| | | | | | | Presented By Facebook | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen · Apr 09, 2022 | | Happy Saturday. Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,188 words ... 4½ mins. Edited by Noah Bressner. | | | | | | 1 big thing: Turnaround of the century |  Data: Labor Department. Chart: Axios Visuals Behold, the jobs turnaround of the century — maybe longer. - Two years ago, 6.1 million people filed for jobless benefits in a single week — the most ever, Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin tells me.
- In the first week of April, that number was 166,000 — the second-lowest in the 55 years the Labor Department has reported those numbers.
💡 Behind the numbers: Employers have gone from discharging their workers on a scale without precedent at the start of the pandemic — to holding onto them for dear life, as they face labor shortages. The record-holder for lowest weekly claims remains the week ending Nov. 30, 1968, with 162,000 new jobless claims. - The labor force is about twice as large as it was in the late 1960s, making the current low claims numbers that much more impressive.
The unemployment rate was 3.6% in March — and has been lower than that in only two months in the last 50 years. - That said, the labor force remains smaller than it was before the pandemic, so there could still be room for improvement as more potential workers return from the sidelines.
The bottom line: Any way you slice it, this is a moment in which workers are in the driver's seat of the job market. |     | | | | | | 2. ⚠️ "Recession shock" ahead |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | You don't often see language this blunt in a research note. So this leapt out at me in an alert to clients this week from Bank of America Global Research: - "'inflation shock' worsening ... 'rates shock' just beginning ... 'recession shock' coming."
A "Zeitgeist" section added these snappy client quotes: "can't make my mind up if it's recession or stagflation" and "recession now soooo consensus." - The recession calls, of course, are about what might happen later this year or in '23 — not a comment about current conditions.
🧠 Between the lines: The ultra-tight job market and high inflation are two sides of the same coin, Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin explains. - The super tight-job market is fueling higher wages and strong demand — which is why the Fed is going to have to move more aggressively than it has in decades to try to quash inflation.
The bottom line: The risk is that the cost of that inflation-fighting campaign is a recession. - Thank you, Neil, for donning your cape on a Saturday morning.
| | | | | | | | 3. 🇺🇦 🇬🇧 Bulletin: Boris in Kyiv | Photo: Embassy of Ukraine to the UK, via TwitterPrime Minister Boris Johnson paid a surprise visit to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv today to show solidarity. Get the latest. Earlier, Zelensky said Ukraine is ready for a tough battle with Russian forces amassing in the east, Reuters reports. - A Friday missile attack on a train station killed at least 52 civilians trying to evacuate.
Air-raid sirens sounded today across eastern Ukraine. | | | | | | | | A message from Facebook | | Facebook has invested $16 billion to keep you safe on our platform | | |  | | | | Facebook invested $16B in safety and security over 6 years. The impact? - Quadrupled safety and security teams.
- Developed industry-leading AI that detects harmful content and reacts as it evolves.
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Learn what's next. | | | | | | 4. 💰 How to be a secret billionaire |  | | | Illustration: Andrew Rae for The New York Times | | | | In tomorrow's "Money Issue" of The New York Times Magazine, the cover story explores how lists of billionaires are compiled by Forbes and Bloomberg. - Kerry Dolan, Forbes' assistant managing editor of wealth, says the easiest billionaire to track is one whose wealth derives from ownership in a publicly traded company, probably one he or she founded, though possibly one they inherited. Anyone who owns more than 5% of a company's shares must disclose that.
Willy Staley, a story editor for the Times Magazine who wrote the piece, asked Dolan for the profile of a billionaire who could go undetected by her reporters: She told me it's someone who quietly sold a stake in a business for, say, $250 million in the '90s, then invested it well. ... [H]e wouldn't even have had to be all that smart with his money. If he parked $250 million in an S&P tracking index fund in 1992 and left it alone, he'd be worth more than $4 billion today. ... And now he's just a guy with an insane Schwab account. Keep reading (subscription). | | | | | | | | 5. 🇫🇷 Nail-biter in France | | French President Emmanuel Macron speaks April 2 at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris. Photo: Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images For months, French President Emmanuel Macron looked like a shoo-in to become France's first president in 20 years to win a second term. - But far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Macron's political nemesis, is surging ahead of tomorrow's election, AP reports.
Why it matters: The centrist Macron's landslide win against Le Pen in 2017 was a defeat for populist, nationalist politics after Donald Trump's election and Britain's Brexit vote. Now, the right is rising globally. 🔮 What's next: Barring a monumental surprise, both Macron, 44, and Le Pen, 53, are expected to advance from the first-round field of 12 to a winner-take-all rematch in the second-round vote on April 24. What's happening: In France, the pain of inflation — and of pump, food and energy prices that are hitting low-income households particularly hard — have become dominant election themes. (Sound familiar?) - Le Pen is now a more polished, formidable and savvy political foe as she makes her third attempt to become France's first woman president.
- She has campaigned on cost-of-living concerns, capitalizing on the issue that pollsters say is foremost on voters' minds.
Cover: Guillem Casasús for The Economist Macron "presents a cautionary tale for centrists everywhere," The Economist writes in this week's cover story (subscription): - "[F]ive years of government by the world's centrist standard-bearer has eroded support for the centre."
- "War and the pandemic have polarised politics ... Macron also sometimes repels voters with his aloof Jupiterian manner. Critics dub him 'le président des riches.' The label sticks, partly because he cut France's unworkable wealth tax, but mostly because his manner is that of the high-flying banker he once was.
- "Macron also faces a problem that responsible politicians always face when running against populists. He offers policies boringly grounded in reality."
| | | | | | | | 6. 🖼️ Behind the frame: Judge Jackson's daughter | | Photo: Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times. Licensed by Axios Sarahbeth Maney, 26, the first Black photography fellow at The New York Times, took one of the most widely shared images (above) from the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. - "Judge Jackson is smiling in the foreground but out of focus," The Times says in "The Story Behind That Photo" (subscription).
- "The real subject is her [17-year-old] daughter Leila Jackson, who is seated behind the Supreme Court nominee and beaming with pride. Ms. Maney was standing on a step stool."
"I just remember seeing Judge Jackson smiling a lot, and I think she was receiving compliments and praise," Maney recalled. - "And then I noticed how proud her daughter was of her, and it gave me chills when I saw this look that her daughter gave her. It was just this look of such pride and admiration."
Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP 💬 Quote of the week ... Judge Jackson at yesterday's South Lawn ceremony celebrating her confirmation: "It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States." [Applause.] - "But we've made it. [Applause.] We've made it — all of us. All of us."
"And our children are telling me that they see now, more than ever, that, here in America, anything is possible." [Applause.] | | | | | | | | A message from Facebook | | Privacy Checkup helps you stay informed and empowered on Facebook | | |  | | | | We want privacy to be as easy as possible for you. That's why we built the Privacy Checkup, so you can: - Strengthen your account security.
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