The Week - USA (2021-02-12)

The latest trailer from

Airstream is designed

for remote workers,

said Peter Valdes-

Dapena in CNN.com.

Recreational vehicle

sales have soared dur-

ing the pandemic, and

the company “famous

for its shiny aluminum

trailers” is giving trav-

elers another reason

to shun air travel

and hotels. The new

30-foot-long Flying

Cloud 30FB trailer takes

some of the original

sleeping space and

turns it into “a fully

appointed workspace,”

with “a desk and an

office chair that slides

snugly into an indenta-

tion.” The desk offers

sliding drawers “and a

built-in Blu-ray player,”

as well as a mounting

place for a computer

monitor. “Heavy cur-

tains can be pulled

across the windows to

control lighting during

video calls,” and the

overhead storage areas

feature dry-erase sur-

faces for keeping notes.

Unfortunately for those

ready to hit the road,

wait times are “longer

than normal” for the

$107,500 camper.

#VanLife gets an

office edition

BUSINESS

Jeff Bezos is ending “one of the

most epic runs in modern busi-

ness history,” said Brad Stone in

Bloomberg.com. The Amazon chief

announced this week that later this

year he will hand over day-to-day

control of the e-commerce giant to

Andy Jassy, head of Amazon Web

Services, while staying as executive

chairman. The change seems natu-

ral after Bezos’ 26 years plotting

Amazon’s journey from an online bookseller into

a behemoth valued at $1.7 trillion. But running

Amazon “could potentially become a lot less fun”

as regulatory challenges from Washington and

several states loom. The move will also give Bezos

time to focus on his space company, Blue Origin,

which “lags far behind its chief rival, SpaceX.”

“Bezos isn’t getting less powerful,”

said Theodore Schleifer in Vox.

com, “his power is just getting less

obvious.” As one of the world’s

two richest men, Bezos wields

extraordinary influence in “poli-

tics, philanthropy, and media.”

He also remains Amazon’s largest

individual shareholder, positioning

his wealth to keep growing. Bezos

has “loud critics,” but he “is not

as widely disliked as, say, Facebook founder

Mark Zuckerberg.” Bezos should look to the

model of another “Seattle tech mega-billionaire,

Bill Gates.” Gates was also once regarded as a

“cold-blooded corporate killer,” but his post-

Microsoft work has burnished his reputation and

changed lives for the better.

Amazon: Jeff Bezos to give up CEO spot

Autos: GM wants to go carbon neutral by 2040

General Motors said last week it plans to end all production of

petroleum-powered vehicles by 2035, said Neal Boudette and Coral

Davenport in The New York Times, selling “only vehicles that have

zero tailpipe emissions” and becoming carbon neutral by 2040. The

announcement came days after President Biden signed several executive

orders to address climate change, including one that “reinstates tough

auto fuel-economy rules put in place during the Obama administration.”

GM now “plans to spend $27 billion over the next five years to intro-

duce 30 EVs, including an electric Hummer.”

Energy: Oil giants consider merger as Exxon struggles

The two biggest U.S. oil companies discussed a merger, said Christopher

Matthews in The Wall Street Journal. The chief executives of

ExxonMobil and Chevron, the “two largest descendants of John D.

Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly,” spoke last year about combin-

ing the two oil giants. “Many investors, analysts and energy executives

have called for consolidation in the beleaguered oil-and-gas industry,”

anticipating further shifts from fossil fuels. Exxon this week reported its

fourth quarter in the red, with a total loss of $22 billion in 2020.

Facebook: Grassroots groups protest new policies

A Facebook decision to “permanently stop recommending political

groups to its users” threatens to cripple grassroots political organizing,

said Elena Schneider and Cristiano Lima in Politico.com. Progressive

advocacy group leaders have “long called on Facebook to clamp down

on incendiary posts and hate speech.” But critics say the new policy

“will disadvantage organizers who help to usher new people into new

movements like the Trump-era women’s marches or Black Lives Matter

protests,” as well as more traditional get-out-the-vote efforts.

Revolving door: Trump officials start ‘blank check’ firm

Two ex–Trump administration officials are starting a SPAC, said Dan

Primack in Axios.com. Wilbur Ross, the former Commerce secretary,

“has turned his attention to the booming market” for so-called blank-

check companies, saying this week that he will run a new special-pur-

pose acquisition company called Ross Acquisition II, that’s seeking $345

million to purchase a company to take public. Larry Kudlow, Trump’s

former chief economic adviser, will serve on the board of directors.

Investors have shown a surprising appetite for SPACs, pouring in money

in the hope that shares will skyrocket with a successful acquisition.

32

The news at a glance

Re

ute

rs,

Ne

tfli

x

Building his legacy

QBoth Apple and Amazon

reported their first $100

billion quarters this week.

Apple sales hit $111 billion

for the last quarter of 2020,

and Amazon’s sales reached

close to $126 billion. For the

year, Amazon’s sales rose

38 percent, an extraordinary

increase for a company of its

size, to $386 billion.

The Wall Street Journal

QPfizer said it expects to sell

about $15 billion in coronavi-

rus vaccine doses this year,

netting a profit in the high

20 percent range of revenue.

The company said it plans

to deliver 200 million doses

of its coronavirus vaccine to

the U.S. by May, earlier than

its initial forecast of July.

CNBC.com

QAfter grow-

ing steadily

for the past

decade, the

number of

new original

scripted TV

and streaming series fell

last year to 493, down from

the 532 new scripted series

produced in 2019.

Axios.com

QAmazon processed 27,664

government demands for

user data in the last six

months of 2020, up from

3,222 data demands in the

first six months of the year,

an increase of close to 800

percent. Germany made 42

percent of those requests;

the total for the U.S. was 11

percent.

TechCrunch.com

QThe Congressional Budget

Office projects that the U.S.

economy will return to pre-

pandemic size by mid-2021.

For this month, the CBO

anticipates Gross Domestic

Product will grow at 4.6

percent, and unemployment

will be 5.3 percent.

Axios.com

QThe online startup Millions

promises $1 million prizes to

people who can choose six

winning numbers. The only

catch is that the odds of hit-

ting the jackpot are just 1 in

1,120,529,256.

TheVerge.com

The bottom line