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Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit blasts satellites into house from 747

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit blasts satellites into space from 747

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit with a missile under the wing of a modified Boeing 747 aircraft launches July 10, 2019 in Mojave, California, in a major drop test of its high altitude satellite launch system.

Mike Blake | Reuters

Virgin Orbit, the rocket company founded by billionaire Richard Branson, successfully launched its first satellites with its novel air launch system.

The California-based company said 10 mini-satellites had been launched into space by the same rocket launched from the wing of an old Boeing 747 jumbo jet as it flew over the Pacific.

The jet, nicknamed Cosmic Girl, took off from Mojave Air and Space Port at around 10:50 a.m. PST on Sunday. Almost 60 minutes later, the LauncherOne missile dropped it approximately 50 miles south of the Channel Islands in California at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

When released, the rocket engine ignited and launched LauncherOne into space. About two hours later, 10 shoe box-sized satellites developed by universities and selected by NASA were deployed at an altitude of 500 km. The satellites are used for space exploration purposes.

“A new gateway to space has just been opened,” said Dan Hart, CEO of Virgin Orbit, in a statement. “That LauncherOne successfully entered orbit today is testament to the talent, precision, drive and ingenuity of this team.”

The successful launch came after Virgin Orbit attempted to launch a rocket in May last year. The company diagnosed the failure of a high pressure fuel line in the engine, which shut down the rocket shortly after launch.

“Virgin Orbit achieved what many thought was impossible. It was so inspiring to see our specially customized Virgin Atlantic 747, Cosmic Girl, launch the LauncherOne rocket into orbit,” Branson said in a statement.

“This great flight is the culmination of many years of hard work and will also unleash a whole new generation of innovators on their way into orbit.”

Thanks to Virgin Orbit’s launch technology, the company can theoretically launch rockets from almost anywhere on earth at short notice. There are plans to launch missile-bearing 747s from Cornwall, England, for example.

Branson hopes to take advantage of the growing demand for small, relatively cheap satellites. He’s not the only billionaire involved in the space race. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk are also building spaceships to capitalize on the fast-growing industry.

Virgin Orbit describes itself as a “dedicated launch service for commercial and government-built small satellites”.

The company is planning the official transition to commercial service for its next mission, adding that it has already booked later launches from clients such as the US Space Force and the UK Royal Air Force, as well as companies like Swarm Technologies, Italy’s SITAEL. and Denmark’s GomSpace.

Virgin Orbit is a spin-off from Branson’s space tourism company Virgin Galactic. Virgin Orbit is a completely separate company and is privately owned by Branson’s multinational conglomerate Virgin Group.

The speculation about how much Virgin Orbit has invested so far has varied widely. Estimates range from $ 400 million to $ 500 million and even over $ 700 million.

In an interview with CNBC in October, Hart declined to comment on how much Virgin Orbit has spent to date, but said it was “discussions” about further investments, with the company about $ 150 million in new Strive for capital.

Investors include Branson’s Virgin Group and Mubadala Investment Company – the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund, which also has a significant stake in Virgin Galactic.

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Buyers Push Residence Depot and Omnicom to Steer Adverts From Misinformation

Investors Push Home Depot and Omnicom to Steer Ads From Misinformation

Businesses over the past few years have struggled to reach potential customers while making sure their online ads don’t appear in the presence of dubious, suspicious, or potentially harmful content. AARP, mentioned in the NewsGuard report as one of the companies that had served ads on websites that advertised false voting claims, said that despite strict surveillance procedures, some ads had slipped through the cracks.

Capitol Riot Fallout

Updated

Jan. 17, 2021, 10:05 p.m. ET

“We follow strict ad placement protocols, but no system is 100 percent foolproof,” said Martha Boudreau, executive vice president of AARP, in a statement.

An internal AARP review found that “a tiny fraction” of its ads, less than 1/100 of 1 percent, were displayed on NewsGuard-flagged websites, Ms. Boudreau added.

Matt Skibinski, general manager of NewsGuard, said companies should treat websites that post misinformation the same way they should treat websites that promote behavior that is inconsistent with their corporate values ​​or post content they do not wish to be associated with.

“Many brands have someone whose job it is to ensure that ads don’t appear in what they consider unsafe or unsuitable environments. This includes violence, pornography and gambling,” Skibinski said. “We need the industry to see misinformation in this category – to cause harm in the real world.”

NewsGuard reported that Procter & Gamble ads were running on The Gateway Pundit, one of the websites that published misinformation about elections. In an email, Procter & Gamble announced that the website was not being advertised on purpose. Erica Noble, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, said if the company’s ads are displayed on a website that doesn’t meet standards, they’ll be removed quickly.

“These are all standards that were put in place long before the horrific events of January 6, but we know they are now becoming more important again,” she said.

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World’s ‘ethical failure’ WHO says

World's 'moral failure' WHO says

Healthcare workers administer the COVID-19 vaccine to residents of the Jackson Heights neighborhood at St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church on January 10, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.

Octavio Jones | Getty Images

LONDON – The head of the World Health Organization said Monday the fair distribution of coronavirus vaccines was “seriously at risk”.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of a “catastrophic moral failure”, saying “the recent emergence of fast-spreading variants makes the quick and fair introduction of vaccines all the more important.”

But he added that this distribution could easily become “another building block in the wall of inequality between the world’s owners and non-owners”.

“With the use of the first vaccines, the promise of fair access is seriously jeopardized,” he said at a meeting of the WHO Executive Board.

While more than 39 million doses of various vaccines have now been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries, only 25 doses have been administered in one of the lowest-income countries.

“I have to be dull, the world is facing catastrophic moral failure and the price for that failure is paid for with life and livelihood in the poorest countries in the world.”

At the beginning of his speech, Tedros emphasized that developing and approving safe coronavirus vaccines less than a year after the virus emerged in China in late 2019 was an “amazing achievement and a much-needed source of hope”.

However, he added, “It is not right for younger, healthier adults in rich countries to be vaccinated before health workers and older people in poorer countries.”

“There will be enough vaccines for everyone, but right now we must work together as a global family to prioritize (those) who are most at risk of serious illness and death in all countries.”

Without naming names, according to Tedros, some countries and companies speak the language of fair access but continue to prioritize bilateral deals, bypassing COVAX, which is driving prices up and trying to jump to the top. “That’s wrong,” he said.

COVAX is a global program jointly led by an international vaccine alliance called Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, and the WHO. It was established to ensure equitable access to vaccines for every country in the world. The goal is to deliver 2 billion doses of safe, effective vaccines that have passed regulatory approval and / or prequalification by the WHO by the end of 2021.

The WHO urged wealthier countries that had pre-ordered millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines, such as the US, UK and Europe, to share some of those vaccines with COVAX so they could then pass them on to poorer countries.

Wealthier nations have been accused of “hoarding” more vaccines than they need, even though the vaccine supply is still in its infancy, as mass vaccination – which began in the West in December – is largely still in its first phase of distribution.

Tedros urged countries with bilateral agreements with vaccine manufacturers and controls of supply to “be transparent to COVAX on quantities, prices and delivery dates” and to share their own doses with COVAX once they have vaccinated their own health workers and older populations.

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The Races Are Digital, and So Are the Advertisements, however the Cash Is Actual

The Races Are Digital, and So Are the Ads, but the Money Is Real

It takes more than gas to get a racing car running.

It takes money. And money needs sponsors. And sponsors need viewers who they hope will become customers. Which became a problem for motorsport when Covid-19 closed tracks around the world early last year. The financial drought brought teams, tracks and racing series from extinction.

The industry turned to an emerging phenomenon – simulated racing. In these extremely realistic video games, cars obey the laws of physics and run on reproductions of real routes that are accurate down to the last lane.

In an experiment, NBC and Fox replaced the canceled races with sim races. Nobody knew if digital cars would attract viewers and pay off for sponsorships. Traditionally, racing cars served as high-speed billboards with consumers asking for the engine oil that proved the winning car superior. Could a sim car sell engine oil that has no engine or oil?

Ten months into the experiment, sim races seem to be paying off as the television and web audiences helped save the 2020 season. And now Sim Racing is giving the teams a new source of income, giving sponsors a more responsible form of marketing, and engaging a young audience that motorsport has had a hard time conquering. Sim Racing will soon be facing the real test: Can it bind fans and sponsors when real cars are back on real tracks and real spectators are in the stands?

Racing video games are not new. In 1977 Atari you could play Indy 500 and Street Racer. In the 1990s, more demanding Formula 1 games – albeit with blocky graphics – flourished. The graphics were further developed in successive generations of game consoles from Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo. At a glance, you may not even notice that the races are being simulated.

Desktops also run highly complex networked games such as iRacing, which has been chosen as the platform for a number of racing organizations including NASCAR, IMSA, IndyCar and the W-Series. Formula 1 chose its own commercial game from Codemasters.

Many professional racing drivers used the games privately for training. Due to the fidelity of the tracks, drivers can at least remember the layout. Some teams use special simulator software to optimize the setup of their actual cars before a race.

Sim Racing builds his driving skills to the point that some players, like William Byron, have created real cars. Mr. Byron, a NASCAR Cup series driver, now owns an eNASCAR team that won $ 100,000 in prize money in the 2020 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing series.

For years, professional drivers have sneaked into online competitions unannounced. For fans, it’s like joining a pickup basketball game and finding LeBron James on the court.

Automakers see the branding value of games. Chevrolet announced news when its simulated C8.R mid-engined Corvette was added to iRacing’s IMSA range in September. Like manufacturers as diverse as Mazda and McLaren, Chevy licenses its vehicles for dozens of games, including Forza, Project CARS, and Gran Turismo Sport.

Gamers may not be the primary market for a $ 60,000 Corvette, said Kevin Kelly, a Chevrolet spokesman, “but it’s a chance to stay loyal to the brand.”

Sim racing was an afterthought until technology, social media and real racing grew together about three years ago, said Bryan Cook, who was hired by Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR to fans) to handle social media in 2009. He expanded to iRacing four years ago and started a private league where JGR professional drivers competed against “your average Joes,” he said.

A year before the pandemic, iRacing became an official part of the JGR marketing program, offering sponsors a younger audience and social media data for a fee.

“You get to the point where the drivers have to be paid,” said Mr. Cook. “There are equipment needs. We said we really have to cover our costs here. “

Sims had their big break on March 22nd, when both eNASCAR and virtual Formula 1 races were shown on television instead of canceled races. The eNASCAR race drew 910,000 spectators, less than the three million typical for NASCAR, but more than the 400,000 typical for a virtual race.

“We realized this could be a real replacement for these NASCAR races,” said Brad Zager, Fox Sports’ production and operations manager.

The first F1 replacement race, the Virtual Bahrain Grand Prix, drew a total of four million viewers on digital and television, less than the 34 million average for an actual race but ahead of the 1.8 million average for pro-digital Run.

Last year “F1 Esports offered a new level of awareness for F1 Esports”, said Julian Tan, head of the department for digital business initiatives and esports at Formula 1. “We have digital record numbers of engagement in Austria and even in our esports Content seen Our official virtual championship last winter had record numbers. “

Broadcast TV is validated, but only part of Sim Racing’s reach. Livestreams could reach 400,000 viewers via YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, said Anthony Gardner, president of iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations. The social interactions – tweets, likes, comments – during the races are more valuable.

“The social media contacts are millions of times in a race,” said Gardner. These interactions provide customer data and the ability to speak directly to consumers.

Suddenly the sim racing audience was big enough to deserve attention but too new for marketers to capitalize on. Sponsors took different approaches, but all targeted an elusive new audience. NASCAR’s fan base has declined with age since 2005. Sim Racing attracts a younger and more racially diverse audience – attractive to sponsors and leagues.

“It’s really hard to reach this 18- to 35-year-old,” said Patrick Daugherty, who manages Valvoline sponsorships. “Gaming over-indices with young DIY enthusiasts.”

The company signed with Parker Kligerman, a celebrity racing driver and eNASCAR driver, before Covid-19 hit. “The audience and engagement exceeded our expectations,” said Daugherty. “We were really lucky and will renew ourselves with these guys in 2021.”

Despite being NASCAR’s official grill, Pit Boss Grills couldn’t afford to sponsor a front-line racer that is said to cost up to $ 35 million. That has changed with eNASCAR.

“This gave us the opportunity to become a major sponsor,” said Carlos Padilla, Director of Brand Partnerships. “It made it possible for us to be on a live broadcast about a car, if you want to call it that, at a price that is feasible for a company of our size.”

It cost four numbers per race to be seen by a million TV viewers – a bargain.

Discouraging iRacing seems like a circuit’s best interests, but Richmond Raceway first sponsored a team about three years ago. It built a simulator in a disused racing car for fans to try out. This innovation prompted Daytona International Speedway to borrow the car.

Not only has this raised Richmond’s profile, but sponsors’ money has also turned it into a five-figure profit.

“Marketing was the original goal,” said Brent S. Gambill, a spokesman who previously worked for the route and now for NASCAR’s mid-Atlantic region. “When it started, we spent money to be part of something. In the second year we made money. “

The online audience gives sponsors a chance to measure responses to certain offers, taglines, and prices in ways that television doesn’t.

However, a tsunami of data is not always helpful. “It would be fantastic for us if we could say that a million people watched last week and bought 200,000 cars this week. I don’t know if we’ll ever make it, ”said Paul Doleshal, general manager, Motorsports and Assets for Toyota Motors North America. “We’re drowning in information now.”

That makes it difficult to compare Sim Racing’s sales performance with Real Racing’s. But it can be a contentious question for a couple of reasons.

On the one hand, the two worlds are intertwined – the performance on the virtual track can have real effects.

When Darrell Wallace Jr., known as Bubba, finished a virtual race in frustration in April, sponsor Blue-Emu dropped him and tweeted in part: “Bye bye Bubba. We care about drivers, not slackers. “Kyle Larson, a driver, made a racial mistake during a sim race, lost sponsors, and was banned from NASCAR and iRacing. He will return to NASCAR in October.

The second reason is that while winning helps, it is not the only reason a fan will buy a car product.

“It’s not just about the literal oil,” said Eric Schwartz, a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “It’s about being a trustworthy brand that understands this world of racing.”

After all, Sim’s simplest brand attraction is that it delivers viewers. “This is a way to get eyeballs for the brand to keep track of,” Schwartz said. “If Valvoline doesn’t sponsor a team, the competitor will.”

It will take time to know if sim race fans are turning into real racing enthusiasts and vice versa, but Fox has five sim races planned for its FS1 network this year.

“You have so many options with iRacing,” said Fox’s Zager, envisioning a field race one week and Daytona the next. “ESports became a very big buzzword when the pandemic hit,” he added. “But iRacing just went to the front of the field and no one caught up.”

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Jay Y. Lee, Chief of South Korea’s Samsung Empire, Is Despatched to Jail

Jay Y. Lee, Chief of South Korea's Samsung Empire, Is Sent to Prison

SEOUL, South Korea – The Seoul Supreme Court sentenced Samsung’s top leader Lee Jae-yong to two and a half years in prison on Monday for bribing former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

Mr. Lee’s case can still go to the Supreme Court if either Mr. Lee or the prosecution wants to take it there. In South Korea, the Supreme Court can either approve a lower court ruling on a case or send it back for retrial. It cannot override the judgment of a lower court.

When Mr. Lee’s case first reached the Supreme Court in 2019, the court returned it to the Seoul Supreme Court for retrial, stating that it had the amount of bribes Mr. Lee gave to Ms. Park and her secret confidante Choi Soon- paid, underestimated. sil while Mrs. Park was in power. The amount was supposed to be 8.6 billion won ($ 7.8 million), not 3.6 billion as the lower court found.

In its ruling on Monday, the Seoul Supreme Court accepted 8.6 billion won as the correct amount as instructed by the Supreme Court. The decision to do so meant that it was far from settled, that the Supreme Court would approve the verdict should the case end there again.

Mr. Lee has already spent a year in prison after being arrested in 2017 in connection with the prosecutor’s bribery case. He is now expected to spend only a year and a half in prison, which takes away the day-to-day running of one of the world’s most valuable technology giants.

After the court issued its verdict on Monday, Mr. Lee was immediately arrested in the courtroom so that he could serve his time.

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Gary Gensler Set to Lead S.E.C.

Gary Gensler Set to Lead S.E.C.

The Biden administration is using two Obama administration’s financial regulators to oversee key departments that eased control of the industry under President Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the plans.

Gary Gensler, who headed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Obama administration from 2009 to 2014, will be Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s nominee for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rohit Chopra, the former deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has been selected to lead this agency.

Mr. Gensler is a seasoned regulator who played a key role in getting the big banks going after the 2008 financial crisis and giving a supervisory authority new teeth. Recently, as an academic, he has become familiar with digital currencies like Bitcoin, which have become an important part of the SEC’s regulatory mandate. He led the transition team and advised Mr. Biden on overseeing financial oversight.

Gensler, 63, is about to join an agency that has been criticized for being too lenient in prosecuting high profile cases involving Wall Street and the American corporation.

“I think he has a more developed enforcement philosophy, given the work he’s done at the CFTC, and is likely more aggressive than the previous chairman,” said Matt Solomon, former chief litigation attorney at the SEC and a partner with the law firm Cleary Gottlieb.

The agency that Mr. Chopra will take over has been mangled under Mr. Trump. The consumer bureau was founded as an idea by Senator Elizabeth Warren under the Dodd-Frank Financial Overhaul Act and largely ineffective after Trump named Mick Mulvaney as interim chairman. He promised to run the agency with “humility and prudence” and did not request funding from the Federal Reserve. Kathy Kraninger, who took over the helm of the agency in 2018, has been accused by Democrats of undermining the office they have accused of denying “millions of dollars in relief” to consumers. Democrats have put pressure on Ms. Kraninger to resign or be fired.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the President had authority to remove the CFPB director before his five-year term was up.

During his tenure in the consumer office until 2015, Mr. Chopra was the agency’s first “Student Loan Ombudsman” advocating greater protection for borrowers. Student loans are expected to be a focus for Mr. Chopra in addition to payday loan protection and debt collection provisions. On these issues, he would most likely have an ally in Bharat Ramamurti whom former Warren advisor Biden has won as director of the National Economic Council for Financial Reform and Consumer Protection.

For the past three years, Mr. Chopra has served as Commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission and has often spoken out against the Republican majority. Instead, he advocated stricter enforcement measures against companies like Facebook.

At the SEC, one of Mr. Gensler’s most pressing decisions will be the election of an enforcement director – an important role in setting regulatory priorities. But the new administration and the Congress Democrats, who will control both chambers, have already established a number of chambers.

Mr Biden has spoken about companies needing to disclose more information about their environmental impact, while members of Congress discussed limiting buybacks of company shares and enforcing greater control over so-called shadow banking activities by hedge funds and private equity firms.

“This entire government is prioritizing climate change in terms of what any agency can bring to the table to help us fight climate change – and the SEC is really playing a vital role in that,” said Mary Schapiro, the former Chairwoman of the SEC who worked closely with Mr. Gensler when he was with the commodities regulator. Ms. Schapiro probably named the climate, along with issues of trade and market structure, one of the priorities for Mr. Gensler.

When Mr. Gensler took the helm of the CFTC, it had a poor reputation, largely confined to taking enforcement action against small trading companies. There have even been calls in Congress to merge it with the SEC. But Mr. Gensler’s responsibility after the financial crisis of 2008 calmed this criticism. His agency often shared the spotlight with the SEC – and sometimes even overshadowed it.

Under his leadership, the CFTC took action against the manipulation by large banks of Libor – the London Interbank Bank Offered Rate – which sets the interest rates on many bank loans. Working with the Justice Department, Mr. Gensler and the CFTC pulled heavy fines from banks and led to a plan to replace Libor with a new benchmark that is less subject to abuse.

The CFTC also shared the stage with the SEC investigating the so-called flash crash of 2010, when the Dow Jones Industrials fell 1,000 points in just 10 minutes – a record drop at the time. A joint investigative report from the two regulators never found an exact cause, but found that a combination of high-frequency trading and fast trading in e-mini stock futures – a sophisticated exchange-traded fund – contributed to the turmoil.

“Wall Street interests are not always the same as the public,” he told the New York Times in 2010.

After retiring from the CFTC, Mr. Gensler began teaching at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was well educated in digital currencies. He even taught a course on blockchain technology and how it can play a role in transforming markets and replacing middlemen on Wall Street – an experience that would make him the first commission chairman to speak the language of crypto enthusiasts without having to resort to Google for translation.

Mr. Gensler will succeed Jay Clayton, who stepped down last month. Mr. Clayton was a corporate attorney who joined the SEC from Sullivan & Cromwell after working for many large banks and corporations. One of his mandates is to make it easier for companies to go public and to protect investors on Main Street.

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Most Main Economies Are Shrinking. Not China’s.

Most Major Economies Are Shrinking. Not China’s.

SHANGHAI – With most nations around the world grappling with new lockdowns and layoffs in the face of the growing pandemic, only one major economy has recovered after getting most of the coronavirus under control: China.

The Chinese economy grew 2.3 percent last year, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing on Monday. In contrast, the United States, Japan, and many nations in Europe are expected to have suffered a sharp decline in economic output.

China’s strength seemed unlikely a year ago when the virus hit the central Chinese city of Wuhan. When the travel and business situation almost came to a standstill, the economy contracted 6.8 percent from January to March compared to 2019, the first decline in half a century.

Since then, the economy has improved steadily and closed the year with a growth of 6.5 percent in the last three months compared to the same period last year. While the recovery remains uneven, factories across China are in full swing to fulfill overseas orders and cranes are constantly busy on construction sites – a boom in exports and infrastructure that should fuel the economy for the coming year.

At booths in Wuhan Taiyuan Textile Market in Hubei Province, apparel factory managers have ordered large samples of fabric to meet domestic and international apparel orders. At Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group in Jiangsu Province, facilities are in operation day and night to keep up with the demand for new earthmoving and pile driving equipment. Huahong Holding Group, a large exporter of framed prints and oil paintings in Zhejiang Province, has doubled profits.

“This is the only major economy that has quickly recovered from the pandemic and is able to operate normally,” said Zhou Linlin, a Shanghai financier on Huahong’s board of directors. “So all of these orders are coming to China from all over the world.”

However, the general resilience of the Chinese economy hides weaknesses.

There are many jobs for blue-collar workers, but they were rare for young college graduates with little experience. Service companies such as hotels and restaurants did well in large coastal cities such as Beijing and Shanghai late last year, but never fully recovered in inland provinces. Consumer electronics and personal protective equipment manufacturers have benefited from the pandemic, but exporters to poor disease-ravaged countries have not.

Zhang Shaobo, the owner of a Halloween mask factory in Yiwu, received news in March last year that one of his most consistent export customers in India had contracted the coronavirus. In May the man was dead. New customers from Mr. Zhang’s main markets in India and South America also stopped coming to China to view his latest products.

He fired all but four of his 20 factory workers and began making preparations to close his business in Yiwu’s wholesale market. Since the business is so weak, he said, “I’m not going to keep renting it.”

China’s top leader Xi Jinping paid tribute to the economic challenges in a speech published by Communist Party magazine Qiushi on Friday.

“There are profound adjustments in the international economy, technology, culture, security and politics, and the world is in a period of turbulent change,” Xi said in the speech delivered in August. “In the coming period, we will face an external environment with increasing headwinds and countercurrents and we must prepare to respond to a range of new risks and challenges.”

These challenges could get worse in the coming weeks. After notable success in taming the coronavirus, China has suffered a number of minor outbreaks recently. The government was quick to mobilize by building hospitals, running mass tests and banning at least 28 million people.

Updated

Jan. 17, 2021, 10:48 p.m. ET

Authorities are starting to reintroduce a variety of health checks that are deterring consumers from spending. Not everyone was doing well before the recent outbreaks. Consumer confidence never fully recovered in the past year. Chinese families have shown themselves to be particularly cautious when it comes to large expenses such as renovation projects or new furniture.

Lin Jinting, a worker in Wuhan, can typically earn nearly $ 100 a day bringing heavy loads home for buyers. Now many people are postponing major purchases and work is scarce.

“I came here this morning at 8:00 am and I didn’t get any orders today,” he said one afternoon.

Keeping the virus at bay has been critical to China’s economic success over the past year. As the pandemic devastates other nations, Beijing’s aggressive top-down approach prevented the virus from spreading rapidly across the country.

In China, nearly 100,000 cases and fewer than 5,000 deaths have been reported, mostly in Wuhan. Around 150 cases have been reported daily in the current outbreaks. In the United States, there were over 220,000 cases and 3,300 deaths a day.

Mary Wu, a 26-year-old saleswoman in Jiande, southeast China, was only allowed to leave her home once every three days during a lockdown last spring. The local schools closed for their children between the ages of 4 and 9. But life quickly returned to normal, schools reopened, and Ms. Wu and her family started eating out again.

Ms. Wu even sent her older child to additional classes to make sure they caught up any ground they lost. She no longer worries about the virus.

“We all wear masks,” she said.

With the virus largely under control, Beijing has relied on its old game book to help boost the economy.

When Wuhan was still under lockdown, the authorities moved to restart production in other areas. They provided long-distance buses to take the workers back to the factories from their home villages after the Chinese New Year. State banks provided special loans to factories, while many government agencies partially reimbursed corporate taxes paid before the pandemic.

China, already the world’s largest manufacturer, expanded its lead this year. Despite the trade war and tariffs, American and European companies turned to parts and goods of China when factories elsewhere struggled to meet demand. Factories in China turned to nearby suppliers to replace imports as transoceanic utilities became less reliable.

The “Made in China” label was particularly popular as people stuck in their homes were being renovated and refurbished. At the Xingxing refrigerated factory in Taizhou, managers cannot hire staff fast enough to keep up with the strong demand for freezers for people looking to store more food during a pandemic.

The consumer electronics sector in China is particularly strong right now, for both white-collar and blue-collar workers. When American managers could no longer travel to China last spring to oversee technology projects, the demand for electronics project managers who were already in China soared.

“Companies found everyone they could find,” said Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, general manager of Instrumental, a remote quality monitoring system used by global brands to track and manage electronics manufacturing.

Beijing also increased its infrastructure spending. Every major city in China was already connected by high-speed rail lines enough to span the continental United States seven times. However, smaller cities were quickly expanded to include new routes in the past year. New highways crossed remote western provinces. Construction companies switched on floodlights at many locations so that work could continue around the clock.

Exports and infrastructure were key drivers of last year’s growth. China’s exports rose 18.1 percent in December and 21.1 percent in November compared with the same month last year. Investments in property, plant and equipment, from high-speed lines to new residential buildings, rose 2.9 percent last year.

Both are expected to power the economy in 2021.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences predicted last week that the country’s economy will grow by 7.8 percent this year. If it did, it would be China’s strongest achievement in nine years.

Liu Yi and Coral Yang contributed to the research.

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launch of fourth quarter, full-year 2020 GDP

release of fourth quarter, full-year 2020 GDP

Employees working on a dry-type transformer production line at a power generation factory in Haian, east China’s Jiangsu Province, Jan. 4, 2021.

Stringer | AFP | Getty Images

BEIJING – China reported GDP rose 2.3% over the past year as the world battled to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Chinese consumers continued to be reluctant to spend as retail sales fell 3.9% over the year. Retail sales increased 4.6% year over year in the fourth quarter.

The gross domestic product grew by 6.5% in the fourth quarter compared to the previous year.

Economists expected China to be the only major economy to have grown over the past year and forecast GDP growth of just over 2%.

Covid-19 first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. To control the virus, Chinese authorities closed more than half the country and the economy contracted 6.8% in the first three months of 2020.

However, China returned to growth in the second quarter. Economists polled by Reuters forecast GDP to grow 6.1% in the fourth quarter, faster than the 4.9% pace in the previous quarter.

China’s GDP growth this year is expected to come from a lower base.

In late December, the National Bureau of Statistics cut China’s official growth rate for 2019 to 6.0% from the 6.1% previously reported. The cut came mostly in manufacturing as factories dealt with new US tariffs on Chinese goods valued at billions of dollars.

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Fb and Twitter Face Worldwide Scrutiny After Trump Ban

Facebook and Twitter Face International Scrutiny After Trump Ban

LONDON – In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, Facebook continued to post warnings that they had contributed to the violence. In India, activists have called on the company to fight against positions held by politicians against Muslims. In Ethiopia, groups advocated the social network blocking hate speech after hundreds were killed in ethnic violence on social media.

“The offline problems that rocked the country are fully visible online,” wrote activists, civil society groups and journalists in Ethiopia in an open letter last year.

For years, Facebook and Twitter have rejected calls to remove hate speech or other comments from public figures and government officials that civil society groups and activists have said risk inciting violence. Companies stuck to guidelines, driven by American ideals of free speech, that give such numbers more leeway to use their platforms for communication.

But last week, Facebook and Twitter cut President Trump off their platforms for inciting a crowd to attack the U.S. Capitol. These decisions have angered human rights groups and activists who are now urging companies to apply their policies evenly, especially in smaller countries where platforms dominate communication.

“When I saw what the platforms were doing to Trump, I thought, ‘You should have done this before, and you should have done this consistently in other countries around the world,” said Javier Pallero, Policy Director at Access Now, one Human rights ombudsman group involved in the letter from Ethiopia: “All over the world we are at the mercy if they choose to act.”

“Sometimes they act very late,” he added, “and sometimes they don’t act at all.”

David Kaye, a law professor and former United Nations observer on freedom of expression, said political figures in India, the Philippines, Brazil and elsewhere deserve a review of their online behavior. But he said the actions against Mr. Trump raise difficult questions about how the power of American internet companies is being used and whether their actions set a new precedent for more aggressive police speech around the world.

“The question for the future is whether this is a new type of standard that they want to adopt for executives around the world and whether they have the resources to do so.” Mr. Kaye said. “There will be a real increase in demand to do this elsewhere in the world.”

Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, is the world’s largest social network with more than 2.7 billion monthly users. More than 90 percent of them live outside the United States. The company declined to comment, but said the actions against Mr Trump are based on his violation of existing rules and do not constitute a new global policy.

“Our guidelines apply to everyone,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, in a recent interview with Reuters. “The policy is that you cannot incite violence, you cannot be part of the incitement to violence.”

Capitol Riot Fallout

Updated

Jan. 17, 2021, 5:21 p.m. ET

Twitter, which has around 190 million users every day around the world, said its rules for world leaders are not new. When reviewing posts that could lead to violence, the context of the events is crucial.

“Offline damage from online speech is proven to be real and most importantly drives our policies and enforcement,” said Jack Dorsey, managing director of Twitter, in a post Wednesday. However, he said the decision “sets a precedent that I consider dangerous: the power an individual or a company has over part of the global public debate.”

There are signs that Facebook and Twitter have started to act more confidently. Following the attack on the Capitol, Twitter updated its policy to permanently ban the accounts of repeat offenders of its political content rules. Facebook has taken action against a number of accounts outside the United States, including the deletion of the account of a state-owned media company in Iran and the closure of government accounts in Uganda, where violence erupted before the elections. Facebook said the shutdowns had nothing to do with the Trump decision.

Many activists have recognized Facebook for its global influence and non-uniform application of rules. They said that in many countries there is a lack of cultural understanding to determine when posts could lead to violence. Too often, they said, Facebook and other social media companies don’t act even when they receive warnings.

In 2019, in Slovakia, Facebook did not cut down on posts by a member of parliament who was convicted by a court and robbed of his seat of government for incitement and racist remarks. In Cambodia, Human Rights Watch said the company was slow to respond to government officials participating in a social media campaign to tarnish a prominent Buddhist monk who campaigned for human rights. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte used Facebook to reach journalists and other critics.

After a wave of violence, Ethiopian activists said Facebook was being used to incite violence and promote discrimination.

“The truth is, despite good intentions, these companies do not guarantee uniform application or enforcement of their rules,” said Agustina Del Campo, director of the Center for Freedom of Expression Studies at the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires. “And often they lack context and understanding when they try.”

In many countries, it is believed that Facebook bases its actions on its business interests rather than human rights. In India, home of most of Facebook’s users, the company has been accused of not monitoring anti-Muslim content from political figures for fear of angering the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party.

“The developments in our countries are not being seriously addressed,” said Mishi Choudhary, a technology lawyer and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center, a digital rights group in India. “Any abolition of content raises the question of freedom of expression, but inciting violence or using a platform for dangerous speech is not free speech, it is a question of democracy, law and order.”

But while many activists urged Facebook and Twitter to be more active in protecting human rights, they expressed their anger at the power companies have to control language and influence public opinion.

Some also warned that actions against Mr Trump would provoke a backlash, with political leaders in some countries taking steps to prevent social media companies from censoring the language.

Government officials in France and Germany raised alarm over the ban on Mr Trump’s accounts, questioning whether private corporations should be able to unilaterally silence a democratically elected leader. A draft law that is being examined for the European Union of 27 states would set new rules for the content moderation policy of the largest social networks.

Barbora Bukovská, senior director of law and politics at Article 19, a digital rights group, said the risk is particularly high in countries whose leaders have historically used social media to fuel divisions. She said the events in Washington sparked a bill in Poland by the ruling right-wing nationalist party that would punish social media companies for not removing explicitly illegal content, which could allow for greater targeting of LGBTQ people.

“These decisions about Trump were the right decisions, but there are broader questions that go beyond Trump,” said Ms. Bukovská.

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Business

The rich are investing like market bubble is right here, or at the very least close to

The wealthy are investing like market bubble is here, or at least near

If an investor with a market share of $ 1 million or more believes that there is already a stock bubble – or one is coming soon – what is the correct answer? According to a new survey by E-Trade Financial, the answer is to keep investing in stocks with an emphasis on undervalued sectors of the market.

Only 9% of the millionaires surveyed by E-Trade believe the market is nowhere near a bubble. The rest of the wealthy investor set:

  • 16% think we are “full in a bubble”
  • 46% in “something like a bubble”
  • 29% believe the market is getting closer

However, these wealthy investors do not run away from the market or park money in cash. With bubble fears mounting mounting fears, the same investors say their risk tolerance increased significantly in the first quarter of 2021, and the majority expect stocks to end the first quarter with more gains.

The introduction of the Covid-19 vaccines, albeit slow to start, and the prospect of another even bigger stimulus package from President-elect Biden are causing investors to do what market history dictates: look ahead.

“There is broader recognition of an improving economy and evidence that the factors for higher market development are in place,” said Mike Loewengart, chief investment officer of E-Trade Financial’s capital management unit.

The Morgan Stanley E-Trade survey was conducted Jan. 1-7 of an online sample of 904 self-managed active investors who manage at least $ 10,000 in an online brokerage account. The millionaires record, created exclusively for CNBC, consists of 188 investors with investable assets of at least $ 1 million.

The apparent contradiction in the sustained upward movement at a time of mounting bladder anxiety is not as strong as it seems. This bull market has taken all risks and market experts continue to believe that the path of least resistance is up. Although the bullish path may require some optimization of the portfolio with a greater emphasis on undervalued sectors of the stock market.

Here are some results from the e-trade survey that show where investors are right now between risk and reward.

1. Millionaires are more optimistic than the wider investing public

There is currently a lot of talk and talk about an overstretched market and a dotcom bubble-like environment, making it difficult for many investors to shut down the noise. But among these wealthy investors, even as their own bubble fears mount, they are increasingly bullish and bullish than the broader investor universe. 64 percent of millionaires are bullish, up 9 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to 57 percent of the broader investor universe who remain bullish.

Among these investors, the percentage who said their risk tolerance increased in the first quarter rose 8 percentage points (from 16% to 24%). The majority (63%) said that it will remain at the level of the previous quarter. Only 13% of millionaires said their risk tolerance has decreased.

Wealthy investors don’t expect great returns. The largest group expects the market to grow no more than 5% this quarter. However, after the sharp rise in the markets that are already on the books, this is a safe, albeit bullish, reaction, Loewengart said. Fifty-nine percent of millionaires expect another quarterly profit in the S&P 500, with 43 percent of those seeing a profit of no more than 5 percent. Those who believe the market is due for a quarterly decline fell from 28% to 22%.

2. Further portfolio changes will be made

Even if the risk remains the mode for many, more and more investors are optimizing their portfolios. Rotation in value stocks, small-cap stocks, and depressed sectors like energy and finance is already a well-mapped phenomenon – called the “big rotation” – and these investors are no exception.

The percentage of millionaires who report making changes to the allocations in their portfolios rose 6% for the second straight quarter to almost a third (32%) overall. The percentage of millionaires who invest in cash is still very low (7%) but increased from 5% in the last quarter.

While growth stocks have outperformed in recent years, investors are taking the opportunity to move into more cyclical sectors of the market.

“Everything outside of big tech turned into better potential opportunities,” Loewengart said.

According to CFRA, small caps have underperformed the S&P 500 since late 2018.

The price growth gap between S & P 500 Growth and S & P 500 Value was at its highest level in history last August (since the mid-1970s) and is currently as large as it was in December 1999, even after a certain amount of stock rotation .

The 12-month price-performance ratio of the S&P 500 is 45% above the 20-year average. The CFRA 2021 profit increase for the S&P 500 growth component of the index is 13.3% versus 20.1% for the value group.

3. Home trading may have peaked but it is permanent

Even if millionaires are more likely to say they’re making changes to their portfolio allocations, the upside in the S&P 500 sector hasn’t changed as much as the survey suggests. This shows that names and names are given to every investor that participates in the rotation. With more cyclical games, there are still many who put their market money on the winners.

“There’s the momentum factor. People want to keep believing where they’ve seen strong returns, it will go on, but some are realizing it can’t go up forever,” Loewengart said.

While interest in financials as the sector with the greatest potential has increased slightly (3%) this quarter, a bet on a quick financial recovery, information technology and healthcare overall remain the top bets in the fall in this bull market, according to Loewengart . Healthcare (at 66%) and technology (at 53%) remain the two most popular sectors and investor interest has not declined.

Technology, for all its winnings, is hard to bet on.

“We can talk a lot about how the home trade is over and other segments will do better. However, when we see similar industry expectations, that also reflects the market tied to technology and the fact that Covid is changing the world has, “said Loewengart. “Some things are not going to be what they were before and we are going to see multiple expansion in big tech names,” he said.

He added that given recent valuations, investors should expect earnings to be more modest than the opportunity in cyclical sectors, where more stimulus and vaccine use can result in more significant valuation growth. “There is a possible change in market leadership,” said Loewengart.

4. International market opportunities are more attractive

The data shows more clearly that overseas interest is growing than that sector bets are changing significantly in the US market. This is in part because these millionaires have typically long preferred US stocks.

Millionaires are shaking their prejudices about their home country and are becoming more interested in investing outside the US. Interest rises 9 percentage points this quarter. The percentage of millionaire investors who said international markets were more attractive to them in the first quarter of 2021 rose from 27% to 36%.

“It’s definitely a big step in terms of millionaires, a significant step,” said Loewengart.

For the past three years, the S&P 500 has outperformed the international and emerging market indices developed by S&P. The last time these international markets outperformed the US large-cap index was in 2017.

While the dollar has rallied recently, its broader weakness over the past few months has been a key element of global equity performance.

“This means that the millionaire is better prepared for the opportunity,” said Loewengart.

How much of this new interest overseas is broadly based compared to China is not clear from the survey. “China could be the only G8 member to see GDP growth in 2020. This is a clear indicator that the world outside of the US, developing countries, is moving past the virus,” he said.

5. The US political risk factor has fallen sharply

If political risk and election risk were a major factor in the fourth quarter, there was a significant investor downgrade that quarter.

The end of the e-trade poll was the Georgia runoff election and the unrest at the Capitol that set the market another record. When it comes to the biggest question – the presidential election – millionaire investors are no longer nearly as concerned as they were last quarter.

The percentage of wealthy investors who see the new presidential administration as the greatest risk to their portfolio decreased from 50% to 30% this quarter. 26% of these investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the US economy under President-elect Biden, while 60% showed some degree of optimism, ranging from moderate (38%) to high (22%).

Market volatility, meanwhile, saw risk factors spike, from 18% of millionaires who viewed this as their biggest portfolio threat, to just over a quarter (27%).

6. Millionaires are less risky when it comes to the riskiest assets

The most recent phase of this bull market, the phase after Covid Spring 2020, was marked by a risk appetite for new offers, IPOs and SPACs, as well as an increase in new asset classes such as cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Millionaires, while remaining at risk, are less interested in betting like this: