Hey Snackers,
The toilet paper hoarding crisis hit a new low — One California hero has been standing on a street corner giving away TP to those in need. Call him Angel Soft.
Investors were disappointed after the Senate (again) failed to pass a coronavirus stimulus bill (expected to be worth $1.8T). The Dow fell nearly 600 points, on track for its worst month since 1931.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood... and both are less travelled by. Robert Frost had an easier choice. When the "15 Days to Slow the Spread" end on March 31, the White House will face 2 options for what to recommend next in response to the Coronavirus:
We've never been faced with a decision like this.... Both President Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin have signaled a shift in which path to choose, only days after promoting the 15-day distancing plan. Trump tweeted Monday "we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself." He doesn't want to save everyone if it means utter destruction of the economy.
This choice is painful — and economists love that... It isn't strictly between economic damage or health damage, because the 2 overlap in some scenearios: Inability to support families could increase suicide rates, a leading cause of death in the US — but relaxing social distancing guidelines might overwhelm the healthcare system, leading to more deaths and economic damage in the long run.
That New Yorker subscription you pay for... but only read the cartoons? There's a fix. The New York Times just acquired Audm, a subscription app that turns longform articles into audio. For $8.99/month, Audm gives subscribers audio versions of way-too-long articles, so you can feel enlightened while cleaning out the closet.
Double-down on the "pod boom"... The NYT learned, maybe from its own article on the topic, that podcast growth in the US is popping. In November 2019, a whopping 62M Americans listened to pods each week, up from 19M in 2013. The Times' The Daily pod is already the top daily pod on Spotify, but it wants an even bigger share of America's ears — so it's audio-fying its articles.
This 1 acquisition basically doubles the Times' content... The NYT already has the raw news content — that's the most time/research-intensive part of journalism. But now for each 12-page article it churns out, it can expand reach (and earn more money) by converting it to another medium (audio). Since media is a combo of "Content" + "Distribution," the more distribution channels a quality publisher has, the greater their reach.
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Carnival
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