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The World
Emmanuel Macron is to be re-elected for a second term as French president after defeating his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the second round of voting, according to projections by polling agencies based on early returns. Le Pen conceded after the projections showed Macron winning more than 58% of the vote, but she vowed to fight on with her Rassemblement National party in elections for the National Assembly in June. About 28% of voters did not turn out, the highest level of abstention since 1969. (Financial Times)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday afternoon, the highest-level visit by an American delegation since the start of the war. (Washington Post)
U.S. withholds sanctions on a very close Putin associate: His reputed girlfriend. Officials have a sanctions package ready, but they continue to weigh the potential backlash for blacklisting the 39-year-old former Olympic gymnast. The U.S. government says she is the mother of at least three of President Vladimir Putin’s children. (Wall Street Journal)
Japan weighs hosting largest-ever joint drills with U.S. Marines: Japan and the U.S. will hold joint military drills in Hokkaido this fall, with the two-week exercises expected to involve more than 4,000 personnel. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Back in business: are airlines ready for a summer travel boom? After 24 months of crisis management, passengers are suddenly coming back so quickly that the industry does not know what to do with them. The number of scheduled flights has recovered to 89 per cent of 2019 levels this month, having fallen to just a third in April 2020. The revival comes as border restrictions loosen across much of the world, setting off a scramble at airports and airlines to ramp up operations, rehire staff and get planes back into the air. (Financial Times)
Saudi princes have sold more than $600 million worth of real estate, yachts and artwork in the U.S. and Europe since the kingdom’s de facto ruler tightened the purse strings of the ultrawealthy ruling family. The transactions represent a radical change of fortune for senior princes who funneled windfalls from oil booms in the 1970s and 1980s into some of the world’s most exclusive markets. Now, some royal family members are selling assets abroad to generate cash after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s 36-year-old de facto ruler, dried up many of the sources of money they had used to maintain their extraordinary spending habits. (Wall Street Journal)
Biden job approval stuck in low 40s: During Joe Biden's fifth quarter in office, which began on January 20 and ended on April 19, an average of 41.3% of U.S. adults approved of the job he was doing as president. The latest average is essentially unchanged from the 41.7% in his fourth quarter but significantly lower than his first three quarterly averages. Gallup's latest update on Biden's job approval, from an April 1-19 survey, finds 41% of Americans approving and 56% disapproving of the way Biden is handling his job as president. (Gallup)
In a first, firearms were leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens in 2020. Gun deaths among children and teens rose by 29% in a single year, largely because of an increase in homicides, outpacing vehicle crashes, drug overdoses or cancer. (NBC News, New England Journal of Medicine)
How the American middle class has changed in the past five decades: 1) Household incomes have risen considerably since 1970, but those of middle-class households have not climbed nearly as much as those of upper-income households. 2) The share of aggregate U.S. household income held by the middle class has fallen steadily since 1970. 3) Older Americans and Black adults made the greatest progress up the income ladder from 1971 to 2021. 4) Married adults and those in multi-earner households made more progress up the income ladder from 1971 to 2021 than their immediate counterparts. 5) Despite progress, Black and Hispanic adults trail behind other groups in their economic status. 6) Adults 65 and older continue to lag economically, despite decades of progress. 7) There is a sizable and growing income gap between adults with a bachelor’s degree and those with lower levels of education. (Pew Research Center)
However, the financial hardships caused by the COVID-19 recession in the U.S. were endured mostly by lower- and middle-income families. From 2019 to 2020, the median income of lower-income households decreased by 3.0% and the median income of middle-income households fell by 2.1%. In contrast, the median income of upper-income households in 2020 was about the same as it was in 2019. (Pew Research Center)
Economy
Job-switchers are often reaping double-digit pay increases, a new survey shows, a phenomenon that is demonstrating bargaining power for workers while threatening to keep inflation high. About 64% of job-switchers said their current job provides more pay than their previous job. Among these workers, nearly half received a raise of 11% or more, according to a ZipRecruiter survey provided exclusively to The Wall Street Journal. Nearly 9% are now making at least 50% more. Elevated rates of job switching could continue: Among prime-age workers aged 25 to 54, around 20% anticipate leaving within a year, while another 26% said they see staying one to two years, the survey said. (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. and the euro area are scheduled to provide quarterly growth readings in the coming week for the start of 2022, an early indication of how Russia’s war in Ukraine has affected two of the largest regions of the global economy. Russia set to cut, Colombia to hike, Japan to maintain rates. (Bloomberg)
Some Chinese state banks, such as Bank of China and Bank of Communications, will cut deposit rate ceilings on Monday, joining smaller lenders. (Reuters)
South Korea's big conglomerates, Samsung, Hyundai, SK, LG and the like, no longer feel threatened by a weak Japanese yen as their businesses decouple from their once-powerful neighbor. (Nikkei Asia Review)
The Fed that failed: Central banks are supposed to inspire confidence in the economy by keeping inflation low and stable. America’s Federal Reserve has suffered a hair-raising loss of control. Now nearly a fifth of Americans say inflation is the country’s most important problem; President Joe Biden has released oil from strategic reserves to try to curb petrol prices; and Democrats are searching for villains to blame, from greedy bosses to Vladimir Putin. It is the Fed, however, that had the tools to stop inflation and failed to use them in time. The result is the worst overheating in a big and rich economy in the 30-year era of inflation-targeting central banks. The good news is that inflation may have peaked at last. But the Fed’s 2% target will remain a long way off—forcing agonizing choices on the central bank. Apologists for America’s policymakers point to annual price rises of 7.5% in the euro area and 7% in Britain as evidence of a global problem, driven by the soaring price of commodities, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nearly three-quarters of the euro zone’s inflation is attributable to rocketing energy and food prices. (The Economist)
Indonesia, the world's top palm oil producer, announced plans to ban exports of the most widely used vegetable oil, in a shock move that could further inflame surging global food inflation. (Reuters)
Thousands of Argentine farmers protested in Buenos Aires against President Alberto Fernandez, whose policies to contain food prices to curb rampant inflation have been criticized by the agricultural sector. (Reuters)
Crypto industry’s Super Bowl ad blitz comes up short: Star-studded marketing push fails to jump-start sluggish trading volumes as uncertainty prevails. “We did not see a massive influx of retail investors into crypto after the Super Bowl ads,” said Noelle Acheson, head of market insights at Genesis Trading, a New York-based digital asset broker that claims to have handled $116.5bn in spot crypto trades last year. “Volumes are low because of a huge amount of uncertainty in the markets.” (Financial Times)
Technology
Twitter is re-examining Elon Musk’s $43 billion takeover offer after the billionaire lined up financing for the bid, in a sign the social-media company could be more receptive to a deal. But after he disclosed last week that he now has $46.5 billion in financing, Twitter is taking a fresh look at the offer and is more likely than before to seek to negotiate. The two sides met yesterday to discuss Musk’s proposal. (Wall Street Journal)
What to expect from this week’s tech earnings onslaught: Farewell, FAANG. With its stock price collapse this week, Netflix became the second member of the iconic group of high-flying big tech stocks—Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google—to get kicked to the curb this year. The other, of course, was Facebook parent Meta Platforms, whose stock was pummeled after its bleak fourth-quarter earnings call in early February and is down 45% for the year so far. The question now, as we await next week’s March quarter reports from a parade of big tech firms, is whether there will be any similar earthquake-like surprises from anyone else. (The Information)
The EU has agreed on another ambitious piece of legislation to police the online world. The bloc agreed on the broad terms of the Digital Services Act, or DSA, which will force tech companies to take greater responsibility for content that appears on their platforms. New obligations include removing illegal content and goods more quickly, explaining to users and researchers how their algorithms work, and taking stricter action on the spread of misinformation. Companies face fines of up to 6% of their annual turnover for non-compliance. (The Verge)
Tech companies may be slowly shrinking the gender gap, according to a new study from Deloitte. It predicts that tech firms will reach nearly 33% female representation in 2022, up more than two percentage points from 2019. Leadership roles are seeing the most growth in female representation at nearly 20%. Deloitte predicts that one in four leadership roles at large tech companies will be held by women in 2022. It cites tech leaders' pledges to hire more women and people of color: HP and Intel have set gender and racial equality goals to reach by 2030. (Protocol)
Crypto is bringing science back to venture: Andreessen Horowitz’s move to create a research lab is part of the trend for investors to move earlier and earlier in the technology life cycle. The venture landscape, especially in crypto, is more competitive than ever. Firms are raising billions, and capital is not always enough to win a deal. Venture firms have been trying to invest earlier in a startup’s development: incubating startups, creating studios and even funding founders with just an idea. (Protocol)
Smart Links
How Florida’s Disney clash could raise prices at the park and change the experience. (Washington Post)
$1-million milestone: Orange County median home price hits seven figures. (Los Angeles Times)
Netflix lost 700K subscribers by suspending its service in Russia. (Protocol)
Joe Biden, and the country, could really use a CTO. (Wired)
Nissan to stop making cars under Datsun brand. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Printed book sales rising again in the U.S. (Statista)