The Wall Street Journal - 02.08.2019

** FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019 ~ VOL. CCLXXIV NO. 28 WSJ.com HHHH$4.

DJIA26583.42g280.85 1.0% NASDAQ8111.12g0.8% STOXX 600387.68À0.5% 10-YR. TREAS.À1 9/32, yield 1.894% OIL$53.95g$4.63 GOLD$1,420.90g$5.20 EURO$1.1085 YEN107.

The American middle class is falling deeper

into debt to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.

Cars, college, houses and medical care have

become steadily more costly, but incomes have

been largely stagnant for two decades, despite

a recent uptick. Filling the gap between earn-

ing and spending is an explosion of finance

into nearly every corner of the consumer econ-

omy.

Consumer debt, not counting mortgages,

has climbed to $4 trillion—higher than it has

ever been even after adjusting for inflation.

Mortgage debt slid after the financial crisis a

decade ago but is rebounding.

ByAnnaMaria Andriotis,Ken Brown

andShane Shifflett

Record Debt Swamps

Middle-Class Families

Cars, colleges and housing have become more costly,

but wages for many have barely budged

Why ‘Fast & Furious’ Stars Never Lose a Fight

iii

Actors count kicks, jabs and slams to keep the tough guy balance

In Hollywood, where shelter-

ing the tender egos of action

stars is increasingly a cost of

doing business, no leading man

is willing to look less macho

than any other. Nowhere is that

more apparent than the “Fast &

Furious” franchise, where an

arms race of machismo can

break out between Mr. Diesel,

Mr. Statham and their third

beefy co-star, Dwayne Johnson.

Mr. Diesel’s points plan was

eventually abandoned once ev-

eryone decided it was too com-

plicated, according to a person

present who worked with the

star, but it was an example of

the delicate balance that must

be reached. The ninth film,

“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs

& Shaw,” opens Friday.

The main stars of the “Fast &

Furious” world portray a street

racer, a law-enforcement agent

PleaseturntopageA

LOS ANGELES—Vin Diesel

didn’t want to look like a wimp.

The actor was in rehearsal

for yet another fight in his sev-

enth “Fast & Furious” movie

when he started to sense his co-

star and on-screen opponent,

Jason Statham, was landing

more blows than he was.

Mr. Diesel had an idea: Why

not assign numerical values to

every move—head butt, round-

house kick, body slam—so he

could calculate a total and de-

termine if the two men were

getting pummeled evenly?

BYERICHSCHWARTZEL

Face-off

Student debt totaled about $1.5 trillion last

year, exceeding all other forms of consumer

debt except mortgages.

Auto debt is up nearly 40% adjusting for in-

flation in the last decade to $1.3 trillion. And

the average loan for new cars is up an infla-

tion-adjusted 11% in a decade, to $32,187, ac-

cording to an analysis of data from credit-re-

porting firm Experian.

Unsecured personal loans are back in vogue,

the result of competition between technology-

savvy lenders and big banks for borrowers and

loan volume.

The debt surge is partly by design, a by-

product of low borrowing costs the Federal Re-

PleaseturntopageA

sank almost 8%, their biggest

drop since February 2015.

The U.S. action could

prompt fresh retaliatory mea-

sures from Beijing, although

there is also the possibility

Mr. Trump could withdraw his

threat before the new levies

go into force.

Mr. Trump, a Republican,

made public his plans to impose

tariffs in a series of tweets that

followed a briefing from his

trade team on this week’s nego-

tiations in Shanghai. Those talks

ended with neither side detail-

ing significant progress toward

resolving the more than year-

long dispute.

Mr. Trump said that senior

officials still planned to re-

sume high-level discussions as

scheduled next month, and he

expressed his interest in

reaching “a comprehensive

PleaseturntopageA

Trump Plans New Tariffs on China

Markets fall as trade

conflict escalates;

levies would hit nearly

all goods in the country

The Federal Trade Commis-

sion is examining Facebook

Inc.’s acquisitions as part of its

antitrust investigation into the

social-media giant, seeking to

determine if they were part of

a campaign to snap up poten-

tial rivals to head off competi-

tive threats, according to peo-

ple familiar with the matter.

The company’s acquisition

practices are a central compo-

nent of the FTC probe, the peo-

ple said. Facebook disclosed

the FTC’s investigation in its

earnings announcement last

week but provided few details.

FTC investigators are exam-

ining whether the company

and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg,

purchased technology startups

to keep them from challenging

Facebook’s empire, said the

people, some of whom added

that the FTC has begun reach-

ing out to the founders of

these companies.

The tech giant has acquired

about 90 companies during

roughly the last 15 years, ac-

cording to data compiled by

S&P Global. Among those com-

panies are the photo-sharing

app Instagram and the mes-

saging service WhatsApp,

which bolstered Facebook as a

dominant force in social media

and messaging.

Facebook didn’t respond to

a request for comment. The

company said last week that

the FTC was investigating “in

the areas of social networking

or social media services, digi-

tal advertising, and/or mobile

or online applications.”

In congressional testimony

last month, Matt Perault, di-

rector of public policy at Face-

book, told a House antitrust

PleaseturntopageA

ByBrent Kendall,

John D. McKinnonand

Deepa Seetharaman

Banks’ Cloud Practices

Face Fed’s Scrutiny

The Federal Reserve con-

ducted a formal examination

this spring of an Amazon.com

Inc. facility in Virginia, the

first of what is expected to be

ongoing oversight of giant

cloud providers that have be-

come repositories of sensitive

banking information, people

familiar with the matter said.

Around the same time,

prosecutors allege, a 33-year-

old hacker in Seattle stole Cap-

ital One Financial Corp. data

from Amazon’s cloud storage.

The federal examiners who

visited Amazon in April are

the same ones who regulate

Capital One. It doesn’t appear

they were aware of the giant

hack. A person familiar with

the matter said the Fed was

told last week, a few days be-

fore Paige A. Thompson was

charged with stealing personal

information of more than 100

million Capital One card cus-

tomers and applicants.

The examiners were greeted

PleaseturntopageA

ByLiz Hoffman,

Dana Mattioli

andRyan Tracy

Facebook

Probe

Ta rge t s

Its Deal

Strategy

by U.S. Trade Representative

Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Sec-

retary Steven Mnuchin, White

House economic adviser Law-

rence Kudlow and national secu-

rity adviser John Bolton, ac-

cording to a person familiar

with the situation. But Mr.

Trump was adamant in pushing

the increase and was supported

by White House adviser Peter

Navarro, this person said. A

spokesman for Mr. Lighthizer

said he “supports the presi-

dent’s action.”

Wall Street was rattled by

the news, with the Dow Jones

Industrial Average erasing a

rebound of more than 300

points. The index closed down

281 points, or 1.1% lower. The

S&P 500 slid 0.9% and the

technology-heavy Nasdaq

Composite lost 0.8%. Oil prices

WASHINGTON—President

Trump moved Thursday to ex-

tend tariffs to essentially all

Chinese imports, escalating a

trade conflict that is poised to

hit U.S. consumers in the

pocketbook and roiling finan-

cial markets.

The new tariffs would take

effect Sept. 1 and cover $

billion in Chinese goods—in-

cluding smartphones, apparel,

toys and other consumer prod-

ucts. They would come on top of

tariffs already imposed on $

billion in imports from China.

“If they don’t want to trade

with us anymore, that would be

fine with me,” Mr. Trump said

at the White House.

The tariff hike was opposed

BYWILLIAMMAULDIN

ANDVIVIANSALAMA

Rebels in Yemen Kill at Least 36 in Attack on Military Parade

FAWAZ SALMAN/REUTERS

DEADLY STRIKE: Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed at least 36 people in a missile-and-drone attack Thursday in the government-controlled

city of Aden. The rebels targeted a military parade during a graduation ceremony for new recruits. Dozens more were injured. A

10-year U.S. Treasury yield Index performance U.S. crude-oil price

Sources: Tullett Prebon (yield); FactSet (indexes, price)

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Announcement Tweet

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What’s

News

Trump movedto extend

tariffs to essentially all

Chinese imports, escalating

a trade conflict that is

poised to hit U.S. consum-

ers in the pocketbook.A

The flow of investment

money between China and

the U.S. continued to de-

cline in the first half.A

The U.S. and Japanare

working to hammer out a

limited trade agreement.A

U.S. allies criticized

Washington’s decision to

impose sanctions on Iran’s

foreign minister and vowed

to keep their own diplo-

matic channels open.A

The Senate passeda

spending bill that also lifts

the government’s borrowing

limit, sending the legislation

to the president’s desk.A

The Justice Department

won’t prosecute Comey over

his dissemination of memos

detailing his encounters

with Trump that contained

classified information.A

Manhattan stateprose-

cutors have subpoenaed the

Trump Organization for doc-

uments related to a hush pay-

ment to Stormy Daniels.A

North Korea conducted

another weapons test,

launching short-range projec-

tiles off its east coast, South

Korean officials said.A

Saudi Arabia approveda

new law allowing women to

travel abroad without a male

guardian’s permission.A

The nation’s drugepi-

demic is becoming increas-

ingly urban, with death rates

from overdoses in cities over-

taking those of rural areas.A

T

he FTC is examining

Facebook’s acquisitions,

seeking to determine if they

were part of a push to snap

up potential rivals to head

off competitive threats.A

The Fed conducteda for-

mal examination this spring

of an Amazon facility, part of

what is expected to be ongo-

ing oversight of cloud provid-

ers that hold bank data.A

Defense chief Esperwill

review a massive cloud-

computing contract before

the Pentagon awards it.A

Markets were rattledas

Trump announced plans for

new China tariffs. Oil posted

its worst day in nearly 4½

years, while stocks and

bond yields sank.B1, B

GE is contendingwith a

fresh strain on its finances

as a result of the grounding

of Boeing’s 737 MAX jets.B

Lowe’s has toldthousands

of store workers their jobs

are being eliminated, as the

chain outsources tasks.B

Shell’s profit slidas

lower oil and gas prices and

weaker refining margins out-

weighed arise in output.B

GM forecastan accelera-

tion in profit through the rest

of 2019 that will be driven by

its biggest pickup trucks.B

The LSE confirmeda

$14.5 billion deal to acquire

Refinitiv from a Black-

stone-led consortium.B

Several potential buyers

have expressed interest in

purchasing a stake in Mira-

max from BeIN Media.B

Verizon addedmore

wireless customers in the

second quarter than some

analysts expected.B

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