Quartz Daily Brief—Turkey’s mining disaster, fast-food strikes, Pandora shares, zombie apocalypse
Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Fast-food service might get slow. Workers in fast food chains across six continents are striking over low pay; US workers are demanding a minimum wage rise to $15 per hour. Protests are planned at hundreds of McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC branches around the world.
Europe won’t let the ECB off the hook. Both GDP growth and inflation for the euro zone are expected to be higher than in the same quarter last year, but neither figure will likely be strong enough to relax concerns about Europe’s recovery. That should keep up pressure on the European Central Bank to do something more radical.
Japan’s sales tax hike boosts GDP. Analysts expect that Japan’s economy expanded by 4.4% in the opening period of 2014, which would be a strong improvement from the previous two quarters. However, it won’t be clear whether this signifies stronger economic confidence, or just a one-off shopping rush (paywall) before the April 1 sales tax kicked in.
Wal-Mart sings the winter blues. The US retail chain is set to post a slight drop in profits for its first quarter, largely dragged down by harsh weather during the winter, and store closures. Wal-Mart could have better news from its e-commerce sales, though, which jumped about 30% last year.
While you were sleeping
Turkey reeled from its worst ever industrial disaster. At least 274 workers are thought to be dead, with a further 100-plus trapped underground, after a mine’s power unit exploded and caused a fire. Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was met with calls to resign when he visited the site.
Britain’s jobs scene perked up. The UK’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.8%, which alongside the youth unemployment rate is now at a five-year low. In the three months to March, more people found jobs than during any quarter since records began in 1971.
Two leading newspapers lost their heads. The New York Times fired its first female executive editor, Jill Abramson, due to a cryptic “issue with management in the newsroom,” replacing her with its first African-American executive editor, Dean Baquet. The editor-in-chief of France’s Le Monde, Natalie Nougayrède, also quit after a long-running newsroom conflict.
Pandora piggybacked on the Apple-Beats deal. Speculation about Apple’s purchase of Dr Dre’s headphones has sent shares in Pandora, the digital music company, up by 10% compared to a cross-market increase of 1%. Here are a couple of possible reasons why.
AIG completed its last major post-crisis spinoff. AerCap finalized its purchase of International Lease Finance Corp, a former AIG subsidiary, for $7.6 billion. The result will be the world’s largest independent aircraft-leasing firm. AIG banked a $2.4 billion profit, plus a 46% stake in the new company.
A gloomy outlook for Eastern Europe. Economists polled by Bloomberg predicted that Russia is heading for its slowest growth in five years, in the wake of the Ukraine dust-up. And a report from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development predicted stagnation for Russia and a 7% contraction for Ukraine.
Quartz obsession interlude
Gwynn Guilford on how China may have missed its chance to stop its housing bubble from popping. ”China’s housing market is slumping fast: major developers have slashed prices as much as 15% since March, reports Bloomberg, and housing starts fell 25% in the first quarter of 2014, according to Nomura. Heavily reliant on housing investment, China’s economic growth is swooning. The People’s Bank of China finally took action earlier today, ordering big banks to start churning out more mortgages to homebuyers. Will more mortgages fix the problem? Analysts are skeptical.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Don’t sell your ideas using someone else’s name. It diminishes your authority and your idea’s merit, says Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Consumer boycotts can work. Starbucks didn’t pay UK corporation tax for five years, and recently posted its first-ever fall in UK yearly sales (paywall).
The cult of sleep deprivation is Thomas Edison’s fault. “No one did more to frame the issue as a simple choice between productive work and unproductive rest.”
The World Cup is like Game of Thrones. To really appreciate it, you need to watch the whole thing.
The Ukraine crisis is great for Elon Musk. Russia’s threat to stop cooperating with the US over space launches could catapult the SpaceX CEO into the role of a real-life Tony Stark.
Surprising discoveries
The US government has a zombie apocalypse survival plan. The document even comes with a disclaimer: “This plan was not actually designed as a joke.”
Your favorite junk food is getting pricier. Rising costs will push up prices at Chipotle, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
The Fed’s been leaking policy decisions to traders for years. And they say the market isn’t rigged.
There are medical benefits to having facial hair. In the 19th century, doctors prescribed beard growth to fend off sore throats.
The tiniest distraction can throw you off completely. Even a three-second interruption can double the number of errors you then make.
Tennis is getting even more precise. These new smart racquets will tell players why their serve fell wide or what went wrong with their lob (paywall).
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, cold remedies, and tennis pro-tips to [email protected]. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day.