United States of America eSeries: More chips, please 📲

More chips, please 📲

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This just in: Amazon is still making what economists call boatloads of money. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

⚠️ BAD TO WORSE

The global chip shortage is no longer just a problem for manufacturers — it's about to hit consumers right in the pocketbook, my colleague Hanna Ziady writes.

WHAT'S HAPPENING

While the shortage has already been acutely felt by carmakers — and car buyers — but pretty soon it'll hit just about anyone in the market for a new smartphone, laptop, washing machine … virtually any major appliance or gadget.

And the sting is two-fold: You're going to wait longer and pay more.

Several factors are driving the crunch:

The pandemic, of course, which plunged the global economy into a recession and upended supply chains.
US sanctions on Chinese tech compounded the supply chain upheaval.
Extreme weather, such as the deep freeze in Texas, further hobbled production.

FROM CARS TO IPADS

Cars were the first wave. When manufacturers shut factories and sales screeched to a halt, carmakers cut back orders for chips.

At the same time, tech companies, whose products were boosted by lockdown living, snapped up as many as they could. Then, car sales bounced back faster than expected, and automakers they found themselves at the back of the line. That has led some companies like GM and Ford to temporarily close some plants.

For context: The average car has between 50 and 150 chips, controlling vital functions like power windows, braking and headlights.

Smartphone makers are feeling it now. Samsung said it's trying to reduce shortages. And even the almighty Apple said it's having a hard time procuring chips for some products.

THE TAKEAWAY

The computer chips in highest demand are not particularly sophisticated or expensive. But their production is concentrated in a handful of suppliers, which might mean the shortage will last through 2021.

The constraints are already pushing up the price of vehicles in the United States because dealers have only a fraction of typical stock levels. Goldman Sachs estimates consumer electronics could go up as much as 3% in some categories.

🌏 NUMBER OF THE DAY

$800 billion

That's how much income women globally lost last year because of the pandemic's catastrophic economic fallout — more than the combined gross domestic products of 98 countries, according to Oxfam.

Women have been disproportionately affected by job losses, and mothers still bear the brunt of child care and education. In the face of the economic crisis, governments "treated women's jobs as dispensable — and that has come at a cost of at least $800 billion in lost wages for those in formal employment," said Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International.

⚔️ TRADEMARK TIFF

On the left, Yeezy's proposed logo. On the right, Walmart's logo.

Walmart is coming after Kanye West for releasing a proposed logo that looks … a little too familiar.

The retailer recently filed a complaint with the US Patent and Trademark Office, saying that the logo proposed by West's apparel company, Yeezy, "is confusingly similar to Walmart's well-known spark logo design."

I mean, if you squint, sure.

MY TWO CENTS

Ye: Who's your design team? I feel like they could have done better. Heck, I could have done better with a bootleg copy of InDesign on my laptop (which I definitely don't have, by the way).

Walmart lawyers: Y'all bored or something? Let's consider the real-world situation in which your customer is confused by the logo. Suddenly your company is linked to one of the best hip-hop artists in a generation. Where's the problem?

📈 QUOTE OF THE DAY

There is a belief out there, that is absolutely incorrect, that markets do better under Republicans. It's completely wrong.

— Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab

The Biden bust that the Trump campaign warned of has morphed into a Biden boom. In fact, Biden is on track for the strongest stock market performance during a new president's first 100 days since John F. Kennedy in 1961, according to CFRA Research.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

📦 Amazon's profit in the first quarter soared more than 220% — basically double what Wall Street had expected. In other words, Amazon's doing even better than anyone thought. It's also raising wages for more than 500,000 workers.

🌯 New York City is suing Chipotle, alleging the company violated a law that requires fast food chains to give their employees more predictable, less hectic schedules.

🇺🇸The US economy grew at an annualized rate of 6.4% in the first three months of the year, slightly better than economists had predicted.

🍔 Shake Shack is now one of the most diverse workforces in America —except for its top executives.