Judging Biden

US President Joe Biden gives his State of the Union speech tonight, and some of it is likely to turn on a unique conundrum he faces: How much to tout a positive economic outlook in the face of lagging public credit? The Democrat has presided over an economy that bounced back from the pandemic recession like no other. In the process, his administration (and the Federal Reserve of course) has taken credit for steering the US through the rapids toward a likely soft landing. Years of recession predictions from veteran economists and Wall Street chieftains proved embarrassingly wrong. Unemployment fell so low that the last president to see similar numbers was Richard Nixon. But despite the robust labor market, strengthening household finances and improving consumer and business confidence, Biden doesn’t appear at eight months out to be headed for an easy win. Instead, the polls—while proving unreliable in recent election cycles—nevertheless show him neck-and-neck with or even trailing a twice-impeached opponent charged with close to 100 felony counts. The issues—residual inflation, immigration, the candidates’ age and acuity—are well known. But at Bloomberg Opinion, our columnists decided to take a hard look at the numbers, not the polls, to show exactly how Biden stacks up against his predecessors. Here’s what they found out. —David E. Rovella

US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested the central bank is getting close to the confidence it needs to start lowering interest rates. “We’re waiting to become more confident that inflation is moving sustainably at 2%,” Powell said Thursday in an appearance before the Senate Banking Committee. “When we do get that confidence—and we’re not far from it—it’ll be appropriate to begin to dial back the level of restriction.” The stock market reacted happily.

Biden is directing the US military to establish a temporary port on the Gaza coast to ramp up the delivery of aid and ease the humanitarian crisis in the territory. The ships will carry food, water, medicine and other supplies, with the temporary pier providing capacity equivalent to hundreds of truckloads of additional assistance each day. US officials plan for control of the port to transition to a commercially operated facility over time. Biden’s bid is only the latest effort by the US to address the dire conditions for 2 million Gazans following the Israeli bombing campaign and ground assault triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, in which Israel said the militant group killed 1,200 Israelis. Since then, officials with Hamas’s health authority in Gaza said, more than 30,000 Palestinians have died. Hopes for a ceasefire meanwhile are fading.

India has freed up thousands of soldiers to strengthen its disputed border with China, adding a potential irritant to its already sour relations with Beijing. Some 10,000 soldiers previously assigned to the country’s western border have now been set aside to guard a stretch of India’s frontier with China. In addition, an existing contingent of 9,000 soldiers, already assigned to the disputed Chinese border, will be brought under a newly created fighting command.

Sweden’s entry into NATO can help solve a critical problem for military planners mapping out the alliance’s defenses against a potential Russian foray across its borders: how to rapidly shuttle troops, weapons and other provisions to a front anywhere from the Baltic to the Arctic. After months of delays, the green light for Sweden’s membership means the Nordic nation can finally be woven into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s intricate defense plans against a belligerent Kremlin. Here’s why Sweden would be critical to NATO’s effort to defeat any Russian attack.

US internet companies have long struggled with the complications of operating in China, given the prevalence of censorship there. After making significant compromises to maintain access to China’s huge market, Google and Yahoo! stopped operating their own search engines there; Facebook, Snapchat and X (formerly Twitter) are unavailable. But not so Microsoft. The software behemoth has continued to run a local version of Bing since 2009, compliant with Beijing’s censorship requirements. Co-founder Bill Gates has dismissed concerns about censorship and China’s influence on technology. Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board in 2020 but has continued to visit Chinese leaders; he met with Xi Jinping in June 2023, Xi’s first sit-down with a foreign entrepreneur in years. During the meeting, Xi described Gates as his “old friend.”

Saudi Arabia’s government transferred a further $164 billion stake in Aramco to the Public Investment Fund, a move aimed at bolstering cashflow at the state-backed investor that’s ramping up spending on huge local projects. The 8% stake transfer will cut the government’s direct ownership in the world’s largest oil company to 82%. Thursday’s move will also boost the fund’s assets to about $900 billion, taking it closer to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s goal of $1 trillion by next year.

Rivian Automotive is halting plans to build a new multibillion-dollar factory in Georgia, an abrupt reversal aimed at cutting costs while the company prepares to launch a cheaper electric vehicle. The retreat comes two weeks after Rivian announced job cuts and said it would keep production flat this year, falling well short of expectations and triggering a heavy selloff in the shares. The company has struggled to transition to mass production since going public in 2021, and the high prices of its models have been a hard sell as overall demand for EVs fades.

Was Michael Strahan always going to be a ubiquitous presence—from Good Morning America host to NFL commentator to having his own line of clothing at Men’s Wearhouse? Maybe—but if you ask him, he would tell you it wouldn’t have happened were it not for his move from Texas to New York. “Had I had my career in another city that didn’t have the spotlight of New York, I would’ve been a football player, had a great career, but I just would’ve had it somewhere else,” Strahan says on the latest episode of the Bloomberg Podcasts-Bloomberg Originals series The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly. “And I don’t think people would’ve paid as much attention.”

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