Hybrid Work Is Doomed

I noticed the shoes first. That I was wearing them. Real shoes, the leather kind, with laces. After a year and a half, I was finally returning to the office, and that meant giving up the puffer slippers and slides that had sustained me for so long. Real shoes, I quickly remembered, are terrible. Likewise pants. Likewise getting to work, and being at work. Whew. READ MORE

Consumer finance bureau ‘out of control’ under Biden's director

After one of the federal government’s most powerful bureaucrats warned he would be "reining in repeat offenders," the nation’s largest business group wants to rein in his powers. 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a six-figure digital ad campaign in late June targeting Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), appointed by President Biden in 2021 and confirmed without a single Republican vote.  READ MORE

Top VC Marc Andreessen: Remote Work Will Cause an 'Earthquake' in How People Live Their Lives

There are a million and one rankings out there scoring cities on just about every metric you can think of, and as someone who writes about these things I am sent what feels like nearly all of them. They rarely hold too many surprises. 

Finland (or a near neighbor) is always the world's happiest country. Somewhere boring but pleasant like Zurich or Vienna is crowned most livable year after year. Everyone hypes various towns as the "new Silicon Valley" but Silicon Valley remains the world's top destination for entrepreneurs.  READ MORE

The layoffs at Tesla show that white-collar workers are screwed

Michael Burry said on Tuesday that the U.S. labor market is about to be sliced in half, with blue-collar workers remaining a sought-after commodity, while white-collar workers see job losses and falling wages. In other words, the good times are ending for office workers.

“I see a bifurcated labor market developing as unskilled and semiskilled remain in short supply, but white-collar workers, having proven their redundancy during COVID, will find gross excess in the labor market, pressuring wages at the end,” he wrote in a Tuesday tweet. READ MORE

Americans who work alongside robots more likely to suffer negative mental health effects

American workers who work alongside robots are more likely to suffer negative mental health effects, despite being less prone to physical injury, according to a recent study.  

For the study, researchers analyzed data on workplace injuries in the U.S., finding that injuries were reduced by 1.2 cases per 100 workers in regions with one standard deviation increase in robot exposure. But in regions where there were significant numbers working with robots, there was an increase of 37.8 cases per 100,000 workers in drug or alcohol related deaths. READ MORE

Tesla's Run May Be Reaching the End of the Road

Tesla Inc is expected to end its nearly two-year-long run of record quarterly deliveries as a prolonged COVID-related shutdown in Shanghai hit its production and supply chain, highlighting the risks of its reliance on China.

While Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has been pursuing the acquisition of social media platform Twitter Inc, his crown jewel, Tesla, has grappled with production glitches in China and slow output growth at new factories in Texas and Berlin. READ MORE

US newspapers continuing to die at rate of 2 each week

Despite a growing recognition of the problem, the United States continues to see newspapers die at the rate of two per week, according to a report issued Wednesday on the state of local news.

Areas of the country that find themselves without a reliable source of local news tend to be poorer, older and less educated than those covered well, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications said. READ MORE

People are fucking sick of the news. Are you one of them?

In media circles there is a popular, if disquieting, new phrase this month: "Selective news avoidance."

It comes from the newest edition of the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report.

While most people "remain engaged and use the news regularly, we find that many also increasingly choose to ration or limit their exposure to it — or at least to certain types of news," the researchers wrote. And they cited a variety of reasons for doing so. READ MORE

Why so many workers are still quitting their jobs

Aside from, "You're on mute," "I quit" has likely become one of the most popular sayings in the US over the last two years. But while more people are returning to in-person meetings, quitting does not appear to be letting up. Indeed, an astounding 4.4 million people quit their jobs in April, and there are 11.4 million jobs waiting to be filled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

So why are so many workers quitting? Here are four factors driving the so-called "Great Resignation" — and what businesses have been doing to stem the tide. READ MORE

Who decides if the US is in a recession?

Prominent Wall Street economists like Mark Zandi, investing luminaries like ARK Invest's Cathie Wood and executives like JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon can make recession predictions until they're blue in the face, but their guidance will remain just that — an economic forecast.

That's because, in the United States, the economy isn't broadly and officially considered to be in a recession until a relatively unknown group of eight economists says so. READ MORE

Two Questions to Ask Before Setting Your Strategy

Education often biases us towards immediately trying to solve well-framed problems. An algebra test poses solvable algebra problems, and a physics test poses solvable physics problems. Real world problems are much more ambiguous — it may not even be clear that there is a problem to be solved. Even if it is, it may not be clear what sort of problem it is, it may not come with sufficient information to be solvable, or in some cases it may not be solvable as given. READ MORE

Why ‘back to normal’ is just a C-suite fantasy

Raise your hand if this thought — an actual quote from a real-life CEO — crosses your mind a few times a day:

“I just want to go sit at the beach and do nothing.”

That’s what Andrew Formica, the 51-year-old chief executive of Jupiter Fund Management, told Bloomberg this week after he suddenly announced he’s leaving the $68 billion asset management fund after three years at the helm (and a long career in finance). READ MORE

The pandemic may have forever altered the economy

It’s not yet clear if the US economy will ever return to its pre-pandemic status, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday at a central banker forum in Portugal.

“The economy is being driven by very different forces. What we don’t know is whether we’ll be going back to something that looks like, or a little bit like, what we had before,” Powell told a panel that included European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey. READ MORE