Congress to vote on debt ceiling bill / US home prices up / Drone strikes in Moscow

Plus: the Miami Heat beat the Boston Celtics, advancing to the NBA Finals.

Inside Daily Brief For May 30, 2023

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1 U.S. lawmakers are expected to vote on the bipartisan debt ceiling bill this week. President Joe Biden and GOP House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said they expect the bill to pass despite opposition from some right-wing Republican lawmakers. More: The House Rules Committee is likely to vote on the bill on Tuesday afternoon. If approved, the House could vote on the legislation on Wednesday. A Senate vote may not take place until the weekend, as conservative Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) said he may try to slow the bill's passage. Democratic and Republican leaders want to pass the bill before Monday, June 5, the day when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen predicted the federal government would run out of money. Zoom Out: The bill would suspend the debt ceiling through January 1, 2025. It would limit some government spending, streamline the approval of some energy projects, and reallocate unused COVID-19 funds. It includes work requirements for food stamp recipients, a primary GOP goal in negotiations, but largely eschews the expansive spending cuts sought by Republicans.

2 What the numbers say: The average price for a home sold in the U.S. was up 0.7% from March 2022 to March 2023, according to the S&P / Case-Shiller home price index. Relevance: Home prices rose by 0.4% nationally from February to March, signaling that the price decline that began in June 2022 may be coming to an end, said Craig Lazzara of S&P DJI. Uneven increase: Regional divergences in home price growth continue, with Lazzara noting: "The farther west we look, the weaker prices are." Prices increased by 5.4% in the Southeast U.S. over the past twelve months but fell 6.2% in the West Coast.

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3 A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigation found that insiders behind companies that went public via SPACs sold $22B in shares before the firms' valuations collapsed. The so-called SPAC boom of 2020 and 2021 has been scrutinized by financial media outlets, with critics arguing that wealthy insiders made billions while many retail investors sustained heavy losses after many SPAC projects failed. More: Companies that went public via SPAC have lost more than $100B in market value. At least 12 of those companies have filed for bankruptcy, and more than a hundred others are running perilously low on cash. The WSJ found that insiders at 232 companies that did SPAC deals sold about $22M in shares on average. Insiders at just 12 companies cumulatively sold shares worth more than $500M. Private equity firm Platinum Equity sold shares worth $2.3B in four companies it had invested in before they went public via SPAC. One of the Platinum-backed SPAC companies, Vertiv Holdings, was sued by pension funds that had lost millions on the grounds that Vertiv's management had released misleading earnings guidance. Zoom Out: Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, sold nearly 75% of his shares in the space company for over $1.4B. Subsequently, Virgin Galactic's share price plummeted by more than 90% from its all-time high following launch delays. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, who was known as the "SPAC King" for his vocal support of the multiple SPAC projects, made $310M from selling Virgin Galactic shares after leading the SPAC that brought Virgin public.

4 GOOD NEWS: The bison population in Alberta, Canada, is growing thanks to a reintroduction project led by a Native American tribe. The Tsuut'ina Nation project cares for 370 bison, with an expected 160 calves by the end of 2023. More: Before European colonists arrived, there were an estimated 60 million bison living on the North American Great Plains, an area that encompasses Alberta, Saskatchewan, and many central U.S. states. Over-hunting over several centuries pushed the bison population to the brink of extinction, impacting the Native American Indians whose livelihoods were dependent on the bison. Other Indigenous communities, like the Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, are also trying to reintroduce bison to their lands.

5 Russian authorities reported at least eight drone strikes in Moscow on Tuesday morning, marking the first attack on civilian areas in the Russian capital since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war in February 2022. The attacks occurred after Russia launched at least 20 drone strikes against the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. More: An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was not "directly involved" in the drone strike. Russian authorities said that electronic jammers intercepted three drones and the Pantsir-S missile defense system shot down five others. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime Putin ally and the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, said the drone strikes show that Russia's military technology is deficient. He attacked Russian defense officials in an expletive-filled voice message, following similar critiques in recent months. Zoom Out: Russia has launched 17 attacks on Kyiv using drones and missiles this month. The latest, on Tuesday, was the first one during the daytime.

6 The Miami Heat beat the Boston Celtics 103-84 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Monday night. The Heat will face the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals, with Game 1 scheduled for Thursday night. More: The Celtics rebounded from a 3-0 deficit to make it to Game 7, becoming the 4th team in NBA history to achieve the feat. If they had beaten the Heat in Game 7, the Celtics would have been the first team in NBA history to win a seven-game series after being down 3-0. A year ago, the Celtics beat the Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. After that game, the Heat's Jimmy Butler said: "Next year ... we're gonna be right back n this same situation and we're gonna get it done." Butler won Eastern Conference Finals MVP after scoring 28 points in Game 7. This will be the first NBA final for the Nuggets and the seventh for the Heat.

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💡 ART OF THE DAY Pomegranate Flower by Max Ernst. 1926.

Knowledge Hub Term of the Day Gross domestic product: Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the total value of goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a given year. Read More Question of the Week Should companies take steps to avoid employee burnout, or should it be the individual's responsibility to manage it themselves? Join the conversation

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Daniel Smith Writer Dr. Daniel Smith is an Inside writer with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Follow him on Twitter @DJS12321 or email him at Daniel@inside.com. This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia

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