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The World
The severe economic downturn caused by the pandemic last year weighed on the financial health of Social Security, but not nearly as much as many forecasters originally feared, according to new projections of the program’s finances. While the pandemic had a significant impact on the program, the trustees said, they expect Social Security’s reserves to be depleted by 2034, only one year sooner than they estimated in their April 2020 report. (Wall Street Journal)
The federal government expects U.S. mortality rates to be elevated by 15% over pre-pandemic norms in 2021 and not return to normal levels until 2023, according to a report released by the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs. The trustees concluded that these elevated mortality rates, along with lower immigration and depressed fertility rates, have had a significant effect on the trust funds supporting both programs in the short term. But the virus’ long-term effects on America’s retirement and health-care systems remain unclear. (Washington Post)
Politics, policy & tech:
Google and Apple will have to open their app stores to alternative payment systems in South Korea, threatening their lucrative commissions on digital sales. A bill passed by South Korea’s National Assembly is the first in the world to dent the tech giants’ dominance over how apps on their platforms sell their digital goods. It will become law once signed by President Moon Jae-in, whose party strongly endorsed the legislation. (Wall Street Journal)
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy warned "a Republican majority will not forget" telecommunications companies that turn over phone records to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. More than 30 companies including Apple, AT&T and Verizon, received a request for phone records from congressional investigators Monday. (USA Today)
President Biden forcefully rejected criticism of his decision to end America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, hailing what he called the “extraordinary success” of the evacuation of Kabul and declaring the end of an era in which the U.S. uses military power “to remake other countries.” Speaking to the nation less than a week after a terrorist bombing killed 13 service members at the Kabul airport during a chaotic rush to leave the country, Biden said the costs to the U.S. would have been even higher if he had allowed the nation to remain mired for years in a civil war that has dragged on for decades. “That was the choice, the real choice — between leaving and escalating,” Biden said. “I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit.” The speech was less a celebration of a mission accomplished than a somber eulogy for a 20-year endeavor that cost the country much but whose burden was borne by few. (New York Times, Washington Post)
Louisiana residents who fled before Ida are urged to stay away indefinitely: The winds and rain from Hurricane Ida have passed, but the devastation wreaked by the storm weighs on every aspect of life. Schools are closed indefinitely. Officials say power will be out for up to a month. Cell service is spotty, and hospitals already burdened by Covid-19 are relying on generators and water reserves since water and sewer outages are widespread. Roads are blocked, stores are closed and the heat is punishing, with the National Weather Service issuing a heat advisory Tuesday and Wednesday for southern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, with a heat index up to 106 degrees. (New York Times, Wall Street Journal)
Idaho governor calls on National Guard to help hospitals as COVID-19 cases surge. Meanwhile, Google data shows that FDA approval nudged more vaccine interest. (Axios, Axios-2)
Partisan divides in media trust widen, driven by a decline among Republicans. In just five years, the percentage of Republicans with at least some trust in national news organizations has been cut in half – dropping from 70% in 2016 to 35% this year. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (78%) say they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the information that comes from national news organizations – 43 percentage points higher than Republicans and Republican leaners (35%). This partisan gap is the largest of any time that this question has been asked since 2016. And it grows even wider – to 53 points – between liberal Democrats (83%) and conservative Republicans (30%). (Pew Research Center)
Economy
The rise of US house prices broke another record in June as buyers competed for a limited inventory of homes. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index rose 18.6% from June 2020. That was the biggest year-on-year price growth in more than 30 years of data, and the third consecutive month of record gains. (Financial Times)
Eurozone inflation hits decade high as bottlenecks bite: Consumer prices were 3% higher in August than a year earlier, providing an early test of the European Central Bank’s resolve to let the inflation rate exceed its target if policy makers believes that will be temporary. (Wall Street Journal)
Nearly a quarter of executives have fired staffers for gaffes during video or audio calls, while a third of executives don’t trust their workers to “perform effectively when working remotely.” (Bloomberg)
Google pushes its mandatory return to office date into 2022. After January 10th, decisions on return to work days will fall to specific countries and offices. (The Verge, Sundar Pichai)
Chicago's co-working spaces grow as pandemic shifts where work takes place. (Chicago Tribune)
Americans are stocking up on toilet paper again: Procter & Gamble, the biggest U.S. manufacturer of toilet paper and paper towels, said it is ramping up production as demand increases. The moves come as several retailers said P&G is limiting shipments of paper products to stores. The maker of Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels is speeding up production lines, running factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week and investing to increase shipping volumes. The recent jump in demand comes after many months in which paper-product sales plummeted to below pre-pandemic levels as stocked-up Americans stopped buying. (Wall Street Journal)
Bank of America fights the war for tech talent by retraining own employees. Internal staff now account for more than 80% of new hires at technology and operations unit — up from 39% before the pandemic. (Financial Times)
Fidelity wants to add 9,000 jobs by year-end. (Wall Street Journal)
PayPal is exploring a stock-trading platform for U.S. customers. As part of the expansion, according to one of the sources, the payment giant hired a brokerage industry veteran to lead “Invest at PayPal” — a previously unreported division of the payments giant. The move comes amid a retail trading boom that brought millions of new investors into the stock market, along with more regulatory scrutiny for some brokerage firms. (CNBC)
Technology
Google is developing its own central processors for its notebook and tablet computers, the latest sign that major tech players see in-house chip development as key to their competitiveness. The U.S. internet giant plans to roll out the CPUs for laptops and tablets, which run on the company's Chrome operating system, in around 2023. (Nikkei Asian Review)
Since 2012, Facebook has hired at least 10 consulting and staffing firms globally to sift through its posts, along with a wider web of subcontractors, according to interviews and public records. Accenture has become Facebook’s single biggest partner in moderating content, according to an examination by The New York Times. Accenture has taken on the work — and given it a veneer of respectability — because Facebook has signed contracts with it for content moderation and other services worth at least $500 million a year, according to The Times’s examination. Accenture employs more than a third of the 15,000 people whom Facebook has said it has hired to inspect its posts. And while the agreements provide only a small fraction of Accenture’s annual revenue, they give it an important lifeline into Silicon Valley. Within Accenture, Facebook is known as a “diamond client.” (New York Times)
Facebook plans to announce that it will de-emphasize political posts and current events content in the News Feed based on negative user feedback. It also plans to expand tests to limit the amount of political content that people see in their News Feeds to more countries outside of the U.S. Moving forward, Facebook will expand some of its current News Feed tests that put less emphasis on certain engagement signals, like the probability that a user will share or comment on a post, in its ranking algorithm. (Axios)
Apple has barred employees from creating a Slack channel to discuss pay equity. A member of the employee relations team, Apple’s version of HR, said that while the topic was “aligned with Apple’s commitment to pay equity,” it did not meet the company’s Slack Terms of Use. But that rule has not been evenly enforced. Currently, Apple employees have popular Slack channels to discuss #fun-dogs (more than 5,000 members), #gaming (more than 3,000 members), and #dad-jokes (more than 2,000 members). On August 18th, the company approved a channel called #community-foosball. The cat and dog channels are not part of official clubs, and all of these channels were specifically created to talk about non-work activities. (The Verge)
Uber is unloading a portion of its stake in a Russian self-driving car venture to its partner, Yandex, for $1 billion in cash. More importantly, Yandex now has an option to buy Uber out of its remaining stake in the venture for another $1.8 billion or so. This is the endgame for Uber in Russia, three years after it merged its Russian ride-hailing operations into the venture with Yandex.Taxi, its primary rival. It’s also a model of how CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is streamlining Uber’s farflung operations, geographically and business-wise. Since taking over as CEO in 2017, he has: Sold Uber’s southeast Asian operations to Grab for stock; Transferred the self-driving car unit to startup Aurora for stock; Merged electric bike and escooter startup Jump into rival Lime for stock; Sold Uber Eats India to rival Zomato for stock; Bought Middle Eastern rival Careem. (The Information)
Affirm's Amazon deal could be a major boost for the "buy now, pay later" provider. This is all about repeat customers. Amazon's giant reach will boost new customers to Affirm, while also providing more incentive for Amazon customers to click "buy" on more items. For Affirm, this will mean an influx of new business from the ecommerce giant's customers. Some portion of those trying out Affirm for the first time on Amazon will likely become repeat Affirm customers. In its fiscal year ending in June 2020, 64% of Affirm's transactions were made by repeat users. (Protocol)
Smart Links
Fortune cancels CEO conference amid labor strife. (Axios)
Crowdstrike beats Q2 estimates with strong subscription growth. (ZD Net)
Restaurant owners say hiring is increasingly challenging. (CNBC)
LinkedIn tells advertisers it is shutting down stories videos. (AdAge)
Amazon quietly building live audio business. (Axios)
FTC Chief Khan faces new pressure on Amazon deal — from progressives. (The Information)
Eight ways scientists are unwrapping the mysteries of the human brain. (MIT Technology Review)