| | TOGETHER WITH |  | | | Good morning.
Amazon revealed Thursday that it's developing a way for people to speak to deceased family members. At a Las Vegas conference, the e-commerce giant demoed a new feature where its Alexa voice assistant can replicate a specific speaking voice — like say someone's long-gone grandmother — after analyzing less than a minute of recorded audio. We'll stick to Ouija boards and crystal balls, thank you very much. |
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| • | | Germany is in a full-blown "gas crisis." | | | • | | Track and field's governing body wants to make it America's fifth most popular sport by 2028. | | | • | | With a possible recession looming, fat savings accounts may give many Americans a welcome advantage. | | | Please do not delete this text. |
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Germany Faces "Gas Crisis" As Minister Warns of "Lehman Effect" |
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"We are in a gas crisis," Robert Habeck, Germany's economy minister, said Thursday. "From now on, gas is a scarce commodity." Those blunt words accompanied Berlin's decision to activate the second stage of the country's national gas emergency plan, a little over a week after Russia cut pipeline supplies to Europe's largest economy by 60%. Things don't get easier from here. |
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The second stage of Germany's plan means the government believes there is "substantial deterioration in the gas supply situation," but that state intervention isn't yet warranted. Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom decided to significantly reduce deliveries to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline last week, placing German supplies under sudden and extreme stress. Gazprom claims German conglomerate Siemens has delayed repairs of technical parts, which Habeck dismisses as mere "pretext." The ugly standoff could get a lot worse. Earlier this week, International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol warned Europe to brace for Russia to end gas exports to the region this winter. Germany was already in a frenetic race against time: |
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• | | Germany's gas storage facilities are at 58% capacity, but Habeck said if supplies remained this low the country will not meet its 90% target for December, introducing the real risk of supply shortages during the cold months. Dutch gas futures, Europe's benchmark, rose to €133.35 per megawatt-hour, up more than 50% since Gazprom reduced gas flows. | |
• | | Energy suppliers have already been forced to buy gas on the spot market at higher prices to make up for the Nord Stream reduction. "If this minus gets so big that they can't carry it anymore, the whole market is in danger of collapsing at some point," Habeck said. "So a Lehman effect in the energy system." | | |
Germany relies on Russia for about a third of its energy supplies. Under the second stage of the emergency plan, the government could allow energy companies to pass on cost increases to households and businesses, but is holding off for now. There are even greater fears that Gazprom may cut off supplies altogether when Nord Stream 1 is scheduled to be shut down for annual maintenance this summer — that could lead to stage three of Germany's emergency plan, the last stage, which could include gas rationing.
Poison Pill: Germany, which plans to end its use of nuclear power by the end of the year, is resorting to reopening coal plants to deal with the crisis. "That's painful because coal power stations are just poison for the climate," said Habeck, a member of the Green Party. |
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Track and Field is Racing for a Bigger Share of the US Sports Market |
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(The women's 500m race at the 2018 USATF outdoor championships; Photo by Phil Roeder) For the international governing body of track and field, fifth place is considered a win. World Athletics has set a target of making the sport one of the five most popular in America by 2028, when Los Angeles hosts the Olympic Games. All it needs is sponsorships, television ratings, and crowds to show up at its events. No sweat. |
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US track and field has a lot of hurdles to jump. Since it's a tournament-based sport, there are few major events and the professional Diamond League holds most meets in Europe. Crowds can also be sparse — earlier this month, the USATF New York Grand Prix couldn't fill the 5,000-capacity Icahn Stadium in Manhattan, even with star sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson in attendance. In short, the sport is a far cry from the 80s when it produced full-blown celebrities like Carl Lewis and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The firing piston on a turnaround effort sounds this weekend, with the US track and field championships. It will ramp to full speed next month when the US hosts the track and field world championships for the first time, kicking off a TV blitz: |
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• | | NBC, which holds Word Athletics broadcasting rights, plans to more than double the air time of July's world championships, to 12.5 hours, over 2019's Qatar event. Seven of those hours will be in prime-time, in the hope that the 2 million to 3 million sized audiences that watched last year's US Olympic track and field trials return (most domestic track events fail to capture even 1 million viewers). | | • | | Track and field came in eighth on a 2019 Neilsen survey of sports Americans said they are most interested in. Of note, there are few locations with the resources to host major events outside of sleepy, mid-sized Eugene, Oregon — it's where Nike co-founder Phil Knight helped fund a $270 million, state-of-the-art renovation to the University of Oregon's century-old Hayward Field. | | | "If I'm being blunt, we've got to get into the LAs, the Chicagos the Miamis," World Athletics president Sebastian Coe told The Wall Street Journal — Eugene has hosted the last four Olympic trials, and will host the world championships.
Cross Country Profile: According to Coe the demographics are there: 50 million people in the US identify as runners, and the sport features men and women, giving it a broader appeal. Still, it's a long race to $6.5 million crypto commercials and half-time shows fronted by 49-year-old Eminem. |
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Pandemic Savings Could Help Blunt Recession Pains |
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While The Fed's unenviable task of orchestrating a "soft landing" for the economy is increasingly precarious, the average American has something to land on in the event things come down hard: a cash cushion. After the pandemic allowed for near-unprecedented levels of personal savings, many Americans now have a massive, and unusual, advantage in the face of recession. |
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Between government assistance, upgrading to higher-paying jobs, and just plain having fewer outings to splurge on, the pre-vaccine era of the Covid pandemic gave Americans across tax brackets the gift of increasingly bloated savings accounts. Even in the face of rising inflation, recent data from the Federal Reserve shows Americans have mostly held tight to it. The unprecedented phenomenon could dull the worst effects of, or even prevent, an economic downturn: |
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• | | While Americans in the top 10% of wealth saw cash and cash equivalents on-hand increase 32% from the end of Q1 2020 to the end of Q1 2022, people in the bottom 50% of wealth saw savings increase 45%, according to Fed data. | | • | | Overall, US households held $17.9 trillion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of Q1 2022, a slight increase from Q4 2021 and a massive increase over the $13.7 trillion held at the end of Q1 2020, just as the pandemic was picking up steam. | | | While the average saving rate — the portion of paychecks that don't get spent — has dipped slightly recently, down to 4.4% in April from a pre-pandemic average of 7.6%, Barclays economists tell The Wall Street Journal the downturn likely won't catch up to American households until at least the end of next year. Should a recession hit, savings accounts, it seems, may just save the day. |
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Please do not delete this text. | Extra Upside | • | | Sri Lank's prime minister says the country's economy has "collapsed" and it's running out of money to pay for food and fuel. | | | • | | Just leave it: Nike will exit Russia for good. | | | Please do not delete this text. |
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| Written by Sean Craig and Brian Boyle. |
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