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O.E.C.D. Raises International Progress Forecast Sharply, Citing Vaccines

O.E.C.D. Raises Global Growth Forecast Sharply, Citing Vaccines

The global economy is expected to recover from the coronavirus pandemic faster than expected this year, as vaccinations in advanced economies and an enormous fiscal stimulus package in the United States unleash pent-up business activity and job creation, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Monday.

But the pace of the recovery still hinges on vaccination programs and the ability of governments to beat back new variants of the virus, raising fresh risks even as economic activity starts to rev back up in most parts of the world, the organization said in its latest economic outlook.

The organization sharply raised its forecast for global growth to 5.8 percent in 2021, up from a 4.2 percent projection in December. It said the pace of expansion would cool to 4.5 percent in 2022 as government support programs unwind.

A government stimulus-led upturn in the United States, where President Biden is betting on a $2 trillion infrastructure package to end the effects of the pandemic faster, has helped improve the global outlook, the group said. China continues to experience the world’s strongest rebound, also lifting the global outlook.

In Europe, which has been lagging the United States in a recovery, an acceleration of vaccination programs has allowed governments to begin lifting restrictions on activities, speeding up what had been a slow economic reopening.

The opposite is true for many emerging-market economies that are suffering from slow distribution of vaccines, new outbreaks of Covid-19 and economically limiting containment measures, dampening prospects for a quick recovery.

India, which has suffered a deadly resurgence of the virus, is likely to face economic struggles as a result and a slower return to prepandemic growth levels until the impact of the virus fades, the organization said.

It estimated the economy in the United States would grow 6.9 percent in 2021; in China, 8.5 percent; in the euro area, 4.3 percent; in Britain, 7.2 percent; in Argentina, 6.1 percent; and in India, 9.9 percent.

“Our latest projections provide hope that in many countries, people hit hard by the pandemic may soon be able to return to work and start living a normal life again,” Laurence Boone, the organization’s chief economist, said during a news briefing.

“But we are at a critical stage of the recovery. Vaccination production and distribution have to accelerate globally and be backed by effective public health strategies,” she said.

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Asia’s greatest and worst inventory markets in Might battle Covid: India, Vietnam, Taiwan

Asia's best and worst stock markets in May battle Covid: India, Vietnam, Taiwan

Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021.

Dhiraj Singh | Bloomberg | Getty Images

India stocks were among Asia-Pacific’s top-performing markets in May, even as the country continues to grapple with tens of thousands of new cases every day.

For the month, the Nifty 50 rose 6.5% while the BSE Sensex was up 6.47%.

“The old phrase ‘go away and sell in May’ wasn’t true — at least for this month,” said Tuan Huynh, who is chief investment officer for Europe and Asia-Pacific at Deutsche Bank International Private Bank. “In the Indian case, I think it is relatively surprising.”

“The markets seem to like to differentiate between economic and obviously corporate earnings development versus then the rise of the new cases,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday.

India has registered more than 28 million infections so far and is the second worst-hit country in the world in terms of caseload, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Daily cases have eased from the record high of over 400,000 at the start of May — but continue to hover above 100,000. That’s still quite high compared to other countries in the world.

U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs is “overweight” on India, and expects stocks there to outperform.

“Markets tend to, as they say, live in the future and not in the present,” Timothy Moe, co-head of Asia macro research and chief Asia-Pacific equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC last week.

He pointed out that there’s a “very concerning humanitarian crisis” in terms of a Covid surge in India. However, “the market is basically looking through that and expecting the rate of infections to come down, which indeed has taken place.”

Asia’s best and worst performers

Meanwhile, Vietnam was Asia-Pacific’s best-performing market in May — the VN Index jumping 7.15% for the month.

The gains came despite Vietnam’s Covid situation taking a turn for the worse in recent weeks. State-run media reported that social distancing measures were imposed in the country’s business hub Ho Chi Minh City starting Monday this week.

Elsewhere, stocks in Taiwan took a beating in May as rising cases of domestic infections prompted tighter restrictions.

The Taiex in Taiwan was Asia-Pacific’s worst performing market in May, and fell 2.84% for the month.

Taiwan was once hailed internationally for its initial response to the pandemic, which enabled life in Taiwan to remain largely undisturbed compared to elsewhere. However, a recent spike in infections has resulted in measures such as mandatory mask-wearing and limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings.

Total infections in both Vietnam and Taiwan remain comparatively low globally. Vietnam has reported more than 7,300 cases while Taiwan has seen at least 8,511 infections, according to Hopkins data.

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New Delhi Reopens a Crack Amid Gloomy Financial Forecast for India

New Delhi Reopens a Crack Amid Gloomy Economic Forecast for India

NEW DELHI – The Indian capital, which only a few weeks ago suffered from the devastating force of the corona virus, with tens of thousands of new infections every day and pyre burning day and night, is taking its first steps back towards normality.

Officials resumed manufacturing and construction on Monday, allowing workers in these industries to return to their jobs after six weeks at home to avoid infection. The move came after a sharp drop in new infections, at least according to official figures, and when the hospital wards emptied and the burden on medicines and supplies eased.

Life on the streets of Delhi is not expected to return to normal immediately. Schools and most shops are still closed. Delhi’s metro system, which reopened after the nationwide lockdown last year, has ceased operations.

But the city government’s easing of restrictions will allow people like Ram Niwas Gupta and his staff to get back to work – and generally begin repairing India’s troubled, pandemic-ridden economy. Mr Gupta, a construction company owner, has to replace the migrant workers who fled Delhi in April in a second wave of coronavirus, but he was confident that business would soon return to normal.

“We won’t be able to start work right away, but slowly in six to ten days we will be able to mobilize manpower and materials and start working,” said Gupta, who is also president of the Builders Association of India in. is Delhi.

At least one million people in Delhi’s construction sector will be able to return to their jobs.

Even a small opening is a risk city officials take. Only 3 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people are fully vaccinated. Due to limited health infrastructure and public reporting, the state of the pandemic in rural areas – including some outside of Delhi – is largely unknown. Experts are already predicting a third wave, but warn that the slowdown in Delhi may only be a respite and not the end of the second wave.

Six weeks ago, the number of new cases soared in Delhi, reaching a high of 28,395 newly registered infections on April 20. Almost every third coronavirus test was positive. Hospitals that were congested turned away crowds of people seeking treatment, and some patients died right at the gates. Cremation, the preferred last rite of the Hindus, spread to empty lots, with so many corpses being cremated that the sky over Delhi turned ash gray.

The nightmare in India’s capital seems to be over, at least for the time being, although cases elsewhere in the country are on the rise. The city reported 648 new cases on Monday, around four fifths of the beds in the intensive care unit were free.

Officials in Delhi and across India need to strike a balance between pandemic precautions and economic sustainability.

On Monday, India released a new series of Numbers showing the country’s economy grew 1.6 percent for the three-month period ending March.

However, economists say these numbers, which reflected activity prior to the full impact of the savage second wave, are unlikely to be sustainable in the near future.

The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation is also forecasting a decline in Indian gross domestic product of at least 7.3 percent for the fiscal year that began in April.

Experts point to two main reasons: India’s ongoing lockdowns and its vaccination rate, which has fallen from around 4 million doses a day last month to just over a million doses due to the country’s limited vaccine production capacity.

Although the lockdowns have helped India slow the surge in infections, economists may have to hold the restrictions in place at least until about 30 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people are vaccinated.

“We expect India to reach vaccination limit in mid to late August and accordingly expect the restrictions to be extended into the third quarter,” said Priyanka Kishore, director of India and Southeast Asia at Oxford Economics, in a study briefing last week. “That is why we have lowered our growth forecast for 2021.”

She added that delivery issues and reluctance to use vaccines could keep the country from hitting the 30 percent threshold by August, which could lead to another economic decline.

An economist said the impact of the country’s shrinking economy would be more pronounced in rural areas.

“From today’s perspective, the scale, speed and spread of Covid has given the economy another boost,” said Dr. Sunil Kumar Sinha, senior economist at India Ratings and Research, a rating agency. Dr. Sinha added that the country’s negative growth projections for the fiscal year are the lowest ever.

The lockdown, which began to loosen on Monday, was nowhere near as severe as the nationwide lockdown imposed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, which drove millions of people from cities to rural areas, often on foot because of the train and other means of transport have been suspended. Mr. Modi defied the demands of many epidemiologists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the United States National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, to reintroduce similar restrictions this year.

But alluding to the chaos of the lockdown last year, core infrastructure projects across the country employing millions of local migrant workers were exempted from restrictions during the second wave. More than 15,000 miles of Indian highway projects as well as improvements to rail and urban subways continued.

However, most private construction sites have been closed, placing workers like Ashok Kumar, a 36-year-old carpenter, in extremely precarious positions.

Mr. Kumar normally makes 700 rupees, about $ 10 a day, but he has been sitting idle at home for the past 40 days and is unable to pay rent to an increasingly impatient landlord. He was hoping to be vaccinated before returning with other workers, but was unable to secure a dose at one of the city’s public pharmacies, which have been temporarily closed due to a lack of vaccines.

“My first priority is my stomach,” said Mr. Kumar. “If my stomach isn’t full, I’ll die before Corona.”

Understand India’s Covid Crisis

In a meeting with the city’s civil protection agency on Friday, Delhi’s Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the lockdown would be gradually eased depending on economic necessity.

“Our priority will be the weakest sectors of the economy, so we will start with workers, especially migrant workers,” said Kejriwal.

Millions of people in India are already at risk of sliding from the middle class into poverty. The country’s economy was frayed long before the pandemic due to deep structural problems and the sometimes boisterous political decisions made by Mr Modi.

Epidemiologists in India generally agreed with the Delhi government’s approach to lifting the lockdown, but warned that the low infection rates could mark respite from – rather than the end – of the capital’s terrifying second wave.

“It is not a decision that can be questioned, but obviously you have to exercise the utmost care,” said Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, President of the Public Health Foundation of India.

India had an average of 190,392 reported cases per day last week, a decrease of more than 50 percent from the high on May 9. The death toll also fell, albeit less sharply, to 3,709 on Sunday. The total of 325,972 tolls is generally considered to be a huge shortfall.

As falls in Delhi have receded, people cautiously leave their homes for evening walks after the daytime summer heat subsides or to pick up groceries from the normally busy but now quiet neighborhood markets.

Elsewhere in India, the pandemic is far from over. Cases are increasing in remote rural areas with poor health infrastructure.

The state of Haryana, which borders Delhi and is home to the Gurugram industrial center, has extended its strict lockdown for at least another week. And in southern Indian states, where the daily caseload remains high, official orders to restart production have encountered opposition from workers.

“It’s a question of living and livelihood,” said M. Moorthy, general secretary of the workers’ union at Renault Nissan Auto Plant in Chennai.

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‘Shang-Chi’ could possibly be the subsequent ‘Black Panther’ on the field workplace

'Shang-Chi' could be the next 'Black Panther' at the box office

Simu Liu plays Shang-Chi in Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”.

Disney

If Hollywood needed a sign that different content was selling, it got one in 2018.

It started with the blockbuster “Black Panther” which broke the box office records and won three of the six Academy Awards for which it was nominated. The superhero film, which was mostly made up of blacks, achieved ticket sales of more than $ 1.34 billion at the global box office.

Six months later, Jon Chu’s “Crazy Rich Asians” shook expectations. The film grossed more than $ 238 million in ticket sales on a $ 30 million budget, making it one of the top grossing romantic comedies of all time.

It was a wake-up call for an industry that had been reluctant to turn away from the tried and tested Hollywood formulas. The studios quickly realized that more variety means more money.

Three years later, Marvel introduces its first Asian superhero, the legendary Shang-Chi, and the film has the chance to become the next “Black Panther” to hit the box office.

“It’s not just the right thing,” said Rolando Rodriguez, chairman, president and CEO of Marcus Theaters, of the drive to be more inclusive in Hollywood. “Frankly, it’s important to do this from a business perspective.”

Rodriguez, who is also chairman of the National Association of Theater Owners, said minorities together make up a large proportion of moviegoers.

For example, while Hispanics make up around 18% of the population, they make up around 24% of moviegoers, he said. Add in African American and Asian audiences that make up 17% and 7% of the audience, and that’s nearly 50% of the business.

And films like “Black Panther” with a predominantly black cast are not only resonating with black audiences. Other minorities flocked to see the film, Rodriguez said. The same is expected to happen with “Shang-Chi” in September, as well as other films such as “In the Heights” and “Eternals,” which feature different casts.

“Create inspiration and encourage striving”

When Disney released Black Panther in 2018, it had the highest opening weekend of any Marvel movie to date. Domestically, the film grossed $ 292 million in its first seven days of cinema, $ 22 million more than the team film, “Avengers,” which was raised in the first week of 2012.

It was the first time Marvel had a black superhero as the lead actor. According to Comscore, 37% of the audience on the opening weekend were African American, more than twice what that demographic normally represents for other Marvel films.

A similar result was seen by viewers watching “Crazy Rich Asians” in theaters.

“Black Panther” also benefited from being a critically acclaimed film. It received a 96% “Fresh” rating from Rotten Tomatoes and won three Academy Awards.

Under the direction of the late Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther told the deeply emotional story of a man who grapples with the death of his father. In addition to taking on the king’s mantle, he must face the mistakes of the man he idolized and protect his family and people. This narrative was put in the context of a superhero film, making the feature more than just an action film, but an emotionally resonant piece of popular culture.

“Black Panther” paved the way for Marvel to produce other inclusive stories, including the recent launch of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” in which Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) grapples with what it means to be a black man, Captain America to be.

Rodriguez noted that “Shang-Chi” will do for the Asian community what “Black Panther” will do for the black community.

“These films create inspiration and encourage pursuit,” he said.

A long way to ‘Shang-Chi’

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” will be released on September 3 and follows the title Shang-Chi, a skilled martial artist who was trained to be an assassin by his father at a young age but went away to live a normal life. However, Shang-Chi can only flee from its past for so long.

The film stars Simu Liu, a Canadian television star, as part of a predominantly Asian cast that includes Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh, Ronny Chieng and Florian Munteanu.

Tony Leung has been confirmed as The Mandarin, the vicious leader of the Ten Rings terrorist organization. Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will remember that Ben Kingsley portrayed a fake version of this character in “Iron Man 3”.

Behind the camera are the director Destin Daniel Cretton (“Just Mercy”) and the Chinese-American screenwriter Dave Callaham. Cretton and Andrew Lanham are also recognized as the film’s writers.

President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige, Director Destin Daniel Cretton and Simu Liu of Marvel Studios ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ at the Marvel Studios Panel of the San Diego Comic-Con International 2019 in Hall H on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California.

Alberto E. Rodriguez | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

The character of Shang-Chi was invented in 1972 after Marvel failed to acquire the rights to adapt the television program “Kung Fu”. So the company created its own.

In the 1980s, Stan Lee reportedly met with Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, who had been used as a model for Shang-Chi, about the possibility of a Shang-Chi television series. Lee’s death on the set of “The Crow” put an end to those plans, however.

Twenty years later, in 2002, Blade director Stephen Norrington was reportedly attached to a Shang Chi feature film. However, he retired after making The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen a notorious box office flop.

A handful of other directors were tied to the project over the next decade, but nothing solidified until 2018 when Marvel announced that it had tapped Callaham to write the script.

“Movies like ‘Shang-Chi’ can have a huge impact,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “It can open the minds of moviegoers. [The] preconceived notions of what makes a superhero can be redefined, challenged, and re-evaluated. “

“Cultures and races traditionally removed from the superhero equation can find plenty to celebrate as they too are portrayed as iconic heroes on the big screen,” he said.

Disney is already touting its trust in the film and the entire cinema industry by committing to a 45-day exclusive cinema window for the new superhero film. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the studio used various release strategies over the past year. In some cases, Disney has put movies that would have hit theaters in a pre-Covid era direct to its streaming service for free. In other countries, Disney + Premier Access offered films for $ 30 rental. More recently, the company decided to release blockbusters in theaters and on Disney + Premier Access on the same day.

That will not be the case with “Shang-Chi”. The superhero film will only be available in cinemas. The decision is based on a recent easing of pandemic restrictions across the country, an increase in vaccination rates and a decrease in the number of Covid-19 cases.

In particular, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that fully vaccinated people will not need to wear face masks in most situations. This recommendation should help increase public confidence in the return to normal activities and allow states to lift capacity restrictions in cinemas.

Hard-won inclusivity

Kevin Feige, head of Marvel Studios, has long spoken about the desire to increase representation in the MCU not only in front of but also behind the camera. The Phase 4 list of Marvel Movies and Shows contains more voices and stories than ever before.

According to the incredible Hulk himself, Mark Ruffalo, Feige was ready to quit his job to promote diversity within the MCU.

“When we did the first ‘Avengers’, Kevin Feige said to me, ‘Look, I might not be here tomorrow,'” Ruffalo said in an interview with the Independent last year. “And he’s like ‘Ike [Perlmutter] don’t think anyone will go to a super movie with women. ‘So if I’m still here tomorrow you will know that I won this fight. ‘”

Perlmutter is the retired chairman and CEO of Marvel Entertainment and has a longstanding reputation for frugality.

Ruffalo added that Feige wanted black superheroes, female superheroes, and LGBT superheroes in the MCU. And he got his hard-won wish.

After the events of the series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” on Disney +, the MCU now has a Black Captain America. A second “Black Panther Movie” is coming out next year, and a series based on a young black superhero named Riri Williams, who is taking over Ironheart’s coat, is planned for Disney +.

“Black Widow,” which hits theaters in July, will be Marvel’s second female-led feature film. His third will appear on November 11, 2022 with “The Marvels,” a sequel to “Captain Marvel,” starring Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, a newly driven Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan, who is Muslim, as a woman of Amazement.

Behind the camera, Marvel hired Anna Boden to co-direct “Captain Marvel” with partner Ryan Fleck. Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao directed The Eternals, due for release in November. Cate Shortland directed Black Widow; and Ryan Coogler returns to direct the sequel to “Black Panther”.

“‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ is really an important film,” said Dergarabedian. “And like the groundbreaking ‘Black Panther’ before it, it should promote the idea that different characters can actually appeal to a wide audience.”

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The Pan America Marks a New Period for Harley Davidson

The Pan America Marks a New Era for Harley Davidson

Recent years have not been kind to Harley-Davidson. Its sales have sagged, its core customers have aged, and its push toward the electric future, while newly serious, has underwhelmed so far.

In 2019, the last full year unaffected by the coronavirus, Harley shipped 218,000 motorcycles, earning $424 million in net income on $5.36 billion in revenue, healthy enough but well off its glory days. Results from the first quarter of 2021 suggest the company, which is based in Milwaukee, may be turning a financial corner, but the reality is that not enough new buyers are entering the market to offset the riders aging out of it. Harley recently made its innovative LiveWire electric model the flagship of a free-standing brand, but electric sales won’t contribute to the bottom line until there’s a more affordable model that sells in higher volume.

The company openly acknowledged these headwinds as far back as 2018, when Matt Levatich, who was the chief executive, laid out his “More Roads to Harley-Davidson” strategy. A key part of this blueprint would be to poach customers from other brands, which meant branching out from Harley’s traditional (some might say stereotypical) beefy cruisers.

Perhaps the most daring proposal was a high-tech, high-performance “adventure touring” motorcycle named the Pan America, to be powered by a new Revolution Max engine, already in development. The response was skepticism — that any Harley would be too heavy and too expensive.

The Pan America was delayed a year, during which Mr. Levatich resigned under pressure from the company’s board and after five years of falling sales. He was replaced by another board member, Jochen Zeitz, who was previously the chief executive of Puma.

Mr. Zeitz grabbed the handlebar, replacing the “More Roads” strategy with a hard-nosed approach he called “Hardwire.” He cut overhead and staff, closed some foreign subsidiaries, reduced the number of U.S. dealers and cut inventories. Additionally, he reduced the pace of new model introductions and spun off an electric bicycle division.

The plan looked like retrenchment, and some industry observers wondered if the Pan America would even be released. But the new chief was just as determined to enter this market. The result, hitting dealerships now, is a bike that is definitely not your dad’s Harley-Davidson cruiser. The audacious 1,250-cubic-centimeter Pan America Special is a shot across the bow to the European manufacturers that have long dominated this niche market.

“Before you launch into a new category, you always get the doubters and the cynics, but I don’t really care about them,” Mr. Zeitz said in an interview. “Adventure and touring are in Harley-Davidson’s DNA,” he added. “We have not been active in the adventure touring market because we didn’t have a bike, but we sure have the history. We would not have been able to build this bike if it wasn’t in the DNA of the company.”

The adventure touring category traces its roots to 1980 when BMW began selling the R 80 G/S — a model inspired by motorcycles raced in the Paris-Dakar rally. Fast-forward 40 years and BMW’s R 1250 GS is still a best seller. You’ve seen them parked in front of your local cafe — tall, brawny motorcycles with knobby tires, often accessorized with rugged aluminum side cases. They’re motorcycles that seem to say, “Today I’m just having a latte, but tomorrow I’m heading for Tierra del Fuego.”

Fans just call them “ADV” bikes. They’re all flagship models that can hold their own on the autobahn, with long-travel suspensions capable of handling fire roads or worse; they all have advanced anti-lock brakes and traction control.

Another European manufacturer, KTM, sells a Super Adventure model that’s even taller. Ducati, known for sport bikes, offers its take on the category with the Multistrada. When Ducati recently introduced adaptive cruise control to motorcycles, it did so on the Multistrada V4 S Sport.

In February, Mr. Zeitz hosted a much-ballyhooed virtual launch of the Pan America on the company’s YouTube channel. To the surprise of skeptics, the weight (the base model is 534 pounds) and the price (from $17,319) seemed competitive. (Those figures were 200 pounds and $2,000 lighter than Harley-Davidson’s most popular heavy cruisers and touring bikes.)

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Of course adventure bikes aren’t ridden virtually. The asphalt, gravel, mud and sand they must take in stride are all too real. So once the coronavirus threat had abated, the company offered test drives at a remote camp in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. First impressions were made over hundreds of miles of paved and unpaved roads, jeep trails and an infamous stretch of treacherous deep sand.

The model provided was the Pan America Special (which is expected to outsell the base model about two-to-one). The Special has a more expansive electronics package and semiactive suspension. As tested, the bikes weighed about 574 pounds and carried a price tag of about $21,500.

The response this time was far from underwhelming.

“I didn’t really have doubts that the engineers could do a good job,” said Kevin Duke, the editor in chief at Thunder Press, who has been writing about motorcycles for 25 years. “But I was skeptical that they could enter a new market segment and be that good right out of the box.”

Mr. Duke was so impressed by his test ride that it changed his attitude about the company. “The news about Harley for the past couple of years has been quite pessimistic,” he said. “With the older demographic aging out, there was no real hint at what the company could do to gain market share, but this really changes it. The new motor is that good.”

Harley-Davidson calls itself the Motor Company. True to that slogan, engineers acknowledge that they created the motor first and then asked themselves what they could do with it.

The only thing the Revolution Max has in common with other Harley engines is that it’s a V-twin. It produces 150 horsepower and revs to 9,500 r.p.m. — roughly double the red line of its cruiser cousins. Forget the laconic “potato-potato” exhaust note of those slow-revving traditional cruisers; this one roars.

The new motor features a balance shaft so effective that engineers admitted to putting a little vibration back in so it would feel “like a Harley.” It features computer-controlled variable valve timing that is more sophisticated than anything else in the market. The result is a motor that’s ferocious when used aggressively but docile when it has to be, at slow speeds on tricky terrain.

Like the other motorcycles in this class, the Pan America offers a range of ride modes that adjust throttle response, anti-lock brake settings and traction control for rain, “street” or “sport” road settings, as well as two off-road settings. Owners can also create their own ride modes.

Harley raised the stakes with a first for any motorcycle: The Special’s semiactive suspension continuously adjusts to suit the weight of rider, passenger and luggage; terrain encountered; and riding style.

Adventure touring bikes need extra ground clearance and long-travel suspension. As a result, seat heights reach 37 inches — they’re intimidating, even for tall riders. A $1,000 Adaptive Ride Height option on the Pan America Special lowers the suspension as the motorcycle comes to a stop. It is a game changer for shorter or less-experienced riders.

Off-road performance drives bragging rights in the ADV category. But another thing that these motorcycles have in common with Land Rovers and Mercedes-Benz G-wagons — besides being rangy, rugged and expensive — is that they’re driven on paved roads 99 percent of the time.

ADV bikes are just as fun to ride on a winding road as any sport bike. Many motorcyclists graduate to ADVs when their knees, wrists and shoulders can no longer handle a crouched riding position. And unlike conventional road motorcycles, ADVs give riders the option of striking off on paths less taken. That’s why ADVs are popular in Europe (where Harley-Davidson would love to increase its market share of 3 to 4 percent) and becoming more popular here.

Before embarking on the Pan America project, Harley-Davidson surveyed its customers. Many of them already owned or were considering an adventure motorcycle. The Pan America gives those customers a made-in-America option. (The Revolution Max engines are manufactured in Milwaukee; the motorcycles are assembled in York, Pa.) Another upside to a Harley that the European makers can’t match: its extensive dealer network.

Every Harley dealer, roughly 600 of them, will carry the Pan America — a decision made easier because customers raced to put down deposits before the machines hit sales floors.

Under Mr. Zeitz, Harley-Davidson has been careful to build dealer enthusiasm. Dealers who hit certain targets have already cycled through Harley’s training camp in the Mojave, so they’ll be able to talk the talk when a new kind of customer walks through the door.

When those customers ride away, whether it’s to Starbucks or South America, the Pan America will be right at home.

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Cryptocurrency poses a major danger of tax evasion

Cryptocurrency poses a significant risk of tax evasion

R. Tsubin | Moment | Getty Images

Crypto tax evasion

But how does cryptocurrency lead to tax evasion?

According to tax experts, it largely comes down to lax reporting requirements.

The IRS may not be able to track crypto earnings or transactions if they are not reported by exchanges, corporations, and other third parties. And that means the income may not be taxed.

“Nobody has set clear rules about it, so a lot is not reported,” said Jon Feldhammer, partner at law firm Baker Botts and former senior litigator at the IRS.

“Every time you create a path of non-reporting, you create an opportunity to capitalize on tax fraud in incomprehensible or much elusive ways,” he said.

Crypto is fast becoming an alternative to cash as more and more merchants accept Bitcoin and other virtual currencies as a means of payment. However, cash is more regulated.

For example, a company that receives more than $ 10,000 in cash from a customer must file a currency transaction report. This can happen when a consumer buys a car for more than $ 10,000 in cash, when someone wins big at the casino, or when a bank receives a large cash deposit.

These reports tell the government that a buyer has a lot of money that may or may not be reported on a tax return.

However, the same rules don’t apply to crypto. A used car company that receives $ 20,000 worth of Bitcoin from a customer does not need to file a report of currency transactions. This income can also remain untaxed if it is not reported on the business owner’s tax return, Feldhammer said.

“Although cryptocurrency transactions are a relatively small part of business income today, they are likely to grow in importance over the next decade, especially given a broad system of reporting financial accounts,” the financial report said.

Additionally, virtual currencies do not have to be bought or sold through an exchange, making these transactions more opaque to government officials.

Biden crypto proposal

Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images

About 80% of the “tax gap” in the US is due to underreported income, according to the Treasury Department, especially the wealthy who hide income in opaque structures.

Stricter reporting standards – including “full reporting” for cryptocurrency – are among the most effective ways to improve tax compliance.

Biden’s tax agenda would treat crypto transactions like cash and require companies to report if they received more than $ 10,000 in virtual currency.

Financial institutions, payment processing companies and stock exchanges and custodians for digital assets would also have to report crypto transactions above a certain threshold, according to an analysis of the proposal published by the law firm Greenberg Traurig.

The IRS has already shown a greater interest in learning more about taxpayers’ crypto activities. The agency asked a question about cryptocurrency holdings on page 1 of the 2020 tax returns.

Biden’s compliance agenda would have to be passed by Congress. The overall plan would raise $ 700 billion in the first decade and an additional $ 1.6 trillion in the second decade, according to Treasury.

The White House would use these funds to fund action in the American Families Plan. This proposal includes additional funding for two years of free universal preschool, two years of free community college, heavily subsidized childcare for middle-class families, federal paid family vacations, and expanded child tax credits.

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Delhi Reopens a Crack Amid Gloomy Financial Forecast for India

Delhi Reopens a Crack Amid Gloomy Economic Forecast for India

NEW DELHI — The Indian capital, which just weeks ago suffered the devastating force of the coronavirus, with tens of thousands of new infections daily and funeral pyres that burned day and night, is taking its first steps back toward normalcy.

Officials on Monday reopened manufacturing and construction activity, allowing workers in those industries to return to their jobs after six weeks of staying at home to avoid infection. The move came after a sharp drop in new infections, at least by the official numbers, and as hospital wards emptied and the strain on medicine and supplies has eased.

Life on the streets of Delhi is not expected to return to normal immediately. Schools and most businesses are still closed. The Delhi Metro system, which reopened after last year’s nationwide lockdown, has suspended service again.

But the city government’s easing of restrictions will allow people like Ram Niwas Gupta and his employees to begin returning to work — and, more broadly, to start to repair India’s ailing, pandemic-struck economy. Mr. Gupta, a construction company owner, must replace the migrant workers who fled Delhi when a second wave of the coronavirus struck in April, but he was confident that business would return to normal soon.

“Immediately we will not be able to start work, but slowly in six to 10 days we will be able to mobilize labor and material and start the work,” said Mr. Gupta, who is also the president of the Builders Association of India in Delhi.

At least one million people in Delhi’s construction sector will be able to return to job sites.

Even a small opening represents a gamble by city officials. Just 3 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people are fully vaccinated. Because of limited health infrastructure and public reporting, the state of the pandemic in rural areas — including some just outside Delhi — is largely unknown. Experts are already predicting a third wave while cautioning that the lull in Delhi may be just a respite, and not the end, of the second wave.

Six weeks ago, the number of new cases in Delhi was soaring, reaching a peak of 28,395 new recorded infections on April 20. Nearly one in three coronavirus tests came back positive. Hospitals, full beyond capacity, turned away throngs of people seeking treatment, with some patients dying just outside the gates. Cremation, the preferred last rite for Hindus, spilled over into empty lots, with so many bodies burned that Delhi’s skies turned an ash gray.

The nightmare in India’s capital appears to be over, at least for now, even as cases rise elsewhere in the country. The city reported 648 new cases on Monday, and about four-fifths of the intensive care unit beds were vacant.

Officials in Delhi, and around India, feel a need to strike a balance between pandemic precautions and economic viability.

On Monday, India released a new set of numbers that showed the country’s economy grew by 1.6 percent for the three-month period ending in March.

But economists say those numbers, which reflected activity before the full impact of the ferocious second wave, are likely unsustainable in the near future.

The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation also forecast that India’s gross domestic product would shrink by at least 7.3 percent over the financial year that began in April.

Experts point to two main reasons: India’s prolonged lockdowns and its vaccination rate, which has fallen to just over a million doses a day now from about 4 million last month because of the country’s limited vaccine manufacturing capacity.

Though the lockdowns have helped India slow the surge of infections, economists say restrictions might need to remain in place at least until about 30 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people have received one vaccine shot.

“We estimate that India will reach the vaccine threshold by mid- to late August, and, accordingly, expect restrictions will be extended into the third quarter,” Priyanka Kishore, the head of India and Southeast Asia at Oxford Economics, said in a research briefing last week. “Consequently, we have lowered our 2021 growth forecast.”

She added that supply issues and vaccine hesitancy could prevent the country from reaching the 30 percent threshold by August, which could result in further economic decline.

One economist said that the impact of the country’s shrinking economy would be even more pronounced in rural areas.

“As things stand now, the scale, the speed and the spread of Covid has once again given a push back to the economy,” said Dr. Sunil Kumar Sinha, the principal economist at India Ratings and Research, a credit ratings agency. Dr. Sinha added that the country’s negative growth forecasts for the financial year were the lowest ever recorded.

The lockdown that began easing on Monday was nowhere near as severe as the nationwide lockdown imposed by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, last year, which pushed millions of people out of cities and into rural areas, often on foot because rail and other transportation had been suspended. Mr. Modi resisted calls by many epidemiologists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to reinstitute similar curbs this year.

But in a nod to the chaos of last year’s lockdown, throughout the second wave, core infrastructure projects across the country, which employ millions of domestic migrant workers, were exempted from restrictions. More than 15,000 miles of Indian highway projects, along with rail and city Metro improvements, continued.

Most private construction sites, however, were closed down, placing workers like Ashok Kumar, a 36-year-old carpenter, in extremely precarious positions.

Mr. Kumar usually earns 700 rupees, about $10, per day, but has sat at home idly for the last 40 days, unable to pay rent to an increasingly impatient landlord. He hoped to be vaccinated before returning to close quarters with other workers, but hasn’t been able to secure a dose at one of the city’s public dispensaries, which have closed intermittently because of vaccine shortages.

“My first priority is my stomach,” Mr. Kumar said. “If my stomach is not filled I will die even before corona.”

Understand the Covid Crisis in India

In a meeting with the city’s disaster management authority on Friday, Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said the lockdown would be eased in phases according to economic need.

“Our priority will be the weakest economic sections, so we will start with laborers, particularly migrant laborers,” many of whom work in construction and manufacturing, Mr. Kejriwal said.

Millions of people in India are already in danger of sliding out of the middle class and into poverty. The country’s economy was fraying well before the pandemic because of deep structural problems and the sometimes impetuous policy decisions of Mr. Modi.

Epidemiologists in India generally approved of the Delhi government’s approach to lifting its lockdown, but cautioned that the low infection numbers may represent a reprieve — and not the end — of the capital’s terrifying second wave.

“It’s not a decision that can be questioned on the merit, but obviously they have to take the maximum care,” said Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India.

India averaged 190,392 reported cases per day in the last week, a drop of more than 50 percent from the peak, on May 9. The death toll also fell, though less precipitously, to 3,709 on Sunday. The overall toll of 325,972 is widely considered to be a vast undercount.

As cases have fallen in Delhi, people have cautiously left their homes for evening strolls after the daytime summer heat has abated, or to pick up groceries from the normally bustling but now quiet neighborhood markets.

Elsewhere in India, the pandemic is far from over. Cases are rising in remote rural areas that have scant health infrastructure.

The state of Haryana, which borders Delhi and is home to the industrial hub of Gurugram, extended its tight lockdown by at least another week. And in southern Indian states where the daily case numbers remain high, official orders allowing manufacturing to resume have been met by resistance from workers.

“It is a question of life versus livelihood,” said M. Moorthy, general secretary of the workers union at the Renault Nissan auto plant in Chennai.

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Black Wall Road was shattered 100 years in the past. How Tulsa race bloodbath was coated up

Black Wall Street was shattered 100 years ago. How Tulsa race massacre was covered up

Ruins of the Greenwood District after the massacre of African Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 1921. American National Red Cross photograph collection.

GHI | Universal Images Group | Getty Images

A century ago this week, the wealthiest U.S. Black community was burned to the ground.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, became one of the first communities in the country thriving with Black entrepreneurial businesses. The prosperous town, founded by many descendants of slaves, earned a reputation as the Black Wall Street of America and became a harbor for African Americans in a highly segregated city under Jim Crow laws.

On May 31, 1921, a white mob turned Greenwood upside down in one of the worst racial massacres in U.S. history. In the matter of hours, 35 square blocks of the vibrant Black community were turned into smoldering ashes. Countless Black people were killed — estimates ranged from 55 to more than 300 — and 1,000 homes and businesses were looted and set on fire.

A group of people looking at smoke in the distance coming from damaged properties following the Tulsa, Oklahoma, racial massacre, June 1921.

Oklahoma Historical Society | Archive Photos | Getty Images

Yet for the longest time, the massacre received scant mentions in newspapers, textbooks and civil and governmental conversations. It wasn’t until 2000 that the slaughter was included in the Oklahoma public schools’ curriculum, and it did not enter American history textbooks until recent years. The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission was formed to investigate in 1997 and officially released a report in 2001.

“The massacre was actively covered up in the white community in Tulsa for nearly a half century,” said Scott Ellsworth, a professor of Afro American and African studies at the University of Michigan and author of “The Ground Breaking” about the Tulsa massacre.

“When I started my research in the 1970s, I discovered that official National Guard reports and other documents were all missing,” Ellsworth said. “Tulsa’s two daily white newspapers, they went out of their way for decades not to mention the massacre. Researchers who would try to do work on this as late as the early 1970s had their lives threatened and had their career threatened.”

The body of an unidentified Black victim of the Tulsa race massacre lies in the street as a white man stands over him, Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 1, 1921.

Greenwood Cultural Center | Archive Photos | Getty Images

In the week following the massacre, Tulsa’s chief of police ordered his officers to go to all the photography studios in Tulsa and confiscate all the pictures taken of the carnage, Ellsworth said.

These photos, which were later discovered and became the materials the Oklahoma Commission used to study the massacre, eventually landed in the lap of Michelle Place at Tulsa Historical Society & Museum in 2001.

“It took me about four days to get through the box because the photographs were so horrific. I had never seen those kinds of pictures before,” Place said. “I didn’t know anything about the riot before I came to work here. I never heard of it. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been at my desk to guard them to the very best of my ability.”

Patients recovering from injuries sustained in the Tulsa massacre. American National Red Cross Photograph Collection, November 1921.

Universal History Archive | Universal Images Group | Getty Images

The Tulsa museum was founded in the late 1990s, but visitors couldn’t find a trace of the race massacre until 2012 when Place became executive director, determined to tell all of Tulsa’s stories. A digital collection of the photographs was eventually made available for viewing online.

“There’s still a significant number of people in our community who don’t want to look at it, who don’t want to talk about it,” Place said.

‘The silence is layered’

Not only did Tulsa city officials cover up the bloodbath, but they also deliberately shifted the narrative of the massacre by calling it a “riot” and blaming the Black community for what went down, according to Alicia Odewale, an archaeologist at University of Tulsa.

The massacre also wasn’t discussed publicly in the African American community either for a long time. First out of fear — if it happened once, it can happen again.

“You are seeing the perpetrators walking freely on the streets,” Odewale said. “You are in the Jim Crow South, and there are racial terrors happening across the country at this time. They are protecting themselves for a reason.”

Moreover, this became such a traumatic event for survivors, and much like Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans, many of them didn’t want to burden their children and grandchildren with these horrible memories.

Ellsworth said he knows of descendants of massacre survivors who didn’t find out about it until they were in their 40s and 50s.

“The silence is layered just as the trauma is layered,” Odewale said. “The historical trauma is real and that trauma lingers especially because there’s no justice, no accountability and no reparation or monetary compensation.”

A truck carries African Americans during race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. in 1921.

Alvin C. Krupnick Co. | National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Records | Library of Congress | via Reuters

What triggered the massacre?

On May 31, 1921, Dick Rowland, a 19-year old Black shoeshiner, tripped and fell in an elevator and his hand accidentally caught the shoulder of Sarah Page, a white 17-year-old operator. Page screamed and Rowland was seen running away.

Police were summoned but Page refused to press charges. However, by that afternoon, there was already talks of lynching Rowland on the streets of white Tulsa. The tension then escalated after the white newspaper Tulsa Tribune ran a front-page story entitled “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In Elevator,” which accused Rowland of stalking, assault and rape.

In the Tribune, there was also a now-lost editorial entitled “To Lynch Tonight,” according to Ellsworth. When the Works Progress Administration went to microfilm the old issues of the Tribune in the 1930s, the op-ed had already been torn out of the newspaper, Ellsworth said.

Many believe the newspaper coverage undoubtedly played a part in sparking the massacre.

The aftermath

People stand outside the Black Wall Street T-Shirts and Souvenirs store at North Greenwood Avenue in the Greenwood District of Tulsa Oklahoma, U.S., on Thursday, June 18, 2020.

Christopher Creese | Bloomberg | Getty Images

For Black Tulsans, the massacre resulted in a decline in home ownership, occupational status and educational attainment, according to a recent study through the 1940s led by Harvard University’s Alex Albright.

Today, there are only a few Black businesses on the single remaining block in the Greenwood district once hailed as the Black Wall Street.

This month, three survivors of the 1921 massacre — ages 100, 106 and 107 — appeared before a congressional committee, and a Georgia congressman introduced a bill that would make it easier for them to seek reparations.

Rev. Dr. Robert Turner of the Historic Vernon Chapel A.M.E. Church holds his weekly Reparations March ahead of the 100 year anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S., May 26, 2021.

Polly Irungu | Reuters

Meanwhile, historians and archaeologists continued to unearth what was lost for decades. In October, a mass grave in an Oklahoma cemetery was discovered that could be the remains of at least a dozen identified and unidentified African American massacre victims.

“We are able to look for signs of survival and signs of lives. And really look for those remnants of built Greenwood and not just about how they died,” Odewale said. “Greenwood never left.”

— CNBC’s Yun Li is also co-author of “Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice.”

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Two New Legal guidelines Limit Police Use of DNA Search Methodology

Two New Laws Restrict Police Use of DNA Search Method

In other cases, detectives can secretly collect DNA from a relative of a suspect by testing an item that the relative threw in the trash.

New Maryland law states that when police officers test the DNA of “third parties” – anyone other than the suspect – they must first obtain written consent, unless a judge approves a misleading collection.

Investigators cannot use any of the genetic information gathered from the suspect or third parties to obtain information about a person’s psychological characteristics or susceptibility to illness. At the end of the examination, all genetic and genealogical records created for this purpose must be deleted from the databases.

Perhaps most momentous, Maryland researchers interested in genetic genealogy must first try their luck with a government-run DNA database called Codis, whose profiles use far fewer genetic markers.

Mr Holes said that part of the law could have tragic consequences. In ancient cases, he pointed out, DNA evidence is often badly degraded and fragile, and each DNA test uses up some of this valuable sample. “Essentially, the law could make me kill my case,” he said. Given the speed with which DNA technology is advancing, it is unwise for a law to mandate the use of a certain type of test.

However, other experts cited this provision as critical, as the potential invasion of privacy is far more serious for genetic genealogy, which gives law enforcement access to hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, than it is for Codis, which only uses about two dozen markers.

This research is “the equivalent of the government going through all of your medical records and all of your family records to identify you,” said Leah Larkin, a genetic genealogist who runs a consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area that focuses largely on that Essential focuses on helping adoptees and others find their biological relatives. “I don’t think people know exactly how much is in your genetic data.”

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Deepak Chopra left ‘heartbroken’ by India’s devastating Covid disaster

Deepak Chopra left 'heartbroken' by India's devastating Covid crisis

Global wellness expert Deepak Chopra told CNBC that he was “devastated” and “broken” over the Covid-19 crisis that is currently gripping India and said the country could have dealt with the situation much better.

Chopra, who was born and raised in New Delhi before continuing his medical education in the United States, hopes lessons will be learned from this.

“I think India could have done better. I think, as usual, political ideologies and conflicts, as well as interest groups, have exacerbated the crisis,” he said.

“India could have done this much better and I hope you learned, we all learned a lesson from it because you know there is no way to stop Indians from going into the world and what is going on in India That’s going to happen elsewhere if you’re not careful, ”he added.

“A very big mistake”

Chopra told CNBC that he feels responsible “ultimately falling to influencers and politicians and leaders for making the rules. And it was a very big mistake, in my opinion, to keep the Kumbh Mela and all these religious gatherings for political ones only.” Purposes. “

India has seen a deadly second wave of the Covid-19 virus in the past few weeks. According to the Johns Hopkins University, the country has reported over 27.5 million Covid cases and nearly 326,000 deaths.

Deepak Chopra, co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing and founder of the Chopra Foundation.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Chopra is not alone and many have criticized lawmakers and vaccine suppliers in the country. Prime Minister Modi defended the government’s vaccination strategy, telling ministers in April that “those who are in the habit of politics (playing) allow it … I have received various allegations. We cannot stop those who do this to do.” We really want to serve humanity, which we will continue to do, “he said, the Times of India reported.

He also noted that an earlier peak of infections had been controlled this past September at a time when vaccines were not available and cases and mass tests were being tracked and followed.

Pandemic “worsened our mental well-being”

Chopra, a global leader in integrative medicine and meditation, spoke about the release of a new free 21-day meditation experience with multi-award-winning singer-songwriter, activist, and entrepreneur Alicia Keys.

The meditation “Activation of the Divine Feminine: The Path to Wholeness” published on ChopraMeditation.com during Mental Health Awareness Month aims to “restore wholeness and bring peace and healing”.

Chopra and Keys believe that in today’s world of male and female energy there is an imbalance, regardless of gender, that needs to be addressed.

“Healing is ultimately the return of the memory of wholeness, and when we are not balanced with both masculine and feminine energies within ourselves, that imbalance is reflected in what we see in the world,” said Chopra.

The wellness icon, who is also the founder of the Chopra Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the study of wellbeing and humanity, told CNBC that he believes mental stress is “the number one pandemic in the world” stay.

“There is something wrong with our humanity right now as we are not concerned with mental well-being and sanity,” he said.

“Everything from climate change to pandemics, mass migrations, environmental destruction, weapons kills to wars and terrorism is a result of psychological distress, stress, anger, hostility and fear. So we have to deal with it. This is an emergency.” he went on.

He said the global pandemic only “worsened” the situation.

“The global pandemic has worsened our spiritual well-being, deteriorated our economic well-being, and spawned some ugliness such as racism and bigotry and hatred and prejudice and conflict,” he said.

“All over the world it’s not just Republicans and Democrats, but Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Indians and Pakistanis. I mean, if you don’t believe this crazy, you are explaining your own madness,” he added added.

When asked what individuals can do to make a difference and what he thinks is the solution to all these global problems, Chopra said, “If you want to change the world, start with yourself.”

“”Perform an act of kindness today … When we perform all acts of love in action and reach critical mass, the world will be a different place, “he told CNBC.

– CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this article.