Week InReview
Friday | Jul 2, 2021
Riding the productivity wave.
Photo: Robert Hanson/WSJ
In the post-pandemic workplace, managers and leaders in all organizations will have to navigate new and difficult situations. In Leaders’ Lessons, a monthly FT series, global executives share insights from their experiences during the pandemic — and their plans for the reset to come. The question in this installment is: “How are you going to preserve productivity gains from the crisis while making sure staff don’t burn out?”

— Financial Times
let's recap...
Creator: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says controlling inflation expectations is key to achieving the central bank’s twin goals of price stability and maximum employment. The trouble is that it is far from clear the Fed can do that as the economy emerges from the pandemic. Expectations among consumers can vary widely, depending on their age and gender — and are not particularly sensitive to what the central bank does and says. What’s more, the attitudes of businesses – arguably the most important players in the inflation process because they set prices – are a bit of a mystery because there are few surveys of their thinking on the subject. (Bloomberg Economics | Jul 1)

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced Thursday that a group of 130 nations has agreed to a global minimum tax on corporations, part of a broader agreement to overhaul international tax rules. If widely enacted, the GMT would effectively end the practice of global corporations seeking out low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland and the British Virgin Islands to move their headquarters to, even though their customers, operations and executives are located elsewhere. (CNBC | Jul 1)

The Task Force on Financial Stability – a joint initiative of the Brookings Institution and the University of Chicago – calls for loosening liquidity constraints on banks to make it easier for them to make markets in U.S. government debt. It also supports the establishment of a standing repurchase facility for Treasuries at the Federal Reserve to serve as a backstop for the system in times of stress. (Bloomberg Economics | Jun 29)

An uneven global recovery from the Covid-19 crisis will make recalibrating the fiscal and monetary stimulus a "daunting" challenge for policymakers, the Bank for International Settlement's annual report said on Tuesday. The bank set out two alternative scenarios. One where large fiscal stimulus and a drawdown of accumulated savings results in stronger growth but also higher inflation and a substantial tightening in global financial conditions. In the other, growth disappoints as the virus proves harder to control. (Reuters | Jun 29)

Invoking the parachute pants of the 1980s as a parallel to the current currency craze, Federal Reserve Vice Chair of Supervision Randal Quarles expressed caution about rushing to issue a central bank digital currency, saying the benefits are “unclear” while the risks could be high. “Federal Reserve CBDC could pose significant and concrete risks,” Quarles told the Utah Bankers Association Monday, according to his prepared remarks. (Bloomberg Cryptocurrencies | Jun 28)
the cyber cafe
On June 29, a multinational group of law enforcement authorities seized a website allegedly used by cybercriminals.
Takedown
DoubleVPN, a virtual private network service used by hackers and other cyber criminals, was shut down by law enforcement officials from Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, U.K., and the U.S., along with authorities in Europe. The site was marketed to Russian- and English-speaking hackers who wanted to disguise their online tracks during phishing and ransomware attacks.

China’s cyber power at least a decade behind the U.S., new study finds
China’s strengths as a cyber power are being undermined by poor security and weak intelligence analysis, according to new research that predicts Beijing will be unable to match U.S. cyber capabilities for at least a decade, according to a study published on Monday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Ransomware prep
Organizations can evaluate how prepared they are to face ransomware attacks with a set of tools from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA's Ransomware Readiness Assessment, available for free on GitHub, takes users through a series of questions and presents an audit in detailed and summary forms.
binge reading disorder
Photo: Céline Gaille, Hans Lucas/Redux
By now, burnout is a given
Americans were flirting with symptoms of burnout well before the pandemic. The combination of hustle culture, toxic stress, and poor access to affordable health care conspired to make Americans among the least healthy populations in wealthy countries. Diseases of despair – including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction – were already rampant. Living through Covid-19 brought the simmering pot to a boil.

During Covid-19, most Americans got richer — especially the rich 
The coronavirus pandemic plunged Americans into recession. Instead of emerging poorer, many came out ahead. U.S. households gained $13.5 trillion in wealth in 2020. That isn’t how recessions usually work.

Research says your ability to 'bulls---' may be a sign of intelligence
Your ability to BS your way through life may be a sign of intelligence, according to a recent study. The University of Waterloo found that people who are better at producing believable explanations for concepts, even when those explanations aren’t based on fact, typically score better on intelligence tests than those who struggle to “bulls---,” as the study puts it.
— CNBC
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