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The World
Besieged by an onslaught of sanctions that have largely undone 30 years of economic integration with the West in the space of two weeks, Putin opened the door to nationalizing the assets of Western companies pulling out of Russia and exhorted senior officials to “act decisively” to preserve jobs. The sanctions imposed in the two weeks since the invasion — combined with multinational companies that employ tens of thousands of Russians voluntarily deciding to withdraw amid the global outrage — dwarf any other economic pressure that Russia has faced under Mr. Putin. The Institute of International Finance, a Washington-based association of financial firms, predicted that Russia would see a 15-percent decline in its gross domestic product this year, which would wipe out much of the economic growth that Mr. Putin has presided over since taking office in 1999. (New York Times)
China overestimated Russia’s ability to achieve a decisive victory over Ukraine, Moscow overestimated Beijing’s support and the US overestimated Russian military prowess, top US intelligence chiefs told senators. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion has undercut President Xi Jinping’s goals by knocking global growth even as China’s economy wobbles. And by driving Western allies closer together, Moscow has undercut Beijing’s ability to play one off against the other and damaged China’s reputation by its association with Russia. “President Xi, in particular, is unsettled by what he’s seen, partly because his own intelligence doesn’t appear to have told him what was going to happen,” William Burns, CIA director, said. (South China Morning Post)
Tech companies race to extract employees from Russia: Multinational technology companies that last week were helping evacuate their employees from Ukraine now are doing the same in Russia, chartering planes and procuring visas for a well-connected workforce anxious about the stumbling economy, growing isolation and the crackdown on speech and information. “It’s like an exodus of people who don’t support this war, and there are a lot of them,” said a Russian émigré who has lived in Switzerland for 10 years and is now an executive at one small software company and an investor in others. (Washington Post)
Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy. The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland. (Reuters)
Google issued an update and Android users in Ukraine will soon have rapid Air Raid Alerts natively built into their phones. (9to5Google)
The US warned of a “serious escalation” in North Korea’s military capabilities, after concluding that two recent missile tests involved “a relatively new” system that could send warheads greater distances than previous launches. A senior Biden administration official told reporters that neither of the missile launches — one on February 26 and the other on March 4 — had demonstrated the ability to travel as far as a standard intercontinental ballistic missile, which could reach the US mainland. However, US national security officials are still concerned because the launches showed Pyongyang appeared to be testing “elements of the system” before conducting a launch at full range. (Financial Times)
President Macron is facing anger after pledging to curb France’s generous state pension system by raising the retirement age from 62 to 65 if he wins a second term. The announcement brought waves of indignation from the populist candidates trying to unseat him in the presidential election next month, but also from unions claiming that it was “brutal” and “unjust” to ask the French to continue working until their mid-sixties. (The Times)
The Senate passed a $1.5 trillion funding bill to keep the government running through September and bolster both humanitarian and military efforts in Ukraine. The legislation will head to President Joe Biden for his signature. The House passed it on Wednesday. (CNBC)
Saddled with daunting logistical and political obstacles, the 2020 census seriously undercounted the number of Hispanic, Black and Native American residents even though its overall population count of 323.2 million was largely accurate, the Census Bureau said. At the same time, the census overcounted white and Asian residents. Those net undercounts of racial minorities, which have historically plagued decennial census counts, mean that some racial and ethnic groups will have less political clout and fewer federal dollars than they are entitled to. (New York Times)
Election officials worry about politicians interfering with their jobs, as well as new colleagues who embrace theories about widespread election fraud. It's been nearly a year and half since the 2020 election, but baseless allegations of fraud from former President Trump and associates are still fueling anxiety. Brennan found that one in five election workers they're likely to leave their jobs before 2024. One out of every six local officials interviewed said they'd been threatened because of their job, whether over the phone, in person or through social media, the survey of nearly 600 officials found. More than one in three said they're "very worried" about interference by political leaders over how they and other election officials do their jobs in future elections. Just 13% said they'd been "very worried" before 2020. (Axios, Brennan Center for Justice)
Economy
Economic blacklist of Russia marks a new blow for globalization: The postwar vision of harmonious world trade was already under pressure; the invasion of Ukraine risks further economic fragmentation. “The trading system as we’ve known it, with the World Trade Organization at its core and with a basic set of rules that everyone traded under, is coming apart,” said Jennifer Hillman, a trade lawyer and former jurist on the WTO’s trade court who now teaches international law at Georgetown University. Despite the benefits of globalization, the world has been heading in the other direction for a decade or more. By one measure, the high-water mark for globalization came in 2008, when world exports reached 31% of global gross domestic product. By 2020, that had dropped to 26%. (Wall Street Journal)
Goldman Sachs became the first big American bank to say it would exit Russia after Western governments imposed a raft of sanctions intended to cripple its economy. Hours later, JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the U.S., said it was winding down there, too. Although American banks had largely pulled back from directly dealing with Russia in recent years, Goldman, JPMorgan and others still maintained limited operations to serve companies there. (New York Times)
Rising energy, food and services prices pushed already elevated U.S. inflation to a 7.9% annual rate last month—another four-decade high—with oil and commodity market disruptions from the Ukraine crisis expected to add more cost pressures. The consumer-price index, which measures the cost of goods and services across the economy, hasn’t been this high since it was 8.4% in January 1982, when the nation was in recession and trying to tame what had been double-digit inflation. Higher energy prices, including gasoline price increases, helped push up the inflation reading, along with cost gains for groceries, restaurant food, transportation services and apparel. (Wall Street Journal)
Yellen sees ‘uncomfortably high’ 2022 inflation but no recession: The Treasury Secretary declined to offer a new forecast on inflation for the end of 2022. (Bloomberg)
Americans are going into debt to deal with a generational high in inflation after increasing their savings in the early going of the pandemic when stimulus funds were flowing. Nearly one-third of Americans have added credit card debt during the pandemic — and of those, about half say inflation was the biggest reason. (Axios)
The European Central Bank signaled an end to its crisis-era bond buying later this year in a bid to stave off record inflation despite the war in Ukraine hitting economic growth. (The Times)
Global payments giant Stripe now supports crypto businesses including exchanges, wallet providers, and NFT marketplaces, among others. Stripe now offers fiat payments API integration for crypto businesses to process crypto-to-fiat currency payments. (The Block)
The last two years ushered in an unplanned experiment with a different way of working: Some 50 million Americans left their offices. Before the pandemic, in 2019, about 4 percent of employed people in the U.S. worked exclusively from home; by May 2020, that figure rose to 43 percent, according to Gallup. Of course, that means a majority of the work force continued working in person throughout the last two years. But among white-collar workers, the shift is stark: Before Covid just 6 percent worked exclusively from home, which by May 2020 rose to 65 percent. “The only thing holding back flexible work arrangements was a failure of imagination,” said Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings. “That failure was remedied in three weeks’ time in March 2020.” When over 700 people responded to The Times’s recent questions about returning to their offices, as well as in interviews with more than two dozen of them, there were myriad reasons people listed for preferring work from home, on top of concerns about Covid safety. They mentioned sunlight, sweatpants, quality time with kids, quality time with cats, more hours to read and run, space to hide the angst of a crummy day or year. But the most strongly argued was about workplace culture. (New York Times)
Technology
MSNBC is putting much of its TV lineup on its parent company’s Peacock service, an effort to increase its offerings as competition in streaming news heats up. Beginning this spring, shows including “Morning Joe,” “All In With Chris Hayes,” and others will appear on Peacock hours after they air on TV. The shows will be available to Peacock Premium subscribers, who pay at least $4.99 a month for the service. Some of the network’s programs, including “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “The Last Word” and “The 11th Hour” aren’t slated to appear on Peacock. (Wall Street Journal)
Federal regulators are considering a requirement that publicly traded companies disclose data breaches and other significant cybersecurity incidents within four days, as they seek to strengthen financial markets’ resilience to online attacks. The SEC proposed a rule that would impose mandatory reporting for companies around cybersecurity. (Wall Street Journal)
Electric vehicle maker Rivian halves 2022 production outlook. Covid cases, severe weather and supply chain problems lower forecast to 25,000 units. (Financial Times)
The U.S. recorded-music business continues its upward swing, posting a near-record $15 billion in revenue for 2021, driven by a surge in streaming, solid vinyl and even CD sales, and the inclusion of TikTok music revenue for the first time. In fact, all major formats of music posted growth over the prior year, except digital downloads. Paid subscriptions continued to be the biggest growth driver, resulting in the sixth consecutive year of growth for music revenues. At wholesale value, 2021 revenues were up 22% to $9.8 billion. While the $15 billion number is itself a record, when adjusted for inflation, it’s actually nearly 40% lower than the previous record of $14.6 billion in 1999. (Variety)
How Twitter plans to add its next 100 million users: The Verge spoke with the three leaders, who together set the overall direction of how Twitter works for users and developers, about their top priorities and challenges as the team tries to hit its aggressive growth targets. Top 3 opportunities: 1) Restructuring the ship faster; 2) Building stickier Twitter features; 3) ID opportunities in decentralization. (The Verge)
Smart Links
MLB owners ratify new CBA to end lockout, salvage 162-game season. (ESPN)
Credit Suisse slashes bonuses after Archegos and Greensill scandals. (Financial Times)
The new starting salary for some graduates is $100,000. (Wall Street Journal)
Is concierge management an answer to the "Big Quit"? (Harvard Business School)
Looking to buy a house? Try throwing in free frozen yogurt or concert tickets. (Wall Street Journal)
Mapped: America's spotty paid sick leave laws. (Axios)