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Column: Think food inflation is bad now? Wait till Kroger and Albertsons merge

Michael Hiltzik
Tue, October 18, 2022 

A produce clerk at the Ralphs supermarket in La Jolla restocks produce in the store. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune)

The gargantuan proposed $24.6-billion merger of supermarket behemoths Kroger and Albertsons is being touted by the merger partners as a boon to consumers.

“We will take the learnings from each company to bring greater value and a better experience to more customers, more associates and more communities,” Kroger Chief Executive Rodney McMullen told analysts and investors in a conference call Friday after the deal was announced.

McMullen didn't explicitly say that would mean lower prices, but it would be a rare shopper who didn't think that "greater value and a better experience" meant anything other than paying less at the checkout counter.

There is no reason to allow two of the biggest supermarket chains 

in the country to merge — especially with food prices already soaring.

Sarah Miller, American Economic Liberties Project

Some analysts said the merger of the largest and second-largest supermarket chains would allow them to compete better with the biggest grocery retailer of all, Walmart, and the rapidly upward-scuttling Amazon, the owner of Whole Foods.

But haven't we heard all this before?

Cable, media and telecommunications companies always promised that their mergers would bring lower prices and more choices for the audience.

When AT&T completed its acquisition of Time Warner in 2018, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson pledged that the deal would allow the companies to "offer customers a differentiated, high-quality, mobile-first entertainment experience.... We’re going to bring a fresh approach to how the media and entertainment industry works for consumers, content creators, distributors and advertisers.”

Comcast promised that its 2011 merger with NBCUniversal would open the doors to a paradise of free choice at popular prices. The company also promised that it would do nothing like favoring its own content on its own internet networks.

Did any of that happen? Do you feel you're spending less for video and internet and getting more? Me neither.

The same goes for healthcare mergers, which also are always pitched as routes to better technology and lower fees. As I've observed in the past, hospital and health insurance mergers almost always lead to higher costs, lower efficiencies and less innovation. The reason is simple: Mergers reduce competition — and it’s competition that drives down prices and encourages more efficiency and innovation.

Back in 2004, the merger of Woodland Hills-based WellPoint into Indianapolis-based Anthem was to produce immense savings from combining the health insurance companies' computer systems and allowing customers’ medical data to be exploited for their benefit across the new company’s vast reach.

Never mind that WellPoint Chairman and Chief Executive Leonard Schaeffer was in line to pocket $37 million from the deal plus a lump-sum payout of $45 million in accrued pension rights. We’re still waiting for the technological benefits of the WellPoint-Anthem deal to appear after 18 years. But that didn't stop CVS and Aetna from making the same claim when they announced their merger in 2017.

A 2016 study by USC found that the domination of California's hospital market by two big systems that grew by acquisition, Sutter Health and Dignity Health, not only drove up prices everywhere their institutions were located but also allowed even nonaffiliated hospitals to charge more.

All these deals have been more or less waved through by the Federal Trade Commission. It's encouraging that the current FTC and its chair, Lina Khan, are talking and acting much tougher than previous iterations of the agency. But the Albertsons-Kroger deal will be a major challenge.

Kroger is the owner of Food4Less and Ralphs in California, as well as 26 other store brands. Albertsons owns Safeway, Vons, Pavilions and 12 other brands. That's a big marketing landscape to come under a single owner.

"There is no reason to allow two of the biggest supermarket chains in the country to merge — especially with food prices already soaring,” says Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project.

“With 60% of grocery sales concentrated among just five national chains, a Kroger-Albertsons deal would squeeze consumers already struggling to afford food, crush workers fighting for fair wages, and destroy independent, community stores," Miller says. "This merger is a cut-and-dry case of monopoly power, and enforcers should block it.”

The possibility exists that the supermarket merger will create yet another oligopoly to go with the monopolistic inputs that have helped push food prices higher, says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who now teaches at UC Berkeley.

"At a time when grocery prices are soaring, in part because of monopolies in the food chain, this merger makes no sense," Reich told me by email. "The current food inflation has two sources: (1) Grain prices have been increasing around the world because of grain shortages brought on by the war in Ukraine and climate change. (2) Domestic monopolies in seeds, fertilizer, and food processing have used the cover of inflation to raise their prices higher than their increasing costs — including the costs of agricultural commodities, labor and transportation."

As Reich points out, corporate profit-seeking is a seldom-cited contributor to consumer inflation. Wages have crept higher over the last year, but the increases have trailed inflation, which is why so many workers and their families are feeling the sting of higher prices. Corporate profit margins, however, have rocketed into the stratosphere, outpacing the inflation rate and pulling it higher.

“Firms in the U.S. increased their markups and profits in 2021 at the fastest annual pace since 1955,” economists Mike Konczal and Niko Lusiani of the Roosevelt Institute reported in June.

It's only fair to observe that supermarket companies traditionally earn a much lower profit margin than those in most other industries — Kroger's operating margin last year was 3.5% on sales of $137.9 billion; at Albertsons the figure was 3.4% on sales of $71.9 billion.

McMullen told analysts he would use the estimated $500 million to $1 billion in annual savings created by the proposed merger to lower shelf prices, remodel stores and improve worker wages and benefits.

But the companies said they would also pay a $4-billion special dividend to Albertsons shareholders, so it would seem that shareholders will be getting most of the gains.

It's widely assumed that the companies will have to sell some stores in regions where their merger would otherwise shrink competition. For anyone curious about how that may work out, notwithstanding the promises of the executives who are flogging it via press releases, there's a precedent. It's about as sickening as finding a nest of spiders in your banana bunch. It involves (wait for it...) Albertsons, which in 2014 cut a deal to acquire Safeway for $9.4 billion.

The FTC ordered the companies to divest 168 of the 2,400 stores the merged company would own, mostly in the West. More than 140 were acquired by Haggen Holdings, an 18-store chain in the Pacific Northwest that was owned by a Florida private equity firm.

As it turned out, Haggen was utterly ill-equipped to grow nearly 10-fold overnight. Within months it was laying off workers, and before the year was out it had filed for bankruptcy. Haggen put 100 of the stores back on the block, and 33 of them were bought back by Albertsons — for about one-fifth, on average, of what it had sold them for. The company's winning bid for some stores was $1 each.

When the smoke cleared, a divestiture that the FTC had ordered to preserve competition ended up eliminating all competition in some communities. One place that got a lot of media attention was Baker City, in western Oregon. Baker City had started out with a Safeway and a Haggen, which competed with each other. After the various ownership flips, it still had two stores, but both owned by the same company.

Baker City looks like the future for communities with Kroger and Albertsons stores. They should be prepared for fewer and smaller competitive price cuts, less choice on the shelves, fewer clerks on the floor, a worse experience for shoppers any way you cut it. That's not to say that McMullen's promises might not come to pass, only that experience teaches us that it's not the way to bet.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The proposed $24.6 billion combination of Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains nationally is already drawing union opposition and scrutiny from Colorado’s attorney general 



The King Soopers at 1950 Chestnut place in downtown Denver.

By Greg Avery – Senior Reporter, Denver Business Journal
Oct 17, 2022 

The proposed $24.6 billion combination of Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains nationally is already drawing union opposition and scrutiny from Colorado’s attorney general over concern it could harm consumers in the state.

The deal, unveiled Thursday, would combine the companies behind the King Soopers and City Market groceries in Colorado with the company that owns Safeway grocery stores in the state, combining Colorado’s top and third-largest grocery sellers.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has opened a review of the deal and could seek concessions from the businesses with the aim of protecting grocery shoppers and workers.

“As Colorado’s attorney general, I take very seriously our department’s responsibility to review mergers that threaten Colorado consumers,” Weiser said in a statement Friday. “At a time of rising food prices, the possibility of undue consolidation in the grocery business raises serious concerns particularly since King Soopers and Safeway have a large footprint in Colorado.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.

Cincinnati-based Kroger (NYSE: KR) agreed to pay $34.10 per share to Albertson’s (NYSE: ACI) stockholders. Merging would expand Kroger Co. to 4,996 stores nationwide that reach 85 million U.S households and would employ more than 710,000 people.

The deal is expected to close in 2024 but will face tight regulatory scrutiny.

The companies combined have $210 billion in 2021 sales and generated nearly $3.3 billion in profits.

King Soopers and Safeway capture about 46% of the Denver metro-area grocery sales and would, if merged, dwarf the sales of the next-closest competitor, Walmart Supercenters.

In some areas, like the towns of Erie and Windsor, Kroger owning both Safeway and King Soopers could mean a single company owning the communities' only existing grocery stores.

The United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 7, which represents thousands of Colorado workers employed at Kroger and Safeway stores, has already come out in opposition to the deal.

“The proposed merger of these two grocery giants is devastating for workers and consumers alike and must be stopped,” wrote Kim Cordova, president of UFCW Local 7 and vice president of UFCW international, which is opposing the deal nationally. “This proposed merger of two of the largest grocery companies in the nation will no doubt create a monopoly in the grocery industry for many communities.”

Cordova issued a written statement opposing the deal, as has the union nationally.

Kroger’s King Soopers stores lead grocery sales statewide and corner about 36% of Denver metro-area grocery spending, topping $3.7 billion in annual sales, according to 2021 numbers from the analytics firm Chain Store Guide.

That’s double the market share of second-place Walmart Supercenters and more than double the value of sales.

Coming in third are Albertson’s-owned Safeway stores, which capture 11.5% of the metro-area market and annual sales of just over $1.2 billion, said Chain Store Guide.

>>See the 2022 market shares for the Denver area in the slideshow below


Grocery store market share 2022

A look at Denver grocery stores, ranked by their 2022 market shares based on data from national grocery analytics firm Chain Store Guide.

The combined groceries operate more than 250 stores across Colorado, according to 9News.

Kroger and Albertsons’ merger deal anticipates having to divest stores in some markets to win the deal’s approval.

A spin-off company with between 100 and 350 grocery stores nationally is expected to be carved off the Kroger-Albertsons business and owned as an independent grocer by the shareholders of Albertsons after the merger, Kroger’s deal announcement said. The locations of stores that would be spun off have not been determined.

Colorado’s attorney general has won concessions in multibillion-dollar national mergers several times in recent years.

Notably, last year, Weiser was among several state attorneys general and others who opposed the proposed merger of Great American Outdoors Group, which operates five Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s shops in the state, and Sportsman’s Warehouse, which operates seven stores in Colorado. The outdoor retailers scuttled their merger in December over regulatory opposition.

Prior merger reviews by Weiser’s office resulted in concessions in the merger of United Healthcare and DaVita Medical Group, a physicians’ group subsidiary of the Denver-based kidney-care company, that were designed to protect consumers in the Colorado Springs area.

His office joined other AGs in suing to halt 2019’s T-Mobile-Sprint merger and dropped the opposition after winning a commitment that Douglas County-based Dish Network would establish a 2,000-employee wireless telecommunications company headquarters in the state and T-Mobile build out its 5G network statewide or pay a $100 million penalty.

AHS board member resigns in response to premier's plan to replace directors

Janet French - 11h ago - CBC

With the looming threat of firing hanging over their heads, at least one Alberta Health Services board member has resigned.

In a Oct. 7 letter obtained by CBC News, Deborah Apps says she can't stand by waiting for Premier Danielle Smith to act on a promise to replace the 12-member board of directors with a commissioner who will report directly to the health minister and premier.

"I fear that the premier-elect's proposals will further destabilize the workplace environment for all health-care workers, adding more uncertainty when frontline staff and those who work tirelessly to lead and assist them require support and thoughtful oversight," Apps wrote in the letter, dated the day after United Conservative Party members voted Smith their new leader.

Smith, who was sworn in as premier on Oct. 11, has pledged to remove the AHS board for the organization's response to the pandemic.

At a press conference last week, Smith said AHS failed to ensure there were enough health-care workers on the job when it required all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

In December 2021, AHS put 1,650 unvaccinated employees without valid exemptions on paid leave. The organization employs 121,000 people.

AHS expected 750 employees to return in March when it lifted the vaccine mandate.

Changing management

Last week, Smith also said AHS failed to respond to government direction in spring 2020 to vastly increase the number of intensive care unit beds available.

"In a business, when they fail to meet targets and they fail to meet direction, you change the management," Smith said.

Smith told reporters there would be a new governance structure in place within 90 days.

In response to emailed questions, Smith's press secretary, Rebecca Polak, didn't clarify whether the premier is looking at replacing just the board or senior administrators too.

Appointing an administrator to replace the board will allow for rapid decision making, Polak said.

The plan has left health-system experts baffled by the purpose of replacing a board whose members were appointed by the UCP government and have little involvement in daily decision making.

AHS a 'whipping boy for government,' past board member says

Former Alberta Party leader and once Progressive Conservative health minister Stephen Mandel sat on the board from September 2019 to September 2021.

He can't recall the board having any say in how hospital beds were used or how AHS public health inspectors enforced provincial health orders.


"AHS is really a delivery service for what the government wants to implement," said Mandel, who was also Edmonton's mayor for a decade. "And they become really the whipping boy for everybody because they are the ones who are in front."

Former AHS board member Stephen Mandel says the board was told, not asked, to implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees.© Nathan Gross/CBC

Mandel said the board was informed AHS would mandate COVID-19 vaccination for employees. He said it was unclear whether AHS administrators or the government had made the decision but he supported it.

AHS board chair Gregory Turnbull declined an interview request.

Apps, the board member who resigned, also declined to do an interview.

Her letter says the board has also attracted "outstanding candidates" to fill the vacant CEO role, and the successful candidate should be able to lead without political interference. Mauro Chies is currently serving as interim CEO.

Dr. Verna Yiu resigned in April after six years as CEO — the longest serving in AHS's 13-year history.

Yiu's new office at the University of Alberta did not respond to an interview request.

A history of instability

AHS has had turbulent leadership since the former Progressive Conservative government amalgamated health region boards in 2009.

In 2013, the then-health minister fired the board over a disagreement about executive compensation. The government appointed a series of four administrators to act in lieu of a board until the NDP government chose a new board in 2015.

The organization had six CEOs (including two co-CEOs) in its first six years.

None of this flux is good for health care, said independent health policy consultant Steven Lewis. He calls AHS "the most complex organization in Alberta by an infinite factor."

Lewis said the uncertainty has a huge impact on employee morale, and recruitment and retention of both health-care workers and health-system leaders.

He says frequent leadership changes halts meaningful improvement because AHS doesn't have enough time to work toward its rapidly shifting goals.

Laying blame

University of Alberta political science professor John Church, who co-authored a book this year on Alberta's health-care system, said successive governments have increasingly centralized control of health care under one entity to prevent pushback from local boards.

He said the AHS board now is a government mouthpiece.

"I don't see how you could look at getting a more compliant group of people in place."

Church said the government is looking for a "villain" to blame for its handling of the pandemic and AHS fits the bill.

Pushing out other members of the AHS executive team could also stifle innovation, prevent the system from launching new programs and halt spending on anything non-routine, he said.

Church maintains AHS has been a political football and shield since its inception and remains that way.

Sacking leaders is the last thing AHS needs as it faces pressure from rising COVID-19 and flu cases and a burned out workforce, he said.

"It's destructive," Church said. "And it's actually dangerous to be running a health care system the way that they're trying to run it."

Microsoft cuts about 1,000 jobs - Axios

FILE PHOTO: Illustration shows small figurines and displayed Microsoft logo

Tue, October 18, 2022 

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp laid off under 1,000 employees across several divisions this week, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing a source, making it the latest U.S. technology company to cut jobs or slow hiring amid a global economic slowdown.

The layoffs affected less than 1% of Microsoft's total workforce of around 221,000 as of June 30.

The company had said in July that a small number of roles had been eliminated and that it would increase its headcount down the line.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment on the Axios report.

Several technology companies, including Meta Platforms Inc, Twitter Inc and Snap Inc have cut jobs and scaled back hiring in recent months as global economic growth slows due to higher interest rates, rising inflation and an energy crisis in Europe.

(Reporting by Jyoti Narayan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)

Recession-proof Microsoft lays off nearly 1,000 employees across the company

Christiaan Hetzner
Tue, October 18, 2022 

Four years ago Microsoft dedicated a glowing portrait to KC Lemson in order to properly celebrate her contribution as the creator of its unofficial yet beloved Ninja Cat mascot.

On Monday, the trailblazing “maestro of fun, mastermind of memes,” as Microsoft described her, found out she had been laid off from the software company she loved after more than two decades.

“I’ve got a good network and sent a lot of feelers out today, but there just aren’t many openings,” she posted late on Monday in the kind of statement that is sounding increasingly familiar as the tech industry braces for a recession.

Lemson was one of up to 1,000 employees who received the dreaded pink slip. According to a report by Axios, the layoffs were spread out across a variety of staffing levels, teams, and regions of the world.

https://twitter.com/kclemson/status/1582175419268501504?s=20u0026t=lqnAXmmyQ_Caa1m5_Txpcg

“Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly. We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead,” Microsoft said in a statement to Axios.

The cutback wasn’t dramatic when compared with the scale of other recent staff reductions announced or rumored recently. Some 221,000 people worked at Microsoft as of the end of June.

Yet when a bellwether like Microsoft feels the need to wield the axe, it’s a grim sign of broader tech weakness—especially after the company already trimmed staff in July. Microsoft has generally been considered to be recession-proof, one of the few resilient stocks that investors should hold in a downturn.

The software giant could therefore be the “next shoe to drop,” Jordan Klein, managing director for tech, media, and telecom sector trading at Mizuho Securities, said in a note to clients last week: “Post AMD (warning) and the much weaker PC read-through last week, I see growing earnings risk facing Microsoft in coming quarters.”

The company reports fiscal first-quarter earnings next Tuesday after U.S. markets close.

Top destination for CIO tech spend

Professional investors continue to favor the stock owing to its dominant Office suite of productivity software; the Azure cloud-computing business that remains a key growth driver; and a management team around CEO Satya Nadella that is considered to be one of the best in the industry.

In July, the software developer nabbed a flagship deal with Netflix to support its new lower-priced ad-tier subscription. Last week it partnered with Meta to offer a more immersive experience for corporate customers using Mark Zuckerberg’s upcoming Quest Pro virtual reality headset, complete with security and compliance features.

“Inflationary pressures, recessionary concerns, and things like that tend to bite more harshly on the consumer side of the equation,” Raymond James analyst Andrew Marok told Yahoo Finance earlier this month. “Whereas with an enterprise software company like Microsoft dealing with such a wide product portfolio—from productivity software to public cloud to operating systems and beyond—we think the environment for a company like this with the scale it has is very advantageous.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wnI1_RDzeo

With a market cap of $1.8 trillion, Microsoft is the world’s third most valuable company behind tech rival Apple and oil producer Aramco. Although shares have fallen 29% year to date, it has outperformed a 32% decline in the broader Nasdaq 100 tech index.

According to finance site MarketBeat, 29 analysts covering the stock rate it a buy or outperform, versus just three hold recommendations and zero sell ratings.

Bulls therefore argue chief information officers will continue to snap up Microsoft products as companies look for a way to stretch their increasingly limited budgets going into a possible recession.

“The solution to getting us out of the tight labor market is tech capex. CIOs are increasing their spend on software, cloud; and infrastructure is important and cybersecurity—you get all of that with Microsoft,” said Nancy Tengler, CEO of Laffer Tengler Investments, on CNBC. “They’re the top tech spend through 2025 according to CIO surveys.”

For Lemson and the hundreds like her, however, that’s little consolation right now.

Microsoft mum on Boston-area impact of reported layoffs


One of Microsoft's Massachusetts offices is located at One Memorial Drive in Cambridge.


By Lucia Maffei – Technology Reporter, Boston Business Journal
Oct 18, 2022

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) did not say if and how its reported layoffs across multiple divisions will impact its New England hub.

The Redmond-based tech giant (Nasdaq: MSFT) is cutting under 1,000 positions across a variety of levels, teams and parts of the world, per a report in Axios Monday. A number of layoffs have started this week, according to a follow-up story in the Wall Street Journal.

Join the Boston Business Journal to unlock even more insights!

Asked about the impact of the job cuts on the company's Massachusetts workforce, a spokesperson for Microsoft sent over a prepared statement.

"Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly," a Microsoft spokesperson wrote. "We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead."

The company did not say how many employees it currently has in the Bay State.

Microsoft New England has offices across Cambridge, Burlington and Acton. Local teams work on research, machine learning for Microsoft's cloud Azure, artificial intelligence and semantic machines.

Cambridge is also home to The Garage, Microsoft's own community and learning space for employees. Opened in 2018, the approximately 15,000-square-feet space is located on the second floor of the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center (also known as N.E.R.D.) in Kendall Square.

In March this year, Microsoft completed its $19.7 billion acquisition of Burlington voice-tech company Nuance Communications Inc. At that time, a spokesperson for the tech giant said the company planned to integrate the two teams. Nuance had about 7,100 full-time employees, including 45% based in the U.S.

As of June this year, Microsoft employed approximately 221,000 full-time employees, including 122,000 in the U.S, according to public documents.

Several tech companies have paused expansion plans, implemented hiring freezes or made layoffs after a slowdown in growth tied to a lackluster economic outlook. Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. (Nasdaq: META) also disclosed plans to contain headcount and said it was aiming to build a smaller company in 2023. Facebook also remained silent over the potential impact of such plans on Greater Boston.

Cuts at Microsoft came after the company noted in its most recent earnings report in July how "evolving macroeconomic conditions and other unforeseen items" negatively impacted financial results. Unfavorable foreign exchange rate, extended production shutdowns in China, reductions in advertising spend and the decision to scale down operations in Russia due to the ongoing war with Ukraine accounted for losses worth hundreds of millions, according to a release. For fiscal 2022, the company reported a profit of $72.7 billion on a $198.3 billion revenue.

"As we begin a new fiscal year, we remain committed to balancing operational discipline with continued investments in key strategic areas," said Microsoft CFO Amy Hood in a July statement.

This 33-year-old made more than 1,000 Wikipedia bios for unknown female scientists


Timothy Harper
Sun, October 16, 2022 


When Jessica Wade was invited to Buckingham Palace to receive the prestigious British Empire Medal, she stood out for being a young woman honored for her contributions to science.

Ironically, she was being honored for trying to change that.

Wade, 33, physicist based in London, has become something of a phenomenon herself in her very personal campaign to bring more girls to study and work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Wade has written more than 1,600 Wikipedia entries about long-ignored female scientists, and she has firm beliefs about how to support girls interested in the field.

Jessica Wade. (Courtesy Jess Wade)

Wade gained notice in her 20s when she began writing the Wikipedia biographies about female and minority scientists who never got their due — from employers, from other scientists, from the public.


As her Wikipedia entries climbed into the dozens and then into the hundreds, she spoke and wrote more about gender equality in science. She won awards and medals and was cited by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.

However, not all of Wiki-world was happy with her. Several of her entries were deleted by other Wikimedians, as the most influential contributors and editors are called. She told TODAY.com that they said a handful of the women she wrote up were not all that well-known.

Wade says that’s the problem.

One example was Clarice Phelps. Wade heard about the young African American nuclear chemist and wrote a Wikipedia bio describing her work on a team that discovered a new periodic table element at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

The Phelps entry bounced on and off Wikipedia as critics deleted it and Wade defended it. Wade won in the end, and Phelps' entry is back on Wikipedia for good.

Jessica Wade high-fives an audience member at a presentation. (Courtesy Jess Wade)

Meanwhile, Wade’s own Wikipedia entry — written by others — has grown to 10 printed pages.

As Wade pursues her effort to make sure female scientists are known, she also has beliefs about how to make sure the next generation gets the support it needs.

She said girls don’t need “whiz-bang” experiments at school assemblies: Visiting scientists do their show, pack up, depart and nothing changes. Instead, girls and students of color need to be coached and mentored about what to study and when.

“People assume girls don’t choose science because they’re not inspired,” Wade said in a recent interview. “Girls are already interested. It’s more about making students aware of the different careers in science and getting parents and teachers on board.”

Women make up only 28% of the U.S. workforce in STEM, according to the American Association of University Women, and only 1 in 5 current engineering or computer science majors are women. Women in STEM earn $60,000 a year, compared to $85,000 for men, the nonprofit group says.

“Ultimately, we don’t only need to increase the number of girls choosing science. We need to increase the proportion of women who stay in science,” said Wade, whose doctoral research at Imperial College London has been widely cited for advances in digital display technology for TV, computer and phone screens.

One key, she said, is better high school science teachers.

“We’re suffering a huge shortage of skills-specialist science teachers across the U.S. and the U.K.,” she said.

Wade said schools should make it easier for girls and students of color to apply for admissions, grants, fellowships and promotions.

Jessica Wade. (Courtesy Jess Wade)

She believes schools need to be upfront about their policies on bullying and sexual harassment, that universities must provide affordable child care on campus and that conference organizers should provide day care and grants for those with caring responsibilities.

Wade, who grew up as the daughter of two physicians and had supportive teachers at private schools, realized at a young age that most people were not as lucky.

“I genuinely believe that science is better when it’s done by diverse teams,” she said.

“It’s also important because we’re designing new technologies or new scientific solutions to global problems. We want the teams of people creating them to reflect the societies that they’re serving.

“Even if you don’t care about any of that, the world desperately needs more scientists and engineers,” Wade added. “Science can help solve the world’s biggest challenges — climate change, antibiotic resistance, emerging pandemic-inducing viruses.”

Looking back on her inclusion in the late Queen Elizabeth’s 2019 Birthday Honours list, Wade hopes young female scientists will become common at future ceremonies.

“It was pretty wild to be honored by the royal family,” Wade recalled. She didn’t meet the queen, but she did take her mother, Dr. Charlotte Feinmann, to Buckingham Palace with her.

Her father, Dr. John Wade, couldn’t attend, but Jessica Wade did her best to make it up to him.

“I took a Tupperware to sneak some royal sandwiches home to my dad," she said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

 Amazon warehouse workers in NY state vote against union

Alexandra Garfinkle

·Senior Reporter

Tue, October 18, 2022

Amazon (AMZN) workers at a warehouse near Albany, New York voted against joining the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), in a blow to a union that had a historic victory at JFK8 in Staten Island earlier this year.

The final count was 406 against the union, and 206 for the union, with 31 challenged ballots. The warehouse, which is at Castleton-on-Hudson, represented the ALU's first attempt at organizing outside New York City, coming after its win in Staten Island.

"This isn't a surprising outcome — unions have long been reluctant to take on companies like Amazon because you're so unlikely to win," said John Logan, director of labor studies at San Francisco State University.

Amazon workers in New York haven't been alone in expressing dissatisfaction with the company. Last week, Amazon workers participated in high-profile walkouts and strike actions at Amazon facilities in California, Illinois, and Georgia. The California walkout took place at an air facility in San Bernardino — less than 20 miles from Moreno Valley, where workers looking to be represented by the ALU almost simultaneously filed for an election with the NLRB.

"The difficulty at Amazon is that getting the 30% support to trigger an election is already a victory, especially given the incredible rate of turnover at Amazon facilities," Logan said.

The reality is this, Logan said: A win near Albany would have made a huge difference.

"This would have been a huge boost, each one of these victories do inspire young workers," Logan added. "It's going to be tough, there's no doubt. This loss does partly show that there are benefits to an established union — setbacks like this can be difficult to manage, and resources to push on can make a difference."

For its part, Amazon has been making moves to boost its reputation as an employer. The company announced plans last month to spend $1 billion raising pay for its warehouse and delivery workers, putting the starting wage for most of those employees at $19 an hour. The company's minimum wage for hourly workers remains at $15 an hour, about twice the national minimum wage and roughly aligning with the state minimum wages in New York and California.

“We’re glad that our team in Albany was able to have their voices heard, and that they chose to keep the direct relationship with Amazon as we think that this is the best arrangement for both our employees and customers," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said. "We will continue to work directly with our teammates in Albany, as we do everywhere, to keep making Amazon better every day."

What comes next

For the warehouse near Albany, it's possible that the ALU may back off in the near-term because it doesn't have many options. For one, the 31 challenged ballots are off the table from here.

"The labor board will only litigate challenges as to individual voters if it's outcome-determinative," said Andrew MacDonald, labor and employment partner at Fox Rothschild. "Because the challenges aren't outcome-determinative here, that avenue is closed off."

Objections are also possible, but a huge investment of time and money.

"As an independent union, it's unclear if it'll be worth it to the ALU to offer up those resources," said MacDonald. "It's unclear how to read an independent union as opposed to a more established union, where you can look at long-term trends."

There's reason to suspect that the Amazon Labor Union might turn its attention to a Moreno Valley, C.A. warehouse where workers recently petitioned for an election, seeking representation by the ALU.

"I think if you're the ALU, and you have a new petition, you invest more of your energy in California," said MacDonald.

However, the petition phase can be a fragile one, said MacDonald.

"The union is constantly testing its support, and can pull the petition if they feel support is dwindling," he told Yahoo Finance.

Still, it's fairly likely a vote will come to pass where a petition is filed, as is the case in Southern California.

"In most cases if a petition is filed, there will be an election," said MacDonald.

From here, there are also opportunities for data-gathering and strategizing on both sides, who will be operating with the expectation that these labor fights will continue, according to Syracuse University professor Lynne Vincent.

"From here, ALU can try to determine the major factors in employee decisions and see how they can address those for future campaigns," she said. "For Amazon, it means that their campaign countering union organization still works. Amazon may try to answer some of the same questions that ALU needs to answer. What are the differentiating factors for the different warehouses, and how do we leverage those?"

Ultimately, despite this setback, it's unlikely that organizing and union activity will stop at Amazon, or its counterparts like Apple (AAPL) and Starbucks (SBUX), despite an increasingly challenging macroeconomic environment, according to Vincent.

"With the current economic and political undercurrents, employee discontent and frustrations are not going to dissipate," Vincent said. "This union movement surge has been building for a long time, and I do not believe that we have seen its peak."

An Amazon Labour Union (ALU) organizer greets workers outside Amazon’s LDJ5 sortation center, as employees begin voting to unionize a second warehouse in the Staten Island borough of New York City, U.S. April 25, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid.

The ALU hasn't returned Yahoo Finance's request for comment, but ALU president Chris Smalls issued a statement on Tuesday, suggesting this is far from over.

“Most of all, we are filled with resolve to continue and expand our campaign for fair treatment for all Amazon workers," the statement reads. "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

NDP calling on Smith to apologize for 'tone deaf' and 'cruel' comments on Ukraine war


EDMONTON — Alberta’s Opposition NDP says Premier Danielle Smith needs to apologize for her remarks on the Russia-Ukraine war.


NDP calling on Smith to apologize for 'tone deaf' and 'cruel' comments on Ukraine war© Provided by The Canadian Press

Opposition critic Sarah Hoffman said it was “tone deaf” and “cruel” for Smith to urge Ukraine to accept neutrality, even as its people were fighting and dying in the Russian invasion.

Smith also opined on social media earlier this year that there may be parts of Ukraine happier to break away from the mother country.

“The fact she refuses to apologize leads one to believe that she does believe the things that she said, that she doesn’t have remorse, that she is absolutely choosing to side with (Russian President) Vladimir Putin over the people of Ukraine who are fighting for their lives,” Hoffman said Monday.

Hoffman said the comments strike a particular sore point in Alberta, which is home to about a quarter of all Canadians of Ukrainian heritage.

The quotes surfaced over the weekend after a freelance journalist published comments Smith made on social media platforms prior to her ultimately successful bid to become leader of the United Conservative Party and premier.

On a livestream chat on April 29, Smith said: “The only answer for Ukraine is neutrality,” adding she understands why Russia would have a concern with a western-aligned Ukraine armed with nuclear weapons on its doorstep. Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons in the 1990s.

In a Feb. 24 post, she said: "I’ve read that two regions of Ukraine feel more affinity to Russia. Should nations be allowed to break away and govern themselves independently? If that’s truly what people want, then I think so. But is that what the people want — or is it propaganda?”

Smith’s office did not respond to questions surrounding Smith’s current opinions on Ukraine, but pointed to the statement from a day earlier, when Smith said she supports the Ukrainians who are “suffering indescribable horrors and loss at the hands of an invading power.”

Her office also instead pointed to comments Smith made earlier Monday in an interview on Corus Radio.

“I suppose we could kind of relitigate every statement that I have made in the past and with the different hats that I've worn,” Smith told host Shaye Ganam.

“(But) when I talk to the public, what they're interested in knowing is what I'm going to do going forward.”

Smith added it’s not her role to comment on the war.

“I respect federal jurisdiction,” she said. “It’s up to them to weigh in on international relations and negotiations."

She said Alberta will focus on delivering humanitarian aid while helping Ukrainian refugees and resettlement, saying: “That, to me, is us staying in our lane."

Alberta committed $23 million in Ukraine relief under former premier Jason Kenney, who was outspoken in his denunciation of Putin.

“We’ve seen the unmitigated violence, the pure evil coming from the heart of Vladimir Putin to indiscriminately attack people that he calls his brothers,” Kenney said on Oct. 4.

In Ottawa, NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson called Smith's comments "horrific" and "incredibly dangerous rhetoric," essentially suggesting Ukraine should "roll over" in response to Russian aggression.

"How do you remain neutral when your country has been invaded, when there has been a genocide being committed against your people?" the Edmonton member of Parliament said outside the House of Commons.

The Ukraine comments are one of a number of policy controversies during Smith’s first week in office.

Smith has been criticized for saying she believes COVID-19 unvaccinated people are the most discriminated group she has seen in her lifetime. She has also promised no more vaccine mandates for health-care workers, which she says would lure more staff to Alberta, but critics say would lead them to seek jobs elsewhere.

Hoffman said she is not surprised Smith is urging Albertans to ignore past comments.

“She certainly wants to tell people not to pay attention to her own words," she said. "I get why she’d say that. She has said many offensive and hurtful and damaging things for the province of Alberta.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Nouriel Roubini: Why AI poses a threat to millions of workers

Daniel Howley

·Technology Editor

Tue, October 18, 2022 

Business sectors ranging from agriculture and manufacturing to automotive and financial services are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence as a means to automate large swaths of their organizations—and, along the way, save enormous sums through improved efficiencies.

But, says ‘Megathreats' Author and NYU Stern School of Business professor Nouriel Roubini, the rise of AI will also have a massively negative impact on workers throughout the economy.

AI has helped revolutionize everything from the smartphones in our pockets to our grocery stores, which use the technology to better predict which items customers want to see on shelves. However, Roubini, whose prediction of the 2008 financial crisis earned him the moniker “Dr. Doom,” says AI poses a threat to millions of workers.

“The downside is that while AI, machine learning, robotics, automation increases the economic pie, potentially, it also leads to losses of jobs and labor income,” Roubini said during an interview at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit.

Take autonomous cars. While they could dramatically reduce the number of car accidents, significantly cutting down on the number of deaths and injuries caused on the nation’s roadways, they’ll also put millions out of work. “You have, what, 5 million Uber and Lyft drivers, 5 million truckers and teamsters, and they’re going to be gone for good,” Roubini said. “And which jobs are they going to get?

CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 07: Nouriel Roubini professor of economics at New York University attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)

Fully autonomous vehicles are still years away from hitting the roads. The majority of the technology that’s currently available is meant to assist drivers rather than actually control vehicles themselves. But automakers have made it clear that they are intent on developing the technology to the point where there’s no need for a driver at all.

But according to Roubini, it’s not just drivers and truckers who might be at risk of losing their jobs. As AI becomes more powerful, it could be used to replace workers in creative fields including the arts.

“Increasingly, even cognitive jobs that can be divided into a number of tasks are also being automated,” Roubini said. “Even creative jobs; there are now AIs that will create a script or a movie, or make a poem, or write...or paint, or even [write] a piece of music that soon enough is going to be top 10 in the Billboard Magazine chart.”

While it might be some time before AI is winning any major awards or art prizes, if ever, it is being used to create digital art. Take the open-source DALL-E, which allows users to type in a series of words and get an image based on millions of photos pulled from the internet.

While artists are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, the fact that AI is racing into once unimaginable sectors of the economy could eventually mean Roubini's prognostications, like some of his others, will prove true.

Key Takeaways From Xi Jinping’s Two-Hour Speech



(Bloomberg) --

President Xi Jinping delivered a wide-ranging speech Sunday laying out the Communist Party’s agenda for China over the next five years, covering everything from Taiwan to tech policy.

Here are the key takeaways:

Foreign Policy

Xi: “China’s international influence, appeal and power to shape the world has significantly increased.”

“Confronted with drastic changes in the international landscape, we have maintained firm strategic resolve and shown a fighting spirit. Throughout these endeavors, we have safeguarded China's dignity and core interests and kept ourselves well-positioned for pursuing development and ensuring security.”


The context: Xi declared China would “standi tall and firm in the East” at the last congress in 2017, departing from former leader Deng Xiaoping’s “hide and bide” strategy. That shift along with Beijing’s moves to crush dissent in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, lack of transparency on Covid’s origins, partnership with Russia and more aggressive posture toward Taiwan and the South China Sea, has put China on a collision course with the West.

Development Model

Xi: “Chinese modernization offers humanity a new choice for achieving modernization.”

The context: China had long stressed that its development path is unique and does not follow traditional Western approaches based on capitalism. Xi elaborated on what the Chinese model, saying it is peaceful and based on maintaining the leadership of the party, realizing high quality growth and achieving "common prosperity." While officials previously stressed the country does not seek to export its development model, Beijing has shown increasing ambition to reform the global governance system by offering alternatives.Common Prosperity

Xi: "We will steadfastly push for common prosperity. We will improve the system of income distribution. We will ensure more pay for more work and encourage people to achieve prosperity through hard work. We will promote equality of opportunity, increase the income of low income earners and expand the size of the middle income group. We will keep income distribution and the means of accumulating wealth well regulated."

The context: Xi elevated the common prosperity slogan last year amid crackdowns on thebig tech, education and real estate sectors, drawing unease from investors who saw heavy losses from sudden policy shifts. That campaign to narrow China’s wealth gap fell out of the limelight this year as Covid lockdowns battered the economy. Today, Xi made clear it’s still high on the priority list.

Covid Zero

Xi: “In responding to the sudden attack of Covid-19, we put the people and their lives above all else and tenaciously pursued a dynamic Zero Covid policy. We have protected the people's health and safety to the greatest extent possible and made tremendously encouraging achievements in both epidemic response and economic and social development.”

The context: Anyone looking for signs China’s Covid strategy, which has kept its virus death toll low at growing economic and social costs, would have been disappointed. Xi signaled the zero-tolerance strategy he’s a cornerstone of his leadership is going strong, even as public tolerance for it appears to be cracking.

Economy

Xi: “High-quality development is the top priority of building a socialist modern country in all aspects. Development is the party’s top priority in governing. It's impossible to build a socialist modern strong country in all aspects without solid material and technology foundation.''

The context: Despite some analysts suggesting there may be a slight shift in Xi's speech to elevate national security at the expense of economic growth, Xi repeated the slogan from previous party congress speeches that development is the party's "top priority.'' Some China observers had expected Xi to give equal weighting to security and development, a signal that Beijing could tolerate slower economic growth in order to meet other policy goals. By sticking to earlier language, Xi's speech suggests no real departure from economic goals.

Taiwan

Xi: “We will continue to strive for peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerely and the upmost effort, but we will never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary. The wheels of history are rolling on towards China's reunification and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The complete reunification of our country must be realized and it can without a doubt be realized.”

The context: Xi reaffirmed the party line on Taiwan, one of Beijing’s main points of acrimony with the US. Beijing sees the self-governing island as its territory and has ramped up military pressure over the past year. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the US would come to the democracy’s aid if attacked, marking a shift in the policy of “strategic ambiguity” that guided US-China relations for decades — even as the White House insists nothing has changed.

Hong Kong

Xi: “In the face of turbulent developments in Hong Kong, the central government exercised its overall jurisdiction over the special administrative region as prescribed by China's Constitution and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It ensured that Hong Kong is governed by patriots. Order has been restored in Hong Kong, marking a major turn for the better in the region.”

The context: Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong that bans terrorism, secession, subversion and collusion with foreign force in June 2020 to quell anti-government dissent, after city-wide protests erupted a year prior. Several pro-democracy media outlets have closed under a pressure campaign from that legislation, which has been used to jail scores of opposition leaders and been condemned by the US and other Western democracies for diminishing freedoms in the former British colony.

Tech Crackdown

Xi: “We will focus on national strategic needs, gather strength to carry out indigenous and leading scientific and technological research, and resolutely win the battle in key core technologies.”

The context: China’s crackdown on its once-swaggering tech industry erased more than $1 trillion in combined market value, battering major firms such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Xi’s speech struck a more optimistic note, instructing the sector to focus on innovation as the US moves to cut it off from cutting-edge chip capabilities.

Military

Xi: “We will intensify military training under combat conditions across the board to see that our armed forces can fight. We will innovate new military strategic guidance and develop strategies and tactics for people’s war, establish a strong system of strategic deterrence, increase the proportion of new domain forces with new combat capabilities, and intensifying military training under combat conditions

The context: Xi has vowed to modernize the once infantry-dominated military by 2027. To achieve that goal, the People’s Liberation Army has undergone tremendous organizational changes and hardware upgrades. The ground force has been trimmed, while other services including navy and rocket force have gained prominence.

Green Goals

Xi: “We will work actively and prudently toward the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality. Based on China’s energy and resource endowments, we will advance initiatives to reach peak carbon emissions in a well-planned and phased way, in line with the principle of getting the new before discarding the old.”

The context: More than any other leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi has sought to make the environment part of his lasting legacy. He’s dramatically cut air pollution that plagued urban residents and laid out ambitious goals for China including a target to reach net-zero emissions within four decades. But a spate of power shortages throughout the nation and global energy turmoil following Russia’s war in Ukraine have shifted the focus back on energy security, with climate goals coming in a distant second place.

(Updates with Xi’s comments on modernization.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Firefly Launches, Northrop Grumman Cheers

By Rich Smith – MOTLEY FOOL

KEY POINTS

Firefly Aerospace rang in October with a mostly successful test flight of its Alpha rocketship.

Northrop Grumman is depending on Firefly to produce new "Miranda" engines to power Northrop's newest rockets.

Good news for Firefly (which isn't public) is, therefore, good news for Northrop Grumman (which is).

Good news for Firefly Aerospace is good news for Northrop Grumman.

Firefly Aerospace is on a roll.

At 3:01 a.m. ET on Oct. 1, Firefly successfully launched its FLTA002 "Alpha" rocket into orbit, deploying three satellites as its payload and claiming 100% mission success on its second attempt to reach orbit.

Not everyone agrees that the mission was 100% successful. Critics point out that Firefly's satellite payloads ended up in suboptimal orbits, so they fell back to Earth faster than planned. But even if you call the mission only "mostly successful," Firefly seems ready to take first place among the new breed of small rocket launching companies in at least one respect: With a 1-ton payload capacity to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), its Alpha rocket offers a more robust alternative to Virgin Orbit's (NASDAQ: VORB) LauncherOne, with its 500 kg capacity, or Rocket Lab's (NASDAQ: RKLB) Electron rocket, which can carry 320 kg to LEO.

And that's not all. Just hours before the mission launched, the company landed a $17.6 million U.S. Space Force contract to launch a "rapid response" mission in 2023, proving it can prep and launch a small satellite into orbit with just 24 hours' notice. (Between now and then, Space News reports that Firefly will conduct a second launch, this time of a Venture Class satellite for NASA, later this year). All of the above is great news for Firefly Aerospace -- a veritable phoenix story of a once-bankrupt company coming back to life.

But Firefly's success may be even more important to another company entirely: Northrop Grumman 

As you may recall, Northrop Grumman has run into some roadblocks with its space program. No sooner had Northrop purchased rocket maker Orbital Sciences and merged it into Northrop's new "Space Systems" division ($10.6 billion in annual revenues now, or about 30% of all Northrop's revenues, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence), than Russia invaded Ukraine, causing two problems. First, Russia was supplying RD-181 engines for Northrop's rocket, and under America's sanctions regime, those engines could no longer be imported from Russia. And second, Ukraine was building Antares' entire first stage -- which was hard to do while being shelled by Russia.

Without those engines and without those rockets, Northrop would have a hard time performing its multibillion-dollar NASA contract to resupply the International Space Station by rocket.

Northrop announced its solution to both problems in August when it "joined forces" with Firefly Aerospace to "provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket and a new medium launch vehicle [MLV] to serve commercial, civil and national security space launch markets."

Now, the "Reaver" engines that lifted Firefly's rocket to orbit last week were not the same engines Northrop will use on either the Antares 330 or the MLV. Firefly will develop new "Miranda" engines for these purposes. Regardless, the fact that Firefly has successfully developed one set of engines, and a rocket to carry them, argues in favor of the company's ability to develop even bigger, better engines and rockets for Northrop in the future.

What it means for Northrop Grumman

So basically, last week's launch was a step in the right direction for both Firefly and Northrop. For Firefly, the test flight advances the company toward commercial viability and keeps it on track to launch a planned six commercial missions in 2023 -- and to double that launch rate to 12 in 2024. It also positions Firefly to follow its space rivals into the IPO market, potentially via a SPAC transaction, should its majority shareholder, private equity firm AE Industrial Partners, so desire.

For Northrop -- which perhaps not coincidentally received its first upgrade on Wall Street in more than two months this week -- Firefly's success validates the defense giant's decision to bet on a start-up. Going forward, Northrop Grumman investors will want to keep a close eye on Firefly's success as it evolves from "Reaver" to the "Miranda" engines that Northrop needs for its new rocket ships.

Any setbacks for Firefly will imperil revenue streams at Northrop's space division -- which, remember, amount to 30% of Northrop's business. But the more progress Firefly makes, the more secure Northrop's space business will become.