In a House Select Subcommittee meeting on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called for more Congressional action to provide coronavirus relief and promised a White House initiative to protect renters from eviction. Most in Congress agree, though no bipartisan path forward has yet emerged – WSJ and Bloomberg and NYTimes
Meanwhile, the Fed’s doing its part to “blunt the impact of the impact of the Covid-19 recession on American homeowners” through a trillion in mortgage bond purchases since March. That “record pace of purchasing” means that the central bank “now owns almost a third of the bonds backed by home loans the U.S.” and has pushed mortgage rates even lower to enable more Americans to refinance or buy homes – Bloomberg
South Korean officials indicted Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong [again] on Tuesday “on charges of engaging in stock price manipulation and other illegal means to tighten his control over the country’s biggest conglomerate,” but an earlier Court decision refusing to issue an arrest warrant means Lee remains free as the judicial process plays out – NYTimes and WSJ
It’s not a hypothetical wrench anymore. China’s new export restrictions targeting algorithms like those that drive TikTok are indeed disrupting talks between the video app service and the host of American bidders hoping to land its American operations – WSJ
A group of former McDonald’s franchisees have sued the company, “alleging it unfairly treated Black owners by selling them subpar stores and failing to support their businesses” – WSJ and MarketWatch and Marketplace
Years of failed efforts at improving diversity among their ranks is prompting “some of the biggest corporations” in the U.S. to set “concrete racial quotas” for the first time in their leadership ranks – Bloomberg
As the world around us crumbles, quakes, and roils, the stress-relief industry (and the advertising firms selling it to us) has kicked into overdrive – NYTimes
On the heels of its 5-for-1 stock split on Monday, Tesla announced plans to raise upwards of $5 billion through coming stock offerings – WSJ
Dating app Bumble, which differentiates itself from the sea of competitors by “let[ting] women make the first move,” is planning to go public as early as next year with hopes for a valuation between $6 and 8 billion – Bloomberg
In spite of generous government programs aimed at protecting jobs, the Eurozone’s unemployment rate rose in July to 7.9%, up from 7.2% in March. Analysts warn that the “widespread use of furlough programs might also conceal the true impact of the pandemic on Europe’s labor market in the official data” – NYTimes
Continuing pandemic-related economic fallout has disrupted the oil industry’s hopes for a quick rebound and led to prices sticking around the low $40s-per-barrel mark – WSJ
The prolific Jill Lepore on the hidden dangers of all this staying inside these days and what a better-designed buildings movement might mean for our ability to fight future pandemics – NewYorker
Stay safe.
