The Week - USA (2021-11-26)

Nothing is going to

stop Beanie Babies

from arriving on store

shelves this holiday

season, said Robert

Channick and Lauren

Zumbach in the Chicago

Tribune. Ty Warner,

whose Illinois-based

company Ty Inc. has

been making the plush

toys for decades, “has

chartered more than 150

flights from airports in

China since October,”

rescuing Beanie Babies

that might otherwise

have gotten stuck on

container ships. The

chartered flights are

costing Warner $1.5 mil-

lion each, but the bil-

lionaire entrepreneur

insists that he won’t

raise prices. “There’s too

much doom-and-gloom

out there,” Warner said.

“I’m here to tell our cus-

tomers that Christmas is

not canceled.” Demand

for Beanie Babies

topped out in the late

1990s, when the toys

became a collectible fad

and Warner grew so

rich that he was able to

buy the Four Seasons

Hotel in New York City.

But Ty Inc. “continues to

churn out new products

each year.”

The great Beanie

Baby airlift of 2021

BUSINESS

The number of Americans who

quit their jobs rose to another

record high in September, said

Kyl ie Loga n and Lance Lambert

in Fortune.com. Approximately

4.4 million people voluntarily

left their positions, according

to data released by the Labor

Department last week, a slight

increase from August. More than 10.4 million

jobs were open at the start of October. But the

wave of departures, a movement being called “the

Great Resignation,” accelerated after Labor Day.

A survey of those who recently quit found that

44 percent left for “more competitive wages and

benefits” and 32 percent to start their own busi-

ness. The unifying factor: 62 percent said they

were looking for “more control over their lives.”

Workers have gotten employ-

ers’ attention, said Samantha

Masunaga in the Los Angeles

Times, and companies are

“pulling out the stops.”

Across industries, wages are

rising, and other “perks are

rolling in.” A Philadelphia

pet-care company was offer-

ing a $100,000 signing bonus for a veterinarian.

One manufacturing company started a vacation

savings plan, to which both the employee and

employer contribute. And a San Francisco soft-

ware company is offering a “90-day passport

program” that lets employees work anywhere in

the world. New corporate job titles sweeten the

offers; you can now become a “director of remote

employee experience.”

Labor: Americans seek higher pay, new perks

Pharma: Pfizer will license Covid treatment

Pfizer will let other manufacturers make its experimental Covid-19 pill,

said Michael Erman and Emma Farge in Reuters.com. The pharmaceu-

tical giant reached an agreement this week with a U.N.-backed public

health group to grant royalty-free “sub-licenses to qualified generic

drug manufacturers to make their own versions” of Pfizer’s experimen-

tal antiviral pill in 95 poorer countries. The company this week asked

the Federal Drug Administration to grant an “emergency use” authori-

zation for the pill in the U.S.

Security: U.S. turns down Intel factory in China

“The Biden administration spurned a plan by Intel to increase semi-

conductor production in China over security concerns,” said Jenny

Leonard and Ian King in Bloomberg.com. Intel proposed using a fac-

tory in Chengdu to produce silicon wafers, which could have helped

ease a global chip supply crunch by the end of 2022. But the White

House strongly discouraged the move, saying it is “focused on prevent-

ing China from using U.S. technologies” and know-how. The admin-

istration is also trying to bring more chip production back to the U.S.,

“a goal that Intel’s plan didn’t serve.”

Energy: Royal Dutch Shell will move to the U.K.

Royal Dutch Shell announced plans this week to move its headquarters

from the Netherlands to London, said Tom Wilson and Mehreen Khan

in the Financial Times. Shell was recently dropped by the biggest Dutch

state pension fund and is currently “appealing against a court order in

The Hague in May to accelerate its emissions reductions.” If the new

plan is implemented, “Royal Dutch,” part of the company’s name for

114 years, will be dropped.

Activision Blizzard: Long trail of complaints

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick knew for years about employee

misconduct at his company but hid details from the board of directors,

said Kirsten Grind in The Wall Street Journal. Kotick has been subpoe-

naed by the SEC, one of “multiple regulatory” agencies investigating

the video game giant. “The board was blindsided” by a lawsuit by a

California agency alleging that an Activision employee killed herself

after being harassed by male managers. Documents revealed this week

that Kotick also knew the company had previously reached an out-of-

court settlement with another former employee who said she was raped

by her male supervisor.

32

The news at a glance

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Businesses compete to fill openings.

QThe Trump organization is

selling its marquee Wash ing-

ton, D.C., hotel to an invest-

ment group, which plans to

have it rebranded as a Wal-

dorf Astoria, for $375 million.

Financial disclosures show

that revenue for the hotel,

housed in the capital’s Old

Post Office, fell to $15 mil-

lion in 2020 and the first

few months of 2021, from

$40 million in 2019.

The Wall Street Journal

QThe average price of a

gallon of gasoline hit $4.68 in

California this week, break-

ing the previous record,

set in 2012. That means a

typical midsize sedan with a

14- gallon fuel tank costs $21

more to fill up than last year.

CNN.com

QSales of pregnancy tests

are up 13 percent year-over-

year since June 2020. The

average annual increase

between 2016 and 2019 was

just 2 percent.

CNBC.com

QThe country’s top 10 most

expensive ZIP codes all have

median home prices of more

than $4 million for the first

time. Atherton, Calif., which

sits outside of San Francisco

in Silicon Valley, is the most

expensive ZIP code in the

country for the fifth year in

a row, with a median home

price of $7.5 million.

CNN.com

QWalmart fell behind Home

Depot in market value this

week, after shares in the

home- improvement retailer

rose more than 40 percent

for the year. The market

cap for Home Depot is now

$409 billion, compared with

$401 billion for Walmart.

Bloomberg.com

QSixteen percent of U.S.

adults say they have

invested in, traded, or

otherwise used a digital

currency. Overall, 86 percent

of Americans say they have

heard at least a little about

cryptocurrencies.

PewResearch.org

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