As travelers take to the skies this spring and summer, many are in for a delightful surprise: Several of the country's airports have made big improvements in recent months, including some whose very names had long been met with something between weariness and outright dread.
Why it matters: Airports are gateways to their city, where travelers make their first impression upon arrival.
China’s venture activity in 2022 had a noticeable decline, during a year when geopolitical tensions with the world's second-largest economy hit a crescendo.
Why it matters: Over the last decade, China’s startup boom stoked concerns that it was surpassing American-style capitalism. But ongoing pandemic restrictions and macro trends put a damper on the last year, which also coincided with growing worries about Chinese tech companies like ByteDance, whose TikTok app could be banned in the U.S.
Thousands of employees of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse have discovered the hard way that the stock they receive from their employer can become worthless overnight — just as Enron employees did in 2001.
Why it matters: Rank-and-file employees are being subtly encouraged to borrow money against their vested stock, instead of selling it — a move that in general should be taken only by the extremely rich, operating on very bespoke financial advice.
Neoliberalism is dead;globalization is in retreat; we've now entered a new world where deep geopolitical tensions get surfaced in protectionist trade policies, no matter who sits in the Oval Office.
The big picture: Economists and globalists are, predictably enough, convinced this is very bad news.
Former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said this week that the FDIC insurance cap should be raised "to either $10 million or $25 million" in order to prevent regional banks from being at a disadvantage to the big money-center banks.
Why it matters: Businesses often need to keep a lot more than $250,000 on deposit in order to comfortably fund their day-to-day operations, including making payroll. Such businesses are in no position to be able to gauge the creditworthiness of banks.
A growing number of TikTok users are touting a decades-old labor law that they say could give workers a heads-up about impending layoffs, but experts say the videos are breeding misconceptions.
Why it matters: The social media trend follows warnings from the Federal Reserve that economic pain and job losses are likely this year as the U.S. central bank fights inflation — and the tech sector has already been hit hard by layoffs.
Fans and the music industry are celebrating hip-hop’s golden anniversary this year.
Why it matters: Since its official birth on Aug. 11, 1973, the genre’s influence has stretched beyond the medium of sound and the borders of the U.S., let alone the Bronx where one party started it all.
Blue checks that we’ve come to associate with authenticity, trustworthiness and prominence on Twitter are set to disappear tomorrow from accounts that won’t pay for the badges.
Why it matters: How people interpret content on the platform will change dramatically.
The White House will not pay to have its staff's official Twitter profiles continue to be verified, according to guidance issued to staffers via an email obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: Official White House staffers rely on their verified accounts to inform the public on behalf of the administration. Verification, combined with the designated Twitter profiles, helped to ensure the public could trust those messages.
The year was 2013. The great concern among the Federal Reserve's leaders was that, with the world awash in dollars they had created, they wouldn't be able to raise rates even when they felt they needed to.
Zoom out: Their solution was a tool that has now swelled to massive size — $2.3 trillion as of Wednesday — and is making banks angry, as they see it as a major factor in their loss of deposits.
The Block, a crypto media company that got caught up in a funding scandal related to disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has laid off roughly one-third of its staff as part of a broader leadership shakeup, sources told Axios.
Why it matters: The layoffs are meant to stabilize and strengthen the company's position, in wake of the scandal.
A truck stop electrification company and a defunct pro basketball league have nothing in common, except that they just merged.
Driving the news: Shorepower, an Oregon-based firm founded in 2004, has gone public via a reverse merger with the United States Basketball League, which operated between 1985 and 2008.
Fidelity today disclosed that it marked down the value of its Twitter shares by 7.9% during the month of February, or a total of 63.46% since Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition closed last October.
Why it matters: One of the largest tech buyouts of all time continues to depreciate, according to a firm that helped to finance it.
The Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation shows prices rose at a slower pace in February, as consumers backed off on spending and income gains cooled, the government said on Friday.
Why it matters: The data may come as somewhat of a relief to policymakers who have been surprised by hotter-than-expected inflation this year and a banking crisis that has complicated their outlook on the economy.
Manhattan's population grew last year, reversing two years of decline and countering a lot of doomsday and schadenfreude-laced declarations about the city's demise.
Average bonuses on Wall Street last year suffered their steepest fall since 2008's market bloodbath — dropping 26% from the year before to an average of $176,700, according to the Office of the New York State Comptroller.
Why it matters: It's another headwind for New York City and New York State, where revenues are heavily reliant on personal income taxes, which in turn are driven by Wall Street pay packages.
We've all had (or have!) crappy bosses — the arrogant, self-obsessed, know-it-all frauds who soil our work lives. That's why the good ones are worth studying and treasuring.
Why it matters: Hunt for an unusual combination of smarts, emotional intelligence, toughness and humility. Then you know you've truly unearthed one.
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