November 17, 2020

empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines

Politics

Free Trade: The world’s largest regional free-trade agreement was signed on Sunday: the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP (the US wasn’t even invited to participate). Fifteen Asia Pacific nations including China, Japan, Australia and South Korea signed an agreement encompassing nearly a third of the world’s population (2.2B people) and GDP ($26.2T). India pulled out of the deal last year over local concerns, although the country will be allowed to join later on. One of the main benefits of the deal will be an elimination of tariffs on 92% of traded goods among the participating countries. The pact will also focus on increasing data privacy protection for online consumers and transparency. Most of the members believe that the new trade pact will help to boost their economies following the COVID-induced downturns.

Peruvian Impeachment: Last week, the Peruvian Congress voted to impeach President Vizcarra over allegations that he handed out government contracts in return for bribes (Vizcarra denies the accusations). The Speaker of Congress, Manuel Merino, was installed as interim president, although his tenor was extremely short (just 6 days). Merino announced his resignation following nationwide protests and the killing of two protesters in a brutal police clampdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. More than 40 people have been reported missing following Saturday’s protests. Vizcarra continues to be a popular politician for his reform attempts. Political corruption and uncertainty seem to be common place in Peru, and the country appears to be in a state of turmoil ahead of national elections in April.

The Kochs say “whoopsie”: Charles Koch is writing a new book and ahead of its publication this week, the libertarian billionaire “says his partisanship was a mistake.” Mr. Koch said he has since come to regret his partisanship, which he says badly deepened divisions. “Boy, did we screw up! What a mess!” Koch says he is turning to building bridges across the political divide to work on common causes like criminal justice reform, although if you look where he spends his money, he is again attempting to clean up his reputation through marketing-speak. (Koch’s PAC has been putting money behind Perdue’s race in Georgia and he overwhelmingly supported Republican races this election.) For a deeper dive on how the Koch’s engineered partisanship in the US read Jane Mayer’s Dark Money.

Olympics: The International Olympic Committee announced its intentions to move forward in hosting the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic games (in July 2021). Spectators will be allowed to attend the events, although the size of the crowds have yet to be determined. While fears remain that COVID-19 won’t be under control by July 2021 — and that hosting the global sporting event during an ongoing pandemic would only exacerbate the situation — organizers are presenting an optimistic veneer, insisting the games will be the “light at the end of the tunnel” and symbolize the resilience of humankind. However, 80% of Japanese don’t believe that the Tokyo Olympics should take place due to the pandemic. Regardless of the outcome of the Tokyo games, Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Olympics just a few months later in February.

EU Veto: Hungary and Poland have used their vetoes to halt the EU’s agreement of a €1.8T package, including a €750B post-pandemic recovery package – because they dislike accompanying language on respecting the rule of law and European values. The agreement included a mechanism that could block funds from rogue EU governments or impose sanctions where governments fail to maintain democratic standards. Representatives for the two member states refused to support the plan to create new EU taxes, with the result that the whole package was torpedoed.

Technology

Airbnb: Airbnb filed its S1 ahead of its IPO, and inside the filing revealed that the home sharing company refunded over $1B of bookings to guests during the pandemic. The IPO is expected to price in December, and the company reported a profit for the third quarter of 2020 following a rebound from the pandemic disruption. “Domestic travel quickly rebounded on Airbnb around the world as millions of guests took trips closer to home…[and] work-from-home became work-from-any-home on Airbnb.”

Prime Prescriptions: Amazon acquired PillPack in 2018 as a means to break into the online pharmacy market, and now the platform will begin selling prescription drugs on its main website. Prime members without prescription drug coverage, or with coverage that isn’t great, can also save up to 80 percent on generic and 40 percent on brand name drugs when paying out of pocket without insurance. Since the pandemic has forced consumers to purchase everything online and avoid brick and mortar stores, Amazon has opened another door for convenience. Doctors can now send prescriptions to Amazon Pharmacy, and we can all say goodbye to those 40 page CVS receipts.

TikTok Ban: Remember the big public fight about banning TikTok and forcing it to sell itself to a US company? Well, the fight has ended with a whimper as the Commerce Department said it wouldn’t enforce its order that would have effectively forced the Chinese-owned TikTok video-sharing app to shut down. The Trump Administration, however, did sign an executive order banning Americans from investing in Chinese firms that the administration says are owned or controlled by the Chinese military of which there are 31 such companies. The executive order doesn’t take effect until January 11, and with the inauguration on January 20, the order may have no teeth.

Tesla joins the Big Board: Tesla will join the S&P 500 as the index's 10th biggest component, ahead of Johnson & Johnson. The company met the final requirement for eligibility — four consecutive quarters of profitability — when it reported its Q2 results in July. With a $386.8B market cap, Tesla would already be among the index’s top 10 most valuable companies.

WFH Tax: The pandemic has shown many white collar workers that they can work from home, or work from anywhere. The result, however, has been a loss of revenue (and jobs) for small businesses that cater to the office crowd. One solution: tax the workers who chose to work from home even after the pandemic is over. Personally, while we understand the heartbreak of losing your job or your business due to the pandemic, shouldn’t we just raise the corporate tax rate and work on the infrastructure of cities rather than forcing individuals to work in city centers? We all still eat and shop, just in different locations…

Baby Yoda in Zero G: In case you missed it, on Sunday another SpaceX crew launched from Cape Canaveral on its way to the International Space Station, carrying 4 astronauts and a Baby Yoda. The toy is used as the flight’s “zero G indicator,” a small object that is used to determine when the spacecraft is in orbit and has reached a microgravity environment. (Astronauts Bob and Doug chose a stuffed dinosaur during their flight in May.)

Culture

Run like a Secret Agent: Running Stories is a new app that attempts to make exercise more entertaining by using real-time data and integrating your surroundings. One experience allows you to be a secret agent racing through the streets of your city (currently set in Singapore), looking for checkpoints that are targeted by GPS sensors. If you’d rather get your heart rate up faster, try the Zombies, Run! app which forces you to outrun zombies on your morning stroll.

Kornahkis: If you happened to be watching MSNBC throughout election week, you noticed that Steve Kornacki apparently wore the same outfit for 4 days straight, which consisted of a plain white shirt and dark khakis, which Kornacki acknowledged were from the Gap. The Gap confirmed that sales of khakis “saw a dramatic increase in online traffic and within a day, the number of Straight Fit Palomino Brown khakis we sold online went up 90 percent.” 

The Scent of a Book: Powell's City of Books, the popular Oregon-based bookstore, has released a unisex fragrance, named "Powell's by Powell's," that aims to put the comforting scent of a bookstore into a bottle. We are not sure what the nostalgic memory of opening a novel and turning the pages of a brand new book smells like, and we are not sure we’d want to smell like it, but it surely has to beat the smell of a new car or the opening of a Kindle.

Renaissance Graffiti: A small outline of a curly-haired man carved into the stone wall of the Palazzo Vechhio in Florence is rumored to have been chiseled by Michelangelo. Recent research has pinpointed similarities to the carving and some of Michelangelo’s sketches owned by the Louvre. Adriano Marinazzo, a curator and historian at Virginia’s Muscarelle Museum of Art, claims that the artist carved it when he was in Florence in 1504 to sketch ideas for a potential battle scene inside the town hall and to oversee installation of his sculpture of “David” beside its front door.

On the flip side, artisans in Spain has been attempting to restore the face of a smiling woman carved into an ornate 20th-century building. The botched restoration has turned the woman into a cartoon that some have likened to the Sand People of Star Wars.

Waters Legacy: John Waters, the director of cult classics like Hairspray, recently donated 375 works from his collection to his hometown museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art. To honor his generosity, the museum will rename a rotunda in its European art galleries after the film-maker—as well as a pair of restrooms in the East Lobby, “per his request.”

Bubble Boy: In Denmark, in order to keep children safe and the spirit of Christmas alive, Santa has been placed in his own, human-sized snow globe. No word if he is taking gift requests through the glass.

Voter Fraud: New Zealand’s bird of the year contest was rocked by a voter fraud scandal: 1500 fraudulent ballots were cast for the Kiwi pukupuku. Over 40,000 total ballots were cast for the annual event; and in the end, the kakapo (or “moss chicken”) was crowned the winner.

Lego goes big: Lego has created its largest ever puzzle set: the Roman Colosseum with over 9,000 pieces. "This epic Lego model features a recreation of the three distinct stories from the Colosseum, with each of these stories adorned with the columns of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders," Lego said in statement. Previously, the largest lego set had been the 7,541 Star Wars Millennium Falcon.

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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