In 2016, BMW won the bid to supply the Los Angeles Police Department with hundreds of all-electric BMW i3s for use in its transportation fleet. The LAPD hardly used them, their leases expired, and now the cars are being sold for dirt cheap.
Several i3s from the LAPD's fleet were for sale at New Century BMW as Certified Pre-Owned models, as first noticed by The Current Review, an enthusiast EV blog, and then Jalopnik. A screenshot of New Century BMW's inventory, grabbed by Green Car Reports, showed a collection of white-on-black i3s available. All of them were 2017 models, only had a few thousand miles on them, and were priced at less than $18,000.
A representative at New Century BMW confirmed to Business Insider that the cars were indeed from the LAPD's fleet, and that the dealership was selling them as CPO models. Some prices were as low as $15,000, which is a steal for a three-year-old, low-mileage CPO BMW that had a starting price of more than $43,000. Some had only about 9,000 miles on them.
A cursory glance through Autotrader shows 2017 BMW i3s with more miles on them going for a few thousand dollars more.
At the time of Friday's writing, there are no more LAPD i3s left for sale. The dealership rep told Business Insider that the store's first shipment of i3s contained 28 cars and all of them sold in four days.
LAPD BMW i3.
BMW
However, a second shipment will come at some point this month, and the rep said all of the cars would be priced between $15,000 and $18,000.
The rep estimates that these will sell just as quickly. He said there was a lot of interest, but also noted that due to the high demand, the dealer will not be accepting phone or online orders. Interested customers must show up in person at the dealership and the cars will be sold on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The i3s were part of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's push to go greener. Despite the good intentions, things didn't go according to plan.
The cars didn't wind up doing much of the outreach they were intended for, a CBS Los Angeles investigation from January 2018 found. Instead, they sat, rarely used. If they were used, CBS Los Angeles said they were used for non-police business, such as visiting nail salons and picking folks up for lunch.
CBS Los Angeles later clarified that, according to numbers it obtained from the LAPD, the entire cost of the i3 and charging-station operation cost $10.2 million, with plans for 300 cars in the fleet.
In an emailed response to Business Insider, an LAPD spokesperson said the department is not selling the i3s. Rather, they said the cars' leases had expired and that's why they're being resold by the leasing company.
"The 50 vehicles were turned in by us at the end of the leasing period per the contract," the spokesperson said.
So if you're in the Southern California region and you're looking for a cheap EV, keep your eyes on New Century BMW's inventory list. Once that new shipment comes in, it'll probably go fast.
Charge, a British startup now owned by Cannondale, wants to simplify the bike-buying process.
I tested out their high-end model, a $2,300 behemoth designed to handle off-road trails.
It's the most fun I've had on two wheels since childhood, but just not a feasible purchase for my current living situation.
If you have the space — and funds — it might be the best socially distant recreation option possible, and it's actually in stock (unlike many other bikes).
There's no real reason to own an electric bike as tough as a tank, that glides over asphalt as easily as gravel or mud and bounds up hills with no struggle.
But, if you can afford it, there's also no reason not to.
At $2,300, the Charge XC — the heaviest duty member of the British company's three-bike lineup meant to have a choice for everyone — is a seemingly perfect fit for the weekend warrior or a cycle-curious explorer. It's also great for a slightly out-of-shape journalist like me, who just wants to tear up some dirt trails to blow off steam.
I took out a fully loaded version of the bike for spins around New York City to see how well it weathered rough asphalt, bumpy bike lanes, gravel paths, muddy trails, and any other obstacles I could find.
Unlike some new bikes, the Charge XC was a breeze to put together — even in a tiny apartment
The box is heavy but has punched-out handles like any good box should. It also has handy pull cords that rip along perforated edges, easily exposing the bike and its parts.
A cardboard stand — no plastic here! — helped keep the bike upright while installing the front wheel and other parts. Still, it's an easier job with two people.
"A gigantic challenge in design, really more than the bike, was to get rid of all the plastic, the zip ties, all the foam," Charge founder Nick Larsen told me in an interview. "That might seem like something that would be normal to most people — but if you saw the equivalent of what a bike would normally come like, it was a huge undertaking."
From the packaging to the integrated battery, the sleek design made it clear how much thought went into the bike's creation. Larsen told me many of his design peers from school ended up at Dyson, the legendary British design shop, and the inspiration for Charge bikes was closely linked.
Graham Rapier / Business Insider
"Bikes are a little bit like computers used to be," he said. "They're complicated to understand and a bit of an intimidating purchase. That's what computers were before Apple and others made the user experience more simple."
Within 30 minutes, it was ready to ride (but still needed to charge). Within a few hours I was ready go go explore — and had some hills in mind to put it through the gauntlet.
First impression: the smoothest ride I've been on in a while
This thing is like riding a motorcycle no matter how high the seat is set thanks to a 60 mm handlebar rise. The handlebars are also incredibly wide, which is nice for off-road control, but I was hesitant to squeeze through the gaps in traffic road bikes can go without a problem, but was never uncomfortably hunched over.
And when the motor kicks in, it's smooth sailing. It has three settings, from "eco" mode's slight boost up to the near-whiplash-inducing "sport" mode.
Graham Rapier / Business Insider
I set off with two targets in mind: the oldest bike path in the United States, and the only forest in Brooklyn.
First up was Ocean Parkway. This bustling road was designed by the architectural duo behind Central Park and other famous US green spaces, and has two grassy malls flanking its lanes from Prospect Park all the way down to Coney Island. It was one of the first true "highways" in the United States, and a few years after its construction it also became home to the first true bike path in the country — it's only seen a spattering of maintenance since.
Jokes aside, the bike lane is notorious for bumps after years of water, ice, tree roots and other forces have buckled the asphalt. Charge XC's massive Goodyear tires and fork suspension handled the rough riding with ease.
Its plastic fenders also helped keep disgusting gutter water from splashing up at intersections. However, for all their utility, the fenders shake like crazy over the smallest bumps, rattling loudly nearly constantly — and I'm not the first person to notice it. These seemed easily removable, and are a small part of otherwise perfect bike.
A better look at the bike's tough tires, disc brakes, and finicky fenders.
Graham Rapier / Business Insider
Up hills and through mud where the bike truly shined
The Charge XC isn't a mountain bike, despite having a frame that easily could. Its numerous warnings against attempting jumps seemed funny at first, until I realized just how tempting it would be to shoot for a dangerous amount of air.
The bike didn't skip a beat over loose gravel or puddles of mud that would be impossible to find traction on with many other bikes. Even on steep up-hill climbs, I lost balance before its motor ever spun the back wheel. With so much power underfoot, it's easy to forget to change gears sometimes too.
Down the other side of a hill is where things got interesting. I'd never used disc brakes before this very moment. I'm here to testify that the hydraulic disc brakes on the Charge work instantaneously, and well. In hindsight the near incident was hilarious, and goes to show no matter how much energy the 55-pound bike and its rider can muster, things can stop quickly.
After an hour or so of taking the bike on every different earthen path I could find in the park's winding ravine, I felt the bike had been adequately put through the paces.
It was when I got home that I realized an important qualifier for potential customers: the weight. It took all of my effort to get the bike up a flight of stairs, and might be more suited to someone on the ground floor or with a garage. (Though to be fair, most electric bikes are expensive and a lighter frame wouldn't be as tough.)
"Compared to an analog bike it's heavy," Larsen told me, "but what you benefit from is range and performance."
He wasn't wrong: my 90-minute, eight-mile adventure had only used up about 10% of the bikes battery, according to the convenient heads-up display.
The control screen (with battery info) up display is big enough to see without being distracted
Graham Rapier / Business Insider
And even despite the struggle to take it up my building's stairs, the folding pedals and swiveling handlebars made for easy storage in an otherwise tiny apartment.
The bikes are in stock, too — or at least they were when I spoke to Larsen in late August — a major selling point these days as manufacturers rush to build bikes as fast as they can to keep up with an absolute explosion in demand.
"We've got stock. We've got products," he said. "How long that will last I can't tell you."
The US economy added 1.37 million jobs in August, and the unemployment rate declined to 8.4%, the Labor Department reported Friday.
While the report was stronger than economists expected, it also showed that the pace of the labor market recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has continued to slow down.
Here are seven charts that break down the report, showing how far the labor market recovery has come and how far there is to go.
The August jobs report yet again showed that while the US labor market is recovering from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic, the pace is slowing and there's still a long way to go to reach pre-pandemic levels.
The US economy added 1.4 million jobs in August, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.4%, the Labor Department reported Friday. So far, the US economy has recovered 48% of jobs from pre-coronavirus levels.
"Progress is clearly being made but there are still 11.5 million people who are out of a job as a result of the COVID shock," said Michelle Meyer, US economist at Bank of America, in a Friday note.
And, the overall pace of job gains slowed in August from previous months. "The private sector only added 1.0 million jobs which shows a deceleration from the recent pace of job creation," said Meyer. "Clearly there is still more work to be done to fully heal the labor market."
Provided below are seven charts breaking down the most important data points in the August jobs report.
1. The headline unemployment rate fell to 8.4%, well below economists' expectations.
The unemployment rate also reached its first single-digit reading of the coronavirus pandemic in August, and is down significantly from the peak of 14.7% in April.
Still, the unemployment rate is historically high. It's more than twice the pre-pandemic low of 3.5%.
2. Nonfarm payroll jobs rose by about 1.4 million in August.
The headline payrolls number was slightly above consensus, which estimated that about 1.35 million jobs would be added in the month.
The print was boosted by the US Census, which hired about 238,000 temporary workers in August.
In addition, private-sector job growth slowed during the month. It was about 1 million in August, down from 1.5 million in July.
3. The labor force participation rate also ticked up in August, but is still below pre-pandemic levels.
There are some positive signs that people are indeed returning to work following mass furloughs and layoffs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The labor force participation rate, which measures the share of working-age adults that are either employed or actively seeking jobs, increased in August.
This shows that there are more people either back at work or looking to go back to work as the US economy continues to reopen from virus-related shutdowns earlier in the year.
4. Similarly, the employment-to-population ratio increased in August, but remains lower than before the pandemic.
This ratio specifically measures those that have a job as a percentage of the total population, showing that more people are finding their way back into the workforce.
"You had a huge increase in both in the labor force, a huge increase in those employed and a huge decrease in those unemployed," Dan North, chief economist for North America at Euler Hermes told Business Insider. There were "very good signs of health there," he added.
5. Most industry sectors saw job growth in August, with government and retail trade employment posting particularly large gains.
While employment grew in most sectors, the overall pace slowed, indicating that so-called "low-hanging fruit" jobs might be drying up — this refers to jobs that workers returned to after temporary layoffs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
One example of this is the slowed pace of jobs added back in leisure and hospitality, one of the industries hit hardest by the pandemic and related shutdowns. Even with the employment gains, total jobs are down 2.5 million since February, and the unemployment rate in the sector is 21.3%.
It's difficult to see how "the labor market is going to have a more easy win if that sector — the one that's most directly affected and constrained by the virus — is starting to taper off how many jobs it can add," Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, told Business Insider.
In addition, government employment was boosted by temporary hiring for the US Census. Overall employment in the sector remains 831,000 below its February level.
6. While the number of workers on temporary layoff has dramatically declined, the number of people facing permanent job losses is rising.
It's a good thing that temporary layoffs declined, as it shows that workers are returning to their previous jobs.
On the flip side, the increase in permanent layoffs is concerning. It's much harder for people to find jobs after a permanent layoff, and if Americans can't go back to work, it means the economic recovery will take a lot longer.
"The first round of shutdowns did indeed create permanent job loss, and people saying 'I don't have a job to go back to,'" said Dan North, chief economist for North America at Euler Hermes.
If there is a resurgence of COVID-19 in the coming months, it could cause more permanent job losses, said North. "That will be really dangerous for the economy, much more so than the situation we're in now."
7. Even with the last several months of job gains, there are about 11.5 million fewer Americans on nonfarm payrolls than before the pandemic began, marking a far sharper and deeper decline than in past recessions.
There's still a long way for the economic recovery to go before it reaches pre-pandemic levels, and the economic outlook remains uncertain as Americans wait for further government stimulus.
Millions of out-of-work Americans had unemployment benefits slashed when the additional $600 per week expired in July, and while some are now getting $300 per week due to an executive order from President Trump, it may last only a few weeks.
In August, the Paycheck Protection Program, which likely saved millions of small business jobs also ended. At the same time, Democrats and Republicans remain deadlocked on the next potential coronavirus stimulus package.
Hopefully, the August report will reignite the debate, according to North.
The ongoing technology-driven stock market rally is on the verge of rivaling market bubbles not seen since the dot-com era and the Great Depression, according to Stifel's Barry Bannister.
The only way stocks can move "sharply higher" from current levels is if a bubble is formed, fueled by near-zero interest rates and a falling equity risk premium, Stifel said.
Investors still have a lot to learn from the Nifty Fifty stock market bubble of 1972 and the dot-com-era bubble of 2000, according to Stifel's Barry Bannister.
In a recent note to clients, the head of institutional equity strategy said the current technology-driven stock market is showing similarities to previous market bubbles, and is even rivaling past melt-ups based on the cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio, or CAPE.
"The current market level is pivotal," Bannister said, explaining that, "the CAPE of the S&P 500 is knocking at the doorstep of the same point at which CAPE broke out in the last two years of the most powerful bull markets of the past century, the late 1920s and late 1990s."
If the widely followed CAPE ratio does break above the 30.0x level and decisively move higher, "the building and bursting of a bubble" could occur, according to the note.
"The only path we see to a sharply higher market is a bubble like the end-stage of the 1920s and the 1990s bull markets," the note said.
Fueling a continued rally in stocks would be near-zero interest rates and a falling equity risk premium. In other words, the monetary policies from the Fed will likely be the determining factor of how long the stock market rally can last.
According to Bannister, the S&P 500 could soar if Powell is able to avoid the Bernanke taper tantrum of 2013 and suppress the real 10-year Treasury yield. In this scenario, the S&P 500 could jump 10% from current levels to 3,700, Stifel said.
Additionally, there is a "mega-bull case" for stocks, depending on how low the real 10-year Treasury yield can fall, Bannister said. The real 10-year Treasury yield is the current interest rate of the 10-year Treasury less the current rate of inflation.
Still, market valuations are "precariously high" and investors should note that the decade following the dot-com bubble led to underperforming tech stocks relative to the S&P 500 despite faster earnings growth, the note said.
Investors should take note of Bannister's call. The Wall Street strategist wasn't surprised by this week's tech-driven market sell-off given his note last month called for a 5% to 10% market correction.
The S&P 500 has correctly predicted the election winner 87% of the time for nearly a century, although four major events this year pose a greater challenge to the 2020 vote, a top strategist said in a BNY Mellon webcast on Thursday.
The incumbent party generally secures victory when stocks are higher in the 3-month period before an election than they were at the start of the year. If not, the opposition tends to win.
Dan Clifton, a strategist with Strategas Research, predicted the next two months would be the "wildest" ever in politics, and provided a 3-point framework to understand potential outcomes.
He said Democrats could end up hurting themselves if they choose to vote through mail-in ballots, as that dramatically increases chances of error and delays the process.
The S&P 500 index has correctly predicted the winner of the US presidential election 87% of the time over the last almost-100 years, strategist Dan Clifton of Strategas Research Partners said at a BNY Mellon webcast on Thursday.
If stocks are higher in the 3-month period before the election than they were at the beginning of the year, the incumbent party generally tends to win. If they are lower, it's the opposition that tends to take the White House.
Right now, it's tight. The S&P 500 hit record highs on Wednesday, but has since dropped by nearly 7%, leaving it with a year-to-date gain of just 3.7%. The most recent data has reflected an economy that is recovering, but at an ever-slower pace.
However, four "transformational" events in 2020 — the COVID-19 pandemic, an ensuing recession, mass protests against racial injustice, and a US presidential election — pose a great challenge to potential outcomes this year, he said.
Going back a hundred years, "I can only find three of these instances ever happening in one year, and that happened just three times," Clifton said, adding that 2020 is a rare situation, with an increased range of outcomes.
Clifton said anybody claiming they know what will happen is "not being honest" and it is important for investors to plan around different scenarios.
Strategas Research Partners
In case of a contested election, confirming the results could drag on as late as mid-December — a timeframe to note ahead of the critical tax deadline of December 31.
Clifton said the next two months would be the "wildest" ever in politics, and provided a 3-point framework to understand potential outcomes:
Understand what's happening in the economy and with COVID-19
Establish the mood in key swing states
When the COVID-19 caseload was rising, there was a referendum on Donald Trump. But since cases peaked, it has become more of a choice between Trump and Joe Biden.
A traditional presidential election could take place if COVID-19 is restrained, but if it comes flaring back in September and October when children go back to school, a likely referendum on Trump would not be good for his reelection process, Clifton said.
He referenced the Gallup Approval Rating to monitor multi-day polls as it is linear-related to the percentage of votes a president receives in an election.
"The race is tightening because the economy is getting better," Clifton said.
The Atlanta Fed's GDP model predicts a third-quarter GDP growth rate of 29.6%, up from a prior estimate of 28.5%.
Clifton highlighted that the fastest growth rate ever seen before an election in the US was 6.2%, which means that current predictions are about five times the average rate.
Strategas forecasts Biden's win probability at about 55%, which means Trump is at about 45% — closer race than what polls suggest.
A person walks by the Federal Reserve on Saturday, April 25, 2020.
Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images
Just 10 out of 327 people who've been appointed to financial regulatory agencies in the US have been Black Americans, a study from the Brookings Institution found.
There has yet to be a single Black comissioner at the Securities and Exchange Comission or the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, for example.
The study concludes that Black Americans only entail 11% of new directors serving on the boards of S&P 500 corporations.
As Black Americans push for change and more diversity in corporate America, it turns out that they're underrepresented among the leadership ranks of financial regulatory agencies in a big way.
Just 10 out of 327 people who've been appointed to US financial regulatory agencies, or 3% of all financial regulators, have been Black Americans over the past 90 years, a research paper released on Wednesday by the Brookings Institution said.
This includes federal financial regulatory agencies such as the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Though Black Americans make up 13.4% of the population, there have only been 141 Black members of Congress dating back to 1900, with 98 of them being voted into office over the past two decades. In comparison, according to the study, 140 Black American judges serve across all levels of U.S. federal courts.
The paper showed that there has yet to be a single Black commissioner at the SEC or the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, for example. The paper's author also pointed out that there has never been a Black chairman at the FDIC, SEC or the CFTC.
"This in effect means that African Americans have been, for the most part, shut out in any given year from representation on any given financial regulatory body," said Chris Brummer, the paper's author and faculty director at Georgetown University's Institute of International Economic Law. "The consequence is that African Americans have had little, and usually no direct say in the very shape and operation of finance, the lifeblood of capitalism and the U.S. economy."
One policy that Brummer refers to as an example of Black Americans largely missing out on having an equal voice in corporate America is the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enacted in July 2010. As the study concludes, Black Americans only entail 11% of new directors serving on the boards of S&P 500 corporations.
Brummer added that the lack of diversity in financial regulation isn't necessarily a partisan problem, indicating that both Democrats and Republicans haven't done the best job at attracting diverse talent given the fact that neither party in the US Senate "has sponsored an African American appointment in the absence of Executive political action since the first term of the Reagan administration."
The paper's publication comes after Jacob Blake, a 29 year-old Black man, was shot 7 seven times by police in Wisconsin, leaving him with serious injuries, sparking further civil unrest and protests across the US.
Gbenga Ajilore, a senior economist at Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., tweeted on Friday that the Black-White unemployment ratio increased in August to a record-high since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Also on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the US economy added 1.37 million jobs in August, the fourth consecutive month of gains. Additionally, the US unemployment rate declined to 8.4% in August after reaching an historic high 14.7% back in April.
Every evening at the onset of the pandemic, people around the United States clapped for frontline workers, an important public ritual that helped hold us together during uncertain times.
The economic fallout from the pandemic is shedding new light on the uneven economic realities faced by working individuals, families, and communities across the US.
This collective experience is teaching us that all workers are essential to a functioning economy—including grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, farmers, caregivers, and factory, food processing, and restaurant and transportation workers—as they are the ones who have kept this country alive, despite being denied basic benefits or a say over their conditions.
This is a signal moment, one that demands a transformation, not just a retreat to "normal." Normal was devouring, unsustainable, and defined by decades of deepening inequality, rising precarity, and economic immobility.
This time of crisis is our chance to reimagine an economy that works for everyone. There are ways to not just clap for essential workers, but to clap back at our broken economy. Here are four issues that we must be advocates for, and the organizations that help us do that.
We should follow the leadership of organizations like Jobs with Justice, the National Employment Law Project and One Fair Wage who have marshaled the collective power of working people across sectors to advance more just and fair compensation in places like New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Maryland and across sectors. Their work is a timely rudder for this moment.
Guaranteed access to healthcare, paid leave, and benefits
In the US, the pandemic is revealing how predicating an economy on a system that ties healthcare to employment and incentivizes limitations to paid leave and basic benefits impacts us all.
Coalitions like Family Values @ Work and Paid Leave for All are making major strides in campaigning for and securing paid leave and sick days across the United States. We need to build an economy that guarantees access to critical benefits for all working people and their families.
A robust care infrastructure
Care work is essential to a functioning and sustainable economy. Whether caring for children or elderly parents, growing numbers of workers need care support to remain in the labor force. Yet, it remains barely affordable and accessible to many working families.
Working parents in low-wage work have been found to spend up to a quarter of their annual income on childcare expenses. Today, many working parents are struggling to manage dueling work and childcare responsibilities intensified by school and childcare center closings.
Working people simply desire to conduct their work in environments where they can stay safe and healthy. Yet, this is not prioritized by many US employers where up to 50% of US workers face hazardous or unpleasant conditions. More recently, workers on the frontlines of the pandemic continue to find themselves working without adequate safety measures or equipment.
We need an economy that values the safety of workers as people and as critical drivers of economic activity; where working people have a collective voice in shaping their work conditions without fear of retaliation.
Workers with organizations such as United for Respect are calling for changes that prioritize their safety and well-being amidst this pandemic. They are also experimenting around shared employer-worker governance models where workers can voice their concerns, including through the worker board they established at Toys "R" Us following its emergence from bankruptcy. CoWorker.org is supporting workers in the tech, gig, and other sectors to collectively raise their voices and transform their workplaces.
The rampant inequality working people face is not a fire that will burn itself out. The decisions we make, the demands we deliver, will determine whether we recover or relapse, whether we withstand this crisis and prevail over those to come. Let's honor essential workers by committing to a fight to advance an economy that truly works for all. The future of work must be today.
American tech CEOs have fended off scrutiny of their business practices by portraying China as a bigger threat to US interests.
The way to counter China's digital agenda is not through a lack of regulation but rather through sensible regulations on the tech sector that balance between free and open discourse online and protecting privacy and democratic institutions, writes Coby Goldberg of the Center for a New American Security.
The heads of Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook fended off tough questions from lawmakers last month at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee.
To help allay concerns about monopolistic business practices, each CEO sought to portray his company as representing American values and serving American interests. They all did so in part by pointing to a threat supposedly bigger than their own companies: China.
"If you look at where the top technology companies come from, a decade ago the vast majority were American. Today, almost half are Chinese," Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks. "There's no guarantee our values will win out."
Zuckerberg is right to warn of the threat posed by China's technological authoritarianism.
Beijing has harnessed cutting-edge machine learning tools to build surveillance systems that can track residents' travel and even identify people as predisposed to crime. It is actively exporting this Orwellian vision by providing loans to the Chinese technology giant Huawei for its "Safe City" projects across more than 90 countries and by providing training on internet policymaking for foreign leaders from more than 30 countries.
But the way to counter China's digital agenda is not through a lack of regulation, as Zuckerberg and his fellow tech titans argue. In recent years, mounting concerns over violations of digital privacy at the hands of companies like Facebook and the rampant spread of disinformation online have undermined the notion that an open and free internet means an unregulated internet.
A better way to fight back against China's global technological ambitions would be for Washington to work together with its allies and build a broad coalition in favor of sensible regulations on the technology sector that strike a balance between free and open discourse online, on the one hand, and protecting privacy and democratic institutions, on the other.
President Donald Trump with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other NATO leaders at the opening of the 2018 NATO Summit at NATO headquarters in Brussels, July 11, 2018.
The US needs to work together with allies to offer an appealing alternative to the Chinese system. But as it stands, the US and its allies are not on the same page.
Consider the issue of data rights: In 2018, the European Union implemented the General Data Protection Regulation, the world's most comprehensive data protection scheme. Australia, Japan and South Korea have all followed suit. In the US, though, proposed legislation on digital privacy tends to die on the floor of Congress, without being brought up for a vote.
Yet in spite of clear global antipathy toward the laissez-faire US approach to tech regulation, American trade negotiators have persisted in trying to promote it abroad.
In trade agreements with Canada, Mexico and Japan, for example, the Trump administration forced the inclusion of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a controversial law that shields internet companies from liability for third-party content posted on their platforms.
The White House called its deals with these countries the "gold standard on digital trade rules." But both the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee disagreed, saying it was "inappropriate for the United States to export language mirroring Section 230" while the law is the subject of a heated policy debate in the US.
Trump and then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly meet with cybersecurity experts at the White House, January 31, 2017.
In many ways, Washington is already taking the initiative in setting the global digital regulatory agenda. Through programs like the Digital Connectivity and Cybersecurity Partnership, the Trump administration has tried to build other countries' regulatory capacity and counter China's efforts to export of its authoritarian model.
And the US Agency for International Development recently unveiled its first-ever Digital Strategy, an effort to advance the American vision of "open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystems" through partnerships with foreign governments and civil society groups.
But in order to promote those kinds of digital regulations abroad, the US needs to have an appealing vision of what they should look like. Many people across the globe dislike the Chinese model of state control over personal data, but they also do not want to give corporations unfettered ownership over their data.
A survey conducted last fall by the Pew Research Center found that around 80% of Americans are concerned about the way their personal data is collected by technology companies, and feel that the risks of this data collection outweigh the benefits.
A Chinese soldier in front of "Unit 61398," a secretive Chinese military unit believed to be behind hacking attacks, in Shanghai, February 19, 2013.
Carlos Barrio / REUTERS
This points to a need for the US to build a domestic system that better protects its citizens' private information, perhaps even modelled after the EU's regulations.
Not only would that be in line with Americans' own stated preferences, it would also harmonize the US system with that of its allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, allowing these countries to more effectively work together to counter China's digital ambitions. After all, many countries are wary of China's heavily subsidized tech giants exerting dominance over global markets, but they also do not want to let America's tech giants form de facto monopolies.
Zuckerberg argued that strong regulations on tech companies would hamstring America's efforts to compete with China. That argument works only in his own interest.
Competing with China requires advancing a vision of a truly open and inclusive internet, and that will necessarily require meaningful regulations to claw back the power of Facebook and other American giants. If the US wants to slow the spread of China's Orwellian technologies across the globe, it must start by regulating Big Tech at home.
Coby Goldberg is the Joseph S. Nye, Jr. intern for the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
A closed sign in a restaurant during the coronavirus pandemic in New York on April 16, 2020.
Michael Nagle/Xinhua/Getty Images
Joe Biden said in a speech Friday that he blames Trump's failed leadership for allowing for a "K-shaped" economic recovery, where high earners are faring better than low-wage workers during the recession.
Industries like technology, retail, and software services have largely recovered and begun rehiring, while travel, entertainment, hospitality, and food services have continued to decline past March levels.
The result is that low-wage jobs like restaurant staff, transportation workers, and cleaners are least likely to come back.
Since it became obvious the coronavirus pandemic would create a recession, economists have debated the "shape" of it, with big implications for the future of the economy. Would it be a "V" shape, with a rapid recovery, a "U" shape, with a softer recovery, or the dreaded "L" shape, with no recovery at all?
Joe Biden weighed in on the matter in a speech on Friday, blaming President Trump for creating an unusual "K shape." He said many Americans thought the country would bounce back economically within months of March's record job losses, but Trump's leadership botched that recovery.
"As a result, economists are starting to call this recession a K-shaped recession, which is a fancy phrase for everything that's wrong with Trump's presidency," Biden said. "What 'K' means is those at the top are seeing things go up, and those are the middle and below are seeing things go down and get worse."
The economists and pundits Biden referred to have surmised the economic recovery is taking the shape of a "K" — allowing for those at the top to prosper while sending working class Americans into further debt.
Here's what the "K-shaped" recovery means, and how that impacts jobs and economic inequality.
What is a 'K' shaped recovery?
The US entered a recession in February, per the National Bureau of Economic Research, ending a record 128-month economic expansion.
Economists and analysts use letters like "V", "L", and "I" to describe their projections for the length of the recession and potential recovery, Business Insider's Ben Winck reported.
A "V-shaped" recovery, for instance, is the most optimistic, as it suggests economic spending and employment will rapidly decline, but quickly pick back up like a "V." A "U" shape is similar but suggest the period of unemployment and low economic activity will remain longer than a "V" recovery.
"L" and "I"-shaped recovery outlooks are much more dire, suggesting the high unemployment and low spending will have other ramifications, like cause debt defaults and overwhelm health systems.
A "K-shaped" recovery is somewhere between a "V" and "L" — depending on who you are. Industries like technology, retail, and software services have recovered from the industry and begun re-hiring, while the travel, entertainment, hospitality, and food services industries have continued to decline past March levels.
"The pandemic's uneven economic impact on industries and workers has been stark," US Chamber of Commerce president Suzanne Clark wrote in a blog post on Thursday, called "Enter the K-Shaped Recovery."
What does a 'K' shaped recovery mean for jobs?
In March, following the rapid spread of the coronavirus that prompted officials to shut down businesses and schools, the US lost 701,000 non-farm jobs and nearly 10 million people filed for jobless claims.
While the record job loss hit the travel and hospitality industries, some economists assumed the US would bounce back once businesses reopened. The result would have resulted in a "V-shaped" recovery, where unemployment and spending drop sharply but pick back up in a short period of time.
But the US has yet to control the virus to the point of safe reopening. The country has the most cumulative infections at more than 6 million, and a resurgence of infections have been tied to hasty restaurant and business reopening.
The stagnated recovery has meant the restaurant and travel industries have continued to decline, as more and more chains and restaurants have gone bankrupt. While job growth has picked back up slowly, the unemployment rate is still 8.4% nationally.
Clark said the financial services sector has already recovered 94% of its pre-pandemic employment, while the leisure and entertainment industries have only brought back 74% of their former workers. The result is that low-wage jobs like restaurant staff, transportation workers, and cleaners are least likely to recover.
"It's no surprise at root of this is the fact that Trump has mismanaged the COVID crisis, and that's why it's a K-shaped pandemic," Joe Biden said Friday.
Within weeks, Ford and the UAW devised a plan to bring volunteer workers to facilities to produce the urgently needed medical technology, using existing Ford materials and manufacturing expertise.
Rory Gamble, the UAW's president, had been on the job only a few months when the pandemic crisis hit.
"He flawlessly rose to the occasion," Hackett said of Gamble's determination to keep the UAW membership safe while also fighting the virus.
"It's an example of the very best within us, as a country, as workers, and for Ford as a company," Berg said.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit the US hard in March, Ford and every other major global automaker had to shut down production, taking the unprecedented step of idling assembly lines nationwide to protect workers from COVID-19.
At the same time, as the virus ripped through American society, sickening thousands, hospitals faced shortages of protective gowns, gloves, face masks and shields, respirators, and — for critically ill patients — ventilators.
Ford had been making pickup trucks and SUVs at its factories, so the company dusted off its World War II playbook and shifted gears. But this time around, instead of tanks and warplanes, the Blue Oval and its workers made medical equipment.
About five months and 50,000 ventilators later, the effort has been chronicled in a short film, "On the Line", directed by Hollywood veteran Peter Berg, known for films such as "Friday Night Lights" and "Hancock." The eight-and-a-half-minute documentary debuted at Aspen Ideas Now (an extension of the Aspen Ideas Festival) on Friday.
The new UAW president steps up to the challenge
UAW President Rory Gamble has to deal with a pandemic and a leadership crisis at the union.
Reuters
Ford CEO Jim Hackett and GE Healthcare executives oversaw what the companies called "Project Apollo," a name inspired by the movie "Apollo 13," which celebrated American engineering ingenuity under the extreme stress of a failed 1970 Moon mission when NASA fought to return three astronauts to Earth after an accident damaged their spacecraft.
An unsung hero of the story was Rory Gamble, the new president of United Auto Workers, who had been on the job less than six months when the pandemic struck, and was dealing with his members' concerns about workplace safety while simultaneously managing the fallout of a leadership crisis at the union. (His predecessor, Gary Jones, had stepped down amid a scandal and later pled guilty to embezzlement charges.)
The UAW and the Detroit Big Three — Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — are often thought to be adversaries. And the differences between labor and management had exploded in late 2019, when the almost 50,000 UAW members walked out on GM, striking for more than a month.
But the Ford effort (as well as a similar undertaking at GM) showed that Detroit's leaders, on both sides, could put aside their differences to "take care of each other," as Gamble said in an interview with Business Insider.
"He flawlessly rose to the occasion," Hackett said of Gamble's determination. "He saved a bunch of people's lives and deserves a ton of credit."
Gamble had been instrumental in pushing for factory shutdowns in mid-March, advocating for his membership. In the span of a week, the Detroit automakers and the UAW went from talking about how they would deal with the coronavirus crisis to idling plants in the US.
Hackett acknowledged that the pressure was a good thing. He estimated that Ford could have lost nearly 3,000 workers to the disease if the company hadn't swiftly pulled the plug.
"We got them out of the exposure path," Hackett said, calling the undertaking a phenomenal effort by Ford and the UAW. His praise for Gamble was unflinching. "I'd love to sit across the table from him," Hackett said.
"We set a common goal and left our differences behind," Gamble said, adding that the UAW and Ford approached the pandemic from a "humanitarian perspective."
"The entire world is fighting this virus," he noted. "It's a threat to all life, so all life should be fighting it collectively."
Enter the Hollywood storyteller
Ford rapidly shifted from making pickups to producing medical equipment.
Ford
The story captured the attention of Berg, who had already been working on a project with Ford and Hackett about how the 117-year-old company was reinventing itself for the 21st century. So he set about following Ford workers and executives as they repurposed numerous automotive components to make millions of masks and face shields and tens of thousands of ventilators, at a pace Hackett called "mind-boggling." (UAW members volunteered to work at facilities that had to be revamped to make the medical technology.)
"There wasn't a lot of shaping that had to be done," Berg said of the narrative, which features longtime Ford employees talking about their commitment to the company and its history, but also to the virus-beleaguered public and to front-line medical personnel and emergency workers.
"It's an example of the very best within us, as a country, as workers, and for Ford as a company."
Berg agreed that he had filmed a distinctly American story.
"We're desperate for these stories today. Cynicism is at levels I haven't seen in my lifetime. But this is an undeniable example of American ingenuity. I had an authentic, no-BS opportunity to document that."
Thinking about grabbing a beer at a bar soon? There's a hidden risk to consider, and it's not a virus.
If you post about your outing, prepare to face judgment from friends, followers, or some random person across the country. No, it doesn't matter if you're following all recommended safety measures. To some, there's simply no ethical way to go out to a restaurant, and they've found comfort in isolation and misery, holding it as proof that they're getting through the pandemic "the right way."
To be fair, there's a lot to be miserable about living in America during Covid-19. Over 180,000 people dead, dwindling and insufficient economic support, and dithering leadership at the highest levels. This has made for little clarity on best practices for reducing the spread of the virus. People have been left to make their own calls on how to behave responsibly.
Social pressure can be a useful tool in keeping everyone on track, especially given the void in leadership. Seeing everyone else wear their masks can be the reminder that you need to throw yours on. But it can also go too far, when it becomes less about promoting rational behavior and more about signaling who's handling the crisis better than others.
The partisan pandemic
As with everything else, the response to the pandemic is largely divided on political lines. The right wants to largely ignore the outbreak, quickly rallying against mask protocols and pushing to reopen the economy as soon as possible. In April, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said "there are more important things than living" while praising the state's moves towards re-opening, tacitly offering up his life for the economic future of the country. President Trump tweeted: "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF." The protests of masks and closures align with basic reactionary ideological lines, dismissing science to "own the libs" and prove a point.
Meanwhile, the left adopted a cautious approach while questions swirled about what measures are actually effective. Are masks harmful or helpful? Can we jog outside? What about surface contact? Many chose to stay locked up inside alone, minimizing outside contact and lowering the risk of infection. All alone in isolation with nowhere to go, there was now plenty of time to worry about other people's behavior and whether it matched your own standards. Additionally, the right's brash ignorance led to a lack of nuance when it came to a serious conversation about a responsible return to society.
Contrary to much of the left's outcries,there are areas where reopening seems possible, namely New York City, which of course suffered one of the worst outbreaks in the world. Cases are now down to less than 300 a day, compared to over 5,000 daily in April. The infection rate is under 1%. So what's working for New York? Masks are worn indoors, testing is widely available, and restaurants and bars have appropriately-distanced outdoor seating.
And yet, social media posts showing socially-distanced, rule-following public outings are often met with digital finger-wagging, deeming anyone not holed up in their apartment as selfish, uncompassionate, and irresponsible.
Even worse are well-intentioned but misleading studies on the spread of the virus. Everyone has become a keyboard epidemiologist since March, and these comments only heighten anxiety. I suspect it's rooted in a desire for some agency in a time when we seemingly have none.
While the right dismissed facts as a sign of loyalty to the president, the other side is also overlooking science to signal a moral superiority, shaming those who are choosing to venture out of complete solitude while still behaving safely.
So, let's look at the facts of the situation: the odds of indoor transmission are 18.7 times greater than in open air. A study of 7,300 cases in China found just one was connected to outdoor transmission. Research suggests that the likelihood of surface transmission has been exaggerated and is actually quite unlikely. Washing your hands regularly and avoiding touching your face should do the trick. Reducing your social circle to a smaller "quarantine pod" has also been shown to be rather effective.
Outside looking in
The restaurant industry is among those hardest hit by the pandemic. While over 10,000 restaurants in NYC have set up outdoor seating and increased takeout, they are still serving only a fraction of their regular number of customers. The federal paycheck protection program simply won't be enough to keep these restaurants above water, especially once outdoor seating is no longer an option during the winter. Without a more substantial bailout of the industry, the only way these restaurants and bars have any chance of survival is if they're patronized.
My biggest question for people quick to judge others for going out is: what are you waiting for? While there have been positive updates on a vaccine, it still could be years away, if we're lucky enough to ever have one. In the meantime, in places with deflating case numbers, we must find a manageable way to live.
Naturally, ignoring all safety protocols is more dangerous than being overly cautious, but snidely commenting on Instagram posts won't cure the virus either. There's no prize for who can be the loneliest person, and ignorance can swing both ways. Don't let the reactionary right push you into a paranoid furor, and likewise, don't shame those who are safely trying to make it through this. It doesn't mean we're "over it," just that we need to adapt based on the current situation. Like it or not, we're all in this together.
Three years ago, teacher Kerri Landry found a hole in the wall of her middle-school classroom in Coventry, Rhode Island. It looked strange, so Landry took a flash photo of the inside of the hole — and captured a troubling image.
"The entire inside of that wall was all black mold, the entire thing," she told Business Insider.
Left: A hole in the wall of Kerri Landry's classroom at the Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School in Coventry, Rhode Island. Right: Black mold inside the wall behind the hole.
Kerri Landry
Landry showed her husband Tom the picture. A specialist in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) at a local company called Environmental Systems, Tom knew the mold was an indicator of the building's poor air quality.
School custodians patched up the hole and treated the mold, but Landry said she's seen mold in other classrooms, too. She thinks it may be a sign that her school — the Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School — shouldn't bring students back at all.
"This has been an ongoing issue for years," Landry said, adding that she's recently been telling anyone who will listen that the school district must fix its ventilation systems before students return. She feels strongly about that for her own safety as well as that of her students and two youngest sons, who attend a high school in the district.
However, Landry's school district decided on Monday to do a phased reopening, with all grades slated to be back by October 13.
Kerri Landry, a teacher in the Coventry School District in Rhode Island, with her youngest sons.
Courtesy of Kerri Landry
Landry's school isn't exceptional: Research shows that air quality is a major issue in tens of thousands of schools across the US. A June report from the Government Accountability Office estimated that 41% of districts nationwide, or 36,000 schools, need major upgrades to their HVAC systems.
Before the pandemic, poor air quality in schools was problematic because it impeded kids' learning and lowered their test scores. But now, faulty HVAC systems are even more concerning since they could facilitate the spread of the coronavirus.
The link between coronavirus transmission and HVAC systems
The coronavirus most commonly spreads via respiratory droplets emitted when an infected person coughs, sneezes, speaks, or breathes heavily. But research suggests it can also be airborne, meaning the virus gets transmitted via aerosols: tiny particles or droplets that can hang in the air, potentially for hours at a time.
Either way, most instances of documented coronavirus transmission have occurred in tight, poorly ventilated indoor spaces; one study (though not yet peer-reviewed) suggested that a person might be nearly 20 times more likely to spread the coronavirus inside than outside.
Students are seen inside a classroom at a high school in Shanghai
Aly Song/Reuters
Studies have also shown that poor HVAC systems can spread the coronavirus around, sparking outbreaks. In one case study, a single person infected nine others at a restaurant in Guangzhou, China. Epidemiologists found that the strong airflow in the restaurant's air conditioning — and lack of effective filtration and ventilation — likely carried droplets from one table to several others.
"The biggest risk comes from poorly ventilated, crowded environments where people spend a lot of time. Unfortunately, that kind of perfectly describes a lot of schools," Jeffrey Siegel, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto, told Business Insider.
To ensure an HVAC system removes coronavirus particles from the air — at a school or elsewhere — it needs have adequate ventilation and filtration, not just circulation. One crucial factor, then, is airflow: the amount of new air that flows through a building. Most buildings should have at least 15 cubic feet per person per minute.
Mike Saladino cleans an air duct before installing an HVAC filter at Gold's Gym in Islip, New York, August 24, 2020.
Al Bello/Getty Images
Filtration is also key: On commercial HVAC units, filters are rated according to their minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV). Both HEPA and MERV-13 or -14 filters can block most coronavirus particles.
Most schools don't have safe indoor air
Most US schools don't meet the standards necessary to prevent coronavirus transmission indoors, according to Corey Metzger, who leads the school-reopening task force for The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, or ASHRAE. The group offers a list of HVAC guidelines for schools.
"A large percentage of facilities, if not the majority, don't meet our recommended minimums for ventilation or other operating capabilities," Metzger said.
These standards include proper filter installation, ensuring circulation of outdoor air, and balanced humidity levels.
A teacher wears a mask at a private school in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire, France, May 12, 2020.
Landry's husband, Tom, said these problems certainly persist in the schools where his wife teaches and sons study: Most don't have systems that can support MERV-13 and 14 filters.
"Our schools are very old and [have] antiquated HVAC systems," he said. "The majority of schools in our town don't have any fresh air coming into them at all."
Craig Levis, the Coventry district's superintendent, told Business Insider that the middle school where Landry teaches is his "primary focus" in terms of addressing air quality. He said he's hired HVAC specialists to inspect the district's other buildings and help with quick fixes, like placing fans near windows to increase ventilation.
"If there are simple things I can do to mitigate the virus, I put a stake in the ground, and that's what we're doing," he said.
Siegel said he's concerned that fall and winter could make air-quality problems in schools even worse, since cold weather will likely lead teachers to close windows, and holding classes outside will be difficult. Plus, Siegel said, indoor heating could dry out the air, enabling viral particles to travel farther and drying out people's mucous membranes, which can weaken immune systems.
What parents can look out for, and what teachers can do
Even before the coronavirus hit, poor ventilation in schools created problems for students, primarily due to the buildup of carbon dioxide. Previous studies have shown that high levels of CO2 in classrooms can contribute to poor focus and lower test scores.
But upgrading a school's HVAC system can cost millions of dollars and take months to years.
Siegel said a few other measures can mitigate the risks of low-quality ventilation systems in the meantime, though. For instance, portable ventilation systems can help filter air in individual classrooms. The filters are loud, but they work.
"I don't want anyone to think that I'm saying this is a simple problem, but it is a solvable problem," Siegel said.
Additionally, although there's no simple, easy, or cheap way to measure coronavirus particles in the air, carbon dioxide can be a "canary in the coal mine," according to Roger Silveira, an air-quality specialist and the facilities director at San Jose's East Side Union High School District. Carbon-dioxide monitors sell for about $100.
In a building with good ventilation, CO2 levels should generally stay under 1,100 parts per million, Silveira said.
A wall-mounted carbon-dioxide meter reads 818 ppm in Walnut Creek, California, September 2, 2019.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Opening windows is another obvious way to mitigate the problem, as is holding classes in larger spaces, like gymnasiums and auditoriums, according to Dr. Tina Tan, an infectious-disease specialist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
"I think right now we have to think outside the box," Tan said.
She also recommends that teachers limit activities involving shouting or singing, since those create more potentially virus-laden droplets than ordinary talking.
Of course, remote learning is likely the safest option for many districts, though it comes with plenty of its own challenges.
Some districts that are reopening still offer a remote option for that reason; Landry's is one of them. At the moment, she's not sure what to do. Her sons want to go back to school, but both have preexisting respiratory issues. She doesn't want them to have a subpar, remote education, but she's also afraid for their lives.
"It's so difficult as a parent to make this decision — no parent should have to make it," Landry said, adding, "it's like playing Russian roulette."
Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders describes one of her former colleagues as a "foulmouthed Jew" in her new memoir.
In "Speaking for Myself: Faith Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House," Sanders describes former White House communications team colleague Josh Raffel as "a liberal, aggressive, foulmouthed Jew from New York City," according to Jewish Insider, which obtained a preview copy of the book.
Despite being "pretty much his total opposite," Sanders, born in Hope, Arkansas, says she grew to love Raffel during their time working together.
"He is one of the funniest people I know, intensely loyal, and probably the most talented communications strategist I've ever worked with," Sanders writes. "Nobody in the White House could work a story better than Josh, and he was always one of the first colleagues I turned to for help on the toughest assignments."
During his time working at the White House, Raffel was the spokesperson for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. He left the White House in 2018, returning to his work as a senior vice president of Hiltzik Strategies and head of marketing and communications at Blumhouse Productions.
Jewish Insider reached out to Raffel about Sanders' book, and he described her as a "close friend."
In another chapter of the book, President Trump told Sanders to go to North Korea and take "one for the team" after Kim Jong Un appeared to wink at her, she said in a new memoir, according to The Guardian.
Sanders said that during a summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore in 2018, "Kim nodded and appeared to wink at me."
"Well, Sarah, that settles it. You're going to North Korea and taking one for the team!" Trump told her, Sanders said. "Your husband and kids will miss you, but you'll be a hero to your country!"
Sanders served as White House Press Secretary under President Trump from 2017 to 2019.
Google submitted its proposal this month for a new campus near its headquarters in Mountain View, California.
The new campus, called Middlefield Park, would span a 40-acre site and include public amenities like parks and sports field, retail space, restaurants, and affordable housing.
Google wants the town-like campus to be walkable and bikeable, with all the amenities and services within a 10-minute walk for residents.
Google hopes to build a new, town-like campus near its Silicon Valley headquarters.
The company this month unveiled its proposal for Middlefield Park, a revamped 40-acre site in the city of Mountain View, California, where Google's main headquarters is currently based. The plan includes a parks network, retail space, office space, and even a public pool and sports field.
The tech giant also plans to add as many as 1,850 residential units, and the company says 20% of those units will be affordable housing. The housing commitment follows a $1 billion pledge Google made last year to housing in the Bay Area, which included repurposing some its land holdings to create 15,000 new homes at varying income levels, including homes intended for lower- and middle-income families.
Google's new campus plans come at a time when the future of offices is uncertain. None of the major tech companies has sent employees back to work in the US amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, and Google's itself isn't requiring companies to return to work until July 2021.
But Google isn't alone in reaffirming its commitment to physical offices. Last month, Amazon announced that it plans to expand its physical office space in six "tech hubs" across the US, investing $1.4 billion to build out the offices and adding 3,500 jobs.
And Facebook in August signed a deal for a massive new office in the Farley Building in New York City. The office space spans 730,000 square feet and Facebook said at the time it will be used to expand the company's engineering operations in New York.
While Google's plans are still in the very early stages, we got our first look at how the company is imagining its new campus. Take a look:
Google said in its master plan for the development that it aims to "create a complete community" where all of the amenities and services are within a 10-minute walk for residents.
Google's plan includes 1.3 million square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of space for restaurants, retail, or services, and 20,000 square feet for community facilities.
Google's plan will create 12 acres of public space, including a park network of six separate parks. The company says the parks will have space for playgrounds, outdoor fitness, bike paths, a community pool, a sports field, and a dog park.
According to the Mountain View Voice, the Middlefield Park area currently has a significant amount of street parking that will be replaced by parks — the addition of 12 new parking garages makes that possible.
The proposal is still in its very early stages, and many of the buildings that will be constructed haven't been designed yet, according to the Mountain View Voice, but none of the buildings will be taller than 12 stories due to a nearby airfield.
Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on June 30, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Al Drago/Getty Images
The nation's top infectious disease specialist warned that seven states might see a surge in the number of positive coronavirus cases after the Labor Day weekend.
"There are several states that are at risk for surging, namely North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
In the past, several states have reported surges in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases after a holiday weekend like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July.
Dr. Anthony Fauci delivered a grim warning ahead of the Labor Day weekend, saying that seven states should be on high alert for a potential spike in coronavirus cases.
"There are several states that are at risk for surging, namely North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the leading White House coronavirus expert, told Bloomberg News.
"Those states are starting to see an increase in the percent positive of their testing; that is generally predictive that there's going to be a problem."
The warning comes after at least one of those states engaged in large-scale events in recent weeks.
South Dakota held a 10-day motorcycle festival last month, a spectacle that drew more than 400,000 people and led to hundreds of positive cases nationwide connected to the event. Most attendees had not worn a mask and did not adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Multiple states have reported surges in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases after a holiday weekend like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July.
As many states enter the seventh month of mask-wearing and quarantine, the coronavirus continues to spread nationwide.
The disease has infected more than 6.2 million people in the United States, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Of that figure, more than 187,000 people have died.
Anticipating a surge over the holiday weekend, the White House doubled down on the message to practice social distancing and wear masks.
On a phone call earlier this week, Fauci and Vice President Mike Pence asked governors to continue to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing, Bloomberg reported.
A hire with a bad attitude can spread negativity in the office.
MangoStar_Studio/Getty Images
A healthy, upbeat team dynamic is important for the well-being of any company, large or small. Unfortunately, sometimes just one bad employee can spoil an entire team's success.
To avoid making a bad hire, grow your company slowly — don't rush into hiring anyone, and make sure they have the personality and qualities you're looking for.
If you've already made a bad hire, do what you can to communicate with them to reach a mutual solution and see if the relationship can improve.
At the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, Norway took home more gold medals than any other country.
But they didn't just win the most medals that year — they won more than any other country in a single winter Olympics ever.
The secret behind their success? No jerks.
"We have a saying," Alpine skier Aksel Lund Svindal told The New York Times. "There is almost no skill or ability you can have that is so good it allows you to ruin the social qualities of the team."
For Norway's men's ski team, keeping jerks at bay has allowed them to form a strong bond that improves their performance in competition: Every Friday, the team gathers for taco night. Their dynamic is so functional that they'll share hotel rooms — and even beds — while they're on the road. They share all of their tactics and techniques with one another freely, ensuring everyone is bringing their absolute best to the slopes.
"If you have teammates who consistently lift you up, then the environment will make you happy," Svindal's teammate, Kjetil Jansrud, said. "You'll work harder and stay motivated. You're giving yourself your best chance to win."
The same, of course, is true of the workplace. A healthy team dynamic is crucial to the well-being of the company. But that also means that one bad hire can collapse an otherwise healthy office ecosystem.
The cost of a bad hire
Bad hires are expensive on several levels. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, whose company boasts notoriously happy employees, once estimated that bad hires cost the company "well over $100 million."
But your bottom line isn't even where a bad hire hurts the most. In fact, chief financial officers rank bad hires' impact on morale and productivity ahead of monetary loss.
As the Norwegian men's ski team knows, an employee that doesn't fit with the company's culture can have a destabilizing effect on the whole organization.
In some cases, productivity across the board can decrease, since others need to work harder to meet targets and goals to compensate for someone who isn't pulling their weight. This increases the risk of driving your best team members out, taking their skills and knowledge with them.
They can also damage your company's reputation both outwardly and inwardly. Client-facing bad hires can permanently harm relationships with customers. Internally, word of mouth and review websites like Glassdoor allow employees to make educated decisions about where they want to work. Satisfied employees will often refer friends and colleagues to your company. If they're unhappy, though, they'll often warn talented, would-be hires to stay away.
How to avoid making a bad hire
Each employee you hire won't be perfect. But there are ways of increasing your odds of choosing a team that will go the distance.
Before you even post an ad, figure out exactly what skills you want a new hire to have. Create a job description that clearly outlines job duties and the experience needed to excel. A detailed outline will not only help attract talent that's actually right for the job, but it will give you a guide to stick to in order to avoid getting sidetracked.
As a bootstrapped founder, I grew my company, JotForm, slowly and carefully. This gradual growth has allowed me to figure out what I truly value. I've made some mistakes, but in the process of expanding from a solo venture to a company with over 250 employees, I've learned a lot about what to look for in a hire.
One of my main takeaways? Having the right skills is only a piece of the puzzle.
Throughout the interview process, look for what HBR terms "signs of civility." Asking the applicant how she managed past situations provides more insight than presenting hypothetical scenarios, like "how would you handle…" or "what would you do if…" and so on. Make your values known during the interview, and ask for examples of how their past behavior matches those values.
Zappos actually has two interview types. The first explores the candidate's abilities, experience, etc. But they also conduct another round specifically to determine cultural fit. To get the job, a candidate needs to pass both types.
Another helpful Zappos tactic is seeking references in unexpected places. When a candidate flies in for an interview, the company sends a shuttle to the airport. Company leaders will later ask the driver if the applicant was nice, or whether they were rude. No matter how qualified the candidate, the rude ones never make the cut.
Remember the Norwegian ski team? No jerks.
What to do if you've made a bad hire
Let's face it — sometimes, despite doing everything right, you wind up with someone who just isn't a good fit.
Don't beat yourself up: Only 19% of new hires are considered completely successful. By 18 months, 46% are deemed failures. Yikes.
So what to do when you've mis-hired?
Rather than hoping that the person will magically change overnight, it's best to have a direct conversation with your new recruit. Share your concerns with them, and explore solutions that might satisfy you both.
If that doesn't work, it's time to evaluate the current and future expenses of hanging on to the hire. Has there been an increase in workplace conflict? Are other employees struggling to cover for them? Often, you won't even realize the extent of the negative impact the bad hire has had until you remove them.
If the relationship can't be saved, you can still make their departure as painless as possible. Work with your HR department and try to negotiate a plan that benefits everyone.
If parting ways with the employee is not an option, you can at least mitigate the damage: Separate them from the rest of the team by rearranging desks or holding fewer all-hands meetings. Christine Porath, an associate professor at Georgetown and the author of "Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace," refers to this as "immunizing" others.
"You're trying to protect people like you would with a disease," Porath told Harvard Business Review. "You will hopefully decrease the number of run-ins and [minimize] the cognitive loss."
That said, it's important not to let one individual take up all your time and energy. Porath suggests surrounding yourself with supportive, positive people, and looking for meaning and purpose in your work.
"If someone is draining you, build yourself up by exercising, eating right, sleeping, and taking breaks, both short-term ones, and [long-term] vacations," she said. "Being healthy and proactive is the one thing we know that buffers people from the effects of toxic behavior."
The fashion industry has long been a focus of human rights campaigners. Child labor, poverty wages, and a lack of transparency means that garment workers — especially in the global South — are consistently exploited.
In April, The Guardian reported that major high street fashion brands, including Primark and Matalan, had cancelled or suspended orders for £2.4 billion worth of garments from factories in Bangladesh. Over 97% of suppliers surveyed by the WRC and Penn State University said that brands had offered "no financial assistance" to cover furlough or severance costs; the executive director of the WRC described the situation as a "wholesale abandoning of workers and suppliers" by brands.
Factory owners, who operate on low profit margins and lack access to cash reserves or credit, are unable to pay their workers — who themselves aren't paid enough to accumulate the savings they would need to weather this pandemic. While brands scramble to minimize losses, factory owners and workers in Bangladesh are facing destitution.
Closer to home, the brands ASOS and Boohoo both made headlines for the unsanitary working conditions in their UK factories, leading directly to COVID-19 outbreaks in both locations. Boohoo in particular has been criticised for allegedly paying workers as little as £3.50 per hour in a Leicester factory — less than half the UK legal minimum wage of £8.72 per hour. Although Boohoo has said the factory was run by a subcontractor and the bran dis investigating its supply chain, up until this point sales were booming and bosses were in line to make £150 million in bonuses.
ASOS, meanwhile, fired 70 workers at the beginning of the outbreak when they switched delivery suppliers (from Menzies to DPD). The administrators and drivers were originally told that their contracts would be transferred, only for DPD to U-turn on its commitment and announce that they would be dismissed on May 1.
A new light on abuse
Whether in the UK or farther afield, the effects of COVID-19 on the fashion industry are unmistakable. As the crisis has developed, it has thrown into sharp relief many of the systemic issues in the industry — obscure supply chains, worker exploitation, and extreme waste, to name a few — but we're yet to find sustainable solutions to these problems.
Initiatives like Mallzee's Lost Stock have sprung up to plug the gap left by brands abandoning their suppliers. Consumers can purchase a bag of clothes from Lost Stock, tailored to their size and preferences, at £35 — a 50% discount from the estimated £70 retail price. Lost Stock's website claims that each bag supports a Bangladeshi worker and their family for one week.
Although an innovative solution to the dual problem of supporting workers and reducing waste, initiatives like this speak to our neoliberal, late-capitalist era by putting the onus on the consumer to fix the deep-seated problems in the fashion industry. While brands continue to profit from the exploitation of their workers, the burden of "doing the right thing" and bailing out these workers falls on individuals — many of whom are themselves suffering from COVID-related redundancies and reduced hours.
In asking individuals to contribute to ending systemic issues, initiatives like this also require the public to make difficult personal choices about what matters to them, as they are asked to split what disposable income they have between different causes — BLM, local food banks, queer fundraisers, etc. The focus is on individual consumers to make ethical choices for the greater good, rather than holding brands to account.
Mallzee's program appeals to consumers' self-interest: it's undeniably positive that the garments won't go to waste, but the 50% discount incentive speaks to a world in which we are consumers first and foremost; where everything is transactional, and doing a good deed comes with a material reward. It's also worth noting that focusing on poverty and exploitation in other countries leads to western consumers buying into the lie that it "doesn't happen here", and doing a disservice to the vulnerable, precarious, and exploited workers in our home countries.
Accountability
In a time when we should be reflecting on our relationship to fast fashion and our place in a deeply consumer-oriented society, the response to COVID-19 seems to be a focus on increased consumption. Rather than addressing the #BoycottAsos campaign which sprang up in response to ASOS' treatment of its workers, ASOS doubled down: in the week leading up to pubs reopening in England, ASOS offered discounts to UK shoppers to get ready for "Super Saturday." In doing so they encouraged the public to see themselves as consumers, capitalizing on the reopening of pubs and bars as an opportunity to push sales — even while public health advice remained clear on staying at home and avoiding unnecessary travel.
In all of these instances, making ethical choices becomes individual consumers' responsibility, when what we need is corporate and governmental accountability. The COVID-19 crisis has precisely illuminated everything wrong with fast fashion: cramped unsanitary working conditions, precarious and exploitative employment, an opaque supply chain which enables brands to abandon their laborers.
It's evident that real systemic change is needed, and that calling on consumers to behave "ethically" will not be enough. Without organised collective action and a system which enables us to hold brands to account, these issues will continue, even right under our noses.
SoHo Works members have access to work amenities like printers, phone booths, meeting rooms, and podcast equipment that they might not have at home.
Soho Works Water Street Loft
As people seek out safe, hygienic, and private places to work and socialize amid office closures and citywide shutdowns, private members’ clubs stand to be a rare winner on the current hospitality scene.
Chateau Marmont, the André Balazs-owned LA hotspot, is being transformed into a members-only hotel.
Zero Bond, founded by hospitality magnate Scott Sartiano, is the latest private members’ club on the New York scene, attracting celebrities and athletes.
At members’ clubs, staff know your name, you can leave belongings with peace of mind, and you’re always guaranteed a place to sit, unlike a restaurant or bar.
For centuries, private clubs have been attracting powerful businessmen and dignitaries — often exclusively males — for business and social purposes. Private clubs were extremely popular in London, which, in the late 19th century, had more than 400 clubs. In 20th century America, golf and country clubs, which often required a strict dress code, also gained popularity among upper-class individuals.
Today, many private members' clubs have chosen to abandon this old-fashioned model in favor of attracting young creatives and entrepreneurs. Gone are the hallmarks of old members' clubs, like strict dress codes and no workspaces. Those have given way to new members' clubs, which offer a stylish, contemporary space to work and network.
Nick Jones, founder of Soho House, was one of the first to do this with the opening of the club in London in 1995. As of 2020, Soho House operates more than 27 clubs worldwide, with locations slated to open in Tel Aviv, Rome, Paris, Nashville, Austin, Canouan, and another in London, in 2021 and 2022.
Henry Wallmeyer, President and CEO of the National Club Association, whose members include 400 clubs like the prestigious Yale Club of New York City, New York Athletic Club and New York Yacht Club, said within the last five years clubs have become a "third place."
"Everybody's first place is their home, second is work and the third place is their personal refuge," he told Business Insider.
A hospitality magnate makes a pivot into private members' clubs
Scott Sartiano is a hospitality magnate and the founder of some of the world's hottest nightclubs, including New York City's 1Oak, favored by celebrities like Drake and Paris Hilton, and Up & Down. This month, he's slated to open his first-ever private members' club, Zero Bond.
Located at 0 Bond Street in Manhattan's NoHo neighborhood, Zero Bond is a work and social club for individuals in the art, entertainment, media, fashion, and literary industries.
"I wanted to create an elevated environment," Sartiano told Business Insider of the decision to open the members' club. "I thought the 28- to 50 year-old bracket was kind of underrepresented in New York when it came to social options. People want to know who they're associating with, but also want their own space and more control over their experiences."
A rendering of Zero Bond's communal space.
Zero Bond
Membership fees are $3,000 annually, with a $500 initiation fee. And while it's not the most expensive members' club in the city, it's also not easy to get in: Those who apply are required to have a reference by a current member. It has a roster of high-profile celebrities, athletes, and designers on board as founding members, including Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Liev Schreiber, Tom Brady, Zac Posen, and Caroline Wozniacki.
"There's no one type of person that Zero Bond is looking for," Sartiono said. "I want a mixture and diversity. That's New York City. When you go out in New York and meet someone you wouldn't have ordinarily met, that's the makings of a great night."
"My goal is to create the safest place in New York to work and socialize," Sartiano said of Zero Bond. He's implemented technology to automatically take the temperature of anyone who walks through the door. Staff's temperature will be taken hourly and upon entry. There will also be dividers and separators to ensure social distancing.
The 20,000-square-foot, high-ceilinged space spans two floors with several lounge areas, two restaurants, five private rooms, and a bar. Design aficionados will love Zero Bond's contemporary aesthetic, designed by William Sofield and Studio Sofield, which designed store interiors for Gucci and Tom Ford. The building, built in 1874, retains much of its original structure, including red-brick archways and large windows.
The building was formerly the second-ever Brooks Brothers store and factory; in a nod to the building's past, the staff will wear custom-designed Brooks Brothers uniforms. Zero Bond will also hang artwork by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Keith Haring, whose former studio was next door.
"I'm trying to tie things back into the neighborhood," Sartiano said.
The office landscape is shifting, and private clubs serve as remote workspaces
As the pandemic swept the US, companies across the country shut their offices and instructed employees to work from home. But even during the pandemic, it's not uncommon to see a sea of laptops at a given Soho House during the day. In an effort to give members a more dedicated workspace, the company launched its first shared workspace for creatives, Soho Works, in London in 2015.
Its first New York City outpost opened earlier this year, and a Los Angeles location is slated to open later this year. Existing Soho House members and non-member creatives alike can apply for a membership. Members have access to work amenities like printers, phone booths, meeting rooms, and podcast equipment that they might not have at home.
Zero Bond will also be a place to work, complete with quiet areas and phone booths to take calls without disturbing members.
"I want to create a place where people can come to work, have a meeting, have an after-work cocktail or come on a date," Sartiano said, adding that many members' clubs in New York often feel overcrowded. "There's always going to be space for people, and they're always going to know your name and who you are," he said.
Private clubs are also finding new ways to engage with members
With the pandemic limiting in-person meetings, some private clubs are turning to digital programming to keep guests entertained and connected.
Soho House, which is known — in pre-pandemic times — for programming that includes off-site trips and mixology classes, is finding new ways to engage with members. Since April, Soho House has hosted digital events, including speakers, musical performances, meditations, and virtual screenings via its app.
One of the lounges at Soho Works Water Street.
Soho Works Water Street Lounge
CORE: Club in New York City is another club implementing digital events for members to access remotely. The club opened its doors in New York City in 2005. It has 1,600 members and doesn't come cheap: Initial members' fees cost $50,000 and annual dues are $17,000.
CORE: Club Founder Jennie Enterprise told Business Insider that membership is "highly curated," and they search for those seeking "intellectual challenges." While privacy is of the utmost importance, members include leaders, entrepreneurs, and CEOs. What differentiates CORE: from other clubs is the wide range of industries from which they select members, including science and academia, hospitality and culinary, and sports and technology, among others.
COVID-19 inspired Enterprise to launch CORE: Connects, a digital platform featuring cultural programming. Sessions are recorded, uploaded to the website, and made available for members only. One speaker series, called Minds & Mavericks, includes sessions by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Abigail Disney, documentary filmmaker, philanthropist and social activist. CORE: is slated to open its second location in Milan in 2021.
A terrace on CORE: Club.
CORE: Club
A public hotel turned private members'-owned hotel
Hotels, too, are pivoting to a private membership model. Chateau Marmont, the historic Los Angeles hotel, first opened in 1927 and was bought by André Balazs Properties in 1990. It's known for glamorous parties that attract actors, writers, musicians, and artists. This summer, Balazs announced his plans to rebrand it as a members'-owned hotel, meaning members will own a piece of real estate at the hotel.
This decision stemmed from the fact that 70% of guests were repeat customers and the top 100 guests generated the majority of the room revenue. In addition to the investment, owners will be able to leave personal belongings, stay for extended periods of time, and have access to private dining areas.
Chateau Marmont is known for glamorous parties that attract actors, writers, musicians, and artists.
Chateau Marmont
Only one restaurant and a few common areas will be available for public access. When owners aren't staying there, the hotel will only accept guests personally recommended by owners.
"What's been amazingly surprising, but good, is how quickly clubs turn[ed] on a dime once COVID-19 hit," Wallmeyer of the National Club Association said. "Historically, clubs have been notoriously slow in changing. A lot of it is because some are 100 years old."
"Our job is to make every single customer happy," Home Depot cofounder Arthur Blank told Business Insider.
Courtesy of The Home Depot
Early Home Depot shoppers called Ben Hill, a fictional executive, in order to voice their grievances about negative store experiences.
Cofounder Arthur Blank wrote in his book "Good Company" that merchandising expert Pat Farrah came up with the name after seeing it on a sign off I-285 in Georgia.
Home Depot's cofounders would take the "Ben Hill calls" themselves, almost always taking the customer's side.
"We established Ben Hill because, at the end of the day, we wanted to make sure that the store manager really thought of the store as their store," Blank said.
When it comes to the founding of Home Depot, Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus are credited with dreaming up the world's largest home-improvement business in existence today. Pat Farrah also offered valuable merchandising expertise while financier Ken Langone helped to bankroll the operation.
But there's another name from the early days of the company that Blank credits with some of Home Depot's success: Ben Hill. Hill Isn't a real person, but rather an invention of Farrah's designed to solicit customer feedback.
Blank recently spoke with Business Insider about his new book "Good Company," the creation of Ben Hill, and his stint handling negative customer calls for Home Depot. He spoke about how the fictitious figure played a roll in helping the founders foster customer-focused values within the company.
The Home Depot founders had always sought out consumer critiques, with Blank and Marcus donning orange aprons and chasing down customers leaving their stores empty-handed. But at a certain point, Home Depot had opened so many stores that the method became untenable. So the founders took a new approach.
In "Good Company," Blank wrote: "In every store, we hung a sign that read, 'Are you satisfied? If not, call Ben Hill,' followed by a phone number."
Farrah had thought up the fictitious executive after seeing the name on an exit sign off I-285 in Georgia. The California native "thought it sounded friendly." Ben Hill is both the name of a county in Georgia, as well as a neighborhood in Home Depot's hometown of Atlanta. Ben Hill was also the name of a Georgia politician during the 1800s elected to the Confederate States Congress, the US House of Representatives, and the US Senate.
According to Blank, Home Depot's switchboard operators were told to patch calls for Ben Hill through to the founders.
"So for the first number of years, myself, or Bernie, or, Pat Farrah would end up taking all of those calls," he told Business Insider. "You'd tell the customer, "This is Arthur Blank, I cofounded the company. Can I help you?"
Courtesy of The Home Depot
The founders ended up getting an earful from irritated shoppers. But despite the often-tense nature of the calls, the lessons gleaned from those conversations could be valuable.
"Bernie, Pat, and I genuinely wanted to hear from those disgruntled customers ourselves, because we knew that their complaints were worth more than the advice of any retail expert we could hire," he wrote.
Still, Blank told Business Insider that the issues themselves usually didn't make much a difference to the founders.
"We never viewed ourselves as a judge trying to decide which side of the scale is right or wrong," he said. "The customer's always going to be right."
While "Ben Hill calls" could sometimes pinpoint merchandising or installation issues, callers frustrations typically went back to customer service. Blank said that after getting off the phone with the disgruntled customers, he, Marcus, or Farrah would follow-up with store managers.
This resulted in talks that were often "not the most pleasant in the world," according to Blank. He said that store managers came to fear "Ben Hill calls." In the wake of such a call, managers would gather the entire store workforce to talk about the importance of customer service.
"We established Ben Hill because, at the end of the day, we wanted to make sure that the store manager really thought of the store as their store," he said. "Our job is to make every single customer happy. And that means if they're not happy after step one, you go to step two and you make them happy."
Wealth-tech funding is heating back up. Last quarter, wealth startups raised $1.2 billion in venture funding, up from $450 million during the first quarter, according to CB Insights data.
Rebecca Ungarino asked VCs and other big investors to nominate early-stage startups in the wealth management ecosystem that they see as up-and-comers. The responses highlighted will-writing and end-of-life planning as a hot niche, as well as a startup that offers an automated investment management platform that's gaining traction with RIAs.
Keep reading for the latest on layoffs for legal and consulting jobs, and a dive into the ecosystem of 13-F followers who are slamming a proposal to eliminate the quarterly paperwork for many funds.
In late August, the Securities and Exchange Commission greenlighted the NYSE's plan to allow primary direct listings, in which companies can issue new shares while also leapfrogging the costly underwriting process.
But an industry group that represents big-money investors like pension funds filed a last-minute attempt to thwart the NYSE's plan. They argued that new form of direct listings would allow companies to circumvent shareholder protections built into the IPO process and thus put investors at risk.
Yoonji Han talked with securities experts who laid out the critics' concerns about 'untraceable' shares and fuzzy liability. You can read the full story here.
Clayton Dubilier & Rice has agreed to buy Epicor for $4.7 billion from KKR, which had owned the software company for four years and expanded its business through acquisitions and new product launches.
And Steve Murphy, CEO of Epicor, told Casey Sullivan that CD&R "may have an idea or two about some bigger M&A." He laid out companies that could be attractive: businesses with between $250 million and $300 million in revenue operating in manufacturing, distribution, retail, and automotive sectors. You can read the full story here.
While many large companies have been shrinking their office footprints, big tech firms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are doing the opposite.
Growth prospects for tech companies have been getting even stronger during the pandemic. Most also believe that flexible working arrangements won't diminish the importance of offices for recruiting and collaboration. Dan Geiger and Alex Nicoll took a look at why giants like Facebook and Amazon keep gobbling up space while telling workers they can stay home. You can read that story here.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed changing a rule in a way that would eliminate most investment managers' quarterly filings, called 13-Fs, which show equity holdings at quarter's end. The SEC said the change will allay expense-and regulatory-related burdens for small funds and protect investment strategies.
Bradley Saacks and Rebecca Ungarino Business spoke with executives, academics, and other industry insiders about how the proposal could change the institutional investment industry — and how it's being received. You can read the full story here.
Layoff watch
Accenture is cutting more low performers across the 500,000-plus person firm because fewer employees are jumping ship on their own: Read the full story here
Big Law firms are laying workers off but raising pay for people who remain, with firm leaders citing a 'fundamental shift' in working conditions: Read the full story here
