Tag: Spent

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Politics

Stephen Ross-funded PAC spent over $1 million going into NYC major election

Stephen Ross-funded PAC spent over $1 million going into NYC primary election

A super PAC funded largely by real estate billionaire Stephen Ross spent just over $1 million to influence New York City’s primary race for City Council, with part of that investment going against progressives who are running for key council posts.

The organization, Common Sense NYC, has raised over $2 million. Ross, the chairman and founder of the real estate giant Related Companies, donated $1 million, and Ronald Lauder, also a billionaire and the youngest son of makeup legend Estee Lauder, contributed $500,000. Ross and Lauder have a combined net worth of over $12 billion, according to Forbes.

Ross, who is also the owner of the Miami Dolphins, came under fire in 2019 when he hosted a fundraiser in the Hamptons for former President Donald Trump. Equinox and SoulCycle, two luxury fitness brands owned by Related Companies, distanced themselves from the Trump event as customers threatened to boycott. In August, CNBC reported that Lauder, who has been a friend of Trump’s for years, had yet to start raising money for the then-president’s reelection campaign.

The financial might of the group was evident in the 24 hours before the official primary day. The New York City Campaign Finance Board shows that the organization spent over $100,000 and distributed at least nine mailers on Monday, the day before the election, opposing a group of progressive City Council candidates.

The PAC may not be done trying to sway voters away from various City Council contenders. A leader of the committee told CNBC they’re leaving open the possibility of continuing their efforts into the November general election.

“In the event that there are competitive NYC Council races in the general election, Common Sense NYC may be involved. I personally don’t anticipate more than two or three Council races being competitive in November,” Jeff Leb, the PAC’s treasurer, said in an email to CNBC on Tuesday.

The sheer amount raised and spent going into Tuesday’s primary by the group, officially labeled an independent expenditure committee, shows the importance to business leaders of influencing the lesser known City Council races. The PAC’s messaging has been focused, in part, on pushing back on the idea of defunding the police and other progressive causes.

The New York City Council is the legislative body responsible for creating and voting on proposed New York City laws. A group such as Common Sense can raise and spend an unlimited amount of money on the City Council races they deem important. Wall Street executives have already poured over $9 million into the race for New York’s next mayor, with most of the big money going to former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Longtime New York Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf told CNBC that beyond the group being worried about New York in a post-pandemic world, the move by the Ross-backed PAC to spend a ton against progressive candidates for City Council represents a power play by the real estate community.

“This is an attempt to … prove how powerful they are,” Sheinkopf told CNBC in an interview on Tuesday. Sheinkopf noted that members of the City Council have publicly taken on New York’s big business leaders and said Common Sense’s campaign is a test of how much power New York executives have going forward.

“Well, let’s say if they don’t win those races, will people be afraid of them? The fact is people aren’t afraid of them now. If they win, people will be more afraid. Power is about fear and not friendship,” Sheinkopf said.

The political strategist said that the City Council has become more and more progressive over the years and business leaders have often been criticized by those politicians, which led to the creation of PACs such as Common Sense NYC. “Business interests have been attacked by this council and there’s been an attempt to constrain the business community, including pushback on the power of the real estate community,” Sheinkopf said.

Leb defended the candidates the group supported in a separate email to CNBC.

“Common Sense NYC supported a broad slate of candidates who are pragmatic in their thinking and who are demonstrably qualified to help New York recover from the pandemic,” Leb said on Tuesday. “We are highlighting which candidates are qualified for local office and which are not, in races that are getting little attention otherwise. None of our funders played an active role in the operation or direction of Common Sense and they did not pick the races we engaged in.”

Leb, who is also a managing partner at Capitol Consulting, is ranked by City & State as one of the top lobbyists in New York.

The PAC has spent over $540,000 supporting 18 local candidates for office and nearly the same amount opposing eight others.

Representatives for Ross and Lauder did not respond to requests for comment before publication.

One of the big targets of Common Sense NYC has been Michael Hollingsworth, who is running for Brooklyn’s 35th District on the City Council. The PAC has spent over $100,000 opposing him. Two mailers against Hollingsworth were delivered to voters on Monday. One of the mailers reviewed by CNBC takes aim at Hollingsworth wanting to cut back on New York policing.

“While crime continues to go up, Michael Hollingsworth wants police funding to go down,” the mailer reads. “We must stop Michael Hollingsworth from defunding the police!” the ad says. The Gotham Gazette reports that Hollingsworth is supported by New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America and has received an endorsement by former gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon.

Hollingsworth responded to the campaign being waged against him in a tweet after this story was published.

“We are not beholden to the wealthy, real estate donors, or special interests. We’re with the people,” he said on Twitter.

Common Sense NYC has spent over $95,000 to oppose Jaslin Kaur, who running for District 23’s City Council spot. The district is located in Queens, and Kaur was recently endorsed by progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. The City reported that Kaur was also endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

Common Sense NYC spent just over $26,000 on two mailers against Kaur that were distributed on Monday.

Others seeing opposition from the Ross-backed effort include John Choe, who is running in a primary for District 20’s seat, and Alexa Aviles, a contender for New York City’s District 38 seat who also saw an endorsement from Ocasio-Cortez.

Choe commented on the moves being made by the Ross-backed PAC in a tweet Tuesday in response to this story.

“As the founder of our neighborhood Chamber that helps small businesses, I challenge the notion these super PAC vultures represent anything more than the rapacious greed and hubris of the billionaire oligarchs who are slowly destroying our country,” Choe said on Twitter.

Aviles said the PAC’s decision to take aim at her represents a larger campaign being waged by the real estate industry.

“It’s no wonder that Common Sense NYC, Inc. is spending a ludicrous amount of money attacking our people-powered campaign in District 38,” Aviles told CNBC after this story was published. “After all, one of their top donors is Trump-supporting Stephen Ross, a billionaire real-estate developer focused on devouring up our neighborhoods. I’m proud that the real-estate industry recognizes that we will fight them back. Our campaign is unequivocally against the interests of billionaires, because we’re fighting for working people.”

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Politics

James Murdoch spent $100 million to fund political causes throughout 2020 election

James Murdoch spent $100 million to fund political causes during 2020 election

James Murdoch, co-chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox Inc.

Christophe Morin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

James Murdoch, one of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s sons, quietly invested $100 million into his nonprofit foundation, which then used a large chunk of the money to fund political groups during the 2020 election cycle.

CNBC found the enormous contribution from James Murdoch and his spouse, Kathryn Murdoch, after reviewing the 501c3 group’s 990 tax return from 2019, which the foundation provided. The Murdochs launched the foundation, called Quadrivium, in 2014.

The $100 million donation marks the couple’s largest known contribution to their foundation or any political effort. It came as James and Kathryn Murdoch were building their own political operation. They have largely backed nonpartisan and Democratic-leaning causes. Kathryn Murdoch has previously criticized former President Donald Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Murdoch family, headed by Rupert Murdoch, is worth over $22 billion, according to Forbes. The family controls Fox Corp. and News Corp. James’ brother Lachlan Murdoch is the CEO of Fox, which has multiple assets including the conservative Fox News cable network.

It was previously known that James and Kathryn Murdoch backed President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. But it was unknown until now just how much they were spending behind the scenes to impact the election. Combined with the millions they gave to campaigns and political action committees, the $100 million donation would make the couple one of the top donors in the last election cycle.

The 2019 tax document shows that of the $100 million given to the foundation, over $25 million went toward grants, including for several political causes. The $25 million also represents the most the Murdoch couple has spent through their foundation on political causes such as fighting climate change and helping people vote.

Yet, according to a person close to the family, that $25 million two years ago was only part of massive Murdoch investments through the 2020 election cycle. This person declined to be named in order to speak freely about the situation.

Since 2019, Quadrivium directed over $43 million to climate-related groups. Over $38 million, including $14 million in Quadrivium donations and $24 million in individual contributions from the couple, went toward election organizations, including those dedicated to protecting voting rights.

The Murdoch couple also donated over $20 million to both Biden’s campaign, groups supporting him and opposing Trump, and organizations dedicated to disrupting online threats and extremism. They also donated to groups dedicated to getting out the vote during the Georgia Senate runoff elections in January. Democrats won both of those seats.

A spokeswoman for James and Kathryn Murdoch declined to comment.

According to the 2019 tax document, the Quadrivium foundation had more than $100 million on hand going into 2020, just as the primary and caucus season was beginning.

The Murdochs’ $100 million donation came the same year James was the CEO of 21s Century Fox before Disney bought the bulk of the company for $71 billion. He was also on the board of the family-owned News Corp. at the time.

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The $100 million contribution to the foundation came in the form of Disney stock, and it was made the same day that the Fox-Disney deal was completed. James Murdoch made a reported $2.1 billion from the transaction.

Murdoch would later step down from the News Corp. board citing “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.” News Corp. includes The New York Post and Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. Both newspapers have conservative opinion sections.

The Murdochs’ foundation in 2019 donated to several organizations it had supported in the past, although nonprofits received significantly more funds that year than other groups. Quadrivium supports issue-based groups that fight against climate change and try to improve access to voting.

The Murdochs’ support for voting rights groups comes as Republicans in states such as Georgia and Texas are passing laws that critics say restrict people ability to vote. James Murdoch was one of hundreds of executives and corporations that signed a public statement opposing “any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.”

Democracy Works Inc., a nonprofit that promotes itself as having tools to help people register to vote, received $2.5 million from the Murdoch-run foundation.

The education fund for Represent.Us, which claims to be nonpartisan and says it works to “pass powerful state and local laws that fix our broken elections and stop political bribery,” saw $2 million from the Murdochs in 2019. The group includes a cultural council of celebrities, including J.J. Abrams, Michael Douglas and Jennifer Lawrence. The Represent.Us fund, according to its website, “made grants to Represent.Us to support public education activities and dedicated cross-partisan outreach activities.”

The Brennan Center for Justice, which also calls itself nonpartisan, saw $1 million from the Murdochs two years ago. The Brennan Center has become a resource for voters and reporters to keep up on various bills that the organization deems restrictive. The group’s website notes that state legislatures have introduced over 380 bills in 48 states that are considered restrictive.

As for fighting climate change, Kathryn Murdoch has been a trustee at the Environmental Defense Fund for years. That organization saw $11 million in 2019 from Quadrivium.

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Business

March retail gross sales are anticipated to have surged as customers spent $1,400 checks

March retail sales are expected to have surged as consumers spent $1,400 checks

A shopper wearing a protective mask checks out at a Costco store in San Francisco, California on Wednesday, March 3, 2021.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Retail sales are expected to be strong in March, and some economists say that cyclical tests may have entered the economy quickly and are contributing to an even bigger gain of 10% or more.

March sales data, released at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, could be the first in a series of strong reports on consumer spending as vaccinations surge and economic reopening continues. US $ 1,400 fiscal stimulus checks sent to individuals from mid-March appear to have spurred spending in an environment of pent-up demand.

“We expect the March retail sales report to be excellent, with retail sales and core retail sales growing more than 11% each month,” wrote Bank of America economists. “Stimulus, reopening and better weather were a powerful cocktail for consumer spending.”

A multi-month increase in consumer spending should fuel an economy that is expected to boom this year. The strongest growth is expected for the current quarter, which according to some economists could show a growth of the gross domestic product of more than 10%. Compared to the second quarter of last year when the economic standstill caused the economy to collapse and GDP fell by 33.3%.

Economists estimate retail sales rose 6.1% in March, or 5.3% excluding cars, according to the Dow Jones. That equates to a 3% drop in sales in February when severe winter weather in the south led to a freeze with massive power outages in Texas.

However, some economists say the spending data shows that sales could be even stronger. “It’s going to go up over 10%. Except for last May, it’s going to be a record. There are lots of vehicle sales, higher gasoline prices and everything else,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The restaurants are coming back. The clothing stores are busy. This is the retail reopening and that will be reflected in the numbers.”

Zandi predicts retail sales are up 10.3% from February and are likely to grow 28% year over year.

“It’s reopening. It’s stimulus money. It’s an amortization of the weather, all of which are growing together into one gangbuster number,” said Zandi. “I think we’ll see very strong numbers in the future. We’re gone and running.”

Zandi said business-to-business spend data supports his view. According to software company Cortera, recently acquired by Moody’s, all company spending increased 14.5% year over year in March while retailer spending increased 9%.

Zandi said retailers and other companies such as airlines, benefiting from an economy reopening, outperformed companies working from home for the first time since the pandemic began in March.

“Spending increased in most retail segments, with restaurants, furniture stores, clothing stores, gas stations, and sports stores predominating,” said Cortera. “Spending in grocery and beverage stores fell as consumption shifted back to restaurants and bars.”

Cortera, which has roughly $ 1.7 trillion in business spend, found that grocery and beverage store spending was 14.6% lower than last year, but grocery and beverage spending, such as bars and restaurants, rose and almost 20% more than in the previous year.

Bank of America’s credit card spending also showed an increase in late March. BofA economists said card spending increased 67% in the seven-day period ending April 3. Spending in this period was also 20% higher than in the same period in 2019.

“Animal spirits have risen remarkably, and the conference committee’s confidence level rose to 109.7 in March, the largest one-month gain since April 2003,” noted Bank of America economists. “Consumers can increase their spending while increasing their savings. We expect the savings rate to be around 20%, if not higher, in March.”

Kevin Cummins, NatWest’s chief economist in the US, said he expected sales to grow 10% in March and admits that it was on the high end of projections. He believes sales should be increased by the $ 1,400 stimulus checks sent to individuals that reached bank accounts as of March 17.

“The back end of the month should be very strong,” he said. “If you look at car sales, it was the highest level in four years. It seems like restaurants with outdoor seating are getting busier.”

The range of forecasts is unusually broad. Economists expect growth of 4% to 11.5%. That said, the market reaction could be volatile.

“Usually the range can be 1 percentage point in a prepandemic [apart], maybe 2, “said Michael Schumacher, director of interest rates at Wells Fargo.

Bank of America economists said the retail sales data could spark another debate over whether companies will re-raise spending to stimulate the economy after consumer spending rises.

“With the data confirming consumer strength, the debate is now moving to the next phase of recovery,” say Bank of America economists. “Will this turn out to be just a sugar high with a painful hangover, or will it set off a positive feedback loop leading to a sustained recovery? We expect the latter, but it will depend on a positive response from Corporate America.”

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Business

$230 million spent buying and selling video highlights

$230 million spent trading video highlights

A LeBron James highlight sold for $ 200,000. A Zion Williamson edition cost a little less. The National Basketball Association has officially set its sights on the future of the trading card market, and currently this game is sold out.

The NBA has teamed up with Dapper Labs of Canada, the makers of the CryptoKitties game, to create the version of a digital collectible. NBA Top Shot is a crypto collectible that consumers can purchase as a non-fungible token (NFT). Each collectible is tied to a blockchain – a digital ledger similar to the blockchains used for digital currencies like Bitcoin. This effectively gives each NFT a unique and non-hackable Certificate of Authenticity. Even if someone makes a perfect copy of the highlight video, it is instantly recognizable as a fake.

Current “packs” for the game are only $ 9.00 – and they sell out all the time.

Caty Tedman, director of marketing and team partnerships at Dapper Labs, says Top Shots has had sales of more than $ 230 million to date, although most of that comes from dealers who exchange the collectibles after their first sale. Dapper earns revenue from fees charged through peer-to-peer transactions and from releasing new NFT packets.

“I find it fascinating,” said Tom Richardson, professor of digital media in Columbia University’s sports management program.

“It’s a nice development and good to see that people are still making collectibles during this time,” added Lars Rensing, CEO of the blockchain service provider Protokol. “It’s a new step into the future.”

The game has also become a new source of income for the NBA. And again it’s sold out.

In the new trading card model

Top Shots emerged from a licensing agreement that the NBA and its players’ union signed with Dapper Labs in 2019. The NBA did not provide any official commentary on this story, but Richardson, who was once head of publication for the National Football League, says the league can generate 10% to 15% of the revenue of a company that uses its intellectual property.

The NBA licenses the reels to dapper laps, which digitizes the footage and leaves a limited amount available to create scarcity. Some NFTs offer highlights in different angles and digital graphics. One is currently listed for over $ 240,000.

Mark Cuban, owner of Dallas Mavericks, compared Top Shot to the old-school model of trading cards, where consumers can have fun trading and collecting rare items – just without the risk of damage or theft. “And value is still determined by the same laws of supply and demand,” he wrote in January.

“Let Mark Cuban do it in a good, sensible, and easy-to-understand way,” said Richardson, also SVP of strategy at Mercury Intermedia. “So if enough people wanted the same Zion Williamson highlight, this NFT, and bid on it, they got up to $ 100,000, that’s supply and demand. Someone thought it was worth $ 100,000.”

The bet for dealers is that in 2051 a LeBron James NFT could be worth what a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card is worth today – one of those rare cards that recently sold for $ 5.2 million. And just imagine what a rare Michael Jordan rookie highlight NFT would sell in 30 years.

“We think it could be a 100 year old product,” said Tedman of Dapper Labs. “When you think about what the rookie cards are going to be worth today in the future, especially those from this point of view of the product. Everyone who participates now is really stepping onto the ground floor.”

By using the blockchain, says Richardson, Dapper overcomes a major challenge with digital assets, namely the ease of copying them infinitely many times without friction.

“One of the things that defined the digital age is that we have moved from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance with all kinds of media resources and products,” he added. “But what the trading card business is about is a physical scarcity of cards. That’s why (Dapper) created these NFTs with the idea of ​​scarcity combined with authenticity due to the way the blockchain works.”

With this asset, Dapper is positioning itself to benefit from a digitally controlled generation that values ​​digital assets as much as physical ones.

“The new generation is more digital,” said Rensing. “I think it will stay because it’s a solution that will also attract new fans and digital natives.”

Mobile game is coming this year

Earlier this month, Dapper raised $ 250 million and is now valued at $ 2 billion, in part thanks to Top Shot’s sudden popularity, according to digital asset research and news agency The Block.

With the funds, Dapper Cotinin will expand its blockchain flow. Tedman, one of the developers at Top Shot, said they now have around 350,000 registered users, claiming that Flow could better handle the capacity of a high-quality marketplace, which was causing problems with its CryptoKitties product.

“With this, we can reach a scale that other blockchain projects have not yet reached,” said Tedman. She said that of the $ 230 million in sales to date, 95% of consumers in the market who buy, sell and trade.

She said the company released 5,000 new packs of highlights this week as a stress test for Flow, and 90,000 people lined up to buy. The packs sold out quickly.

“They come in, collect, assemble what they think are good collections, buy and sell,” said Tedman. “It’s almost like putting together trading cards with the stock market. That is a game in itself before we release the mobile game.”

This mobile game, slated to launch this year, will allow consumers to create NBA-like rosters by purchasing NFT Moments and then entering online tournaments – and potentially winning rarer NFTs that can add in value.

“It can be an opportunity to have fun with your interest and love for a sport – basketball in this case – combined with your interest in new technology and financial experiences like cryptocurrency and NFTs,” said Richardson.

Saum Noursalehi is the CEO of the software company tZERO, a company that symbolizes the assets of private or public companies and builds the platform on which the assets can be traded. He sees a bright future for sports leagues using NFT licensing agreements and suggests that this is a model of how blockchain technology can be used to track and trade other types of assets.

Blockchain technology “will change the way we trade value today, how we trade assets,” said Noursalehi.

Tedman added, “We’re just getting started. We have a lot of big plans that we can’t wait to put in front of people.”

Let the new games begin as the digital age continues to take shape. However, participation in Dapper’s NBA Top Shot competition is currently sold out.

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Entertainment

‘Tom Stoppard’ Tells of an Monumental Life Spent in Fixed Movement

‘Tom Stoppard’ Tells of an Enormous Life Spent in Constant Motion

The way the cricket bat taps a ball and makes it sail an unlikely distance becomes a metaphor for writing in Stoppard’s hands. No living playwright has produced such a beautiful sound so regularly (snaps his tongue to make the noise).

[ Read Charles McGrath’s profile of Hermione Lee. ]

The adjective “Stoppardian” – to use elegant wit while addressing philosophical concerns – was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1978. His pieces are trees in which he precariously climbs on every limb. These trees sway. There is electricity in the air, like before a summer thunderstorm.

Stoppard’s best-known pieces are “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead”, “The Real Thing”, “Arcadia” and “The Coast of Utopia”. (His most recent work, “Leopoldstadt”, is closed for the time being due to Covid-19.) He co-wrote the script for “Shakespeare in Love” and has written or edited dozens of other scripts. He has written a novel and written a number of screenplays for radio and television.

At 83, he had an enormous life. In the astute and authoritative new biography “Tom Stoppard: A Life”, Hermione Lee wrestles everything aside. Sometimes you can feel that she is chasing a fox through a forest. Stoppard is constantly on the move – he flies back and forth across the Atlantic, takes care of the many revivals of his pieces, keeps the plates moving, agitates on behalf of dissidents, artists and political prisoners in Eastern Europe, gives lectures, accepts prizes, repairs scripts, lavish parties, friendships with Pinter, Vaclav Havel, Steven Spielberg, Mick Jagger and others. It was an enchanted life lived by a bewitching man. Tall, dashing, with big eyes, shaggy hair; for women, Stoppard was a walking stimulus package.

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Politics

Billions Spent on U.S. Cyberdefenses Didn’t Detect Large Russian Hack

Billions Spent on U.S. Cyberdefenses Failed to Detect Giant Russian Hack

He urged the government to downgrade what it knows and what it doesn’t.

On Wednesday morning, Illinois Democrat Senator Richard J. Durbin called the Russian cyberattack “practically a declaration of war”.

So far, however, President Trump has not said anything, perhaps knowing that his term is beginning to end, with questions about what he knew about Russian cyber operations and when. The National Security Agency has largely remained silent and has hidden behind the classification of the secret services. Even the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the group within the Department of Homeland Security tasked with defending critical networks, picked up the Russian mega-hack in a noticeably quiet manner.

Mr Blumenthal’s message on Twitter was the first official confirmation that Russia was behind the intrusion.

Trump administration officials have confirmed that several federal agencies – the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, parts of the Pentagon, and the Treasury Department and the Department of Commerce – have been compromised. Investigators struggled to determine the extent to which the military, intelligence services and nuclear laboratories were affected.

The same questions are asked at many Fortune 500 companies that use the Orion network management tool, made by SolarWinds, based in Austin, Texas. The Los Alamos National Laboratory, which develops nuclear weapons, uses it, as does large defense companies.

“How is that not a massive secret service failure, especially since we were supposedly all Russian threat actors before the elections,” asked Robert Knake, a senior cyber officer in the Obama administration, on Twitter on Wednesday. “Did the NSA fall into a huge honey pot while the SVR” – Russia’s most sophisticated spy agency – “quietly plundered” the government and private industry?

Of course, even after placing its probes and beacons on networks around the world, the NSA is barely all-seeing. But if there is a larger investigation – and it’s hard to see how to avoid it – the responsibilities of the agency, led by General Paul M. Nakasone, one of the country’s most skilled cyber warriors, will be paramount.