Labor Department figures out Tuesday showed that a record 4.3 million U.S. workers voluntarily quit their jobs in August, “up from four million in July and . . . by far the most in the two decades the government has been...more
10/13/2021
/ Amazon ,
American Airlines ,
Apple ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Mandates ,
Financial Markets ,
General Motors ,
Governor Abbott ,
Hasbro ,
Mergers ,
Price Inflation ,
Southwest Airlines ,
Vaccinations
Southwest Airlines canceled hundreds more flights to start the week, though its operations were closer to normal after a weekend that saw the carrier nix almost 2000 flights. The company blamed a mix of weather problems, “air...more
President Obama and his Department of Labor revived the concept of the fiduciary rule in April of 2015. The subsequent rulemaking process included thousands of pages of commentary, petitions, and days of hearings that...more
Jobs Report Friday! Here’s what analysts are looking for in the numbers, with the Delta variant’s impact on the recovery still looming large - MarketWatch and NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg Elon Musk & Co. are decamping from...more
10/11/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
BlackRock ,
China ,
Comcast ,
Corporate Taxes ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Economic Injury Disaster Loans ,
Financial Markets ,
Institutional Investors ,
SBA ,
Tax Avoidance ,
Tesla
Apple has officially appealed the September verdict in its years-long battle with Epic Games that was set to “require the tech giant to tweak its strict App Store rules and force it to allow app developers of ways to pay for...more
10/11/2021
/ Apple ,
Banking Sector ,
Biden Administration ,
Climate Change ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Markets ,
Hasbro ,
Oil & Gas ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Startups ,
Stock Markets ,
Tesla
Live-video streaming site Twitch, an Amazon company, revealed on Wednesday that it “had endured a data breach that security researchers believe may have provided sweeping insight into the platform’s computer code, security...more
Recapping Facebook whistleblower’s testimony before the Senate on Tuesday, in which she “gave lawmakers an unvarnished look into the inner workings of the world’s largest social network . . . and detailed how the company was...more
A day after whistleblower Frances Haugen went public with many of the allegations she’s been lobbing at Facebook (so far only through the Wall Street Journal’s recent expose series), Zuck & Co. found themselves mired in one...more
10/5/2021
/ Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Markets ,
Hulu ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
Instagram ,
NHTSA ,
Tesla ,
Volvo ,
WhatsApp ,
Whistleblowers
And like that [poof], Ozy Media is no more, shutting down on Friday after an incredible 5-day period in which reporting from Ben Smith “raised questions about the company and its leadership team” after a phone call in which a...more
10/4/2021
/ Apple ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Social Media ,
Takeover Bids ,
Tesla ,
United Airlines ,
Vaccinations ,
Whistleblowers ,
YouTube
Given the challenges Congress faces in finding agreement on non-controversial measures (like keeping the lights on), it’s little wonder that there’s been minimal effort to tackle controversial topics—like a federal privacy...more
Zoom and Five9 are walking away from their proposed $15 billion deal for lack of Five9 shareholder support. Zoom’s acquisition “had drawn national security scrutiny” over funding links to China...more
Congressional leaders have reportedly reached a last-minute short-term deal to “avert a government shutdown” before today’s midnight deadline. Plenty of issues—including the need to raise the debt ceiling and the status of...more
9/30/2021
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Critical Infrastructure Sectors ,
Financial Markets ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Infrastructure Financing ,
Insider Trading ,
NLRB ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Student Athletes ,
Supply Chain ,
United Airlines ,
Vaccinations ,
Wal-Mart ,
YouTube
Markets continued what’s been a dismal end of September with their worst performance in months on Tuesday, with the three major indices averaging a 2% drop as Treasury bond yields rose over concerns about Fed tapering and the...more
Major Fed news to start the week, as we’ve learned that Dallas Fed President Robert S. Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren are stepping down (both earlier than planned) in the wake of a dust-up over each “trading...more
Friday’s sudden end to the years-long Meng Wanzhou drama (she, the Huawei scion and exec who had been under house arrest in Canada and the subject of possible extradition to the U.S. who was released and returned to China)...more
An already challenging week for cryptos just got much worse, now that China’s central bank has declared “all cryptocurrency-related transactions . . . illegal, reinforcing the country’s tough stance against digital rivals to...more
The Federal Reserve wrapped its September Open Market Committee meetings on Wednesday with the anticipated news that it would soon start to slowly taper its asset purchasing and is prepared to raise interest rates as early as...more
Justice Department officials have filed a federal antitrust action against American Airlines and JetBlue, asserting that the “growing alliance between the two carriers had created a ‘de facto merger’ in the New York and...more
9/22/2021
/ American Airlines ,
China ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Google ,
National Security ,
Real Estate Market ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Social Media ,
Vaccinations ,
Zoom®
A pair of recent rulings—one in the U.S. and another in Australia—hint at a future in which internet companies may not enjoy the immunity they currently hold for content created by others that appears on their sites....more
Wall Street used the Chinese corporate debt crisis (and property development company Evergrande’s potential coming default in particular) as its reason for a big dive on Monday, with the Dow down 800 point at one point and...more
Fascinating new wrinkle on the corporate debt crisis washing over China in recent years, with reports that “troubled Chinese property giant Evergrande” sought to “strong-arm” its own employees earlier this year to lend the...more
9/20/2021
/ Apple ,
China ,
Corporate Taxes ,
Financial Markets ,
Internet Streaming ,
NTSB ,
Tax Reform ,
Tesla ,
Theranos ,
TikTok ,
Whistleblowers
In what appears to be a serious black eye for the organization, the World Bank has canceled its prominent “Doing Business” report (which rates the “business environment of the world’s countries”) after an “investigation...more
9/17/2021
/ Airplane Accidents ,
Boeing ,
British Petroleum (BP) ,
Chevron ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
E-Cigarettes ,
Energy & Climate Debates ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Exxon Mobil ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Fossil Fuel ,
Global Warming ,
Infectious Diseases ,
MassMutual ,
Oil & Gas ,
Opioid ,
Oversight Committee ,
Purdue Pharma ,
Retail Sales ,
Stock Trades ,
Unemployment ,
World Bank
President Biden sat down with a range of executives from Microsoft to Columbia Sportswear to discuss the administration’s recently announced vaccine mandates...more
9/16/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Markets ,
Ford Motor ,
Mergers ,
Microsoft ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Tesla ,
Vaccinations ,
Whistleblower Awards
In welcome news for the Fed and anxious economists who have so-far stuck to their “transitory” inflation guns, Tuesday’s Department of Labor CPI release showed that “price increases for key products—like cars—were beginning...more
9/15/2021
/ Amazon ,
Apple ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
FinTech ,
Instagram ,
Price Inflation ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) ,
Startups ,
Tax Haven ,
Uber ,
Whistleblowers
The team behind cryptocurrency Litecoin is scrambling after an employee “retweeted what turned out to be an untrue announcement about a partnership with Walmart Inc,” a move that briefly sent Litecoin and other cryptos...more
9/14/2021
/ Apple ,
CFTC ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Facebook ,
Financial Markets ,
Paramount Pictures ,
Pinterest ,
Pump and Dump ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Spyware ,
Viacom ,
Wal-Mart