Week InReview
Friday | Oct 15, 2021
Sleep to Work.
Illustration: Marysia Machulska/WSJ
A LOT of people say work has invaded their sleep, especially during the pandemic, as boundaries have been obliterated and burnout is on the rise. Many of our dreams are about our deepest insecurities and fears, and the ways in which we think we’re falling short in our careers.

We dream about what preoccupies us, and during the pandemic things got weird. The good news: dreams can help us solve problems, or reach realizations about our careers and ourselves.

— The Wall Street Journal
let's recap...
Minutes for the FOMC’s September meeting suggested the Fed is closer to achieving ‘substantial further progress’ towards dual goals of inflation that averages 2 percent and maximum employment. Photo: Reuters
The Federal Reserve is poised to begin phasing out its pandemic-era stimulus program as early as next month and wrap up the process by mid-2022, as the economic recovery advances and more officials pencil in an interest rate rise next year. Minutes from the September meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee showed officials firming up their plans for the eventual end to the $120bn monthly asset purchase program that has been in place since last year to bolster financial markets and the economy. (Financial Times | Oct 14)

The SEC is keeping close tabs on efforts to set up an international standard-setter for climate and other sustainability reporting, but the U.S. securities regulator could still go in a different direction, an official said Wednesday. The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation has said it will form a global green standards board this year to help companies meet increasing investor demand for nonfinancial information about the risks and opportunities they face from climate change. (Bloomberg Tax | Oct 13)

Finance ministers from the world’s biggest economies endorsed a global accord overhauling how countries tax big corporations, setting it for approval by heads of state at a summit later this month. The Group of 20 ministers’ and central bank governors’ statement of support, following a meeting in Washington on Wednesday, came five days after 136 governments reached a deal that resolved key differences over the level of a global minimum rate and an end to new digital taxes that the U.S. has deemed discriminatory. (Bloomberg Economics | Oct 13)

Gary Gensler is signaling that new rules for stock trading from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will focus on risks he says are posed by the predictive technologies that now dominate trading. “Artificial intelligence and predictive-data analytics are changing many aspects of our economy,” the SEC chair said Tuesday at a Practicing Law Institute virtual conference. “These technologies present the opportunity to expand access and lead to better risk management. The predictive-data analytics also raise a number of important challenges: conflicts of interest, bias and systemic risk.” (Bloomberg Regulation | Oct 12)

Funds that track stock-market volatility are making a comeback, despite concerns they are too complicated for some investors. Two new exchange-traded funds that let investors make leveraged or inverse bets on a popular barometer of market fluctuations are set to start trading later this fall. Similar products devastated investors in a high-profile blowup less than four years ago. (The Wall Street Journal | Oct 10)
FSOC report to discuss climate disclosure improvements, Yellen says
Janet Yellen.
(Oct 12) — Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen said she expects the Financial Stability Oversight Council will issue a report reviewing approaches to climate-related financial risk.
  • “It will discuss how climate-related disclosures can be enhanced and look at processes to identify climate-related financial risks to U.S. financial stability,” Yellen said about the report, according to remarks released by Treasury Department
  • The group of financial regulators is set to hear “an update on the report on stablecoins being developed by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets” in a private session at their Oct. 18 meeting. That report is expected to favor oversight of stablecoins as a kind of banking deposit, people familiar with the effort have said, and the working group’s members have also discussed whether FSOC should look into the tokens as a financial stability risk. 

Source: Bloomberg Government
the cyber cafe
Twitch, Amazon’s live streaming platform, suffered the public revelation of its source code following a cyber security breach last week. Photo: Riccardo Milani/Hans Lucas via Reuters 
The inescapable problem of cyber attacks
Cyber attacks are rapidly becoming a large-scale, and thorny, global security problem. The U.S. alone suffered an estimated 65,000 ransomware attacks last year. The attacks come from all over. The U.S. Senate is considering a bill requiring government agencies, contractors, and critical infrastructure companies to report all cyber security incidents and ransomware attacks to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within 24 hours or face steep fines. “If we can’t see it, we can’t effectively defend,” Jen Easterly, who heads the agency said recently.

Ransomware: Hackers in your network? It might not be too late.
If organizations have a good knowledge of their own network, and a threat-hunting team that can take knowledge of how these hands-on ransomware attacks work and use it to detect threats, they can be identified, removed and remediated before the problem grows to become a full-scale ransomware attack. 
— ZDNet

Partner or watchdog? CISA wants to avoid the R-word.
“We’re not a regulator,” Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said last week. “We don’t want to be a regulator.” Legislation in Congress could push CISA into such a role by giving the agency power to write rules forcing companies to report hacks, subpoena them for information and potentially fine noncompliant firms, businesses say. And that, some companies say, could impair any trust that has been built between public and private organizations. 
binge reading disorder
"Flaming", June 1895, by Frederic Leighton.
Photo: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Want to fall asleep fast? Try the 4-7-8 method.
The 4-7-8 method is a breathwork practice, devolved from the ancient yogic tradition of pranayama (or breath regulation), which helps relax the body and mind and subsequently eases you into sleep. You can do the 4-7-8 to help you get to sleep, in the middle of the night when you wake up, or at any point during the day when you want to feel calmer.
— Vogue

Climate change is the new dot-com bubble
If history repeats itself – if the internet was the last big thing, and climate is the next big thing (or the last big thing) – then we aren't at the precipice of a new era. We're at the beginning of a bubble. The trillions in investment have to go somewhere. By the time all the money is spent, the companies in my ebook will probably be gone, save for a few dozen. Rolled up, evaporated. And then what? It's not like we can just wait for the market to recover and see what happens.
— Wired

The next fashion trend: Clothes that don't exist
The online metaverse is coming and if we're going to be spending more time in virtual worlds, there's one crucial question: What are you going to wear? Soon digital fashion stores are likely to become a way to dress your avatar when interacting in online games and meeting places, all potentially while reclining in sweat pants in your own home.
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