The Trump Organization has claimed that while Donald Trump is president, for however long that may be, it will not engage in any new foreign deals. Assuming the company is actually sticking to that claim—and it’s possible that it’s not!—the president is presumably seething with impotent rage about not being able to get in on all the sweet, sweet business opportunities his buddies are exploiting in Africa.

Following his maniacal speech on Tuesday at the United Nations, in which he vowed to wipe North Korea off the map if necessary, Trump told African leaders gathered for a lunch at the U.N. that he stands in awe of all the continent’s “tremendous business potential.” Naturally, his praise quickly took on a vaguely colonialist tone.

“I have so many friends going to your countries to get rich,” he actually said to them, adding that “six of the world‘s 10 fastest growing economies are in Africa.” Perhaps getting himself a little too worked up about all the ways in which Africa poses an opportunity for his close personal friends to further enrich themselves, the president referred to a country called “Nambia,” which has the unique distinction of not existing.

In fairness to Trump, we should probably award him partial credit for refraining from telling the group “I love Africa. Great colonialism. Excellent mineral extraction opportunities,” which we can only assume was how the first draft of his speech began.

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Who among us hasn’t offered to provide foreign billionaires with “private briefings” on U.S. presidential elections?

Surely there’s nothing to see here:

Less than two weeks before Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign chairman offered to provide briefings on the race to a Russian billionaire closely aligned with the Kremlin, according to people familiar with the discussions. Paul Manafort made the offer in an e-mail to an overseas intermediary, asking that a message be sent to Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate with whom Manafort had done business in the past, these people said. “If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote in the July 7, 2016, e-mail, portions of which were read to The Washington Post along with other Manafort correspondence from that time. The e-mails are among tens of thousands of documents that have been turned over to congressional investigators and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team as they probe whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia as part of Moscow’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election.

A spokeswoman for Deripaska told The Washington Post that the e-mails were only evidence of scheming by “consultants in the notorious ‘beltway bandit’ industry.” Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, said in a statement that the e-mails were an “innocuous” attempt to collect money that was owed to him. “It’s no secret Mr. Manafort was owed money by past clients,” Maloni said.

Equifax could pay just $1 per customer in hacking scandal

Earlier this month, credit-reporting company Equifax disclosed that more than a month prior, its systems had been breached in a cyber attack that may have compromised almost half of America’s personal information, including social security, credit card, and driver’s license numbers, birth dates, names, and addresses. The pilfered data could be used for illegal means for years, including by individuals seeking to commit identity and credit theft. In addition, according to attorney Andrew Friedman, the risks associated with the theft include a “possible national security threat, as personal information of governmental employees useful for cyberwarfare will be available on the Dark Web for years to come.” For those reasons, it’s unsurprising that within hours of Equifax disclosing the hack, two customers had filed a complaint in federal court and now, less than two weeks later, the company has been hit with more than 100 consumer lawsuits.

For the scope of its incompetence, you might think that the company would be facing a legal penalty that starts with a “b.” But you would think wrong! According to legal experts, despite the fact that “its exposure theoretically could amount to $143 billion under a federal law that carries damages of as much as $1,000 per violation, plus punitive damages,” it’s unlikely to pay anywhere near that. Instead, cyber-security lawyer Nathan Taylor tells Bloomberg, a global settlement of $200 million is possible; after attorneys take their cut, Equifax could end up paying, on average, less than $1 per person of the 143 million whose information may have been affected.

For consumers—or more precisely, their attorneys—a modest settlement would avoid the risk of winning nothing if no actual harm from the hack can be definitively traced back to the company. With frequent high-profile hacks in recent years, it’s virtually impossible to connect a specific instance of identity theft to a particular breach, according to Taylor of Morrison Foerster. . .

“The problem with these claims is that the only thing that has happened is the breach,” said Robert Schwartz, a lawyer with Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles. “If there’s no harm, federal judges have no jurisdiction.” That outcome was typical of early cases, including one dismissed against Barnes & Noble Inc. over a 2012 security breach that compromised customer credit and debit cards at 63 stores across the U.S.

On the other hand, Bloomberg notes that “over time, some courts have taken a broader view of what constitutes harm and have allowed consumers subject to account freezes and other expenses to proceed with claims,” which was what occurred in the litigation on behalf of the tens of millions of victims in the Target breach. At least one lawyer representing victims of the Equifax hack said that he disputes the notion that consumers whose information was stolen haven’t suffered harm. “The notion that no one is harmed yet is premature,” lawyer Andrew Friedman explained. “People already have out-of-pocket damages for additional credit monitoring and for credit freezes. We don’t know what’s happening with the data.”

In related news, The Hill reports that Equifax, which apparently should have its Internet access revoked, tweeted a link on Monday directing a victim asking about free credit monitoring to a “would-be phishing site.” Instead of sending the person to equifaxsecurity2017.com, “Tim” at Equifax told him or her to head over to securityequifax2017. Luckily, an individual who does not work for Equifax, security researcher Nick Sweeting, had already registered the site, realizing that scammers would likely use it to trick victims, under the impression they were on the company’s official site, into entering their information.

Banking conglomerate is more concerned about climate change than the president of the United States

Several months after Trump enraged the business community (and people who want the earth to be inhabitable 100 years from now) by announcing the U.S. would pull out of the Paris climate agreement—and two days after adviser Gary Cohn denied rumors that his boss might have had a change of heart—Citigroup has said it plans to “purchase or produce all of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.” While many corporations have said they will soon be only using clean energy, Bloomberg notes that Citigroup’s pledge to transition to total clean energy within three years is faster than most. It’s not every day that the decisions of the leader of the free world can make a banking behemoth look relatively saintly, but these are the exciting times in which we’re living.

Goldman Sachs predicts tax reform is gonna make it after all

Thank Mammon for tax reform: the one thing keeping business leaders who haven’t yet abandoned Trump—or who aren’t members of the wall-worshipping base—from completely and totally abandoning ship. Unfortunately, little things like the president being an easily distractible child in the body of a 71-year-old man, interruptions like the Russia investigation, and niggling mathematical obstacles have threatened the safe passage of trillions in tax cuts to the rich. Some have even worried, late at night when they can’t get to sleep, that comprehensive tax reform that includes slashing the corporate tax rate to a historic low might never happen. But turn those frowns upside down, because Goldman Sachs thinks this thing’s still got legs.

Thanks to the tentative agreement by Senate Republicans to write a budget that will allow for $1.5 trillion tax cuts over the next 10 years, the bank’s economists believe Congress will approve a tax-reform bill early in 2018. “Our understanding is that this figure represents their view of what a ‘revenue neutral’ agreement would cost when scored conventionally,” economist Alec Phillips wrote in a note to clients. “While we have recently been skeptical tax reform could happen because of the continued focus on revenue-neutrality as a principle, if a budget resolution is finalized that resembles the recently floated deal, enactment of tax reform in early 2018 would once again become the baseline expectation.”

Elsewhere!

Fed Unveils Plan to Pare Holdings, Hints at Another Rate Rise (W.S.J.)

D.O.J. to Begin Paying Victims of Bernie Madoff Scheme (The Hill)

Upheaval at the Top of Guggenheim, as S.E.C. Scrutinizes Investment Powerhouse (W.S.J.)

Psychiatric Exam Sought for Jailed “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli (CNBC)

This Stanford Professor Has a Theory on Why 2017 Is Filled with Jerks (New York)

Hurricane Maria Knocks Out Power to Puerto Rico (CNN)

Jack Ma Says Stop Looking to Manufacturing Growth for Jobs (Bloomberg)

Taxi Medallion Arbitrage! (Business Insider)

California Sues Over Trump’s Plans for Mexican Border Wall (W.S.J.)

Lisbon Has Too Many Pigeons, So It Built Them a Luxury Resort (W.S.J.)