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Jul 12, 2024

Why is Friday a happy day? Because tomorrow is a sadder day. #CheesyPunFridays

Anyway! In banking, Citigroup, Chase, and Wells Fargo are all due to announce their earnings today. If the banks do better than expected, the stock market usually goes up. So, fingers crossed. The bank results follow news yesterday that inflation cooled further than expected in June, with the Consumer Price Index rising 3 percent compared to a year earlier, and even falling month-to-month—a sharper slowdown in inflation than economists had expected. Airline fares were down five percent. Fruit and vegetables were down 0.5 percent. Overall inflation is markedly cooler than 2022’s peak of 9.1 percent. We’ll let you know when we’re feeling that much-needed breathing room in our monthly budgets, but for now, I guess, the news beats a slap in the face, doesn’t it?

Hey, speaking of... more cheddlines:

• Your Costco Membership Fee Is Going Up. This is a slap in the face!
• AI Will Replace 300 million Jobs and there is also some good news about this, possibly.
• Half of Earners Over $100,000 are Worried About Their Finances.
• Neuralink will implant a Brain Chip in Second Patient, Elon Musk says “mwahahahahah.”
• New Product alert: Check out the Latest Samsung Ring, Foldable Phone and Watch!

Have an exuberant weekend. Act like you’re the NBA and you just closed a $76 billion media rights deal. I did have another superb cheese pun to share, but now I Camembert it.

Matt Davis, N2K Chedditor

Brace yourselves, bulk buyers! Costco has officially bumped up its membership fees for the first time since fidget spinners were a Thing™ (2017). If your next family dinner involves your father-in-law, you might want to host it at your place, and go heavy on the comfort food, because he's likely to grumble about having to shell out an extra $5 to $10 this year for the privilege of saving like 1 million percent, year-round, on everything. This, of course, is a purely abstract idea and my real, actual father-in-law certainly didn’t suggest I buy an engagement ring for his daughter at the store because the “diamonds are cheaper.” (Hi, Mike! She really wanted an emerald from a boutique jeweler in Brooklyn, and I am not sorry.)

That's right, Costco’s basic Gold Star membership (aren't “basic” and “Gold Star” an oxymoron?! “Hey,” says Mike, “who are you calling a moron?!”) is jumping from $60 to $65, and the Executive tier (presumably reserved for the Patrick Batemans among us) is going from $120 to $130. Basically, it’s just $10 more a year for even the biggest of spenders. And yet I expect it is going to be something that will wind Mike (and other Mikes) up for weeks.

Don’t worry, though. The pizza in the café will still be less than $2 a slice and the hotdogs will stay at $1.50, so you can easily afford another one if your kid has a meltdown because the damn thing broke in half. Meanwhile, the company’s shares have nearly doubled in value over the past 18 months and were up 2% on the news of the fee increase. It seems there’s no better way to save money at Costco than to own a slice of the company’s stock. Read More

Yes, the robots are coming for your job, with about 300 million to be replaced around the world because of AI, says Nick Bunker with Indeed Hiring. But AI will also create jobs and could boost GDP by 7%, he thinks.

“If you're coming from the point of view of an average person looking for a job, these effects might take quite some time, and they're not necessarily going to be overall negative. There's lots of possibilities and positives here as well,” said Mr. Bunker (whose name clearly inspires confidence, because you can huddle underground in it). Which is reassuring because we were picturing an apocalyptic scenario with total nuclear war started by rival AI robots in which our jobs were…less than an afterthought.

Right now, AI isn’t “pressing on the U.S. labor market,” said Mr. Bunker. Tell that to the 1,800 people at Turbotax owner Intuit who heard yesterday that they’ll lose their jobs by September in an AI-focused reorganization. And a whopping 34% of U.S. jobs could be affected by AI exposure, according to one recent report. Although childcare, for example, is less likely to be affected than, say, preparing your taxes.

Right now, Nick (we're switching to his first name, since that's what AI is going to do to our jobs) recommends figuring out how AI can make you more productive in your daily work, and understanding the technology more, because it’s “something that could help you.” Meanwhile with a strong labor market, and unemployment at a lowly 4%, he’s not too concerned about the rise of the robots. Which, of course, is exactly the way they want it. Run for the hills! Watch Now

Picture yourself at 15. If you heard then that you’d be earning $100,000 by 2024, and that you’d be worried about money, would you have believed it? Well, the times, they are a changing, amigo. It turns out half of people earning more than $100,000 are stressed about their finances!

Just one in four Americans feels financially secure, according to Jenius Bank’s new Mind Money Connection survey. Amazingly, 45% of those earning over $300,000 a year in household income still don’t think they’re “rich,” said Julie Guntrip, head of financial wellness at the bank. Then again, people define being “rich” in three ways: not having debt, retiring worry-free, and establishing generational wealth. Most of us are still in debt, think the idea of retiring is a pipe dream, and the closest we’ll get to generational wealth is sharing a gif of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his vault of gold. Seriously, how good was Duck Tales?

Finances affect millennials’ life decisions, with 55% of those unmarried saying money would influence their decision to tie the knot. More than a third said finances will influence a decision to have children, and where they’ll live. Meanwhile, most of us can give up eating out. But most of us will not give up our streaming services or our annual vacations. Maybe because they help us manage our financial anxieties? Watch Now

The FDA has given the green light to Neuralink's groundbreaking brain chip implant for a second patient. Elon Musk’s firm faced a hiccup when the tiny wires in their brain chip, implanted in the first patient, shifted out of position. So, in an act of evident genius, the team will now…embed the device wires deeper into the brain. Quick. Somebody. Pay these people zillions!

Musk says the latest implant will kickstart a series of trials aimed to benefit 10 patients by year's end. With over a thousand quadriplegic patients eagerly signed up to Nerualink’s registry, the potential for life-changing advancements is there. Although seriously, it was awesome enough watching video of the first patient playing Mario Kart with his mind. What could possibly better that? Watch Now

New product alert! Samsung VP Drew Blackard showed us the firm’s new Galaxy ring, its sixth-generation foldable phone and its new watch.

“We think of the Galaxy ring as the next generation in health and wellness tracking,” he said. You can wear it all day, every day, and the charge will last about a week. It’s good for sleep tracking, step counting, heart rate monitoring, and oxygen level monitoring.

Drew also showed us Samsung's sixth-generation foldable phone, which opens into a 7.6-inch display, in a pocketable form. And it’s 12mm slim. If you’re using the phone for emails, you can have two screens open, one for the full text, the other a preview window for all your emails. Or you can run two apps simultaneously. You can watch videos and message friends or catch up. Searches online are up 15,000% for flip phones. So, they’re hot property.

Samsung’s new devices come with Galaxy AI included, including generative AI on photos, and live language translation either on phone calls, or in messaging. Imagine phoning a hotel in Paris to book a room during the summer Olympics, speaking in English, the hotel hearing you in French, and you hearing them in English. All thanks to AI (which is also about to take your job... as a translator). Or if you’re doing a tour of the Louvre and the tour guide is speaking French, you can listen to an ongoing interpretation in your earbuds. Question: Does this mean the end for Duolingo? We hope not. We like the little owl and the way we can lowkey flirt with be nice to people by sending them gifts for completing streaks. Also, it's kinda good for saying "my sweater is yellow" in Italian. A key phrase.

Samsung's new ultra watch is designed for rugged adventurers with biking, trail riding, hiking and other sports catered for. It’s got more sensors than ever before and has the first FDA-approved detector for sleep apnea. It’s also got deep health insights like AFib detection. Snazzy! Watch Now

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