Weekly Digest – February 15, 2023

Welcome back to our Weekly Digest. Read on for the latest updates and some ideas to help us all move forward.

Amazon takes half of each sale

New figures show that Amazon takes half of the profit that each small business makes on its Amazon Marketplace platform.

Stock market starts the week strong ahead of inflation data

Wall Street started the week noticeably higher as investors await inflation which will hint at the path of the Federal Reserve’s future interest rate hikes.

Further rate hikes may not be necessary

Some economists believe that inflation may ease faster than initially thought, making further interest rate hikes unnecessary. Official numbers are due later this week.

Ford is going to build more batteries in Michigan

Ford is investing $3.5 billion to build a battery factory in Michigan that will produce low-cost batteries for some of its electric vehicles. The factory will use technology licensed from the Chinese battery company CATL.

Further job cuts are expected at Meta soon

Meta is preparing to make a fresh round of job cuts, expected to take place around March, but it’s still unclear how many people could be affected.

Dawn Project calls for a government mandate to deactivate Tesla’s FSD until all defects are fixed

Tech CEO Dan O’Dowd spent over $600 million through his Dawn Project campaign to warn the public against Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature in a Super Bowl ad. He calls it “the worst, most incompetently designed, developed, and tested automotive product on the market.”

Children banned from spaghetti restaurant

Upscale New Jersey restaurant Nettie’s announced that it was banning customers under 10 years of age due to “crazy messes.” Public reaction to the ban is mixed, with some saying the policy is just common sense.

Guidance on a new program to undertake green energy projects in low-income communities

The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service announced a program to provide solar and wind power to certain low-income areas under the Inflation Reduction Act. Details can be found here.

Disney cutting 7000 jobs

Reinstalled Chief Executive Bob Iger is seeking to cut $5.5 billion USD from its annual costs to drive profits. He is also under pressure to make Disney+ profitable and find new ways to monetize the Disney catalog.

Australian psychiatry professor seeks to redefine burnout

Gordon Parker, the founder of the Black Dog Institute, argues that burnout is not just a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Instead, it’s a more wide-ranging condition that must be redefined to learn how to prevent it.

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