On Jan. 22, president Trump announced a new import tariff on solar cells and modules. The controversial tariff is intended to encourage domestic manufacturing of solar products. We doubt the tariff will have the intended effect and instead will have plenty of unintended consequences—like costing the US taxpayer.
As world leaders gather for Davos, one of the common and continuing themes is the emerging threat of automation and the consequent effect on economic inequality and global stability. Responding to the so-called fourth industrial revolution has become one of the biggest topics of discussion in the world of technology and politics, and it’s not surprising that anxiety runs high.
Among the many industries benefiting from lower corporate tax rates starting in 2018, the alcoholic beverage industry will now have some added benefits—at least for the smallest companies.
Søren Kierkegaard, one of the fathers of existentialism, argued that it is the act of making choices that brings meaning to our lives; that through making choices, we live authentically, forming our own opinions, rather than being guided by the opinions of others or society as a whole. For Kierkegaard, understanding the meaning of our existence comes through true experiences when we make choices of our own, not following those of others.
Last week, Facebook announced a big change to the newsfeed. Facebook will prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between friends, families, and groups as well as reduce the number of items in the newsfeed that come from media, brands and publishers. Investors took note of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s warning that this change would reduce the time people spend on Facebook and the stock price promptly dropped 4.5%.
It used to be that investors viewed volatility as simply a risk to the predictability of a price at any given moment. But increasingly, investors view volatility investments as a way to protect against downside or as investments in themselves.
America’s growing affordability housing gap is forcing many people to rethink the traditional single family home. Trailer parks don’t have the best reputation. But what about “mobile home communities?”
Facebook has said it will change the news feed algorithm to prioritize meaningful content, increasing content from family and friends and content that creates discussion. But what will that mean for Facebook’s financials?
In a series of speeches (pdf) in 2017, Claudio Borio, the head of the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), questioned the validity of many of the fundamental ideas that define our knowledge of inflation. Borio suggests that, since the financial crisis, “policymakers have been increasingly surprised.”
In July, we surveyed 1,600 Quartz readers—from 84 countries, though the majority of those who chose to take part came from the US—for their opinions about artificial intelligence, including about their perceptions of job loss to AI and robots.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly used to make decisions in financial markets. Fund managers empower AI to make trading decisions, frequently by identifying patterns in financial data. The more data that AI has, the more it learns. And with the financial world producing data at an ever-increasing rate, AI should be getting better. But what happens if the data the AI encounters isn’t normal or represents an anomaly?
It’s crunch time for hedge fund managers. Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) research says that hedge funds are “geared up for year-end rally”—with exposure at the stock market at record highs and cash balances at multi-year lows. They only have until the end of the year to maximize their performance—because that’s when their bonuses are calculated.
As more and more US department stores close and malls are mothballed, Amazon is being blamed for the “retail apocalypse” (paywall). But there’s another dynamic crippling American retailers—a shrinking middle class exacerbated by a widening inequality gap. Between 1971 and 2015, the share of US income held by America’s middle earners has contracted from 61% to 50%, according to Pew Research. Wealthy families had three times as much wealth as middle-income families in 1983; by 2013, they had seven times as much.
For the better part of a decade, central banks, including the Federal Reserve, have kept markets supplied with easy, cheap money, including the lowest interest rates in modern history. Firms and individuals have responded by borrowing more, especially in the US.
Amazon’s headcount is growing by 40% year-over-year. It was the eighth-largest private employer in the US at the end of 2016, and it’s poised to climb those ranks quickly. The online retailer also announced plans to build a second US headquarters that will employ 50,000 employees.
User-generated Amazon reviews are one of the most important ways that consumers find products and decide what to buy. So much so that Amazon has consistently shown itself to be Google’s competitor in e-commerce search. Almost all Amazon product reviews are written but, as business research firm L2 wrote, Amazon is now pivoting to video.
Since the financial crisis of 2008, central banks around the world have printed money and purchased assets as an aggressive way to stimulate the economy. But none more so than the Swiss National Bank (SNB).
Shopping used to be something people had to do. Now, it’s something people do because they want to.
The best Apple customers continue to buy more products, more often, and more quickly.
In a survey of Quartz readers earlier this summer, we asked:
When Steve Jobs launched the original iPhone, he described the new multi-touch feature as a revolutionary user interface (UI). He said it worked like magic, which it did compared to every other phone at the time. I’ve always thought of Jobs’ UI design as following a simple rule: create products that work for the user, don’t make the user work for the product.
We’re all getting used to the thought that in a not-so-distant future, competition for jobs won’t just be other humans, it will also be an intelligent robot, self-driving car, or other artificial agent. But in our gut, we know this can’t be the full truth, that there’s a more nuanced story. We at least believe that elite human skills will remain valuable even as automation eats the world. The hard part is figuring out which ones will be the most valuable and where they will be the most prized.
