This weekend saw groundbreaking action by the G-7 nations on the Biden administration’s proposal for a new global minimum tax of at least 15% “that companies would have to pay regardless of where they locate their headquarters.” The accord, which the nations humbly describe as a “historic agreement that could reshape global commerce and solidify public finances” would also “impose an additional tax on some of the largest multinational companies” like Amazon, Facebook, and Google - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
While domestic support for that tax is far from certain, a rare bipartisan coalition appears “poised to pass the most expansive industrial policy legislation in U.S. history” in the Senate as a means for countering the “urgent competitive threat from China” - NYTimes
Google has reached a deal in which it will pay $270 million to resolve allegations by French antitrust regulators that it abused its “dominance of the online advertising market.” The agreement is the result of the “first time an antitrust regulator had taken direct aim at Google’s advertising infrastructure, a platform that scores of websites worldwide rely on to sell ads” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
A collection of top private equity firms—Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman—have “reached a deal to acquire Medline Industries Inc. that would value the medical-supply company at more than $30 billion, in one of the largest leveraged buyouts since the financial crisis” - WSJ and Bloomberg
The Upshot on the improbable shift happening in some industries at the moment—for “the first time in a generation, workers are gaining the upper hand.” While the pandemic appears to have hastened the trend, the “erosion of employer power began during the low-unemployment years leading up” to it and, “given the demographic trends, could persist for years” - NYTimes
A Bitcoin conference in Miami: crytospeak, booze, and the South Florida heat—what could possibly go wrong? - NYTimes
Speaking of cryptos, China is reportedly cracking down on the mining of bitcoin, jeopardizing the industry that’s produced “up to three-quarters of the world’s supply.” The intense energy demands for producing new bitcoin (and the government’s overall distaste for the cryptocurrency) are apparently drivers behind the newly restrictive environment - WSJ and Bloomberg
Because nothing’s simple with Ackman and the Pershing Square crew, here are the questions that come with his SPAC’s recently unveiled $40 billion deal with Universal Music Group (many focused on the “complicated and innovative” deal structure) - WSJ
At 556,000 jobs added, Friday’s U.S. Jobs Report was far from bad, but it’s also not the million+ that many had hoped for. Turns out that assessing its relative strength is as much about politics as it is the state of the economy and hiring - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Loving this interactive piece examining all going on just a bit deeper than the quick glance at this piece (“In England (Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight)”) by Berthe Morisot, the lone woman in the late 1870s Impressionist wave and likely the “most underestimated of all the Impressionists” - NYTimes
Stay safe and get vaxxed,
MDR
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