Universal basic income pilot programs, U.S. earnings on the rise, an identity crisis and more!

It’s raining dollars: Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, is donating $3 million to Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI), a new coalition of 15 mayors who want to explore the creation of universal basic income pilot programs in their respective cities across the country, reports Forbes.

“Mayors are the moral leaders of the country,” says Michael Tubbs, mayor of Stockton, California and creator of the coalition. “They’re on the frontlines dealing with, responding to and working for constituents each and every day. Given Covid-19 and the need for regular ongoing cash assistance, and also the protests on not just police violence but structural violence in the city, I knew it was time to leverage what we’ve learned in Stockton and create a network of mayors and advocate with a collective voice for guaranteed cash payments.”

Stocks on the rise: U.S. stocks rose on Monday as investors focused on the major companies that will report their earnings this week. The numbers are a reflection of how these companies’ operations have been affected by the pandemic, which should indicate the shape and pace of economic recovery in the US and Europe.

“There’s some optimism about the tone of the upcoming earnings,” said Jane Foley, senior foreign exchange strategist at Rabobank. “People have written off the second quarter, but they have high expectations for the third quarter. The market may have to notch expectations for earnings lower.”

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 300 points and the S&P 500 rose 0.9%, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Difficult distinctions: Previously, media companies could easily be identified as one of three main classifications based on their business focus- content, distribution or technology.  The lines between the three categories began to blur a decade ago when Comcast Comcast acquired NBCUniversal. Since then, television has continually grown combined with the internet, and new distribution channels have appeared to create companies within newly defined spaces.

Traditional distribution and content companies are redefining themselves in an attempt to claim dominance in these new emerging markets. The path chosen by these companies dictates content and acquisition strategy. Read more in this piece by CNBC for a detailed insight.

Creative destruction: America can usually reshape its economy after a recession more efficiently than Europe, partly due to the ease American entrepreneurs face in streamlining their businesses by firing workers or opting for bankruptcy. However, these strategies may not be effective in the face of the pandemic as the speed and severity of the economic downturn increases the costs of rapid restructuring. Governments everywhere are struggling to find the appropriate margin they should allow for what economists refer to as “creative destruction”, or the process of companies being replaced by new or more productive alternatives.

Read more in this piece by Bloomberg for a detailed insight.

 

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