Economics

These are tough times for two big US dollar store chains. In the past month, Family Dollar said it will close nearly 1,000 stores and 99 Cents Only said it will go out of business.

Both companies said inflation and shoplifting have contributed to their troubles. While inflation has pressured the companies’ low-income customer base and shoplifting has squeezed their profits, those factors alone can’t explain their difficulties.

Years of strategic mistakes and underinvestment have plagued Family Dollar and 99 Cents Only, retail analysts say. Both brands were acquired by other companies and faltered under their new owners.

Tariff Man could be back in the White House next year – and he’s promising the sequel will be even bigger than the original.

Former President Donald Trump, who labeled himself “Tariff Man” in 2018, has made clear he wants to pursue a more aggressive trade strategy if he’s elected in November. Trump has floated a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports, a 60% tariff on imports from China and a 100% tariff on foreign cars – including from Mexico.

Trump’s proposals, if enacted, could easily set off a new trade war with China and potentially other nations, too.

Some economists are warning Trump’s trade agenda and the ensuing retaliation from trading partners would hurt the US economy by worsening inflation, killing jobs, depressing growth and spooking investors.

In a worst-case scenario, economists fear these policies could set the stage for a recession.

The central bank is expected to cut interest rates in June, but a rise in workers’ salaries could impact the pace and rate of cuts.

The European Central Bank is set to leave its key interest rate at a record-high 4 percent on Thursday, as concerns over wage growth temper the urge to give more support to the economy. 

At the Governing Council's last meeting in March, ECB President Christine Lagarde had indicated that the bank could start easing policy in June, and analysts say nothing material has happened to change that in the interim.

Headline inflation continued its downward drift in March, equaling a two-and-a-half** **year low of 2.4 percent, thanks largely to food and energy prices, but services price inflation — heavily influenced by local wage developments — remained stubbornly high at 4 percent. With survey data suggesting the economy has bottomed out in the near term, and with unemployment still near a record low, that all signals another month of wait-and-see.

Boeing has achieved the unthinkable this week: It managed to fall even deeper into crisis.

Adding to an already miserable start to 2024, Boeing stood accused Tuesday of routinely ignoring a whistleblower’s complaints about the allegedly critically flawed manufacturing process for its 787 Dreamliner planes. The whistleblower claimed Boeing retaliated against him and put him on the 777 unit as punishment. That’s when, he says, he found even more production problems.

Boeing strongly denies the claims and says it is confident in the safety of its aircraft. Still, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would investigate — adding to a growing list of federal probes into the beleaguered company, including a criminal investigation. And next week, a Senate subcommittee will hear testimony about the whistleblower’s case and will presumably air more of Boeing’s dirty laundry in public.

The NLRB general counsel has accused US’s largest corporations of creating distractions to cover their law-breaking

The US’s top labor lawyer has said her agency will not “succumb” to Amazon, Starbucks and SpaceX’s attempts to legally challenge the National Labor Relations Board and its ability to enforce federal labor law.

Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB general counsel, accused some of the US’s largest corporations of “jumping on the bandwagon” in mounting legal challenges to the labor watchdog, which has found itself at the center of the ongoing battle between the companies and a wave of unionizing efforts by workers.

Attorneys representing Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and Starbucks have all argued in recent months that the NLRB is “unconstitutional” and has overstepped its authority.

Tesla has settled a lawsuit brought by the family of a Silicon Valley engineer who died in a crash while relying on the company’s semi-autonomous driving software.

The amount Tesla paid to settle the case was not disclosed in court documents filed Monday, just a day before the trial stemming from the 2018 crash on a San Francisco Bay Area highway was scheduled to begin. In a court filing requesting to keep the sum private, Tesla said it agreed to settle the case in order to “end years of litigation.”

Shares of Tesla Inc., down 30% this year, slipped 1% before the market opened Tuesday. 

The family of Walter Huang filed a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit in 2019 seeking to hold Tesla — and, by extension, its CEO Elon Musk — liable for repeatedly exaggerating the capabilities of Tesla’s self-driving car technology. They claimed the technology, dubbed Autopilot, was promoted in egregious ways that caused vehicle owners to believe they didn’t have to remain vigilant while they were behind the wheel.

Handing in your proverbial badge as a sexagenarian has been the goal for many workers around the world: turning 65 would open a golden portal to retirement. Yet increasingly, the idea of stepping away from the workforce in your 60s doesn't seem realistic – or even sensible – for many people, especially now. Some major financial figureheads agree.

In March, investment-management firm BlackRock released its annual letter to the company's investors. Its CEO Larry Fink sounded a warning for workers hoping to retire – comfortably and financially secure – in their 60s. As global life expectancy grows, social safety nets fray and cost of living spikes, Fink warned that retirement at age 65 won't be possible for many, even most, people.

"[Retirement] is a much harder proposition than it was 30 years ago," wrote Fink. "And it'll be a much harder proposition 30 years from now."

From 2000 to 2019, global life expectancy increased from 67 years to 73. By 2050, the UN expects one in six peopleworldwide will be aged 65 or older. And as the population ages, many countries will soon reach a point where more people are leaving the workforce than are entering it: in the UK, that point may be reached by 2029; in Brazil, by 2035; in India, by 2048; and in the US, by 2053.

"Life expectancy has been continuing to go up since the mid-1850s in the UK," says Rebecca Sear, professor of population and health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "But the retirement age hasn't changed that much."

As both the health and economic landscape has changed dramatically, is retirement at 65 an entirely unrealistic goal in a modern world?

The Biden administration has pledged to provide up to $6.6 billion so that a Taiwanese semiconductor giant can expand the facilities it is already building in Arizona and better ensure that the most-advanced microchips are produced domestically for the first time

The Biden administration pledged on Monday to provide up to $6.6 billion so that a Taiwanese semiconductor giant can expand the facilities it is already building in Arizona and better ensure that the most-advanced microchips are produced domestically for the first time. 

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the funding for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. means the company can expand on its existing plans for two facilities in Phoenix and add a third, newly announced production hub. 

“These are the chips that underpin all artificial intelligence, and they are the chips that are the necessary components for the technologies that we need to underpin our economy," Raimondo said on a call with reporters, adding that they were vital to the "21st century military and national security apparatus.”

Throughout the U.S., workers earn a median annual wage of about $48,080, according to the latest available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But in the three states where workers earn the least, the median annual wage sits below $40,000 a year. And notably, all but two of the 10 lowest-earning states are in the South.

Mississippi has the lowest-earning population in the U.S. with a median annual wage of just $37,500, according to the BLS. 

That’s due, in part, to the fact that Mississippi has one of the least-educated populations in the country, with just 1 in 4 adults in the state holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to St. Louis Fed data.

More education typically correlates with higher earnings, which helps explain why Massachusetts — the most-educated state, with nearly 47% of its population holding a bachelor’s degree or higher — is also the highest-paid, according to the St. Louis Fed.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was awarded a giant stock bonus on top of his more-than-a-million-dollar salary last year, despite overseeing a company that has been plagued by chronic losses and safety problems.

Calhoun’s total compensation in 2023 was $32.8 million, a 45% increase from the $22.6 million he received for 2022. And it could have been a lot more: He declined to accept his annual incentive bonus of $2,800,000 – a request the board said he made after part of a Boeing 737 Max plane blew off the side of an Alaska Airlines flight in January, kicking off a series of federal investigations, a temporary grounding, executive ousters and another embarrassing public relations blunder for the company.

Employers in the US added more than 300,000 jobs last month - the biggest gain in almost a year - as the boom in the world's largest economy continued.

The jobless rate fell to 3.8%, as most sectors, including health care, construction and the government added roles, the Labor Department said. 

It marked another month of stronger-than-expected growth. Economists had forecast job gains of about 200,000.

Analysts said the strong figures could delay cuts to US interest rates. 

The US central bank's key interest rate is currently at the highest level in more than two decades, in a range of 5.25%-5.5%.

The U.S. and China agreed to hold talks that will address a key American complaint about China’s economic model, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Saturday on the second day of an official visit to China.

The two sides will hold “intensive exchanges” on more balanced economic growth, according to a U.S. statement issued after Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng held extended meetings over two days in the southern city of Guangzhou. 

They also agreed to start exchanges on combating money laundering, the U.S. statement said.

Yellen, who headed to Beijing after starting her five-day visit in one of China’s major industrial and export hubs, said the exchange on balanced growth would create a structure to hear each other’s views and try to address American concerns about manufacturing overcapacity in China.

After the US cut China's access to cutting-edge chips, the EU and US are concerned about the country's dominance of semiconductors used in everyday technology.

Legacy chips, used in everything from washing machines to cars and TVs to medical devices, may not be as powerful as the state-of-the-art semiconductors that power artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. But they're a growing headache for the United States and European Union due to China's market dominance.

Washington has already blocked Chinese firms from accessing Western-designed cutting-edge chips in the hope of delaying Beijing's ambitionof becoming a technology superpower. Attention has now turned to so-called legacy chips, of which China currently has close to a third of the world's manufacturing capacity. 

Faced with limited access to the more advanced chips, Beijing has sharply stepped up investments in the production of mature chip technology. In September, the Chinese government announced a $40 billion (€37 billion) state-backed investment fund to bolster domestic semiconductor production. That move strengthened industry calls for Western nations to take action to shore up their own chipmakers.

The operators of the 99 Cents Only stores announced Thursday they will shut down all 371 of the locations throughout four states, with liquidation sales starting Friday.

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The move will impact all company locations in California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas. The operators are based in Commerce.

Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate dipped to 3.8% from 3.9% in February. That rate has now come in below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s.

Samsung Electronics says it expects its profits for the first three months of 2024 to jump by more than 10-fold compared to a year earlier.

It comes as prices of chips have recovered from a post-pandemic slump and demand for artificial intelligence (AI) related products booms.

South Korea-based Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory chips, smartphones and televisions.

The company is scheduled to release a detailed financial report on 30 April.

The technology giant estimated that its operating profit rose to 6.6 trillion won ($4.9bn; £3.9bn) in the January-March quarter, 931% higher than the same period in 2023. That beat analysts' expectations of around 5.7 trillion won.

Its earnings are expected to be boosted by a rebound in semiconductor prices on the global market after a severe downturn a year earlier.

• Interest in universal basic income has grown due to the pandemic, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and economic pain.
• A common question about the concept is how people spend the cash.
• Experts and initial trials suggest UBI is mostly spent on essentials like food and housing.

Interest in a universal basic income (UBI) is only intensifying as the pandemic and other crises reveal the shortcomings of emergency aid programs, the likes of Elon Musk and Sam Altman warn AI will make human workers obsolete, and a one-two punch of historic inflation and steeper borrowing costs pinch household budgets.

UBI generally refers to a recurring cash payment to all adults in a certain population, regardless of their wealth and employment status, and with no restrictions on how they spend the money.

It's been hailed as a safety net in case people lose their jobs or can't work; a mental-health aid as it relieves financial worries; a buffer that lets people be more selective about which job they take; a tool to combat poverty, inequality, and the pain of unemployment; and a way to recognize the value of domestic labor like child and elderly care.

Key Points

• Uber Eats customers may now receive orders delivered by one of Waymo’s self-driving cars for the first time in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
• It is part of a multiyear collaboration between the two companies unveiled last year.
• The new offering is limited to Uber Eats users in Phoenix, Chandler, Mesa and Tempe, with ordering available from select merchants in those cities.

Uber Eats customers may start receiving orders delivered by a Waymo self-driving car for the first time in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

The new service, which rolls out on Wednesday, marks the official launch of Uber’s delivery partnership with Waymo and is part of a broader multiyear collaboration between the two companies unveiled last year. In October, Uber began offering rides in Waymo’s self-driving vehicles in Phoenix.

For Uber Eats, Phoenix is the seventh site with autonomous deliveries, but the first location where the delivery app will use Waymo’s vehicles. Uber Eats has already teamed up with robotics companies Cartken, Motional, Nuro and Serve Robotics to pilot autonomous deliveries in other markets.

Key extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) equipment at TSMC is “safe and sound,” reports DigiTimes, with production back up to 70 or 80% capacity on the same day as the massive April 3 earthquake. However, the quakes didn’t leave the production facilities unscathed. According to the new report, the seismic interruption and the damage incurred will cost TSMC approximately $62 million. While the EUV machines are undamaged, factory beams, columns, walls, and pipelines were damaged during the quake(s) according to unnamed DigiTimes sources. Without official confirmation we must take the details with a pinch of salt.

TSMC reportedly bounced back very quickly after a series of violent earthquakes and aftershocks in Taiwan on Wednesday morning. Since that time we have been trying to ascertain the scale of the damage done to the island’s vital semiconductor industry. Companies like TSMC are notoriously secretive regarding their internal goings-on, so we have only caught glimpses from a handful of insiders willing to spill the beans.

• Taiwan's worst earthquake in 25 years disrupted operations of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.
• The disaster shows the vulnerability of TSMC, the world's top chipmaker, to natural or geopolitical events.
• TSMC is diversifying with new plants in Arizona, Japan, and Germany to mitigate future disruptions.

Taiwan experienced its worst earthquake in 25 years on Wednesday morning, disrupting the operations of companies including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, or TSMC.

TSMC, which is based in the Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, told Business Insider that some of its fabs — microchip manufacturing plants — were evacuated for preventive measures, but that all its personnel were safe.

Tesla posted its first annual drop in sales since the first year of the pandemic, as increased electric vehicle competition from Chinese and Western automakers ate into demand.

CEO Elon Musk’s electric car company reported it built 433,000 vehicles but delivered only 387,000. That’s down from the 484,507 cars it delivered in the final three months of 2023, and it’s also down from the 422,875 vehicle sales in the first quarter of last year.

Tesla has responded to increased competition by cutting prices. Although Tesla is more profitable than traditional automakers, the price cuts have been squeezing the profit margins that helped boost the stock. Investors’ expectations that the company would grow sales in the future had also been supporting Tesla’s lofty stock price, which made it the world’s most valuable automaker.

Demand for workers in the US picked up slightly in February in a sign that the job market remains on strong footing, though layoffs also ticked up that month.

There were a seasonally adjusted 8.8 million job openings in February, a notch higher than the prior month’s downwardly revised 8.74 million, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. That was roughly in line with economists’ expectations. The number of available jobs remains well above pre-pandemic levels, but is down from a record high of 12.2 million in March 2022.

Openings soared the most in finance and insurance; state and local government excluding education; and arts, entertainment and recreation. Meanwhile, job vacancies dropped sharply in information and federal government.

However, while labor demand remains solid, the report also showed some possible signs of a loosening job market. Layoffs rose to 1.72 million from 1.6 million. For the past three years, layoffs have hovered below pre-pandemic levels, but as of February, they were above the lowest point in 2019.

KEY POINTS

• In the face of profit pressures and growing competition for users, streamers have taken to removing content to avoid the residual payments and licensing fees.
• Narrowing content libraries naturally means a need for differentiation.
• Data from Fandom, which hosts more than 50 million wiki pages on entertainment properties, suggests where the major streaming platforms are best poised to specialize based on current viewership.

Paths are being cleared to get ships past the mangled wreckage at the Key Bridge collapse site to the Port of Baltimore.

U.S. Coast Guard Captain David O'Connell, the federal on-scene coordinator for the Unified Response to the bridge collapse, said an exclusive interview with CBS News two auxiliary channels are planned to open Monday: one along the northeast section of the channel, and one running along the south. 

The north side would accommodate boats requiring 10 feet of water or less to operate, while the south side would accommodate boats requiring up to 14 feet. There's pre-existing debris along the south side of the channel that USCG is working to remove.