Bloomberg Businessweek January 24, 2022

● Global coronavirus cases are approaching 335 million, almost 5.6m people have died, and more than 9.8 billion vaccine doses have been given. With cases rising, China halted ticket sales to the public for the Beijing Olympics, though select groups of spectators will be invited to attend the games, scheduled to begin on Feb. 4. ▷ 6 ● The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani. Donald Trump’s personal attorney was summoned to testify alongside two other members of the former president’s legal team for allegedly advancing efforts to overturn the election results. Giuliani’s lawyer says he’s reviewing the subpoena. ● Surveyors said the massive volcanic eruption in Tonga on Jan. 15, which sent deadly tsunami waves as far away as Peru, has…

So much for transitory. U.S. prices rose by 7% in 2021, the steepest increase in almost 40 years. Remember: The Federal Reserve’s target for inflation is 2%, something that gets less attention than it used to, back when “hawks” and “doves” were measuring deviations in tenths of a percentage point. It’s an enormous overshoot, and some of it is likely to prove persistent without corrective action. The good news is that the Fed can no longer be accused of playing down the risks. In the past two months, its policy stance has moved briskly from patience to concern, with a hint of alarm. Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Jan. 11 that he regarded inflation as a “severe threat.” So far, to its credit, the central bank has accomplished this abrupt…

▶ The U.S. Federal Reserve sets interest rates on Jan. 26. With inflation continuing to climb, pressure is growing on the Fed to raise borrowing costs faster than expected. ▶ Analysts believe the year’s first reading of U.S. economic growth, on Jan. 27, will show a 6% expansion. But wrangling in D.C. over stimulus packages has dimmed the outlook. ▶ Turkey’s central bank releases its quarterly inflation report on Jan. 27. The bank has said its looser monetary stance will return inflation to a downward trend. ▶ The International Monetary Fund publishes its World Economic Outlook Update, an analysis covering projections for global growth, on Jan. 25. ▶ Germany’s Bundestag will hold a three-hour debate on Jan. 26 on instituting a vaccine mandate, a controversial topic in Europe’s largest economy even as Covid cases…

For China, hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics was a chance to prove it could hold its own among the great global powers. When the world tunes in for the opening ceremonies of the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 4, a very different China will be in the spotlight. In 2008 the country had just surpassed Germany to become the world’s third-biggest economy. Its gross domestic product still trailed Japan’s and was only one-third the size of the U.S. economy. Today, China’s GDP is three times larger than Japan’s and steadily closing on the No. 1 spot. If Chinese President Xi Jinping is able to deliver on growth-boosting reforms, and U.S. President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda stumbles, China could overtake the U.S. as soon as 2031, according to forecasts by Bloomberg Economics. “In…

In that long-ago time before the pandemic, most travelers chose an airline based on a single, straightforward factor: price. And those who didn’t grab the cheapest fare typically steered their business toward a carrier where they had frequent-flyer miles. Cleanliness, by contrast, barely registered. These days, hygiene is the most important factor in choosing a travel company for almost 60% of Americans, according to a survey by aerospace products manufacturer Honeywell International Inc. That tracks with International Air Transport Association data showing that passengers worry about boarding planes, with 42% of them uncomfortable using lavatories and more than a third concerned about breathing recirculated cabin air. “We know that our customers are more conscious than ever about hygiene,” says Anil Jain, engineering chief at Air India Express, which has introduced robots…

When Brian Donato became chief supply chain officer at Rent the Runway Inc., the 2019 holidays were winding down and women across the U.S. were packing up the gowns and designer jackets they’d gotten from the company for galas, seasonal soirees, and office parties. Then, about a month after he showed up at Rent the Runway’s New Jersey warehouse for his first day on the job, the country went into lockdown and events from high school proms to the Met Gala were called off. “The business paused,” says Donato, 50, a veteran of Amazon.com Inc. who oversaw the online shopping giant’s grocery fulfillment operations. Donato took advantage of that pause to revamp the way Rent the Runway tracks its garments, from brands such as Ralph Lauren, Nanushka, Jason Wu, and Lululemon.…