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☆ Rise of Hate Spending: Americans Detest High Prices but Keep Shopping
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-21 | by ( Emily Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

According to experts I talked to, the surge in hate spending can be attributed to various factors. They're aware prices aren't going back to 2019 levels, and given everything everyone's just been through, they may as well live it up. She told me that she often finds herself outraged by prices — and then ultimately succumbs to the forces of capitalism. It's easy to say you want to cut back on spending, given high prices, but when a friend asks whether you want to go shopping, it's hard to say no. Hart, the Illinois writer with a brand-new Stanley cup, sees some of her spending as a way to reclaim power.

Persons: Christ, Lydia Boussour, they're, everyone's, Jordan Hart, Hart, Boussour, —, they've, it's, acclimated, It's, Claire Tassin, Tassin, There's, Taylor Swift, jonesing, people's, Ravi Dhar, Dhar, he'd, he's, I've, she'd, she'll, Stanley Organizations: Retail, Consumers, Morning, Center, Yale School of Management Locations: America, Illinois, YOLO splurging, Europe, York

Labor painsAfter a “summer of strikes” last year that stretched from Detroit to Hollywood, unions are on a roll, flexing their growing might. Friday will bring a new test of that power as workers at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee vote on whether to join the United Automobile Workers. Victory there would mark perhaps the first time a foreign carmaker’s U.S. plant became unionized and form a beachhead for organized labor in the anti-union South. But it could also resonate well beyond the car industry as President Biden cultivates labor in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. A yes vote would be a big win for the U.A.W.

Persons: ”, Biden, Shawn Fain, they’ve Organizations: Volkswagen, United Automobile Workers, Big, Detroit carmakers, Toyota, Tesla, Automotive News Locations: Detroit, Hollywood, Tennessee, U.S, Michigan, Pennsylvania

The clock ticks for TikTokThe push to either split TikTok from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or ban it in the U.S. is gaining momentum thanks to a legislative maneuver by the House Speaker Mike Johnson. The bill’s progress comes as The Times reveals more details about the video platform’s origin story — and the central role played by the Chinese subsidiary of the trading firm of a Republican donor, Jeff Yass. Johnson has bundled the TikTok bill into a foreign aid package. The speaker said on Wednesday that he would put up for a vote this weekend a spending measure for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that includes a modified version of the TikTok divestment legislation. The move may force the Senate’s hand: The House overwhelmingly passed the bill last month, but the Senate hasn’t been in a rush to take it up.

Persons: Mike Johnson, Jeff Yass, Johnson, hasn’t Organizations: Times Locations: U.S, Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan

He was a model to me of artistic labor and discipline, even if those early paintings were painfully amateurish. The painting followed me from Amherst to my first job in New York, and on to London and Delhi. IT WASN’T MY intention to start an essay about artistic beginnings with a story of artistic death. I’m especially moved by those first moments of validation by which an artist comes out to himself, as it were. It’s this, the inexorability of the correspondence between an artist and the world, that gives those first steps their magical quality.

Persons: Naipaul, Neil Shah, James Wood —, Zack, who’d, ”, Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna, Elders ”, I’m, ” Gustave Flaubert, “, ” Zack, it’s, Bruce Chatwin, Paul Gauguin, Salman Rushdie, Somerset Maugham, Kathryn Bigelow, Philip Glass, Arundhati Roy, Booker, Joseph Conrad, Conrad, Jacques, ” Conrad, brimming, ’, ’ ”, Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser, ” Lispector, Maugham, eludes, Jan van Kessel, Elder, — Pieter Bruegel, —, Rebecca West —, “ Black Lamb, J.R, Hammond, Wells, Rebecca West ”, sloughed, Henrik Ibsen’s, Rosmersholm ”, Karan Mahajan, Salman Toor, what’s, ” Hemingway, Anoushka Shankar, Ravi Shankar, Harold Bloom, Ravi, Uday, René Daumal, Rasa ”, ” Anoushka, Norah Jones, Norah, I’ve, “ Raphael, Rachel Cusk, Italy ”, Perugino, Raphael, Cusk, J.M, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Márquez, Thomas Pynchon’s, James Joyce, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Marcel Proust’s, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Read, Emma Kehlbeck, Quinton Kamara Organizations: Amherst College, Elders, Fayerweather, ”, Google, Sunday Times, Somerset, Yugoslavia, The, “, . Locations: Delhi, ”, Massachusetts, Italian, Topeka, Kan, Amherst, New York, London, Patagonia, New Delhi, Torrens, Cambridge, Polish, Ukrainian, Brazil, Flemish, Victorian England, “ H.G, Fairfield, United States, “, East, Lahore, Europe, America, Texas, Side, Manhattan, India, Italy

He was a model to me of artistic labor and discipline, even if those early paintings were painfully amateurish. IT WASN’T MY intention to start an essay about artistic beginnings with a story of artistic death. No one captured the massive cultural and economic disparities of my life in Delhi (and his in Lahore) like Toor. But quite unbeknown to me, Toor’s life in New York had opened up a new vein of material. Not everyone who sees a Michelangelo can go off and paint a Michelangelo.”THERE ARE SO many ways to begin.

Tesla tries again on Musk’s record pay packageNearly three months ago, a Delaware court voided Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package that Tesla’s board — and most shareholders — had given him in 2018, contending that the process to decide it was “deeply flawed” and that the company didn’t properly disclose it to investors. On Wednesday, Tesla said that it would ask shareholders to vote again on that same pay package, now valued at about $47 billion, at its annual meeting on June 13. The company’s board is effectively asking shareholders, now armed with all of the information that was revealed about the negotiations in court, to make the court’s ruling moot. The vote is likely to set off a bitter battle among investors and governance experts over whether shareholders should provide Musk with the richest pay package in U.S. corporate history. It comes as Tesla faces new challenges, especially slumping sales that have erased billions off its market value in recent months.

Persons: Tesla, Elon Musk’s, — Locations: Delaware

☆ Long-time quant bigwig Neil Chriss is out at Paloma after just 11 months. It was a year of big hires, a restructuring, and new New York digs.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Bradley Saacks | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Chriss — who joined the long-running quant-focused multi-strategy firm in May of 2023 — is "no longer with Paloma," according to a letter sent to the firm's investors Monday. Chriss had been at Millennium for five years prior to joining Paloma and founded his own hedge fund, Hutchin Hill, in 2007. Paloma declined to comment on the rationale for his departure, and Chriss did not respond to requests for comment. But it was not all growth for Paloma while Chriss was at the helm.

Persons: —, Neil Chriss's, Paloma, Chriss —, Chriss, Donald Sussman, Ravi Singh, Goldman Sachs, Chris LaSusa, LaSusa, Steve Cohen, Shaw, Ritter Organizations: Service, Paloma, Business, Industry, Intelligence, Goldman, KCL, D.E, Capital, Ritter Alpha Locations: Hill, Greenwich, New York, Manhattan, Minnesota

deal as a diplomatic weaponA relatively small deal — by Microsoft’s standards, anyway — is leading to big geopolitical ripples on Tuesday. The tech giant is investing $1.5 billion in G42, an Emirati artificial intelligence company. On its face, that may appear to be just another effort by the tech giant to claim a foothold in a fast-growing A.I. The terms of the deal: G42 will be able to sell Microsoft services that use powerful A.I. chips; in return, it will use Microsoft’s Azure cloud services for its A.I.

Persons: OpenAI, Biden Organizations: Microsoft Locations: Beijing, China

But the calm could be short lived, as world leaders and markets focus on Israel’s response. Military clashes don’t always sink the markets, as was the case when Hamas attacked Israel in October and Israel retaliated. “We may be entering one of the most treacherous geopolitical eras since World War II,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s C.E.O., warned last week. “Take the win,” President Biden reportedly told Israel’s embattled prime minister after the attack was rebuffed with American help. Iran has signaled that the attack was a one-and-done, but Israel’s war cabinet hasn’t indicated its next move.

Persons: Israel, ” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden, hasn’t, Helima Croft Organizations: JPMorgan, ”, RBC Capital Markets Locations: Israel, Ukraine, United States, Iran

Housing gloomThe higher-for-longer inflation predicament has hit the U.S. housing market like a thunderbolt. More economists are paring their bets that the Fed will cut rates after the latest Consumer Price Index report. They all argue that sticky inflation will force the Fed to keep borrowing costs higher for longer. The country is growing faster than many peers, but voters are zeroing in on inflation to explain their disapproval of President Biden’s handling of the economy. (Some DealBook readers in recent days have emailed to say that they’re strongly feeling the pain of housing inflation.)

Persons: Goldman Sachs, ” Lawrence Yun, Biden’s Organizations: Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, National Association of Realtors

The dollar spiked overnight and traders slashed their bets on when — or whether — the Fed would cut interest rates this year. Such uncertainty could last for months and complicate President Biden’s bid for a second term. Traders this morning were pricing in less than two rate cuts for 2024 — down from more than six at the start of the year — possibly starting in July. The growing view on Wall Street is that inflation will need to get closer to the Fed’s 2 percent target before the central bank makes a move. Some are going even further: Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary and a critic of the Fed’s handling of inflation, told Bloomberg that a rate increase can’t be ruled out.

Persons: Biden’s, Larry Summers Organizations: Fed, Biden U.S, Treasury, Bloomberg

Deal making runs into presidential politicsPresident Biden holds talks on Wednesday for Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, part of a state visit designed to show the U.S.’s commitment to a staunch ally. Despite the pomp and ceremony, the presidential election will loom over the meetings, with Biden’s opposition to Nippon Steel’s bid for U.S. Steel showing how the chase for votes is affecting deal making and economic policy. The summit will be just the fifth state visit of his administration, and reflects a different approach to that of his predecessor, Donald Trump. Both Biden and Trump have courted union workers, notably during the auto industry strike last year. Biden is the first sitting president to visit a picket line.

Persons: Biden, Fumio, Donald Trump, It’s, Trump Organizations: Nippon, U.S, Steel, Nippon Steel’s, Pennsylvania, Biden Locations: U.S, Japan, China, South Korea, India, Europe, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh

What next on inflation and rate cuts? The mood music on rate cuts has changed again. All eyes now are focused on the upcoming Consumer Price Index data for clues on when the Fed might finally start cutting interest rates. Economists on Tuesday are forecasting higher growth but also higher-for-longer inflation and rates. Traders are penciling in fewer than three cuts this year — lower than the Fed’s own projection — with the first coming not before July.

Persons: That’s

Jamie Dimon sees America at a ‘Pivotal Moment’Jamie Dimon’s annual letter to JPMorgan Chase shareholders has just been published. The economy is resilient but the government underpinning it is a red flag. Consumers are spending and investors expect a soft landing. But Dimon warns that the economy is being fueled by government spending and rising deficits. “These markets seem to be pricing in at a 70% to 80% chance of a soft landing — modest growth along with declining inflation and interest rates,” Dimon writes, adding that the odds are actually a lot lower.

Persons: Jamie Dimon, Jamie Dimon’s, Dimon, ”, ” Dimon Organizations: JPMorgan Chase Locations: America, Ukraine

Oil spike ripples through global marketsThe price of Brent crude rose again on Friday, at one point topping $91 a barrel. Growing tensions in the Middle East have pushed the global benchmark to levels last reached in October. Some analysts believe the oil rally is just beginning, creating a fresh inflation risk for central bankers who are struggling to keep price-increases in check. JPMorgan Chase forecast last week that oil would climb above $100 by September. And, in a bad sign for motorists, gasoline prices in the U.S. have climbed 6 percent in the past month just ahead of the North American summer driving season.

Persons: Brent, Biden Organizations: JPMorgan Chase Locations: U.S

Disney fended off the activist investor Nelson Peltz for the second time in two years, as its shareholders rejected his effort to win two seats on its board. The House of Mouse claimed a “substantial” margin of victory, after a bitterly fought contest with Peltz and his major backer, the former Marvel chair Ike Perlmutter. Based on preliminary results from Wednesday’s annual investor meeting, Disney’s board candidates won the backing of 75 percent of individual shareholders, an outsize investor base. But like any good Disney tale, the board fight provided a series of lessons for the future — for companies and activists alike. That included cost-cutting efforts, an investment in the video game giant Epic Games and a shake-up in the struggling movie division.

Persons: Iger, Nelson Peltz, Mouse, Peltz, Ike Perlmutter, Bob Iger Organizations: Disney, Marvel, Wall Street

Tesla’s woes prompt an E.V. reassessmentWall Street has sounded the alarm for weeks that the transition to electric vehicles may be stalling, despite billions in government subsidies and huge investments by auto giants. Tesla’s latest sales figures suggest that the pullback may be worse than thought — and beyond one company’s ability to fix. Tesla’s numbers undershot forecasts. That has contributed to a more than 30 percent decline in Tesla’s stock, which has made it one of the worst performers on the S&P 500 this year.

Microsoft unbundles, againMicrosoft is separating Teams, its popular video and chat app, from its Office software suite in markets around the world, broadening a split that began in the European Union last fall. It appears to be the latest effort by the software giant to head off investigations by global antitrust enforcers as regulators examine the power of Big Tech. Microsoft first added the video and document collaboration program to its business software suite in 2017, and saw Teams’s popularity soar after the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a boom in hybrid and remote working. At the height of the lockdown in 2020, Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior by bundling Teams with Office. (Three months later, Slack agreed to sell itself to Salesforce for $27.7 billion.)

Persons: Microsoft unbundles, Slack, Eric Yuan Organizations: Microsoft, European Union, Big Tech, Rivals, Commission

Politicians and auto executives on both sides of the Atlantic are calling for more protectionist measures. After Tesla lost its crown to BYD as the world’s biggest E.V. Otherwise, the Tesla C.E.O. said, Chinese E.V. The continent’s auto sector employs 13 million people and generates 8 percent of the bloc’s G.D.P.

Persons: China Tesla, —, Warren Buffett, Tesla, Elon Musk, ” Luca de Meo, Vivienne Walt, DealBook, ”, June’s E.U Organizations: Renault Group’s, Airbus Locations: China, Europe, June’s

Kushner and Kloss take over Life magazineLife, the iconic photography-focused chronicler of the 20th century, has taken on many forms, including a weekly magazine, a website and the occasional special issue. Kushner and Kloss are buying the publication rights to Life from Dotdash Meredith, the print and digital publisher. The deal is being done through Bedford Media, the media start-up that Kloss leads as C.E.O. Life was once a central part of American culture, featuring the work of renowned photographers like Robert Capa and writing by top authors. (Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” first appeared in its pages.

Persons: Kushner, Kloss, Barry, Josh Kushner, Dotdash Meredith, Robert Capa, Ernest Hemingway’s “ Organizations: IAC, Bedford Media Locations: OpenAI

A settlement that could scramble the credit card businessA long-running fight between the credit card giants Visa and Mastercard and retailers in the United States is nearing an end, with the promise of lower fees for merchants. But the proposed class-action settlement could have wider consequences, including for the lucrative business of high-end credit cards — and for retailers. What’s in the settlement: Visa and Mastercard said on Tuesday that they had agreed to reduce swipe fees, costs associated with the use of a credit card, for about five years. Perhaps more important, merchants will be able to raise their prices based on the kind of card. For example, buying groceries with a higher-fee card — typically a premium card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve — could become more expensive than paying with a lower-end one.

Organizations: Visa, Mastercard, Chase Locations: United States

BlackRock’s chief wants to rethink a fiscal time bombAs the chairman and C.E.O. In his latest letter to investors, published on Tuesday, Fink weighs in on a new topic: a looming global retirement crisis, and what can be done to address it. The way retirement is handled around the world needs to change, Fink writes. In the U.S. in particular, people are living longer, a trend that’s likely to grow given the advent of weight loss drugs like Wegovy, Fink writes. But he adds that four in 10 Americans don’t have $400 in emergency savings, let alone proper retirement funds.

Persons: Larry Fink, Fink Organizations: BlackRock

Raised stakes in a firearms takeover contestA battle over Vista Outdoor, the company behind top ammunition brands like Remington and Camelbak water bottles, is escalating — and national security is becoming a bigger factor in the fight. MNC is offering $37.50 a share for all of Vista, up from a bid of $35 last month and 16 percent higher than where Vista’s stock closed on Friday. In a letter to Vista’s board reviewed by DealBook, the investment firm reiterated that it had lined up financing for its offer, despite questions by Vista about how solid those commitments were. Vista rejected MNC’s previous offer, saying a planned breakup of itself would be more valuable for shareholders. (Vista has agreed to sell its ammunition business to CSG for $1.9 billion, leaving its nonfirearm division, Revelyst, as a stand-alone public company.)

Persons: DealBook, Vista Organizations: Vista, Remington, MNC Capital, Czechoslovak, MNC, CSG Locations: U.S, Vista

These are accusations that the Justice Department leveled against a technology giant it accused of running an illegal monopoly. But they aren’t from this week’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple — they’re from the case the department brought against Microsoft in 1998. And federal prosecutors are explicitly connecting the Apple lawsuit to that earlier fight. “They’re really presenting this case as a successor to that: Microsoft 2.0,” said Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. And it isn’t clear whether the Justice Department will be able to achieve here what it claims to have done by suing Microsoft.

Persons: Apple —, Department’s, Clinton, “ They’re, ”, Gus Hurwitz Organizations: Justice Department, Apple, Microsoft, Google, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

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