The United States and Mexico appear poised to move past a last-minute snag over new language on Labor Department attaches to posts in Mexico. Mexico feared that the diplomats would “act as labor inspectors,” and for a day or so, the planned congressional vote on the new Nafta was back in jeopardy – WSJ and MarketWatch
As previewed yesterday, Boeing has officially decided that it will, indeed, halt production of its 737 Max model as early as January—a move “likely to send shocks through the American economy,” affecting “suppliers around the country and plung[ing] the company deeper into crisis” – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and Marketplace
Amazon is “blocking its third-party sellers from using FedEx . . . citing a decline in performance heading into the final stretch of the holiday shopping season.” Bezos & Co. stopped using FedEx for its own deliveries in the U.S. earlier this fall – WSJ and Bloomberg
Wells Fargo will pay the City of Philadelphia $10 million to resolve claims that it discriminated against minorities in its home loans. Roughly $8.5 million of that amount “will go toward programs that provide grants that assist low- and moderate-income homebuyers with down payments and closing costs” – Law360
A case study for the ill-effects of our increasingly broken Congress? Try the craft beer and spirits industry, which could see a 400% tax increase if Congress doesn’t act before December 31st to extend the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act. All of the worst of political in-fighting and deal-making gone wrong is detailed here – NYTimes and WSJ
Uber got some breathing room from N.D. Cal. Judge Edward Chen on Monday, who refused to “order Uber to instantly convert drivers” in California “from contractors to employees based on an argument that it’s cheating not just workers but also the public at large.” But Judge Chen also refused to dismiss the case, concluding that the case presents “a plausible claim that any misclassification by Uber is willful” – Bloomberg
Court documents filed this week show that the Sackler family took billions out of Purdue Pharma over a 10-year period while the opioid crisis intensified – MarketWatch and Bloomberg and NYTimes and WSJ
Let’s just say that Phase One really does come through as promised. (Still something of an open question). Let’s not forget the costs of the past 19 months in getting us there – NYTimes
HSBC and Commerzbank have reached an initial agreement that would resolve the latter’s lawsuit alleging that HSBC “caused more than $100 million in losses for the German bank by breaching its duties as trustee for an array of precrisis residential mortgage-backed securities trusts” – Law360
New figures out from Netflix shows the importance of a global streaming audience for the company that’s facing increasingly tight competition domestically – WSJ
Another day, another $86.4 billion shot in the repo market arm from the NY Fed to ensure that there’s sufficient liquidity. Nothing to see here at all, right? – WSJ
I was one of those kids whose years-long yearning for a little battery-powered vehicle of my very own went unfulfilled. Turns out, those Pow-Pow-Power wheels aren’t just a vestige of my 80’s youth but are still big business – NYTimes