What we’re reading (12/16)
“What Happens To The Unemployed When The Checks Run Out” (New York Times). “When jobless workers get their last unemployment check, the effect on spending is sharp and swift…spending on food, clothes and other so-called nondurable goods immediately drops 12 percent, about twice as much as when they lost their job and went on unemployment insurance, University of Chicago researchers have found. Spending at drugstores falls 15 percent. Co-payments for visits to the doctor fall 14 percent. Spending on groceries falls 16 percent, or $46.30 a month, on average. Millions of Americans are less than two weeks from cutbacks like those. The last two federal emergency unemployment programs in the CARES Act, passed as the pandemic’s first wave surged in March, expire on Dec. 26.”
“Robert Shiller Calls Stocks ‘Highly Priced,’ But Wouldn’t Cash Out” (CNBC). “Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller believes the fear of missing out is fading. According to Shiller, the market phenomenon was the major narrative driving the historic rally off the March 23 low — as the world entered the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. But with big gains in the rearview mirror, Shiller isn’t turning bearish. ‘The market is highly priced, but it’s not so high that I wouldn’t consider it as an investment,’ the behavioral economics expert told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Tuesday.”
“There’s A Reason To Be Bullish On Stocks In 2021, Too” (CNN Business). “[T]his once-in-a-generation global health crisis was met with an almost unprecedented globally coordinated fiscal and monetary response, both of which have led to historically low interest rates and that are likely stay this way until the world can finally free itself from the pandemic. The combination of these conditions has typically supported continued stock market gains in the past, and we see no reason for 2021 to be any different.”
“Pfizer And Moderna Will Make Bank On Their Vaccines” (Dealbreaker). “Yesterday was a big day. Just over three-quarters of a year since the start of the pandemic, the inoculation process began in the U.S. Wall Street analysts predict a significant haul for Pfizer and Moderna, anticipating the firms will earn a collective $32 billion from the vaccines in 2021 alone. Talk about a shot in the arm.”
“The EU Unveils Its Plan To Rein In Big Tech” (The Economist). “A year ago Europe was being hailed as a regulatory superpower in technology. Countries around the world copied its strict new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), while America’s government scarcely tried to exercise any control over a fast-moving industry. The positions have since been reversed. This autumn the European Court of Justice quashed a €14bn ($17bn) fine on Apple levied by Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, in a huge setback for the bloc’s antitrust strategy. And America has found new purpose. In October Congress published a lengthy report on how to update competition law.”
