| | | | | | | Presented By Walmart | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Feb 16, 2022 | | 🐪 Happy Wednesday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,494 words ... 5½ minutes. Edited by Zachary Basu. | | | | | | 1 big thing: Why Ukraine matters |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | A war in Ukraine — even a short one, even with no U.S. troops on the ground — would ripple throughout the global economy and challenge the international order the U.S. spent decades constructing and defending. - Why it matters: An invasion could have enormous implications for the U.S. Every time Vladimir Putin provides the slightest hint of his intentions toward Ukraine, markets move and heads of state scramble, Axios World author Dave Lawler writes.
The latest: Russia today said it is returning more troops and weapons to bases — another gesture apparently aimed at easing invasion fears. (AP) - Biden warned yesterday that the threat remains urgent: "This is about more than just Russia and Ukraine."
Global markets have been battered by the warnings of war, and they rose yesterday after Putin said he'd give diplomacy another chance. - Russia is a major exporter of oil and other commodities, and Biden warned that an invasion could lead to higher energy prices.
- ⛽ The fear of war has already driven average U.S. gasoline prices close to $4 per gallon for the first time in nearly 14 years, Axios' Nathan Bomey writes.
🇩🇪 Russia is Europe's primary source of natural gas. Germany fears a spike in already-high prices in the event of war, possibly as retaliation for Western sanctions. - The U.S. and its allies have promised "unprecedented" sanctions if Putin does invade. Those could restrict access to key technologies and make Russia even more economically reliant on China.
🇨🇳 The Chinese government will be closely watching the West's response to the situation in Ukraine and the implications for China's own threat to bring Taiwan under its control by force. Between the lines: Biden's speech yesterday was partly a call to arms to defend the international rules of the road — largely authored from Washington, and increasingly challenged by Moscow and Beijing. - The crisis has been a massive drain on the attention of an administration that had intended to focus on competition with China.
A full-scale war would be a hazardous endeavor for Russia, though its military capabilities far outstrip Ukraine's. - Ukraine's government, meanwhile, is contending with the threat of an invasion that could threaten the country's very existence.
The bottom line: Putin seems to be relishing his place at the top of Biden's agenda, and a chance to flex Russia's revived superpower status. - If Putin invades Ukraine, the whole world will feel it.
Share this story. |     | | | | | | 2. 🎓 COVID's crash course |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | "Future expectations" — buying more now, for instance, if you expect shortages later — used to be tough for Morgan Taylor, an economics professor at University of Georgia in Athens, to teach her classes. - Then came the great toilet paper rush of 2020. Now, students get the idea pretty easily, Axios Markets co-author Emily Peck reports.
Why it matters: The weirdness of the pandemic economy is providing vivid examples for econ professors the world over. The material all of a sudden feels "relevant and fresh," Taylor told us. Students now can explain what's happening with rising prices, various shortages and, of course, the job market — which they'll soon be entering. - With more students back in-person, professors say they're feeling a new urgency from them to learn — less palpable during remote school.
Case in point: The other day, Darin Wohlgemuth was teaching the concept of substitutes in his economics class at Iowa State, using his go-to example: If there isn't Coke, you can turn to Pepsi. - Then he mentioned computer chips: What do you do if you get all your chips from one supplier?
- "That's a really big problem in Michigan," one student called out, referring to the chip shortage facing the auto industry — and driving up the price of cars.
Hand sanitizer also keeps coming up in classrooms. Wohlgemuth shows students a photo he snapped at Aldi's of the price crossed out on a bottle of the once-hot product. - In Paul Graf's economics classes at Indiana University in Bloomington, students talk about how tech is replacing labor — as they order food from kiosks instead of waiters.
Share this story. | | | | | | | | 3. New era of coastal flooding |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | Coastal communities around the country face a rapid escalation in flood frequency and severity, Andrew Freedman writes in Axios Generate. - A new federal report, led by NOAA, says 100 years' worth of sea level rise is in store for the U.S. during the next 30 years.
Why it matters: "Just one foot of sea level rise will change a lot of American lives," Ben Strauss, CEO and chief scientist of the research group Climate Central, said by email. "Nationwide, about a million Americans live on land less than one yardstick above the high tide line." Already, some coastal communities — including Miami — regularly flood during astronomical high tides, a phenomenon known as "nuisance" or "sunny day" flooding. - Once you add the amount of sea level rise expected in the contiguous U.S. by 2050 — about a foot above current levels, on average — these nuisance floods will be transformed into frequent, damaging episodes.
Go deeper: Read the 111-page report. | | | | | | | | A message from Walmart | | Walmart invests in the future of fresh produce with Plenty | | |  | | | | Walmart is the first large U.S. retailer to significantly invest in vertical farming — collaborating with Plenty to use technology to bring fresh produce to Walmart's California stores. The goal: Accelerate agricultural innovation, delivering fresh, pesticide-free produce to shoppers. | | | | | | 4. Charted: Women at the Olympics |  Data: International Olympic Committee. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios | | | | | | | | 5. 💡 Megatrends: Coastal workers move to heartland |  | | | Metro areas analyzed by Heartland Forward. Go here for an interactive version. Map: Heartland Forward | | | | Middle America is gaining ground in the battle for human capital, writes Worth Sparkman of Axios Northwest Arkansas. - A new report by Bentonville's Heartland Forward found that between 2010 and 2019, workers slowly migrated from the coasts to 20 heartland states (map above).
Why it matters: The winners in this migration are metros that develop regional hubs for related industries — like tech, transportation, robotics or engineering. The findings: Cincinnati, Nashville, St. Louis and Columbus, Ohio, grew both their college graduates and creative class between 2010 and 2019. 👀 What we're watching: The shift from the coasts has accelerated during the pandemic — a timeframe not captured in the report. 🔮 What's next: Young talent will continue to head to coastal cities and tech hubs — but may move when they start to build families, Richard Florida, the report's lead author, told Axios. - Locations with research universities, foundations and institutions that invest in regional culture will be more successful recruiters.
Go deeper: Read the report, "Heartland of talent: How heartland metropolitans are changing the map of talent in the U.S." | | | | | | | | 6. Chris Cuomo faced assault allegation | | Chris Cuomo moderates a CNN town hall in Des Moines in 2016. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The New York Times last night reported (subscription) stunning new facts about the prelude to Chris Cuomo's firing by CNN: - On Dec. 1, three days before Cuomo was fired, Debra S. Katz, the prominent sexual harassment lawyer, sent CNN a letter on behalf of a woman who had worked with Cuomo at ABC News: "She said he had sexually assaulted her and that, in the heat of the #MeToo movement, Mr. Cuomo had tried to keep her quiet by arranging a flattering CNN segment about her employer at the time."
- A Cuomo spokesman denied the allegations.
Also yesterday, WarnerMedia announced that CNN chief marketing officer Allison Gollust had resigned, two weeks after Jeff Zucker was forced out over his relationship with Gollust. - Gollust said in a statement provided to Axios: "It is deeply disappointing that after spending the past nine years defending and upholding CNN's highest standards of journalistic integrity, I would be treated this way as I leave. But I do so with my head held high, knowing that I gave my heart and soul to working with the finest journalists in the world."
| | | | | | | | 7. Remembering P.J. O'Rourke | | P.J. O'Rourke, then 45, talks to "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, then 43, in 1993. Photo by: Margaret Norton/NBC via Getty Images P.J. O'Rourke — the libertarian-populist satirist who got his start at National Lampoon and got famous as "foreign-affairs desk chief" for Rolling Stone — died at 74 from complications of lung cancer. - The Atlantic, where he wrote for 11 years, says he "covered bleakness — Enron, war memorials — with skepticism and a dash of absurdity. (Explaining his wariness of lawmakers, he wrote: 'A chilling characteristic of politicians is that they're not in it for the money.')"
National Review senior writer David Harsanyi calls the Toledo-born O'Rourke "a true lover of American liberty and the good life": People say that he was our Mencken, but P. J. was no angry crank. He could find humor in virtually anything. So many contemporary conservative and libertarian writers have aspired to be like him — whether they admitted it or not. None ever came close. Last word to Patrick Jake O'Rourke, from his bestselling 1998 "treatise" (his word) on global economics, "Eat the Rich": Love and death are limited and personal. ... And death is as finite as it gets. It has closure. Plus the death ratio is low, only 1:1 in occurrences per person. Go deeper: O'Rourke's pieces for The Atlantic. | | | | | | | | 8. 🏈 Super Bowl ratings rebound |  Data: Nielsen. Chart: Baidi Wang/Axios 101.1 million Americans watched Super LVI on live TV Sunday on NBC and Telemundo. - Across all of NBC's platforms, including the Peacock streaming service, the game was watched by 112 million viewers, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer writes.
📺 Fun fact: The most-watched Super Bowl was New England's 4-point win over Seattle in 2015, with 114 million viewers. | | | | | | | | A message from Walmart | | Walmart advances innovative sustainable food solutions | | |  | | | | Walmart and Plenty are working collaboratively to increase access to fresh food through vertical farming — supplementing traditional farming practices to ease system challenges. Walmart will source Plenty's leafy greens for its California stores from Plenty's Compton farm later this year. | | | | 📬 Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here for your own personal copy of Axios AM and Axios PM. |  | Bring the strength of Smart Brevity® to your team — more effective communications, powered by Axios HQ. | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment