(Bloomberg) -- Hello there: Whether you’re watching inflation markers, retail earnings, your crypto wallet or the balance of power in Washington — and the wider world — this week will bring plenty of action. The big summit: Joe Biden will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday at the Group of 20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia. It’s the first time the two leaders — each arriving with their domestic standing bolstered recently — have met since Biden became president. The list of issues before G-20 leaders is long: global financial instability and a looming recession, worldwide hunger exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, growing tensions in Asia, struggling efforts to curb climate change, the lingering economic and social turmoil of the pandemic.The big win: Catherine Cortez Masto appears to have won the US Senate race in Nevada, meaning Democrats are almost certain to keep control of the upper chamber. Barring a reversal in any recount, it was a win for Biden and a loss for Donald Trump, who endorsed Masto’s challenger Adam Laxalt, one of several election deniers who went down to defeat. Democrats defied political forecasts and political trends this midterm election, avoiding what's usually deep losses for the party in power. The final unsettled Senate race is a runoff in Georgia, on Dec. 6, while control of the House of Representatives is still up for grabs.

The big market thought: Institutional investors were souring on cryptocurrencies even before the sudden downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. But the crypto empire’s demise last week might have permanently damaged the prospects of digital assets being included in mainstream portfolios. “There was a period when it was being considered as a potential asset class that every investor should have in their strategic asset allocation and that’s off the table entirely,” said Hani Redha, a multi-asset portfolio manager at Pinebridge Investments in London.

The big fallout: The former crypto king (reminder: he’s only 30 years old) was interviewed by Bahamian police and regulators. Meantime, investigators are trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious outflow of some $662 million in tokens from both FTX’s international and US exchanges.

The big opinion: When historians look back on the spectacular rise and collapse of the cryptocurrency market, they will conclude that it couldn’t have happened without the pandemic. And they’d be right, Robert Burgess writes in Bloomberg Opinion. The combined money supply of the US, China, the euro zone, Japan and eight other major developed economies surged by $21.5 trillion over 2020 and 2021 to a record $102.3 trillion, and the speculative frenzies of the past decade reached a fever pitch during the pandemic. If fiscal authorities had done their part earlier, bank quantitative easing programs could have been much smaller, helping to contain bubbles, Burgess says.

The big spend:  US inflation has been stubborn, though last week’s lower-than-projected price growth gave a bounce to markets. But many Americans are still relying on credit cards and savings to keep up with everyday needs. US credit card balances surged to a record in the third quarter, with balances soaring 19% and average credit lines also climbing to an all-time high, according to data from TransUnion. As essentials get pricier there can be little leftover for discretionary purchases. Major retailers, including Home Depot, Walmart, Target and the Gap, report earnings this week amid rising inventory levels, moderating sales, and a shift in consumer behavior coming out of the pandemic. Meantime, October retail sales data ahead of the all-important holiday period will show if consumers keeping shelling out in the face of a broader economic slowdown. 

The big payday:  Elon Musk is slated to testify Monday in a lawsuit brought by a Tesla investor who argues Musk’s $55 billion pay package in 2018 was marred by conflicts of interest and improper disclosures about performance benchmarks.  Richard Tornetta says the billionaire engineered the windfall pay deal by pushing it through a “supine board.” Legal experts say the case will spotlight the role of courts in regulating executive compensation and shine a light on Musk’s peripatetic management of Tesla. The big sentence: Elizabeth Holmes will learn her fate, perhaps for the next decade-plus, on Friday. The former Theranos CEO should spend 15 years in prison for one of the most serious white-collar crimes in Silicon Valley history, prosecutors told a federal judge. Holmes’s attorneys have sought to humanize her through personal letters and are seeking home confinement and community service for her fraud conviction. Criminal defense lawyers have said the Judge Edward Davila will not only seek to penalize Holmes for defrauding investors, but also to send a message to the technology sector, where the lines between hype and fraud are often blurred. 

ICYM our Big Take:  An exclusive Bloomberg analysis shows that European fuel demand and the strong US dollar have left emerging markets facing years of shortages and potential unrest. The center of the issue is Europe's rush to replace Russian fuel, coupled with a worrying lack of new supply in the near-term and fears that emerging nations won’t be able to repay debts. 

Hear this:  Thailand is grappling with how to manage both its own plastic waste and that of other countries, which increasingly lands on its shore after China banned such imports. Despite policies to stem the influx and activism by a variety of civil society groups, the rich world's incentives to dump its plastic on the developing world remain powerful and the practice is hard to stop.

And finally…. The fifth annual Bloomberg New Economy Forum returns to Singapore on Nov. 14-17. It will mark the country’s third time as Forum host, following the inaugural event in 2018 and 2021’s successful return to in-person convening.

Have a good week. We’ll see you on the other side.

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