Thursday, January 9, 2025

Under siege

Bloomberg Morning Briefing Americas
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Good morning. The devastating Los Angeles fires may amount to one of the costliest US natural disasters. It's former President Jimmy Carter's state funeral. And the spat continues over whether the US military has gone "woke." Listen to the day's top stories.

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Wildfires continued to spread across Los Angeles, leaving at least five dead, forcing more than 100,000 to evacuate, and destroying about 2,000 buildings so far. There are as many as five fires burning across the city, including an outbreak that flared yesterday evening in the Hollywood Hills. The blazes will probably cause between $52 billion to $57 billion in damage and economic loss, making it among the costliest US natural disasters, AcccuWeather said. President Joe Biden canceled a planned trip to Italy to monitor the response to the fires.

Los Angeles Fires Show No Sign of Stopping

Global banks will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years—a net 3% of the workforce—as AI takes on more tasks, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence survey. Back, middle office and operations are most at risk. A reminder that Citi said last year that AI is likely to replace more jobs in banking than in any other sector. JPMorgan had a more optimistic view (from an employee perspective, at any rate), saying its AI rollout has augmented, not replaced, jobs so far.

A relative of former President Jimmy Carter pays his respects in the Rotunda of the Capitol. Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The US stock market are closed today in observance of the national day of mourning for former President Jimmy Carter. Following a rancorous and volatile election, Carter's state funeral at Washington's National Cathedral will bring together political rivals to honor a man praised by both parties for his humility and decency. Biden and President-elect Donald Trump will be joined by former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

A US dockworkers union reached a tentative deal on a new labor contract that, if ratified, would avoid a shutdown of East and Gulf coast ports next week. Here's a reminder of what's at stake in the talks and what lies behind the threat of a strike.

A senior Apple executive left Jakarta without securing a deal to lift an Indonesian ban on iPhone 16 sales, people familiar said. In other corporate news: North American demand helped Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing report strong growth in revenue and operating profit for the latest quarter. And former Google CEO Eric Schmidt made a significant investment in 3D-printed rocket maker Relativity Space.

Related Stories
White House Rushes to Finish Cyber Order After China Hacks
DOJ Readying Lawsuit Seeking to Block Corporate Travel Merger

Deep Dive: Lina Khan's Legacy

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Only seven working days remain in the Biden administration, but Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan still hopes to push a few more cases out the door before she leaves.

  • Khan has been engaging with Andrew Ferguson, the man Donald Trump nominated as her successor, and urged the incoming administration to continue vigorously enforcing antitrust law. "It requires enforcers to stay aggressive to not see backsliding there."
  • Under Biden, the FTC and fellow enforcer, the DOJ's antitrust division, faced intense criticism from much of corporate America for what it saw as hindrances to deal-making. Khan's FTC sued Amazon for monopolization, and successfully blocked megadeals involving Nvidia and Lockheed Martin. But it lost two major challenges against Meta and Microsoft
  • As an FTC commissioner, Ferguson has dissented from several of Khan's rulemaking efforts, including a ban on non-compete clauses in employment contracts and rules to make it easier to cancel subscriptions.
  • Even so, Trump's antitrust picks are likely to take a hard line on the tech giants, and a harder line on corporate consolidation than the average Republican.
Related Stories
FTC Bans Hidden 'Junk Fees' for Hotels and Concert Tickets

The Big Take

How Analyst Job Cuts Are Reshaping Wall Street
Forces like regulation, passive investing and AI have all conspired to squeeze equity research in ways few could have imagined. Countless "sell-side" analysts have had to reinvent themselves as a result.

Opinion

A helicopter dumps water on flames from the Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills, on Jan. 8. Photographer: Ethan Swope/AP

US presidents shouldn't play politics with fire, Erika D. Smith writes. But California can't expect the swift approval of federal assistance it received from Joe Biden under the incoming Trump administration. 

More Opinions
Tyler Cowen
China's DeepSeek Shows Why Trump's Trade War Will Be Hard to Win
Gordon Brown
Trump Must Keep the US in the World Health Organization

Before You Go

Photographer: Allison Robbert/Bloomberg

Outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected claims from Donald Trump—and from Trump's choice to replace him—that the American military has become too "woke." The people making those comments "may not really have a full understanding of what our troops are doing and how well they're doing it,"  Austin said. 

One More
Rahm Emanuel Says US Defense Firms Cause Bigger Risks Than China

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