The latest from Chair Powell and the Fed from his Peterson Institute appearance this week, including the stark warning that the U.S. was “experiencing an economic hit ‘without modern precedent’” that could “permanently damage the economy if Congress and the White House did not provide sufficient financial support to prevent a wave of bankruptcies and prolonged joblessness” – NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch and Marketplace
A fascinating look from the Times at how the past few months in lockdown have changed Americans’ online shopping habits and who are the “new online shopping winners” – NYTimes
Goldman’s now predicting the U.S. jobless rate will climb to 25%, not the 15% its economists had originally forecast. The revised estimates did, however, offer optimism over a quicker recovery than first thought from the fallout of the pandemic – Bloomberg
We’re all about the head-scratching side effects of the coronavirus outbreak, and one of them appears to be renewable power eclipsing coal as the dominant source of energy in the U.S. this year—despite a “three-year push” from the White House to “revive the ailing industry by weakening pollution rules on coal-burning power plants.” So what’s Covid’s role? The overall drop in demand for electricity from now-shuttered factories, retailers, restaurants, and offices means utilities are cutting back on the more-expensive coal plant output – NYTimes
Diving deeper into the financials behind the possible Uber/Grubhub deal shows that even with Americans largely stuck at home, food delivery companies are largely struggling to turn a profit – WSJ
Oh Elon. You okay, buddy? – NYTimes
The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which manages a massive government retirement fund, has canceled plans to invest in Chinese stocks this year “after growing criticism that the move would channel the savings of government workers to companies that are working against the national security goals of the United States” – NYTimes
Facebook has a new privacy lawsuit on its hands—this time in the form of a derivative class suit “accusing the company founder Mark Zuckerberg and 18 other current or past directors and officers of fiduciary duty failures in the wake of a recently affirmed $5 billion federal privacy and data breach settlement” – Law360
The Fed is criticizing Deutsche Bank’s money-laundering controls in a recent letter to the bank that also “slapped [the bank] for failing to solve problems that led [the central bank] to classify the bank’s U.S. operations as being in ‘troubled condition’ in 2017” – WSJ
Can Zoom be anything more than unintentionally funny? Not sure, but I trust Bill Irwin (seen here unable to avoid the lure of the merengue) to give it a shot – NYTimes