The Federal Aviation Administration this morning cleared Boeing's 737 MAX to fly again in the U.S. — 20 months after the plane’s worldwide grounding.

Why it matters: A pair of fatal plane crashes laid bare the gross oversight and safety lapses on the part of Boeing and the FAA. The fallout led to the resignation of top executives — including Boeing's CEO — a criminal investigation, and the company’s biggest financial hit in its centurylong history.

The state of play: The planes likely won’t be in the air for several more weeks, if not months. Airlines will need to update the flight software and pilots will need to train.

• International aviation regulators are expected to follow the FAA’s lead and lift bans on the MAX.

Catch up quick: In both MAX crashes, which killed 346 people, pilots lost control of the MAX when a sensor in its flight control system malfunctioned and relentlessly pushed the nose of the plane downward.

• There was no backup sensor. Pilots weren’t adequately trained on the flight control system and couldn’t counteract it quickly enough.
• Boeing has made software changes — including ones that limit the system’s capability to push the plane's nose down. The FAA conducted a series of certification test flights of the MAX.

The big picture: Orders of the company’s bestseller were expected to rebound after the ungrounding. That was before the pandemic hit, and before fears about contracting the virus led to a collapse in travel.

• The unprecedented travel slump means airlines don’t need more MAX jets — or any other new planes.
• Boeing is closer now to offloading its 450 MAX jets sitting in storage, though some airlines have pushed off deliveries of previously ordered planes or canceled them altogether.

The bottom line: Even when consumers do feel safe to fly again, the MAX will have to overcome the reputational damage from the crashes.

America's defense contractors aren't celebrating Joe Biden's victory. They haven't accepted defeat yet, but they are digging in for budgetary battles, Axios’ Felix Salmon and Hans Nichols report.

Why it matters: The biggest companies in the military-industrial complex tend to see increasing revenues only under Republican presidents.

By the numbers: Axios looked at the total revenues for Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics — the heart of America's defense industry. (We didn't include Boeing because so much of its business is civilian aircraft.)

• At the end of the Clinton administration, the four companies collectively generated just under $70 billion over the previous 12 months.
• George W. Bush then launched two costly wars in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. By the end of his term, those four companies' revenue had risen 136% to $165 billion.
• The Obama years saw effectively no change, with total 12-month revenues dipping slightly to $163 billion after eight years.
• Then President Trump arrived. For all his determination to pull American troops out of foreign conflicts, he also promised to replenish stockpiles that were depleted by the Budget Control Act. Annual revenues of the four defense contractors rose 30% in his first three years in office, hitting a peak of $211 billion.

Between the lines: Biden has indicated that he doesn't plan drastic cuts to the Pentagon's $705 billion budget. “I don’t think [budget cuts] are inevitable, but we need priorities,” Biden told Stars and Stripes in September.

• The priorities include some $3 trillion in non-defense spending, which puts pressure on him to shrink the Pentagon's budget.
• The defense industry is banking on congressional Republicans. "We are more interested in who controls the Senate than the White House," an industry source told Axios.

The bottom line: The four defense contractors are now collectively worth $304 billion. That's down $70 billion, or 19%, from the February high. The market clearly does not believe that Biden will be as generous to arms dealers as Trump was.

The U.S. reported 161,934 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday. (CNN)

Trump's controversial Fed pick Judy Shelton appears to be blocked from joining the central bank's board, for now. (Axios)

Candy giant Mars is buying the maker of Kind bars in a deal that reportedly values Kind North America at $5 billion. (NYT)

Senators pressed SEC Chair Jay Clayton on why publicly traded companies aren’t required to report their climate-related risk. (Pensions & Investments)

The consumer-spending pullback whacked businesses that were already struggling to recover from the initial hit from the pandemic, data from the U.S. Census Bureau show.

Why it matters: This month’s lockdowns (or people curbing their own activity for safety reasons) will be a bigger setback for these same shops in the weeks to come.

The winners: Some shops have seen a complete recovery — and then some.

• Spending at car dealers and auto part shops is 10% higher now than last year, thanks to a hotter car market in the wake of the pandemic.
• Nonstore retailers, such as e-commerce giants like Amazon, rose 29% year over year.

The losers: That was not the case for restaurants: Heading into a second round of economic restrictions, the recovery in spending at restaurants has already flatlined.

• Sales at restaurants are more than 14% lower from this time last year.
• At clothing stores, sales are nearly 13% lower from last year.

Zoom out: Overall, consumers continued to spend in October — but not nearly as ferociously as prior months.

• Retail sales edged up 0.3% — the smallest monthly rise in sales figures since May, when shopping initially rebounded from the record drop early on in the pandemic.
• It‘s raising red flags about the economic recovery, which will depend heavily on strong consumer spending.

What’s happening: It could be “the start of a negative turn in consumption — either due to rising COVID cases or the potentially millions of unemployed workers reaching the end of their CARES Act savings,” Curt Long, chief economist at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, said in a press release.

The bottom line: “October retail sales were underwhelming, but the retail outlook for November is even bleaker,“ Morning Consult economist John Leer noted, citing the research firm’s own data that show falling consumer confidence this month.

• Economists at JPMorgan said in a note to clients that weak Chase card spending data “underscore that the momentum loss is building into November.”