226 views since Nov 26, 2023

On today's podcast:


1) Google’s legal defeat (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...) at the hands of Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. (https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/74844...) threatens to roil an app store duopoly with Apple Inc. that generates close to $200 billion a year and dictates how billions of consumers use mobile devices.


2) Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain in office after receiving backing from the University’s highest governing body (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl..., according to a report from the college’s student newspaper.


3) A monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics report due Tuesday is set to show consumer prices were unchanged again in November (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl..., giving the Federal Reserve room to consider lower interest rates in the months ahead, according to Bloomberg Economics.


Full Transcript:


Good morning. I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the stories we're following today. We want to begin this morning with an antitrust ruling that threatens to upend the mobile app economy. A federal jury in San Francisco has ruled in favor of video game developer Epic Games, declaring that Alphabet's mobile app store has a monopoly over distribution of programs and payments on its Android software. Like Apple's App store, Google Play charges up to thirty percent commissions for users, and it generates close to two hundred billion dollars a year. Bloomberg Executive editor Peter Elstrom says this was a surprise ruling after Epic lost a similar case against Apple two years ago, but he says there are some key differences. Google had a whole series of special deals that it was cutting with different companies from different fees within the app store. For example, Spotify, the music service, essentially bypass the fees from the Google App Store. In many cases, companies pay thirty percent fees. So the argument was that Google. Google had something that they called Project hug where they were trying to keep the most important apps within the store not go to rival stores that could compete against them in the Google Play Store, and Epic argued that this was at a competitive behavior. Bloomberg's Peter Elstrom says Alphabet plans to appeal the decision. Epic didn't seek financial penalties, but it is looking for changes to the Google Play Store. Well, we turned to Washington, now, Nathan, where the focus is on geopolitics and the fight over a foreign aid in Congress. Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelenski is in Washington for a two day visit. He spoke alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the National Defense University yesterday. Process war on Ukraine isn't just about Is it just about some old fashioned dictatorship trying to settle scores real or imagined. It's not just Moscou trying to split Europe again. It's put him put in attacking that big sheet that happened back in nineteen eighty nine. And President Zelenski also met with the head of the International Monetary Fund, A christ Alina Georgiaeva, who announced the dispersal of nine hundred million dollars in aid. Selenski meets today with President Biden and Republican lawmakers. They refused to budge on about sixty billion dollars in new assistance without funds for the southern border. Well, Karen, the focus is also on the other major global conflict in the Middle East. President Biden is warning Israel that public support for its war against Hamas could shift as the civilian death told mounts in the Gaza strip. The President is still backing Israel's fight, as I said after the attack, Mike, commitment to the safety the Jewish people and the security of israel Is right to exist, is independent as an independitary state is just unshakable. President Biden spoke at a Whinehouse Honkka reception as his administration pushes Congress for new aid. Meanwhile, Nathan last Week's Congressional testimony over campus anti semitism continues to Royal higher education. More than seven hundred faculty members at Harvard University have signed a petition urging school leadership to resist political pressures, including calls for the removal of President Claudine Gay. More than a thousand students at alumni, including billionaire donors like Bill Lackman, are demanding this school replace her, and this morning, sources tell the school's newspaper at the Harvard Crimson, that Gay will remain in office. After receiving backing from the university's highest governing body, Gay in the heads of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania struggle to say directly that calling for the genocide of Jews violates school harassment policies. Liz McGill stepped down as Penn's president over the weekend. Sticking with politics, the Supreme Court has agreed...