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| Axios Closer |
| By Hope King and Nathan Bomey ·Jan 11, 2022 |
| Hello! There's a new way to order Girl Scout cookies this year. More below. Today's newsletter is 704 words, a 2½-minute read. ⚡️ Situational awareness: Meta loses bid to dismiss FTC antitrust case. 🔔 The dashboard: The S&P closed higher (0.9%) for the first time in six sessions. - Biggest gainer? Biotech firm Illumina (+17%). The company shared sales forecasts for the year that exceeded analyst expectations.
- Biggest decliner? Moderna (-5.3%) shares reset after soaring yesterday.
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| 1 big thing: A tale of two crises |
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| Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Pool/Getty Images |
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| Jerome Powell's second term as Federal Reserve chair will be defined by his response to the economy he helped create, Hope writes. Why it matters: Powell's job will be harder in many ways than when the Fed was focused on just keeping the country afloat at the onset of the pandemic. - He now has to steer American consumers and investors into a new economy where everything is getting more expensive — including the cost of money.
- The chair and his team have to "thread a very small needle" to ease the U.S. out of a post-stimulus environment, Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National, tells Axios.
Driving the news: During his Senate confirmation hearing today, Powell vowed to tamp down on the pace of inflation — which is cutting into wage growth. - He also faced questions about a stalled labor market.
- The proportion of people who have a job or are looking for one remained unchanged again in December, and well below the rate pre-pandemic.
The big picture: The Central Bank faces a collision of two crises (inflation and the slow recovering labor market) that endangers economic growth. - High inflation has become "a severe threat to the achievement of maximum employment and to achieving a long expansion that can give us that [full employment]," said Powell.
Then: When Powell took over in 2018, the economy was stable, with inflation and GDP growth below their targets. - Now: 84% of the jobs lost in March and April 2020 have been recovered, wages rose 4.7% last year and the economy in 2021 is expected to have grown at more than twice the annual rate of 2017.
What to watch: Tomorrow's consumer price index reading from December is expected to show that prices rose more than 7% over the same month in 2020, adding onto the nearly 40-year record high. The bottom line: "Prescribing the right medicine is always easier than weaning the patient off of it," says Hogan. |
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| 2. Charted: "Boomerang kids" flee the nest |
 Data: BLS Current Population Survey via IPUMS; Chart: Baidi Wang/Axios The nest is empty — again. What's happening: The percentage of young adults — or "boomerang kids" — who live with their parents is back to pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Nathan writes. By the numbers: 46.61% of adults aged 18–29 were living with their parents as of September, the lowest point since February 2020. The big picture: 36% of boomerang kids live with families in the top 10%, with a household income of more than $140,000. |
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| 3. What's happening |
| 📝 Ida B. Wells — co-founder of the NAACP, educator, journalist and anti-lynching activist — will be honored with her own Barbie doll. (NPR) 🏦 Bank of America customers will no longer face a fee for bouncing a check. (Axios) |
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| A message from Axios |
| Deeper reporting on the industries that matter most to you |
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| One 🧠 thing: Axios Pro: Deals is here, created for professionals who care about VC, PE, and M&A. Zoom in: Axios Pro delivers deeper, industry-specific news and analysis so you can make better business decisions. It's Axios, tailor-made for pros like you. Start your 14-day free trial. |
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| 4. One supply chain solution |
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| Rolls of sheet metal sit on the factory floor of a Stanley Black & Decker plant in Sedalia, Mo. Photo: Alex Flynn/Bloomberg via Getty Images |
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| One solution to supply chain challenges is to compress the distance between production and the end user, a Stanley Black & Decker executive tells Nathan. Why it matters: The pandemic triggered product shortages due to supply chain breakdowns, and companies are under pressure to avoid further disruptions. - With more than 100,000 individual barcoded products, Stanley is making plans to bring more production back to the U.S., says Guru Bandekar, the company's chief supply chain officer for global tools and storage.
- "We are in the middle of a big reshoring, if you will, or near-shoring of our products in North America," Bandekar says.
One reason: avoiding the ocean. The cost of a shipping container for Stanley has gone from $2,000 to more than $20,000 amid a global shortage, Bandekar says. |
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| 5. Dashing for Girl Scout cookies 🍪 |
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| The Girl Scouts say their cookie-selling season provides kids with entrepreneurial experience. Photo courtesy of Girl Scouts of the USA |
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| The Girl Scouts are jumping into the gig economy, Nathan writes. Driving the news: The youth organization said today that it'll offer delivery of its signature cookies through DoorDash this year — in addition to the usual sales routes. - In the first selling seasons of the pandemic, the Girl Scouts hosted "virtual cookie booths and drive-thru contactless cookie stands."
This time around, local Girl Scouts will track orders, fulfill them and manage inventory while DoorDash will handle the rest. Our thought bubble: Anything to get our yearly fix of Peanut Butter Patties (Nathan) or Samoas (Hope). |
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| 6. What they're saying |
| "Our vaccine requirement is working — and saving lives. ... [Z]ero deaths and zero hospitalizations for vaccinated employees." — United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby in a letter to employees. |
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| A message from Axios |
| Deeper reporting on the industries that matter most to you |
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| One 🧠 thing: Axios Pro: Deals is here, created for professionals who care about VC, PE, and M&A. Zoom in: Axios Pro delivers deeper, industry-specific news and analysis so you can make better business decisions. It's Axios, tailor-made for pros like you. Start your 14-day free trial. |
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