"We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh"

Marc Ross Daily
September 27, 2018
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia 

Marc Ross Daily  = Business News at the Intersection of Globalization, Disruption, and Politics

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TOP FIVE

✔️ Labour to weigh second Brexit referendum if UK-EU talks collapse

✔️ Trump accuses China of 2018 election meddling

✔️ Trump threatens to impose tariffs on cars from Canada

✔️ GM is moving its Cadillac headquarters back to Detroit

✔️ Miniature satellites = CubeSats

ROSS RANT

Coffee books, the original Instagram.
 

GEOECONOMICS

Bloomberg: Macron says he’d welcome UK back to EU if voters change their minds

Labour to weigh second Brexit referendum if UK-EU talks collapse: WSJ reports, the UK’s main opposition Labour Party opened the door on Tuesday to a second referendum that could reverse Brexit if talks with the European Union collapse.

At Bloomberg Business Global Forum, UK Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to slash taxes to the lowest rate in the G20 to make post-Brexit Britain an economic powerhouse.

Skripal ‘hitman’ is a decorated Russian colonel: The Times reports, one of the suspects in the Salisbury poisoning of Sergei Skripal was unmasked last night as a decorated colonel in Russian intelligence who was awarded the country’s top military honor by President Putin.

Today: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan begins a three-day visit to Germany.

Nikkei: Proposed WTO reforms would target Chinese subsidies

EU and Japan hope fixes will keep Americans from quitting free tradebody.

Trump accuses China of trying to interfere in US elections: WSJ reports, Trump accused China of trying to interfere in the midterm elections, opening up an unexpected front in his administration’s multisided conflict with a chief global adversary.

Trump accuses China of meddling in US midterms: FT reports, the president steps up the assault on Beijing following trade war escalation.

Reuters: Trump accuses China of 2018 election meddling; Beijing rejects charge

Without offering evidence, Trump accuses China of interfering in midterm elections: WP reports, at a meeting of the UN Security Council, the president asserted Beijing was retaliating against his administration over the escalating trade war.

WSJ: How China systematically pries technology from US companies https://on.wsj.com/2N7pA2y

Beijing leans on an array of levers to extract intellectual property—sometimes coercively.

Reuters: US flies bombers over South China Sea amid heightened tensions with Beijing

Nikkei: China cuts more tariffs to shield economy from tradewar

Lowered duties to offer $8.7 billion in relief, as Beijing burnishes free trade credentials.

Trump berates Canada and threatens car tariffs as NAFTA talks falter: NYT reports, the Trump administration is prepared to release the text of its trade agreement with Mexico, throwing the future of the trilateral NAFTA pact into uncertainty.

Trump threatens to impose tariffs on cars from Canada: FT reports, president says he rejected meeting with Justin Trudeau because of lack of progress.

Trump slams Canada over NAFTA, says rejected Trudeau meeting: Reuters reports, Trump on Wednesday blasted Canada over the slow pace of talks over NAFTA, saying he was so unhappy that he had rejected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's request for a one-on-one meeting.

AMERICAN POLITICS

NYT: On eve of Kavanaugh hearing, a new accuser and new doubts Emerge

A whirlwind of new accusations, previously unseen evidence, charges, and countercharges on Wednesday threatened to consume the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

He is expected to take the witness stand on Thursday afternoon, following the testimony of his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

The hearing starts at 10:00 am ET.

‘Give it to me’: Trump lets loose with 81 minutes of bluster, falsehoods, and insults: WP reports, what was perhaps most remarkable was just how transparent and revealing President Trump continues to be.

Trump gives the best press conferences.

The best.

Democrats have leads in Rust Belt states that Trump won: A Reuters/Ipsos/UVA Center for Politics Poll released on Wednesday found that a majority of likely voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana disapprove of the Republican president and more than one-third were “very motivated” to back someone who would oppose his policies.

WP: Ex-Virginia Sen. John Warner crosses party lines to endorse Democrat Tim Kaine

Warner, a dean of the state’s Republican Party, joined other Republicans who’ve steered clear of nominee Corey A. Stewart.

Economic concern among Americans:  A new Bloomberg Global Business Forum/Morning Consult poll released at the forum found that only 29% of Americans feel the global economy is headed in the right direction, while 47% believe it is on the wrong track.  

Trump metals tariffs will cost Ford $1 billion in profits, CEO says: Reuters reports, steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost Ford Motor Co about $1 billion in profits, its chief executive officer said on Wednesday, while Honda Motor Co said higher steel prices have brought "hundreds of millions of dollars" in new costs.

Voters when polled always say they will pay more and will accept tariffs in principle, but we'll see how this plays out in reality.

FT: Fed raises interest rates despite trade concerns

Bullish economic outlook sees key rate target range lifted to 2-2.25%. 

ENTERPRISE

New CMO: Under Armour is getting a new CMO. Alessandro de Pestel, a fashion vet who spent 12 years at Tommy Hilfiger, will join UA.

Flywheel Sports, founded as a cycling studio, is branching out into other exercise formats, and its new marketing campaign pushes the brand as "more fly, less wheel."

Uber won a legal victory in its battle to classify its drivers as independent contractors, not employees.

General Motors is moving its Cadillac headquarters back to Detroit, nearly four years after relocating the luxury brand’s home base to New York City. 

Amazon said it is opening a new bricks-and-mortar store that will feature a selection of goods curated partly by local consumers’ online shopping habits.

Stripe said a new fundraising round values the financial-technology startup at roughly $20 billion.

San Francisco-based group raises $245m in latest fundraising as it eyes global expansion.

FT: Google confirms ‘Project Dragonfly’ for China

Executive says Google not close to launching new Chinese search product.

The Slackification of work: The intra-office messaging platform has blurred boundaries between personal and professional. And that’s (mostly) a good thing. http://bit.ly/2N6nyQx

@TechCrunch: Daimler names new CEO to lead push into electric, autonomous vehicles 

TRENDS + BUZZ

Mini satellites: This fall, a few American satellites, each no bigger than a brick, will enter the atmosphere of Mars, 33.9 million miles away — demonstrating a powerful new technology that will undoubtedly shape our futures. These miniature satellites, called CubeSats, were designed to follow NASA’s Mars robotic lander, InSight, as it attempts to land on the red planet in November, and they will relay information back to Earth. The goal is to demonstrate how low-cost CubeSat technology can be used in deep space and travel farther than any miniature satellite before.

A traditional communications satellite can be as big as a school bus and weigh 6 tons. Today’s microsatellites can weigh between 22 and 220 pounds, with some nanosatellites weighing under 22 pounds. 

The US plans to sequence 1 million genomes: Three DNA sequencing centers have been chosen for the project in Texas, Massachusetts, and Washington.

Recyclable packaging: Environmental campaigners in the UK have been mailing their Walkers potato chip bags back to the PepsiCo-owned manufacturer, in protest of what they see as an overly-slow plan for phasing out non-recyclable packaging. 

37: Sub-Saharan Africa will account for 37 percent of the world’s births by 2050, according to UN forecasts.

Too much screen time, too little horseplay for kids: study: AFP reports, only one in 20 kids in the United States meets guidelines on sleep, exercise and screen time, and nearly a third are outside recommendations for all three, according to a study published Thursday. 

On average, children aged eight to 11 spent 3.6 hours per day glued to a TV, mobile phone, tablet or computer screen, nearly double the suggested limit of two hours, researchers found.

CNET: Impostor Syndrome leaves most tech workers feeling like a fake https://cnet.co/2NHAa5M

A new informal study shows that 58 percent of tech employees from companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft feel like frauds.

CULTURE

Third man pressing: Making vinyl in Detroit, an interview with David Buick & Roe Peterhans http://bit.ly/2NJT0sM

“There is no easy shortcut for detecting fake, false or flaky content.” --Onora O’Neill, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, writing about Facebook in the Washington Post

Pokémon: Since its launch in 2016, players of Pokémon Go have spent an estimated $2 billion through in-app purchases.

National investment in wellbeing - money well spent: Monocole reports, a new report by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Washington is trying to ascertain how a country’s human capital – its citizens’ health, skills, knowledge, experience, and habits – impacts its economy. The report yielded some surprising – and not so surprising – results. The countries that had the biggest commitment to human capital were Finland, Iceland, and Denmark. Asian countries had invested more since the 1990s and climbed the rankings. But the biggest loser was the US, dropping from sixth place in 1990 to 27th in 2016. The reason? Its flagging investment in education.

HBD: Gwyneth Paltrow, actress, Emma (1996), the Iron Man film series, 46

SPORT

Golf: The opening ceremony for the Ryder Cup golf championship takes place.

The Times: Southgate set to agree four-year England deal worth at least £12m