Daily Pulse: More Layoffs at Hewlett Packard, Crude Exports, A Facebook Dislike

BREAKING: Hewlett Packard expects to shed up to 30,000 jobs as part of its $2.7 billion restructuring. Most of those will come from the Enterprise Services spinoff that will continue to be run by CEO Meg Whitman.

The company split is expected to be completed by the end of next month. The company's personal computer and printing operation will be run by Dion Weisler. 

At the end of Q2 HP had more than 300,000 employees.

#Stat

$538

The initial investment by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard when they formed their company on January 1, 1939 (the company name was decided with a coin toss).

#Quote

"Hewlett Packard Enterprise will be smaller and more focused than HP is today, and we will have a broad and deep portfolio of businesses that will help enterprises transition to the new style of business."

— Meg Whitman

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A Bubblin', Crude Faceoff: The US House is planning to vote on a bill that would end a four-decade ban on crude oil exports. It should pass among representatives but faces an uncertain future in the Senate and the White House opposes it, Amy Harder writes in The Wall Street Journal.

At issue isn’t refined petroleum — the stuff that goes into your gas tank — but the black gold, Texas tea that comes out of the ground. Ostensibly part of the nation’s defense posture, the ban was a response to the 1970s Arab oil embargo.

But crude prices, which topped $110 as recently as last year, have cratered and are now hovering at $40. So, some oil producers are, naturally, looking to expand their market beyond US shores. Refineries oppose the idea, since they can export the “finished” product. And lawmakers would need to make a judgement call about any impact on domestic price-at-the-pump, which is at historical lows as we enter a presidential election cycle.

But like so many things, with a government as divided as this one, it probably won’t amount to much more than a shouting match.

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The Art of the Deal: Twitter and Square have teamed up to enable anyone in the US to Tweet a donation to a candidate. Since both companies are run by Jack Dorsey, this was probably not a tough negotiation.

Candidates already use Twitter to drive traffic to sites where they then ask for money. But this removes a step, and every bit of friction you take from a process tends to make it more efficient and popular (call it the Uber Effect).

From the perspective of participatory democracy, a step in the right direction. Will it level the playing field with Super PACs and self-funded billionaires? Probably not.

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If You Can Unfriend … “Dislike” is finally coming to Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg says. “We’re working on it and shipping it," the social network’s CEO said during a Q&A. It’s a long-wished-for feature Facebook resisted to avoid giving members a tool to be mean. "What they really want is the ability to express empathy,” Zuckerberg said. “Not every moment is a good moment.”

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Fed Watch: The September meeting of the Federal Reserve board begins tomorrow, and at the end of their two-day session will announce highly-anticipated decision on whether it will raise the benchmark short-term interest rate for the first time in a decade.

There is plenty of evidence to support either a decision to check or raise, for all the wonky details read Greg Ip in The Wall Street Journal and Sam Fleming/Robin Wigglesworth in the Financial Times (Paywall).

Or take it from Andrew Flowers at FiveThirtyEight, who counsels “Don’t Worry Too Much About A Fed Interest Rate Hike.”

Flowers sees the odds of a rate increase this week at “roughly 1 in 4,” close to 40% in October and by December, 60%. “But whether the Fed begins liftoff in September or December is trivial. The climb is likely to be slow regardless,” writes Flowers. “Futures contracts predict a gentle ramping up of interest rates, with the federal funds rate hitting about 1.4 percent by the end of 2017 and around 1.7 percent by mid-2018.”

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Cover Art: Justice, one of four 6-week-old tiger cubs introduced at Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat, is seen at The Mirage Hotel & Casino on September 14, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images)