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The email covers emerging issues shaping commerce and culture, plus the top business news impacting globalization, disruption, and politics.

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-Marc

Brigadoon Daily
January 21, 2020
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia

Davos, World Economic Forum, Impeachment, Facial Recognition, Liverpool FC

TOP FIVE

✔️ Thunberg + Trump to offer competing visions at climate-focused Davos

✔️ Can the World Economic Forum keep its mojo?

✔️ Gym of the future will be virtual, gamified, and totally immersive

✔️ McConnell moves to speed up Senate impeachment trial

✔️ Google's Pichai calls for moratorium on facial recognition

GLOBALIZATION

Today: World Economic Forum

Davos is going green: Per Politico's Davos Playbook, it’s wall-to-wall sustainability this year (private jets aside, cough cough). You can’t escape climate exhortations on stage, on billboards, or even at the buffet line. Wednesday will be a meat-free day at the WEF.

Trump @ Davos: He is expected to give opening remarks and hold bilateral meetings with the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, the President of the European Commission, the President of the Swiss Confederation, and the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

AFP: Thunberg, Trump to offer competing visions at climate-focused Davos

Davos braces for Trump-Greta showdown as climate change tops agenda: DW reports, it's the first time the two are attending the same event since the teenager famously stared down Trump at the UN last year. The annual jamboree is taking place against the backdrop of Australia's worst-ever bushfires.

By Bloomberg’s count, there are over 100 billionaires descending on Davos this week.

"CEO disease": The Telegraph reports, while tenacity, resilience, and risk-taking tendencies are sought-after qualities in the boardroom, they can take a toll on mental and physical wellbeing, Paracelsus Recovery, a leading psychiatric treatment center in London, will explain. The clinic has identified a 500 percent increase in referrals of CEOs in the last seven years, with bipolar disorder, in particular, becoming increasingly prevalent among those at the top of their professions. The condition causes depression coupled with periods of mania, which means feeling restless or overactive. The company's own CEO, Dr. Marta Ra, who will address the Davos forum on the subject, said: “We are seeing an epidemic of mental ill-health in the boardroom. "It is increasingly clear that the traits that allow people to rise to the top of companies also predispose them to anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder.

Davos a victim of its own success? Politico reports, with every global conference now looking and feeling like Davos (think Halifax Security Forum, Munich Security Forum, German Marshall Fund conferences, NATO Engages, Doha Forum): What is Davos anymore? Decision-makers and experts seem to travel around a conference circuit tearing their hair out over populism on big white sofas arranged in semi-circles against blue backdrops. Then there are competitors who borrow liberally from the WEF format, such as Concordia Summit. And to top it off: there’s more programming outside the Congress Center than inside it, putting pressure on the WEF business model. The WEF’s success is making it a victim of global elite hyperinflation.

Can the World Economic Forum keep its mojo? The organization behind Davos faces a conflicted identity, increased competition, and uncertain succession. https://econ.st/2NFsEWX

Davos’s creator still believes the conference can bridge divides: Klaus Schwab brings his vision of the stakeholder concept to the 50th meeting of what’s now the World Economic Forum. https://on.wsj.com/38pzO9B

The story of China’s economic rise unfolds in Switzerland: China and Davos have since become one of the oddest power couples in international economics and politics. The relationship traces the story of China’s ascent after Mao. Chinese leaders have repeatedly chosen the forum for important policy speeches. Ever since a politically connected Chinese economist survived prison beatings and went to the 1979 World Economic Forum, the Davos event has had an outsize influence in China. https://nyti.ms/2ufkzBm

“Go to Ohio.” -- Yuan Ding, the dean of the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai

“It’s too small, it’s too cold and in many cases it conflicts with Chinese New Year,” Mr. Zhu said. “But people still go.” -- Zhu Min, a former deputy managing director of the IMF and former vice governor of China’s central bank. He is now a trustee of WEF.

The IMF projects global growth to increase modestly from 2.9 percent in 2019 to 3.3 percent in 2020 and 3.4 percent in 2021. The slight downward revision of 0.1 percent for 2019 and 2020, and 0.2 percent for 2021, is owed largely to downward revisions for India. The service sector remains in expansionary territory, with resilient consumer spending supported by sustained wage growth. The almost synchronized monetary easing across major economies has supported demand and contributed an estimated 0.5 percentage point to global growth in both 2019 and 2020.

The Times: British economy will grow faster than eurozone rivals, says IMF

Europe mulls new tougher rules for artificial intelligence: Bloomberg reports, the European Union is considering new legally binding requirements for developers of artificial intelligence in an effort to ensure modern technology is developed and used in an ethical way. The EU’s executive arm is set to propose the new rules apply to “high-risk sectors,” such as healthcare and transport, and suggest the bloc updates safety and liability laws, according to a draft of a so-called “white paper” on artificial intelligence obtained by Bloomberg. The European Commission is due to unveil the paper in mid-February and the final version is likely to change. https://yhoo.it/2RyjUDc

Bloomberg: EU won’t recommend banning Huawei in Upcoming 5G Risk Rules

Bloc to unveil 5G risk measures for EU states end of January

EU states have ultimate say to ban Huawei from networks

Macron's fringe event: The annual WEF has offered Macron an opportunity to capitalize on the presence of so many industrial and political leaders in Europe. Ahead of the big event, he lured 200 CEOs from France and abroad to Paris for yesterday’s Choose France event, a bid to bolster investment in the country. It has paid off before: business leaders pledged some €3.5bn of investments in France after the 2018 event. “France has overtaken Germany as a foreign-investment destination in Europe,” says Florence Biedermann, Agence France-Presse’s UK and Ireland general manager.

Stock options + France: CNBC reports, the country is to reform its stock-options rules to enable better competition with Silicon Valley, as European business leaders have been urging. The country's stock-options scheme will be expanded to include foreign companies with France-based employees, and options will apparently be priced at a fair market value, rather than the valuation price that investors pay.

Macron, Trump may have tariff truce in 2020 digital tax fight: Bloomberg reports, Macron and Trump have agreed to a truce in their dispute over digital taxes that will mean neither side imposes punitive tariffs this year, a French diplomat said.

Brussels alarmed by UK’s vow to diverge from EU rules: FT reports, the UK’s pledge to diverge from EU rules after Brexit has provoked alarm in Brussels, with officials warning of an economically damaging split at the end of this year. European diplomats and trade experts spent the weekend trying to make sense of comments made by Sajid Javid, UK chancellor, in an interview with the Financial Times on Friday. He urged businesses to “adjust” to a future where Britain no longer adhered to EU rules and regulations.

It’s not just British leavers – the rest of Europe is responsible for Brexit, too: The UK departure from the EU isn’t a solely British issue, yet Europeans have connived with Brexiters in pretending it is. http://bit.ly/2vap7tl

Putin speeds up Russian political shake-up, details new power center: Reuters reports, Putin accelerated a shake-up of Russia's political system on Monday, submitting a constitutional reform blueprint to parliament that will create a new center of power outside the presidency.

Who will monitor a Libya cease-fire? DW reports, the EU's top diplomat has hailed the Berlin talks on Libya as a major success for German foreign policy. Next up is the tough task of enacting a permanent cease-fire, to be monitored by the bloc.

China’s Xi faces new limits, at home and abroad: A slowing economy portends trouble domestically, while his vision of globalization has failed to win support internationally. As China’s economy has slowed, President XI’s signature international program, the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, has faltered. https://on.wsj.com/2NKTLQj

Shanghai’s mayor orders city’s bureaucrats to undergo a culture change in charm offensive to attract foreign investments: SCMP reports, officials in the local authority should behave like attendants at a retail store, rather than bureaucrats with power to approve projects, said Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong. Ying cites the success of Tesla’s US$2 billion Gigafactory in Shanghai as proof that a friendly attitude achieves results. http://bit.ly/2tFEDNp

Virus spreads to more Chinese cities, Xi says containment is priority: Reuters reports, an outbreak of a new coronavirus has spread to more Chinese cities, including the capital Beijing and Shanghai, authorities said on Monday, and a fourth case has been reported beyond China’s borders.

Coronavirus is spreading across China as confirmed cases triple: WSJ reports, a leading Chinese health official says a newly identified coronavirus originating in central China has spread between humans, confirming a chief concern as the disease is transmitted around the country and across Asia.

AFP: China says virus spreading between humans as WHO set to meet

Trump’s China deal creates collateral damage for tech firms: Micron secured some gains from the China deal but it may end up suffering bigger losses from the broader US-China battle. https://nyti.ms/2sNsGow

Gideon Rachman: How I became a China skeptic: At home and abroad, Xi’s hardline approach is having negative effects. https://on.ft.com/2Gb644a

15%: By the end of 2019, almost 5 million Venezuelan refugees - more than 15% of the entire population - had fled the country.

DISRUPTION

The gym of the future will be virtual, gamified, and totally immersive: Fast Company, with fitness interest at an all-time high, brands are reimagining the gym experience. Expect far more innovative tech, peak social experiences, and unlikely brick-and-mortar locations.

Davos wants biofuel to ward off climate claims: The Times reports, organizers of the World Economic Forum in Davos have urged Zurich airport to provide biofuel for plutocrats attending this year’s event by private jet as the conference looks to avoid accusations of hypocrisy on climate change. Environmental issues dominated its annual global risks report, including man-made warming, biodiversity loss and extreme weather. For the first time in the report’s fifteen-year history, the five risks moost likely to have the biggest effect in the next decade were all climate-related.

POLITICS

WSJ: White House calls impeachment charges frivolous ahead of trial

FT: Proposed rules for Trump impeachment trial outrage Democrats

Senate Republican leader’s resolution raises bar for the introduction of evidence.

Trump lawyers claim president cannot be removed for abusing power: FT reports, the attorneys argue in the 171-page brief that impeachment charges fail to allege ‘any violation of the law.’

McConnell moves to speed up Senate impeachment trial: LAT reports, the Senate leader offers rules that would shoehorn opening arguments into a grueling four-day period of 12-hour days.

Trump’s China deal was pitched as boon for working class, but he celebrated with Wall Street titans: WP reports, the word “labor” does not appear a single time in the 86-page China agreement. Labor’s influence in USMCA and its impotence in the China talks reflect cold political calculation. In USMCA’s case, which changed US law and thus required congressional approval, the administration needed labor support to get Democratic votes in the House. The China deal did not require a vote in Congress. https://wapo.st/2RxAPpu

Liberals make up the largest share of Democratic voters, but their growth has slowed in recent years: Pew reports, about half of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters (47%) describe their political views as liberal, including 15% who describe their views as very liberal. After rising steadily between 2000 and 2016, the share of liberals in the Democratic coalition has changed little in the past few years.

Amy Klobuchar desperately wants an Iowa moment. Impeachment is getting in the way. WP reports, the senator from Minnesota told voters she would rather be campaigning than heading to Washington just as she's catching on in the first state to vote.

COMMERCE

Lofty fare: Monocle reports, last week Toyota became the latest car-maker to invest in a business that’s out to launch flying taxis, putting $394m (€355m) into US-based company Joby, which has also benefited from the largesse of Uber. Daimler, meanwhile, has bet on the Volocopter project. The use of the term “taxi” might hint at a new era of democratic urban air travel but that’s nonsense. These vehicles are cheaply made helicopters that will allow urban elites to ignore the mass-transit needs of the many. They will also allow city officials to turn a blind eye to the gridlock on their streets and add a new layer of noise to our skies.

Nikkei: Pay with your face: 100m Chinese switch from smartphones

Facial recognition technology spreads rapidly at the expense of privacy.

Pichai calls for moratorium on facial recognition: FT reports, the Google chief says technology is ‘fraught with risks’ and urges assessment by regulators.

Boeing has spent $15.7 billion on research and development and $43.4 billion on stock buybacks.

Boeing is in talks with banks about borrowing $10 billion or more amid rising costs for the US planemaker after two crashes involving its 737 MAX jetliner.

Uber sells Indian food delivery business to Zomato: FT reports, the ride-hailing group exits market after failing to win against domestic competitors.

LAT: China will drive mobile spending to record $380 billion in 2020

Netflix wins streaming rights for Ghibli anime in 190 countries: Nikkei reports, the deal for 21 titles from famed Japanese studio excludes US, Canada, and Japan.

ADVOCACY 2.0 + COMMUNICATIONS

10 brands that launched print magazines in 2019: Print isn't dead for branded content, with tech players showing it special love. http://bit.ly/2TfvC8a

Sir Kensington’s = Sandwich
Callaway = Pivot
REI = Uncommon Path
Bumble = Bumble Mag
Uniqlo = LifeWear
Away = Here
Facebook = Grow
Goose Island Beer = Ingrain
Airbnb = eponymous title
California Closets = Ideas of Order

SPORT

Liverpool FC kicks off YouTube subscription model: Liverpool FC is hoping to retain its strong local identity and build a formidable international fanbase with the roll-out of its subscriber-only YouTube channel. http://bit.ly/36g5613

Brigadoon Weekly
January 19, 2019
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia

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Future 50, Detroit, Neuroscience, Richard Branson, Cool Britannia, 365

ROSS RANT

Future 50: Last October Fortune released its third annual Future 50 list. Developed with Martin Reeves of the BCG Henderson Institute, the list is not based on measures of past performance but rather attempts to measure commitment to the future.

Half of the measurement is based on the market’s assessment of a company’s future potential beyond the existing stream of profits; the other half reflects a sophisticated assessment, using natural language processing among other tools, of strategy, technology, people and structure.

The research at the BCG Henderson Institute has shown that even in economic downturns, revenue growth (not cutting costs) is the primary driver of total shareholder returns.

Further, even the best-performing companies are increasingly likely to regress to the mean in sales growth given today’s business climate—so they need to continually renew their advantage if they wish to outperform.

In other words, it is more important than ever for companies to have vitality—the capacity to reinvent their businesses and sustain long-term growth.

Here's the top 10:

Workday
Square
ServiceNow
Contemporary Amperex Technology
Spotify
Atlassian
Xiaomi
Ctrip.com
Salesforce
Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Explore the full list here.

Universities in the world's top 300 by nation:

United States: 58
United Kingdom: 35
Australia: 18
Germany: 18
China: 12
Canada: 12
Netherlands: 12
Japan: 11
France: 10
Spain: 7
Switzerland: 7
India: 6

(QS Rankings)

The hottest housing markets of 2020 are far from the coasts: MW reports, forget Seattle, Denver, and San Francisco. Boise, Idaho, is poised to be the hottest housing market at the start of the next decade.

A report from the National Association of Realtors identified the housing markets that are expected to see the most notable home sales and price growth in 2020.

Boise ranked No. 1, a marked increase from No. 8 a year ago.

1.   Boise, ID
2.   McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX
3.   Tucson, AZ
4.   Chattanooga, TN
5.   Columbia, SC
6.   Rochester, NY
7.   Colorado Springs, CO
8.   Winston-Salem, NC
9.   Charleston-North Charleston, SC
10. Memphis, TN

- Marc

Marc A. Ross is the founder of Brigadoon.

Membership

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Emerging Issues 2020

FIVE TO READ

Michigan Central and the rebirth of Detroit: Michigan Central was once one of the grandest railway stations in the United States - the gateway to a fabulously wealthy city, dominated by the auto industry. Thousands of workers passed through the building in search of new lives - immigrants from Europe and the Middle East along with black workers, part of the “great migration” northwards, from the prejudice and poverty of the agricultural South. But Detroit’s days of lavish prosperity are long gone. The station has been closed and abandoned for more than 30 years. Its tower, like the keep of a derelict fortress, is a poignant symbol of a once-great city’s decline.
BBC

Cyborgs: Elon Musk and the new era of neuroscience: Musk revealed the first details of an electronic brain implant developed by Neuralink, the secretive company he founded in 2016 to facilitate direct communications between people and machines. Its early applications will be in medicine to help people with severely damaged brains or nervous systems. But Musk also emphasized more futuristic plans that can give humans “the option of merging with artificial intelligence” by exchanging thoughts with a computer — augmenting the mental capacity of healthy people.
FT

Richard Branson: The difference between having an idea and being an entrepreneur: Many people have good ideas, but not everyone becomes an entrepreneur. I’m often asked if there is a good way to work out whether your idea is a good one, so I’ve put together a quick guide for those wondering whether to make the plunge.
Virgin Blog

Cool Britannia: where did it all go wrong? Twenty years after Labour’s landslide win, did the patriotism and triumphalism of 1997 sow the seeds of Brexit?
John Harris - NewStatesmanAmerica

London's 1952 fog that killed 12,000 people: It wasn't until 2016, when scientists from Texas A&M University were investigating smog in Beijing and Xi'an, China that they determined a possible cause for the London event. They concluded that the London smog was comprised of concentrated sulfuric acid.
Interesting Engineering

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BRIGADOON RADIO

Episode 6: John Wick Republican: Recorded Pinehaven House at Sundance Mountain Resort, Dr. Mark Stellingworth speaks with Chad Munitz during Brigadoon Retreat | Sundance 2019. Chad is a 5x Brigadoon Retreat | Sundance participant and has served as a Brigadoon Ambassador and co-host for Brigadoon Salon Dinner | Cincinnati 2019. Chad and Mark discussed the vision of Brigadoon, building a vinyl album collection, and comic books as art.
Brigadoon Radio

BRIGADOON 365

Brigadoon 365 is a year-long celebration of entrepreneurs and thought leaders from around the world that inspire and motivate the Brigadoon network.

New posts daily at 12:00 pm ET.

#1 Sarah Kate "Skate" Noftsinger

#2 Melanie Brock

#3 Penny Mordaunt

#4 Christian Duffus

#5 Richard H. Thaler

#6 Stephanie Simbari

#7 Erick Sanchez

Current list here.

Universities in the world's top 300 by nation

Future 50

Sample | Brigadoon Daily

Brigadoon Weekly | January 19, 2020