California Rep. Ami Bera wants to see more federal control over things like purchasing and stockpiling medical supplies to meet the needs of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I don’t think the federal government is doing enough to do command control to make sure the necessary equipment gets to the necessary places at the right time,” Bera told Cheddar.
The representative said he’s happy that President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, which gives the president power to mandate U.S. companies to manufacture certain, needed supplies, but that it should have been employed earlier for maximum effect.
He echoed the complaint from several governors that the decentralized nature of the response has forced states into bidding wars over equipment such as ventilators.
“There can’t be 50 governors competing against one another to get the personal protective equipment, to get ventilators, to get diagnostic tests,” he said. “It’s best managed at a central location so you can quickly move that equipment, those tests, to the places that need it immediately and continually re-stockpile.”
A former doctor and health professional, Bera said he would offer his own medical services if the crisis got bad enough.
“I’m a physician as well, and if things get pretty bad, I’ll go into practice at my old facility,” he said.
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Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
