A lobbying group representing the interests of Apple has joined a coalition of corporate titans and industry organizations in a concerted effort to derail portions of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic agenda.

The Business Roundtable, a group of U.S. business leaders that counts Apple CEO Tim Cook as a board member, is preparing to oppose corporate tax increases designed to fuel the Democratic spending initiative, reports The Washington Post.

Biden proposed a hike in corporate tax rates from 21% to 28%, while placing heftier burdens on profits earned overseas. Democratic lawmakers are hoping to push the laws through as a reconciliation bill, a procedure that allows Congress to pass legislation with a simple majority. Passage is not guaranteed by the 117th Congress, however, as Democrats enjoy only narrow control over both houses, a precarious position potentially vulnerable to intense lobbying.

Business Roundtable’s concerns are part of a wider effort that targets key sections of Biden’s budget plan. A “lobbying blitz” is being organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which seeks support from all corners to fight the economic package, including its cost, policy scope and tax demands, according to the report.

In a statement, Business Roundtable spokesperson Jessica Boulanger said the group is engaged in “a significant, multifaceted campaign” to fight tax increases, adding that it would “continue to ramp up our efforts in the coming weeks.”

Organizations taking part in the strategy are expected to lean on traditional lawmaker lobbying as well as more modern maneuvering like advertising campaigns, sources told the publication. Companies and lobbying groups have committed to or are already running ads against the reconciliation package.

In addition to Business Roundtable, the RATE Coalition is also at odds with the Democrats’ tax agenda. RATE Coalition includes members Disney, FedEx and Lockheed Martin. Broader opposition might also be mounted by the National Association of Manufacturers, a major advocacy group representing more than 14,000 members. NAM’s board includes executives from Dow Inc., Exxon, Caterpillar and Johnson & Johnson. A parallel effort from the pharmaceuticals industry targets drug pricing proposals.

Guided by Biden’s spending proposals, Democrats are crafting legislation that will expand Medicare coverage, combat climate change, increase access to education, introduce broad subsidies for low- and medium-income families and more.

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A measure of business conditions in the Chicago region slipped in August, but not because of delta: Most companies said they still can’t get enough supplies or labor to keep up with new orders.

The Chicago Business Barometer, also known as the Chicago PMI, fell to 66.8 last month from 73.4 in July.

Just a few months earlier, the index had touched a 47-year high.

A surge in demand after the economy mostly reopened this year has forced businesses to scramble to keep up. Yet many can’t get enough materials on time to keep assembly lines running at full tilt. And finding enough labor to do the job has also become a major headache.

These problem are not just in the Chicago area. These are hurting the entire U.S. economy.

As a result, companies have big backlogs of orders that are going unfilled. These problems are expected to clear up eventually as the U.S. and global economies return to normal, but it could take months or even longer.

The surge in delta cases, meanwhile, hasn’t caused a notable decline in orders. Yet it could exacerbate bottlenecks in supply chains and deter some people from returning to work.

Businesses are paying higher prices for many materials and even raising wages in a bid to attract more workers. They also trying to pass on these extra costs to customers in the form of higher prices.

The upshot? Inflation in the U.S. is running at the highest level in 30 years based on the Federal Reserve’s preferred price barometer.

The decline in August was worse than expected. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had forecast the index to decline to 69.4.

Readings over 50 signal expansion, and numbers above 60 are considered exceptional.

Read: Consumer confidence sinks to 6-month low on delta anxiety and high inflation

The index is produced by the ISM-Chicago with MNI. It’s the last of the regional manufacturing indices before the national ISM report for August is released on Wednesday.

The ISM factory index stood at 61.2% in July. It’s been extremely strong for months, but it also reflects the ongoing logjam with supplies and labor.

Stocks 
DJIA,
-0.18%

SPX,
-0.20%
fell slightly in Tuesday trades.

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President BidenJoe BidenUS tells Americans to leave Kabul airport ‘immediately,’ citing ‘credible’ threat Britain, France to propose Kabul safe zone for people trying to flee Afghanistan Pollsters confront tough survey landscape after 2020 flubs MORE has set an ambitious and a highly consequential goal for the United States — a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. 

Achieving this climate goal will require a massive transformation of the U.S economy, building new infrastructure and an urgently needed improvement of our global competitiveness. So, how do we get there? We need a game plan. 

Creating a zero-emissions electric grid with solar, wind, nuclear, hydro and storage is necessary, but far from sufficient. We also need a clean fuel to reduce emissions from industrial heat, long-haul heavy transportation and long-duration energy storage. Hydrogen, produced without greenhouse (GHG) gas emissions, is a prime candidate.  

We applaud Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm for recently announcing the “Hydrogen Earthshot”, an innovation initiative with the goal of producing GHG-free hydrogen at $1 per kilogram by the end of the decade. That would be a global gamechanger. To accelerate the scale up of such breakthroughs for economy-wide deployment, the hydrogen game plan needs deep understanding of the complex interplay between research and development (R&D), infrastructure, economics, markets and policy. 

Today, the U.S. produces 10 million tons of hydrogen annually, 95 percent of which comes from natural gas via steam methane reforming. Most of this hydrogen is used for ammonia production to make agricultural fertilizers and to make gasoline, diesel and plastics from crude oil. Each kilogram of this “gray” hydrogen costs about $1, and comes with 10 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions. 

Separating the carbon dioxide from hydrogen and permanently sequestering it underground turns gray into “blue” hydrogen — but raises the cost by at least 50 percent. To make blue hydrogen a viable option, we need R&D to reduce carbon dioxide separation costs as well as policies that impose a direct or an indirect charge on carbon emissions. Additionally, we need a pipeline infrastructure to move hundreds of millions of tons of captured carbon dioxide from the hydrogen plants to geologic sites for permanent storage. There is no free lunch. 

Alternatively, devices called electrolyzers can be used to break down water using electricity and produce what is termed “green” hydrogen. Green hydrogen is genuinely green only when electricity generation has net-zero emissions. This is part of President Biden’s climate plan with a target date of 2035. But that is only part of the story. Today, green hydrogen costs $4 to $6 per kilogram — about three to four times more than gray or even blue hydrogen. To make green hydrogen competitive, the price of zero-carbon electricity must be reduced by 30 percent and the electrolyzer system costs must fall by 70 percent or more. Green hydrogen may need an upgraded grid, but it does not need a new infrastructure to be built.

If you are wondering why there are so many colors for a colorless gas, let us add one more — “turquoise” hydrogen. This is based on a promising approach called methane pyrolysis where natural gas is cracked to produce GHG-free hydrogen and pure solid carbon as a co-product. Solid carbon can be sold for a variety of market applications, which partly offsets the cost of hydrogen. Furthermore, it can be hauled away in trucks and does not require new infrastructure to be built. Turquoise hydrogen has the potential to reach the Earthshot target, but R&D is needed to develop cost-effective pyrolyzers and policies are needed to encourage solid carbon markets.  

Policies that align technologies, supply chains, infrastructure and markets are essential for success and scale up. Creating new infrastructure, such as pipelines and transmission lines, is expensive, time consuming and comes with social acceptance challenges.  This is particularly true for high-pressure hydrogen pipelines which are a safety risk because of hydrogen embrittlement of steel. 

Therefore, green and turquoise hydrogen that can use thousands of miles of existing electricity transmission lines and natural gas pipelines to move the feedstock for on-site GHG-free hydrogen production have the potential for faster scale up. 

If GHG-free hydrogen is to be used to fuel long-haul trucking and maritime shipping, $1 per kilogram target would make it cost competitive with diesel, underscoring the importance of achieving the Hydrogen Earthshot goal. Unlike diesel, hydrogen’s volumetric energy density is much lower even at high pressure. However, liquid ammonia may be an attractive carrier for hydrogen. Fortunately, liquid ammonia has a global infrastructure in place, since ammonia is used to produce fertilizers. 

The difficult challenge for hydrogen is its use for industrial heat. Burning hydrogen has to compete with burning natural gas. Natural gas is so inexpensive (without a carbon emission charge) that hydrogen production costs would need to be 50 cents per kilogram, (one-half the Hydrogen Earthshot goal) to compete. This highlights the need for either a direct price on carbon emissions such as a carbon tax, or an indirect price on carbon emissions, such as a mandated clean energy standard, or a combination of the two.  

Achieving President Biden’s goal will not be easy. As President Kennedy rightly summarized 59 years ago while launching the moonshot program, “we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win….”

Arun Majumdar is a professor at Stanford University.  

John Deutch is a professor at MIT.

Ravi Prasher is a professor at University of California, Berkeley.

Tom Griffin is a member of Breakthrough Energy Ventures. 

Majumdar, Deutch and Prasher are members of the Breakthrough Energy Ventures Scientific Advisory Board.

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The dollar plunged recently after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested in a highly predicted speech that the U.S central bank could taper its massive support for the economy by the end of the year, not as quickly as many in the market had anticipated.

He said that maximum employment had been achieved and the pace of asset purchases could be reduced if the U.S. economy improved as anticipated.

As the US Dollar Index (DXY) trades at a fresh weekly low (92.66), Chairman Jerome Powell remarks at the Kansas City Fed Economic Symposium that progress toward full employment is being taken, raising the possibility that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) might change gears later this year if the economy adjusts broadly as expected.

As a result, the dollar index, which tracks the greenback’s strength against six major currencies, plummeted by around 0.39% to settle at 92.7670.

As the Federal Reserve maintains an outcome-based approach to monetary policy, September’s data releases are likely to sway the Dollar.

The comments suggest the FOMC will maintain the current policy at its next interest rate decision on September 22 as the central bank employs an outcome-based methodology, the Fed will likely wait for a further improvement in the labor market before beginning to ease since Chairman Powell says that maximum employment remains some way off.

Consequently, a deterioration in the ISM Manufacturing survey and a slowdown in the US Non-Farm Payrolls report may weigh on the dollar as they signal a less robust recovery, but other positive information may spur a bullish reaction in the US Dollar, putting pressure on the Fed to normalize monetary policy shortly.

However, the US data prints due for release at the start of September will affect the Dollar in the near term, even as Fed officials continue to stick to an outcome-based approach for monetary policy.

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New Delhi [India], August 28 (ANI): Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday said India and the United States have agreed to aspire for USD 500 billion trade in near future, adding that the world is looking for a trusted partner and that partner is India’s business community.

While addressing business and trade fraternity at Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO), Goyal said, “Government is working towards making India Aatmanirbhar. An Aatmanirbhar Bharat is about building capacity and confidence to engage with all. This will empower our industry to interact with all with quality, cost competitiveness and innovation.”According to a statement by the Commerce Ministry, India has emerged as the world’s second most desirable manufacturing destination overtaking the US. This shows the potential and promise of India to become the “Manufacturing hub” of world.

He added that along with that, “we should also become a trading hub. The place where world comes to shop.”The minister noted that India is fast progressing in discussions on different free-trade agreements (FTAs) with countries, including the UK and the UAE, to further enhance trade and investment ties.

Goyal said traders and exporters are the twin pistons powering the economic growth engine of the nation. The minister said as policymakers, “we firmly believe in the capabilities of the business community as well as start-ups, which can make India the top economy globally in the next 25-30 years.””Be it Ease of Doing Business or Ease of Living, Be it Transparency or Transfer of Benefits. Today, a robust foundation laid in last seven years, inspires us to dream big and write our own destiny. This is a New India, which will be built on mantra of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka VishwasSabka Prayas,” said Goyal.The JITO is organising a 12-day long virtual expo connecting 1000s of businesses and entrepreneurs together to learn, earn and grow, the release stated. (ANI)

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A former Georgia sheriff resigned from a state watchdog agency this week after a photo emerged of him wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe. Roger Garrison, who previously served as sheriff of Cherokee County for more than 20 years before a 2016 retirement, had been appointed to the state Judicial Qualifications Commission’s investigative panel by the Georgia House Speaker. “Sheriff Garrison has resigned from the JQC,” a spokesman for the Speaker said when asked about knowledge of the photo by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The speaker will appoint a replacement as soon as practical.” The photo, taken when Garrison was in his 20s, first emerged in 2012. Garrison said at the time that it was a bad Halloween costume. “I don’t deny it wasn’t stupid, looking back now, but there again I say what 21- or 22-year-old in this world hasn’t made some stupid mistakes?” Garrison told a local network at the time.

Read it at Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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A new analysis suggests that U.S. workers in industries that expose them to weather conditions work fewer hours per day when temperatures surpass 90 degrees Fahrenheit — but only during periods of economic growth. Matthew Neidell of Columbia University, New York, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 25, 2021.

Earlier research conducted by Neidell and co-author Joshua Graff Zivin of the University of California, San Diego, revealed an association between extreme heat and fewer hours worked by people in weather-exposed conditions in the U.S. However, that analysis was conducted during a four-year period of economic growth, so it was unclear whether the same relationship would hold up over time or under different economic conditions.

To clarify, Neidell, Graff Zivin, and colleagues used historical weather records and data from the American Time Use Survey to analyze the relationship between time worked per day and daily temperatures for the period spanning 2003 through 2018. They focused on high-risk laborers, meaning workers in industries that expose them to weather conditions, such as agriculture, construction, and manufacturing.

The analysis showed that, when the U.S. economy was in a period of growth, such as from 2003 to 2007 and from 2015 to 2018, high-risk laborers worked fewer hours on high-heat days. Specifically, on days above 90 degrees, a high-risk laborer worked 2.6 minutes less on average for every degree above 90 than they worked on a 90-degree day.

However, during the Great Recession, from 2008 to 2014, there was no association between high-heat days and daily hours worked — perhaps, the authors suggest, because workers faced higher competition for employment and employers were less flexible.

The researchers also used climate and economic projections to predict the future effects of this relationship between heat and work time. They estimated that, in a “business-as-usual” scenario where greenhouse-gas emissions remain high, lost wages due to high-heat days could add up to $80 billion per year by 2090.

Further research will be needed to confirm and clarify these findings and predictions, which could help inform policies and adaptations to address high-heat labor conditions.

The authors add: “Our findings support previous results that the amount of time people work is affected by temperature, but the magnitude of this relationship depends on where we are in the business cycle. During hard economic times, work time is less sensitive to temperature changes, suggesting the relative bargaining power of employers and employees seems to influence who bears the costs of extreme heat.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by PLOS. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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HONG KONG, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) — “I will stay here. I am not going anywhere. This is my home,” said U.S. businessman Jim Thompson, who has operated a business in Hong Kong for more than 50 years.

Thompson, chairman of logistics company Crown Worldwide Group, set up his company in Japan in 1965. Thirteen years later, he moved the group’s headquarters to Hong Kong and has remained committed to the city ever since.

“We haven’t found any place that’s better to operate in than Hong Kong,” he said.

Produced by Xinhua Global Service

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By Stuart Condie

SYDNEY–Zip Co. could expand further in Europe or the Middle East over the next financial year despite the buy-now-pay-later company’s annual loss surging on the cost of growing its business in the U.S. and beyond.

The Australian credit provider’s FY 2021 loss blew out to 652.5 million Australian dollars ($473.6 million) from A$20 million a year earlier. The result included A$306.2 million in adjustments related to Zip taking full ownership of its U.S. business, as well as a A$42.6 million write-off of the now discarded QuadPay brand in the U.S.

On Wednesday, Zip said it would purchase the 73.75% interest in South African operator Payflex that it does not already own. Mr. Gray said Zip, which also acquired smaller interests in the Middle East, eastern Europe and the Philippines during FY 2021, was considering further expansion.

“We have a launching pad now established for expansion into certain regions. I think there will be some moves potentially in Europe in the next 12 months. Similarly, in the Middle East,” Mr. Gray said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.

Mr. Gray said Zip was backing its credit decisioning platform, which it views as a key differentiator against other installment-payment providers, in regions where large proportions of the population don’t have traditional bank accounts.

Citing a McKinsey report, Zip said more than 50% of Africans were underbanked. Yet it thinks high smartphone adoption could support rapid buy-now-pay-later growth.

“Our core skill set does provide a pathway to other emerging markets with regard to tackling that challenge,” Mr. Gray said. “We’ve invested huge amounts in the ability to consume large amounts of data at the point of application, and then the ability to actually utilize that data in our credit and decision technology and capability.”

Zip’s net bad debts written off fell to 1.28% of total transaction value on its platform in FY 2021, from 1.32% in FY 2020.

Write to Stuart Condie at stuart.condie@wsj.com

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 24 (ANI): Filmmaker Karan Johar has ventured into the jewellery segment with the launch of his brand Tyaani Jewellery.

According to him, this venture is a natural extension of his creativity.

“As a filmmaker, and someone with creative vision, I naturally gravitate towards things that are aesthetically beautiful and seeped in our tradition. Moreover, in my line of work, I also have the advantage of interacting with many different people and I get a strong sense of the pulse of people, whether it is the movie-going audience, or fashion-forward men and women worldwide,” he said.

With this new business, Karam aims to create a legacy brand for polki jewellery.

“They are jewels that beauty is made up of. That gloss and glamour and grandeur, it has the perfect element of shine, that polki is just stunning!” He said, adding on that this Indian art form remains untapped. It represents India in so many ways, and to make it more accessible and wearable and more “today” is actually the whole intent behind what all of us want to do at Tyaani, what I want to do at Tyaani,” he added.

Karan further said, “I want to see a young woman sport chaandbalis with a classic black dress or drops with their jeans and T-Shirts. Literally from boardroom to brunch to bridal, it has to cover the entire gamut. I wanted to create an online platform dedicated to polki jewellery that could reach people who wanted to shop from the comfort of their homes. Also this would make Indian jewellery available globally …. a young, dynamic brand, at par with global trends and way ahead of the fashion curve. Something that imbibes our classic values with an eclectic twist.”Meanwhile, on the film front, Karan is busy helming ‘Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani’, which stars Dharmendra, Jaya Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh. (ANI)

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