What we’re reading (3/16)
“Middle Managers Are On The Chopping Block, Accounting For Almost A Third Of Layoffs Last Year” (Insider). “Times are tough for the middle managers of corporate America. Job cuts for middle managers — those below the executive ranks who still have direct reports — increased to 31.5% of total layoffs in 2023, according to a data analysis by Live Data Technologies for Bloomberg. That's up from a little under 20% in 2018.”
“Americans Invested Billions In Chinese Companies. Now Their Money Is Stuck.” (DealBook). “As recently as 2021, venture investors were pouring nearly $47 billion into Chinese companies, according to PitchBook. It’s not just venture capital at risk. U.S. public pensions and university endowments invested about $146 billion from 2018 to 2022, according to Future Union, an advocacy group focused on exploring U.S. investments abroad.”
“A 15-Year Problem That Has Plagued Corporate America Is Finally Turning Around” (Yahoo! Finance). “American workers are becoming more productive. Recent analysis from Bank of America showed the average revenue per worker for companies in the S&P 500 hit an all-time high in February after 15 years of no gains. This is one of several signs that labor productivity is rebounding after slumping during 2022. Some on Wall Street think the developments in labor productivity could help the stock market survive stickier-than-expected inflation that has emerged as a concern in recent weeks.”
“How I Got Hooked On The Hottest Trade In Markets—And Bagged A 2,000% Return” (Wall Street Journal). “There’s a hot new trade on Wall Street, blurring the line between investing and gambling like never before. It involves contracts known as short-dated options, bets on everything from individual stocks to indexes that run for just a few days, or in some cases mere hours. Part of their appeal, and risk, is that the contracts can be like placing chips at a roulette table, or buying a scratch-off lottery ticket. There is the potential for huge, nearly instantaneous gains, or the loss of everything you put down.”
“Could An AI Replace All Music Ever Recorded With Taylor Swift Covers?” (New Scientist). “A rogue artificial intelligence obsessed with Taylor Swift could supplant all recorded music with artificially generated cover versions by her, say researchers. History would show the American singer-songwriter as being responsible for everything from Für Elise to Paperback Writer, leaving no evidence that Ludwig van Beethoven or The Beatles ever existed. Nick Collins at Durham University, UK, and Mick Grierson at the University of the Arts London give the unusual warning in a paper that says humanity must think of methods of resistance ‘now, rather than when it is too late’.”
