Despite proclamations of “best and final offer” after the rejected last round of negotiations, the UAW said last Friday that Deere & Co. “had made modifications to an earlier agreement . . . , setting up another vote over whether to end a nearly monthlong strike” - NYTimes and WSJ

Meanwhile, health care giant Kaiser Permanente has reached a “tentative agreement” with a “coalition of unions representing workers in California, Oregon and other states that will avert a strike of more than 30,000 workers scheduled to begin” today. The deal includes a promise by Kaiser to abandon a proposal “to pay new workers significantly less than current workers” - NYTimes and Bloomberg

Some thoughts on what the Fed’s bond-buying tapering will mean for the $22 trillion U.S. Treasury market, “which is being whipsawed by volatility” at the moment as “uncertainty about the direction of the economy and monetary policy amid surging prices, labor shortages and yields that are holding well below the rate of inflation” is the name of the game - Bloomberg

Ten weeks of insight into the inner workings at Theranos have revealed a startup beset by a culture of “fear and isolation,” with siloed employees finding it “difficult to share information that could have allowed them to troubleshoot the technical and scientific problems hamstringing the company” - WSJ

New data in last week showed another new record number of American workers quitting their jobs—some 4.4 million in September alone, an increase of 100,000 from August. Nearly ¼ of that total was in the “leisure and hospitality industry alone, reflecting steep competition for workers there as businesses recover from last year’s pandemic-induced shutdowns” - NYTimes and WSJ

More GE-split post-mortem from the Journal, this time focusing on the obsession with “management magic,” and why the cult of leaders like Jack Welch isn’t enough to overcome “economic and business cycles” and the “struggle to undo what their predecessors did” - WSJ

Former JPMorgan anti-corruption compliance unit VP Saquala Williams has sued the bank in NY federal court “for  whistleblower retaliation, alleging that her managers were dismissive and hostile when she raised concerns about JPMorgan’s anti-corruption program for personnel and non-client third parties” – Law360

The U.S. is moving to “ease import tariffs on Japanese steel and aluminum,” the “latest step by the White House” to normalize trade relationships with longtime allies - WSJ

A “seemingly run-of-the-mill” trial in Florida state court over the rights to a cache of one million bitcoins—about $64 billion at current valuation—belonging to alleged bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto could ultimately reveal the true identity of the person (or persons) behind the cryptocurrency - WSJ

Big Dos-A-Cero win for the U.S. Men’s National Team against rival Mexico over the weekend to mark the halfway point of World Cup qualifiers and give the U.S. their third win over El Tri this year - NYTimes

Stay safe, and get vaxxed, 
MDR