Aug 23, 2017

Goldman Sachs wants to leverage its White House influence

Axios

Richard Drew / AP

The Financial Times has a paywalled look at how Goldman Sachs hopes to use its clout in the Trump White House to target the Volcker rule, a regulatory hallmark of the Obama administration's efforts to prevent another Great Recession:

"The idea of banning so-called proprietary trading — conceived by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker — was a centrepiece of former president Barack Obama's efforts to build a bulwark against future crises requiring public bailouts. But the prohibition's final form, which stretched to 964 pages of regulation, has been criticised by banks as muddled and overly complex. They blame it for inhibiting market making activity that was meant to be permitted."

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Axios

Bernie Sanders wins Nevada caucus

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders waves to supporters at a campaign rally on Friday in Las Vegas. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Sen. Bernie Sanders is projected to handily win the Nevada Democratic primary caucus, becoming the clear frontrunner among 2020 Democratic presidential primary election candidates.

Why it matters: Nevada is the first state with a diverse population to hold a nominating contest, highlighting candidates' abilities to connect with voters of color — particularly Latino voters.

Go deeperArrowUpdated 47 mins ago - Politics & Policy
Axios

South Korea and Italy see spikes in coronavirus cases

Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and China's Health Ministry. Note: China numbers are for the mainland only and U.S. numbers include repatriated citizens.

The novel coronavirus has spread to more nations, and the U.S. reports a doubling of its confirmed cases to 34 — while noting these are mostly due to repatriated citizens, emphasizing there's no "community spread" yet in the United States.

The big picture: COVID-19 has now killed at least 2,362 people and infected more than 77,000 others, mostly in mainland China. New countries to announce infections recently include Israel and Lebanon, while Iran reported its sixth death from the virus. South Korea's confirmed cases jumped from 204 Friday to 433 on Saturday and Italy's case count rose from 3 to 62 by Saturday.

Go deeperArrowUpdated 5 hours ago - Health
Rashaan Ayesh

America's rundown roads add to farmers' struggles

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

American farmers are struggling to safely use the roads that cut through their fields; decades of neglect and lack of funding have made the routes dangerous.

The big picture: President Trump has long promised to invest billions in rural infrastructure, and his latest proposal would allocate $1 trillion for such projects. Rural America, where many of Trump's supporters live, would see a large chunk of that money.

Go deeperArrow10 hours ago - Economy & Business