默默新聞08

2019年8月6日星期二

DealBook Briefing: How Walmart Could Take a Stand on Guns

August 6, 2019

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Doug McMillon, Walmart's C.E.O. Gareth Patterson/Associated Press

An open letter to Walmart’s C.E.O.

In the wake of the weekend’s mass shootings — one of which took place at a Walmart in El Paso — Andrew urges the retail giant to take a stand on the rising tide of gun violence in America.

• In an open letter to Walmart’s C.E.O., Doug McMillon, Andrew writes that the company must use its economic clout “to help fix a system that is clearly broken, to solve a crisis whose costs are measured in lives, not just in profits and losses.”

• “You could threaten gun makers that you will stop selling any of their weapons unless they begin incorporating fingerprint technology to unlock guns.”

• “You have leverage over the financial institutions that offer banking and financing services to gun makers and gun retailers as well as those that lend money to gun buyers.”

• “The 22 people who died in your store this past weekend deserve more than words of consolation to their families. They deserve a leader who is going to work to make sure it never happens again.”

Walmart plays a central role in many crimes, given its huge presence throughout the U.S. For example, in some Kentucky cities, Walmart was tied to as many as 36 percent of all crime reports. Critics say the retailer must do more to improve security.

Other companies continue to grapple with the aftermath of the shootings:

• The website 8chan, where the man accused of the El Paso shooting posted a racist manifesto, has struggled to stay online after being dropped by service providers.

• The C.E.O. of Cloudflare, which stopped providing cybersecurity protection to 8chan, defended his decision to effectively kick the message board off the internet.

• Shares in video game makers like Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts fell yesterday after President Trump blamed violent games for contributing to the problem of shootings. (Though “data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive,” one expert told the NYT.)

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Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York, and Michael J. de la Merced and Jamie Condliffe in London.

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Kin Cheung/Associated Press

The currency war hits the markets

Well, that escalated quickly. After Beijing allowed its currency to weaken yesterday and halted new purchases of American farm goods, the markets recoiled, Ana Swanson, Alexandra Stevenson and Jeanna Smialek of the NYT write.

• Wall Street suffered its worst day of the year, with the S&P 500 tumbling nearly 3 percent.

• Yields on United States Treasuries, which fall as prices rise, dropped as investors sought safety in government-backed bonds. That deepened the inversion of the yield curve, a predictor of impending recession.

The U.S. Treasury labeled China a currency manipulator late yesterday, for the first time since 1994. “The action is mostly symbolic,” Ms. Swanson, Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Smialek write. “But China is likely to view the label as a rebuke, further escalating pressures between the countries.”

For now, China is limiting the slide of its currency. Earlier today, the People’s Bank of China set the midpoint to which the renminbi is tied slightly stronger than analysts had expected. That prompted S&P 500 futures to rise slightly, after they fell almost 2 percent upon China’s being labeled a currency manipulator.

The worry is what happens next:

• Of the current situation, Chris Krueger, a managing director at the Cowen Washington Research Group, said: “On a scale of 1-10, it’s an 11.”

• “It could get very serious,” Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University, told the WaPo. “This could lead the U.S. to essentially shut down all imports from China.”

• But Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University, called the Trump administration’s move an “empty threat” without further tariffs or sanctions.

More: How the situation could help President Trump push the Fed to cut interest rates again. The stock market rout wiped $150 billion off the value of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, with Apple hit the hardest.

Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press

Barneys files for Chapter 11

The New York department store chain filed for bankruptcy protection last night as it tries to find a buyer. It’s a new low for a retailer once revered as a temple for high fashion, Vanessa Friedman and Michael de la Merced of the NYT write.

Barneys plans to close 15 of its 22 stores, though its flagship Madison Avenue location in Manhattan will remain open. It also raised $75 million in financing from Gordon Brothers and Hilco Global — two firms with expertise in selling assets for bankrupt companies.

Blame real estate and retail woes. The annual rent for its Madison Avenue store nearly doubled last year, and rent at other stores went up as well. (Unlike many retailers, Barneys doesn’t own its real estate.) Foot traffic at its physical locations also dropped.

The company had tried to raise money to avoid bankruptcy, but potential investors wanted protection in case the company failed. That made it hard to secure capital before filing for Chapter 11, an unnamed source told the NYT.

Now it’s planning a sale of itself. The company said in a statement that it had received interest from several potential buyers, none of them department store groups.

It’s another sign of troubles facing the retail industry. Not even luxury stores have been immune to the rise of e-commerce, which lets customers shop from home and buy directly from designers. Even recent efforts by Barneys to stay relevant — like a cannabis shop — have fallen short.

Ex-Fed chiefs plead for central bank independence

As President Trump breaks precedent by applying political pressure on the Fed, four former chairs of the central bank — Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen — called on the president to stop in a WSJ op-ed.

• “We are united in the conviction that the Fed and its chair must be permitted to act independently and in the best interests of the economy, free of short-term political pressures and, in particular, without the threat of removal or demotion of Fed leaders for political reasons,” they write.

• “In retrospect, not all our choices were perfect. But we believe those decisions were better for being the product of nonpartisan, nonpolitical assessments based on analysis of the longer-run economic interests of U.S. citizens rather than being motivated by short-term political advantage.”

• “Even the perception that monetary-policy decisions are politically motivated, or influenced by threats that policymakers won’t be able to serve out their terms of office, can undermine public confidence that the central bank is acting in the best interest of the economy.”

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Can Big Tech’s legal shield hold up?

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has helped internet companies flourish since 1996, by letting them moderate content without being on the hook legally for everything they host. But it’s increasingly coming under scrutiny from lawmakers, Daisuke Wakabayashi of the NYT reports.

It is “a subsidy, a perk,” said Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California called it a “gift” to tech companies “that could be removed.” Some Republicans argue that its protections should be withheld because tech companies have censored conservatives. Some Democrats say it provides an excuse not to take down problematic content or tackle harassment.

“The internet industry has a financial incentive to keep Section 230 intact,” Mr. Wakabayashi writes. “The law has helped build companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars with a lucrative business model of placing ads next to largely free content from visitors.” More recently, it has “provided legal cover for the complicated decisions regarding content moderation.”

But Section 230 isn’t dead. “While there is growing political will to do something,” Mr. Wakabayashi writes, “finding a middle ground on potential changes is a challenge.”

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Wall Street girds for less growth in pay

Compensation for many employees of big banks and asset managers is expected to stay flat or drop this year, during a tough time for some parts of the financial industry, Lauren LaCapra of Reuters reports.

Equities trading and underwriting will probably be hardest hit, according to a new report by the compensation consultancy Johnson Associates. Their annual pay packages could fall by as much as 15 percent from last year.

Bond traders could see their compensation go down 5 percent, while M.&A. bankers and private wealth managers would see their pay stay flat.

That’s reflected in earnings reports, Ms. LaCapra writes. Morgan Stanley’s compensation expense for the first half of 2019 was down 13 percent from the same time last year. Goldman Sachs’s was down 12 percent, while JPMorgan Chase’s was down 2 percent.

Some lucky workers have modest cause to celebrate. Employees in the private equity and hedge fund industries could see their pay rise up to 5 percent, according to Johnson Associates.

The N.Y.S.E. Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock

N.Y.S.E. tries to give traders a speed increase

Yesterday may have been tumultuous for stocks, but at the New York Stock Exchange some things were working fine: The first part of a trading-speed upgrade for stocks listed on the Big Board took place without a hitch, according to Alexander Osipovich of the WSJ.

The N.Y.S.E. wants to cut order processing time to 40 microseconds, down from around 120 microseconds. That would put it within spitting distance for trading times at Nasdaq, where order processing takes about 35 microseconds, according to the WSJ.

Speed is vital on exchanges because so many of the trades made on their platforms come from high-frequency traders, who tend to transact on markets where they can move as quickly as possible.

But the upgrade has a checkered history. Initial tests on lower-profile N.Y.S.E. exchanges were “marred by glitches and delays,” according to the WSJ, which has meant that its rollout was “repeatedly halted so the N.Y.S.E. could fix bugs and allow more testing.” And the upgrade of the Big Board is especially complex because of some “unique quirks.”

Revolving door

Ed Razek, the longtime marketing chief at Victoria’s Secret who was criticized last year for comments about transsexuals, is retiring.

HSBC plans to lay off up to 4,700 employees, or 2 percent of its work force, to cut costs.

The British grocery chain Tesco aims to cut about 4,500 jobs, mostly at its Metro line of stores.

The speed read

Deals

• GateHouse Media agreed to buy Gannett, the owner of USA Today, for about $1.4 billion. (NYT)

• The media company led by James Murdoch agreed to buy a controlling stake in Tribeca Enterprises, the operator of the Tribeca Film Festival. (Bloomberg)

• Minority shareholders of the German publisher Axel Springer approved the company’s sale to the investment firm KKR. (FT)

• The cybersecurity company Cybereason raised $200 million from investors led by SoftBank ahead of an expected I.P.O. (Forbes)

Politics and policy

• President Trump condemned white supremacy after the weekend’s mass shootings but didn’t call for greater gun control. Also: how the Trump 2020 campaign used Facebook ads to push the idea of an “invasion” at America’s southern border. (NYT)

• The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said he had asked lawmakers to consider bipartisan solutions to gun violence “without infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights.” (NYT)

• How Neil Chatterjee, a former aide to Mr. McConnell, is using his chairmanship of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to relax regulations for the power industry. (Politico)

• Watch how quickly the U.S. national debt is rising. (WSJ)

Trade

• President Trump imposed new economic sanctions on Venezuela’s government. (NYT)

• Britain has joined the U.S. in a bid to protect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian threats. (NYT)

Tech

• Democratic senators have urged Google to give its temporary workers full-time status. (NYT)

• Marriott has booked a $126 million charge for its huge data breach that was disclosed last year. (WSJ)

• Amazon reportedly penalizes product listings by third-party merchants who charge less for products on rival sites, effectively forcing them to raise prices elsewhere. (Bloomberg)

• A memo inside Google that accuses the company of discrimination against pregnant women has gone viral. (Motherboard)

Best of the rest

• The Fed plans to create a real-time payments system by 2023, in hopes of making paychecks and money transfers available for use more quickly. (NYT)

• Investors seem to believe that the Bank of England could turn to negative interest rates by early 2021. (Bloomberg)

• States are clashing with cities over who should lead the way on opioids settlement payouts. (NYT)

• Silicon Valley’s latest unicorn is run by a 22-year-old. (Bloomberg)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

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N.Y. Today: New York’s Own Problem With Gun Violence

What you need to know for Tuesday.

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Tuesday, August 6, 2019

NYTimes.com »

New York Today

Gun Violence: New York's Own Problem

By AZI PAYBARAH

It's Tuesday. And there's a cat that doesn't want to be rescued from a sewer, Bklyner reported.

Weather: Chance of rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon, with a high in the mid-80s.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until Sunday (Eid al-Adha).

A march after the mass shooting last month in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
John Taggart for The New York Times

With the nation grieving over the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Governor Cuomo talked about a gun control law he passed six years ago. Mayor de Blasio took the unusual step of agreeing to go on Fox News tomorrow to talk about the news of the day.

But even as New York officials were responding to the bloodshed over the weekend, the city continued to grapple with its own gun violence problem.

Yes, crime in New York is at a two-decade low.

Still, a mass shooting on July 27 at a block party in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn that left one person dead and 11 injured underscored the unsettling increase in violence in recent months, especially in parts of that borough.

How many shootings are there in New York City?

As of July 28, 521 people had been shot this year in New York City, in 441 shooting incidents, according to the police. That's up from 501 people shot in 413 incidents in the same period a year ago.

The shootings are not spread evenly across the city. Some precincts in Queens and Manhattan have not reported any shootings this year. Others have logged quite a few.

In North Brooklyn's 79th Precinct, which includes Bedford-Stuyvesant, 24 people have been shot this year, including those at the block party.

What happened in Brownsville?

The Old Timers Day block party drew a large crowd to the Brownsville Playground on July 27.

Gunfire erupted at about 11 p.m. Police investigators said several victims had gang ties. The police have also said that gang violence is fueling the rise in gun violence throughout the city.

Immediately after the Brownsville attack, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and others wanted it labeled a mass shooting.

Mr. de Blasio initially resisted calling the attack a mass shooting. (He later used the term.)

"That is basically saying mass shootings are three or more that do not take place in the African-American community," Mr. Adams said in an interview on Monday.

"We've become numb to gun violence in certain parts of the city," he added. "Eleven people on Park Avenue in Manhattan, it's a mass shooting and a crisis. Eleven people shot on Park Place in Brooklyn, it's another day in the neighborhood."

How does New York State compare with other states in terms of gun laws?

New York has an A- rating from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The center ranks New York sixth out of 50 states for the strength of its gun laws, and 48th out of 50 for having among the lowest rates of gun deaths.

The center says there is a direct correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer deaths by guns. Gun-rights groups believe that these laws penalize law-abiding gun owners.

What are New York's gun laws?

After the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, New York State pushed through stricter gun laws, called the Safe Act.

The new rules required assault weapons to be registered every five years with the state police, and made background checks mandatory in an effort to prevent people with serious criminal records or mental illness from buying guns.

How many crimes are committed with guns in New York State?

Last year, there were 7,885 violent crimes committed with firearms in New York, according to state figures. More than 4,200 of those crimes were in New York City's five boroughs.

Many of the guns used in crimes here are not from here. Guns are coming into New York from places that don't have laws as strict as New York's, according to the state attorney general's office.

What more needs to be done?

Mr. Adams served in the State Senate when the Safe Act was passed. He said it was ineffective for the kinds of shootings that plague some parts of New York City.

"We immediately pushed forward legislation that targeted assault rifles and high-speed ammunition," he said of the Safe Act. "That is not the crisis in Brownsville. No one is walking around with an assault rifle" there.

Handguns are the more pervasive problem, Mr. Adams said.

A focus on assault rifles, he added, means neighborhoods that need help can be overlooked.

From The Times

Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

Driverless cars arrive in New York City: Six autonomous vehicles will shuttle passengers around the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

A nanny asked her ex-boyfriend to return a key. He arrived with a knife.

Cesar Sayoc, who mailed pipe bombs to critics of President Trump, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

President Trump echoed "Fox & Friends" on mass shootings. The New York Post dissented.

Barneys, a global symbol of creative cool, filed for bankruptcy.

A swarm of 25,000 bees was removed from a Staten Island Ferry terminal by the police.

[Want more news from New York and around the region? Check out our full coverage.]

The Mini Crossword: Here is today's puzzle.

What we're reading

Summer meal programs at schools should be expanded to include parents, the City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, said. [Chalkbeat]

What it's like to ride in bike lanes: This video shows a trip in New York. [Patch]

A rally on Staten Island was held in support of Officer Daniel Pantaleo, after a Police Department judge recommended he be fired in connection with Eric Garner's death. [Staten Island Advance]

Coming up today

Watch the movie "Finding Dory" at Sherman Creek Park in Manhattan. 7 p.m. [Free, includes popcorn]

Punderdome, a monthly pun competition, and its "human clap-o-meter" return to Littlefield in Brooklyn. Read about what to expect here. 8 p.m. [$12]

The National Park Service hosts a campfire at Great Kills Beach on Staten Island that includes music and stories. Bring your own blanket or chair. 7 p.m. [Free]

— Amy Osorio

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times's culture pages.

And finally: Is the show over for Dean & DeLuca?

Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

New York is famous for its characters. And its characters have made some Manhattan coffee joints famous.

Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer had Tom's Restaurant.

Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey and Phoebe had Central Perk.

And Felicity Porter had Dean & DeLuca.

Television shows seemingly live on forever, thanks to reruns and streaming services. Coffee shops sometimes do not.

Yes, you can still visit where Jerry and his "Seinfeld" gang discussed "yada yada yada" at Broadway and 112th Street.

Central Perk wasn't a real place, but a pop-up in SoHo will soon offer seats on the couch that the friends from "Friends" occupied.

But the future of Dean & DeLuca, where the titular character on "Felicity" worked as a barista, is uncertain.

Dean & DeLuca, now a global chain of luxury food shops, has defaulted on payments to former employees and delayed payments to current employees in the United States, The Times reported.

"According to multiple employees, both former and current, landlords served eviction notices at two New York stores that have now closed, citing hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent," Julia Moskin, a Times food reporter, wrote.

Small vendors in New York City also said they were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 2014, Dean & DeLuca had more than 40 locations across the country. But five years later, only four are left — including the flagship location in SoHo, which was opened in 1977 by Giorgio DeLuca and Joel Dean.

The original storefront offered delicacies that many New Yorkers had never tasted. Decades later, the city is now teeming with specialty food stores, and Dean & DeLuca's new showpiece location in the meatpacking district closed after three months.

It's Tuesday — drink good coffee.

Metropolitan Diary: After Sandy

Dear Diary:

It was four days after Hurricane Sandy. I had moved to New York just three months earlier. I was living in a shabby one-bedroom in Kingsbridge in the Bronx, and I had serious cabin fever. As soon as the trains started to run again, I decided to go into Manhattan.

The train was more crowded than I had ever seen it. I bailed at 72nd Street and decided to walk down Broadway. I texted some friends in Park Slope and made plans to meet for lunch.

I kept walking on Broadway until I got to Chambers Street. It was the first time I had seen a significant portion of the downtown area, and the power was still out. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time that day, too. I remember it being wickedly cold.

Later, when it was time to go home, I lined up for a shuttle bus outside Barclays Center. A young woman approached me and asked if I wanted a free ride to Manhattan. The mayor had imposed a minimum of three riders per vehicle, and she said that she and her friend needed a third.

I agreed, and followed her around the corner. Her friend, it turned out, was her father's personal driver. I got a limo ride across the Manhattan Bridge and had them drop me off at the New York Public Library.

We made small talk along the way. I explained that I had moved to the city to study architecture history. The young woman pointed out random buildings and asked questions about them. I did my best to answer.

When they dropped me off, she asked for my card. It was the first time that had ever happened to me, too.

— Juliana Antoninus

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