Critical 100 Days, Yellen Urges Big Spend, BOJ to Hold: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Thursday, Asia. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• Joe Biden’s 100-day charge is probably the most critical in a generation, write Carl Riccadonna and Yelena Shulyatyeva. Here’s a look at the U.S. economy in charts and what a 50-50 senate means
• Janet Yellen invoked an enduring era of low interest rates in delivering the Biden administration’s opening argument to lawmakers for its $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief proposal. But the stimulus received a skeptical response from two key Senate Republicans
• The Bank of Japan is widely expected to stand pat Thursday with the focus shifting to the bank’s economic outlook amid rising infections
• China imposed sanctions on Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and other Trump officials, hitting back at the outgoing team. Meantime, Biden’s cabinet picks signaled the new administration would continue some of Donald Trump’s hard-line economic policies toward China
• Indonesia is set to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday as it assesses signs of price and currency pressures
• Taiwan’s exporters defied a global slowdown to post record orders
• The Bank of Canada is adopting a positive tone on the outlook, looking past a weak start to 2021 as vaccine efforts accelerate
• Here are 150 billion reasons why the U.K.’s economic recovery might produce a surprise, according to Dan Hanson
• The ECB is emulating its Asia-Pacific peers by controlling government borrowing costs, just in a uniquely European way
• Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte won backing for 32 billion euros ($39 billion) of spending by his now minority government
• Brazil held its benchmark interest rate at a record low as a resurgent Covid-19 pandemic clouds this year’s growth outlook
• Imagine being stuck at Dublin port for 36 hours, in the dead of winter during a pandemic. That was the fate of a truck driver who landed at the port without the paperwork he needed after Brexit
• Robert Rubin and Joseph Stiglitz found something they can agree on
• Joe Biden began his presidency with a soaring appeal to end America’s “uncivil war” and reset the tone in Washington, delivering an inaugural address that dispensed with a laundry list of policy goals to instead confront the nation’s glaring political divides