Good morning. In 2022, we're trying to be more like Willy Wonka. Except our golden ticket isn't a mandatory trip to a factory, it's just $1,000 in cash. How can you win? Refer 3 friends to the Brew before midnight on Saturday, and you'll be eligible for the $1,000. In true Wonka fashion, we're selecting 5 total readers to each win $1k, including one spoiled brat. Share to win. —Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, Max Knoblauch | | | |  | Nasdaq | 14,893.75 | | | | | S&P | 4,662.85 | | | | | Dow | 35,911.81 | | |  | 10-Year | 1.829% | | | | | Bitcoin | $42,004.40 | | | | | Etsy | $163.70 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 7:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: For many stocks, 2022 has been a real bear of a year. More than 220 US-listed companies with a market cap of $10+ billion are down at least 20% from their peaks. And things are even worse in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, where 39% of companies have dropped at least half from their all-time highs.
- Economy: In an MLK Day address, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US economy "never worked fairly for Black Americans—or really for any American of color." She added, "There is still much more work Treasury needs to do to narrow the racial wealth divide." In December, the unemployment rate of Black Americans was double that of white Americans.
| | Naomi Baker/Getty Images Some people who remain unvaxed against Covid-19 are going to have to budget that decision in along with groceries, car insurance, and the heating bill. Look no further than Novak Djokovic, whose career is on the verge of being derailed because he is unvaccinated. The tennis star left potential winnings of $3.3 million on the table when he was blocked from playing in the Australian Open due to his vaccination status. But that's just the beginning of his professional concerns: - It's not clear how Djok can play in the French Open, the next Grand Slam tournament on the schedule, since the country just passed a new law that requires proof of vaccination for anyone at venues like sports arenas and restaurants. The UK and the US, which are hosting the final two majors of the year (Wimbledon and the US Open), also have tough restrictions on unvaccinated people.
- Lacoste, the apparel brand that sponsors Djokovic, said it would "review the events" surrounding his rejection by Australia. Djokovic is the 46th highest-paid athlete in the world, bringing in roughly $30 million in endorsements a year.
But tennis star or otherwise, unvaccinated people around the world are increasingly being hit by financial penalties as governments try to boost lagging vax rates. A quick roundup... Greece: Beginning Sunday, unvaccinated people in Greece aged 60 and over will have to pay a monthly fine of €50 ($57), a penalty that'll be doubled in February. "It's the price to pay for health," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. Austria: The government is planning to slap all unvaccinated adults with fines of up to $4,108 beginning in mid-March. Canada: The Quebec government announced last week that unvaccinated adults will soon have to pay a financial penalty. Quebec's premier said the policy was a "question of fairness" for the 90% of Quebec adults who are vaccinated. The US: President Biden's vax-or-test mandate for large employers, which could have led to fines up to $136,000, was struck down by the Supreme Court last week. Still, a number of corporations have implemented some form of "no-vax tax" on employees anyway: Delta is charging unvaccinated staff on its health plan an extra $200/month, and Kroger eliminated paid leave for unvaxed employees who get Covid.—NF | | Jerry Wang/Unsplash China has so many unworn baby shoes that Ernest Hemingway would be shook. The country revealed that its birth rate dropped for a fifth straight year in 2021, and its population growth fell to a 61-year low. This drop was even worse than some demographers' lowest estimates. With the share of working-age people (16–59) falling from 70.1% a decade ago to 62.5% last year, the government is getting worried that its aging population could hinder economic growth and significantly outnumber younger workers who support older citizens. In response, officials have taken steps to encourage its citizens to make more babies, including… - Lifting the disastrous "one-child rule" in 2016 to allow families to have two children, and then allowing up to three children per family last year.
- Limiting and even banning for-profit tutoring in order to reduce the cost of child-rearing.
Bottom line: Some experts think the Chinese population may have hit a peak. "The year 2021 will go down in Chinese history as the year that China last saw population growth in its long history," Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, told the NYT.—MM | | NBC An All-Star team of economists just dropped a paper analyzing the performance of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the massive government relief package that aimed to help small businesses keep workers on payroll during the onset of Covid-19. So, how'd it go? Like a Peter Jackson director's cut, it had some quality content but also a lot of fluff. The pros: - Timeliness: PPP delivered a "staggering sum of money over a 2-month period in the spring 2020," when American workers needed it most.
- Scale: 93% of small businesses in the US received at least one PPP loan. In size, PPP was roughly equivalent to the entire recovery package from the 2007–2009 financial crisis.
The big con: - It was "highly regressive," meaning that people who may not have needed the cash got the majority of it. About three-fourths of PPP funds went to the top quintile of households, and only 23%–34% of PPP funds went directly to workers who would have lost their jobs otherwise.
Bottom line: Other wealthy countries with existing worker support systems were able to better target their relief programs than the unprepared US was. Instead, the authors wrote, the US "chose to administer emergency aid using a fire hose rather than a fire extinguisher."—NF | | | Should you create a portfolio built for long-term stability, or is it better to build a growth-oriented portfolio? The choice is easy. Don't choose! With Fundrise, you can invest in private-market real estate, the same asset class professional investors have turned to for ages to accrue long-term wealth while stabilizing their portfolios. It's a classic have your cake and eat it too situation, and who doesn't love those? Fundrise is America's largest direct-to-investor real estate investment platform, and it's made high-end, private-market investing accessible and effortless for all, with assets including apartment complexes, industrial facilities, and single-family rentals. How effortless, exactly? Well, with just a few spare minutes and a ten-spot, you can join 210,000+ investors using private real estate to build better portfolios. This cake sitch is just getting better and better. You can get started with Fundrise here. | | Lodge Cast Iron on Facebook Stat: That, friends, is what is purported to be the world's largest cast-iron skillet, measuring about 18 feet across and weighing 14,360 pounds. The skillet barreled down a Tennessee highway this weekend on its way to becoming an attraction at the soon-to-be-opened Lodge Cast Iron Museum in South Pittsburg, TN. Quote: "Nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs." Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire investor and partial owner of the Golden State Warriors, is getting criticized after he said on a podcast that the genocide of the Uyghur minority in China isn't something he is worried about right now. He added, "Until we actually clean up our own house," the idea of "morally virtue-signaling about someone else's human rights record is deplorable." Read: A bonkers Zillow listing. (Rebecca Makkai) | | Warner Bros. As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune, "The real universe is always one step beyond logic." Case in point: a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) spent $3 million on a rare copy of a proposed Dune adaptation, allegedly with the misguided idea that owning the book would also grant them the rights to its content. Some background: In 1974, director Alejandro Jodorowsky printed 20 copies of an exhaustive book that contained the script and concept art for his 14-hour film adaptation of Herbert's Dune. This film was ultimately scrapped, due to its budget, but the book became the stuff of legend. Fast forward to November 2021 and Spice DAO, a blockchain collective, bought a copy of the book at auction for €2.66 million (~$3 million USD, around 100x its expected price). On Sunday, the DAO tweeted that they intended to do three things with the book: - Make it public
- Produce an animated series based on it
- Support community projects
An inspiring plan, with a few major roadblocks: 1) Spice DAO only purchased the book, not the rights to its content, which would be needed to create an animated series. 2) The book is already public, and available to browse on Google Photos.—MK | | - China won't sell tickets to the upcoming Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing due to Covid. Instead, it'll hand out invites to select groups of spectators.
- Credit Suisse Chair António Horta-Osório resigned after an investigation into his failure to comply with Covid rules.
- An Israeli study found that a second booster shot provides only limited protection against Omicron.
- The Omicron wave appears to be peaking or headed downward in East Coast states hit hard by the variant.
- Amazon stopped plans to block Visa-branded credit cards in the UK.
| | Fitness that fits just right. The lowest you'll pay for unlimited digital personal training + fitness plans tailored to you comes courtesy of Future, the where have you been all my life? app where you'll get individual coaching to crush your fitness goals. Pick your coach here.* Questions about the state of AI? McKinsey's latest report features responses from 1,800 executives showing why AI adoption is not slowing down: 56% reported using AI in at least one business function, while 27% reported at least 5% of EBIT attributable to AI. But there's more to the story. Read the report here.* Today's work playlist: It's called "19xx." Click here to find out why. Clever video: A sandwich so precise you wish you could eat it twice. Fun history game: Put these events in chronological order. *This is sponsored advertising content | | Brew Mini: Today's Mini is ripe for a PR. Take a deep breath, stretch your fingers, and give it a shot here. Satellite view What landmark is being covered up by the yellow rectangle?  Google Maps | | $1,000 could mean the difference between staying at a motel with a "well, technically it's a pool"-pool and a resort with a swim-up bar. So give yourself the opportunity to travel in style with this week's Brew giveaway. All you need to do is refer 3 people to the newsletter by Saturday, and you could be one of 5 readers who will win $1,000. Pro tip: Knock out those referrals in the next hour and it won't be hanging over you the entire week. Share to win* Only readers with a US address are eligible to participate. Check out the full terms and conditions here. | | | Los Angeles International Airport | | | Written by Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, and Max Knoblauch Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. WANT MORE BREW? Industry news, with a sense of humor → - Emerging Tech Brew: AI, crypto, space, autonomous vehicles, and more
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