Here are three mega/meta stories to watch this morning:
1) Central bankers are in the spotlight. Mario Draghi had a rare misstep yesterday, delivering less stimulus than the markets thought he had promised, prompting a global sell off. Meanwhile, unless this morning’s employment report is disastrously worse than expected, Fed Chief Janet Yellen will finally raise interest rates this month.
2) U.S. Healthcare is headed for (another) crisis. The Senate last night voted to repeal President Obama’s signature accomplishment – the Affordable Care Act – while House Speaker Paul Ryan said Republicans planned to “replace every word of Obamacare.” This is election year posturing. But even more sober observers see a reckoning coming. “I think there is a perfect storm building,” says Sir Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), who visited Coins2Day’s offices yesterday as we were packing for our move today to downtown Manhattan. Witty believes a combination of high health care costs, excess regulation, and election-year jockeying, are going to force a rethink of U.S. Healthcare policy in the next few years. I think he’s right – which is one reason why I think Pfizer’s (PFE) decision to move to Ireland is so badly timed. (You can read my editor’s note on this topic in the upcoming issue of Coins2Day magazine here.)
If you are interested in the future of energy – and if you aren’t, you should be – sign up for our Brainstorm E conference, which will bring together the smartest people we know in this field May 16-17 in Carlsbad, California. Register here.
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