What we’re reading (5/21)
“As Pandemic Spread Pain and Panic, Congressman Chased Profit” (Associated Press). “The issue of congressional stock trading took on a new urgency last year when at least three senators were the subject of inquiries about whether they made financial decisions based on insider information…Malinowski’s trades received little attention at the time. Yet his subsequent failure to report his trading activity to Congress as required by law, which was first reported by Business Insider, have made him the latest to face scrutiny, with two complaints filed against him with the Office of Congressional Ethics.”
“U.S. Proposes Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate Of 15%, With An Eye On Something Even Higher” (CNBC). “Corporations around the world should pay at least a 15% tax on their earnings, the Treasury Department said Thursday as part of its push for a global minimum for businesses. The final rate could go even higher than that, according to a Treasury release that said the 15% minimum is a ‘floor and that discussions should continue to be ambitious and push that rate higher.’”
“Apple’s Tim Cook Expected To Take Witness Stand In Antitrust Fight” (Wall Street Journal). “With the bench trial in Oakland, Calif., nearing its expected end on Monday, Mr. Cook would follow other Apple executives this week who tried to counter arguments by Epic that Apple improperly prohibits competing app stores on the iPhone and forces in-app purchases for digital payments through its own system that takes as much as a 30% cut.”
“WeWork Lost $2 Billion In A Quarter And 200,0000 Members In A Pandemic-Hit Year, It Said Ahead Of Its Stock Market Debut” (Business Insider). “WeWork's quarterly revenues fell almost 50% compared to the first quarter of 2020, from $1.1 billion to $598 million, according to its results for the quarter ending March 31. WeWork said restructuring costs were $494 million, an increase from $56 million in the first quarter of 2020. This was driven by Japanese tech giant SoftBank's stock purchases, and a settlement with former CEO Adam Neumann, who stepped down in 2019.”
“Population Predicts Regulation” (Economist Writing Everyday). “It turns out that a state’s population size, rather than political ideology or any thing else, is the best predictor of its regulations…[w]hat is less clear is why this relationship is so strong. Mulligan and Shleifer attribute it to a fixed cost of regulating; larger polities can spread this cost over more people, making the average cost of regulating cheaper, so they do it more. We note two other explanations: larger polities might have more externalities worth regulating, or if regulation produces concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, a larger population could make it harder for those harmed by regulation to organize collectively to oppose it.”
