What we’re reading (4/20)
“Blackstone Is The Latest Victim Of The Weakening Commercial Real Estate Market” (CNN Business). “The ongoing commercial real estate slowdown has a new victim: Blackstone, the largest owner of commercial real estate globally. The company saw its distributable earnings — the profit distributed to shareholders after expenses — plunge 36% since last year. That’s raising eyebrows on Wall Street as investors assess the fallout from last month’s regional banking crisis.”
“Making Manufacturing Greater Again” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). “Instead of offering corporations broad tax cuts, they [Biden administration policies] provide incentives for the transition to an economy that runs on renewable energy: tax credits for production of or investment in clean energy, for consumers who purchase electric vehicles or energy-efficient appliances, and so on. Combined with Buy American provisions, these incentives will create increased demand for a wide range of U.S.-produced manufactured goods, from batteries to electric motors.”
“Home Prices In March Posted Biggest Annual Decline In 11 Years” (Wall Street Journal). “Home sales fell across the U.S. in March, a sluggish start to the crucial spring selling season as higher mortgage rates squashed momentum from the previous month. U.S. existing-home sales decreased 2.4% in March from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.44 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. March sales fell 22% from a year earlier.”
“BuzzFeed News, A Digital Media Pioneer, To Shut Down” (Washington Post). “BuzzFeed News, a pioneering digital news site that won a Pulitzer Prize and stirred controversy by publishing the Steele dossier, said Thursday it will close after 12 years. The news was broken to dismayed employees in an email from the site’s co-founder and chief executive, Jonah Peretti, who wrote the company couldn’t maintain a stand-alone news organization and cited “more challenges than I can count,” including the pandemic, declining advertising and ‘a tech recession.’”
“CEO Says Many Of His Remote Workers Didn't Open Their Laptops For A Month, And ‘Only The Rarest Of Full-Time Caregivers’ Can Be Productive Employees” (Insider). “Clearlink's CEO James Clarke reportedly told employees that he believed many remote workers have ‘quietly quit’ and become so brazen that dozens at his company ‘didn't even open’ their laptops for a month.”
