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Elon Musk has abandoned his plans to join Twitter's board, less than a week after the social media company announced the high-profile appointment.
Joining the board would have restricted Musk, already Twitter's largest shareholder with a 9.2% stake, from purchasing more than 14.9% of the company's stock. Which begs the question, how much dogecoin would it take for a majority stake? | | | • | | Larry Summers is forecasting an economic fall. | | • | | Airlines are grounding flights and staffing up to avoid waves of cancellations. | | • | | 2022 marks a multi-decade high for weddings. | | | | |  | US Economy | Is a Recession Coming? More Experts Seem to Think So | | Summer comes before fall, so could Larry Summers accurately predict a recession?
The former US Treasury Secretary, speaking Friday on Bloomberg Television, became one of the most prominent economists to suggest the US is on track for a 2023 recession. The numbers that emerged last week seem to back him up. | Future Shock? | | Summers, and others forecasting a coming recession, have a pretty powerful rhetorical haymaker to throw into the raging debate about the global economy. In the US, never has inflation topped 4% and unemployment dipped below 4% without sparking a recession in the following 24 months. In February, consumer prices rose an unthinkable 7.9%, and the unemployment rate was just 3.6%. If, as Shakespeare wrote, what’s past is prologue, then history is on the pessimists' side.
In Bloomberg’s latest monthly survey of economists, 27.5% said there was a chance of a recession in the next year, up from 20% in March. “‘Inflation shock’ worsening, ‘rates shock’ just beginning, ‘recession shock’ coming,” Bank of America chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett warned clients in a terribly unsubtle note last week. Adding fuel to the gloom-and-doom fire, last week US bonds flashed an “inverted yield curve,” which is when the return on two-year government bonds is higher than on 10-year government debt. The inversion is considered a warning sign of impending recession, forecasting five of the past six. That’s a lot of evidence for those warning of a downturn, but there may be ample reason to remain optimistic: | • | | The inversion might not be so bad for markets: After previous yield curve inversions, the S&P 500 has returned a median 9% one year later and 16% two years later, according to Goldman Sachs. | | • | | People might be looking at the wrong yield curve: The gap between three-year bond yields and 10-year yields, which many experts consider a more reliable recession barometer, is wider than it was in January. | | | | Room to Run: “Much of the academic work suggests that the (3/10 spread) is a better indicator of recession and that one looks more like the economy is red hot,” Jonathan Golub, chief US equity strategist at Credit Suisse, told the Financial Times. “You’ve still got a lot of runway from an equity investing point of view.” | | | | | | Airlines | Airlines Bulk Up on Staff and Cut Flights to Avoid a Repeat of Last Year |  | | Booking a flight in 2021 was not the same as taking a flight in 2021, far too many Americans learned. That’s because, as you may painfully recall, thousands of would-be travelers saw their flights canceled.
Airlines have faced staffing shortages, Covid outbreaks, and a revving up in travel demand in recent months. Now they're working overtime to avoid another summer of mass cancellations. | Economy-Class Economics | | Despite rising fuel costs prompting flight fares that would make even George Clooney opt for economy plus, evidence suggests Americans are clinging to holiday plans like it’s their liberty. TSA agents screened more than 2.3 million passengers at US checkpoints Friday. Thanksgiving 2021 aside, that's the busiest travel day since the pandemic began.
But airlines’ customer service departments still face an army of angry callers. Two weekends ago, the industry canceled more than 3,500 flights, with bad Florida weather adding to the stress. This past weekend, budget airline JetBlue canceled 300 flights. After losing billions during the pandemic despite billions in public assistance, airlines are promising to smooth out their schedules by summer and ideally stabilize their balance sheets after so much turbulence: | • | | One approach is to cut back on flights: JetBlue has hired more than 3,000 new crew members but says it’s still understaffed and will reduce flights up to 10% by May, according to President Joanna Geraghty. | | • | | Another is to forge ahead: American Airlines is so far meeting its target of hiring 180 pilots a month this year. All told, US airlines plan to offer 16% more seats than last summer, according to aviation analysts at Cirium. | | | | “The operations staffing will be on a razor’s edge,” Tim Donohue, co-founder of flight disruption analytics firm Aerology, told The Wall Street Journal. “The razor’s edge barely works when things go as scheduled.”
No Room in the Overhead Bins: Credit card spending on airlines is now above 2019 levels, according to JP Morgan, and the $83 billion in US travel spending in February was just 6% below 2019 levels, according to the US Travel Association. That was the second-best month — after December 2021 — since the pandemic began. Meanwhile, 85% of Americans say they expect to travel this summer, 46% of them by air. | | | | | | SPONSORED BY RealtyMogul | The #1 Thing Your Portfolio Is Missing? | Real estate. A truly balanced portfolio isn’t just stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. It includes other investments – like commercial real estate – that can potentially offer diversification, reduce volatility, and hedge against inflation. But why spend all the time (and money… and effort…) required to buy a literal building when you could get the same benefits by investing in commercial real estate deals on the RealtyMogul platform? RealtyMogul gives you: | | | • | | The ability to sort by projected return, investment strategy, and even property type | | • | | Access to investment metrics of past Investments offered on the RealtyMogul platform so you can review what kinds of returns past real estate deals have generated for RealtyMogul members | | | | | | | | Events | Wedding Industry Struggles to Keep Pace With New Marriages | | Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s engagement may be winning all the headlines, but they may not be able to book a venue and finally, finally, finally tie the knot until next year.
Following delays spurred by endless Covid waves, newlyweds nationwide are turning 2022 into a landmark year for weddings. While this may at long last be the year you master all the steps to the Electric Slide, the nuptials industry is struggling to keep pace. | For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll | | Pent-up wedding demand has led to 2.5 million expected ceremonies in the US this year, marking a 30% increase from last year’s already strong bounceback, according to trade group The Wedding Report. It’s the highest figure since couples had their first dance to Prince’s Purple Rain and partied the night away to Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark in 1984.
Like everything these days, weddings are a story of massive demand and insufficient supply. The result is — you guessed it — inflating prices across the board: | • | | Average spending on weddings already jumped 25% to more than $27,000 last year, according to The Wedding Report, and wedding planners say they expect costs to increase even further this year. | | • | | DJs and wedding singers are booking three events a day, while venues are hosting receptions every day of the week (yes, even Mondays), according to The Washington Post. | | | | Say Yes to the Dress: An estimated 80% of wedding dresses are imported from China, according to The Washington Post, but coronavirus outbreaks and subsequent city-wide lockdowns are threatening to shatter the supply chain. Brides are turning to hand-me-downs from mothers and grandmothers to fill the void, and tailors are working overtime to keep up with alterations — potentially saving countless couples from delaying their special day yet again. | | | | | | Extra Upside | • | | Happy Monday, Howard: Six more Starbucks locations have voted to unionize. | | • | | For real this time: S&P thinks Russia is on the verge of a historic default. | | • | | Want to unlock compounding potential on your capital gains? Then you need to read up on opportunity zones. This guide from Caliber has everything you need to capitalize on one of the most attractive investment strategies for deferring capital gains taxes and cashing in on that sweet, sweet compounding potential. Access the guide right here. * *Partner | | | | | | |  | Just For Fun | | | | | Written by Sean Craig and Brian Boyle. | | No longer want to receive these emails? Unsubscribe here. Copyright © 2022 The Daily Upside, LLC., All rights reserved. 1230 York Avenue, Box 154, New York, NY 10065 | | | | |
