Business & Politics News and Discussions

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Honda suspends exports to Russia, more Japanese automakers could follow
Source: reuters.com

Honda Motor (7267.T)said on Wednesday it has suspended exports of cars and motorcycles to Russia, signalling the likelihood more Japanese automakers would join the global swell of companies halting business with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

Western companies have spurned Moscow following the invasion, stopping sales in Russia and even saying they would exit investments there. Ford Motor (F.N) and other global automakers have already said they would suspend operations.

But the response of many Japanese firms has been more muted so far. Honda had suspended exports to Russia as of Wednesday, a spokesperson said, without elaborating when the suspension took effect.

The spokesperson said difficulty in shipping vehicles and making payments was the reason for the suspension. The automaker does not have factories in Russia, where it sold 1,406 cars in the 2020 financial year.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 022-03-02/

[raklian]

Let's see if it makes it to Biden's desk.

[raklian]

[raklian]

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Forbes List of Richest Shows Billionaire Growth Slowed in 2021
presented by Richard Mille

https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

Introduction:

(Forbes) War, pandemic and sluggish markets hit the world’s billionaires this year. There are 2,668 of them on Forbes’ 36th-annual ranking of the planet’s richest people—87 fewer than a year ago. They’re worth a collective $12.7 trillion—$400 billion less than in 2021. The most dramatic drops have occurred in Russia, where there are 34 fewer billionaires than last year following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and China, where a government crackdown on tech companies has led to 87 fewer Chinese billionaires on the list.

Still, Forbes found more than 1,000 billionaires who are richer than they were a year ago. And 236 newcomers have become billionaires over the past year—including the first ever from Barbados, Bulgaria, Estonia and Uruguay. America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion, including Elon Musk, who tops the World’s Billionaires list for the first time. China (including Macau and Hong Kong) remains number two, with 607 billionaires worth a collective $2.3 trillion. We used stock prices and exchange rates from March 11, 2022 to calculate net worths. See below for the full list of the world’s billionaires and our methodology. (see link above quote box).

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Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $302M in pelvic mesh case
Source: AP

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A California appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that Johnson & Johnson must pay penalties to the state for deceptively marketing pelvic mesh implants for women, but reduced the amount by $42 million to $302 million.

Johnson & Johnson had appealed in 2020 after Superior Court Judge Eddie Sturgeon assessed the $344 million in penalties against Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon.

Sturgeon found after a non-jury trial that the company made misleading and potentially harmful statements in hundreds of thousands of advertisements and instructional brochures for nearly two decades.

California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal issued a ruling Monday that $42 million in penalties assessed for the company’s sales pitches to doctors were unjustified because there was no evidence of what the sales representatives actually said.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/health-busin ... afed7011db

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Judge rules Amazon must reinstate fired warehouse worker
Source: AP

By HALELUYA HADERO

A judge has ruled Amazon must reinstate a former warehouse employee who was fired in the early days of the pandemic, saying the company “unlawfully” terminated the worker who led a protest calling for Amazon to do more to protect employees against COVID-19.

The dispute involving Gerald Bryson, who worked at an Amazon warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, has stretched on since June 2020, when Bryson filed an unfair labor practice complaint with The National Labor Relations Board, claiming Amazon retaliated against him.

Later that year, the NLRB said it found merit in Bryson’s complaint that Amazon illegally fired him for workplace organizing. Amazon didn’t accept the findings, and the federal board filed a formal complaint against the company, triggering a lengthy administrative court process.

On Monday, administrative law judge Benjamin Green said Amazon must offer Bryson his job back, as well as lost wages and benefits resulting from his “discriminatory discharge.” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement that the company will appeal the ruling.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/covid-health ... 1e77a93254

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China, Russia, five others make US property rights blacklist
Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has put China, Russia and five other countries on its annual blacklist for lax enforcement of intellectual property rights that leaves American companies vulnerable to copyright and trademark piracy.

All seven countries on this year’s list were on last year’s, too.

“China continues to be the largest origin economy for counterfeit and pirated goods,’’ according to the report.

Also on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s “priority watch list’’ were Argentina, Chile, India, Indonesia and Venezuela.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-AAWENvb

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U.S. Companies Added 247,000 Jobs in April, ADP Data Show

-- Hiring was weaker than forecast, smallest gain of recovery

-- Other data suggest labor market robust ahead of Fed decision

U.S. companies added in April the fewest jobs in the pandemic recovery, underscoring the persistent challenges faced by small firms to increase headcount in a tight labor market.

Businesses' payrolls increased by 247,000 last month, after a revised 479,000 gain in March, according to ADP Research Institute data released Wednesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 383,000 advance. ... Businesses with 500 or more employees posted solid hiring gains, but those with less than 50 lost 120,000 jobs in April, the worst in two years.

"While hiring demand remains strong, labor supply shortages caused job gains to soften for both goods producers and services providers," Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said in a statement. "As the labor market tightens, small companies, with fewer than 50 employees, struggle with competition for wages amid increased costs."

The weaker-than-expected advance suggests firms are making little progress filling a record number of job openings despite recent wage increases. Many businesses still desperately want to hire more workers, but a depressed participation rate continues to limit further employment growth. ... The figures precede the government's monthly jobs report on Friday, which is currently forecast to show private payrolls increased by 390,000 in April. The ADP figures don't always follow the same pattern as the Labor Department's data.

{snip}

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -data-show

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Study Finds That Despite Ideals People Don’t Really Like Reducing Inequality
May 6, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/951951

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Berkeley, Calif—Most Americans say they want a more equal society, yet policies aimed at increasing equality for disadvantaged groups in higher education, corporations, government, and elsewhere continue to generate backlash.

This backlash has been blamed on a range of causes—including majority white Americans’ fears of losing their status, political partisanship, and overt prejudice.

A study by Berkeley Haas researchers, publishing today in the journal Science Advances, offers a new take, identifying an underlying cause of this opposition that cuts across ideologies: People in advantaged positions view equality itself as harmful, and tend to think that inequality benefits them.

“We found that people think of the world in zero-sum terms, so that a gain for one group must necessarily be a loss for another,” says study co-author Derek Brown, a Berkeley Haas doctoral student. “This seems to be a cognitive mistake that everyone is susceptible to, not just a vociferous minority that has antipathy toward any certain group.”

The paper, co-authored by Berkeley Haas assistant management professor Drew Jacoby-Senghor along with Columbia University PhD student Isaac Raymundo, helps explain why even people with strong egalitarian beliefs may still block policies that reduce disparities. Beyond the threat of losing status, people in advantaged groups are prone to the perception that greater equality means less for them—to the point where they’ll vote for policies that cause them economic harm and increase inequality over policies that benefit them and reduce inequality, the study found.

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78,000 pounds of infant formula arrives in US
Source: AP

By MICHAEL CONROY

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Enough specialty infant formula for more than half a million baby bottles arrived Sunday in Indianapolis.

The formula, weighing 78,000 pounds (35,380 kilograms), was being transported by military plane, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Joe Biden flew from South Korea to Japan.

It is the first of several flights carrying infant formula from Europe expected this weekend to relieve the deepening shortage in the U.S. The flights were authorized by Biden.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Indianapolis to greet the arrival of the first shipment in Indianapolis.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/biden-health ... f3630d79ba

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Biden to Begin New Asia-Pacific Economic Bloc With a Dozen Allies
Source: New York Times

SEOUL — President Biden has enlisted a dozen Asia-Pacific nations to join a new loosely defined economic bloc meant to counter China’s dominance and reassert American influence in the region five years after his predecessor withdrew the United States from a sweeping trade accord that it had negotiated itself. The alliance will bring the United States together with such regional powerhouses as Japan, South Korea and India to establish new rules of commerce in the fastest growing part of the world and offer an alternative to Beijing’s leadership.

But wary of liberal opposition at home, Mr. Biden’s new partnership will avoid the market access provisions of traditional trade deals, raising questions about how meaningful it will be. Mr. Biden will formally inaugurate what he has dubbed the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity on Monday in Tokyo, where he will be joined by several leaders of the new network in person or virtually. It represents the centerpiece not only of his first trip as president to Asia but also of his broader strategy in the region at a time when China has increasingly filled the void left when President Donald J. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017.

“It is by any account the most significant international economic engagement that the United States has ever had in this region,” Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo, who will lead some of the negotiations triggered by the agreement, told reporters on Sunday. “And the launch of it tomorrow here in Tokyo marks an important turning point in restoring U.S. economic leadership in the region and presenting Indo-Pacific countries an alternative to China’s approach to these critical issues.”

In addition to the United States, India, Japan and South Korea, the 13 members of the framework will include Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Together, the participating nations represent about 40 percent of the world economy, and any specific agreements that emerge from the grouping could go a long way toward setting standards even beyond its membership.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/worl ... -bloc.html

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'We're all afraid': Massive rent increases hit mobile homes

For nearly 30 years, Virginia Rubio has lived in a trailer park in Forks, Wash., where monthly rent teeters around $350. Now it’s shooting up to $1,000.

Rubio, a retired home-care aide who lives on food stamps and $860 in Social Security each month, says there’s no way to make the math work. She owns the mobile home she shares with her partner and adult daughter but will soon have to give that up if she can’t afford to rent the plot of land underneath it.

“With an increase like this, I don’t know what we can do," said Rubio, who is 75. "We’re all afraid of losing our homes.”

Surging home prices and rents are cascading down to the country’s mobile home parks, where heightened demand, low supply and an increase in corporate owners is driving up monthly costs for low-income residents with few alternatives. At the same time, private-equity firms and developers are often circling nearby, looking to buy up such properties and turn them into more lucrative ventures, including timeshare resorts, wedding venues and condominiums.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... ts-rising/

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7 arrested in House office building linked to Colbert show
Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Capitol Police said Friday that officers arrested seven unauthorized people in a congressional office building Thursday night and charged them with unlawful entry.

The people identified themselves as being affiliated with CBS’ “Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Another person familiar with the matter provided the AP with a list of nine people who had been stopped by Capitol Police. They included several producers, along with Robert Smigel, the voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

The two people who spoke with the AP could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/congress-rob ... 0895f80883

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'Upset no matter what happens': Senate gun deal leaves voters on both sides unsatisfied, frustrated
Source: Yahoo News

Candy Woodall and Rick Rouan
Sat, June 18, 2022, 11:31 AM

Pastor Michael Fox is pissed.

Actually, the 60-year-old Sanford, North Carolina, Presbyterian corrects himself: He's "very pissed."

Fox is among the Republican voters who feels betrayed by GOP senators for supporting a bipartisan gun deal they say chips away at their constitutional right to bear arms.

North Carolina's two Republican senators are among a group of GOP lawmakers backing a gun reform deal in principle for the first time in about 30 years — legislation that was prompted by two mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.

This is a massive shift in a party that has always been a firewall against any attempts to restrict gun rights.

However, the 10 Republican senators supporting the deal say they can save lives without sacrificing Second Amendment rights. Most of them are either retiring or won't face voters until 2026.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/upset-no-mat ... 05964.html

[Time_Traveller]

Kellogg's to split into 3 companies for cereals, snacks, plant-based products

June 21, 2022

June 21 (UPI) -- Mega food producer Kellogg announced on Tuesday that it's spinning off into three new companies that will be responsible for its cereal, snacking and plant-based products.

The move is a serious shakeup for the 116-year-old company, which is known widely as Kellogg's.

The company said that its board approved the spinoffs into three independent companies and said each will be "better positioned to unlock their full standalone potential."

Kellogg's produces a number of popular cereals, including Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies. Its snacking products include Pringles and Cheez-Its and the new plant-based product company will be anchored by MorningStar Farms, which Kellogg's already owns.

None of the three companies have been officially named. All three sectors produced about $14 billion in net sales last year, Kellogg's said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compani ... ar-AAYHy2Q

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Juul can keep selling e-cigarettes as court blocks FDA ban
Source: AP

By TOM MURPHY

Juul can continue to sell its electronic cigarettes, at least for now, after a federal appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked a government ban.

Juul filed an emergency motion earlier Friday, seeking the temporary hold while it appeals the sales ban.

The e-cigarette maker had asked the court to pause what it called an “extraordinary and unlawful action” by the Food and Drug Administration that would have required it to immediately halt its business.

The FDA said Thursday that Juul must stop selling its vaping device and its tobacco and menthol flavored cartridges.



FILE — A woman exhales while vaping from a Juul pen e-cigarette in Vancouver, Wash., April 16, 2019. Juul has asked a federal court, Friday, June 24, 2022, to block a government order to stop selling its electronic cigarettes. Federal health officials on Thursday, June 23, ordered Juul to pull its electronic cigarettes from the U.S. market, the latest blow to the embattled company widely blamed for sparking a national surge in teen vaping. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer, File)

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/science-poli ... 1a3738cef7

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Use Chronological Scenario Planning to Help Your Startup Get Through a Potential Recession
by Gaetano Crupi
June 28, 2022

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) Over the past few months, investors from Sequoia to YC have sounded the clarion call to get their portfolio companies preparing for winter. At this stage, it does not matter if we agree or not: Enough momentum in the market has shifted that market behavior has become a self-fulfilling reality.

Over the past 60 days, we have been working closely with our portfolio companies to help devise ‘winterization plans.’ We have gone through this exercise enough that we have seen some patterns that might be helpful to others as they create their own plans.

We agree with many of our peers that scenario planning is vital at this stage. This is a point that we have communicated repeatedly to our own companies. We have found that placing scenarios within a 36-month decision tree is particularly useful for preparing winterization plans.

Why 36 months when the usual feedback is 18 to 24 months of runway? We also believe that this downturn has the makings of a longer lasting and more volatile slump. A 36-month perspective is a more appropriate time horizon for collecting more information so you can decelerate even further (with cash to pivot) if things are worse in 12 months, or accelerate if things are better in 18 months.

Chronological scenario planning forces you to set drop-dead dates to make decisions, all in the context of having enough cash on hand to gracefully pivot. It forces the company to think in an “if, then” structure that is much more actionable than siloed scenarios.

Read more here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/28/how- ... downturnr/

[raklian]

Holy sh*t.

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The Growing Tech Focus of the Quad
by Rakeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
July 10, 2022

Introduction:

(Eurasia Review) The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the Quad, which includes Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, appears to be taking a particular interest on critical and emerging technologies. From their first summit meeting in March 2021, the focus on technology has been growing.

The March 2021 joint statement stated that the four countries “will begin cooperation on the critical technologies of the future to ensure that innovation is consistent with a free, open, inclusive, and resilient Indo-Pacific.” Further, they noted that the Quad will “launch a critical- and emerging-technology working group to facilitate cooperation on international standards and innovative technologies of the future,” with the Quad efforts focusing on four aspects: “technical standards, 5G diversification and deployment, horizon-scanning, and technology supply chains.”
The subsequent September 2021 meeting of the Quad leaders elaborated on the tech agenda, stating that the Quad countries will work together on emerging technologies, space, and cybersecurity. The buzzwords the Quad used were openness, access and security of the entire tech ecosystem, shared democratic values and respect for universal human rights. Pushing this agenda forward, the Quad countries in September 2021 issued a statement of principles on technology design, development, governance, and use that will lead the region and beyond to responsible, open, and high standards of innovation. Three key principle were highlighted: support for universal values; building trust, integrity, and resilience; and fostering healthy competition and international collaboration to advance the frontier of science and technology.

Elaborating on these, the principles noted the importance of technology development while keeping the sanctity of universal values, including “respect for freedom of expression and privacy,” promoting technology development and usage in line with shared values, including “the autonomy, agency, and dignity of individuals,” and that technology development should be driven by “an equitable and inclusive process that neither involves nor results in unfair discriminatory action.” The principles also noted that “technology should not be misused or abused for malicious activities such as authoritarian surveillance and oppression, for terrorist purposes, or to disseminate disinformation.”

Read more here: https://www.eurasiareview.com/1007202 ... nalysis/