California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, over his approach to Walt Disney World.
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images, Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo, Octavio Jones/Getty Images
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was in Florida on Saturday.
He spoke with Insider about the battle between DeSantis and Disney World.
"There's a new sheriff in town. It's Mickey Mouse, back on top," Newsom said.
PALM BEACH, Florida — Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California praised Walt Disney World for its "masterclass" of putting Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida "back in his place" after the company created a loophole to maintain control of its land.
"I guess there's a new sheriff in town," Newsom told Insider on Saturday, in a not-so-subtle reference to a comment DeSantis made when he appointed a new board to oversee Disney's district.
"It's Mickey Mouse, back on top," Newsom added.
The Walt Disney Studios is headquartered in Burbank, California, but the company holds powerful sway in Florida through the jobs and tourists Disney World brings. News broke this week that a law giving the Florida governor power to take over Disney World's governing board is likely toothless.
But the battle is far from over: DeSantis has promised, "You ain't seen nothing yet," and the state's attorney general demanded texts and emails about Disney's maneuver with former board members. Current board members are also meeting with attorneys.
Taryn Fenske, the spokesperson for DeSantis, said the agreement Disney brokered "may have significant legal infirmities that would render the contracts void as a matter of law."
During a wide-ranging interview, Newsom told Insider he was certain DeSantis would retaliate, saying he's "incapable of not." But he argued the Disney maneuver hurt the governor politically, at a time when he appears to be slipping in the polls when placed in a hypothetical 2024 matchup for the Republican nomination for president.
"It's a bit of a yellow flag, if not a red flag, for DeSantis and a very perilous time for him politically, too, because he's struggling right now," Newsom said, calling the national attention to DeSantis an "over-hype."
Newsom said he had an "emotional response" to hearing about DeSantis' threat to the Special Olympics.
DeSantis has been doing a book tour that is widely considered to be a soft launch for a 2024 presidential run. As part of that tour, he often talks about his feud with Disney. His next stop is in Long Island, New York.
The Florida governor made an example of Disney after its leaders said they would work to repeal the Parental Rights in Education Act, the legislation that Democrats and LGBTQ-rights groups have derided as "Don't Say Gay" because it limits classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation.
In response, DeSantis took aim at Disney's special tax district, one that essentially allows it run its own government in an arrangement that doesn't apply to other theme parks. Disney was free to take a position on the bill but "they are not free to force all of us to subsidize their activism," DeSantis has said in explaining his position.
He and the Republican-controlled legislature first tried to dissolve Disney's special district last year, but when it was revealed that might result in county residents paying higher taxes, he signed a bill into law this year to sub-out the governing board. This week, it appeared Disney set up a previous agreement that defanged the new board.
Newsom accused DeSantis of engaging in the feud with Disney to draw attention, and of showing "arrogance" and a "semi-authoritarian bent" in his "overreach" policies. He said Disney was defending itself from DeSantis' "assault on their private free expression as a corporate citizen."
"It's not just folks in the classroom who have to worry about what they say, but in the boardrooms, they're trying to ban not just books, but speech," Newsom said, referring to the removal of certain books in Florida classrooms that DeSantis has defended by broadcasting some of their content.
Asked about Newsom's latest interview remarks, the governor's office pointed to comments DeSantis made previously. Speaking about the Parental Rights law during a book tour event in Georgia on Thursday, DeSantis said, "My job is to stand up for the children of my state."
The governor also has said he thinks it's appropriate for state governments to intervene in "woke" business practices to "give space to the individual citizen to be able to participate in society to be able to speak his or her mind."
DeSantis and Newsom — darlings of the right and left, respectively — have frequently hit at each other over policies on crime, COVID-19, abortion, and LGBTQ rights. A year ago, Newsom urged Disney to gut its plan to relocate 2,000 employees from California to Florida over the Parental Rights law.
Newsom met with Insider in a meeting room at the oceanfront Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, where the Democratic Governors Association was having a conference. Newsom is DGA's policy chair.
Democratic governors frequently criticize DeSantis' policies in Florida, and DeSantis last month mocked people who do so yet "end up being spotted on the beach somewhere vacationing in Florida." The Palm Beach region is a draw for political events on both sides of the aisle because it's chock full of high-dollar donors.
Newsom told Insider he was in Florida "to remind people about how bad the elected officials are."
He'll be going to other red states next, including Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama to promote his new political group, the Campaign for Democracy, that fights looser gun laws, abortion restrictions, and limits on LGBTQ rights.
The DGA conference was less than 7 miles south of Mar-a-Lago, the private club where former President Donald Trump lives. Trump was indicted Thursday, but Newsom said he wanted to reserve comment until reading the indictment, which is sealed.
Newsom otherwise had some kind words about Trump, praising him for his accessibility and for supporting California during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As for a potential 2024 GOP nomination contest between the former president and DeSantis, Newsom predicted Trump would "clean his clock."
Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui hold a news conference on November 20, 2018 in New York,
DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images
Fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui wants to auction sperm and eggs from unvaccinated donors.
The plan capitalizes on the baseless conspiracy theory that the Covid-19 vaccines cause infertility.
Guo, an ally of Steve Bannon and other pro-Trump Republicans, was arrested in New York for fraud in March.
A fugitive Chinese billionaire wants to auction sperm and eggs from unvaccinated donors on the right-wing social media platform Gettr.
Guo Wengui, an ally of Steve Bannon and other pro-Trump Republicans, announced the plan in a live stream in February, AFP and Rolling Stone reported.
"Sperm and eggs from our fellow fighters will be auctioned on our Gettr platform between June 1 and June 6," Guo said, per AFP.
The billionaire claimed to have gathered nearly 6,000 eggs and "millions" of sperm from unvaccinated donors – and said the sale would include his sperm too.
Guo said the site would use "scientific methods" and require an attorney's letter to verify the donors' vaccine status, per AFP. He did not provide further information on how the samples would be tested or stored.
The plan, which capitalizes on the baseless conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility, has generated buzz among Gettr users, according to AFP.
Gettr, where conspiracy theories and misinformation run rampant
The mysterious Chinese billionaire wanted in China over fraud charges. Last month, he was arrested in New York over unrelated allegations that he orchestrated a conspiracy to defraud thousands of his online followers out of at least $1 billion.
It is not clear how his arrest will affect the auction plans.
Guo made his fortune in China's real estate market before fleeing the country. Guo claims he fell foul of powerful and corrupt officials and fled the country in 2014, claiming asylum in the US in 2017.
Billionaire Guo Wengui, who is seeking asylum in the United States after accusing officials in his native China of corruption, poses at his New York 9,000-square-foot $82 million penthouse overlooking Central Park, November 28, 2017.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Guo was an early financial backer of Gettr, created by former Trump aide Jason Miller. It has become a platform where conspiracy theories and misinformation run rampant.
Sources told Rolling Stone last month that there have been intense behind-the-scenes discussions at Gettr to transform the platform into a marketplace where unvaccinated men can sell sperm to the highest bidder.
However, some working at Gettr have privately expressed concerns about the plan, Rolling Stone reported, pointing to various hurdles, including restrictions on semen sales in other countries.
A father was recently harassed by anti-vaxxers on social media after announcing his son's death.
Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Billy Ball lost his 6-year-old son due to a rare medical condition in January.
Inexplicably, anti-vaxxers began to claim online that the death was due to the COVID vaccine.
Facebook and Twitter often took no action when the comments were reported, Ball said.
When Billy Ball lost his 6-year-old son in January after an accident brought on by a rare medical condition, Ball posted his son's obituary on Twitter and started a fundraiser in the child's name to raise money for an art program at his son's neighborhood school.
The responses, at first, were mostly kind. Many people donated, Ball wrote in The Atlantic. But the father's social media feeds soon devolved into a cesspool of conspiracy theorists baselessly claiming that Ball killed his son by getting him vaccinated for COVID-19. And Twitter and Facebook often offered little to no recourse, he said.
In one case, Facebook determined that a comment in which a user mocked and accused Ball of killing his son did not violate community guidelines and declined to remove the comment.
"While we've decided not to take this comment down, we understand that you don't like it," a message from Facebook support read. "We recommend that you hide the comment or unfollow, unfriend or block the person who posted it."
"It felt like you were talking to a wall," Ball told Insider, regarding his experience reporting comments that flooded his social media accounts.
In the past year, unexpected deaths or health complications have become a dog whistle for anti-vaxxers who believe or suggest the COVID-19 vaccine is the cause behind these medical episodes. The claims have even spawned a pseudo-documentary.
Meta and Twitter CEO Elon Musk did not respond to a request for comment on this story. Insider received an automated response from Twitter.
In the days since he shared the fundraiser online, Ball, who is a managing editor at Cardinal & Pine newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina, said that he must have received thousands of comments on Twitter accusing him of being responsible for his son's death. Facebook was a little more manageable — around seven to eight posts a day, Ball estimates. Either way, the mourning father could not keep up with all the comments.
"Losing a child is a brutal reminder that nothing is fair in this world," Ball wrote in The Atlantic. "The harassment made me feel like there was nothing good in it either."
Ball enlisted his close friends to help manage his social media pages and report the comments while he focused on his son's funeral.
The majority of posts had a common message: that Ball somehow killed his son by getting him vaccinated. But the tone varied.
"Some people would go: 'I'm so sorry that you lost your son, you must be feeling tremendous guilt having him killed with the COVID vaccine,'" Ball told Insider. "And then there were some who were mocking. They were like, 'Laugh out loud.' I'll never forget that one. 'Laugh out loud. You killed your boy. How do you feel?'"
Mostly, the platforms didn't respond to the reports. There were a few cases where Twitter accounts were banned. Ball said that he doesn't know what kind of comments may have gotten users booted off the platform because, in those instances, his friends reported the posts.
Facebook's response befuddled Ball. One Facebook user managed to find his private account and commented on a random post that was a few years old.
"(The post) wasn't about my son or about COVID or anything," he said. "They found one post they could get on ... and just started mocking me and saying that I killed my son."
Ball reported the comment and, on March 2, received a message from Facebook support that told him that the comment did not violate "Community Standards."
A screenshot of Facebook's response Billy Ball regarding a reported comment.
Billy Ball
Ball was surprised that Facebook appeared to tolerate harassment on its platform. Although he didn't expect a ban, the father hoped that there would be some kind of penalization on the user, either by temporarily locking the account or at the very least letting the user know that the behavior is not tolerated on the platform.
Because Facebook decided to keep the comment up, it's unclear if the user would have received any warning or message that the comment was reported.
Ball decided to publish his story with The Atlantic after he learned he wasn't the only parent who lost their child and was subsequently harassed online.
ABC News reported how online conspiracy theorists have clung to "Died suddenly" posts to push a claim that a child, celebrity, or athlete died unexpectedly because of the COVID-19 shot.
When Buffalo Bills' safety Damar Hamlin suddenly collapsed in the middle of the game, anti-vaxxers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, immediately suggested that the incident had something to do with the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ball initially didn't think to share his online experience. But after learning that other parents who have lost their children were being attacked online, the father wanted to find a way to let them know that they were not alone.
"I would have been reluctant to say anything at all if I was this outlier case," Ball said. "But realizing I wasn't, I was like, 'We need to say that this is happening, and we need to say it loud.'"
Nouriel Roubini says the economy is headed for a crash.
The "Dr. Doom" economist says interest rate hikes and a mountain of debt will lead the US into a recession.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Roubini breaks down the "trilemma" markets are facing right now.
The Federal Reserve's monetary tightening campaign is taking a serious toll on the US economy, famed market commentator Nouriel Roubini says, predicting that markets are heading towards a financial crash.
The central bank's efforts in the name of fighting inflation are an economic "megathreat," Roubini told Bloomberg TV on Friday.
"When interest rates go higher, the value of securities and loans is lower, and then we have mass liquidity and solvency problems," the economist said.
This is much worse than other periods of monetary tightening and hikes in borrowing costs, he added.
While past decades have seen rates soar significantly higher than their current level of around 5% for the federal funds rate—which in the 1980s was around 20% and sparked a steep recession—this cycle is much more difficult for markets to stomach, as public and private debt levels have ballooned.
"So, we have the worst of the [1980s] in terms of negative supply shock, reduce growth that cause inflation," Roubini said.
He added: "Now, we're entering a recession and financial instability. [We're] having to raise interest rates because inflation is too high. We get inconsistency in a trilemma. We cannot achieve price stability, maintain economic growth, [and] have financial stability at the same time."
The famed economist has long been a doomsayer of the market. He's predicted massive declines in stocks and economic crises sparked by recent upheavals like COVID-19. Roubini was also among the commentators who predicted the collapse of the housing bubble and the subsequent 2008 financial crisis.
Members of Oliver Wyman's Global Leadership Team Council on a tour of the United Nations.
Oliver Wyman
"Shadow advisory boards" are groups of employees who work with senior execs on initiatives.
Organizations typically view them as means of gaining insights and input from younger workers.
Oliver Wyman says its shadow board helped contribute to a 30% reduction in attrition in 2022.
Andrew Pérez is 24 years old and started working at the management-consulting company Oliver Wyman three years ago. He already has a direct say in how the company runs.
Pérez can even text the head of financial services whenever he wants.
That's because Pérez, who graduated from Harvard in the thick of the pandemic, serves on the company's "shadow advisory board," which gives him access to the firm's senior leaders. The 20-person board — officially called the Global Leadership Team Council — is made up of employees below the executive or director level and runs parallel to the firm's executive board.
Andrew Pérez started at the management-consulting company Oliver Wyman three years ago.
Oliver Wyman
Shadow-council meetings can stretch on for hours, as its members go through discussions of initiatives, everything from the firm's values to employee policies to how and when leadership ought to weigh in on current events and social issues.
Meetings are heavy on the hand-raise function on Zoom, according to Pérez. After they conclude, members have 24 hours to offer any additional comments via email.
Coming out of COVID-19 lockdowns, for instance, the leadership team wanted to set up a formal program to recognize outstanding employees. The council guided the development of an easy-to-use peer-to-peer system, rather than some elaborate top-down program.
The resulting platform, Kudos, is accessible to every employee and has minimal management intervention. An Oliver Wyman official said the company considered Kudos a success, with nearly 60% of employees at the firm receiving a reward and small monetary compensation over the past 18 months.
Shadow boards are a prime example of how some employers — which are struggling with how to retain younger workers — are offering employees a stronger voice in their organizations. Gen Z, in particular, is a group that prioritizes having a say in their workplaces. When done correctly, the results can be transformative: Oliver Wyman said its council helped contribute to a 30% reduction in attrition in 2022.
"It's getting to see the inner workings and the insides of Oliver Wyman in a unique way," Pérez said. "I get to see what a career here could actually look like."
Getting younger workers in the room where it happens
Members of the Oliver Wyman council in New York City.
Oliver Wyman
"Whether a company is trying to test-drive internally the reactions to a policy or predict the next great product, these boards can often be a benefit to organizations," Anita Williams Woolley, a professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, told Insider.
Shadow boards can also help increase worker retention, Woolley said.
"It shows that the organization cares about the things you care about and cares about you," she said. "Giving feedback and making recommendations — those can be a motivator."
Oliver Wyman started its shadow board in 2021. Members of the council are appointed for one year and not paid for their service. Any employee who's been with the company for a year and is not an executive or director is eligible to apply.
Mariya Rosberg, the head of Americas corporate and institutional banking at Oliver Wyman who chairs the shadow board, told Insider that the council looked similar to the employee composition of the firm in terms of ages, nationalities, backgrounds, and professional experiences.
"We have lifers, new hires, people who are in small satellite offices and those hub offices — we want it to reflect our company," she said.
Oliver Wyman's executive team tends to be older, while the shadow board skews younger and more diverse.
"We wanted to get a very real pulse on how colleagues are getting and assessing messages from leadership," Rosberg said. "People want to feel their company is aligned to their values, and getting that communication right is quite helpful — there's a lot of value in getting perspectives from people that are just otherwise not in the room."
There are some caveats. If shadow-board members invest time and energy in new ideas and policies only to have the organization fail to adopt them, the strategy can backfire.
"It can be worse than not being asked at all," Woolley said.
"You don't want this to turn this into one more thing people are not recognized and rewarded for," Woolley said.
Patricia Romero heads external affairs for Europe at Oliver Wyman.
Oliver Wyman
Patricia Romero, a millennial who heads external affairs for Europe at Oliver Wyman, is at a stage in her career where she's looking toward leadership roles and what that might entail. She was eager to join the shadow board last year.
For her, it's meant getting access to a female mentor and having the opportunity to weigh in on climate issues, something she's passionate about.
"It's also about giving me more confidence to reach out to different people in the firm and really understanding our DNA, how we operate, and what makes us tick," she said.
Romero thinks shadow boards can signal, especially during layoffs, that a firm values worker input, she said.
For instance, the company relaunched its values this year, Romero said, "with a focus on really listening to what was important to the whole firm." She said the Global Leadership Team Council had a major part in that.
Nudging management for transparency and accountability
The first time Pérez spoke at a council meeting, he said it felt like an Eminem song: His palms were sweaty, and his arms were weak as he constantly wondered if his camera was right or whether he was muted.
In college, he was active in extracurricular activities, with a focus on first-generation and low-income students like himself. But as someone early in his career, he said he was still nervous to speak up at the first meeting — held on Zoom, as they usually are. After he asked his question, he got validation from his colleagues — it was, indeed, a good question. And that's when he felt like he was getting the hang of it.
Pérez said he had disagreed with higher-up members during reviews and challenges but that's "the point."
"It's called review and challenge for a reason. It's not review and pass," he said. "And I think that is because we are going to be challenging them, and there is going to be disagreements, but I never have felt as if I walked away from a meeting angry."
To date, the council has offered advice and input on roughly 60 measures, from CEO messaging to how the company should restructure the firm's promotion process for partners.
The group tends to nudge management for more transparency, accountability, and feedback, according to Rosberg.
"It's de facto become a body that's focused on the accountability of our leadership," she said.
House Democrats are annoyed with President Joe Biden and Republicans can't get enough of it.
In the last month, Biden has twice withheld vetoes on GOP-led bills that most House Dems opposed.
And Democratic lawmakers' frustration has become House Republicans' favorite new sideshow.
House Democrats are annoyed with President Joe Biden and Republicans can't get enough of it.
In the last month, Biden has twice withheld vetoes on GOP-led bills that most House Democrats opposed – and after the White House signaled that Biden opposed them, too. Democratic lawmakers' frustration with Biden has become House Republicans' favorite new sideshow.
"Cannot stress enough how comical this Lucy & the football act is between the WH & House Dems," tweeted Jack Pandol, communications director for the House GOP campaign arm.
The latest flashpoint is over GOP legislation to end the COVID-19 national emergency. The White House planned to wait until May.
Most House Democrats voted against that bill last month after the White House said the bill's passage "would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care systems." However, before a Senate vote Wednesday night, the White House put out the word that Biden wouldn't veto the bill. It passed 68-23.
The White House's January statement did not threaten a veto, but it said the administration "strongly opposes" the bill's enactment "which would be a grave disservice to the American people."
"It's, like, kindergarten-level cooperation," Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia fumed to Axios. Another Democrat, Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan, told the Axios "the lack of clear information" and "clarity in messaging" from the White House is "not productive. It's very unhelpful."
House Republicans' campaign arm on Wednesday is seizing on the schism, including a popcorn emoji in an email highlighting such quotes from House Democrats. "House Democrats remain rip-roaring angry at the White House for once again exposing their extremism to voters," said Will Reinert, of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Biden still "strongly opposes" the bill, a White House official said Wednesday night, "and the administration is planning to wind down the COVID national emergency and public health emergency on May 11."
But the official said Biden would sign the bill if it comes to his desk and the administration would continue the work to wind down the national emergency "with as much notice as possible to Americans who could potentially be impacted."
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Thursday that no members had raised concerns to him about the national emergency "dynamic" with the White House. The White House has kept its word when the administration says Biden will veto legislation. "And as far as I'm concerned, that is the most important marker of communication," he said.
"It's my hope and expectation that the White House will be crystal clear, well in advance of that legislation hitting the floor as to their perspective," Jeffries told reporters.
The overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted in opposition, and 15 were targeted in GOP digital ads, saying they "voted for reduced sentences for violent crimes."
Biden's position caught DC Del. Eleanor Homes Norton by surprise during a news conference. "This is news to me," she said, adding that she was "very disappointed."
A study from Greenpeace analysed a database of Europe's private jet flights over the last three years.
It found that 55% of them were under 466 miles long, and launched a campaign to ban private jets.
Over 1,300 flights on one UK route could have taken a 35-minute train for less than $20 instead.
Private jets in Europe made over 300,000 flights under 466 miles in length last year, as the aviation industry returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The study published by climate campaigners Greenpeace uses research from CE Delft, which built a database on all private flights in the European Union, plus Norway, Switzerland, and the UK.
55% of those were shorter than the distance between New Orleans, Louisiana and Nashville, Tennessee.
Greenpeace says there's less excuse for that in Europe because public transport systems are well-developed.
The most popular route for private fliers in 2022 was London to Paris — about the same distance as New York City to Washington DC — despite a maximum 2 hours 37 minutes train connection with up to 10 daily trips each way.
According to the Transport and Environment campaign group, private jets are 50-times more polluting than trains.
The data also shows that over 1,300 private flights went between London and Farnborough, England – a 30 mile train journey which you could travel in 35-minutes for less than $20. Last year, that route emitted 2,692 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of 183 Americans' yearly output, per data from The World Bank.
Greenpeace also raised concerns about the total number of private flights increasing 380% between 2020 and 2022, but it's not clear how much of this was caused by COVID-19 lockdowns because the study doesn't include data from before the pandemic.
"The alarming growth of private jet flights is entirely at odds with all the climate science that tells us to bring down CO2 emissions immediately in order to avert total disaster," said Greenpeace campaigner Klara Maria Schenk, per CNBC.
And Thomas Gelin of Greenpeace EU added: "Pollution for wasteful luxury has to be the first to go," as the group launched a petition to outlaw private jets.
96% of remote companies say they're using some kind of software to monitor employees who work from home, survey finds.
KT images/Getty Images
About 96% of remote companies use some kind of employee monitoring software, according to a survey.
Three in four companies have fired employees over data from the monitoring software.
More than two-thirds of the respondents said employees have quit, citing the surveillance.
Companies still have trust issues about employee productivity, even three years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced workers to work remotely or in a hybrid setting.
About 96% of respondents to a mid-March survey commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com said they use some form of employee monitoring software to ensure that their staff stays productive.
That's a major increase compared to just 10% before the outbreak, according to the survey published last Friday, which polled 1,000 US business leaders with a primarily remote or hybrid workforce.
Just 5% of those employers who say they monitor their employees said their staff is not aware that they are being surveilled.
"It's clear from our survey that there are still organizations struggling to manage their workforce post-pandemic," said Stacie Haller, the chief career advisor at ResumeBuilder.com.
The struggle seems real, with a "surprisingly high percentage" — that's 37% — requiring their remote employees to be on a live feed all day, per ResumeBuilder.com. Other surveillance methods include monitoring employees' web browsing and app use, as well as blocking content.
Companies are using this surveillance data to fire staff.
Companies are definitely using the data they obtain from monitoring their staff — about three-quarters of survey respondents told ResumeBuilder.com their companies have fired employees over the data they collected.
But employees are also pushing back. More than two-thirds of companies said in the survey their employees have quit over the surveillance.
"It is not surprising that many employees do not want to feel like big brother is watching them daily when they are good employees and working hard for their organization," said Haller.
The situation could improve in the future as hybrid work becomes more entrenched, said Haller.
"As managers become more comfortable in managing a remote workforce, and as younger workers become managers and have been working more of their career remotely, software monitoring will hopefully become antiquated and the focus will be on results and not the amount of time worked," she said.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania emerges from a closed-door, classified briefing at the US Capitol on February 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke last year, is expected to return to the Senate in about two weeks.
The Pennsylvania Democrat has been seeking treatment for clinical depression since mid-February.
Fetterman's return will nudge Senate Democrats back towards their delicate 51-seat majority.
Sen. John Fetterman is planning to return to the US Capitol after the upcoming spring recess, a person close to the Pennsylvania Democrat told Insider.
The confirmation corroborates a Politico report saying that two other people in Fetterman's inner circle expect him to be back at work starting the week of April 17.
Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on February 15 to seek help for clinical depression.
The 53-year-old Capitol Hill newcomer, who is still recovering from a stroke he suffered in early 2022, worked to hit the ground running his first month. Colleagues like fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey and freshman Sen. Pete Welch of Vermont have helped out Fetterman's staff in the interim, pitching in on legislative projects and committee hearings as needed.
Having Fetterman back will restore a critical vote for Senate Democrats.
Their narrow 51-seat majority hasn't been intact for months as lawmakers like Fetterman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who's been out for weeks after contracting shingles, and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, wrestle with their respective health issues.
Many workers have grown to like the freedom to work from home.
sorbetto/Getty Images
Employers are hardening demands for workers to return to the office and quashing resistance.
But many employees are rejecting the mandates and don't appear ready to back down.
The battle has been brewing for years. "It's already an ugly war," one expert told Insider.
Employers across corporate America are hardening their demands for workers to return to their cubicles — and rebuffing employee resistance.
But workers are ready for this battle.
Amazon's top human-resources representative rejected an internal petition signed by roughly 30,000 employees over the company's return-to-office policy. Apple is tracking employee attendance and has threatened action against staff who don't work from the office at least three days a week. And last week, Elon Musk emailed Twitter staff at 2:30 a.m. to remind them of the company's policy, Platformer's Zoë Schiffer tweeted. The "office is not optional," Musk said.
Today, though, as a recession looms, companies are rolling back perks and demanding workers return to their desks or risk termination. The result: a fight over what the future of work looks like in the US.
"It's already an ugly war, and it's unfortunate," Abbie Shipp, a professor of management at the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, told Insider. "This was a great opportunity to experiment with new methods and customize based on individual needs and companies' needs."
Employers have legitimate reasons for wanting employees in the office, Shipp said. Things like collaboration, mentoring, and culture building are often easier to do in person. But a one-size-fits-all return-to-office policy is counterproductive and gives the impression of a lack of trust, she added.
"We're likely to see these struggles play out for months and maybe years," she said.
After 2020's COVID-19 lockdowns forced office workers to work from home, many of them discovered the benefits of remote work. Without a commute, they had more time for their families, pets, and hobbies, and many felt they remained just as productive as before.
"People are saying, 'I had something that was working, and now you're telling me I have to commute, get dressed up, and that I can't pick up my kids from school,'" Shipp said, adding that many companies had overlooked the productivity gains derived from workers who have more time to balance their work and personal responsibilities.
James Bailey, a professor of management at the George Washington University School of Business, told Insider that on one level, workers' resistance to the office was explained by the psychological phenomenon of reactance, or the human instinct to push back when we feel our freedoms are threatened.
"Workers' refusal to go back to the office is like a metaphorical middle finger to their bosses," he said.
While many employees continue to believe they have leverage, Bailey said, employers are capturing the upper hand as the economy falters. The recent banking crisis, on top of stubbornly high inflation, weighs on the economy. Many of the same companies demanding workers return to the office have recently conducted mass layoffs — some more than once.
"A lot of professional-service workers gained power during the pandemic, and they got drunk on this freedom," Bailey said. "But as the economy shifts, and more companies let people go, there's going to be a reckoning.
"If workers don't want a hangover, they're going to have to sober up."
Workers have other options — for now
Yet it's not clear that employers will ultimately win this tug-of-war.
While US workers are now spending more time in the office, workplaces are still half empty. According to Kastle Systems' Back to Work Barometer, which measures swipe-card access, occupancy rates hover around 50% and have barely budged this year.
"If companies think that the talent market is glutted because of these layoffs, and they don't need to worry about people quitting, that's a whole new level of shortsightedness," Ron Carucci, a cofounder of Navalent, a leadership and consulting firm, told Insider.
Rigid mandates are the product of "delusional, command-and-control" leadership, Carucci said.
"These executives believe that if you're under my scrutiny — in my presence — you'll be more productive," he added. "They're clinging to a paradigm that's familiar to them, and their inner circles aren't telling them that it's outmoded and not working."
The companies that are managing the transition to hybrid well are evaluating the kinds of work that needs to be done and soliciting employee feedback on how best to do it, Carucci said, adding that they're also mindful of their workers' job satisfaction and engagement.
Carucci said he's not surprised that employees were digging in on "petty scorekeeping."
"Given the choice of quitting or doing something they don't think is sustainable, many of them will quit," he said. "But it's worse if they stay because then they're just marking time."
Do you have something to share about getting called back to the office? Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team at thegrind@insider.com with your story or to ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.
Cory Mills arrived in Congress with grenades and cast himself a champion of local law enforcement.
An Insider review found that the munitions company he cofounded had sold to foreign governments.
Mills has refused to publicly disclose his foreign dealings or even confirm who owns the company.
Cory Mills landed in Congress like a grenade.
Literally: At the start of this term, the freshman Republican from Florida handed out 40 mm grenades stamped with a GOP elephant to congressional colleagues.
"I am eager to get to work with you on behalf of the American people," he wrote in an accompanying note.
The grenades were inert. But the stunt was in line with the type of guns-blazing, America-first rhetoric that Mills, an arms dealer, decorated Army combat veteran, and former military contractor, deployed during his campaign in Florida's 7th Congressional District.
Mills, a cofounder of the munitions manufacturer and security contractor Pacem Solutions, positioned himself as a defender of police departments under attack from the "woke" Biden administration. In a 2022 campaign ad, Mills said he "backs the blue" and bragged that his company sold the tear gas that the police used to suppress recent racial-justice and abortion-rights protests.
What Mills didn't advertise was Pacem's munitions contracts with foreign governments. Instead, Mills has refused to publicly disclose his connections and dealings with powers abroad while at the same time sitting on two committees overseeing foreign affairs and military spending — as well as wielding the power to vote on foreign arms deals.
An Insider examination of his business dealings, though, found that Pacem has had deep ties to foreign governments and is struggling financially.
Pacem has repeatedly courted munitions deals with foreign governments over during its nearly decade-long existence. A Saudi government-affiliated national security expo promoted Pacem as one of its featured vendors in 2019, with Mills' face posted across the event's social-media pages. Pacem also exhibited in Abu Dhabi that same year, at one of the largest weapons shows in the world.
A representative for Mills refused to disclose all of the countries Pacem has sold munitions to. But Insider was able to identify multiple foreign buyers. In one major contract from 2015, Pacem and a partner UK munitions firm reached a $228 million arms deal with Iraq. Mills confirmed that deal, saying it was facilitated by the US Department of Defense and wasn't entirely paid out.
A member of the Iraqi security forces carries his weapon in the center of Fallujah, Iraq, in 2016, after ISIS was pushed from the city.
Reuters/Thaier Al-Sudani
Pacem has sold munitions to Ukraine and Colombia in recent years, according to three sources familiar with the matter, though it's unclear whether those sales are continuing.
A spokesperson for Mills did not respond to repeated requests for a full accounting of the congressman's foreign dealings through Pacem. The company's chief legal officer, Joseph Schmitz, said all of Pacem's foreign munitions sales were approved by the State Department.
Though Mills told Insider he had divested from the company, he was still listed as executive chair on the website of Pacem Solutions at publication time. Pacem Solutions removed the "Who We Are" page that listed Mills as executive chair after Insider published this article; Pacem's lawyer told Insider that the page was "outdated." Schmitz refused to tell Insider who owned the company but said it would be incorrect to publish that Cory Mills "owns 100% of Pacem Solutions and Pacem Defense."
Mills' influence over American military spending while having ties to a munitions company poses the potential for conflicts of interest, an ethics watchdog said.
"It's an obvious conflict of interest, a no-brainer to anyone with common sense," said Don Sherman, the senior vice president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning nonprofit advocating government ethics reform.
Schmitz said Mills' ties to Pacem were "being vetted" by the House ethics committee. "Everything is above-board," he told Insider. The ethics committee's general counsel declined to confirm whether it was currently working to resolve Mills' relationship with Pacem.
Pacem's troubled history
An explosion ripped through the humid air of a small Florida panhandle town midmorning on September 14, 2018.
Employees at Amtec Less-Lethal Systems, a riot-control-munitions manufacturer in Perry, Florida, had been assembling flash-bang strips. The blast, which federal workplace-safety inspectors indicated might have been caused by static electricity leaping onto explosive powder, immediately killed one worker and injured another so severely that he died the next week.
One month later, Pacem Defense bought the business for $10 million. The explosion loomed over the start of Pacem's ownership of the facility. Repercussions from the incident have contributed to a slew of financial troubles dragging Pacem down.
Mills' involvement in the defense and munitions world evolved out of his years in the armed forces and work as a private military contractor. He served in the US Army from 1999 to 2003, according to his discharge paperwork. During that time he was sent to Kosovo and Iraq, and he was awarded the Bronze Star.
Mills later spent four years as a military contractor for Dyncorp, where he worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to his LinkedIn profile. On the campaign trail and in media interviews he has described being "blown up twice" while on assignment there. He subsequently worked for the federal contractors Chemonics International and Pax Mondial Ltd., before striking out on his own.
In 2014, Mills and his wife, Rana Al Saadi, an Iraqi refugee who came to the US in 2008, founded Pacem. Mills described Pacem to Insider as a "turnkey solution," which encompasses global threat analysis, security services contracting, weapons sales, and training.
The company appeared intent on quickly establishing a global footprint in the years after its founding. Pacem "delivered millions of defense products around the world to some of the most challenging regions," including explosive cartridges for use in grenade launchers, according to a press release it issued in 2018. Early archived copies of Pacem Solutions' website mention work with international development groups like USAID and showed pictures from Ukraine, Pakistan, and Iraq, among other places. Another archived page showed Pacem with offices in Kabul, Baghdad, and Islamabad.
But since the acquisition of Amtec, Pacem appears to have lost value. Pacem Solutions and Pacem Defense are together now worth anywhere from $10 million down to just $2 million, according to a financial disclosure Mills filed in January — equal to or less than the price Pacem paid for Amtec alone.
The Amtec explosion, which workplace-safety inspectors concluded was caused by inadequate safety controls, cost Pacem.
Mills said the explosion, which occurred before Pacem acquired the company, underscored the need for a thorough intervention into Amtec's processes and facilities. Pacem poured at least $2 million into facility upgrades, Mills told a local news outlet, including improvements related to the explosion.
"We bought it knowing the company had issues, then we had our engineers redesign certain products that were not working well," Mills told Insider. Financially, COVID-19 also "slowed things down tremendously," he added. In a statement, Mills' spokesperson also said Pacem didn't lay off any employees and gave small raises during the pandemic.
Pacem is also loaded with debt: It owes $48 million to a Canadian lender, nearly five times the company's highest potential valuation. Mills said the loan was funding research and development.
There are additional issues that have dogged the company. In the past two years, the munitions plant has been forced to shut down twice for failing to pay workers' compensation insurance premiums, according to Florida's Department of Workers Compensation.
Schmitz, Pacem's chief legal officer, confirmed the shutdowns but claimed the missed workers' compensation payments were an accidental oversight.
Money woes aren't Pacem's only problem. In December 2020, the company blew up or burned several boxes of hazardous waste, according to two people familiar with the incident and a report from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The agency cited Pacem for improper storage and disposal of the waste.
Schmitz told Insider that Pacem self-reported the incident and that it wasn't a "big deal," with "no environmental impact."
International arms trader
Mills' congressional campaign played up Pacem's contracts with local law enforcement, claiming that the "liberal media is crying" about the company supplying tear gas that was used against racial-justice protesters. These contracts with local law enforcement represent the bulk of Pacem's client volume, Mills told Insider.
But a review of Pacem's contracts suggests its dealings with law enforcement are relatively small-dollar. The company sold roughly $1.3 million worth of tear gas to police departments from 2018 to mid-2021, it reported to a congressional oversight committee. The company sells other products to police departments, like flash bangs, that Congress didn't ask about.
The size of those hundreds of tear-gas transactions pales in comparison with just one foreign arms deal identified by Insider.
In 2015, Pacem, in partnership with the UK weapons dealer Chemring, signed a contract with the Iraqi government worth $228 million. The deal would have represented nearly 2.5% of the country's entire military expenditures that year, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks military spending.
A Marine Corps Lance corporal carries 40 mm grenades of the type manufactured by Pacem.
Cpl. Victoria Ross/US Department of Defense
Mills said Pacem never received the full value of the contract, which he said was intended to provide "certain types of support in launching counteroffensives against ISIS to drive them out of Iraq." The Islamic State militant group was pushed out of key Iraqi cities before the contract was supposed to close, according to Mills.
In 2016, an Iraqi auditing agency raised questions about whether it had overpaid for Pacem's services. Iraq's interior ministry "accepted the pricing and the specs supplied by the company for the product, without forming a technical committee, or asking any of the official trusted consultants to write up specs and details of pricing that are up to date before moving forward to the contract procedure," Iraq's Federal Board of Supreme Audit wrote. Mills said the contracting process was above-board and overseen in part by the US Department of Defense.
Pacem's overseas presence extends past the Iraq deal. The company has an office in Dubai, and in 2015 it also had offices in Islamabad and Kabul, according to an archived version of Pacem's website. Mills' wife, Rana, who is described on Pacem's website as the company's executive chairwoman, is the CEO of another Dubai-based company, Abdeen DMCC, according to her LinkedIn page. It's not clear what Abdeen does, and Rana did not respond to questions about Pacem's ownership or Abdeen DMCC.
On its website, Pacem says it is "registered" to "legally work" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kurdistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Kenya, Somaliland, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, Malaysia, and Dubai. Pacem appeared at the 2019 Saudi National Security and Risk Prevention Expo, an arms and defense sales convention, and the same year was an exhibitor at IDEX, a massive five-day weapons show in Abu Dhabi.
Pacem appears to have invested in the Amtec facility at least in part to manufacture weapons for sale abroad, not at home. Mills wrote to a federal regulator in 2019 that he had upgraded Pacem's munitions plant to "manufacture a new energetic product that will serve our allies around the world."
Before Pacem bought Amtec, Amtec had delivered on contracts for ammunition worth about $5.6 million with federal agencies, including the Defense Department and Bureau of Prisons. Since the acquisition closed in 2018, Pacem has delivered only $314,110 worth of munitions and consulting services to the US government, according to a federal contracting database. Some federal contracts are classified and may not be disclosed.
In Congress, Mills sits on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, which oversee military spending and foreign weapons sales.
Mills' oversight role "could have a huge impact on his business, his competitors writ large," Sherman said. But as it stands, there is no requirement for him to reveal the extent of his dealings with foreign governments.
The arms dealer in Congress
Mills leaned heavily on his endorsement from former President Donald Trump during his congressional campaign. Echoing Trump's election denial and anti-immigrant views, he voiced support for a temporary ban on immigration to the United States and told the Orlando Sentinel that he didn't view the Biden administration as legitimate.
In Congress, Mills has sought to position himself as someone who understands American involvement in foreign conflicts from the ground up and align himself with Republicans who are skeptical of US military involvement abroad. He has excoriated the Biden administration for what he's described as its botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he's opposed additional American aid to Ukraine.
Before he was even sworn in, Mills appeared alongside Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz at a December 2022 press conference touting a resolution to audit US funding for the war in Ukraine.
"We should not go around thinking that we're always the world's police, and have the answers," Mills said at the press conference, warning of the potential for "nuclear escalation" in Ukraine and an "axis of evil" between Russia, China and Iran.
Mills also recently voted for an ill-fated resolution sponsored by Gaetz that would've ordered President Joe Biden to withdraw US troops from Syria, joining a coalition of intervention-skeptical Republicans and progressives.
He's also waded into the culture wars, introducing a bill aimed at preventing the supposed distribution of sexual material in schools.
But so far, months into his freshman term, he's still best known for his grenades.
Editor's note: March 23, 2023 — This story has been updated to remove a reference to Pacem's rubber bullets being used against protesters in Hong Kong in 2019. While a company that Pacem acquired in 2018 did supply less-lethal munitions to the Hong Kong government, Pacem said the sales took place before the acquisition. It has also been updated to include a comment from Pacem's chief legal officer, Joseph Schmitz, clarifying Pacem's current ownership. While Mills told Insider that he had divested from Pacem and Schmitz indicated that Mills was no longer the company's owner, after this story was published Schmitz clarified that he intended to say only that it would be inaccurate to describe Mills as the sole owner of Pacem Defense and Pacem Solutions.
Editor's note: March 28, 2023 — This article has been updated to reflect that Pacem Solutions removed the page that listed Mills as an executive chair following publication.
ocial distancing stickers are placed by the concession stand at the AMC Lincoln Square 13 movie theater on March 05, 2021 in New York City. AMC Theatres reopened its New York area locations today, with new safety precautions in place, for the first time since closing in March because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Noam Galai/WireImage/Getty Images
AMC Entertainment surged as much as 21% on Tuesday after a report suggested Amazon might buy the struggling movie theater chain.
The Intersect reported that Amazon chariman Jeff Bezos ordered his investment advisors to "explore acquisition plans" for AMC.
AMC has been on a rollercoaster ride ever since it became a target for meme-stock trader in 2020.
AMC Entertainment soared as much as 21% on Tuesday after a report from The Intersect said that Amazon is considering an acquisition of the struggling movie theater chain.
Shares of AMC Entertainment were already up about 5% Tuesday afternoon, but those gains were supercharged after the report from the Intersect was released.
According to the report, Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos has ordered his investment advisors to "explore acquisition plans" for AMC and its 600 movie theater locations. The report cited multiple senior sources familiar with the discussions.
"The thinking is that Amazon can use AMC's nearly 600 movie theaters across North America, Europe and the Middle East as 'marketing weigh stations,'" the report said, citing an Amazon insider.
Amazon could essentially use AMC's movie theaters as a way to promote its slate of Amazon Prime movies, cross-sell other Amazon services such as grocery delivery, as well as serve as a local distribution hub for Amazon products.
Amazon employed a similar strategy when it acquired Whole Foods in 2017.
A potential acquisition would end a tumultuous period for AMC Entertainment, which has experienced a rollercoaster ride over the past two years as it became the target of meme-stock investors on Reddit and other forums. Shares of AMC surged to a record high of nearly $73 in June 2021, but have since dropped more than 90% to $5.29.
Amazon would be able to help AMC service its multi-billion dollar debt pile, which is key given that the movie theater chain is not profitable as the movie box office has yet to reach its 2018 peak of nearly $12 billion. In 2022, the total box US office haul was just under $7.4 billion.
AMC CEO Adam Aron responded to the Intersect in a text message late Monday evening with "we do not reply to rumors and speculation."
The Intersect is a newsletter published on Substack that was launched about two months ago by journalist Joe Bel Bruno.
A woman's bare feet propped up on the business class cabin for Iberia Airlines.
Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Four flight attendants told Insider they recommend passengers keep their shoes on while flying.
That mysterious liquid covering the bathroom floor? Odds are it's not just water, they said.
"It's probably bodily fluids that you're walking in," one flight attendant warns.
Keeping your shoes on while flying isn't just the courteous thing to do — according to flight attendants, there's a hygienic reason to avoid walking around barefoot on an airplane. Warning: it's pretty gross.
"It's not water that you're seeing on the bathroom floor sometimes," Leysha Perez, a regional flight attendant, told Insider. "It's probably bodily fluids that you're walking in."
While it may be tempting to kick your shoes off on longer flights, four flight attendants told Insider that passengers should avoid going barefoot inside the aircraft. Some have chosen to remain anonymous or omit the name of their airline due to their employers' media policies, but Insider has verified their positions.
"For the love of all things, wear shoes," one flight attendant at a major US airline said, adding that any urine that makes it onto the bathroom floor during turbulence is then tracked up and down the aisle. "Walking throughout the aircraft barefoot or even with socks is disgusting."
Jagdish Khubchandani, a public health professor at New Mexico State University, told The Huffington Post in 2021 that it's "unlikely" the liquid on the floors of airplane bathrooms is just water.
"On long-duration flights, I have noticed people ― often, kids ― walk barefoot towards or into the bathroom," Khubchandani told the outlet. "This is a very unhygienic tendency with potential for infection if someone has skin cuts and injuries on their foot."
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some airlines have increased how often airplane bathrooms are cleaned. Delta, for example, announced in 2020 that it would be adding hand sanitizer stations and hands-free features to its plane bathrooms, which they say are deep-cleaned prior to boarding and wiped down by flight attendants throughout the flight.
One Delta flight attendant went a step further to advise passengers against wearing open-toed shoes like slippers while flying. Rich Henderson, a flight attendant and co-creator of the blog "Two Guys on a Plane" also suggests passengers wear "practical close-toed shoes."
"Airports can be quite large so you may be doing a lot of walking (or running!)" he said. "In some destinations, you may be boarding the plane via stairs or a ramp, so you always want to wear something that'll hold up in a variety of situations."
After three years, cruise demand appears to have returned to pre-pandemic levels.
But COVID-19 may have created a partisan gap among cruise-goers, The Washington Post reported.
A recent survey suggests Republicans are more likely to take a cruise right now than Democrats.
Cruise demand appears to have returned to pre-pandemic levels — but not everybody is comfortable booking a vacation at sea quite yet.
If you thought you could avoid politics on vacation, think again. The COVID-19 pandemic may have created a partisan divide between cruise-goers and landlubbers, The Washington Post reported, citing data from the market research firm YouGov.
In a December 2022 survey of 1000 US adults, 35% of Republican respondents said they were "very comfortable" going on a cruise today, a level of enthusiasm shared by only 12% of Democrats.
On the flip side, 40% of Democrat respondents said they were "very uncomfortable" going on a cruise ship, nearly double that of Republican respondents.
Taking a cruise vacation wasn't always politically polarized — 16% of Democrat respondents said they had gone on a cruise prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, just a few percentage points less than Republican respondents. That gap narrows even more when considering the survey's margin of error.
So what changed?
Cruise ships were ground zero for the initial spread of COVID-19, infecting hundreds of passengers and crew members. And it's not just the coronavirus that spreads easily between the close quarters of ships. This February, more than 300 people onboard a week-long Princess Cruise suffered from a gastrointestinal illness that the company says was likely a norovirus outbreak.
The survey's democratic respondents also signaled they were less comfortable with in-person activities – like going to a concert, taking public transportation, or flying on an airplane — than their Republican counterparts, leading The Washington Post's data experts to conclude that "covid caution" is likely the main driver behind the divide.
Any growing Democrat hesitancy toward cruises and their propensity for spreading illness doesn't appear significant enough to dent the industry's recovery. With this month marking three years since the onset of the pandemic, industry executives claim cruise demand has officially returned to 2019 levels.
On an earnings call Monday, Carnival Corporation announced that this quarter's booking volumes were the highest in company history. Royal Caribbean saw its most successful booking day ever this October after opening reservations for the Icon of the Seas, which will be the world's largest cruise ship.
Coinbase Global watch as their listing is displayed on the Nasdaq MarketSite at Times Square in New York on April 14, 2021.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
In a recent blog post, Coinbase encouraged developers to work on "flatcoins" that keep pace with inflation.
The tokens will enable users to "have stability in purchasing power while also having resiliency from the economic uncertainty caused by the legacy financial system."
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is one high-profile name who's backed the idea of an inflation-linked coin in the past.
In a recent blog post, Coinbase encouraged developers to work on inflation-linked "flatcoins."
The tokens will enable users to "have stability in purchasing power while also having resiliency from the economic uncertainty caused by the legacy financial system," the release said.
The crypto exchange said Friday that it's made the inflation-pegged tokens one of its four main priorities for Base, a network it launched last month where developers can build decentralized blockchain applications.
"We… are particularly interested in 'flatcoins' – stablecoins that track the rate of inflation, enabling users to have stability in purchasing power while also having resiliency from the economic uncertainty caused by the legacy financial system," Coinbase said in its statement.
Stablecoins are crypto tokens that derive their value from another asset. Flatcoins are hypothetical stablecoins that would keep pace with the rate of inflation, rather than fiat currencies like the US dollar or the euro or precious metals like gold or silver.
Inflation surged to four-decade highs last year amid supply-chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 and as Russia's invasion of Ukraine squeezed commodity markets.
The Federal Reserve responded by aggressively raising interest rates – which has cratered the value of stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies as well as fueling the collapse of high-profile companies like SVB and FTX.
Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio – who's slammed other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin in the past – is one big name who's previously backed the idea of a flatcoin, which he's suggested as an alternative to bonds that pay out a yield in line with inflation.
"I think that what would really be best is an inflation-linked coin," the billionaire investor told CNBC's "Squawk Box" last month.
"The closest thing to that is an inflation index bond, but if you created a coin that says OK this is buying power that I know I can save in and put my money in over a period of time and transact in anywhere, I think that would be a good coin," Dalio added.
As well as building flatcoins, Coinbase's priorities for its Base network are to develop blockchain-based reputation and limited order book systems and to build tools that make the decentralized finance (DeFi) space safer, the exchange said in its Friday blog post.
Editors note: A previous version of this story said Coinbase was developing flatcoins. It has been corrected to say that the company was instead encouraging builders to develop them.
The stock market rally is nearing its end as risks related to commercial real estate begin to rise, according to JPMorgan.
The bank believes the highs for the stock market have been made in 2023, with further downside ahead.
"CRE stresses appear to be compounding, amplified by banking shocks that could complicate their debt roll," JPMorgan said.
The stock market rally that began in mid-October and extended through the first quarter of 2023 is nearing its end, and it'll be downhill from here, according to JPMorgan chief global market strategist Marko Kolanovic.
In a Monday note, Kolanovic advised investors to stay defensive and not be tempted to buy the dip in stocks, as he thinks the peak in equity prices has already been made for the year. The S&P 500 is up about 4% year-to-date, and has been hovering around 4,000 for the past two months.
"Commercial real estate stresses appear to be compounding, amplified by banking shocks that could complicate their debt roll," Kolanovic warned.
That, combined with multiple geopolitical crises, means the most vulnerable area of the stock market remains unprofitable companies that rely on raising cash via debt and equity sales to fund their business.
Those are the same companies that have started 2023 with a sharp move higher. For example, Ark Invest's flagship ETF, which primarily invests in technology companies that often are not yet profitable, is up 20% year-to-date, far outpacing the Nasdaq 100's gain of about 16% over the same time period.
"With the banking crisis lingering, higher uncertainty justifies a defensive stance," Kolanovic said, adding that economic forecasts still have "a long way to downshift to catch up with markets."
Kolanovic isn't the only one on Wall Street that's concerned about the sky-high debt pile that's coming due for commercial real estate. The sector has been hit hard by falling property values, falling rent prices, and still a sub-50% vacancy rate due to many employees still working from home.
And the weakness is showing up in asset prices. The iShares CMBS ETF, which tracks a portfolio of bonds backed by commercial mortgages, is trading well below the lows seen at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, and is just 6% above its lowest levels since the inception of the fund in 2012.
Meanwhile, shares of office REITs are trading at multi-year lows, with Boston Properties Group trading at its lowest level since 2009, down about 68% from its record high reached right before the pandemic began.
Whether that weakness spills over into the broader stock market remains to be seen, but Kolanovic isn't taking any chances as he leans more bearish towards stocks than he has in recent months.