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☆ 'It's clear that Mark Zuckerberg idolizes Elon Musk,' Wall Street analyst says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mark Zuckerberg said Meta is adding a verification subscription service to Facebook and Instagram. Meta Verified "sounds awfully like Twitter Blue," Bernstein analyst Mark Schilsky said in a note to clients this week. "I think it's clear that Mark Zuckerberg idolizes Elon Musk." Other analysts on Wall Street more optimistically believe that Meta Verified could add $2 billion per year in revenue, as Insider recently reported. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been publicly criticizing each other for years — at least since a SpaceX rocket exploded on the launchpad in 2016, destroying a Facebook satellite.

☆ The 2023 Super Bowl Ads Will Feature Booze, Betting and Jesus
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Megan Graham | Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +10 min

The Super Bowl ads on Sunday are poised to promote an unusual mix of alcohol brands, gambling and Jesus. The Super Bowl still regularly draws an audience of around 100 million people, making it TV’s biggest event of the year and advertising’s biggest night. Planters’ Super Bowl ad features comedians mocking Mr. Peanut. The ads are likely to strike a lighter tone than the occasionally somber messages of Super Bowl ads in recent, highly politicized years or the early pandemic, said Anjali S. Bal, an associate professor of marketing at Babson College. Many Super Bowl advertisers have again released their ads well before Super Bowl Sunday to increase their chances of being seen.

☆ 'Because I said so' isn't enough: Kids find some excuses more understandable than others, new study finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Aditi Shrikant | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Children between ages 3 and 5 can discern which excuses are worthy of forgiveness and which are not. Excuses that involved helping another person were met with more understanding than excuses that seemed selfish. This shows that kids feel like prioritizing others is a more legitimate excuse than prioritizing yourself. "Morality is a type of common ground that we have with others, with mutual expectations about how we should behave and what counts as good grounds for justification," Li told Science Daily. "Usually if someone breaks a promise and gives you a lame reason, it implies they're not really a good friend," Li told Science Daily.

☆ I followed Nancy Pelosi's diet of breakfast ice cream and hot dogs for a week, and I ping-ponged between euphoria and the depths of despair
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Sophie Kleeman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

My research found that Pelosi eats ice cream for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, pasta, and chocolate. Chocolate ice cream for breakfast, rich and creamy pasta, and lots of snacking chocolate. She claims she does not exercise; her daughter once arrived home to find her mother eating chocolate ice cream while using a stationary bike. I save the ice cream for later to avoid a massive sugar crash and start out with a cup of black tea instead. However, I don't want to slack off after the ice cream episode, so I slather it on.

☆ How the market is rating the risk of debt ceiling default and a divided, dysfunctional Congress
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Eric Rosenbaum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

That would be the worst-case outcome, of course, but even the best case will probably see the sort of brinksmanship that occurred in the 2011 debt ceiling crisis." From the Senate, Mitch McConnell recently said it's an issue for Biden and the House GOP to work out. Kevin Brady , the former top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, dismissed talk of debt default as "fear mongering." Narrowness of GOP House majority does matterJPMorgan also referred to the path for a political agreement as being "narrow." In 2013, the Federal Reserve ran a simulation of a debt default by the U.S. government.

☆ A glamourous Parisian's haute couture wardrobe goes up for auction at Christie's
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Michaela Cabrera | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Sarah MeyssonnierPARIS, Jan 23 (Reuters) - A wardrobe owned by a Parisian woman who rubbed elbows with Yves Saint Laurent and other famous French designers is up for online auction at Christie's as Haute Couture week kicks off in Paris. A velvet bustier evening dress, from Saint Laurent's 1984-1985 haute couture collection, is also up for sale. And you know, all haute couture clients, they said that the Saint Laurent outfits are the most comfortable and the more feminine and sensual," de Foresta said. The Parisian owner also wore pieces by Christian Lacroix, Gianfranco Ferre for Dior and Valentino, and most of the couture pieces were bought in the 1980s and 1990s. Haute Couture Fashion Week, which wraps up on Thursday, allows an elite club of top-end designers to show off elaborate creations, which are not mass-produced for stores but tend to be sold to private clients.

This year, women will hold all four of the top positions on the House and Senate Appropriations committees for the first time in history. “Oftentimes people say, you know, ‘We need to have women at the table.’ Well, women are the table.”Spending and debt fights loomOver the decades, these women have seen their share of spending fights. But I’m absolutely convinced that we have to stand together,” said Granger, who last week became the first female Republican to chair the House Appropriations Committee. Women, Murray said, are good communicators, and she and her colleagues can translate a big, complicated appropriations bill for everyday Americans. But as a 14-year House Appropriations staffer, she also intimately knows each of the top appropriators and recognizes the significance of this glass-ceiling-shattering moment.

YouTube is taking back the reins from TikTok as the official title sponsor of VidCon, the biggest convention for social media creators and their fans. From 2013-2019, YouTube served as the primary partner of VidCon, which veteran YouTubers John and Hank Green created. Many on the featured creators roster, such as Charli D’Amelio and Khaby Lame, got their big breaks on TikTok, not YouTube. “We are thrilled to have them return as the title sponsor to help drive our mission of putting digital culture and its creators center stage. “The unique relationship and trust between YouTube creators, their fans and the digital industry is what sets our platform apart,” Stanford said in the statement.

☆ Bank of Japan keeps yield control policy unchanged
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

MARKET REACTION:The Japanese stock market cheered the BOJ's decision with the Nikkei share average (.N225) jumping more than 2% after the midday break. Therefore, among equities, we think Japanese financials sector will have a rerating of valuations over the next 3-6 months." That could escalate when the new governor of the bank will be announced and towards the policy meeting in March." MOH SIONG SIM, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, BANK OF SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE"The can has been kicked down the road and the attention will shift to the next meeting. CHARU CHANANA, MARKET STRATEGIST, SAXO MARKETS, SINGAPORE:"I think the speculations will still continue.

☆ Tyler Winklevoss says SEC charges over Gemini are 'super lame' and a 'manufactured parking ticket'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tyler Winklevoss called the SEC "super lame" after filing charges against his crypto company. Winklevoss said the SEC was trying to score political points rather than work with Genesis clients. In a Twitter thread Thursday, Tyler Winklevoss argued that the SEC action was counterproductive to the company's aim of settling cases with customers. It's unfortunate that they're optimizing for political points instead of helping us advance the cause of 340,000 Earn users and other creditors," Tyler Winklevoss wrote. Tyler Winklevoss also questioned the pace of the SEC's action, given the Earn program had been shut down for more than two months.

☆ Partisan Splits Scuttle Year-End Action on Immigration Policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Michelle Hackman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—A political logjam over the southern U.S. border has once again prevented Congress from making changes to the immigration system, with prospects for next year only growing dimmer. Farmers, military veterans, tech companies and immigration advocates had all pinned their hopes on Congress to pick up any of several bipartisan immigration proposals during their lame duck session, before Republicans assume control of the House in January. But a $1.65 trillion omnibus spending package, the last bill to pass before this Congress adjourns, contained no significant immigration measures.

☆ 2022 was the year the Overconfidence Man fell back to earth
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Maureen Tkacik | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

Naturally, Elon Musk, the platonic ideal of the peculiar self-aggrandizing, self-parodying personality type that thrived during the Trump years and peaked during the pandemic, tops this list. By 2022, the media had pronounced him variously the next Warren Buffett, J.P. Morgan and Charles Koch. "bye bye @trussliz Congrats to lettuce", tweeted Putin's one-time stand-in Dmitry Medvedev, to which Elon Musk could not resist replying, "pretty good troll tbh." Elon Musk speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition in March 2020. Elon MuskIt's weird to recall now that Elon Musk once seemed like, graded on the billionaire curve anyway, a net positive for a cursed American society.

☆ Congress’ lame duck session leaves 'unfinished business' on issues that address Americans' everyday financial needs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Lorie Konish | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesChild tax credit enhancementA year ago last December, millions of families received their last monthly child tax credit checks. Legislation to help parents cope with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic made the child tax credit more generous for the 2021 calendar year. The maximum child tax credit sums went up from $2,000 per child to $3,600 per child under age 6 and $3,000 per child ages 6 through 17. On the bright side, the same compromise to re-up the child tax credit alongside corporate tax breaks may come up again in 2023, he said. Some lawmakers have insisted the child tax credit gets included in any new tax legislation.

☆ Warren Buffett is likely to load up on cheap stocks as other investors panic in 2023, Elon Musk says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Theron Mohamed | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Warren Buffett is likely go on a stock-buying spree in 2023, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says. Musk has flagged higher interest rates and a looming recession as headwinds for stocks. "If a company has very strong fundamentals, but then the market is doing some short-term panic situation, obviously that's the the right time to buy stock," Musk added. Still, Musk has quoted the investor on earnings calls, while Buffett has praised Tesla's unlikely success and hailed Musk as a "remarkable guy." Read more: David Rubenstein views Warren Buffett as the ultimate investor.

☆ Warren Buffett's dream business is a little chocolate maker that's generated a 8,000% return for him. Here are 5 reasons why he loves See's Candies.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Theron Mohamed | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

"Every person in California has something in mind about See's Candies and overwhelmingly it was favorable," Buffett told a group of business-school students at the University of Florida in 1998. "They had taken a box on Valentine's Day to some girl and she had kissed him … See's Candies means getting kissed," he added. Unsurprisingly, See's has raised its prices from less than $2 a pound in 1972 to more than $20. When Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized economic moats like brand loyalty as "lame" on an earnings call in 2018, Buffett fired back. "Elon may turn things upside down in some areas," he said at the next annual shareholder meeting, according to Fortune.

☆ Bank of Japan makes surprise policy tweak
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

ATUSHI TAKEDA, CHIEF ECONOMIST, ITOCHU ECONOMIC RESEARCH, TOKYO:"Today's move reflects the BOJ's determination not to alter its yield cure control policy. CAROL KONG, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA, SYDNEY:"I think the move was certainly unexpected, to say the least. MOH SIONG SIM, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, BANK OF SINGAPORE:"They've widened the band, and I guess that came earlier than expected. CHRISTOPHER WONG, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, OCBC, SINGAPORE:"The timing of the policy tweak is a surprise, though we have been expecting the move to come in 2Q 2023. "The tweak may seem modest but is significant for a central bank that has held dovish for a long time.

☆ Bank of Japan reviews yield-curve control policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Dec 20 (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan has slightly loosened the shackles on its 10-year yield target and said it will review its yield-curve control policy, surprising financial markets and sending the yen sharply higher. However, it is only a first step and yield-curve control (YCC) remains in place, as does negative rate strategy. CAROL KONG, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA, SYDNEY:"I think the move was certainly unexpected, to say the least. MOH SIONG SIM, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, BANK OF SINGAPORE:"They've widened the band, and I guess that came earlier than expected. CHRISTOPHER WONG, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, OCBC, SINGAPORE:"The timing of the policy tweak is a surprise, though we have been expecting the move to come in 2Q 2023.

☆ Democrats run out the clock on a congressional stock-ban bill
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Madison Hall | Dave Levinthal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

After months of wrangling over a congressional stock-trade ban, Pelosi is getting that wish. Some government ethics advocates had hoped that congressional stock-ban legislation would be packaged with the 2023 omnibus spending bill. Meanwhile, lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties continue violating the STOCK Act while 11th-hour pleas from Democratic stock-ban advocates go unanswered by Democratic leaders. A ban on members of Congress trading individual stocks and cryptocurrencies will officially die on January 3, when the 118th Congress is seated. Any stock-ban bill introduced next year will therefore require bipartisan support across Congress' two chambers.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are grappling with how to handle a potential re-election bid by newly minted independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in 2024, fearing that a three-way battle could split their voters and throw the race to Republicans in Arizona. Asked how the DSCC should handle a possible Sinema 2024 run, Sinema's Arizona colleague, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, “I haven’t given that any thought." Schumer said he has granted Sinema’s request to preserve her committee assignments through the Democratic Party, meaning the 51-49 partisan organization of the chamber won’t change. She wouldn’t say if Democrats should back her but said her working relationship with Sinema won’t change. Prior to her party switch, Sinema had stronger relationships with Republican senators than just about any Democrat.

☆ Kevin McCarthy's impossible GOP math
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is far from assured of winning sufficient support in his party to become House speaker next month. The tiny GOP House majority that takes over in January, after a disappointing midterm performance, would mean a fragile governing mandate for any party at any point in American history. McCarthy’s impossible mathFrom a broader political perspective, it might be in McCarthy’s interest to stand up to the most extreme members of his conference. The path to the GOP majority went through comparatively moderate seats in places like New York that will be most at risk in the 2024 election. But it also reflected Greene’s growing personal power, after she broke with some radical GOP members and lined up to support McCarthy’s speakership.

☆ Democratic senators won't say whether the party should support Kyrsten Sinema's re-election in 2024
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

"It doesn't change my life one bit," said Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. "I don't think anybody's announcing anything," Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona told reporters, saying he didn't want to get into "hypotheticals." Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the head of the DSCC for 2022, also declined to say whether the party should back Sinema. But she too declined to say whether the party should back Sinema in 2024, waving as the elevator closed. Asked by reporters on Monday what he made of Sinema's announcement, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware dramatically shrugged as he boarded an elevator.

☆ Republicans seek to sabotage year-end spending bill
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

An omnibus spending bill that would avert the closure of the federal government would be one of the last acts of unified Democratic political control of Washington. Democrats, meanwhile, understand that the government spending bill likely represents their last chance to enact Biden’s ambitious domestic plans until the next presidential election. If lawmakers cannot agree on a deal, they will face the possibility of either passing a short-term spending bill to carry the debate into the new Congress or a longer-term continuing resolution that would extend current spending levels. But in a sign of the consuming nature of the spending showdown, Republicans emerged from the meeting complaining that the two secretaries spent time lobbying for an omnibus spending bill over a continuing resolution. He said that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had asked Blinken and Austin to explain why the new spending bill was so necessary.

The fate of the bill is also linked to an election overhaul measure to avoid another Jan. 6, which Senate leaders hope to attach to it. The two parties are about $26 billion apart on domestic spending, Shelby said, which isn’t much considering the omnibus package would likely be more than $1.5 trillion. Although they control both chambers, they still need at least 10 Senate GOP votes to defeat a filibuster on a funding bill. The government funding bill is likely the last train leaving the station in the current session of Congress, and a number of other provisions could ride along. Senators have struck a deal on a bill that cleared committee on a bipartisan vote of 14-1 in September.

As the director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, Terrell, 53, leads a team that is the president’s collective eyes and ears in Congress. In fact, when we sat down for our conversation in the White House Executive Office Building, she said it was her first television interview – ever. And I think that kind of credibility on the Hill has been very important to move things.”Deep relationships matter too, she said. Courtesy Louisa TerrellTerrell’s lifelong relationship with the Biden family means she brings a unique perspective to her work in the White House. “There are folks in our shop, and again, folks here in the White House, who have some of those relationships.

☆ What the pro-business tax agenda is chasing in a changing Congress
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Cheryl Winokur Munk | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Main Street could find itself stuck in gridlock next year in terms of advancing pro-business tax objectives. For House Republicans, legislative priorities are likely to include extending business-friendly provisions of The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by the Trump Administration in 2017. Even so, a divided Congress means that major pro-business legislative changes will be difficult to enact. Rather, tax and policy professionals expect House Republicans to focus on a number of positioning moves next year — ones that will establish their pro-business agenda ahead of the 2024 presidential election. "There are a host of provisions in the tax code that businesses would like to see changed or revised," said Rochelle Hodes, a principal in Crowe's Washington National Tax office.

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