We have an answer to a debate that's been raging since the pandemic: Is remote work good or bad for productivity?
According to researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the answer is neither. The study's authors wrote there's "little evidence in industry data that the shift to remote and hybrid work has either substantially held back or boosted the rate of productivity growth." With about 30% of work being done remotely today, we'll take that as a positive enduring coronavirus legacy – unlike the DIY baking paraphernalia you bought.
INDICATORS
With the Holidays Over, Americans Are Back to Worrying About Money
We may have overdone the holly jolly this Christmas.
Consumers continued to fuel the country's economic growth in December, spending heavily at stores, car lots, and online retailers, boosting retail sales more than expected. But amid a post-holiday reality check, many in the US now say they're concerned about the cost of basic necessities like food and utilities and are living paycheck to paycheck.
'Twas the Season of Buying
This past holiday shopping season was good — even better than what economists and even many retailers predicted. Sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6% from November and 5.6% year-over-year, according to a Commerce Department report on Wednesday. Between November and December, online shopping alone accounted for a record $222 billion in economic activity, driven mostly by discounts and "buy now, pay later" options, TheWall Street Journalreported.
Pinning down how consumers actually feel is tricky, however. Wage growth is outpacing inflation, but prices and interest rates are still high. At the same time, even the most debt-ridden shoppers are still putting extravagant purchases on their credit cards. Add in the general malaise that Americans have had with the economy since the pandemic, and you've got an overall confusing sense of the average consumer.
One survey published Wednesday found inflation — now 3.4% — remains a huge concern:
A little more than half of all Americans responding to a recent survey from tax filing software company TaxAct said they're living paycheck to paycheck. And about three-quarters of them said paying for food and energy are their top worries. Many consumers have shifted to savings mode, with roughly 30% saying they want to build their emergency funds in 2024.
Despite robust holiday spending, some bigger brand names felt left out in the cold. Shortly before Christmas, Nike cut its revenue outlook for the year and cautioned less consumer spending for the second half of 2023. The company said it received less traffic to its digital store, and many shoppers were instead going to competitors with greater discounts.
Approaching a Soft Landing: As uncomfortable as it might be getting for consumers, the overall uneasiness and savings mindset could be exactly what the Federal Reserve is looking for. Slowdowns in hiring and wages will definitely help cool inflation back to the Fed's 2% target, with the Fed primed to step in with rate cuts when the going gets really tough. Traders are betting that the first cut could come as soon as March, but it's likely they'll first need to see consumers holding on to more of their money.
NVIDIA Partner Introduces - SuperComputers as an Asset Class
In 2023, NVIDIA GPUs dominated the AI scene thanks to Large Language Models like Chat GPT, and 2024 holds even greater promise. Now you can seize the opportunity to be a part of this incredible growth.
NexGen Cloud is giving investors the opportunity to directly invest in the source, and profit from AI and large language models workloads by purchasing the supercomputers that power it. The company is projecting 30-50% annualized returns.
UK Post Office Scandal Wipes $1 Billion Off Fujitsu's Market Cap
Not since someone shot JR has a TV show caused this much of a stir.
Faulty IT systems provided to the UK Post Office by Japanese software giant Fujitsu resulted in more than 900 innocent postal workers being prosecuted for fraud for nearly two decades, with over 700 cases resulting in convictions and even prison sentences for the wrongly accused. For Fujitsu, the ultimate downside is uncertain, as the question of compensation looms ever greater. The most unusual part of this story? It was all set off by a TV miniseries.
All Thanks to TV
The scandal goes back decades, with wrongful convictions dating from 1999 to 2015. Victims have been speaking out for 20 years, but the fallout jumped to the front of the collective cultural consciousness this month after a TV dramatization called Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Alan Bates, the real-life sub-postmaster whose life is portrayed in the series, was fired in 2003 after Fujitsu's Horizon software showed enormous deficits in the post office he ran — deficits he had tried to flag as inexplicable.
Fujitsu's co-CEO of European operations, Paul Patterson, appeared before British lawmakers on Tuesday, and his comments set the company's stock falling, wiping $1 billion off the IT giant's market cap:
Patterson said Fujitsu had a "moral obligation" to compensate victims of Horizon's buggy accounting abilities. He added that the company "would like to apologize for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice."
It's not clear how much compensation Fujitsu will contribute. The UK government has said it will set aside £1 billion ($1.3 billion) for victims, and that it has already handed out £153 million ($194 million) to over 2,700 claimants — so it'll likely be eager to chase down Fujitsu for a sizable chunk.
Next Time, on The Post Office Scandal: This is just the beginning for Fujitsu's political heat. Timothy Morse, a founding partner at Japanese equity advisory Asymmetric Advisors, told CNBC that Fujitsu had managed to stay out of the limelight until now. "It's amazing that Fujitsu's name has rarely been in the press about this scandal over the years, because this is not a new scandal," Morse said. However, he added that Fujitsu is "heavily embedded" in UK government contracts, and that a replacement "could be very expensive." Even if Fujitsu's contracts remain, the ongoing scandal has the potential to severely hurt its future European sales, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma.
Written by Isobel Asher Hamilton
REGULATION
The EU Wants to Make Music Streamers Boost Artist Payouts
European lawmakers are sick of streamers getting artists' work for a song.
On Wednesday, members of the European Parliament overwhelmingly voted to form a new framework for how artists are compensated by streaming platforms. Nothing with any legal teeth was decided, but this is a first step toward a new law.
You Know How This One Goes
Artists haven't been shy about saying they're getting ripped off by music streaming companies. According to digital music distribution company Ditto, Spotify pays between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream, so for smaller artists that adds up to… sorry, just doing the math here… ah yes, a pittance. Even big stars have beefed with the services — Taylor Swift had a very on-again-off-again relationship with Spotify up until 2017.
The EU is trying to juice up the royalty checks for lesser-known artists and, depending on the final legislation, that could align with the commercial interests of the big record labels:
Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Universal Music is bracing for big cuts, as the streaming boom has slowed. But Universal isn't the only one suffering: Music fund Hipgnosis offloaded almost half a billion dollars in streaming rights last year as their value slumped.
Universal CEO Lucian Grainge has been lobbying streaming companies to adopt "artist-centric royalties." Meanwhile, Spotify has tried to rejig how it distributes royalties by cracking down on so-called "white noise" tracks, demonetizing those streams so more money can go to artists making actual music.
Experience Economics: In a memo to Universal staff this month, Grainge also hinted that the label will try to tap into the experience economy by "strengthening the artist-fan relationship through superfan experiences and products," adding the company is "already in advanced discussions with our platform partners." Exactly what these products are is anyone's guess, probably including the artists themselves…
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Approaching a Soft Landing: As uncomfortable as it might be getting for consumers, the overall uneasiness and savings mindset could be exactly what the Federal Reserve is looking for. Slowdowns in hiring and wages will definitely help 
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