Raphael Stevens

“While there isn’t mark-to-market billionaires’ tax, I think it’s been agreed that individuals earning high incomes” will pay more, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNBC on Friday.
The $1.75 trillion framework for President Joe Biden’s climate and social spending priorities is “fully paid for,” she added.
“We tried to design a package of revenue raisers that would be acceptable to members of Congress,” Yellen said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNBC on Friday the $1.75 trillion framework for President Joe Biden’s climate and social spending priorities is “fully paid for” in part by asking wealthy Americans to pay more taxes.
“We tried to design a package of revenue raisers that would be acceptable to members of Congress. We paired back on some rate increases that weren’t acceptable to members of the Senate,” Yellen told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview on “Worldwide Exchange” from Rome where Group of 20 leaders are gathering for their first in-person summit since the Covid pandemic.

“The raisers we have, though, are appropriate, fair. While there isn’t mark-to-market billionaires’ tax, I think it’s been agreed that individuals earning high incomes … will pay a surtax on their income tax rates,” Yellen said. “That hits really high income individuals.”
The proposal for a tax on unrealized gains on billionaires’ wealth was scuttled and there were questions about whether it would even be constitutional.
Yellen, former Federal Reserve chair, is accompanying Biden on his overseas trip at the G20 summit and the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
Before leaving Washington Thursday, Biden announced a deal with Senate Democratic holdouts on a blueprint for spending on a wide range of programs to ease financial burdens on families and children while funding the renewable energy economy.
If passed, the massive spending bill would impose a 15% minimum tax on corporate profits by large corporations, adopt the 15% minimum global tax brokered by Yellen, and apply a 5% surtax rate on individual income above $10 million. That rate would rise another 3% on income above $25 million. The Democrats’ plan also includes a 1% surcharge on corporate stock buybacks.

“I don’t think these investments will drive up inflation at all,” Yellen said Friday. “First of all, they’re fully paid for — and not by imposing taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 but by asking corporations, high income individuals to pay their fair share, and by investing in the Internal Revenue Service so that they can boost compliance, which has fallen to low levels,” she added. “We have a huge amount of uncollected tax revenue, a tax gap that’s estimated at $7 trillion over a decade.”
At the G20, Yellen will be taking a victory lap on the global minimum corperate tax, which all member nations agree to. The deal was negotiated among more than 130 countries.
Biden had hoped that rallying Democrats behind the framework for his spending priorities would be enough to push a separate bipartisan infrastructure bill, which already passed in the Senate, across the finish line in the House. However, the House on Thursday abandoned plans for an infrastructure bill vote with progressives seeking more time to consider the implications on both bills.

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ScottishPower says Beinn an Tuirc 3, which is located on the Kintyre peninsular in western Scotland, had been constructed without needing a government support scheme.
Company adds that Amazon will purchase “100% of the power output from this windfarm.”

Sean Hannon | iStock | Getty Images

A 50-megawatt onshore wind farm in Scotland is now operational, and tech giant Amazon will purchase all of its output.
According to ScottishPower — which is part of the Iberdrola Group — the Beinn an Tuirc 3 facility has 14 turbines and is able to produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of nearly 46,000 homes.

In a statement issued Thursday, ScottishPower said Amazon would purchase “100% of the power output from this windfarm, and the energy generated will power Amazon and Amazon Web Services … data centres, corporate offices, and fulfilment centres across the UK.”
The above arrangement is a power purchase agreement, or PPA. In simple terms, a PPA refers to a deal where an energy producer sells power to a business at a fixed price over a set period of time.
ScottishPower said Beinn an Tuirc 3, which is located on the Kintyre peninsular in western Scotland, had been constructed without needing a government support scheme. PPAs, the company said, provided corporate customers with “certainty” as well as a “reduction in their own carbon footprint.”

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Amazon’s total carbon footprint hit 60.64 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 19%.
The company’s Scope 1 emissions – that is, emissions from its direct operations – jumped to 9.62 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, a year-on-year growth of 67%.

The company’s carbon intensity for 2020 — grams of CO2 equivalent per dollar of gross merchandise sales — saw a year-over-year drop of 16%, however.
The last few years have seen a number of major firms strike PPAs to buy renewable energy. In September, for instance, Norway’s Statkraft said a long-term purchasing agreement related to a floating offshore wind farm dubbed “the world’s largest” had started.
The power purchase agreement between Statkraft and developer Kincardine Offshore Windfarm Ltd sees the former buy “all electrical output from the floating wind project with a guaranteed minimum price per MWh [megawatt hour] until 2029.”
In July 2020, Danish energy business Orsted and semiconductor company TSMC signed 20-year deal that will see TSMC purchase all the output from a 920 MW offshore wind farm off Taiwan. More

Come Monday, Thailand will be lifting quarantine restrictions for travelers from more than 40 countries who have been fully vaccinated — even though less than half its population has been completely inoculated.
As of Oct. 27, only around 42% of the Thai population has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to Our World in Data. In comparison, other countries in the region such as Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore have had more than 70% of their population fully inoculated against Covid.
Among the region’s economies, Thailand is one of the “most dependent” on tourism, with the sector accounting for around 21% of GDP in 2019, according to Sian Fenner from Oxford Economics.

Tourist sitting on a swing at a beach in Thailand.
© Marco Bottigelli | Moment | Getty Images

Come Monday, Thailand will be lifting quarantine restrictions for travelers from more than 40 countries who have been fully vaccinated — even though less than half its population has been completely inoculated. //inserted mention of travelers needing to be “fully vaccinated”
As of Oct. 27, only about 42% of Thailand’s population has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to Our World in Data. In comparison, other countries in the region like Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore have had more than 70% of their population fully inoculated against Covid.

The three Southeast Asian nations as well as Australia and China are on Thailand’s list of approved countries, as the country prepares to reopen to tourists on Nov. 1.
Following the Thai prime minister’s initial announcement of the plan earlier in October, Bank of America economists said it was good news for Thailand’s tourism sector, economic recovery and currency — but noted that it was “not without risk.”

As is evident in the other countries, the vaccination rate is way too low to prevent an outbreak, particularly with the Delta variant.

Bank of America

“Despite an impressive and admirable vaccination effort, full vaccination remains relatively low and uneven,” the economists said. “As is evident in the other countries, the vaccination rate is way too low to prevent an outbreak, particularly with the Delta variant.”
Still, they said a lockdown is not expected given the country’s high risk tolerance, unless the country’s intensive care unit capacity becomes overwhelmed.
Due to the uneven inoculation rate throughout the country, the available data may not reflect clearly the vaccination levels in places such as the capital of Bangkok. The deputy governor of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration recently told Singapore-based media outlet CNA that 75% of its residents have already been vaccinated with the second dose.

Tourism’s importance to Thailand

Among the region’s economies, Thailand is one of the “most dependent” on tourism, with the sector accounting for around 21% of GDP in 2019, according to Oxford Economics’ Sian Fenner.
“Travel restrictions have come at a huge economic and social cost and has been a key reason why Thailand’s economic recovery has lagged behind many of its peers in the region,” said Fenner, lead Asia economist at the global advisory firm.

… we do not expect a full recovery in inbound travel to pre-Covid levels until 2025.

Sian Fenner
lead Asia economist, Oxford Economics

“We think the government’s reopening of borders despite only about 40% of the population fully vaccinated reflects the country’s significant reliance on foreign tourists,” said Charnon Boonnuch, an economist at Nomura.
The Thai economy grew 7.5% year-on-year in the second quarter, according to government data. That growth level fell behind other regional economies such as Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines which grew between 11.8% and 16.1%.
Oxford Economics forecasts a full year GDP growth of 1.8% in Thailand this year, while Nomura sees Thailand’s GDP growth in 2021 at 0.6%.
The return of international travelers, however, is not expected to be immediate as visitors may still face quarantine requirements in their home countries, according to economists.

“We do expect inbound tourism to rebound in 2022, but even then we still expect international arrivals to be some 66% below 2019 levels,” Fenner said. “In fact, we do not expect a full recovery in inbound travel to pre-Covid levels until 2025.”
Meanwhile, Bank of America economists highlighted that Chinese tourists — which accounted for about a quarter of Thai tourist arrivals in 2019 — are not expected to return till the second half of 2022.
China has largely closed its borders to international travel since last year and continues to pursue a strict zero-Covid strategy that has resulted in mass lockdowns even if only a few infections are reported.
Other parts of Southeast Asia are also looking to reopen their borders to international visitors, and that likely played a part in Thailand’s push to welcome tourists again, according to Nomura’s Boonnuch.
“The need for reopening was also rising due to increasing competition from neighboring countries which have relaxed border rules, such as Singapore which has a much higher full vaccination rate of 85%,” he said.
Singapore has announced vaccinated travel lane arrangements with several countries including the U.S. and U.K., while Malaysia’s tourism minister told CNBC last week that the country could reopen its borders to international tourists in November.
Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect that the Bank of America note came out earlier in October, after the prime minister’s announcement.

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The subvariant — which is thought to have emerged in the U.K. over the summer — has two additional mutations affecting its spike protein, part of the virus’s structure used to infiltrate cells.
Questions are still hanging over exactly how, or if, those mutations will affect how quickly it spreads.
In the last 28 days, AY.4.2 has accounted for around 10% of new Covid-19 cases, according to data from public health consortium Cog-UK.

Firefighter Dan Joslin wearing a face shield helps prone a Covid-19 patient as he works alongside critical care nurses in the Intensive Care Unit at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, southern England.
ADRIAN DENNIS | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON — A recently discovered subvariant of Covid-19’s delta strain now makes up 10% of new U.K. cases — but scientists have said there’s no reason to panic.
Known as AY.4.2, there are some concerns that it could be around 10% more transmissible than the original delta strain, but there is so far insufficient evidence to prove that this is the case.

The subvariant — which is thought to have emerged in the U.K. over the summer — has two additional mutations affecting its spike protein, part of the virus’s structure used to infiltrate cells. Questions are still hanging over exactly how, or if, those mutations will affect how quickly it spreads.
In the last 28 days, AY.4.2 has accounted for around 10% of new Covid-19 cases, according to data from public health consortium Cog-UK. That makes it the U.K.’s third most dominant version of Covid-19 for the past four weeks after the original delta strain and another of its so-called sublineages.
Despite its rise, public health officials in England have emphasized that so far, AY.4.2 does not appear to cause more severe disease or render existing vaccines less effective. And according to biologists at England’s Northumbria University, the mutation has failed to take hold in several European countries, “dropping off the radar in Germany and Ireland.”
Christina Pagel, director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit at University College London, told CNBC via telephone that although delta’s new subvariant was definitely growing in the U.K. and elsewhere, it was not a huge cause for alarm.

“It looks like it has somewhere between a 12% and 18% transmission advantage over delta, so it’s not good news in that sense. It’s going to make things a bit more difficult, but it’s not a massive jump,” Pagel said.

“Delta compared to alpha was around 60% more transmissible, it was doubling every week. This is going up by a percent or two a week — it’s much, much slower. So in that sense, it’s not a big disaster like delta was. It will probably gradually replace delta over the next few months. But there’s no sign it’s more vaccine resistant, [so] at the moment I wouldn’t be panicking about it.”
However, the emergence of the new mutation did raise some concerns, Pagel said. If the new mutation arrived in countries that were further behind the U.K. in their vaccination programs, it would create additional problems, she added. It also proved the coronavirus is still mutating.
“There are lots of different subtypes of delta, [but] this is the first subtype that seems to actually have an advantage over the other deltas,” Pagel said. “And it just shows that there’s more places for it to go and evolve to. Some people have been saying delta’s hit the sweet spot – well look, it’s found another sweet spot.”
Pagel called for some mitigation measures to be reintroduced in the U.K., which lifted almost all its remaining Covid restrictions in July and now has one of the highest rates of infection in the world.
“If you have high case numbers, you will keep on providing opportunities for mutation,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that [the new subvariant] has come in England, where we’ve had really high cases for a long time.”

Importance of vaccination

David Matthews, a professor of virology at the University of Bristol, told CNBC in a phone call that while booster vaccinations and vaccinating children could help slow down a potentially faster version of the virus, the U.K. needed to focus on the 10% of adults who were still refusing a vaccine. 
“Everybody, vaccinated or otherwise, will be catching this virus one day,” Matthews warned. “So there’s only one question to ask yourself: do you want to meet this vaccine with your immune system trained or untrained for the fight?”

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He added: “What the delta variant does, and what AY.4.2 will do, is simply find the people who are unvaccinated faster. So if you’re unvaccinated, the length of time it will take before this virus finds you is shortened every time the virus gets faster at spreading.”

Variants ‘a fact of life’

Eyal Leshem, an infectious disease specialist at Sheba Medical Center who has been treating patients on Israel’s frontlines, said he was not particularly concerned about AY.4.2.
“AY.4.2 has been in circulation for a while now in the U.K., and it’s still not making up more than 10% of cases,” he said. “Delta, once it entered into circulation, completely became the dominant variant within several weeks. This has not been observed with AY.4.2.”
Leshem added that variants were “a fact of life” when it came to highly infectious viruses.
“We will probably not be able to fully vaccinate the entire global population in a way that prevents transmission with the objective of eliminating the virus, so if variants are not created in the U.K., they will be created elsewhere,” he told CNBC via telephone.
“I don’t think new variants are an important consideration when deciding whether to fully open a country or not – I think the U.K. made the right choice [to reopen].”

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Shares of Lucid surged by as much as 47% during trading Thursday, a day after the company confirmed first customer deliveries of its $169,000 Air Dream Edition sedan would begin Saturday.
Lucid’s stock hit $39.78 a share – its highest point since the company went public through a SPAC deal on July 26 – before retreating Thursday afternoon.
The deliveries come about a month after Lucid started production of its first cars for customers at its new factory in Casa Grande, Ariz.

People test drive Dream Edition P and Dream Edition R electric vehicles at the Lucid Motors plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, September 28, 2021.
Caitlin O’Hara | Reuters

Shares of electric vehicle start-up Lucid Group surged by as much as 47% during trading Thursday, a day after the company confirmed the first customer deliveries of its $169,000 Air Dream Edition sedan would begin Saturday.
Lucid’s stock hit $39.78 a share – its highest point since the company went public through a SPAC deal on July 26 – before retreating to close at $35.48 a share, up by 31.3%. The price remains far below its 52-week high of nearly $65 a share in February when it was reported that Lucid was nearing a deal with blank-check company Churchill Capital IV Corp. to go public.

The company invited select Air Dream Edition reservation holders to pick up their cars at its headquarters in California. Lucid did not disclose how many people were invited to the event.
The customer deliveries come about a month after Lucid started production of its first cars for customers at its new factory in Casa Grande, Ariz. At that time, Lucid said customer deliveries were expected to begin in late-October.
A company spokesman declined to say how many vehicles Lucid has built so far, but he said the automaker will continue to increase production of the car.
In total, Lucid has said it plans to deliver 520 customer-configured Lucid Air Dream Editions, followed by deliveries of lower-priced models. Lucid told investors in July that it expects to produce 20,000 Lucid Air sedans in 2022, generating more than $2.2 billion in revenue, according to an investor presentation.
The Dream Edition is a $169,000 special edition of its flagship sedan, with an industry-leading range of up to 520 miles, according to the EPA. Pricing for an entry-level version of the car, the Lucid Air sedan, starts at $77,400 before an up to $7,500 federal tax credit for plug-in vehicles.
Lucid on Thursday also scheduled its first earnings report and call for investors since going public. The event is scheduled for Nov. 15.

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