Business

The Commerce Department on Wednesday said economic activity in the U.S. grew at an annualized rate of 1.9% in the third quarter, down slightly from the 2% pace in the second quarter. Economists polled by Dow Jones had expected the economy to grow at a 1.6% rate. CNBC reports: 

The better-than-expected print was the result of continued consumer spending as well as government expenditures, the government report said. Personal consumption expenditures, a gauge of spending by American households, rose at a 2.9% annualized rate while government spending grew at a 2% rate.

Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased during the third quarter. The most recent report on the U.S. trade deficit showed the imbalance at $54.9 billion at the end of August as imports outpace exports in the last full month of summer.

Growth in gross private domestic investment, however, continued to decline in the three months ended September 30 with a read of -1.5%, but far better than the -6.3% contraction in the second quarter.

The U.S. economy has hit a lot of bumps in the road lately and the way forward is unlikely to get any smoother. MarketWatch reports: 

The first big clue will come Wednesday. Gross domestic product in the third quarter running from July to September is forecast to fall to about 1.4% from a 2% pace of growth in the spring.

GDP is the official scorecard, so to speak, of how well the economy is doing. Historically the U.S. has grown more than 3% a year, but the last time it reached that mark was in 2005. Most economists think the U.S. can grow no faster than about 2%, at least not for any extended time.

The other piece of bad news is due Friday when the governments reveals how many new jobs were created in October. Economists predict the U.S. generated fewer than 100,000 new jobs last month, a figure that would be the lowest since May and one of the weakest numbers in seven years.

American workers are more productive than ever, but their paychecks haven’t kept pace. Researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco have a culprit: robots. CBS News reports:

Economists Sylvain Leduc and Zheng Liu theorize that automation is sapping employees’ bargaining power, making it harder for them to demand higher wages. Companies across a range of industries increasingly have the option of using technology to handle work formerly done by people, giving employers the upper hand in setting pay. The result — a widening gulf between wages and productivity.

The research may bolster proposals for universal basic income, which is a government cash stipend that typically doesn’t come with requirements. Andrew Yang, a Democratic presidential candidate who’s running on a platform of giving every American adult $1,000 per month in basic income, tweeted about the economic findings, writing that automation is “making it hard for workers to ask for more.”

“We should just give Americans a raise,” he wrote. To be sure, automation is leading to massive changes in work that are hitting some industries and workers especially hard, such as lower and middle-skilled workers. For instance, the ranks of office assistants and clerical workers is expected to shrink by 5% through 2026 as offices shift tasks to artificial intelligence and other software, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This could result in a loss of 200,000 jobs.

The economy added 136,000 new jobs in September, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, the lowest rate since December 1969. MarketWatch reports:

The resilience seen in the September job report will raise hopes that the economy can avoid a recession. Although manufacturing activity and business investment have been weak, consumer spending has held up well.

Many economists say the employment report is a lagging indicator and they will be watching for readings over the next few months before giving an “all-clear” sign for the economy.

The Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates this year as insurance against a slowdown in economic growth, but the job report does not add to expectations of another cut in October.

What’s the world’s most widely used cryptocurrency? If you think it’s Bitcoin, which accounts for about 70% of all the digital-asset world’s market value, you’re probably wrong. Bloomberg reports:

While concrete figures on trading volumes are hard to come by in this often murky corner of finance, data from CoinMarketCap.com show that the token with the highest daily and monthly trading volume is Tether, whose market capitalization is more than 30 times smaller. Tether’s volume surpassed that of Bitcoin’s for the first time in April and has consistently exceeded it since early August at about $21 billion per day, the data provider says.
 
With Tether’s monthly trading volume about 18% higher than that of Bitcoin, it’s arguably the most important coin in the crypto ecosystem. Tether’s also one of the main reasons why regulators regard cryptocurrencies with a wary eye, and have put the breaks on crypto exchange-traded funds amid concern of market manipulation. “If there is no Tether, we lose a massive amount of daily volume — around $1 billion or more depending on the data source,” said Lex Sokolin, global financial technology co-head at ConsenSys, which offers blockchain technology. “Some of the concerning potential patters of trading in the market may start to fall away.”

Harvey Coleman wrote Empowering Yourself: The Organizational Game Revealed. In the book, Coleman shows how to succeed at work. A poster on reddit shares a summary by Wendy Nemitz of “Empowering Yourself” as a way to leverage your career and influence.

Coleman divides the essential elements of success in the business world into three main elements, called the P.I.E. formula. ‘P’ is for performance, which Coleman suggests is 10% of the success formula. ‘I’ stands for image, which Coleman states is about 30% of success. ‘E’ is for exposure, which Coleman says is valued at 60% of his success formula.

Performance is the foundation of success. While Coleman says it is only 10% of success, without it you can’t move up.

1. Your performance is a direct reflection on you. It is your entry ticket into the organization.
2. Don’t boast too much about success. Don’t complain about the lack of success in others. Bragging and complaining are not the marks of winners.
3. Take credit for your performance even if you are tempted to deflect it or are uncomfortable. Take compliments and praise gracefully.
4. Understand that while performance is crucial, it is just part of the P.I.E. formula. Performance alone will not bring promotions.
5. Be a team player but be willing to be the star player.
6. Ask for help when you need it.
7. Seek to improve the performance of others and of the whole company. Their success will reflect on you.
8. Share information and help others. They will not forget.
9. Technical skills are only part of performance. Both your task and your people skills affect your performance.
10. If you are not thorough or detailed, get someone to help on issues like proofing. Pay attention to the details.
11. Welcome performance reviews as a chance to improve.
12. Set goals.
13. Celebrate your accomplishments.
14. Know your boss’s expectations and priorities and perform to them. It is no use to ignore the boss’s expectations and achieve your own. Make choices about what you spend your time on. Spend time on work priorities by first understanding what they are.

[Read more…]

Facebook is experiencing one its worst days as a publicly traded company. According to CNBC, Facebook lost about $119 billion of its value on Thursday, marking the biggest one-day loss in U.S. market history. CBS MoneyWatch reported:

The company’s shares plunged $41.24, or almost 19 percent, to $176.26 a day after the social media giant reported disappointing results. The slide is the largest decline in market capitalization in history, exceeding Intel’s $91 billion single-day loss in September 2000, according to Bloomberg data.

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw his fortune drop by $15.9 billion to roughly $71 billion. His personal loss alone, if only on paper, exceeds the value of companies such as Molson Coors and Macy’s, which have market values of $14 billion and $12 billion, respectively.

Investors were spooked by Facebook’s forecast showing that its number of active users is growing less quickly than expected, while the company also took a hit from Europe’s new privacy laws.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has overtaken Warren Buffett as the world’s third-richest person, reports Bloomberg. Zuckerberg only trails Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. From the report:

“It’s the first time that the three wealthiest people on the ranking made their fortunes from technology. Zuckerberg, 34, is now worth $81.6 billion, about $373 million more than Buffett, the 87-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway. Zuckerberg’s ascent has been driven by investors’ continued embrace of Facebook, the social-network giant that shook off the fallout from a data-privacy crisis that hammered its shares, sending them to an eight-month low of $152.22 on March 27. The stock closed Friday at a record $203.23.”

The gap between the super rich and the rest of the world widened as wealth continued to be owned by a small minority, according to Oxfam report.

The world’s richest one percent raked in 82 percent of the wealth created last year while the poorest half of the population received none, Oxfam said Monday, as the world’s elite prepared to mingle at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

A new report from the charity also found that the wealth of billionaires has grown six times faster than that of ordinary workers since 2010, with another billionaire minted every two days between March 2016 and March 2017.

The report, titled “Reward Work, not Wealth”, used data from Credit Suisse to compare the returns of top executives and shareholders to that of ordinary workers.

It found that chief executives of the top five global fashion brands made in just four days what garment workers in Bangladesh earn over a lifetime.

Apple announced on Wednesday it will invest $350 billion in the U.S. economy over the next five years while creating 20,000 new jobs thanks to the new tax law.

The company expects to pay about $38 billion in taxes in order to repatriate virtually all of its $250 billion in overseas cash. It hopes to make investment and to contribute to he U.S. economy.

It said it expects to pay about $38 billion in taxes for the horde of cash it plans to bring back to the United States. This implies it will repatriate virtually all of its $250 billion in overseas cash.

“We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible,” chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement. Here’s the full text:

Apple today announced a new set of investments to build on its commitment to support the American economy and its workforce, concentrated in three areas where Apple has had the greatest impact on job creation: direct employment by Apple, spending and investment with Apple’s domestic suppliers and manufacturers, and fueling the fast-growing app economy which Apple created with iPhone and the App Store. Apple is already responsible for creating and supporting over 2 million jobs across the United States and expects to generate even more jobs as a result of the initiatives being announced today.

Combining new investments and Apple’s current pace of spending with domestic suppliers and manufacturers — an estimated $55 billion for 2018 — Apple’s direct contribution to the US economy will be more than $350 billion over the next five years, not including Apple’s ongoing tax payments, the tax revenues generated from employees’ wages and the sale of Apple products.

Planned capital expenditures in the US, investments in American manufacturing over five years and a record tax payment upon repatriation of overseas profits will account for approximately $75 billion of Apple’s direct contribution.

“Apple is a success story that could only have happened in America, and we are proud to build on our long history of support for the US economy, ” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness. We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible.”

Apple, already the largest US taxpayer, anticipates repatriation tax payments of approximately $38 billion as required by recent changes to the tax law. A payment of that size would likely be the largest of its kind ever made.

Growing Apple’s US Operations

Apple expects to invest over $30 billion in capital expenditures in the US over the next five years and create over 20,000 new jobs through hiring at existing campuses and opening a new one. Apple already employs 84,000 people in all 50 states.

The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will initially house technical support for customers. The location of this new facility will be announced later in the year.

Over $10 billion of Apple’s expanded capital expenditures will be investments in data centers across the US. Over the last decade, Apple has invested billions of dollars in data centers and co-located facilities in seven US states, including North Carolina, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and a recently announced project in Iowa.

Today, Apple is breaking ground on a new facility in downtown Reno, which will support its existing Nevada facilities.

All of Apple’s US facilities, including offices, retail stores and data centers, are powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources like solar, wind and micro-hydro power, which Apple generates or purchases from local projects. The new campus announced today will also be powered entirely by green energy.

Investing in Apple’s Domestic Suppliers and Manufacturing Partners

Building on the initial success of the Advanced Manufacturing Fund announced last spring, Apple is increasing the size of the fund from $1 billion to $5 billion. The fund was established to support innovation among American manufacturers and help others establish a presence in the US. It is already backing projects with leading manufacturers in Kentucky and rural Texas.

Apple works with over 9,000 American suppliers — large and small businesses in all 50 states — and each of Apple’s core products relies on parts or materials made in the US or provided by US-based suppliers.

Preparing Students for the App Economy

Apple, which has a 40-year history in education, also plans to accelerate its efforts across the US in support of coding education as well as programs focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM).

The iOS app economy has created more than 1.6 million jobs in the US and generated $5 billion in revenue for American app developers in 2017. With demand for coding skills stronger than ever, today there are more than 500,000 unfilled programming-related positions across the country, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2020 there will be 1.4 million more software development jobs than applicants qualified to fill them.

To address the coding skills gap and help prepare more people for jobs in software development, Apple created a powerful yet easy-to-learn coding language called Swift, the free Swift Playgrounds app and a free curriculum, App Development with Swift, which are available to anyone and are already being used by millions of students at K-12 schools, summer camps and leading community colleges across the country. Over 100,000 students and teachers have also attended coding classes at Apple retail stores.

Apple will expand these initiatives and add new programs to support teachers and teacher training. The company is also increasing funding for its ConnectED program, so students in historically underserved communities have a chance to learn app coding skills and enjoy other benefits of technology in the classroom.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Walmart Stores Inc., the largest private U.S. employer, plan to raise its starting hourly wage to $11 and to give bonuses to employees to stay competitive in a tightening labor market.

Taking advantage of the recently passed tax reform that lower the corporate rate from 35% to 21%, Walmart passes on the riches to its employees to improve its image amid pressure to bolster minimum wages.

“Tax reform gives us the opportunity to be more competitive globally and to accelerate plans for the U.S.,” Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said in the statement.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer has more than 1 million U.S. hourly employees. Many of them will be benefited from the $11 minimum hourly wage. The wage increase takes effect in February and will cost $300 million on top of wage hikes that were already planned.

Walmart said the one-time bonuses is based on seniority and will cost the company $400 million Employees who have worked for at least 20 years will get the full $1,000.

The company is also boosting its paid maternity leave policy for full-time hourly workers to 10 weeks and increasing its paid paternity leave policy to six weeks.

Walmart would also offer financial help to employees who are seeking to adopt children.