Good morning.  New newsletter alert (Cue the jokes about how many newsletters we have…) But this one is special, because it's all about money—how to spend it, how to invest it, and how to save more of it. The author? Katie, a 27 year old who loves talking about personal finance even more than getting overly caffeinated and binge-watching Euphoria. She'll give you her spicy takes on the psychology of money and show you how to upgrade your lifestyle regardless of your income bracket. The first issue comes out later today. Subscribe here. —Neal Freyman, Max Knoblauch, Jamie Wilde | | | |  | Nasdaq | 13,381.52 | | | | | S&P | 4,304.76 | | | | | Dow | 33,596.61 | | |  | 10-Year | 1.944% | | | | | Bitcoin | $37,951.33 | | | | | Home Depot | $316.17 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: The S&P 500 fell into correction territory (down more than 10% from a recent peak) after the US declared that Russia's recent moves into Ukraine amounted to "the beginning of an invasion." This bearish market isn't sparing 2021 winners like Home Depot, which fell the most in nearly two years after supply-chain bottlenecks squeezed its margins. HD was the Dow's biggest gainer last year.
- The sanctions begin: President Biden announced a "first tranche" of sanctions on Russia that targets two financial institutions, its sovereign debt, and Russian elites. The EU also agreed to new sanctions, while Germany halted approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, an $11 billion project that would have doubled Russian natural gas exports to Germany.
| | Photo Illustration: Dianna "Mick" McDougall; Source: Anadolu Agency, Naeblys, Matthew Stockman via Getty Images The Russia-Ukraine conflict has officially replaced NFTs as the topic people love to talk about but don't fully understand. That's not a knock on anyone—look, even those of us who follow the news for our jobs haven't spent the last decade immersed in Eastern European politics. But we know someone who has: Alex Kliment, a geopolitical analyst who helps write and edit the excellent Signal, a global affairs newsletter published by GZERO Media (you can find it here). We asked Alex some high-level questions about the situation to get a better grasp on what exactly is going on and why we should care. Can you give us a brief history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine? To start with, the "brief" history goes back a thousand years, because Russian civilization more or less began in what is today's Ukraine. But let's fast forward to 1991, when Ukraine became an independent state following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, it's been caught in a tug of war between Russia and the West: - There are a lot of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, particularly in the east and south, and those are areas where you find more sympathy for Moscow.
- Central and western Ukraine have tended to show more pro-Western sentiment, but it's very, very hard to generalize.
The Kremlin, for its part, sees Ukraine as a non-negotiable part of its sphere of influence. The idea of Ukraine ever joining NATO (which has been floated in various ways) is an existential red line for Russia. But there's also this other thing going on where Putin openly doesn't believe Ukraine is a legit independent country. For him it's basically just a part of a greater Russian empire that it's his destiny to resurrect. Most people in Ukraine obviously don't love this view. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said this would be the biggest war in Europe since WWII. But there have been other European conflicts since, so what makes this one so much more significant? For one thing, it's the sheer size of the players. Yugoslavia's horrific 1990s civil war—the worst European conflict since WWII—took place in a disintegrating country of 23.5 million people. Ukraine has more than 40 million people and, mind you, one of the combatants is a nuclear power. Second, a central idea of post-war Europe is that you don't redraw European boundaries by force, because that always ends very badly. And yet here is Russia, a major world power, doing just that. So Russia's challenge isn't only to a specific country (Ukraine) but to a whole order. Third, there's obviously a huge economic dimension here. We're talking about a war involving a country—Russia—that is Europe's largest source of natural gas and is a major global oil exporter. No European war has involved anything close to this level of economic and financial risk to Europe since 1945. What is the most likely outcome of the war? Is Russia guaranteed to capture as much territory as it wants? The Ukrainians are certainly no pushovers. They've been well-armed and trained by the West since 2014. That said, the Russian forces are just much, much larger, and in the event of a full-scale invasion, most military analysts think that the Russians could get to key cities quite fast. The interesting question, though, is what happens next. Invading a country is one thing, but actually occupying it—if that's Putin's intention—is another. The Russians would not, in most cases, be "greeted as liberators," as the saying goes. I'm not a military analyst but I'm told that things could get very nasty in the event of urban warfare or a popular insurgency. And the West would almost certainly support efforts to make life hell for the occupying Russians. There's so much more of the interview we didn't have space to include. You can read it here. | | The Simpsons/20th TV Animation via Giphy  Covid cases are plummeting: US Omicron cases have dropped about 90% from their pandemic high of 800,000 on January 15 to an average of 84,000. As for the death toll: The seven-day average dropped under the 2,000 mark for the first time since January 19. But even as states around the country lift mask mandates, a flight attendants' union expects a federal mask mandate on planes to be extended past its current expiration date of March 18.
 Zuck's two months away from starting a hype house. Meta has TikTok in its sights, launching its Reels product globally for all Facebook users Tuesday. Reels is a huge deal for Meta: On the company's most recent earnings call, Zuckerberg said it's the company's fastest-growing content format. And even though the metaverse is kind of Meta's…whole thing, that earnings call mentioned "Reels" more than twice as much as the "metaverse."
 SCOTUS will hear a gay marriage case: Next term, the Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a prospective Colorado web designer who, due to her religious beliefs, only wants to provide services to heterosexual couples—which puts her at odds with a state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Supreme Court punted on a similar case in 2018 that involved a Colorado baker who was unwilling to make cakes for same-sex weddings.
| | Naomi Baker, FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images A six-year legal battle over gender discrimination between several members of the US women's national soccer team (USWNT) and the sport's governing body, US Soccer, ended in a $24 million settlement on Tuesday. Included in the deal is a promise of equal pay for the men's and women's teams going forward, pending a new collective bargaining agreement. The backstory: The USWNT is one of the most accomplished sports teams in the world, having won four World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals. But even still, the team's players make 89 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make during the regular season. And in World Cup appearances, the men's team earns bonuses that are nearly double those made by the women's team. Because of that disparity, in 2016, five star players including Hope Solo and Megan Rapinoe filed a wage discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, kicking off a bitter battle that wasn't settled until Tuesday. The deal: The 61 women included in the deal will receive $22 million in back pay—an acknowledgment that they were underpaid compared to the men's team. An additional $2 million will be placed into a fund for post-career endeavors and charity.—MK | | | Yes, we're serious—do you think we're the type of newsletter that would pass up the op-poo-tunity to cover this? This was all Charmin's doo-dooing. In honor of Twosday 2/22/22, the TP giant sent a towering poop emoji floating down the East River in New York City  . If you were lucky enough to see the glorious poo in person, way to go! If you didn't, no need to make a stink—there's a crap ton of photos and videos commemorating the celebration. Pro tip: Scroll through the spectacle while you're on the porcelain throne to get the full experience. Charmin is the #1 for your #2s, and they sure know how to showboat it. For highlights of yesterday's festivities, follow Charmin on Instagram. | | Coinbase Nearly two weeks after the Super Bowl, social media's still buzzing about one of the ads…but the vibe has shifted. Coinbase's 60-second spot—which featured a QR code that drove so much traffic that the app crashed—became the center of a squabble about which geniuses came up with the ad: Coinbase or the ad agencies it worked with. - In a self-congratulatory Twitter thread on Sunday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong boasted that the crypto platform turned down an agency's ideas for the ad before brainstorming its own, because "No ad agency would have done this ad."
- Martin Agency CEO Kristen Cavallo interrupted Armstrong's thought leadership by noting that an agency did come up with the idea: hers.
- Coinbase CMO Kate Rouch then replied that multiple agencies pitched QR code spots, but ultimately Coinbase landed on a version it created with help from Accenture Interactive…an agency.
Armstrong amended his post to thank a "creative firm"—without naming it. He and Rouch tweeted that the partnership was so "seamless" that Armstrong didn't realize. Bottom line: Cavallo later explained on LinkedIn that her calling out of Armstrong "wasn't about IP or credit"—instead, it was to defend the value of agencies often employed by companies hoping to advertise their products on the biggest stage.—JW Want more marketing news? Cool. Sign up for Marketing Brew. | | The Office/NBC via Giphy Stat: The most valuable TV show in the US is The Office, according to Bloomberg. To put that in terms Michael Scott would understand, Peacock paid Universal $498,000/episode for The Office in a five-year deal back in 2019. Rounding out the five most valuable shows based on their streaming deals are Seinfeld ($361,000 per episode), Friends ($360,000), The Big Bang Theory ($357,000), and South Park ($348,000). So it's official: Seinfeld is better than Friends. Quote: "You are going to see us dramatically curtail our traditional media spend effectively immediately." Caesars CEO Tom Reeg told investors that the company will pull back its ad spend after hitting its customer acquisition goals for its sports betting app faster than expected. We'll believe it when we (don't) see it. Read: To expunge his daughter's murder from the internet, a father created an NFT of the grisly video. (Washington Post) | | - Slack suffered an outage for a few hours yesterday, allowing us to be reacquainted with our old friend GChat.
- US home prices grew at the fastest rate on record last year—up 18.8%.
- Volkswagen is prepping an IPO for Porsche that could value the brand at up to $96 billion.
- Sony unveiled the design of its next-gen PlayStation VR2 headset.
| | Stop renting Airbnbs—invest in them. 10 million short-term rental properties worldwide make up this $1.2 trillion industry. And reAlpha is giving you a chance to get in on the ground floor as a shareholder. Invest today.* What's better than a moat and takes a lot less digging? Security from SimpliSafe that protects your home from more than just intruders. Their sensors also monitor for floods, fires, and everything in between. Get notified and get emergency help on the way with SimpliSafe.* Overachiever: Watch one reporter discuss the Russia–Ukraine conflict in six different languages. For the military buffs: Keep track of Russian military movements in real time with this map. The latest pod episodes from the Morning Brew studio: 1) Twitch co-founder Justin Kan on getting sober 2) How to fix the broken business of childcare 3) Nine ways to work smarter *This is sponsored advertising content. | | Word Search: Vintage city maps—they're not just for college dorm walls. Play today's map-themed Word Search here. Speaking of maps... Ukraine is obviously in the news a ton, but do you know where it is? Try to find it on this map of Europe.  | | |
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