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The World
Public’s top priority for 2022: Strengthening the nation’s economy. As the pandemic enters its third year, more Americans view strengthening the U.S. economy as a top policy priority than say the same about dealing with COVID-19. This marks a shift from last year, when the economy and the coronavirus both topped the public’s policy agenda. 71% of U.S. adults rate strengthening the economy as a top policy priority, followed by reducing health care costs (61%), addressing the coronavirus (60%), improving education (58%) and securing Social Security (57%). (Pew Research Center)
Federal Reserve officials are set to raise interest rates next month and would be willing to tighten monetary policy more quickly than they currently anticipate if US inflation does not come under control, according to the minutes of their latest meeting. The account of the January gathering of the Federal Open Market Committee said officials were on board for the first interest rate increase since 2018 to be implemented “soon” in the face of soaring inflation. Economists interpreted that to be a confirmation of a “lift-off” in March. Most Fed officials acknowledged that a faster pace of rate rises was “likely warranted” compared to the last tightening cycle. (Financial Times)
U.S. retail sales surged 3.8% from December to January as shoppers spent strongly at the start of the year with a surge in big-ticket and online purchases as inflation reached a 40-year high and the Omicron wave began to recede. This marks the strongest monthly gain since March 2021. (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. accused Russia of lying about pulling back troops from Ukraine’s borders, saying that Moscow has added more than 7,000 combatants in recent days, and that there was fresh evidence it was mobilizing for war. The claim, by a senior administration official, came as other Western allies expressed similar doubts that Russia was backing away from a military confrontation. The senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss recent intelligence findings, said intelligence officials have confirmed that the troop increase continued, after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia declared that with exercises over, some troops were returning to barracks. (New York Times)
Fewer people say they are out of work for reasons having to do with Covid-19, a sign that the labor market impact of the Omicron variant of the virus could be receding. New Census Bureau data show that the number of people who were out of work because they were sick or caring for someone who was sick fell to 7.8 million in late January and early February, down from almost 8.8 million in early January. But the number of people calling in sick remains higher than at almost any other time since the beginning of the pandemic, echoing the record surge in new infections last month because of the Omicron variant. (Wall Street Journal)
NYC Mayor Eric Adams is urging leaders of major companies to lift COVID-19 restrictions and allow employees to return to offices in the city. It's part of Adams' effort to jumpstart the city's economy as Omicron cases slow. "Now is the time for us to get back," Adams said. "I’m hoping within the next few weeks, the CEOs map out a real plan of 'this is when you need to come back.'" (Axios)
Singapore gears up for wider reopening despite record COVID cases. (Nikkei Asia Review)
The rift in the EU deepened after its highest court ruled that Hungary and Poland could lose funding worth more than €100 billion for failing to abide by its core values. Judges at the European Court of Justice ruled that Brussels could withhold funds to member states seen to be violating the law on judicial independence, migrant quotas and LGBT rights. (The Times)
The facial recognition company Clearview AI is telling investors it is on track to have 100 billion facial photos in its database within a year, enough to ensure “almost everyone in the world will be identifiable,” according to a financial presentation from December obtained by The Washington Post. Those images — equivalent to 14 photos for each of the 7 billion people on Earth — would help power a surveillance system that has been used for arrests and criminal investigations by thousands of law enforcement and government agencies around the world. And the company wants to expand beyond scanning faces for the police, saying in the presentation that it could monitor “gig economy” workers and is researching a number of new technologies that could identify someone based on how they walk, detect their location from a photo or scan their fingerprints from afar. (Washington Post)
Mergers of private contractors hurt both national security and the economy, a new report from the Department of Defense suggests. Three sources account for 90% of U.S. missiles, amongst other examples. (Associated Press)
Economy
59% of U.S. workers who say their jobs can mainly be done from home are working from home all or most of the time — much higher than the 23% who say they teleworked frequently before the coronavirus outbreak. 83% of these workers say they were working from home even before the omicron variant started to spread. Today, more workers say they are doing this by choice rather than necessity. Among those who have a workplace outside of their home, 61% now say they are choosing not to go into their workplace, while 38% say they’re working from home because their workplace is closed or unavailable to them. Earlier in the pandemic, just the opposite was true: 64% said they were working from home because their office was closed, and 36% said they were choosing to work from home. (Pew Research Center)
Burnout remains as a top issue among employees two years into the pandemic, and “flexibility” is one of the top rallying cries. Qualtrics' recent survey looked at what tech workers and other professionals say they need in order to feel better about their relationship to work. Here are the highlights. (Protocol)
65% of tech workers who responded to the survey said their work is the “main source of their mental health problems.” This is higher than the average of all workers, which was 58%.
The top three things that all workers said would improve their work included higher pay (58%), a four-day workweek (46%) and flexibility (36%). 59% of tech workers said they view the flexibility to work remotely to be most important.
51% of tech workers would be willing to take a 5% pay cut or more in exchange for the privilege of remote work. In comparison, 34% of all workers said they’d be willing to do so.
94% of tech workers said they want more control over their work schedules and to have their performance evaluated solely on their results.
Younger applicants are looking for something different. Some may be surprised to find only 2% of college seniors actually want to work remotely full-time, according to iCIMS’ Class of 2021 report. Most want at least some in-person interaction. (Protocol)
U.S. hotel group Hyatt said bookings for group business events have beaten pre-pandemic levels for the first time since the crisis began, reporting “remarkable pent up demand” as corporate offices start to fill up again. Bookings for group meetings in January had been 14% above the same point in 2019. (Financial Times)
The $2.6 trillion cryptomarket is evolving rapidly and could quickly pose a risk to financial stability, global regulators warned. The Financial Stability Board, which co-ordinates rules for the G20 economies, urged watchdogs around the world to work together to tackle the potential hazards posed by digital assets. “Crypto-assets markets could reach a point where they represent a threat to global financial stability due to their scale, structural vulnerabilities and interconnectedness with the traditional financial system,” the FSB said in a new report. (The Times)
Earnings:
DoorDash revenue beats as food-delivery boom continues, shares soar 24%. (Reuters)
Nvidia provides strong revenue outlook on demand for computer chips; Data center sales rose 71%. (CNBC)
Shares of ViacomCBS, which is renaming as Paramount, fell as much as 20%n after it said it would boost spending on streaming content to $6B by 2024. (Variety)
Cisco rises on sunny outlook for the rest of its fiscal year. (CNBC)
Technology
Google plans to adopt new privacy restrictions to curtail tracking across apps on Android smartphones, following Apple in putting restraints on an advertising industry that has covertly collected data across billions of mobile devices. Google’s plans for Android could hasten an end to more than a decade of advertising practices across smartphones in which companies including Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook layered their code into hundreds of thousands of apps to track consumer behavior. (Wall Street Journal)
A top shareholder advisory group has recommended that Apple investors vote against Tim Cook’s $99mn pay and bonuses package, forcing one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent campaigners on equality to defend his remuneration at the world’s most valuable company. Institutional Shareholder Services has told its clients in a letter seen by the Financial Times that there “is a significant concern” with the stock award Cook received last year, which was the Apple chief’s first since 2011. ISS last recommended against Apple’s pay in 2015. Last year, Cook received stock awards valued at $82mn at the time of the grant on top of a $12mn cash bonus and $3mn salary. (Financial Times)
Former UK deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg has been promoted to a new senior role at Facebook's owner Meta. A Facebook post from the company's boss Mark Zuckerberg said Sir Nick would become its president of global affairs. The move puts the former UK leader on a par with Zuckerberg himself at the recently-rebranded firm. Sir Nick joined Facebook in 2018 as its head of its global affairs and communications team. His new role will see him focus on regulatory issues. (BBC News)
Meta (formerly Facebook) quietly purchases metaverse companies, sparking antitrust concerns as they maneuver to dominate the emerging digital landscape. (Vox)
Spotify is making more podcast acquisitions. The company is acquiring Chartable and Podsights — two of the most prominent podcast marketing and ad attribution companies. This marks the first major acquisition the company has made this year in a long line of audio purchases. Podsights and Chartable allow podcasters and networks to include tags in their shows that are used to track who listened, if they heard an ad, and whether they took action upon hearing it. Spotify says it plans to use Podsights’ technology outside podcasting and will bring it to the “full scope of the Spotify platform, including audio ads within music, video ads, and display ads.” The Chartable acquisition appears to be more directed toward podcasters themselves rather than advertisers, particularly because of its technology like SmartLinks. (The Verge)
Live Event
Today, 12:30 pm ET: The Week that Changed the World: A Panel Discussion to Mark the 50th Anniversary of Nixon's Trip to China. (Register: Johns Hopkins University)
Smart Links
Activist investor Daniel Loeb see roughly $1 trillion of untapped value in Amazon. (Wall Street Journal)
Alaska Airlines debuts subscription service for flights. (Axios)
Uber will now let you see how many one-star ratings you got from drivers. (The Verge)
Twitter’s new CEO will take ‘a few weeks’ of paternity leave. (Washington Post)
Renters across US face sharp increases – averaging up to 40% in some cities. (The Guardian)
UK to scrap golden visa scheme for foreign investors. (BBC News)
Penguin Random House C.E.O. Markus Dohle donates $500,000 to fight book bans. (New York Times)