to Washington on Monday, or even Tuesday. House Democrats have instead scheduled a caucus-wide telephone call Tuesday afternoon, rather than bringing members back by then, senior Democratic aides said.
A major package remains likely, but it now could take additional time for the two parties to work out their differences, even as the virus continues to ravage not just the nation but Congress itself.
The vote came hours after the first senator, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, and two other Republicans, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee, said they were self-quarantining because they had been in contact with him. Two House members, Republican Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and Utah Democrat Ben McAdams, also have tested positive for the virus.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—What the world’s biggest economies are doing to fight coronavirus and recession
—There are still more questions than answers about the costs of coronavirus testing
—10 questions about the 2020 election during the coronavirus pandemic, answered
—How swing state economies have performed since the 2016 election
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: What happens to leftover campaign funds once a candidate drops out?
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-03-23--As 2 nations boycott, Japan finally admits coronavirus might disrupt Tokyo 2020 Olympics

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For months, Japan and the International Olympic Committee have remained resolute that the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games will continue as scheduled—even as the world enters lockdown in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. But on Monday, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the first time accepted that the games might be postponed, as two Olympic powerhouses—Canada and Australia—said they were already preparing for the Games to be pushed beyond the July 24 start date.
“If it is difficult to hold the Games [in complete form], we have to decide to postpone them, giving top priority to [the health of the] athletes,” Abe said during a parliamentary session on Monday, adding that “cancellation is not an option.”
As of Monday, Japan has 1,001 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 41 deaths and 235 recovered.
Abe’s concession is the latest signal given by the Japanese government that delaying the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo is under consideration. In early March, Japan’s Olympics minister Seiko Hashimoto told Parliament that the Olympic contract allowed for the games to be hosted anytime this year.
Hashimoto’s comments came two weeks after the Tokyo Olympic organizers said there was “no plan B” for the Games, and earlier on Monday, Tokyo Olympic organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori reasserted that the Games would not be canceled. Calls at home and abroad for a postponement, however, are growing.
Pulling out
Indeed, Abe’s admission came a day after Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic organizing committees announced they would not be sending athletes to the Tokyo 2020 games. In a joint statement, the organizing bodies called on the International Olympic Committee to “postpone the Games for one year.”
On Monday, the Australia organizing committee announced its intention to withdraw from Tokyo 2020 as well and told athletes to prepare for the Games to be rescheduled to 2021. Australian team chef de mission for Tokyo Ian Chesterman said, “[It’s] clear the games can’t be held in July.”
As the coronavirus outbreak has turned into a global pandemic, Olympic qualifying matches have been canceled or delayed, while national teams have attempted to maintain training regimens under isolation.
In February China’s women’s football team, for example, was put through a seven-day quarantine after arriving to play a qualifier that had been moved from its original host city, Wuhan. The group then had to play another “home” qualifier round in Sydney, because they were unable to host the match back in China.
Nic Coward, chairman for U.K. Athletics—the nation’s athletics governing body—called for the Olympics to be postponed, too, on Friday. Coward said that as training facilities enter shutdown and athletes, like everyone else, are being advised to stay indoors, training has become “compromised at best.”
Even the Olympic torch relay around Japan is being eyed for cancellation. The flame arrived back in Japan last week, drawing a crowd in the tens of thousands, prompting more health concerns. According to Mori, because of the outbreak, even Prime Minister Abe is reluctant to attend the relay’s opening ceremony, which is due to take place in Fukushima on Thursday.
The International Olympic Committee said Sunday that the council would make a decision within the next four weeks on whether the games should progress as scheduled. However, Tokyo Olympic Committee member Kaori Yamaguchi has already called for the Olympics to be put on hold, saying the games “should not be held in a situation people in the world can’t enjoy.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—A financial crisis looms as corporate America presses for a coronavirus bailout
—Tax deadline moved to July 15 owing to the coronavirus
—Death rate in China’s coronavirus epicenter is lower than previously thought
—How working parents are navigating childcare during the coronavirus pandemic
—As oil slides on the coronavirus and a price war, the market seeks a new normal
—Funerals in the time of the coronavirus: How a pandemic is changing the industry
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. Get it delivered free to your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-23--Cisco commits $225 million to battle coronavirus, leading tech’s fight against the pandemic

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Cisco plans to dedicate $225 million in cash and services to support various causes dedicated to combating the spread of the coronavirus and helping those affected.
“Cisco must, and will, do even more to help others respond to this global pandemic,” said Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins in a blog post published Sunday evening.
The investment, which includes $8 million in cash and $210 million in products, will be dispersed to a variety of groups including the United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and the World Health Organization’s various coronavirus efforts.
“People who were already vulnerable are facing even more risks to their health, stability, housing, and well-being,” Robbins wrote. “Nonprofits are struggling to serve their populations as the number of volunteers declines due to social distancing practices and donations are at-risk due to financial concerns.”
The networking giant will also provide funding for unspecified “heads of state, government agencies, and businesses to rapidly deploy COVID-19-related technology solutions,” Robbins wrote.
According to Robbins, Cisco is helping to secure over 2.2 million people online to date, and Webex, the company’s video conference and online collaboration tool, has facilitated the virtual response meetings for the French, Canadian, German, Colombian, and other governments around the world.
Cisco, along with other unnamed companies, will also announce on Monday a multi-million-dollar financial assistance program for at-risk people, Robbins said.
“With support from Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, and Destination: Home’s CEO Jen Loving, we will be able to rapidly support low-income individuals during this time,” he wrote.
Cisco’s announcement comes after various tech companies and figures have announced their efforts to combat the spread of the virus and support overwhelmed medical professionals worldwide.
Amazon was among the earliest to respond, announcing on March 10 that it would create a $5 million grant to help small businesses in the Seattle area that were affected by the coronavirus.
A week later, Jack Ma, the CEO of Chinese e-commerce and cloud computing giant Alibaba, pledged to donate emergency supplies to various countries in Asia that have been severely impacted by the coronavirus.
Go Asia! We will donate emergency supplies (1.8M masks, 210K test kits, 36K protective suits, plus ventilators & thermometers) to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan & Sri Lanka. Delivering fast is not easy, but we'll get it done! — Jack Ma (@JackMa) March 21, 2020
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described in a LinkedIn post on Saturday several ways his company was helping others who are fighting the coronavirus. “In healthcare, our technology is being used for telemedicine, enabling user-intuitive solutions to share data and access critical information,” Nadella wrote. “St. Luke’s University Health Network in Pennsylvania is using Teams to video chat with patients most vulnerable to COVID-19.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted on Saturday that his company was “donating millions of masks for health professionals in the U.S. and Europe.”
Our teams at Apple have been working to help source supplies for healthcare providers fighting COVID-19. We’re donating millions of masks for health professionals in the US and Europe. To every one of the heroes on the front lines, we thank you. — Tim Cook (@tim_cook) March 21, 2020
On Sunday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg followed suit, saying his social media company has “donated our emergency reserve of 720,000 masks that we had bought in case the wildfires continued.”
The move by Cisco could be just the start of the company’s coronavirus pandemic response efforts, noted Robbins. “While our world will be different as we move into the future,” he wrote, “it is important that we stay focused on making a positive impact in every way possible.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Financial crisis looms as corporate America presses for coronavirus bailout
—Tax deadline moved to July 15 due to coronavirus
—Death rate in China’s coronavirus epicenter is lower than previously thought
—How working parents are navigating childcare during the coronavirus pandemic
—As oil slides on coronavirus and price war, the market looks for the new normal
—Funerals in the time of coronavirus: How a pandemic is changing the industry
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-23--Marriott CEO’s authentic message to employees

All the moves the Fed is making to bolster the economy , from Main Street to muni bonds

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I learned a new word over the disorienting pause that now passes for a weekend.
Liminality describes the space between two states of being. In anthropology, it is the middle stage of a rite of passage—you’re no longer exactly who you were, but you’re not yet what you’re going to become. Societies explicitly mark the big ones—birth, puberty, marriage, death—with ceremonies.
But being stuck in the middle is confusing stuff.
It was folklorist and anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) who first observed the power in rites of passage, a chance for humans to wrap their arms around moments of transition and great uncertainty—and in some cases, process the loss of what was and embrace the promise that has not yet been realized.
While the rituals may differ, he believed the awareness of the liminal to be universal.
“These are the constants of social life, to which have been added particular and temporary events such as pregnancy, illnesses, dangers, journeys, etc.,” he wrote in The Rites of Passage, published posthumously in English in 1960. “Life itself means to separate and to be reunited, to change form and condition, to die and to be reborn. It is to act and to cease, to wait and rest, and then to begin acting again, but in a different way. And there are always new thresholds to cross.”
This point of view helps makes some sense of corona-denialism, and offers some emotional context to the deep anguish people are experiencing over real-world cancelled events like funerals and end-of-school trips and proms, or now-virtual events—graduations, weddings, birthdays, retirement parties, and baptisms. Even small daily rites, like coffee talks after staff meetings or pre-happy hour make-up refreshes, are sorely missed.
As I was turning myself into an amateur anthropologist this weekend, it occurred to me that the leaders who will emerge as powerful voices during this difficult time will speak to the liminal tension we’re all feeling, and acknowledge that most of us will be in a new place when this is all over.
That’s one of the many things that hit my ear when I watched Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson’s video message to employees, posted to the Marriott International Twitter account last Thursday. It was remarkable for many reasons.
Like many chief executives, the company he runs is now in a tough spot. So, he went there.
In the video simply titled, “A Message from Arne,” he begins with the truth. “This is the most difficult video message we have ever pulled together,” he says. The 92-year-old company has seen many things, but “COVID-19 is having a more severe and sudden financial impact on our business than September 11 and the 2009 financial crisis combined.”
Sorenson, who had been undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, is bald now. He said that his team was concerned that his new appearance would alarm people. “Let me just say new look was exactly what was expected as a result of my medical treatments,” he says, owning the liminal truth.
He begins by acknowledging anyone dealing with coronavirus as a patient, parent, family member, or friend, before he addresses the reality of their shared situation.
The company is in the thick of the middle of the bad news. With hotels shuttered and employees and travelers quarantined, their share price is currently down more than 50% from its February 2020 high of $150. In most markets, business is running 75% below normal levels, he said, and there will be more global hotel closings and/or service reductions to come.
Sorenson announced that he is suspending his own salary and that of Executive Chairman Bill Marriott for the rest of 2020; salaries of senior executives will be reduced by 50%. Temporary 60-90-day furloughs for many employees will begin immediately, along with other cost-cutting measures.
While the current news is grim, his message was not: Plain-spoken, honest, transparent, detailed, tone-appropriate, and empathetic—all the things that help people feel less out of control.
Listening to it again, Sorenson’s message was clearly an example of authentic leadership. But it also felt as if he fully understood that we are collectively in the middle of a vast transition, a painful place to be with no ritual playbook to guide the way. He ended by holding space for the new, and perhaps more grateful, world that we are poised to become.
“I know that we as a global community will come through to the other side, and when we do, our guests will be eager to travel this beautiful world again,” he said, visibly emotional. “When that great day comes, we will be there to welcome them, with the warmth and care we are known for the world over.”
Below we are focusing on some examples of great leadership, some big, some small, from people who peered into the liminal abyss and took a stand.
What are you seeing in your world? Hit us back and we’ll amplify.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
Coronavirus hits Rikers and other NYC jails Of course, this is just the beginning, and the prospects for mass infection are terrifying. This weekend, the board that supervises the jail system called for low-level offenders and vulnerable populations to be released. “Failure to drastically reduce the jail population threatens to overwhelm the City jails’ health care system as well its basic operations,” said Board of Correction interim chairwoman Jacqueline Sherman, as reported by the Associated Press. Ahead of the effort to flatten this particular curve was Rachael Bedard the senior director of the geriatrics and complex-care service at Rikers—let that job description sink in a second—who took to Twitter in the middle of last week to sound the alarm. “We need to take the unprecedented step TODAY of providing urgent release to everyone in the jails who is at risk of serious morbidity and mortality from COVID,” she wrote in a Twitter thread that will break your heart. Despite coronavirus-like symptoms of her own, she spoke to The New Yorker about life at the prison, see below.
The New Yorker
DJ D-Nice threw a digital dance party and the world showed up The Bronx-born Derrick Jones is also rapper, producer, and photographer, but his Homeschoolin’: Social Distancing Dance Party series on Instagram Live has become a master class in how to spread collective joy from a safe distance. Now that big cities are on actual lockdown, the series is even more important, says Justin Tinsely in The Undefeated. “Homeschoolin’ took on a form of musical therapy sessions for a community needing mental and spiritual restoration for more than 100,000 viewers,” he writes. A-listers like Rihanna, Stevie Wonder, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oprah, and Michelle Obama all joined the fun, but that’s not even the point, says Tinsley. He links D-Nice's ability to create a brilliant soundtrack to other Black truthtellers, like Nina Simone, Joe Louis, even Medgar Evers.“[W]hat they have in common is the ability to rally black folks during unprecedented times.”
The Undefeated
The weekend box office was zero for the first time ever. Now what? The Hollywood Reporter is in new territory. Pamela McClintock, who covers weekend receipts and analyzes the data for the industry, is still in shock. “I can't possibly count the number of times those of us on perpetual box office duty have commiserated about how nice it would be to have a break,” she says. Now, the movie business has gone from full steam to no revenue in a snap worthy of Thanos. In anticipation of the human cost of the pandemic, Netflix has created a $100 million fund to support cast and crew who are out of work due to production shutdowns around the world. (Virtual hug to all the Stranger Things fans out there.) Expect hourly wage-earners to get relief first, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said in a blog post. “We’re in the process of working out exactly what this means, production by production. This is in addition to the two weeks pay we’ve already committed to the crew and cast on productions we were forced to suspend last week.”
Media Post
Italian mayors are furious An online creator named Max Robespierre has posted a compilation video of various Italian mayors authentically losing their minds at the thought that anyone would dare defy the quarantine order. They are NOT HERE FOR IT. “I’m getting news that some of you would like to throw graduation parties,” says one, calmly. “We will send over the police. With flamethrowers.” Another just can’t even. “I’m going to address you all,” says one mayor, speaking from behind his official mayoral desk. “Where the fuck are you all going? You and your dogs? Which MUST have an inflamed prostate?” Stai al sicuro, resta a casa, e rendi felice il sindaco!
YouTube
Lagos-based film director Niyi Akinmolayan is translating coronavirus PSAs into Nigerian languages The founder of Anthill Productions, a multimedia facility and animation studio, was worried that most of the safety information had been produced mostly in “big English,” he says. So he created four different videos in (Nigerian) Pidgin, Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa, then made audio versions (complete with script) for anyone who wanted to air them on the radio, or create their own. The Google drive he shared was immediately overrun. “So the Google drive is overloaded with too many downloads. That means u are all sharing!! So I have created a wetransfer link with the 4 videos,” he tweeted. Akinmolayan was the director of the hit feature film The Wedding Party: Destination Dubai, which broke Nollywood box office records across Africa and the U.K.
Quartz
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
Quote
"Each of us has great potential to balance the cruelty in the world with kindness—within our capacity. And if we nourish our spirit every day and we can nourish our heart, we’re reminded of whatever we are able to change, not what we are incapable of changing. If we change ourselves, it can affect everyone who comes into contact with us. What I didn’t know in my twenties, but am certain of now, is that there’s lots of miseria in the world, but there’s also so much humanity…You need to consider the daily choices you make to create or destroy with every single act, whether it’s in words or in thoughts. The older I get, the more I’m conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn’t it?”
—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street, in an interview with AARP Magazine.


fortune--2020-03-23--Amazon, Walmart, eBay pushed by states to stop price gougers

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Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and other large online sellers were urged by state law enforcement officials to crack down on price gouging that preys on panic over the coronavirus pandemic amid surging complaints by consumers.
The attorneys general of New York and California called on the companies Friday to take action as 6,000 complaints have poured in to authorities across the U.S. in the past month, with outrage expressed at everything from $80 hand sanitizer to a 50% hike in rice prices.
“Price gouging during a time of national emergency is not only disgraceful, it is illegal,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Large online marketplaces have a responsibility to the public to take immediate and vigorous steps to eliminate predatory behavior, which they know is illegal, from their platforms.”
As Americans hunker down and hoard to survive the coronavirus pandemic, regulators are rushing to stamp out exploitative pricing. They’re poring over emails, sending inspectors to check out tips and firing off cease-and-desist letters, according to an analysis by Bloomberg of data and reports from more than 40 states.
Amazon tweeted a response to Becerra and said it welcomes the opportunity to work with officials to help prosecute “bad actors.”
“We are disappointed that bad actors are attempting to artificially raise prices on basic need products during a global health crisis and, in line with our long-standing policy, we have recently blocked or removed hundreds of thousands of offers,” the company said in a statement.
Online platforms don’t have the incentive to self-police themselves because they get a cut of each transaction, including every pack of toilet paper sold for $60, said Tristan Snell, a lawyer with Tristan Snell Pllc who previously worked on consumer protection issues for the New York attorney general’s office. Many of the abuses are coming from sellers using Amazon and Walmart third-party platforms to jack up prices for household staples, he said.
“There’s no doubt that online commerce has exacerbated this problem,” he said. “The idea of cornering a market was something that used to be reserved for millionaire financiers. It’s a very old timey kind of thing. But we literally are at a point where people can corner the market in hand sanitizer.”
Walmart, eBay and Craigslist didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Retailers of all sizes are in now in the cross-hairs. In Washington, the state with the first confirmed case of the virus in the country, Attorney General Bob Ferguson is sending a team of 10 investigators to stores to examine products on the shelf and issuing subpoenas to websites.
“Washingtonians are facing a life-and-death situation” and need access to “critical goods,” Ferguson said in an interview. “My mom is 91 years old. It’s important for individuals like my mom to have access to hand sanitizer. They can cost 60 bucks for a four-ounce container.”
The complaints spiked after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency last Friday, leading many state and local governments to do the same. They come as authorities in Europe grapple with similar concerns. On Friday, the U.K.’s competition regulator launched a task force to crack down on such exploitation. The European Union’s anti-fraud office said it’s probing sales of fake medical and personal protection products.
While some U.S. states already have laws on the books that ban price gouging, generally defined as boosting a price 10% or more in a crisis, emergency declarations often trigger temporary measures.
The Oregon AG’s office on Wednesday got a complaint about a supermarket in Beaverton selling 20 pounds of rice for $29, almost $10 more than usual, according to spokeswoman Kristina Edmunson, who said the office was preparing its first cease-and-desist letters. Twitter was rife with hashtags such as #pricegouging and #panicbuying. Users called out two-pack face masks at $19.95, up from $1.50, and 12 jumbo rolls of Kroger toilet paper on eBay for $99.95 plus $11.75 for shipping—or best offer.
“I’m outraged that anybody would try to profiteer on a crisis, particularly on items that are necessary for the health and safety of Ohioans,” Attorney General Dave Yost said in a statement Thursday. “We don’t have a price-gouging law in Ohio because we believe in free markets, but free markets don’t include the idea of holding toilet paper and surgical masks hostage.”
Most of the complaints are in the East, with New York topping the list at 1,350. In New York City alone, the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has received more than 1,000 calls since March 5, when the city’s first rule against virus-related price increases was enacted.
In addition to a 1.2-liter bottle of hand sanitizer for $79.99 at a hardware store in Midtown, New Yorkers could snap up a box of 100 disinfectant wipes at a drugstore in Chelsea for $100.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—Japan finally admits coronavirus might disrupt Tokyo 2020 Olympics
—Which stores are open—and closed—during the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.?
—What medical experts say about Everlywell’s home coronavirus testing kits
—How to defer your mortgage payment due to coronavirus
—How Emmy season is proceeding, with caution, amid the coronavirus crisis
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-23--Markets continue to slide as Goldman releases sobering new earnings estimates

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Markets—and companies—can’t catch a break.
The Dow and S&P 500 slid roughly 3% on Monday, despite new efforts from the Fed to buy assets with no limit and buy corporate bonds to help buoy markets, announced early in the morning.
Infographic by Nicolas Rapp
Meanwhile, the estimates of the economic toll coronavirus is taking continue to pile up. Goldman Sachs now estimates that EPS growth for 2020 will be negative 33%—or $110, down drastically from $165 in 2019. On a quarterly basis, Goldman estimates EPS growth year over year will equal -15%, -123%, -21%, and +27% respectively. (To wit, the firm is now estimating -24% GDP growth for the 2nd quarter).
Goldman’s new estimate only shows how rapidly the situation has changed: “Early in the correction, investors were focused on quantifying the downside risk to near-term earnings, but were confident that EPS growth and share prices would recover later in 2020,” analysts at Goldman wrote. “As the virus spread and its economic impact intensified, they have been forced to grapple with whether the sharp decline in near-term activity will be followed by an equally sharp recovery (‘V’), last multiple quarters before improving (‘U’), or create lasting economic damage that reduces the outlook for earnings in 2021 and beyond (‘L’).”
That change in expectations is what Michael Reynolds, investment strategy officer at Glenmede Trust, calls “truly dramatic.”
As Bankrate.com’s senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick puts it, “Trying to avert insolvency is the order of the day.”
“The reality is, the existential threat that publicly traded companies are facing is just a question of whether they can live to fight another day—That’s why having some of these measures being brought in to try and keep them solvent are so important,” Hamrick tells Fortune.
Among those measures is the Fed’s latest drastic moves—which did little to prevent the major indices from dropping 3% Monday.
“The Fed has shown their hand, they’ve taken the kitchen sink and thrown it at the market, taken the plumbing out of the wall and thrown that too—they’ve done just about everything they can,” Glenmede’s Reynolds tells Fortune.
For those like Lauren Goodwin, economist and multi-asset portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments, while fiscal stimulus is likely the best solution to the current issues, “there is no reason to suspect that the Fed is ‘done’ if more action is needed,” she wrote on Monday.
But now, Reynolds says, it’s up to the fiscal side.
On Monday, that fiscal aid still didn’t come, as U.S. lawmakers failed to push a bill through that would provide for massive fiscal spending to stimulate the economy—And while markets have been hungry for news the package could pass, “there’s politicking back and forth,” Reynolds notes.
For now, efforts to stifle the spread of coronavirus (through business closures and quarantines, to name a few) are still overshadowing attempts to quell their impact, notes UBS Wealth Management’s chief investment officer Mark Haefele. “The U.S. fiscal response to offset this hit to economic activity is accelerating, but for now the impact of the containment measures is still overwhelming the policy response,” Haefele wrote on Monday.
Goldman still holds their market bottom prediction that the S&P 500 could hit 2,000. But as case counts continue to mount and the economy awaits gruesome economic data, investors are still asking: how low can you go?
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—These estimates of how much COVID-19 will hurt the economy are terrifying
—The NYSE is closed because of the coronavirus. What that means for investors
—How thinking like a golfer can help you ride out market mayhem—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-23--All the moves the Fed is making to bolster the economy, from Main Street to muni bonds

In the face of an N95 mask shortage for coronavirus healthcare workers , sewists got to work

The Federal Reserve is taking its status as the “lender of last resort” in the U.S. very seriously.
The central bank announced yet another series of measures on Monday morning designed to keep credit markets liquid and to support businesses that continue to feel the ever-worsening economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
In addition to scaling up its purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to a virtually unlimited amount, the Fed is now also intervening in the corporate bond market via a number of credit facilities that will provide up to $300 billion in new financing to businesses.
Two of those facilities, the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility and Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility, are designed to support a corporate credit market that has shown signs of stress in recent weeks. The Primary Market Facility will provide four-year bridge loans to investment-grade companies, while the Secondary Market Facility will purchase outstanding bonds issued by investment-grade U.S. firms and U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds.
The Fed is also relaunching its financial crisis–era Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which will lend to investors who purchase asset-backed securities (ABS) backed by student loans, auto loans, credit cards, and other consumer debt. And the central bank is boosting two previously announced facilities, targeting money-market mutual funds and commercial paper, to also include municipal bonds that finance operations for localities across the country.
Additionally, the Fed said it will soon roll out an initiative meant to aid small- and medium-size businesses that are out of the reach of its ambitious corporate bond-buying regime, via a Main Street Business Lending Program. That will come after it ensures Wall Street’s big banks have the liquidity they need to continue lending to businesses and households—via expanding its discount window to depository institutions, eliminating reserve requirements for banks, and reestablishing its crisis-era Primary Dealer Credit Facility.
In total, the moves amount to a near-unprecedented intervention by the central bank as it seeks to stabilize financial markets and ensure adequate credit across the U.S. economy in a time of crisis. They also answer—for now—concerns from some observers who have questioned just how much power the Fed has to mitigate the impact of the ongoing economic downturn.
“Every time people say [the Fed is] out of ammunition, they continue to come up with more,” Kathy Jones, chief fixed-income strategist at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, tells Fortune. By intervening in the ABS and municipal bond markets, the central bank’s latest measures are “meant to [address] some of the things that their previous programs hadn’t addressed.”
Municipal bonds, for instance, have been battered amid a lack of market liquidity and concerns about “the creditworthiness of airports, hospitals, and states/city governments at the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis,” according to a research note released Monday by Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. According to the note, municipal bond prices have fallen to such an extent that yields are at their highest levels compared with U.S. Treasuries “in more than a decade.”
Jones notes that the Fed is taking a particularly aggressive approach in lieu of a promised fiscal stimulus package that continues to be held up in Congress. Until such a bill comes to fruition, the Fed is “the only game in town” as far as government support for the economy is concerned, she adds.
To play that role, the central bank has relied on some creative maneuvers. As in the last financial crisis, the Fed has established a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to operate its current forays into the private credit markets. The SPV—which is partly backed by the $30 billion equity contribution from the Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund—functions as a “way around the [legal] limitations” prohibiting the Federal Reserve from using its own balance sheet to purchase private assets.
But while the Fed has been proactive in looking to calm financial markets, it remains to be seen whether the central bank’s moves—namely, its pending Main Street Business Lending Program—can alleviate the pain being felt by small businesses and local economies that are straining under the coronavirus lockdown’s devastating impact on commerce.
“I think this particular type of crisis is having the biggest impact on small businesses and state and local governments,” Jones says, noting that such entities also employ a huge chunk of the U.S. labor force. “It is important to address the needs that they have.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—These estimates of how much COVID-19 will hurt the economy are terrifying
—The NYSE is closed because of the coronavirus. What that means for investors
—How thinking like a golfer can help you ride out market mayhem
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-23--2020 Tokyo Olympics to be postponed due to coronavirus, official says

International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound said the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo will be postponed, the USA Today reported, citing an interview.
Postponement will likely be to 2021; details will be worked out over the next four weeks.
“On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided,” Pound said in the interview. “The parameters going forward have not been determined, but the Games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”
The IOC will announce next steps soon.
“We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense,” Pound said.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—Japan finally admits coronavirus might disrupt Tokyo 2020 Olympics
—Which stores are open—and closed—during the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.?
—What medical experts say about Everlywell’s home coronavirus testing kits
—How to defer your mortgage payment due to coronavirus
—How Emmy season is proceeding, with caution, amid the coronavirus crisis
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-23--Democrats block McConnell’s $2 trillion stimulus plan a second time amid coronavirus pandemic

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Senate Democrats again refused to advance McConnell’s $2 trillion stimulus plan Monday as the coronavirus continued spreading amid dire predictions of a deep economic recession.
The 49-46 vote with 60 needed, following a similar vote late Sunday, blocked McConnell’s latest version of the plan, which had been the product of frenzied bipartisan negotiations over the weekend.
“Why are the American people still waiting?” McConnell said on the Senate floor before the vote. “The markets are not doing well today.”
He accused Democrats of pushing unrelated “wish-list items” such as solar energy tax credits and new emission standards for airlines. “This is the moment to debate new regulations that have nothing whatsoever to do with this crisis?” McConnell said.
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he has had “almost continuous negotiations” with Mnuchin. He said they are close to reaching a deal and his goal is to do so Monday.
The Democratic leader said Monday’s vote was essentially “irrelevant” because his party will be ready to move ahead “once we have an agreement that everybody can get behind.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—The Supreme Court has shunned technology. Could coronavirus change that?
—10 questions about the 2020 election during the coronavirus pandemic, answered
—The workers the U.S. government deems “essential” amid the coronavirus pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-03-23--Coronavirus economic impact ‘will be severe,’ at least as bad as Great Recession, says IMF

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The International Monetary Fund said it expects a global recession this year that will be at least as bad as the downturn during the financial crisis more than a decade ago, followed by a recovery in 2021.
Nearly 80 countries have asked the Washington-based IMF for emergency finance, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement Monday following a conference call of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers. Georgieva said the fund strongly supports extraordinary fiscal actions already taken by many countries and welcomes the moves of major central banks to ease monetary policy.
“These bold efforts are not only in the interest of each country, but of the global economy as a whole,” she said in the statement. “Even more will be needed, especially on the fiscal front.”
The statement followed the G-20 officials convening an emergency call on Monday to discuss the global economic fallout from the pandemic and work toward a joint response. Also Monday the Federal Reserve unveiled a sweeping series of measures including for households and employers that push it deeper into uncharted territory.
The IMF said it’s working closely with other international financial institutions to provide a strong coordinated response, and reiterated that it’s ready to deploy all of its $1 trillion lending capacity.
To have a rebound next year, “it is paramount to prioritize containment and strengthen health systems — everywhere,” Georgieva said. “The economic impact is and will be severe, but the faster the virus stops, the quicker and stronger the recovery will be.”
The IMF noted that major central banks that have initiated bilateral swap lines with emerging economies may need to provide more. The fund said it’s also exploring a possible proposal that would help facilitate a broader network of swap lines, including through an IMF-swap type facility.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
—These estimates of how much COVID-19 will hurt the economy are terrifying
—The NYSE is closed because of the coronavirus. What that means for investors
—How thinking like a golfer can help you ride out market mayhem—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.