* * * * * MONDAY, MAY 13, 2024 ~ VOL. CCLXXXIII NO. 112
00
Last week: DJIA 39512.84 À 837.16 2.16%
What’s
News
Business & Finance
 With the first-quarter
earnings season nearly
over, companies whose
profit has fallen short of
forecasts are being pun-
ished more heavily than
usual, and those that out-
perform aren’t being partic-
ularly well rewarded. A1
 Consumer-facing brands
with spots to place have so
far been disappointed in their
hope that the rise of ad-sup-
ported streaming would
compensate for the decline
of traditional television. A1
 Six years after 2U was rid-
ing high on a $5 billion-plus
market cap and a fistful of
contracts, the debt-laden edu-
cation-technology company’s
valuation has plunged and it
faces an existential crisis. A1
 Roughly 5,000 hourly em-
ployees at a Mercedes-Benz
plant in Alabama were set
to vote on whether to join
the United Auto Workers. B1
 Workers at a unionized
Apple retail store near Balti-
more voted to authorize a
strike as contract talks with
the company continue. B2
 Ford hired Sherry House,
formerly chief financial offi-
cer of electric-vehicle maker
Lucid, to be its next CFO. B8
 Consumer prices in China
edged up a modest 0.3% in
April while factory-gate prices
continued to decline. A18
 Competitors trying to in-
terpret Tesla’s plans for its
fast EV chargers sense a po-
tential market opening,
though there is no obvious
No. 2 in the race to build a
U.S. highway network. B3
World-Wide
 Israeli troops pressed far-
ther into Rafah and engaged
in fierce fighting in previ-
ously cleared areas around
Gaza City, showing the diffi-
culty of winning a decisive
victory over Hamas as a
guerrilla force. A1, A8
 More seaborne migrants
are reaching the U.S., with il-
legal entries or attempted en-
tries by boat in California more
than doubling over a three-year
period, according to Customs
and Border Protection. A3
 Justice Kavanaugh called
for the Supreme Court to hear
more cases, suggesting an in-
crease to 75 annually from the
60 or so that have become
the norm in recent years. A3
 Putin nominated an econ-
omist to succeed Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu, a
longtime ally, in the most
substantial shake-up to Rus-
sia’s military command struc-
ture since Moscow launched
its war on Ukraine. A18
 Nearly 60% of Argentines
are living in poverty, up from
44% when Javier Milei was
inaugurated as president in
December, according to the
Catholic University. A18
 Richard Slayman, the man
who received a genetically
modified pig kidney in an un-
precedented transplant at a
Boston hospital, has died. A6
 Heavy rains and mud
flows from a volcano on the
Indonesian island of Suma-
tra triggered floods that
killed at least 37 people. A18
 Died: Roger Corman, 98,
doyen of the B-movie. A2
JOURNAL REPORT
Artificial Intelligence:
Everyday work
problems AI solves. R1-8
CONTENTS
Arts in Review......A13
Business & Finance.. B2,8
Business News....B3,4
Closed-End Funds......B7
Crossword..................A14
Heard on Street....B10
s 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
WSJ.com HHHH $5.
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Far to the South, Northern Lights Dazzle Investors
Dial Up
Pressure
On Firms’
Earnings
Shares of companies
missing forecasts fall,
but overperformers
see no outsize gains
BY HARDIKA SINGH
Wall Street is showing lit-
tle patience for companies
that don’t live up to expecta-
tions.
With the first-quarter
DAVID BECKER/ZUMA PRESS
earnings season nearly over,
companies in the S&P 500 are
on pace to deliver a 5.4%
jump in profits from a year
ago, the biggest increase in
nearly two years, according to
DESERT DISPLAY: A geomagnetic storm lit up the night sky above the desert outside Las Vegas over the weekend, as people FactSet.
as far south as Alabama and New Mexico were able to see the aurora borealis usually reserved for northern regions. A2 But those that fall short of
investor forecasts are being
punished more heavily than
Brands Ditch TV Advertising
usual. Shares of companies
that missed estimates have
slid an average of 2.8%, com-
pared with the five-year aver-
age of a 2.3% decline.
For Web as Audiences Shrink Meanwhile, companies that
outperform aren’t being given
any special prizes. Those that
beat analyst forecasts have
seen their shares gain an av-
BY SUZANNE VRANICA audience like ‘Friends’ or ing, meaning that more than mercials have long stood as erage 0.9%, roughly in line
‘Seinfeld’ used to do,” Jona- three-quarters of its ad spend- the cornerstone of modern ad- with the five-year average of
When Mondelez sought to than Halvorson, global senior ing will go elsewhere. vertising. This dominance was a 1% advance. That is accord-
promote a limited edition of vice president of consumer ex- To promote its new Oreo owed, in part, to televisions’s ing to FactSet data that
its Oreo cookie this year, it did perience at Mondelez, said of Space Dunk, Mondelez turned capacity to reach vast and di- looked at share prices in the
something that would have the current state of TV. And to social-media sites such as verse audiences through ads two days before companies
been unthinkable not that streamers such as Netflix Instagram and TikTok, Halvor- that leverage sound, sight and reported through the two
long ago: It didn’t spend a aren’t a perfect alternative: son said. It also relied heavily motion to evoke emotional re- days after.
dime advertising on TV. Their nascent advertising on ads that appear where peo- sponses. “[The market] won’t ask
The snack company had a platforms charge too much ple already are in a shopping These vast audiences aren’t questions; it will just reduce
simple reason for that deci- and don’t yet reach enough mood: the websites of large tuning in anymore. valuations really quickly if
sion. The people it was look- people, he said. retailers, including Ama- “There is no longer that you don’t perform,” said
ing to reach—Gen Z members, The maker of Ritz crackers zon.com and Walmart. single lever you can pull,” said George Goncalves, head of
multicultural audiences and and Sour Patch Kids candy is As streamers and TV net- Please turn to page A7 U.S. macro strategy at MUFG
households with children— spending about 15% of its U.S. works move into one of their Securities Americas.
aren’t watching enough televi- ad budget on TV this year, most important weeks of the  Caitlin Clark is already the Please turn to page A2
sion. down from 42% three years year for selling ads, the move GOAT of TV ratings....... A14
“You have no single shows ago. Halvorson said an addi- by Mondelez marks an impor-  TV’s upfront sales play like  Heard on the Street: Why
pulling together a big enough tional 9% is going to stream- tant inflection point. TV com- a rerun.................................... B4 the market volatility?... B10
Emerging Industry Housing Costs
Slow to Fade Seeking a Decisive
Strains Power Grid Stubbornly high rents are
vexing the Federal Reserve
as it tries to finish off its
Blow, Israel Pushes
In fast-growing Georgia, electricity
battle against inflation. A2
Rental inflation indexes,
change from a year earlier
Farther Into Rafah
needs clash with green-energy goals
Consumer price index, rent
BY CARRIE KELLER-LYNN full-scale assault on Rafah,
BLS all tenant rent index
BY DAVID UBERTI Vying for a piece of one of AND ABEER AYYOUB packed with more than a mil-
America’s hottest markets, Zillow observed rent index lion civilians, but Israeli Prime
ATLANTA—Bill Thomson those businesses tend to CoreLogic single-family TEL AVIV—Israeli troops Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
needs power fast. The prob- have two things in common. rent index pressed further into Rafah and has said Hamas’s last fighting
lem is that many of the One is that they represent a 15% engaged in fierce fighting in formations there must be de-
BLS new tenant
other businesspeople racing U.S. economy increasingly rent index previously cleared areas feated for “total victory.”
into Georgia do too. driven by advanced manu- 10 around Gaza City in the north, Fighting also intensified in
Thomson heads marketing facturing, cloud computing showing the difficulty of win- northern Gaza, where at least
and product management at and artificial intelligence. ning a decisive victory over five Israeli soldiers were killed
DC Blox, which in recent The other is that they prom- 5 Hamas as a guerrilla force. in recent days during clashes
years built a string of data ise to hoover up huge More than 300,000 Pales- in a complicated urban envi-
centers in midsize cities amounts of electricity. tinians have fled Rafah as the ronment where militants are
across the fast-growing That combination means 0 Israeli military expanded what re-establishing themselves. Is-
Southeast. The company Georgia’s success in luring it calls a targeted operation in raeli analysts say taking Rafah
more recently set its sights this development comes the Gaza Strip’s border city won’t deal a decisive blow to
–5
on Atlanta—the would-be with a side effect: Power is a with Egypt. The worsening Please turn to page A8
capital of the region—joining big source of tension. The 2005 ’10 ’15 ’20 humanitarian crisis there
a slew of tech and industrial clean-energy goals of compa- Sources: Labor Department; Zillow; CoreLogic heightens Israel’s dilemma:  Israeli television depicts a
firms piling into the state. Please turn to page A10 The U.S. has warned against a different war....................... A8
INSIDE
If Taylor Swift Can Dazzle Online Education Titan
Through the Tears, So Can You
i i i Suffers Long, Steep Fall
Fans power through challenges at work, led
BY MELISSA KORN are looking for the exits.
by hit ‘I Can Do It With a Broken Heart’ The company’s executive
In May 2018, employees team is racing to reopen talks
from education technology with lenders. 2U also said
BY LINDSAY ELLIS debut on the Billboard Hot 100 company 2U paraded through earlier this month it contin-
at No. 3. Etsy sellers are the streets of New Orleans, ues to cut costs and is on
If you relate to the lyric, “I hawking sweatshirts and T- beads and booze abundant on track for revenue to grow
cry a lot but I am so produc- shirts with its lyrics. their floats during a Mardi again next year, and high-
tive” you might be a cubicle Self-identified “corporate Gras-style procession. lighted new contracts and
dweller grinding through a girlies” and “corporate Swift- They had plenty to cele- partnerships.
Tuesday—or Taylor Swift daz- ies” post TikTok videos sing- brate. 2U, which joins with 2U set out to revolutionize PERSONAL JOURNAL
zling tens of thou- ing in front of their universities to bring degree education, bridging the divide Relationships get
Markets...................B9,10 sands on a stadium computers. programs and other classes between for-profit online
Opinion................ A15-17
stage. The track, which de- online, had a market value learning and highly reputable
complicated when one
Outlook......................... A2
Personal Journal A11-12 A clear sign hustle scribes Swift executing topping $5 billion and held lu- universities. But with shifting spouse retires and the
Sports.......................... A14 culture is coming a record-breaking tour crative contracts with schools student interests and fierce other keeps working. A11
U.S. News.............. A2-6 back is how quickly amid a breakup, also including Georgetown Univer- competition—including from
World News....... A8,18
America’s office set includes lines like “All sity and the University of universities that realized they
has glommed onto Tortured poet the pieces of me shat- Southern California. could hand much of the oper- BUSINESS & FINANCE
> Swift’s upbeat dance tered as the crowd was Six years later, the company ation in-house—it has strug- Chicken prices are
hit, “I Can Do It With A Bro- chanting ‘more.’” is valued at roughly $30 mil- gled to keep up.
ken Heart,” released in April Accounting manager and lion and facing an existential The initial plan was simple:
inflation hedge, as
as part of her 11th studio al- Swift fan Kaylene Butikofer’s crisis. Its balance sheet is crip- design, identify students for, consumers look to cut
bum, “The Tortured Poets De- industry is far from the pled by $900 million in debt, and operate online courses costs at the table. B1
partment.” The song made its Please turn to page A10 and some university leaders Please turn to page A7
A2 | Monday, May 13, 2024 * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

U.S. NEWS
THE OUTLOOK | By Nick Timiraos U.S.WATCH

Housing Stymies Fed on Inflation U.S.

Solar Storm Brings
Show to Night Sky

S
talled inflation this
year hasn’t derailed
the Federal Re-
serve’s plans to
eventually cut in-
terest rates. That’s because
it expects a slowdown in
housing costs to eventually
drag inflation close to its
2% target.
The problem: It has been
waiting for that slowdown
for 1½ years now, and it
still hasn’t arrived. The
slowdown might simply be
delayed. But some analysts
worry it isn’t going to hap-
pen because of changing dy-
namics in the housing mar-
ket. If so, that would
significantly weaken the
case for lower rates.
Housing has played a
large role in the inflation of
recent years because its
Contribution to core PCE inflation, 4 pct. pts. taking longer than expected
difference from prepandemic trend* because more renters are
renewing their leases in-
stead of buying a home, de-
terred by high mortgage
3 rates. That could lengthen
Services the time it takes for lower
(excluding energy rents from newly signed
and housing) leases to show up in overall
2 Housing inflation.
“I still think that check
Goods is in the mail, but unfortu-
(excluding food,
beverages and energy)
nately, it’s taking longer for
that check to arrive than I
1 anticipated,” said David
Wilcox, an economist at
Bloomberg Economics and
the Peterson Institute for
0 International Economics. “I
just don’t see an alternative
outcome other than those
low lease rates eventually
manifest themselves in the
-1 official price indexes.”
2019 ’20 ’21 ’22 ’23 ’24
A rare solar storm caused
the night skies across the
Northern Hemisphere to fill
with vivid flashes of color
from the northern lights over
the weekend, delighting view-
ers from Alabama to England.
Marbled hues were on
prominent display across
much of the U.S., Canada and
parts of Europe, thanks to a
severe geomagnetic storm
that produced powerful solar
flares over several days.
The light show also caused
some reports of power-grid
irregularities and degradation
to high-frequency communi-
cations and some GPS sys-
tems, according to the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration.
Geomagnetic storms on
Earth are related to storms
on the sun known as coronal

cost rose so much and car-
ries such large weight. It is
one-third of the consumer-
price index and around one-
sixth of the price index of
personal-consumption ex-
penditures, the Fed’s pre-
ferred inflation measure.
It is also, in theory, pre-
dictable. Government statis-
ticians don’t use home
prices to calculate inflation
because a home is partly an
investment. Instead, they
use monthly rents to cap-
ture what tenants pay to
rent a house or apartment,
and what a homeowner
would in theory pay to rent
her own home.
Market rents—rents on
newly signed leases—surged
three years ago, reflecting
the unusual demand for
more space unleashed by
the pandemic, strong in-
S
mass ejections—in which elec-
talled inflation has trically charged material and
12-month change in the personal-consumption expenditures index for... fanned fears the Fed magnetic fields erupt from
might have to weaken the star’s outer atmosphere,
Housing Goods Services the labor market, risking re- known as the corona, and
(excluding food, beverages (excluding energy and housing) cession, to finish the “last travel across space toward
and energy) mile” of bringing down in- the rest of the solar system.
8%
flation. But that might not This week’s spectacle was
Inflation has returned be necessary if prices, such due to the observation of five
6 to its prepandemic
as for housing, reflect eco- coronal mass ejections di-
trend for goods, but nomic conditions from a rected toward Earth
4 not for housing and
nonhousing services
few years ago rather than —Ginger Adams Otis
now.
2
Component’s Higher car-insurance OBITUARY
Component’s 2011-2020 avg. 2011-2020 avg.
Component’s 2011-2020 avg. costs or hospital-service
0
prices, for example, reflect
B-Movie Pioneer
-2 big increases in auto prices Roger Corman, 98
and hospital wages two Roger Corman, the “King
2011 ’15 ’20 2011 ’15 ’20 2011 ’15 ’20
years ago, respectively, said of the Bs” who helped turn
*Prepandemic trend is average from Jan. 2011–Jan. 2020. Core PCE is the price index of personal-consumption expenditures, excluding food and energy. Omair Sharif, founder of re- out such low-budget classics
Source: Commerce Department search firm Inflation In- as “Little Shop of Horrors”
sights. “It’s the ‘last lag’ and “Attack of the Crab Mon-
Wall Street investors, and tion was 2.8% in March, running at about minus 1%, story, not the ‘last mile’ sters” and gave many of Hol-
private-sector economists down from 5.6% in 2022 but housing at 2.5% to 3.5%, and story,” he said. lywood’s most famous actors
have expected housing infla- not much lower than in De- nonhousing services at Some doubt whether and directors early breaks,
tion to slow since late 2022 cember. slightly above 2%. housing will help as much has died. He was 98.
based on what has already Much of last year’s slow- as anticipated in bringing

come growth and histori-
cally low inventories of
homes for rent or purchase.
Single-family-home rents
rose 14% in 2022, according
to CoreLogic.
But year-over-year rent
growth slowed to 3.4% in
February, reflecting in-
creased competition from
new apartment supply and
tepid inflation-adjusted in-
come growth. Apartment
rents have notched similar
declines, according to Zil-
low.
Because only a minority
of leases turn over each
year, changes in market
rents are reflected in infla-
tion with a lag. Accounting
for that lag, Fed officials,
happened with market
rents.
Housing inflation has in-
deed slowed from a peak of
8.2% one year ago—but only
to 5.6% in March, “a much
slower pace than pretty
much anybody anticipated,”
said Jay Parsons, head of
residential strategy at Ma-
dera Residential, a Texas-
based apartment owner. The
Labor Department is sched-
uled to report April infla-
tion on Wednesday.
Housing helps explain
why core inflation, which
excludes volatile food and
energy prices, has stalled in
recent months, contrary to
expectations of a continued
cooling. Core PCE infla-
H
Corman died Thursday at
ousing “has not be- down in inflation was be- inflation down. Rents tend his home in Santa Monica,
haved the way we cause goods prices returned to be sensitive to wages and Calif., according to a state-
thought it would,” to their prepandemic trend. income, and as long as ment released Saturday by
Chicago Fed President For inflation to get back to those expand solidly, rents his wife and daughters.
Austan Goolsbee said in an 2%, nonhousing services in- might not slow as much. Starting in 1955, Corman
interview last month. “I still flation has to drop to less A key reason market helped create hundreds of B-
think it will, but if it than 3% from 3.5% now, and rents have moderated is movies as a producer and di-
doesn’t, we’re going to have housing to around 3.5% that the industry is adding rector, among them “Black
a hard time” bringing infla- from 5.8%. a record amount of new Scorpion,” “Bucket of Blood”
tion back to 2%. If inflation stays higher, apartment supply. Some in- and “Bloody Mama.”
To understand why, break Fed officials are likely to dustry executives say, A remarkable judge of tal-
core inflation into three dif- hold interest rates at their though, that that supply is ent, he hired such aspiring
ferent baskets: goods, hous- current levels, the highest being quickly absorbed be- filmmakers as Francis Ford
ing and nonhousing ser- in two decades, until they cause of increased immigra- Coppola, Ron Howard, James
vices. To get all the way to see more concrete evidence tion and solid job and wage Cameron and Martin Scors-
2% inflation, the Fed doesn’t that the economy is slowing. growth. ese. In 2009, Corman received
need 2% for all those cate- Many economists still “One of the surprises of an honorary Academy Award.
gories. think it is only a matter of the last six months, specific —Associated Press
In the decade before the time before housing infla- to multifamily, has been the
pandemic, core inflation tion reflects the slowdown reacceleration of demand,” NEW YORK
was slightly below 2%, the in new leases that began Madera residential-strategy
result of inflation in goods two years ago. It might be head Parsons said.
Police Shoot Man
Wielding a Gun
Police officers fatally shot

Pressure Is Average share-price

performance of companies in
the S&P 500 after earnings
Share-price and index performance since March 20
5%
S&P 500
Quarterly earnings,
change from a year earlier†

Magnificent Seven
50%
a man armed with a gun on a
New York City street early
Sunday, department officials

Dialed Up beats and misses*

First-quarter
2024 average
0

–5
–0.04%
Netflix
Other 493 companies 40
said.
Two New York Police De-
partment officers and a ser-

On Earnings
0.9% geant were patrolling the
Five-year
–2.7% 30
After East Flatbush neighborhood
average beats –10
in Brooklyn shortly after 1
1.0% a.m. when they spotted a
–15 20
Continued from Page One Starbucks man pointing a gun at an-
Companies are being given –20 –17.8% other man, Chief of Depart-
little room for error in part 10 ment Jeffrey Maddrey said at
because stocks are looking –2.8% –25 a news briefing.
pricey, especially in light of After The man fled after officers
misses 0
the lingering uncertainty –30 ordered him to drop his
about whether the Federal –2.3% Five Below weapon. An officer shot the
Reserve will cut interest rates –35 –33.4% –10 man with a Taser, but he got
this year. Starbucks was *Performance measured from two days before April 2024 May 1Q 2024 2Q 3Q 4Q back up with the weapon af-
among those that suffered re- earnings report through two days after. ter being momentarily
percussions for disappointing †First-quarter data is blended, which means it includes actual and projected result. The rest are all estimates. Source: FactSet stunned. The officers again
investors late last month. warned the man to drop the
The coffee chain pledged to ertheless sank 16% the day af- low’s profit also fell short of The S&P 500 remains 0.6% main in the driver’s seat. gun before shooting, Maddrey
speed up service and roll out ter it reported results and are Wall Street forecasts, despite off its record high in March. With six of the Magnificent said. The man, who wasn’t
new drinks after a sharp still down almost 14% since another quarter of strong The benchmark index ad- Seven companies having re- identified by police, was pro-
slowdown in visits hit its its report. sales growth, as it invested in vanced 1.9% last week, ported first-quarter results, nounced dead at a hospital.
sales and profit. Shares nev- Discount retailer Five Be- curbing theft through mea- boosted by more recent signs earnings for the group are ex- —Associated Press
sures like beefed-up security. of an economic cool-down, pected to surge 48%, com-
Its shares tumbled over 15% and is up 9.5% for the year. pared with a decline of 2.2% CONNECTICUT
CORRECTIONS  AMPLIFICATIONS the day after it reported re-
sults in late March, and the
The 10-year Treasury yield,
a key driver of mortgage
for the other companies in
the S&P 500, according to
Horses Rescued
Readers can alert The Wall Street Journal to any errors in news articles by decline has deepened to more rates and other borrowing John Butters, senior earnings From Deep in Mud
emailing wsjcontact@wsj.com or by calling 888-410-2667.
than 30% since the results. costs, was at 4.5% Friday. analyst at FactSet. Two horses stuck deep in
In other cases, companies That was up from 4.18% seen The S&P 500’s communica- mud for hours in Connecticut
are being punished even when at the beginning of March but tion-services sector is beating were pulled out by more than
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL beating expectations. Netflix off its 2024 Wall Street ex- a dozen rescuers Saturday,
(USPS 664-880) (Eastern Edition ISSN 0099-9660) last month posted sales and high of 4.71% in pectations by emerging tired, but safe.
(Central Edition ISSN 1092-0935) (Western Edition ISSN 0193-2241) profit that came in above fore- late April. the second-big- A trio of horses were walk-
Editorial and publication headquarters: casts, boosted by a surge in “The market Investors are gest margin, ing from a pasture to a barn
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Published daily except Sundays and general legal holidays. streaming giant gave a softer- p e c t a t i o n s ,” shares of Al- anon, Conn., about 25 miles
Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and other mailing offices. than-expected revenue outlook said Tim nervous over phabet and Net- southeast of Hartford, when
Postmaster: Send address changes to The Wall Street Journal, for the current quarter, and Hayes, chief flix. But the in- they became mired in the
200 Burnett Rd., Chicopee, MA 01020. its shares fell 9.1% the next global invest-
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By phone: 1-800-843-0008 tently high interest rates, sults, not just the Magnificent because tech stocks account them. They were just really
WSJ back issues and framed pages: wsjshop.com meanwhile, has lessened the Seven group of tech stocks for about a third of the in- stuck.” Rescuers worked to
Our newspapers are 100% sourced from sustainably certified mills. appeal of stocks relative to that have powered the S&P dex’s returns. clear a path and to position
bonds, while raising the pos- 500’s earnings growth over “That’s where we see a lot sleds under the horses so they
GOT A TIP FOR US? SUBMIT IT AT WSJ.COM/TIPS sibility of higher borrowing the past year. of risk right now,” Nesbitt could be pulled out.
costs for companies. For now, tech stocks re- said. —Associated Press
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * * Monday, May 13, 2024 | A3

U.S. NEWS

Beaches Are a New Gateway for Migrants

People arrive on boats
along California shore
and rush into waiting
vehicles, videos show
or live by beaches, sometimes Rafael Fernandez de Castro, di- smuggling occurrences in the
sparking fear and anger. rector of the Center for U.S.- past year have been captured
The number of times mi- Mexican Studies at the Univer- on video by beachgoers and
grants illegally entered or at- sity of California, San Diego. posted to a social-media ac-
tempted to enter California by Such people generally aren’t eli- count run by Britt Mayer, an
boat has more than doubled gible to request asylum. independent journalist who

BY ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Jack Enright was swimming
off the coast of La Jolla, Calif.,
just north of San Diego, on a
sunny Tuesday morning in Jan-
uary when he spotted a boat
racing toward the shore,
headed straight for him.
Enright said he initially
didn’t know what the white
pleasure craft was doing. “But
when I saw there was a boat
full of people,” he said, “that’s
when I knew.”
It was, he realized, another
smuggling operation carrying
migrants into the U.S. illegally
via the sea. When the boat ran
ashore, about a dozen people
ran out and up toward a
nearby street, where they dis-
appeared.
While illegal immigration by
people crossing the U.S.-Mexico
border has risen to record lev-
els in recent years, seaborne
smuggling of migrants has
surged as well—particularly in
Southern California.
Their dramatic arrivals have
become an increasingly com-
mon sight for people who visit
from 308 in the federal fiscal
year that ended in September
of 2020 to 736 in the same pe-
riod last year, according to
Customs and Border Protec-
tion. While most arrive around
San Diego, they have ventured
as far as Santa Barbara County,
north of Los Angeles.
The migrant boat landings
are adding to an already cha-
otic situation around San Di-
ego, which has recently become
the most active stretch along
the border for illegal migration.
Federal agents there have
made more than 220,000 ar-
rests since Oct. 1.
Like ghosts
Most migrants who enter il-
legally by land immediately
surrender to authorities and
request asylum. Those arriving
via boat, in contrast, typically
speed away in waiting vehicles.
“The big concern for us is
we have absolutely no idea who
these people are,” said San Di-
ego County Supervisor Jim
Desmond, a Republican. “We
have no idea what they are do-
ing. They’re ghosts.”
JACK ENRIGHT
Some more-affluent mi-
grants, meanwhile, might be
misled by smugglers to be-
A screenshot from a video showing migrants jumping off lieve sneaking in by boat is
a pleasure craft as it approached the shore. their best or only option.
They typically pay the highest
U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the San Diego sector smuggling fees, which can
of the southwest border, monthly reach $30,000, according to
Fernandez de Castro.
40,000 apprehensions
Desmond said he thinks a
35,000 2017 California law limiting
when local law enforcement can
30,000 work with federal immigration
authorities is helping drive the
25,000 beach arrivals. He said even if
local law enforcement officers
20,000 were on the scene, they
wouldn’t be able to arrest mi-
15,000 grants whose only known crime
was entering the U.S. illegally.
10,000
“In California, we are laying out
5,000 the red carpet and welcome mat
for illegal immigrants to cross
0 the border,” Desmond said.
2021 ’22 ’23 ’24 A spokeswoman for Demo-
cratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection local authorities are still able
to work with their federal part-
CBP said its agents have hasn’t provided information on ners in immigration cases in-
made nearly 8,000 arrests for the nationalities of any of those volving serious criminals, but
illegal entry into the U.S. in people. Most are likely Mexican Congress needs to act to ad-
maritime smuggling incidences nationals who were previously dress border security and im-
since 2020. deported or have a criminal his- prove the asylum system.
The federal government tory in the U.S., according to A few of the most daring
chronicles migration issues in
San Diego.
Zipping past surfers
In April, a boat carrying at
least a dozen people raced on
shore in Carlsbad, about 50
miles north of the Mexican
border, on a Saturday after-
noon. Video showed it zipping
by surfers before landing on
the beach not far from a girl
playing in the sand.
The migrants aboard ran to
a parking lot where vehicles
were waiting, then sped off. A
few left behind darted into a
nearby neighborhood.
Many landings happen un-
der the cover of darkness, ac-
cording to Robert Butler, who
runs TowboatUS San Diego. His
government contracting firm
salvages migrant boats, which
are frequently abandoned.
His company routinely gets
three to four calls a week to
salvage an abandoned smug-
gling boat, he said. One day in
mid-April, two calls came in
about an hour, one in La Jolla
and another just to the north
in neighboring Orange County.

Justice Kavanaugh Says Case Load A 19th-Century Scene in New York

Of Supreme Court Is Too Light
BY JESS BRAVIN
AUSTIN, Texas—Justice
Brett Kavanaugh, in a swing
through the Texas capital Fri-
day, had plenty to say to a re-
gional conference of judges
and lawyers about his job at
the Supreme Court, a respite
before the final stretch of a
term in which the court will
issue rulings on abortion ac-
cess, gun restrictions and the
prosecution of former Presi-
dent Donald Trump.
Though he steered clear of
pending matters, Kavanaugh
did lift the veil slightly on
some of the court’s practices.
Kavanaugh said the court’s
case load is too light, about 60
arguments a year in recent
years rather than the 75 he be-
lieves the justices should be
handling. From the late 1950s
through the early 1990s, the
court often heard 150 or more
cases annually, but the number
has steadily declined since.
spur litigation to clarify their
boundaries.
It takes four votes on the
nine-member court to hear a
case, but the court doesn’t typ-
ically announce the tally in
public orders listing granted
and denied appeals. Kavanaugh
said he had begun to publicly
note when he wanted to take a
case but was outvoted.
“It’s no secret, given that I
think I’d like to grant more
cases than anyone else,” he
said. “These are not cases that
are going to get a lot of public
attention, but the kind of
nuts-and-bolts cases where
there is confusion in the
courts, confusion about a
prior decision of ours, confu-
sion about a statute that Con-
gress has passed. And I think
we should jump in and try to
clear up the confusion if we
can, but it takes four of us to
grant, and you go around the
table and, lo and behold, there
are three. And there it is.”
have said the court shouldn’t
be intervening in continuing
litigation so aggressively, Ka-
vanaugh said the Supreme
Court was justified in some-
times leapfrogging the tradi-
tional sequence of appellate
review.
“What happens not infre-
quently is a new law or regula-
tion is passed, is challenged on
constitutional or statutory
grounds. Ultimately, it’ll make
its way to us maybe two years
down the line, and that will be
a momentous decision,” Ka-
vanaugh said. But before that
happens, the court needs to de-
cide whether the measure will
be in effect during the interim.
Kavanaugh, who served as
staff secretary to President
George W. Bush, reveres the
presidency. “Being a judge is
hard. Being a Supreme Court
justice is hard, some days,” he
said. “Neither is anything
close to being president, in
terms of the stress, the diffi-
RICHARD B. LEVINE/ZUMA PRESS

There is no clear explana-
tion for the drop, but observ-
ers have suggested some fac-
tors, such as the relative
paucity of significant congres-
sional enactments like the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the
Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990, which typically
Kavanaugh acknowledged
that the court has been decid-
ing more consequential mat-
ters on an emergency basis
without oral argument, full
briefing or consideration by
lower courts—something often
called the court’s shadow
docket. While some critics
culty, the pressure day to day,
no matter who’s president. Ev-
ery decision that comes into
the Oval Office, it’s like, ‘Mr.
President, we’ve got two op-
tions. Got one that’s bad. And
the other is worse. The prob-
lem is, we don’t know which is DRESSED UP: ‘Bridgerton’ fans mingled with brand ambassadors this weekend in Manhattan.
which.’”

Experience a city full of flavors

and cultures. A city where you
can be yourself and belong to
something bigger.

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you’re one of us.

VisitHouston.com
A4 | Monday, May 13, 2024 P W L C 10 11 12 H T G K R F A M 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 O I X X THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

U.S. NEWS

Sordid Details
At Trial Open
Door to Appeal
BY JAMES FANELLI legal observers said his team
AND CORINNE RAMEY could argue on appeal that her
testimony was prejudicial be-
Stormy Daniels’s two days of cause it painted Trump in a
testimony in Donald Trump’s bad light on sexual matters
hush-money trial added graphic that had little to do with the
details and unexpected wrin- charges: that he falsified re-
kles to the proceedings—and cords to cover up a payment to
might have given the former Daniels.

JANE ROSENBERG/REUTERS
president new avenues for “In terms of charges, it
challenging any conviction. doesn’t matter what happened
The porn star didn’t hold in that hotel room,” said John
back in testifying about her al- Balestriere, a former Manhat-
leged sexual encounter in 2006 tan assistant district attorney.
with the former president, of- “The business records are what
ten prompted by questions matter.” During the trial, Stormy Daniels offered sexual details beyond what she was asked, prompting objections from Trump’s lawyers.
from prosecutors: “Did you John Coffee, a Columbia Law
touch his skin?” “Was he wear- School professor, said it made Hours into Daniels’s first on cross-examination, depict- vant to the charges, especially mately decides to testify in his
ing a condom?” “Do you recall sense that Daniels testified; day of testimony, Trump’s ing her as a money-hungry to rebut the defense’s argu- own defense. The presumptive
how it ended, the sex?” “Was it otherwise, prosecutors would lawyers demanded a mistrial, liar who thinks she can speak ment that the hush-money Republican presidential nomi-
brief?” have looked like they were hid- saying her comments had to the dead. payment wasn’t part of a nee previously said he would
Other times Daniels offered ing her from the jury. As a wit- wrongfully given the impres- In total, Manhattan prose- scheme to influence the elec- testify but has hedged his
sexual details beyond what she ness, though, she should have sion that the alleged sex cutors have charged Trump tion. It showed how impactful comments more recently. Now,
was asked, and Trump’s law- been limited to narrow, brief wasn’t consensual. Merchan with 34 felony counts of falsi- her story could have been if it Trump has a potential out: He
yers raised several objections questions, he said. denied the request. fying business records to hide had been publicized, Roiphe could decline and claim Dan-
that were sustained by the pre- “It doesn’t have any rele- “I agree that there were a $130,000 payment to Daniels said. iels turned the trial into an
siding judge, Justice Juan Mer- vance to this case whether some things that would proba- when his campaign was under Roiphe doubted the testi- unseemly spectacle.
chan. Trump denies the affair. Donald Trump wore a condom bly have been better left un- increased scrutiny over his mony would be grounds for a If Trump does testify, he’ll
He audibly cursed during the or not,” Coffee said. said,” Merchan said, adding treatment of women. Trump winning appeal, noting that have to face cross-examina-
testimony, according to Mer- Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger that Daniels was “a little diffi- has denied any wrongdoing the judge could still give ju- tion from prosecutors, who
chan, who asked Trump’s law- elicited several charged re- cult to control.” and accused Manhattan Dis- rors instructions to disregard are sure to ask him, under the
yers to quiet him down. sponses from Daniels, includ- After her second day of tes- trict Attorney Alvin Bragg, a some of what Daniels said. penalty of perjury, about Dan-
If jurors find the adult-film ing when she asked if Daniels timony, Trump’s lawyers re- Democrat, of prosecuting him “Baked into the system is that iels’s claims.
actress credible, her appear- had felt threatened by Trump. newed their mistrial bid, and for political reasons. some things are going to come An even bigger week in the
ance could boost the prosecu- “There was an imbalance of again the judge denied it. Rebecca Roiphe, a former out at trial that aren’t meant trial begins Monday, when
tion’s narrative that Trump power for sure,” Daniels said. “This is not a case about Manhattan assistant district to come out,” she said. perhaps the most crucial wit-
went to great lengths to buy “He was bigger and blocking sex,” Trump lawyer Todd attorney and New York Law The Daniels testimony ness in the case is expected to
her silence in the final days of the way. But, I mean, I was Blanche told the judge. School professor, said that could affect other strategic take the stand: former Trump
his 2016 presidential campaign. not threatened verbally or The defense sought to un- when taken in its entirety, calculations in the case, in- fixer Michael Cohen, who
But if Trump is convicted, some physically.” dermine Daniels’s credibility Daniels’s testimony was rele- cluding whether Trump ulti- made the payment to Daniels.

Young-Voter Ire Over TikTok Ban Poses Risk for Biden

Legislation targeting President Biden signed legislation aiming to ban or restrict dependent on younger voters.
TikTok, which is currently owned by a Chinese firm, In 2020, Biden won 61% of vot-
app is popular overall unless it is sold to an American company. ers under 30 and 55% between
and passed with wide 30 and 44, while Trump won
Do you support or oppose this policy? over-45 voters, according to
bipartisan support Support Don’t know Oppose the AP VoteCast survey of the
electorate. A recent Harvard
BY MOLLY BALL All Institute of Politics poll of
AND NATALIE ANDREWS Americans under 30 found Bi-
18–44 den holding a more than 20-
MICHAEL BROCHSTEIN/ZUMA PRESS

Rep. Jeff Jackson knows point lead over Trump—but

what it is like to feel the wrath 45–64 that less than half planned to
of TikTok. The North Carolina vote this year.
Democrat built a following of 65+ The potential power of moti-
millions on the video-sharing vated TikTok users was evident
app with his wonky, accessible 0% 25 50 75 100 when the app pushed a notifi-
explanations of legislation. But Note: Totals may not add up to 100 due to rounding.
cation to all users in March
when he took to the platform Source: Blueprint poll of 1,096 respondents conducted March 2, 2024, over web panels; urging them to call congressio-
to say he supported a bill that Rep. Jeff Jackson (D., N.C.) took heat for his stance on TikTok. margin of error: +/-5.0 pct. pts. nal offices to lobby against a
could lead to a ban of the app, ban. Senators’ and representa-
the blowback was so intense the platform, where as many as predicting the president will per PAC backing Trump joined ers, including young voters, see tives’ offices were flooded with
that he deleted the post and one-third of voters under 30 pay a price with young voters, TikTok on Wednesday, with the measure. An Ipsos poll con- calls that reportedly included
apologized. get their news. Though the leg- a group whose lagging enthusi- videos attacking Biden and ducted for Reuters in late April tearful minors and profanity-
“I did not handle this well islation is popular overall, asm is already a source of con- third-party candidate Robert F. found half of Americans sup- laced rants. Many lawmakers
from top to bottom,” the law- some Democrats fear—and Re- cern for the campaign. Biden Kennedy Jr. ported banning the app and found the onslaught alarming—
maker said in his March 16 fol- publicans hope—that the law “is responsible for banning Tik- There are reasons to doubt 32% opposed the idea, with op- further evidence that the Chi-
low-up post, acknowledging he could damage Biden because Tok,” former President Donald that the TikTok legislation will position rising to 50% of those nese-controlled software has
had been “completely roasted” the minority opposing it is pas- Trump wrote on Truth Social hurt Biden politically. The bill under 35. In a poll conducted in the power to influence public
for his stance. “I get it.” When sionate and overlaps with a shortly before the bill-signing. had broad bipartisan support, March by the Democratic strat- opinion in far-reaching ways.
a revised version of the TikTok critical part of his base. “Young people, and lots of oth- passing the House by a 360-58 egy group Blueprint, 56% of Proponents of the TikTok
bill came up for a vote on April Biden administration offi- ers, must remember this on margin and the Senate 79-18, voters supported “pushing to legislation have argued that it
20, Jackson was nowhere to be cials and some experts say the November 5th, ELECTION DAY, meaning both Republicans and ban or restrict TikTok, which is is needed to thwart the threat
found. (His office blamed a Chinese-controlled social-me- when they vote!” Democrats were responsible currently owned by a Chinese of Chinese disinformation. Feb-
schedule conflict for the missed dia app with 170 million U.S. As president, Trump signed for its passage. It won’t take firm, unless it is sold to an ruary’s annual report of the
vote and said Jackson, who de- users threatens national secu- an executive order to ban Tik- effect until after the election, American company,” including U.S. intelligence community
clined to be interviewed, still rity because it can gather data Tok in 2020, but it was blocked if at all: The app would only be 46% of those under 45. The warned that China could use
supported the measure.) on users and control the videos in court. He reversed his stance outlawed if the company’s Chi- proposal was opposed by 27% online campaigns to meddle in
Now that President Biden they see through its algorithm. during the current campaign nese owner, ByteDance, of all voters and 38% of youn- this year’s election by sowing
has signed the TikTok legisla- The social network has said it after meeting with billionaire doesn’t sell it by Jan. 19, 2025, ger voters. distrust and doubt. That fol-
tion—which eventually would isn’t a threat and would refuse Jeff Yass, a TikTok shareholder a deadline the president could News of the potential ban lowed a December intelligence
ban the app unless its U.S. op- any requests to share U.S. us- who has contributed nearly $50 extend by 90 days. ByteDance has nonetheless rippled assessment that Chinese-run
erations are sold—the question ers’ data with the Chinese gov- million to Republican-aligned has vowed not to sell its U.S. through the platform, where propaganda accounts on Tik-
is whether he or other politi- ernment. A TikTok spokes- political groups in the current operations and filed a federal the bulk of political posts tend Tok targeted candidates from
cians will face similar blowback woman declined to comment. election cycle. Unlike the Biden lawsuit aimed at stopping the to be skeptical of Biden and both parties during the 2022
in November. The move has led Biden’s expected opponent campaign, the Trump cam- legislation. Democrats, whose electoral co- midterms and are getting more
to an outpouring of anger on in November is among those paign isn’t on TikTok. But a su- Polling is mixed on how vot- alition is disproportionately sophisticated.

Senate Hopeful Funds $60 Million Primary Campaign Himself

BY KRISTINA PETERSON percentage points Friday in
the Real Clear Politics average
SILVER SPRING, Md.—Rep. of polls on the race.
David Trone has sunk nearly “We’re going to continue to
$62 million of his own money spend whatever it takes to
into his quest to become the win,” Trone told reporters. He
next Democratic senator rep- has spent more on ads in his
resenting Maryland. state race than President Bi-
It may not be enough. den’s campaign has nationwide.
Tuesday’s primary pits Alsobrooks counters that her
Trone—founder of Total Wine campaign is a grassroots effort.
& More and the biggest self- “We’ve had to earn the support
funder ever in a primary elec- of people—I couldn’t buy it,”
tion—against Prince George’s she said in an interview.
County Executive Angela Also- Both candidates are viewed
brooks, who is backed by the as mainstream liberal Demo-
state’s governor and much of crats, with similar positions on
its political establishment. The abortion rights, guns and im-
winner will face popular for- migration. Trone, 68 years old,
mer Gov. Larry Hogan. who is white, represents a
Tensions over money and competitive suburban and ru-
racial politics have hit a boil- ral House district northwest of
ing point, with Trone stum- Washington. The 53-year-old
bling into several controver- Alsobrooks, who is Black, runs
sies. Both candidates have one of the nation’s wealthiest
cast themselves as better majority-Black counties, com-
equipped to keep the seat for prising suburbs east of the city.
Democrats, who have a 51-49 She previously served as state’s
majority in the Senate. The attorney in Prince George’s
race has tightened, with Trone County and as a prosecutor.
holding a lead of roughly 6 The primary has turned
Top Senate candidates by campaign funds raised, 2023–24 quently says he hasn’t accepted training wheels.” The spot
contributions from political-ac- drew a letter of condemnation
$0 million 20 40 60 tion committees or lobbyists. from hundreds of Black female
David Trone (Md.)* “He does not owe any- elected officials, activists and
body—that is very important church leaders.
Adam Schiff (Calif.)
to me,” said Chris Ademiluyi, The ad was quickly re-
Sherrod Brown (Ohio) INCUMBENT a 73-year-old real-estate bro- placed with a version without
Katie Porter (Calif.) Lost Calif. primary ker from Laurel, Md., at a the “training wheels” com-
Women for Trone rally. ment. The Trone campaign
Jon Tester (Mont.)
Trone’s money has turned said it noticed an unrelated
Colin Allred (Texas) some voters off. error and “chose to make a
Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) “He’s buying a position,” number of additional edits.”
said Beverly Moore, 84 years Asked about the ad, Trone
Ted Cruz (Texas)
old, a retired virologist and redirected questions to Bur-
Bob Casey Jr. (Pa.) Howard County resident who roughs. Trone was also asked
Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) plans to support Alsobrooks. about an NBC interview in
Trone has stumbled at which he himself said, “this
*Trone lent his campaign an additional $7.7 million after his most recent FEC filing deadline. times. He used an antiquated job is not for someone on
Note: Principal campaign committees only. Limited to data from quarterly and pre-primary filings. racial slur during a congres- training wheels.” He re-
Source: Federal Election Commission sional hearing on tax policy, sponded: “We stand by the
when he said he meant to say fact that Burroughs made the
into a battle over Black voters, in the House. That has helped “bugaboo.” He apologized. comment,” and said that Also-
who make up about 46% of counteract his disadvantages, The latest controversy cen- brooks “doesn’t have the expe-
registered Democrats and 24% said Jacob Rubashkin, deputy tered on an ad from the Trone rience at the federal level.”
of all registered voters in the editor of Inside Elections, a campaign featuring five Black Burroughs said on Saturday
state, according to L2, a non- nonpartisan political newslet- Maryland elected officials, in- that the phrasing “has become
partisan vendor of voter data. ter—namely, his being “an cluding Prince George’s a distraction from the merits of
Many Trone ads feature uber-wealthy older white man County Councilmember Ed- what Marylanders care about.”
Black elected officials and from a swingier district.” ward Burroughs III, who said —John McCormick, Anthony
Black residents praising his Trone emphasizes that he in a dig at Alsobrooks that the DeBarros and Aaron Zitner
record as a businessman and wasn’t born wealthy and fre- U.S. Senate is “not a place for contributed to this article.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, May 13, 2024 | A5

U.S. NEWS

Evangelist Confronts Politics in Religion

Franklin Graham tion, hosted by Faithful Amer-
ica, highlights past comments
owns a Trump- made by Graham that he be-
endorsed Bible, lieves Trump when he claims
the 2020 election was stolen.
chides Biden policies Since Biden’s victory in
2020, Graham and other con-
BY VIVIAN SALAMA servative Christians say there
is a growing resentment
BOONE, N.C.—When former among America’s Christian
President Donald Trump an- majority: that the country has
about women, such as publicly
insulting political opponents
or their wives. Biden, on the
other hand, is a practicing
Catholic, attends Mass regu-
larly and is said by advisers to
be uncomfortable with the
abortion debate, as it tests his
deep spiritual beliefs. But for
Graham, Biden’s policies don’t
reflect Christian beliefs.

CHRIS CARLSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

nounced in March that he was forsaken them in favor of sec- “Political winds have turned
joining forces with country ular policies. against us,” he said from his
singer Lee Greenwood to sell Ironic, perhaps, is Trump’s North Carolina office in the
the new “God Bless the USA ability to inspire many of the mountains. “Politicians have
Bible”—a “patriotic” take of country’s deeply devout as a taken on moral issues, and
the holy text—the prominent former casino developer who they’re saying these are now
evangelist Franklin Graham rarely attends church, has political issues and not moral
wanted to see what it was all been divorced twice and has issues—and I say ‘Wrong! This
about. He had a staffer buy a made disparaging comments is our territory.’ ” Former President Donald Trump with Franklin Graham at a rally in 2020 in Hickory, N.C.
copy, which retails for $59.99.
Billed as the only Bible en-
dorsed by Trump, it included
copies of the Constitution and
other national documents, as
well as a handwritten chorus
of Greenwood’s “God Bless the
U.S.A.”
“He didn’t write it, God
wrote it,” Graham, an outspo-
ken supporter of the former
president, said in a recent inter-
view. He rejected the notion, ex-
pressed by some other Christian
leaders, that Trump was profit-
ing off Jesus. (The Bible’s web-
site says that its sellers use
Trump’s likeness “under a paid
license”—suggesting he gets a
cut of the profits.)

WE HAVE
Graham’s intrigue with the
Trump-backed Bible offers a
case-in-point to the presump-
tive GOP presidential nomi-
nee’s stronghold on evangeli-
cal Christians, many of them

  
white, ahead of the November
election. To many evangeli-
cals, Trump—despite his at
times checkered personal
life—continues to be their

AMERICA’S LAST
champion with his unapolo-
getic, politically incorrect ap-
proach to politics, religion and
world affairs. His embrace of
Christianity for political pro-

  
motion and vindication in the
face of legal turmoil has only
deepened the conviction of
Trump’s Christian base, ac-
cording to officials with his

    
campaign and some evangeli-
cal leaders.
Graham’s father, the late
Billy Graham, one of the most
prominent evangelists of the
20th century, once conceded
that he wished he had
“steered clear of politics” over
the years.
By contrast, Franklin Gra-
ham, who has largely suc-
ceeded his father’s mission as
an evangelist and humanitar-
ian, has been one of Trump’s
most vocal supporters and
President Biden’s most fervent
critics. Undergirding Trump’s
staying power with many
white evangelicals: his ability
to speak to aggrieved seg-
ments of this community.
Franklin Graham and other
spiritual leaders say it is in-
cumbent upon them to defend
against what they see as poli-
tics commandeering the do-
main of religion.
Graham recently lashed out
on social media with a warning
that Trump’s “enemies want to
do everything they can to de-
stroy him, to put him in jail or
to drag out this trial to prevent
him from campaigning,” a ref-
erence to the trial related to an
alleged 2016 hush-money pay-
ment to an adult-film actress.
He ended his post with a plea:
“I’m not telling you to vote for
him—I’m asking you to pray
for him.”
Graham said technology has
changed the way clergy com-
municates since his father’s
days. He said he doesn’t en-
dorse presidential candidates,
and yet he makes no secret of
whom he supports.
He said Trump stands for
some but not all of his moral
beliefs—but he still supports
him. But Joe Biden? “Does he
stand for any moral values of
mine?” Graham asked. “I
would have to do a lot of
study on that.”
“Joe Biden’s administration
has waged a years-long assault
on Christianity,” said Karoline
Leavitt, spokeswoman for
the Trump campaign. “Presi-
dent Trump will restore the
Christian conservative values
of faith, family and freedom.”
The Biden campaign declined a
request for comment.
Franklin Graham’s approach
isn’t embraced across the
board. More than 32,000 peo-
ple signed an online petition
calling for him to be fired
from the humanitarian and
missionary groups he heads—
Samaritan’s Purse and the
Billy Graham Evangelistic As-
 
sociation—for his support of
Trump following the Jan. 6,
2021, Capitol riot. The peti-
A6 | Monday, May 13, 2024
1960s Activists
See Parallels
With Today
They say Vietnam
protests inspired
the pro-Palestinian
demonstrations
Protesters on college cam-
puses in the 1960s and ’70s
are watching a familiar story
play out.
Back then, student demon-
strators denounced the Viet-
nam War and marched for
civil rights. They made a long
list of demands. Police ar-
rested them.
By Alyssa Lukpat,
Joseph Pisani
and Suryatapa
Bhattacharya
Today, pro-Palestinian pro-
testers have disrupted campus
life at universities across the
U.S. They are demanding col-
leges divest themselves of in-
vestments in companies doing
business with Israel. Thou-
sands have been arrested.
The Wall Street Journal
spoke to several people, now
in their 70s, who participated
in the antiwar protests more
than 50 years ago. Some said
they see themselves in today’s
protesters, while others drew
stark lines between their ac-
tions and what they described
as the violent language of
demonstrators today.
Both protest movements
were divisive among the
American public. Protesters
opposing the Vietnam War
clashed with those who felt it
was un-American to criticize
the war. Currently, students
are at odds over some of the
rhetoric coming from pro-Pal-
estinian protesters and how
some Jewish students feel un-
safe on campus amid rising
antisemitism.
Here is what several people
involved in the Vietnam War-
era protests said.
James S. Kunen
James S. Kunen, who was a
sophomore at Columbia Uni-
versity in 1968, said he was
proud to see protesters at the
school again.
“It gives you a little rush of
school spirit,” the 75-year-old
said.
He protested the Vietnam
War at Columbia because at
the time, full-time students
could be deferred from the
draft. He knew that meant
someone else was in his place.
“I found that to be an intol-
erable situation,” he said.
He and other students took
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over Hamilton Hall in 1968,
the same building on Colum-
bia’s campus that pro-Pales-
tinian protesters barricaded
themselves into last month.
Kunen wrote about his ex-
perience in the 1969 book
“The Strawberry Statement.”
Today, Kunen teaches Eng-
lish to immigrants. He sup-
ports the current protesters.
“When something intolera-
ble is happening like the
slaughter of innocent people
in Gaza, then it’s a good idea
to step up and try to do some-
thing about it,” he said.
Neal Hurwitz
Neal Hurwitz was a politi-
cal science teaching assistant
at Columbia in 1968. He said
he was the youngest member
of a faculty committee that
was acting as a mediator be-
tween the administration and
the student protesters.
Last month, when the police
entered Hamilton Hall again to
remove protesters, the 79-
year-old walked to Columbia’s
gates in support of Israel and
the U.S. and against Hamas. He
said he was opposed to how
protesters caused damage in
Hamilton Hall.
The sounds from inside
campus were familiar—the
banging of drums, the chant-
ing and yelling. But he said
the mood was remarkably dif-
ferent from what he had ob-
served decades ago.
“The hatred, and the anger
and the violence by words is
really very intense,” he said.
“There was a lot more intel-
lectual and thoughtful thought
in the ’60s. Now it’s all emo-
tional.”
Linda Frey
Linda Frey remembers po-
lice using tear gas on protest-
ers at the University of Wis-
consin-Madison in 1969.
“We were just marching on
campus,” said Frey, adding
that some protesters threw
rocks at windows, but many,
like herself, were peaceful. “It
was like a blanket response,”
she said of the police.
Frey, now 75 and a retired
psychiatrist in Chevy Chase,
Md., sees differences between
protesters today and before.
Many of them “don’t have
direct skin in the game,” said
Frey. Those protesting the
Vietnam War, she said, were
trying to keep their friends
and family from being drafted.
Even so, she says, “there
are issues of moral outrage in
both situations.”
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
U.S. NEWS
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: HOWARD RUFFNER/GETTY IMAGES; RAMI DAUD/ KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
Ohio National Guardsmen, top, killed four students and injured nine others at Kent State University in 1970. One of those
injured was Dean Kahler, right, who was shot in the back. Left, James S. Kunen stood with a megaphone at Columbia in 1968.
Frey said she has been dis- with other antiwar protesters alumni group that he had frightening parallel to what we
turbed by protesters using the at Sacramento’s State Capitol never been to a protest so he experienced in 1970,” said Can-
word intifada, an Arabic word in 1971 and 1972. decided to see what the one at fora, who witnessed the Kent
meaning “uprising” that Jew- Now 74, he said he is grate- Kent State was all about. Then State shootings that year as a
ish leaders say is an incite- ful the current protests ha- the shooting began and a bul- student antiwar protester. Her
ment to violence against Is- ven’t turned deadly, like they let tore through his spine, brother Alan, who also pro-
raelis and Jewish people. did in the shootings at Kent leaving him in a wheelchair tested, was shot in the wrist.
“I don’t even think the kids State University in 1970. for the rest of his life. “I couldn’t go anywhere
fully understand some of the He does see a difference be- Kahler, now 74, said the without hearing people talk
things that they’re spewing,” tween the protesters now and shooting inspired him to get about the war,” she said. “It
she said. then—that some protesters involved in politics. The gov- was our generation being sent
are calling for intifada. ernor who called in the off to sacrifice their lives in
“When we were protesting troops, Jim Rhodes, and even what the architects were
Steve Lewis in the ’60s, it was calling to Nixon, the president at the calling an unwinnable war.”
Steve Lewis didn’t protest save the lives of Vietnamese time, were Republicans. Canfora, a professional
in 1968. He thought the best people and save the lives of “They were responsible for harpist, is a journalism profes-
chance to end the Vietnam American soldiers,” said Lewis, my getting shot, so I worked sor at Kent State and lives
War was to help elect Robert who lives in Sacramento, Calif. for the Democratic Party,” said nearby. Many of her fellow
F. Kennedy as president. He “Not to kill people.” Kahler, who lives in Plain protesters vowed never to re-
went door to door canvassing Township, Ohio. From 1985 to turn to the school, but she
voters and talked up the anti- 1993, he was also a county com- said she felt an obligation to
war candidate on campus. Dean Kahler missioner in Athens County. be there and continue talking
“I viewed political activism Dean Kahler turned 20 “I have to get out the mes- about what happened.
as more productive than any- shortly before the shootings at sage that you have to be in- She says she advises stu-
thing else I could do,” said Kent State changed his life. volved in democracy,” he said. dent activists to be peaceful
Lewis, who was a student at He didn’t want to discuss and to be on guard for provo-
the University of California, what happened on May 4, cateurs who may infiltrate
Santa Barbara. 1970. He has recounted the Chic Canfora their ranks.
Kennedy was assassinated story many times. The Ohio Chic Canfora, 73, said it “I’m inspired by these
in June 1968, and Richard National Guard, called in by alarms her when politicians, young people and I hope they
Nixon won the presidency the governor, began shooting including Republican House don’t give up seeking peace in
later that year. The war went protesters on campus that Speaker Mike Johnson, say the Middle East,” she said.
on. So Lewis, then at law day, killing four students and they want the National Guard “Our students are being what
school at the University of injuring nine. to handle college protesters. we were 54 years ago: the
California, Davis, marched Kahler told the university’s “That is a striking and conscience of America.”
Man With Kidney Transplant From Pig Dies
BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS
The man who received a
MICHELLE ROSE/MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
genetically modified pig kid-
ney nearly two months ago in
an unprecedented transplant
at Massachusetts General Hos-
pital in Boston has died.
MICHELLE ROSE/MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
The hospital said there was
no indication the death of the
patient, Richard Slayman, 62
years old, was a result from
his recent transplant.
The hospital said it was
“deeply saddened at the sud-
den passing” of Slayman,
whose surgery was seen as a
milestone in the effort to help
people waiting for organs.
Slayman had said one of
the reasons he agreed to the Richard Slayman had said one of the reasons he agreed to the March procedure at the
procedure was to provide Massachusetts General Hospital, right, was to provide hope for others who need transplants.
hope for the thousands of
others who need transplants would survive at least two While Slayman waited for Center. He died two months
to survive, according to his years after the transplant. another transplant, which can later.
family. Slayman, who worked at take years because of a severe The FDA has raised con-
“Rick accomplished that the Transportation Depart- national organ shortage, doc- cerns that pig viruses might
goal, and his hope and opti- ment in Massachusetts, had tors raised the prospect of be transmitted not only to the
mism will endure forever,” the suffered from diabetes and hy- trying a gene-edited pig kid- patient but also to their
family said. “We felt—and still pertension for years, accord- ney instead. The Food and friends and family members
feel—comforted by the opti- ing to information the hospital Drug Administration gave spe- as well as to the transplant
mism he provided patients released at the time of his cial permission for the surgery team. Individual patient cases
desperately waiting for a surgery. to move forward. can’t replace the rigors of a
transplant.” Roughly six years before Surgeons had transplanted formal clinical trial, according
The pig kidney was geneti- his groundbreaking transplant pig kidneys into brain-dead to the FDA.
cally edited by eGenesis, a surgery in March, he had re- people before, but Slayman’s Doctors at Mass General
company based in Cambridge, ceived a human kidney trans- surgery was the first success- and other institutions are
Mass., to add human genes to
try to reduce the likelihood
plant from a deceased donor.
The organ operated well for
ful transplant of a gene-ed-
ited pig kidney into a living
hopeful that interspecies
transplantation, or xenotrans-
that the patient would reject several years but eventually person. plantation, could help patients
the transplant. The company failed. Slayman had to return In January 2022, surgeons like Slayman who can’t wait
also removed pig genes that to dialysis, a three-hour blood- transplanted a genetically- for a human organ. More than
can be harmful to people. Doc- filtering procedure that he modified pig heart into a criti- 6,000 people in need of trans-
tors said at the time they needed to undergo three times cally ill patient at the Univer- plants die annually while on
were hopeful that Slayman a week. sity of Maryland Medical wait lists.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. NY Monday, May 13, 2024 | A6A

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This is where 60 million storytellers go to have a voice.
And billions of people get to dive deep in everything they love,
in all the ways they want to watch it.

* Source: Nielsen Streaming Platform Ratings, US, Mar 2023 – Mar 2024.
A6B | Monday, May 13, 2024 NY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, May 13, 2024 | A7

U.S. NEWS

Brands U.S. advertising revenue*

$80 billion
Ad-supported versions of
select services as a share of
respective U.S. subscriber base†
mated that commercials take
up about four minutes per
hour on some premium
grab all the ad dollars that left
traditional TV.
Fast-food giant Taco Bell

Move From 60
Estimates
Netflix
10%
streaming platforms, com-
pared with about 14 minutes
for some TV networks.
has been shifting more of its
TV-ad dollars toward social-
media advertising, predomi-

TV Ads
Continued from Page One
Vinny Rinaldi, Hershey’s U.S.
head of media and analytics,
referring to the role that tele-
vision once played in advertis-
ing. The chocolate giant said
the share of advertising dol-
lars it spends on TV fell to
about 30% from roughly 80%
in five years.
Brands have been preparing
for the inevitable decline of
television for years, but many
had held out hope that the
rise of ad-supported stream-
ing TV would plug the gap. So
far, that isn’t happening.
“A lot of people think
streaming might be a salva-
tion,” said ad analyst Brian
Wieser. “But no, all of TV is in
secular decline.” Excluding po-
litical advertising, marketers
are expected to spend more
than $60 billion combined on
traditional and digital televi-
sion in the U.S. this year,
down from more than $64 bil-
lion five years earlier, accord-
ing to Madison and Wall, Wi-
eser’s firm.
Despite the sharp drop in
TV ad spending, Mondelez and
Hershey remain far-bigger be-
lievers in TV advertising than
the industry as a whole. The
share of their ad budgets that
the candy makers will spend
on TV and streaming this year
trumps the 17% that all mar-
keters are expected to spend
in the U.S. this year, according
to GroupM data.
Today, companies “have to
build reach across multiple
platforms,” said Rinaldi, who
cited YouTube and Meta—the
parent of Facebook and Insta-
gram—as the next best ways
to reach large audiences.
The scale of television’s
reach remains a major selling
point for entertainment titans
as they present their program-
ming plans for the coming TV
season to advertisers—a pro-
cess known as the “upfronts,”
Digital TV Max “No matter how much nantly TikTok, because users
25 streaming grows, it can never on the platform engage with
Disney+ make up for the lost linear ad ads and content online.
33 inventory so long as ad loads The one-way communica-
40
remain light and consumers tion of TV, where brands talk
Paramount+
Traditional TV exhibit preferences for ad-free to consumers about some-
50
options,” Wieser said. thing, doesn’t work as well
Hulu In the U.S., only 7.5 million anymore, said Taco Bell Chief
20
60 Netflix subscribers—or 10% of Marketing Officer Taylor
Peacock its U.S. customer base—paid Montgomery.
80 for the ad-supported version of Taco Bell wants its ads to
the platform in the first quar- generate a two-way dialogue,
0 Prime Video
ter, according to a joint analy- with consumers going to so-
90
2016 ’20 ’25 sis by Antenna and Wieser. cial media to post and com-
The streaming platform ment on videos about prod-
Most-viewed TV programs in the U.S., 2023‡ with the biggest advertising ucts they like or join in on the
NFL College football Men’s college basketball Nonsports reach currently is Amazon’s discussion.
No. 1 25 50 75 100 Prime Video, which recently Mondelez’s Halvorson said
defaulted its entire user base the company will spend
to the ad-supported version. roughly 20% of its U.S. ad bud-
Many brands have also get this year on “retail media,”
been turned off by the high ad a category that includes the ad
prices that many of the pre- platforms of retailers. Their
Super Macy’s Thanksgiving The Ohio State National championship mium streaming services growing popularity is fueled
Bowl Day Parade Oscars vs. Michigan games charge. by the troves of data that re-
Streaming ads often are tailers have about their cus-
*Exclude political advertising. Digital TV includes free and subscription streaming services as well as TV programming viewed on nontraditional
platforms like YouTube. †As of 1Q 2024; numbers are estimates. ‡Excludes repeats, programs lasting less than 25 minutes or airing without
three times as expensive and tomers’ shopping habits and
commercials, and live events requiring extended runtimes. up to twice as expensive as their ability to easily measure
Sources: Madison and Wall (U.S. ad revenue); Antenna, Madison and Wall (ad-supported services); Nielsen (most-viewed programs) ads running during entertain- when an ad has led to a sale.
ment programming on cable Ad spending in the U.S. re-
which begins in earnest on conglomerates are preparing such as Paramount+, Peacock, and broadcast TV, respec- tail media sector is expected
Monday in New York. to launch a joint streaming Netflix and Hulu have picked tively, according to ad buyers to overtake traditional TV ad
Network owners will host platform dedicated nearly en- up some of these TV-ad dol- and advertisers. The stream- spending next year, according
star-studded presentations tirely to sports. lars, Molson Coors shifted a ing prices are declining amid to GroupM.
that tout their new TV shows “It is now clear that out- larger portion of that money growing competition between Microsoft significantly
and streaming offerings, while side of sports advertising, to digital channels such as In- ad-supported services, they pulled back from traditional
Billie Eilish is expected to star there should no longer be ex- stagram and Snap, Feinberg said. TV advertising last year,
in YouTube’s pitch to brands. pectations of a recovery for said. Complicating matters fur- partly because the tech giant
Netflix will let advertisers linear TV advertising,” analyst The streaming landscape ther for marketers: Some was seeking to save money to
participate in an interactive Michael Nathanson wrote in a remains “too fragmented,” streaming platforms measure fund its expansion into gener-
experience at New York’s recent note to investors. Feinberg said. Another prob- viewership and ad perfor- ative artificial intelligence and
Chelsea Piers, and upfront Brewer Molson Coors said lem: Streaming mance differ- decided to lean more heavily
newcomer Amazon will enter- it went from spending about a u d i e n c e s ently. What’s on digital ads that offer better
tain brands at Pier 36. half of its TV advertising won’t tolerate more, advertis- ad measurement, according to
One of the few things that money on sports program- as many ads as One thing that ers often can’t people familiar with the mat-
still brings large numbers of ming five years ago to roughly they do on tra- still brings large find out where ter. Microsoft declined to
viewers in front of their TV is 80% this year, even if these ditional televi- their commer- comment.
live sports, which accounted ads are more expensive. sion. numbers of cials ran, a Halvorson said the decline
for 96 of the 100 most- “Sports seems to be holding Seemingly risky proposi- in TV ad spending would hap-
watched broadcasts last year, its own, and audience ratings every
viewers to their
major tion for brands pen even faster if longtime ad-
according to Nielsen. in some cases are going up,” streaming ser- TV is live sports. that typically vertisers weren’t getting sig-
That, in turn, has made ad- said Brad Feinberg, Molson’s vice launched want to stay nificant discounts for their TV
vertising during live sporting North America vice president an ads-sup- away from con- ads, the result of grandfa-
events more expensive. And a of media and consumer en- ported tier over tent they deem thered agreements reached
larger amount of sports con- gagement. the past year and a half, vastly unsuitable. decades ago that give them an
tent is being watched on The brewer said it spent expanding the inventory of Digital players including incentive to keep buying TV
streaming platforms instead about 40% of its U.S. ad bud- commercials that can run on YouTube, Meta and TikTok commercials.
of TV every year, as tech gi- get on traditional TV in 2023, these platforms. But many of and retail juggernauts such as If Mondelez was forced to
ants such as Amazon and Ap- compared with 50% five years them have promised to limit Amazon and Walmart have buy ad time in the U.S. at cur-
ple nab exclusive rights to ago and about 85% in 2013. Al- the commercial interruptions emerged as the main benefi- rent pricing levels, Halvorson
more games. Traditional TV though streaming services on their services. Wieser esti- ciaries of streamers’ failure to said: “We’d be out.”

2U Gets an 2U course enrollments

70 thousand
2U’s market capitalization,
past 10 years
$6 billion
closed in November 2021, bor-
rowing was getting more ex-
pensive.
tration. The master’s in public
health and M.B.A. programs
want to break ties, too.
the company is in danger of
being delisted from the Nas-
daq.

Expensive 60 5
While noting “the strategic
rationale for edX is well in-
tact,” Paucek said, “in hind- Reassurance tour
Paul Lalljie, who took over
the top spot after serving as
chief financial officer since

Education 50

40
Degree
4
sight the decision to use debt
was a mistake.”
The company refinanced
The audit said 2U’s mar-
keting plans were vague, en-
rollment projections were
2019, remains optimistic in
what he called the company’s
“shrink-to-grow strategy.”
3 some loans in early 2023, overly optimistic and the 2U leaders have been meet-
Continued from Page One 30 pushing back a crucial due quality of its course produc- ing with university presi-
for elite schools, which would 2 date by two years, but failed tion was on the decline. Ac- dents, trying to assuage fears
handle their own admissions 20 in another effort to ease the cording to the audit, UNC has about an imminent demise.
decisions and provide faculty. Alternative 1 burden last fall. “no intention of signing any “We’re all waiting with
10
The company would generally credential Meanwhile, the company’s new degree programs for ser- bated breath,” said the presi-
lock in long contracts and get 0
oldest client was becoming a vices from 2U.” dent of one of 2U’s partner
0
60% of tuition revenue. drag on its reputation. The company announced in schools. If the company can’t
USC jumped aboard with 2016 ’20 ’24 2015 ’20 ’24 November that Paucek was invest in marketing the pro-
graduate degrees in education Note: Figures represent full-course-equivalent enrollments. leaving, as revenue continued grams, the president said,
in 2009 and social work in Sources: the company (course enrollments); FactSet (market capitalization) A new era to flag. By the end of last year, “that could lead to a slow
2010. Georgetown and the USC’s master’s degree in enrollments in the degree pro- death for everyone.”
University of North Carolina The company tried shop- social work was a lightning grams were down 30% from —Lisa Bannon
at Chapel Hill followed with ping itself to private-equity rod, leaving students with their 2022 peak. And the share and Laura Cooper
nursing and business. firms in 2019 and 2020, but six-figure loans and low-pay- price has slumped so low that contributed to this article.
“We were like a steam- prospective buyers balked af- ing jobs for what many said
roller,” said one former exec- ter seeing how much the com- was a subpar product. A 2021
utive. “It was very, very diffi- pany was spending to lock in Wall Street Journal investiga-
cult to slow us down.” new students, according to a tion into the program led to
2U went public in 2014 and person involved in the pro- inquiries by lawmakers and
quickly expanded its roster of cess. heightened scrutiny of the
JOURNALISTS DON’T
partner schools. 2U began losing out on con- revenue-sharing model on ‘JUST WRITE STORIES.’
tracts to other companies such which 2U relied.
as Katzman-founded Noodle Executives say the com-
Hard sell and Risepoint, previously pany regularly pressed THEY RECORD HISTORY.
But the company struggled known as Academic Partner- schools to moderate their tu-
to replicate its early wins. On- ships, which offered arrange- ition increases and highlight
MELISSA GOLDEN/REDUX

line tuition, which schools ments that allowed schools to lower-priced offerings like a
set, generally matched the buy just recruiting support or $10,000 master’s in artificial
cost of the on-campus ver- course-development technol- intelligence at the University
sions of the same courses. As ogy, rather than the soup-to- of Texas at Austin.
those prices rose, the pro- nuts packages 2U offered. Last November, 2U and
grams became a tougher sell. In 2022, 2U started offer- USC said they would unwind
With students’ shifting finan- 2U co-founder and former ing more-flexible contracts. nearly all their partnerships.
cial calculus, as well as CEO Christopher ‘Chip’ Paucek But by that point, some crit- USC paid 2U $40 million,
changes to the world of on- ics say, it was too late. And which a person familiar with
line advertising and increased in 2012 after teaming up with other competition was emerg- the arrangement said covers
competition, marketing Princeton Review’s John ing from schools themselves, the tuition revenue the com-
costs—which 2U generally Katzman to launch it in 2008. with newfound confidence af- pany would have received for
covered—started to soar. The company touted guid- ter shifting courses online students it had already re-
That pressure to lock in ing principles such as “Have during the pandemic. cruited.
students drove admissions fun” and “Give a damn.” At Through acquisitions in 2U earned $26 million from
representatives to be aggres- the Maryland headquarters, 2017 and 2019, 2U expanded another divorce last fall, but
sive, peppering prospects with the lyrics of Journey’s “Don’t into executive education and it declined to identify the
calls and emails. Some former Stop Believin’ ”—one of tech boot school. In re-
students have even sued, say- Paucek’s favorite songs— camps. cent years, it
ing 2U and its partner schools wrapped the walls of a stair- In June has quietly un-
misrepresented the programs case. 2020, 2U set its The share price wound other
or played down the potential sights on ac- has slumped so relationships,
cost of enrolling. quiring edX, including with
2U’s former chief executive Happening in Vegas the nonprofit low that 2U is in Tufts, Ameri-
officer, Christopher “Chip” And each year, nearly all provider of can and Baylor
Paucek, said 2U was wrongly full-time staff were shuttled massive, open
danger of being universities. 2U
accused of being predatory, to a three-day gathering in online courses delisted. declined to
maligned just because it was spots including Las Vegas and backed by Har- comment, cit-
a for-profit company. Long Beach, Calif. They heard vard University ing mutual
Meanwhile, the company from students, buzzy execu- and the Massa- confidentiality
hasn’t posted an annual profit tives, even Michelle Obama. chusetts Institute of Technol- obligations in its university
since its initial public offering. “On one hand, it was ex- ogy. With edX, 2U could reach agreements.
Paucek is known as a cessive,” said one longtime a global audience and lower Longtime partner UNC has
Learn more about the impact your
smooth salesman, with a few senior employee. “On the advertising costs by promot- also soured on the company,
journalism career can have on the world.
days of stubble, a casual-yet- other hand, people loved ing all of its offerings on a according to a confidential Wall Street Journal reporter Erin Ailworth
polished wardrobe of blazers working at the company.” single platform. March internal audit viewed and others share career advice at
and jeans and seemingly By 2019, the average en- 2U secured $475 million in by the Journal. UNC ended dowjonesnewsfund.org/careers.
boundless energy. rollment in its biggest pro- short-term financing to buy the contract for its account-
Culture was king for grams had fallen below 2017 edX, but by the time the ing program, and plans to ter-
Paucek, who became 2U’s CEO levels. $800 million transaction minate one in public adminis-
A8 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

WORLD NEWS
Israeli Television Depicts a Different War
Gaza coverage leaves sible to many until the hos-
tages come home, according to
out most images of Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli
death, destruction, as public-opinion expert.

TANYA HABJOUQA/NOOR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)

“So in a way, everything is
perception gap grows hostage to the hostages,” she
said.
BY DAVID LUHNOW Mohammad Magadli, an
AND ANAT PELED Arab-Israeli journalist, is one
of the only Arab journalists re-
TEL AVIV—Every evening porting on mainstream Hebrew
on TV news, Israelis get the language news channels. He
latest on the Gaza war—cease- lives the split screen daily run-
fire and hostage talks, Israeli ning back and forth from the
military casualties, battlefield Arabic language radio station
analysis and coverage of the Nas in Nazareth to the studios
Oct. 7 attacks by Islamist mili- of Channel 12 near Jerusalem.
tant group Hamas that Since Oct. 7, he says he has
sparked the conflict. On Israeli TV, there is almost no footage showing Palestinian faced a public backlash to his
One thing that is almost al- casualties in Gaza, and little of the widespread destruction. media appearances on Israeli
ways missing: the people of television. One Likud party
Gaza. who usually consume news in Kan 11 as well as channels 12, 9-year-old girl playing foosball seen online videos of the at- member said on X that Magadli
Israel is watching one war Hebrew, also say they rarely 13, and 14—declined to com- with her friends on a crowded tacks were 10 times as likely to isn’t loyal and should be fired
unfold in Gaza, while much of come across explicit footage of ment or didn’t respond to a re- street. A group of men placed believe Hamas had committed after he spoke on air about the
the rest of the world is seeing Gaza on their smartphones, quest. Channel 12 provided The the body of another girl, aged atrocities as those who hadn’t lack of humanitarian aid in
a different one, with footage of though they are aware there Wall Street Journal with sev- 10 and clad in pink pants, into seen videos, Shikaki said. Gaza. After he said on air that
the destruction caused by Is- has been widespread destruc- eral examples of recent news- a body bag, as relatives wailed “And that tells you the im- he had spoken to a family
raeli airstrikes in the densely tion and a high death toll. casts that included scenes of in grief. portance of sources of infor- member in Gaza to discuss food
populated enclave and some- Nearly two-thirds of Israeli bombed out buildings and ru- The divide in perspective is mation,” he said. “If you do prices, hundreds of posts on so-
times gruesome images of Pal- Jews said they had seen a few ins in Gaza and civilians talking most stark between Israel and not watch, you don’t believe.” cial media called for firing him
estinians killed in the fighting. or no images of the damage, about their plight, including the neighboring Arab world. Israel’s government on May for having ties to the enemy.
That split screen helps ex- according to an April survey by the lack of food. There were no The region’s leading broad- 5 shut the local offices of Al Magadli says he is just trying
plain the widening gulf be- the Israel Democracy Institute, images of dead civilians. caster, Qatar-headquartered Al Jazeera under a new law that to do his job. “The basic things
tween an Israel that feels iso- a nonpartisan research center. One recent night in Israel, Jazeera, offers nearly nonstop gives Israel the power to ban that we need to do is to deliver
lated and misunderstood and Just over a third said they had an anchor on Kan 11, Israel’s coverage of the Gaza cam- foreign news organizations to our people what’s going on,
outsiders who have shifted seen a lot, either through Is- public broadcaster, inter- paign, often with explicit im- deemed to be a threat to na- you know?” he said. “And the
their attention from the horrors raeli media or social media. viewed Stav Sela, whose 32- ages of destruction and civilian tional security. Israel seized Al Israeli people really don’t know
of Oct. 7 to the damage in- “You see everything about year-old brother Ram was deaths. It has shown very little Jazeera’s equipment and what is going on in Gaza.”
flicted by Israel’s campaign to the war on Israeli television killed along with hundreds footage from the initial attacks blocked its broadcasts and Yonit Levi, an anchor also at
destroy Hamas. That gap could except for the people of Gaza,” more at the Nova music festi- on Oct. 7 that sparked the war website. Al Jazeera and Israeli Channel 12 and co-host of the
grow in coming weeks if Israel’s said Shuki Tausig, editor of val by Hamas militants during and has regularly featured ana- rights groups criticized the Unholy podcast, said Western
military expands its effort to the Seventh Eye, an Israeli the Oct. 7 attacks. Stav de- lysts who cast doubt on Israeli move as undemocratic. countries struggle to under-
destroy the remaining Hamas publication that focuses on scribed Ram as “a meter accounts of the atrocities. Many Israelis feel the rest stand the scale of what Israel
battalions in the crowded the country’s media. “Right ninety-five of curls” who A March survey found that of the world is largely ignor- suffered on Oct. 7. She said tele-
southern Gaza city of Rafah. now, Israeli media can’t cope loved music. She and her mu- more than 80% of Palestinians ing the plight of the hostages, vision executives had debated
On Israeli television, there with a complex reality. They sician friend, Ligal, sang a don’t believe Hamas commit- the brutality of the Oct. 7 at- how much of the Oct. 7 atroci-
is virtually no footage of dead know that their viewers don’t song written in his memory. ted any atrocities on Oct. 7 de- tack, and the tens of thou- ties to show and whether they
Palestinians and only some really want to see images of Several time zones away in spite widespread evidence, sands of evacuees from the should show more of Gaza.
scenes of the destruction, me- their enemy dying, so they the U.S., CNN viewers watched said Khalil Shikaki, director of north and south of the coun- “We are trying the best we
dia executives, journalists, just don’t show it.” a dispatch from Gaza about an the West Bank-based Palestin- try. Discussions of a long-term can,” she said. “Know that we
media analysts and ordinary Spokespeople for Israel’s alleged Israeli airstrike that ian Center for Policy and Sur- cease-fire or the reconstruc- are having these conversa-
Israelis say. Many Israeli Jews, leading television channels— killed 10 children, including a vey Research. Those that had tion of Gaza are incomprehen- tions every day.”

Israel Seeks Hamas Video Shifts

Decisive A Mother’s Concern
Victory
BY ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
MENAHEM KAHANA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Continued from Page One

Hamas as long as it remains a Rachel Goldberg-Polin has
potent insurgency that can spent more than seven
pop up anywhere. months counting the days
“The battle for Rafah since her son, Hersh Goldberg-
should be the last battle of Polin, was kidnapped by
this war,” said Uzi Dayan, a Hamas and taken to Gaza on
former head of Israel’s Na- Oct. 7. It wasn’t until Day 201
MAYA ALLERUZZO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

tional Security Council. But that she and her family had
“this doesn’t mean that this is proof of life. That was when
the end of this war.” Hamas released a hostage
The sheer number of civil- video of her son.
ians in Rafah has constrained Rachel watched it with her
Israel, said retired Israeli Brig. husband, Jon Polin, sitting on
Gen. Shlomo Brom. He said Is- A line of Israeli military vehicles moved along the border with Gaza on Sunday. their living-room couch in Je-
rael may have lost much of its rusalem. Holding her hand
ability to use Rafah as a possess an arsenal of rockets. Israeli ground operations
rations over her heart, she listened to
squeeze on Hamas by delaying “The idea that we will halt Erez her son’s voice without really Rachel Goldberg-Polin
the operation until the city the war before achieving all of Reported areas of fighting
fightin
hting Beitt LLah
Lahia
hia crossing hearing his words.
absorbed so many internally our goals is out of the ques- Ja iaa
Jabalia Hersh, 23 years old, looks never signed up for,” she says.
displaced Palestinians. tion. We will enter Rafah and Zeitoun
Zeitou
un Beit
B eit Ha
H
Hanoun
anooun
uunn pale and agitated in the video. She was working at home
Analysts said an operation we will eliminate the Hamas He appears to have bruises on alone on the afternoon of
in Rafah is critical to shutting battalions there,” Netanyahu Mediterranean Gaza City his forehead and gestures April 24, when Jon called to
Sea
down Hamas’s smuggling of said April 30, ahead of the with the stump of his left arm, tell her U.S. and Israeli intelli-
weapons into Gaza via Egypt, current operation. which was blown off in the at- gence had just informed him
GAZA G t 96
Gate
but that wouldn’t deal Hamas Israel is counting on mili- STRIP tack at the Tribe of Nova mu- that Hamas planned to release
entry point
a knockout punch. tary action in Rafah to also sic festival. a video of their son within the
“It wouldn’t be an end to pressure Hamas into a deal “The second I saw him, my hour. As Jon rushed home, Ra-
the war. An end to the war that trades a temporary cease- heart broke,” she says. “He’s chel called their two daugh-
Al Ma’ani ISRAEL
can be achieved only through fire for the release of some recognizable to me because he ters, Leebie, 20, and Orly, 18,
a political decision by the two 130 hostages remaining in is my child, but I’ve never who were visiting friends.
sides to agree on a cease-fire,” Gaza from the 240 the group seen him look like that.” “There’s a video coming
Brom said. abducted in its Oct. 7 attack, LEB. Since then, Rachel and her out,” she told them. “I don’t
Israel issued new evacua- which killed 1,200 Israelis, family have gone from desper- want you watching it until you
tion orders around Rafah on most of them civilians, accord- Detail ately hoping for word that are home with me.”
Saturday as its forces pushed ing to Israeli authorities. WEST Hersh survived Oct. 7 to des- “I was frantic,” she says. “I
closer to the city’s center, On Saturday, Hamas said a Rafah
R afah
af h BANK
perately hoping that he will didn’t know what kind of
2 miles
m cro
oss
os
ossing
crossing
though the military said the 51-year-old British-Israeli hos- ISR . survive until Israel and Hamas video it was going to be.”
2 km
m
operation remains limited. Its tage died in captivity, allegedly Kerem Shalom can reach an agreement on a The family had last seen
troops moved in last week fol- from wounds from an Israeli crossing cease-fire deal that would Hersh in another video. It
lowing rocket attacks by airstrike in an unspecified part Note: Ground operations and advances as of May 11, 2 p.m. ET bring him and the other shows him pulling himself up
Hamas, securing key crossings of the strip. The Israeli mili- Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project (operations, advances) roughly 130 hostages home. onto a truck at gunpoint the
and corridors and striking tary declined to comment. Many are thought to be dead. morning of the attack as peo-
more than 100 targets. Israel Achieving a lasting end to northern Gaza is its third in toll in Gaza surpassed 35,000 Since her son was abducted, ple shout in Arabic. The side
has told Egyptian officials that the war will require a new the Gaza City neighborhood of on Sunday, local health au- Rachel, 54, has spoken twice at of his shorts is covered in
the Rafah action will take government in Gaza to suc- Zeitoun, according to the Insti- thorities say, in figures that the United Nations, met with blood and his left arm is
about two months, Egyptian ceed Hamas, which took con- tute for the Study of War. The don’t distinguish between ci- dozens of world leaders and blown off at the elbow.
officials said. trol of the strip of 2.2 million institute tracked several mili- vilians and combatants. executives, given countless in- In the latest video, Hersh
Hamas’s military wing has Palestinians in 2007. Hamas tant attacks against Israeli President Biden is threaten- terviews and had an audience identifies himself by name,
taken credit for several recent will continue to fill the power forces, which it said suggested ing to hold up additional with the pope. For many peo- date of birth and parents’
rocket barrages toward mili- vacuum until Israel brings in that militants were able to pre- weapon sales to Israel if it ple around the world, she is names. He then issues a state-
tary positions near Israel’s an alternative authority, Sec- serve or reconstitute forces. continues to defy American the face of the hostage crisis. ment, criticizing Israeli Prime
Kerem Shalom, also home to a retary of State Antony Blinken “You leave and two minutes concerns and push into Rafah, “I’m just a mom and just a Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
key terminal for humanitarian said Sunday. later, Hamas is back,” said Mi- which had been Gaza’s last person who doesn’t want any- and his government.
aid. On Saturday evening, a Israel may enter Rafah “and chael Milshtein, a former head refuge for civilians and hu- body else getting further hurt Near the end, Hersh speaks
separate rocket barrage in- have some initial success, but of Palestinian affairs for Is- manitarian aid. and affected,” she says. “I can directly to his family. “I love
jured a woman in the Israeli potentially at an incredibly raeli military intelligence. “It’s As clashes in the Rafah just speak on wanting calm you a lot,” he says. “I need you
city of Beersheba, local medi- high cost to civilians, but one impossible to build an alterna- area expanded, many Palestin- and an end to the suffering to to stay strong for me and to not
cal authorities said. that is not durable, one that is tive and create a new situation ians fled to designated evacu- this entire region, to the inno- stop fighting until I and each
The rockets underscored not sustainable,” Blinken said in Gaza, and at the same time ation zones in Al-Mawasi and cent civilians who are living in and every one of the hostages
why Israeli leaders see Rafah as on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Is- get out of any area you took.” Khan Younis, the former of Gaza, including the 132 civil- come back home in peace.”
critical to achieving their war rael will be left with “an endur- Hamas pointed to Israel’s which aid workers say is al- ians who were dragged there When her daughters got
aims, which include eliminating ing insurgency because a lot of struggles in a statement Sun- ready overflowing. Many oth- on Oct. 7, including Hersh.” home, Rachel sat with them as
any security threat to Israel armed Hamas will be left no day. “The occupation has not ers said they didn’t know She hopes the video of her they each watched the video.
from Gaza. Hamas’s military matter what they do in Rafah.” and will not achieve any of the where to go, with few options American-Israeli son will re- She hasn’t viewed it again.
units in Rafah are believed to On Saturday night in north- goals of the aggression, and left for shelter. mind people of the cost of the These days, when Rachel
ern Gaza, Israel launched air- the resistance has not and will “It is so dangerous here,” war on all sides and be a cata- speaks to Hersh—often in her
strikes against 30 targets in not back down from its duty said Suha Arafat, 47, who is lyst for change. head, but sometimes out loud—
Watch a Video Jabalia, north of Gaza City, be- to confront the occupier,” still with her family in Rafah. “The regular people like us, she tells him that she is proud
Scan this code fore beginning ground raids in Hamas spokesman Salama Ma- “Bombing doesn’t stop day or whether you’re living in Gaza of him. Then she issues what
to watch a the city, as well as nearby in rouf said on X. night. We really want to leave or you’re living in Tel Aviv or she considers to be a com-
video on Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, The humanitarian crisis in as soon as possible.” wherever, it’s still this game, mand: “Stay strong. Survive.”
residents the military said. Gaza has put pressure on Is- —Summer Said it’s this theater where we’re “We’re going to bring you
fleeing Rafah. Israel’s current operation in rael to end the war. The death contributed to this article. extras in a production that we home,” she tells her son.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, May 13, 2024 | A9

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A10 | Monday, May 13, 2024
Swift Kick
For Cubicle
Dwellers
Continued from Page One
singer’s, but both describe
needing to execute in high-
pressure environments. “Ev-
eryone needs something right
now,” the 34-year-old said,
juggling 80-hour weeks thanks
to quarterly audits.
One line in Swift’s pop
track is: “I’m miserable and
nobody even knows.”
“We just keep doing it,”
said Butikofer, whose work
days can last until 11 p.m.
“What choice do we have?”
Butikofer listened to
Swift’s 31-track album after it
dropped at midnight on April
Power Grid
Strained by
New Growth
Continued from Page One
nies and governments are run-
ning up against the need for
projects to break ground fast.
So far, climate advocates fear
the imperatives of growth
mean more fossil fuels.
Georgia’s main utility, Geor-
gia Power, has boosted its de-
mand projections sixteen-fold
and is pushing ahead on a
hotly contested plan to burn
more natural gas. Critics warn
it will yield higher bills and
unnecessary carbon emissions
for decades. Some companies
are scrambling to secure be-
spoke renewable-energy deals
to power their development.
Data centers
One major source of disrup-
tion is data centers. The facili-
ties are ballooning in size as
people spend more of their
waking hours online and com-
panies digitize everything
from factory processes to
drive-throughs. All that com-
puting requires power—and
for firms like DC Blox to lock
it in as quickly as possible.
“Generally,” Thomson said,
“we find the guys with the
fastest power win.”
Similar quandaries are rip-
pling through other hubs of
the new American economy,
with utilities in Tennessee and
the Carolinas forecasting their
own unexpected surges in load
growth. U.S. power usage is
projected to expand by 4.7%
over the next five years, ac-
cording to a review of federal
fillings by the consulting firm
Grid Strategies, up from a pre-
vious estimate of 2.6%.
The projections come after
efficiency gains kept electric-
ity demand roughly flat over
the past 15 years, allowing the
power sector to limit emis-
sions in large part through
coal-plant closures.
“We haven’t seen this in a
generation,” said Arne Olson,
a senior partner at consulting
firm Energy and Environmen-
tal Economics. “As an indus-
try, we’ve almost forgotten
how to deal with load growth
of this magnitude.”
Tech bonanza
For states like Georgia, the
fear is missing out on what
could be once-in-a-generation
investments. Wall Street is
salivating over an artificial-in-
telligence-fueled tech bo-
nanza, while Washington is
throwing billions of dollars
into domestic manufacturing.
The added wrinkle is that it
is all happening as many parts
of America—corporate America
included—are trying to wean
themselves off fossil fuels.
“These companies all have
clean-energy goals,” said Patty
Durand, a Georgia Power critic
who is campaigning to be a
utility regulator in the state.
“Those goals are at risk if
Georgia Power gets what it
wants.”
The Peach State’s energy
quandary stems from the type
of economic dynamism that
many counterparts would
envy. Its growth has consis-
tently outpaced the nation’s. A
smaller portion of Georgians
are jobless than the U.S. aver-
age, while their incomes tend
to be rising faster.
State and local economic-
development teams have
courted large businesses to set
up shop with sales pitches
that have included generous
financial incentives. Rail lines,
19. She walked on the tread-
mill for two-plus hours as she
listened, slept briefly and
started work by 8 a.m.
The grit-through-it mindset
is far from quiet quitting and
seeking work-life balance,
popular outlooks two years
ago when white-collar em-
ployees had more professional
leverage. (Then, Beyoncé’s hit
“Break My Soul” inspired
quitters and job-changers to
find new motivation as she
sang, “they work me so damn
hard.”)
Despite low overall unem-
ployment, companies from
Tesla to UPS have cut jobs,
and hiring slowed in April.
Many employees are staying
put, fearful that they won’t
find other work.
When job opportunities are
abundant, workers can more
easily take control of their
own careers, said Isabel
Scher, a leadership coach who
German metals giant Aurubis is building a plant to recycle electronic waste in the outskirts of Augusta, Ga.
U.S. electricity usage over time*
5trillion kilowatthours
Direct Use and Transportation
4 Residential
Commercial
Industrial
3
2
1 stable power and quickly
0
1950 ’60 ’70 ’80 ’90
*Direct use is electricity generated and consumed on industrial or commercial sites †Data for second half of 2023
Source: Energy Information Administration (electricity usage); CBRE Research (data center hubs)
ports and America’s largest
air hub also provide access to
faraway customers.
Pat Wilson, commissioner
of the Georgia Department of
Economic Development, said
energy is increasingly part of
those discussions with new-
comers. Officials tout the
newly expanded Plant Vogtle,
America’s largest nuclear
power plant, as a sign the
state is ready for long-term
growth.
“We have a utility partner
to make sure you can meet
your energy needs on day
one,” Wilson said.
Those needs include afford-
ability, reliability and sustain-
ability for firms like Aurubis,
a German metals giant build-
ing a recycling plant in the
outskirts of Augusta.
U.S. energy prices are far
lower than those in Europe.
That is a boon for Aurubis,
which uses mammoth equip-
ment to shred old circuit
boards and electrical wiring,
melt the scraps, and separate
copper from other materials.
Emissions targets
The company also boasts ag-
gressive emissions-reductions
targets for its power-intensive
smelters. At its roughly $820
million Georgia plant, Aurubis
will use up to 31 megawatts of
electricity, enough to power
thousands of homes.
“Not every project itself
has to reduce carbon emis-
sions,” said David Schultheis,
president of the Georgia facil-
ity. “But the overall set of
projects has to guide us
there.”
The firm has made strides
to that end in Europe by bol-
stering its usage of wind or
solar power in a portfolio
stretching from Belgium to
Bulgaria. In Georgia,
Schultheis pointed to Plant
FROM PAGE ONE
works with professionals in-
cluding lawyers and manage-
ment consultants. Now, many
of her clients think: “I just
need to be on a project, or I’m
going to get fired.”
Scher, a former McKinsey
consultant, said Swift’s lyrics
epitomize the internal pres-
sure so many go-getters are
feeling. Now working for her-
self, Scher said she expected
to feel less beholden to hard-
to-reach standards.
“I realize, as I manage my
own business, this s— is in
me,” she said. “I complete
most days and say, I’m not
sure I did enough.”
In Swift’s video for the
song, she sings about her
poor mental state. Clips play
of her dancing in glittering
costumes in front of stadiums
of adoring fans, while she
beams ear-to-ear, during her
Eras Tour. (In short: She’s not
bringing her whole self to
Fastest-growing data center hubs in the U.S.†
1400 megawatts of capacity
under construction
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Northern
2000 ’10 ’20
Virginia
Vogtle, visible just 12 miles
away, as a symbol of reliable
energy.
Companies prize nuclear
power plants, since they pro-
duce carbon-free energy and—
unlike wind or solar power—
don’t depend on the weather.
But the projected power needs
of new businesses in the state
far exceed the expected out-
put of the plant’s recently
added reactors, the second of
which went online last month.
Despite Aurubis’ proximity
to Vogtle, which is co-owned
by Georgia Power, it is also
difficult to trace the source of
electricity that reaches the
substation on the German
company’s property nearby.
Schultheis instead relies on
the utility’s overall power pro-
duction for his carbon ac-
counting, meaning the Georgia
site will add more to Aurubis’
carbon footprint.
“We get the full grid—the
mix of the grid—of what they
produce,” he said.
Many of the battles over
David Schultheis, in charge of the new Aurubis recycling
plant, said the company is trying to curb carbon emissions.
work.)
Rachel Spaugh’s ability and
willingness to mask her emo-
tions at work has changed as
her career developed. In her
20s, she bristled at faking a
smile for her co-workers.
“They’re probably faking it
too,” she recalled. “This is all
so silly.”
Now, the 36-year-old in Au-
gusta, Ga., said she takes more
of a Swiftian approach, hiding
her emotions in many profes-
sional settings. Spaugh, a
marketing manager, doesn’t
try to suppress her feelings
but knows that being too open
about how she’s doing could
change a colleague’s percep-
tion of her performance.
“It’s so easy to get burned
or get hurt, or have your emo-
tions used against you,” she
said.
Krystal Wu’s group chat
with fellow tech workers has
gushed about the song. The
Atlanta Dallas- Hillsboro,
Ft.Worth Ore.
that energy mix have been
fought at the Georgia Public
Service Commission, which
oversees utilities including
Georgia Power.
The investor-owned utility
last fall made an unusual up-
date to its periodic resource
proposal to regulators. Citing
a boom in new business cus-
tomers, Georgia Power
boosted its projected demand
growth over the next seven
years from less than 400
megawatts to 6,600 mega-
watts, or about a third more
than the utility’s total capac-
ity at the beginning of 2023.
To make up the gap, the
company put forward a plan
that includes adding battery
storage, buying power from
fossil-fuel-burning plants in
Mississippi and Florida, and
building three new gas-fired
turbines in Georgia.
The Southern Co. subsidiary
has since sparred with renew-
able-energy-minded organiza-
tions as divergent as local mu-
nicipal governments, the
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
tech industry has been “a pleted, exhausted.”
roller coaster” in recent years,
with job-hopping and looming
Davis—a Swiftie who killed
time on the island by naming
layoffs, she said. Outsiders more than 100 of her songs—
still see the field as glamorous
and don’t understand why
felt the pressures Swift sings
about, despite his enthusiasm
some people on the inside feel
miserable, said Wu, 33, of
Boston.
for both ventures.
Rachael Horwitz, a 44-year-
old chief marketing officer in
Swifties see themselves in the Bay Area, said lyrics like
the singer. She “could have ev- “I’m so depressed I act like
erything at the tip of her fin- it’s my birthday” reflect the
gers, and she still has her push-through-it mindset dom-
lows,” Wu said. inating work culture, where
Last year, Charlie Davis, 26, chaos swirls behind the ve-
landed a dream spot on the neer of a put-together profes-
cast of the reality television sional life.
show “Survivor,” but filming She recently smiled
in Fiji clashed with a summer through a Zoom presentation
law internship. Undeterred, he to executives as her child
did both back-to-back. came home following a school
Returning from Fiji, physi- lice outbreak and her berne-
cally drained, all Davis craved doodle retched in the back-
was his couch. Yet he powered ground. No one was the wiser.
through the internship. “By “You can look back and say,
the end of the summer, I was I don’t know how I did that,”
definitely a shell of a human,” she said. “But I did it. I think
he said. “Just completely de- that’s cool.”
“is not working for all of us,”
Terry said. Regulators ap-
proved much of Georgia
Power’s plan on April 16.
The tension hasn’t slowed
businesses’ rush to the state.
Alphabet’s Google has oper-
ated data centers in Georgia
for more than two decades,
gradually expanding its foot-
print. In 2021, Microsoft es-
tablished a new U.S. data-cen-
ter region emanating from
greater Atlanta. An Amazon
Web Services spokesman said
the firm recently bought land
in the Peach State and is eval-
uating possible server-farm
locations.
All three firms purchase
KENDRICK BRINSON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)
massive amounts of renewable
energy to help power their fa-
cilities around the world. All
three are also members of the
Clean Energy Buyers Associa-
tion, a trade group pushing
utilities, including Georgia
Power, to go green.
Limited options
Priya Barua, the organiza-
tion’s senior director of mar-
ket and policy innovation, said
the added difficulty in much
Sierra Club and the Pentagon. of the Southeast is that tradi-
Opponents argued the util- tionally regulated power mar-
ity should accelerate demand- kets sometimes give firms
side responses, such as allow- fewer opportunities to shop
ing customers to dial down around for wholesale electric-
energy usage depending on ity. “They’re more limited in
costs. Others proposed more- how they can get clean en-
aggressive use of solar power ergy,” she said.
and batteries, or so-called Some analysts believe that
“virtual power plants” that al- could change as companies ex-
low consumers with solar pan- ert more pressure on regula-
els to sell back to the grid. tors and developers strike
In Georgia Power’s view, deals with independent power
adding gas is key to providing producers. As part of Georgia
Power’s recent planning up-
ramping up electricity for mo- date, the utility said it would
ments of peak usage on the work with trade groups like
hottest days of summer and Barua’s to explore how com-
coldest days of winter. That is mercial and industrial custom-
especially crucial given the ers might build or contract
utility’s gradual retirement of their own clean-energy proj-
coal-fired plants. ects in the future.
The state is attracting so Those setups have been con-
many power users, Georgia fined in recent years to non-
Power contends, that new in- profit electricity cooperatives
vestments will actually sup- that tend to serve rural areas.
press ratepayers’ bills. Instagram-owner Meta, for ex-
“We anticipate that we will ample, joined with a Georgia
not need to increase rates to co-op and solar developer Sili-
cover the costs of these re- con Ranch as part of a broader
sources that we’re adding,” deal to power data centers.
said Aaron Mitchell, the com- But even in a more-compet-
pany’s vice president of pric- itive market, those deals may
ing and planning. remain out of reach for most
companies, such as DC Blox,
the data-center operator
Rocky history building two facilities on op-
Some Georgians are skepti- posing outskirts of Atlanta.
cal, noting utilities’ previous Founded in 2014, the firm
overestimates of demand constructed its first data cen-
growth. Power companies ter in an old paper plant in
have a financial incentive to Chattanooga. Power usage:
pursue capital projects, critics one megawatt. DC Blox has
say, and overbuilding now since built out a network from
would risk saddling ratepayers Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Hunts-
with assets that have decades- ville, Ala., leasing space to
long shelf lives. municipalities, universities
The recent history of en- and manufacturers.
ergy development in the state
has also been rocky. The Geor-
gia Power-led project to ex- Big-game hunting
pand Plant Vogtle, the first Now, the company is big-
U.S. nuclear development in game hunting for big-tech
decades, ran up more than customers. The larger of its
$30 billion in costs and lagged two Atlanta-area sites could
years behind schedule. reach up to 300 megawatts.
Since the project’s early “The smart states and
stages in 2007, the 12-month smart utility commissions are
moving average of residential going to figure out how to do
power costs for the utility’s this because this isn’t going to
customers has surged 68%, ac- stop,” said Thomson, the DC
cording to the Georgia Center Blox executive. “AI is coming
for Energy Solutions. That next.”
outpaced inflation, as well as DC Blox executives see
cost increases for industrial themselves as part of Atlanta’s
and commercial customers. evolution from logistics center
Price pressures and climate to the digital hub of the South-
fears have pushed communi- east. Nowhere is that more ap-
ties such as suburban Atlanta’s parent than west of the city in
DeKalb County, which has Douglas County, the most
pledged to slash emissions, to sought-after corner of the re-
lobby regulators for more ag- gion’s data-center market.
gressive oversight of the inves- “They’re essential to our
tor-owned utility. Ted Terry, a economy,” said Chris Pum-
DeKalb County commissioner, phrey, president of the public-
warned that the state is using private Elevate Douglas Eco-
a 20th-century energy play- nomic Partnership. As for the
book while trying to attract energy concerns, he added,
21st-century industries. “We have to figure something
The state’s energy market out.”

© 2024 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved.
Retiring at Different Times
Relationships get complicated when one spouse leaves a job and the other keeps working
TURNING
POINTS
CLARE
ANSBERRY
W
hen one spouse
retires but the
other doesn’t,
roles change and
feelings get com-
plicated.
David Buck, 60, stepped back
from a long career in sales manage-
ment just as his wife, Susan Rose,
58, an ordained minister, leaned in,
working 40-plus hours a week.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, GETTY IMAGES (2); DAVID BUCK; BETH KEENAN-BROWN
They’ve had to rethink who
does what at home. David now
folds more of the laundry and
takes on grocery duties. He also
has freedom, which Susan some-
times longs for. He talks about go-
ing to visit their adult children,
who live out of state. Their first
grandchild is on the way.
“I do get jealous. I have a cou-
ple more years,” Susan says.
Most couples now retire at dif-
ferent times, research suggests.
Only 18% of retired households
claimed Social Security at the
same time, according to a review
of Federal Reserve data conducted
by the Center for Retirement Re-
search at Boston College.
A separate poll found that just
11% of couples retire at the same
time. Nearly two-thirds stagger
their retirement by at least a year,
according to a survey of 1,510 cou-
ples ages 45 to 70 commissioned
For Netflix, Comedy
Is Serious Business
BY JOHN JURGENSEN
H
ow many stand-up comics
does it take for a streaming
service to show off its clout
in comedy?
Four hundred. No joke, that’s
about how many of them Netflix
summoned to Los Angeles for a live
festival sprawling across three
dozen venues and 12 days through
this past weekend under the banner
Netflix Is a Joke.
Several of these
gigs have also
streamed live on the
mothership platform, In 2023,
including a without-a- sales for
net set by Katt Wil-
liams and a three- live comedy
hour roast of Tom
Brady. Over six
events hit
nights, John Mulaney $910 million.
hosted a skewed talk
show, taking live calls
from viewers and
bantering with a parade of talent
assembled for Netflix Is a Joke—
hence the show’s title, “Everybody’s
In L.A.” Guest Jerry Seinfeld dryly
marveled at Netflix’s method of cu-
rating comedy: “There’s no good rea-
son you can see. It makes sense to
RYAN WEST/NETFLIX
them, I guess.”
The main “them” behind the
strategy is a comedy nerd from
Canada named Robbie Praw, who
has overseen Netflix’s stand-up on-
PERSONAL JOURNAL.
by Ameriprise Financial, a
financial services company.
Timing retirement
The timing of retirement is
often out of a couple’s
hands. Nearly one third of
retirees surveyed left the
workforce unexpectedly
due to layoffs and early re-
tirement packages. Health
is also a factor.
Women, who often leave
work to care for older par-
ents or in-laws, retire at
younger ages, averaging 62
compared to 65 for men, ac-
cording to the Center for
Retirement Research. A
younger spouse may con-
tinue working to keep fam-
ily health insurance until
Medicare kicks in, or to de-
lay having to tap retirement
savings. They may want to
hold off collecting Social Se-
curity to get higher payments.
Some people simply want to
keep working even if their partner
doesn’t. When couples retire at
different times, routines, sched-
ules and expectations diverge, and
tensions can surface. Assumptions
arise over who should clean or
make dinner. The still-working
partner may feel a twinge of envy
when the other one heads to the
beach or visits grandkids.
“There can be resentment. This
is the time people have been dream-
ing about,” says Pepper Schwartz,
emeritus professor of sociology at
the University of Washington.
slaught for the last eight years. Or-
chestrating an in-person event (big
enough to contain a 12-show resi-
dency by Ali Wong) was his way of
reinforcing the streamer’s investment.
“When you walk in and see
18,000 people having a great time
right in front of you, that is a differ-
ent feeling than putting out a spe-
cial into the world and, you know,
reading comments on Twitter or
whatever feedback loop,” said Praw,
vice president of stand-up and com-
edy formats.
On his watch, Net-
flix used stand-up to
rapidly scale up in
original content, then
to push into live pro-
gramming,
which Chris Rock de-
buted on the service
last year. Netflix has
put out hundreds of
stand-up specials, re-
leasing a high of 69
in 2022, compared with seven that
year from rival streamer Max, ac-
cording to research firm Ampere
Analysis. Comedians grouse about
overcrowding while craving the
rocket fuel that Netflix’s algorithms
can provide for developing careers.
With four shows scheduled in the
festival: Shane Gillis, whose Ameri-
can galoot routine has broken
through in a big way with help from
his special “Beautiful Dogs,” a fixture
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
 Beth Keenan-Brown and David
Brown planned to retire together
until Beth got a dream job offer.
New routines
David Brown, 70, and Beth
Keenan-Brown, 64, planned to re-
tire together. Last year, Beth left
her nursing job and David retired
from the Secret Service. They
made plans to travel to Budapest
and spend more time at their
beach house.
Shortly after Beth retired, she
received a dream job offer and re-
turned to work full time, as direc-
on Netflix’s top 10 chart last year.
But competition is intensifying.
Talent representatives describe a
hot seller’s market, and say Hulu is
soon to announce a hefty slate of
stand-up specials. Amazon’s Prime
Video is also in the hunt, and HBO
remains an important buyer.
“I would love to think that Netflix
needs the big artists more than the
big artists need Netflix,” said Mike
Berkowitz, co-head of comedy at
talent agency WME.
Autonomy gave funny people le-
verage. Direct-to-consumer tools,
from podcasts to TikTok, have
helped comedians amass followers
who become ticket buyers. In 2023,
sales for live comedy events hit
$910 million, up from $278 million a
 David Buck has picked up more
responsibilities at home, taking on
tasks that his wife, Susan Rose,
did before she began working
more and he semi-retired.
tor of clinical operations for a
Maryland hospice agency. Now she
spends the week in their Severna
Park, Md., home, which is larger
and has space for a home office,
while David stays at their beach
home in Delaware, where he bikes
and volunteers with Meals on
Wheels. They travel back and forth.
“It’s a challenge keeping our
calendars straight,” says David.
Beth logs her meetings on a
joint Google Calendar so David
knows when not to call. Every
morning, they FaceTime over cof-
fee and talk about their plans. On
Wednesdays they each get takeout
from the same type of restaurant,
recently Ethiopian, and eat to-
gether over a video call.
 John Mulaney hosted the live
talk show ’Everybody’s in L.A.’ at
the Netflix Is a Joke festival.
decade before, according to Pollstar.
Though money and status have
mushroomed in the comedy busi-
ness, it remains a small world be-
hind the scenes where Praw has
long been embedded. The 43-year-
old Montreal native grew up ab-
sorbing Bob Newhart and Robert
Klein tapes on family car trips and
identifying as a funny person. “I was
the youngest of three kids and very,
very short, so jokes were that ar-
mor for me,” he said.
He got his start at an institution
that helped define an earlier era:
Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival.
Monday, May 13, 2024 | A11
There are upsides, too. They
have made two trips since she
took her new job, one to Costa
Rica and the other to the Nether-
lands, thanks to her added income.
Beth has unlimited paid vacation
with her new job.
She says it would be hard if
they were still in the same house
and she was working while he was
retired. “I think I would drive you
nuts,” says Beth, adding that she
is younger and has more energy
than David.
“I just can’t keep up with you,”
says David, who had a stroke a
few years ago and needed to slow
down.
Tough choices
Jeni Mastin, 74, of Vancouver,
British Columbia, retired a decade
ago from a career in nonprofits
and social work. Her partner,
Cameron Hood, is still working as
a musician, teaching music and
performing jazz.
“I’m an artist. I imagine I will
be working until I drop dead,” he
says.
Their different schedules and
responsibilities have led to some
inconveniences. Earlier this year,
Jeni planned a month-long 65th
birthday celebration for Cameron
in Mexico. They cut it a week
short because of his teaching job.
Cameron’s work schedule also
means that he can’t always go
with Jeni to her doctor’s appoint-
ments. His substitute teaching job
ends at 3:30 and there’s an hour-
long commute.
David Buck and his wife, Susan
Rose, the minister, are navigating
the transition in Ponte Ve-
dra Beach, Fla.
David, who describes
himself as “semi-retired,”
continues to advise some
clients of his time-man-
agement consulting busi-
ness. Susan logs more
than 40 hours a week do-
ing two part-time jobs,
one as transitional pastor
at a local church and the
other at a nonprofit she
formed to mentor women
in ministry.
David has picked up
more responsibilities at
home, taking on tasks that
Susan did before she began work-
ing more and he semi-retired. He
takes their cars in for mainte-
nance and balances the check-
book.
“If the dogs need to go to the
vet, that’s me,” says David.
Susan says she has a hard time
letting some things go. “I will say, ‘I
can go to the grocery store on the
way home,’ and Dave will say, ‘Stop.
I can go to the grocery store. Tell
me what we need,’” she says, al-
though he tends to pick up snacks
and cookies that she wouldn’t buy.
It’s been an adjustment for Da-
vid, too.
Being semi-retired, he says he
sometimes forgets about the de-
mands of a job, especially one in
ministry where congregation mem-
bers have needs outside of 9-to-5.
She might call and say her meeting
went longer than expected. “Then
I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I got
dinner about ready. What am I go-
ing to do now?’ ” he says.
In 2013, future Netflix co-chief ex-
ecutive Ted Sarandos and Lisa
Nishimura, who then headed comedy
at Netflix, visited Montreal to explore
a partnership with Just for Laughs.
Organizers pitched the festival as a
one-stop content source for the na-
scent streamer. Instead of making
that deal, the executives hired Praw.
He joined Netflix in 2016. The com-
pany went on a deal spree to lock in
stars such as Rock and Dave Chap-
pelle for up to $20 million per special.
Praw also helped expand the stable
with acts less familiar then, such as
Tom Segura, who was riding the great
comedy podcast wave.
Unlike Johnny Carson, whose per-
sonal preferences made (and sty-
mied) careers, Praw has to be prag-
matic about which acts to put on a
platform with 270 million subscrib-
ers worldwide—and when.
Leanne Morgan, a 58-year-old
grandmother from Knoxville, Tenn.,
had been on the stand-up circuit for
roughly 20 years, but didn’t get real
traction until her bits about Weight
Watchers points and competitive
cheerleading clicked online amid the
pandemic. Last year Praw licensed a
one-hour special from her, “I’m Every
Woman,” which became a hit. Morgan
recently signed with Netflix for two
additional specials and a sitcom.
The festival debuted in smaller
form in 2022, and made headlines
when an attacker ambushed Chap-
pelle on stage. By supersizing this
year’s second installment, Praw es-
tablished a physical hub for the in-
dustry on Netflix’s home turf. “Robbie
basically recreated Montreal in a bet-
ter location with significantly more
financing,” said Ryan Fereydouni, a
comedy touring agent at CAA.
A12 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

PERSONAL JOURNAL.
BY DALVIN BROWN

How to Lend Relatives Money

C
herise Schwartz dreaded
approaching her uncle
for a $15,000 loan.
Her cleaning business
in Bethel Park, Pa., faced
a payroll crisis as the
Christmas holiday season ap-
proached. With double-digit inter-
Without Causing Family Feuds
est rates on personal loans and a
Tech tools can reduce the risks and grief when you turn to friends and loved ones for loans
Small Business Administration loan
taking more time than she had, she
called her uncle John Dickey.
Dickey, a tech entrepreneur,
agreed to loan Schwartz the
money if they used Namma, a
platform that structures loan
agreements and sends repayment
notifications.
“This way, it’s Namma sending
reminders to pay, and I don’t have
to nag for it,” Dickey said.
More people have turned to
friends and family for loans, finan-
cial advisers say, since high inter-
est rates have made it more ex-
pensive to borrow money.
Banks are also tightening lend-
ing standards in all categories of
consumer loans, including credit
cards, personal loans and auto
loans, according to the Federal Re-
serve’s April survey of loan offi-
cers. Rejections for credit cards in
February rose to 35.3%, from 32.1%
in October, a monthly New York
Federal Reserve survey found.
Half of Americans who applied
for a loan or financial product
since the Fed began raising its
benchmark interest rate in March
2022 have been denied, according
to a survey by Bankrate, a con-
sumer financial-services company.
Turning to a relative or friend
can be less financially painful for
borrowers, and, in some cases,
profitable for the lender. A $10,000
or larger loan from a
relative has to charge a
minimum interest rate family vacation, with- app, committing to approximately
of 4.97%, under Internal out any penalty. $100 a month over 36 months
Revenue Service guide- with no interest.
lines. The average rate Small loans “It helped me out of a tough
on a 24-month personal Zirtue, a mobile lending spot,” Panaccione said.
loan from a bank was app, caters to the needs
12.49% in February, ac- of users seeking smaller Lending between peers
cording to Fed data. loans, with an average Pigeon mostly facilitates loans
Still, relationship- amount of $400. The among acquaintances.
based loans come with loans are typically re- “It’s for bridging that trust gap
inherent risks, and fi- paid within six months, with your cousin or colleagues,”
nancial advisers gener- said the app’s founder, said Brian Bristol, founder of
ally recommend avoid- Dennis Cail. Pigeon.
ing them. Roughly a The app removed The app allows users to create
third of Americans interest-setting options digital loan agreements with cus-
have had a falling-out because they were tomizable terms, including
over money, and the most com-  Cherise Schwartz on a Zoom call by either party, provides additional rarely used among loved ones, Cail amounts, interest rates (if any),
mon reason was because a loan with her uncle, John Dickey, from features like payment reminders said. It charges a 3% to 5% transac- and repayment schedules. Custom-
was never paid back, according to whom she borrowed money via the and transaction record-keeping. tion fee paid by the lender, which ers are billed at either a $4.99 or
a November survey from price- Namma platform. The service supports relatively is repaid by the borrower on an $7.99 monthly rate for access to
FROM TOP: ERICKA BURCHETT/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, ISTOCK (4); JOHN DICKEY

comparison platform Finder.
“Lending money puts your rela-
tionship as collateral for the loan,
which is risky and can lead to re-
sentment,” said Chris Hostetler, a
financial adviser at Hilltop Wealth
Advisors in Durham, N.C.
Friends and family plan
Platforms and apps like Namma,
Pigeon and Zirtue have facilitated
more than $100 million in loans
between friends and family since
2020, offering practical tools and
assisting with some tax record-
keeping. These three services have
reported low default rates, a trend
financial advisers attribute to the
accountability fostered by close
relationships.
These loan apps and services
can turn verbal agreements be-
tween friends and family into offi-
cial, written contracts. They also
keep track of payments and terms,
and assist in adhering to other IRS
guidelines, such as establishing a
fixed repayment schedule.
Family members can define
and negotiate terms such as the
loan’s duration, interest rate and
repayment schedule. Services such
as Namma recommend staying
within state-set usury laws, which
cap what a lender can charge for
interest.
Namma creates loan contracts
and, for a $3.99 monthly fee paid
large average loans—typically be-
tween $16,000 and $17,000, said
its founder, Sonal Bagga. The site
has facilitated more than $4.8 mil-
lion in loans since its founding in
2020, she added.
It doesn’t manage the actual
transfer of funds, leaving users to
arrange payments through other
means and report them back to
the website.
Schwartz sends her uncle $300
on Venmo each month, and her
uncle documents each payment on
Namma. “It allows us to focus on
our family relationships rather
than the loan itself,” Schwartz
said. Dickey offers repayment flex-
ibility. He recently suggested
Schwartz skip a payment for a
agreed-upon repayment schedule.
The app also lets family and
friends set up loans to pay their
mobile phone and energy bills.
In March, Gregory Panaccione,
a 29-year-old auto glass installer
from Brookhaven, Pa., was con-
fronted with an unexpected
$3,000 expense for a clutch re-
placement in his vehicle. With
limited options, he approached
his father for assistance. “I never
know if my dad will say yes,”
Panaccione shared. “He usually
makes a big stink about it before
agreeing.”
His father had lent him money
for years, but this time his father
suggested using Zirtue. He set up
a repayment plan through the
additional tools.
Pigeon charges for loans over
$10,000 or those extending beyond
an 18-month repayment period.
However, Bristol plans to adjust
these terms soon, lowering the
free trial to 12 months and the
loan threshold to $5,000.
Even with the growth of these
apps, financial advisers say those
lending money should probably
consider the money as a gift—if
you can afford to go without it.
“If it’s a gift, then getting any
money back from them is a treat,”
said Tommy Lucas, a financial ad-
viser at Moisand Fitzgerald in Or-
lando, Fla. “If they can’t get it else-
where, there’s a good amount of
risk that it may not be paid back.”

MY RIDE BY A . J. BAIME

Ex-Cop Is on Vintage
Police Car Chase
Bill Golden, 66, a retired police
officer and entrepreneur who
lives in Mount Dora, Fla., on his
vintage police car replicas, as
told to A.J. Baime.

I
decided when I was 5 that I
would be a police officer. My
dad was a police officer. I was
a full-time cop for 34 years in Il-
linois. At the same time, I have
always been obsessed with cars.
I started collecting and restoring
antique cars when I was 18. For
a while, I owned a motorcycle
dealership specializing in Harley-
Davidsons, and after I retired
from the police force I started a
driving school for teens.
When I retired, I started work-
ing more with antique police
cars—building replicas and re-
storing them. A lot of us in this
hobby are retired or active cops, and
we do this to honor fallen officers, in-
was a very basic model, which is
why governments bought these
Bill Golden’s 1967 Wisconsin State
Patrol car replica is based on a
Chevrolet Biscayne. Below, his 1968
Glenview police cruiser replica.
ready restored when I bought it,
and is based on a Plymouth Savoy.
The car I put the most effort into
is my 1967 Wisconsin State Patrol
car, also based on a Chevrolet
Biscayne.
My friend Greg Reynolds told me
about this car. Greg is considered
one of the top experts in the police
car restoration field, and he said to
me, “Do you want to save a car
With the help of my friend Greg,
I redid the interior, the carpeting
and the seats. I found the right po-
lice light bar from a guy in Maine. I
sourced the siren and police radio
from a collector. I needed the door
decal to be exactly correct.
I found an officer named Mike
Jennings, a specialist with cars and
speed equipment with the Wiscon-
sin State Patrol. I called him, told
him what I needed, and he said, “I
have a period correct 1967 door de-
cal. I’m going to send it to you, you
can copy it, then send it back.”
I had it duplicated exactly. Be-
cause that’s the kind of thing you
have to do to make it right.
That’s the philosophy of most of
us in this hobby: to honor police of-
ficers by representing the history
through authenticity.
JAMES JACKMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3)

jured officers or retiring officers. We
try to use these cars to promote
positive interaction with the commu-
nity, and we strive for accuracy.
Right now, I have three and I
have a personal connection to all of
them. I worked for 30 years for the
Glenview Police Department in Illi-
nois. So I built a 1968 Glenview
squad car replica, based on a Chev-
rolet Biscayne, which this police de-
partment used. With this particular
vehicle, I started with a donor car. It
cars. No air conditioning, no radio.
I found a Biscayne with low miles
and it was already the right color of
blue. I did not have photos of a 1968
Glenview squad car so I had to go by
what the old timers told me. I had to
replace the engine (it had to be a
V-8 to be authentic) and the trans-
mission (it had to be automatic).
For a while, I worked for the Illi-
nois State Police in a narcotics task
force. So now I have a 1963 Illinois
State Police cruiser. This car was al-
that needs saving?”
This car was in the hands of
someone who lived in Wisconsin
and had started this project many
years before. It languished, and the
car was disassembled. The paint
wasn’t done correctly. I negotiated
with the owner and bought it.
There is a healthy rivalry between
Illinois and Wisconsin, even at the
police level. I thought it would be
fun for an Illinois guy to finish this
Wisconsin car correctly.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, May 13, 2024 | A13

ARTS IN REVIEW

Charles James’s ‘Butterfly’ gown, left; two dresses in the ‘Poppies’ space, above.

tion with the Met’s design another war was around the germinate like little worms,
department—holds clothing corner, is alarmingly bright root to the wool, and grow
and accessories inspired by with red poppies. Airborne like green fur. A time-lapse
EXHIBITION REVIEW organisms, real and imag- hats by Stephen Jones and film shows its entire life cy-

Damsels’ Dresses
ined, that inhabit the earth
(a profusion of flower and
insect species), the air (but-
terflies and birds), and wa-
ter (seashells, sirens,
Philip Treacy embody the
blossom. Meanwhile a film
projection of a poppy, fresh
blown then blackening then
bleeding, suggests the vio-
cle—the turn-turn-turn of
living things. Placed nearby
is a pair of clear plastic
shoes, summer slides that
have surreal insoles of green

In Distress
The Met ingeniously revives gowns grown fragile over time
BY LAURA JACOBS
New York
‘SLEEPING BEAUTIES:
Reawakening Fashion,” the
Costume Institute’s spring
exhibition at the Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art, takes its
title from a classic fairy
tale—the story of a princess
who must sleep for a cen-
tury before she is reborn.
But its unspoken model is
English poetry of the 17th
century, which pays homage
to both beauty and mortality
through metaphor. The show
lays a path before us, a jour-
ney that here recalls the
millefleurs of medieval tap-
estries, and there the me-
mento mori of the Dutch
still life. In “Paradise Lost,”
John Milton describes the
proximity of the two reali-
ties, pointing out the Tree of
Life’s “blooming ambrosial
fruit / Of vegetable gold; and
next to life, / Our death, the
Tree of Knowledge.” There is
no argument made in this
paradisiacal exhibition, no
scholarly thesis. It is about
the nature of existence, as
experienced through the
splendid yet variously time-
altered holdings of the Cos-
tume Institute.
It is true, however, that
of the 250 garments and ac-
cessories in the show, 16 are
laid out like the princess on
her bed, beginning with the
first dress we see: an em-
broidered ball gown by
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART (3)
Charles Frederick Worth,
circa 1887, cut from two dif-
ferent silk satins—one ivory
and the other pale green.
The former remains robust
while the latter, due to some
inherent weakness, is brittle
with age and shredding. As
the label reads, “No current
conservation treatment can
fully stabilize the satin.”
Other beauties have fallen
prey to the inherent vice of
over-complicated construc-
tion, such as a Charles
James “Butterfly” gown
from 1955—chrysalis-like in
front but with heavy wings
emerging, pulling, in back.
Even the stretchy pleating in
Fortuny’s seemingly immor-
tal “Delphos” evening dress,
this one in saffron silk, circa
1920, eventually splits along
the folds.
No, the pieces in their
glass caskets cannot be re-
awakened. But most every-
thing else can. Andrew Bol-
ton, the curator in charge of
the Costume Institute, with
creative consultant Nick
Knight, has gone to amazing
lengths to present fashions
from four centuries (and
close to 100 designers and
brands) as organic entities,
each on a continuum be-
tween origin and elegy. As
Mr. Bolton writes in his in-
troductory wall text, the ex-
hibition “endeavors to re-
suscitate garments from the
collection by reactivating
their sensory qualities and
snakes, mermaids). lence unique to humankind. plastic grass. They’re from
And the metaphors. I And in the long gallery Beth Levine’s “Barefoot in
spent a long time in the called “The Garden,” Jona- the Grass” series of 1966—a
space called “Poppies,” than Anderson’s “grass” memory, perhaps, of the
where we learn that this coat, a collaboration with garden we left behind.
flower subfamily is associ- the bio-designer Paula Ular-
ated with sleep and death. gui Escalona, has been laid Sleeping Beauties:
“In Flanders fields the pop- out in a glass box, more Reawakening Fashion
reengaging our sensorial pies blow / Between the corpse than dormant beauty. The Met Fifth Avenue,
perceptions.” crosses, row on row,” goes a A navy-blue broadcloth coat through Sept. 2
Sight is the dominant reading of the haunting 1915 for Loewe’s Spring/Summer
sense, obviously. But there war poem by John McCrae. 2023 menswear collection, Ms. Jacobs is the Arts Intel
is hearing: Piped into one A House of Paquin evening it’s been sown with oat, rye Report editor for the weekly
area is the rustling of taf- dress, made in 1937 when and wheatgrass seeds that newsletter Air Mail.
feta, a sound prized in its
day and called “scroop.”
And touch: The massed
flowers on two versions of
the iconic “Miss Dior” dress
have been replicated in 3-D
printed plastic that viewers
are encouraged to feel. And
smell: the hundreds of odor
molecules in hats and
dresses have not only been
analyzed, the dominant
notes have been reproduced
and bottled for sniffing. The
peak molecules in Dior’s
embroidered “May” dress of
Spring/Summer 1953, for in-
stance, are squalene, which
is found “on human skin
most likely in contact with a
dog,” and caprolactam,
which indicates “the pres-
ence of nylon.” The scent is
pungent, with notes of soil
and old book.
These sensory experi-
ences are part of a journey
through three realms: the
three elements of matter
known as Earth, Air and
Water. In alcoved white cor-
ridors connected by domed
white rotundas, history, sci-
ence and aesthetics come
together in something like a
cabinet of curiosities staged
in a lab. This beguiling exhi-
bition space—designed by
Leong Leong in collabora-

The world’s most extraordinary

wildlife are relying on us to survive.
Thank you for becoming a friend.

Installation view of ‘Sleeping Beauties,’ the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition.

A14 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

SPORTS
Caitlin Clark Is
Already the GOAT
Of TV Ratings
Forget MJ, Tiger or Serena. When it comes to boosting
television audiences, the former Iowa star—who starts her
WNBA career on Tuesday—is in a league of her own.
BY RACHEL BACHMAN Caitlin Clark’s Effect on TV Viewership

M
How the basketball star stacks up against Michael Jordan,
ichael Jordan drew
Tiger Woods and others
millions more view-
ers to NBA games. Change in TV audience from year before star athletes'
Tiger Woods provided a appearance in major events
striking lift to ratings for pro CAITLIN CLARK
golf. And Serena Williams WNBA Draft
made Grand Slam finals into 0% 379
must-see events.
But none of those super- ’23 ’24
stars, or any other athlete in In her first year, Clark ...which kept growing,
NCAA women’s helped boost this putting this year’s
modern sports history, can game by 2 million audience almost 3.5 times
late semifinal
match the television impact viewers... bigger than in 2022.
0% 74
of a 6-foot ponytailed college
347
grad who has yet to play a
single professional game.
’22 ’23 ’24
When it comes to sports
TV, Caitlin Clark is the GOAT. NCAA women’s final
0% 104
The Wall Street Journal
290
looked at a sampling of top
athletes to determine how ’22 ’23 ’24
much their presence in-
creased television audiences. VENUS VS. SERENA
The former Iowa superstar, MICHAEL JORDAN WILLIAMS
who begins her WNBA career Sunday NBA game (Jordan returns) U.S. Open tennis women’s final
with the Indiana Fever on 0% 200 0% 66
Tuesday against the Con-
necticut Sun, provided both ’95 ’95 ’00 ’01
a bigger boost than nearly
TIGER WOODS DANICA PATRICK MAGIC JOHNSON & LARRY BIRD
any other athlete and a more
Masters final Indianapolis 500 NCAA men’s final
transformative one. 0% 63 60
0% 0% 38
Iowa’s back-to-back runs
to the NCAA women’s tour- ’96 ’97 ’04 ’05 ’78 ’79
nament final resulted in a of what women’s basketball Clark with athletes in other rivalries helped drive the

ILLUSTRATION: CAM POLLACK/WSJ|, GETTY (3)|, AP (3)|, ISTOCK (5)

nearly four-fold increase in
viewership for the title game
in two years, to a record 18.9
million last month.
But Clark didn’t just push
up the audience of her own
games. She also elevated the
expectations for her sport as
a televised product. Even
viewership of non-Iowa
games in the tournament
jumped 76% year-over-year.
Clark is hardly the first
athlete to boost audiences.
When Michigan State’s
Note: Research for Jordan comeback by Jon Lewis, SportsMediaWatch. NBA games held March 12
and March 19, 1995. Jordan’s return was shown in all but a few markets.
can draw,” said Jon Lewis, sports isn’t perfect. Women’s ratings in Iowa’s tournament
Sources: SportsMediaWatch; Nielsen; Sports Business Journal; ESPN creator of the Sports Media team sports have more room games. Her timing has been
Rosie Ettenheim/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Watch website and a close to grow because they’re perfect, with broadcasts of
tracker of sports TV audi- starting from a lower base- women’s college basketball
Magic Johnson and Indiana audience past 9 million, ences for two decades. line than men’s major and the WNBA already ex-
State’s Larry Bird played in more than 7 times what the He noted that the NBA leagues. It’s also more diffi- panding when she broke into
the 1979 NCAA men’s basket- game drew four years ear- was an established league cult for a single player in superstardom last year.
ball final, viewership jumped lier. But those increases gen- before Jordan, and golf was those leagues to move the The big question is
38%. Serena Williams drew erally were smaller than the popular before Woods. needle. NFL playoff games whether Clark can bring her
tennis viewers, especially Clark effect, shorter-lived, or “In terms of driving routinely draw 30 million TV effect to the WNBA. One
when playing her sister, Ve- both. viewership, there’s no great viewers. Not even Tom early clue: She helped draw
nus. And a hot start last sea- “The thing that separates precedent to what she’s Brady was able to double 2.5 million viewers to the
son by first-year Colorado Caitlin Clark, it’s not just been able to do,” Lewis that. WNBA draft—nearly five
football coach Deion Sanders that she’s a big draw, but said. In Clark’s case, as in times the audience from the
drove the CU-Colorado State she’s changed the status quo Of course, comparing other sports, rematches and year before.

The WSJ Daily Crossword | Edited by Mike Shenk

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
26 Wilson of
“The Office”
A Hyped Pitching Prospect
14

17
15

18
16

19
27 Bit of parsley
29 Involve, as in a
conflict or
Gets the Fast Track to Majors
argument
20 21 22 BY LINDSEY ADLER
32 Spot check? dropped to 360 games. For one thing required of a ma-
23 24 25 26 27 33 Chap, For the Pittsburgh Pi- pitchers, that number has jor-league pitcher: Get hit-
informally rates, hope has arrived in dropped from 113.3 games in ters out.
28 29 30 31 34 Panache the form of a 21-year-old the minors in 2015 to 90.9 But there was also some
35 Sort right-hander with high games on average in 2023. evidence of a lack of season-
32 33 34 35 36 37 36 Kitchen socks, a thick mustache and While it’s true that inno- ing. Historically, pitchers
gadget brand a blistering fastball. vations in technology and have spent time in the mi-
38 39 40 41 that looks like Paul Skenes, whom the data have made minor nor leagues learning the
a losing row in Pirates drafted first overall leaguers smarter and more finer things of pitching, like
42 43 44 45 just last year, took the prepared than ever, there’s pitch sequencing and how to
a game
mound for the first start of also a grim consideration build their between-games
46 47 48 37 Poker prize his major-league on Satur- behind some of these hur- routines.
40 “What a day. And over four innings, ried promotions. Pitcher in- Skenes’s nerves (and in-
49 50 51 52 53 54 55 calamity!” he offered a near-sellout juries are now expected, experience) were evident in
45 13-digit crowd of 35,000 at PNC Park rather than feared. At a time his performance on Satur-
56 57 58 identifier at glimpses of the stuff that when pitcher health has be- day—he gave up three runs
Barnes & has made him the most- come baseball’s latest mar- on six hits (including a
59 60 61 62 63 Noble: Abbr. hyped pitching prospect of ket inefficiency, it’s harder home run), walked two bat-
47 Crow in the his generation. to justify keeping a future ters and hit a batter with
64 65 66 Skenes struck out seven big-leaguer in the minors. his splitter. He threw just 84
Rock & Roll
Hall of Fame batters, his signature fast- When it came to Skenes, pitches over four innings in
67 68 69 ball averaged 100 miles an the Pirates found they could a game the Pirates ulti-
48 Suppress, as a
hour, and reached as high as justify it for barely 11 mately won 10-9.
yawn
101.9 mph, the fastest pitch months. It didn’t take long Skenes explained post-
SEPARATION | By John Ewbank 50 Youngster’s recorded by a Pirates to see why. Amped up on game that the immediate
three-wheeler pitcher in the pitch tracking first-day nerves, Skenes un- difference he noted between
Across 24 Some 59 Buzzing 8 Plant reputed
destructive to repel 51 T-bone or era. loaded five triple-digit fast- major-league hitters and mi-
1 Full of 62 Modified
agents jumping tenderloin “I thought he did a good balls at the first batter he nor-league hitters is that it
excitement mortgage, for
28 Fairness-in- short insects 53 Pet protection job,” Pirates manager Derek faced, a six-pitch at-bat that took him more pitches to
5 Instant org. Shelton said. “The fastball ended with a whiff by Chi- complete each at-bat, driv-
of time, hiring letters 63 Cornbread 9 Puts into
54 Shout of command, you know, wasn’t cago Cubs outfielder Mike ing up his pitch count early.
informally 30 Mornings: cake office
excitement as sharp as we’d seen it in Tauchman. “Just got to get ahead of hit-
9 Generations- Abbr. 64 What 10 “Gay” city Indy, and understandably, I Skenes also showed off a ters a bit more consistently,”
31 Atlas page students 11 “Not ___ 55 Brother of
spanning mean the crowd was into diversified arsenal, pairing he said.
32 Strongly can’t play million years!” Lucy Van Pelt
stories it.” it with a mid-90s splitter Pirates fans know that
assert at school? 12 Loops in, in an 57 Massage For Major League Base- that he just began throwing Skenes is far from a finished
14 14-season
36 Point value of 65 Shopping email therapist’s ball, however, the most as- when he entered profes- project. But for one day, this
Cowboys
a vowel in destination 13 Behold bottlefuls tonishing number in sional baseball last year. En- downtrodden franchise was
quarterback
Tony Scrabble 66 Great triumph 21 Bucks and 58 ___Le Pew Skenes’s big-league debut couragingly, he showed an simply happy to revel in a
37 Couple 67 Girder does (cartoon wasn’t the speed he gener- ability to consistently do the little bit of hope.
15 And others,
material 22 What ruthless skunk) ated off the mound, but how
in footnotes 38 Farmer’s
people show 59 Spa sounds quickly he wound up there
16 Thrusting place, in a 68 Squeaks (out)
25 Savory taste 60 Boozehound in the first place. Since be-
weapon kids’ song 69 Cathedral ing drafted No. 1 out of Lou-
39 Prizefight area quality 61 Shoe part
17 Rickman isiana State University last
who played participant Down year, he has started just 12
Previous Puzzle’s Solution
Severus 41 Prefix with 1 Asia’s D I P U R D U T O G S U P games in the minor leagues,
Snape potent or shrinking ___ A R I K A O S O N A U T O for a total of 34 innings.
science Sea D U Q U E S N E N E T M E N Skenes’s rapid ascent is
18 Enjoy a A L UM H O B B Y S H O P S
banquet 42 Strong 2 Make a cheap partly testament to his pro-
S E E I T R Y E H E M digious talent. But it also
criticism shot, say AM I S T O R A G E
19 Clear, as a speaks to a wider trend tak-
whiteboard 43 Greek letter 3 Muscat native A T K I N S D I E T T OM
after pi B R A S A U C E C A T ing hold in baseball: Players
20 With 4 They’re rung A C K S T I C K T I G H T are generally matriculating
56-Across, 44 Mentioning as in Buddhist T H E R O A D H A L faster through the minor
a cause for an example temples N O R O R E MU R A L leagues. According to re-
GENE J. PUSKAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS

46 Inventor 5 Force-ful S P AWE E K E N D C A N I

frequent L AM E N T P R OM K I D S search compiled by Stats,
travel, and Whitney group? the number of games a
O V E R T O R O L O L I Z
what the 47 Turf 6 “Quite WE S S O N O N T O S E T player appears in before his
circled 48 Method: Abbr. correct” The contest answer is SYSTEM. Each theme MLB debut has been on the
letters 49 Most ribald 7 Fruit-flavored answer contains the name of a chessman with decline since at least 2015.
represent 52 Cry noisily soft drink
one letter changed (DUQUESNE/QUEEN, Back in 2015, hitters av-
HOBBY SHOPS/BISHOP, ATKINS DIET/KING,
23 Like sages 56 See 20-Across brand STICKTIGHT/KNIGHT, SPA WEEKEND/ eraged nearly 450 minor-
PAWN, PROM KIDS/ROOK). The changed league games before their
▶ Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles. letters spell the contest answer. debuts. By 2023, that had Paul Skenes had seven strikeouts in his Pirates’ debut.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
OPINION
Musk and Trump: Eerie Parallels
Were
Musk
Elon
and
D o n a l d
Trump sepa-
rated
birth? Strip
away
at
Mr.
INSIDE
VIEW Musk’s self-
cut hair and
By Andy
Mr. Trump’s
Kessler
comb-over
and you’re
left with similar Gerber Baby
faces. Both were outsiders,
often rejected by the status
quo: Mr. Musk coming from
South Africa to Silicon Valley
and Mr. Trump “movin’ on
up” from Jamaica Estates in
Queens to Midtown Manhat-
tan. Both had something to
prove.
Neither really outgrew his
adolescence. Candidate
Trump got in trouble for
“locker room” talk on old
“Access Hollywood” tapes.
And it isn’t hard to notice
Tesla’s naming convention:
Models S, 3, X, Y. Giggle,
giggle.
They’re both entrepre-
neurs. OK, ha, ha. The Donald
hawks $60 Bibles, Trump
Cabernet, $399 gold sneakers,
Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka,
Success by Trump eau de toi-
lette, and a university, not
succeeding at much outside
real estate and reality TV.
Elon has done a little better:
His flame throwers sold out
quickly, oh, and he built the
most valued car company
ever.
They both got stuff done
that government couldn’t. Mr.
Trump rebuilt Wollman Rink
in Manhattan’s Central Park
in 3½ months for $2.25 mil-
lion, after the city wasted six
How Cuba Fuels the Campus Protests
There’s a only one thing: destruction.
dog-bites-
man quality
to the news
reports that
recent cam-
AMERICAS pus chaos in
support of
By Mary
Hamas is the
Anastasia
work of well-
O’Grady
funded revo-
lutionary
groups out to destabilize the
U.S. Even less surprising is
the charge that “outside agi-
tators,” as New York Mayor
Eric Adams has termed these
groups, share an ideology
with the Cuban military dic-
tatorship—and in some cases
have attained practical sup-
port from Havana.
On the other hand, the
American public needs to be
reminded that the Cuban re-
gime has for 65 years nursed
bitter opposition to the U.S.
Constitution and American
freedom. And that for de-
cades it has spent enormous
resources burrowing into
America’s educational, diplo-
matic and political circles in
an effort to topple our demo-
cratic republic.
This truth was obscured
during the Obama administra-
tion, when Ben Rhodes—
struggling creative writer
turned national-security
guru—shaped U.S. policy to
profess that Cuba is no longer
a threat. Who can forget the
photograph—iconic for the
American left—of Raúl Castro
raising the arm of a limp-
wristed President Obama in
2016?
Cuba is still run by angry,
envious tyrants who excel at
A Fitting Tribute to a Murdered Policeman
By Bob Greene
W
hen a police officer
is murdered, his fel-
low cops can be cer-
tain of a few things. They
know there will be enormous
pressure to find the killer
and that there will be in-
tense scrutiny on their in-
vestigation. They know that
if the killer has friends will-
ing to hide him, the mission
will be especially difficult.
And they know that as heart-
sick and angry as they may
be about losing a colleague,
they must remain profes-
sional and focused.
So it was in recent weeks
when Chicago police tried to
find the man who murdered
Officer Luis Huesca a few
days before his 31st birthday.
When officers finally appre-
hended the suspect, they did
something profound: They
found a way to let the fallen
officer help make the arrest
* * * *
years and $12 million. “See
this railing? Same railing
Onassis had on his boat,” Mr.
Trump bragged at the time.
Mr. Musk’s SpaceX success-
fully landed reusable Falcon 9
rockets, well beyond NASA’s
capabilities.
Then they both built em-
pires with government pork.
Tesla sold carbon credits and
received low-cost environ-
mental loans, while buyers of
its cars receive up to $7,500
tax credits. Mr. Trump built
the Grand Hyatt Hotel on
42nd Street with roughly
$360 million in tax breaks.
Oink.
Both nearly lost it all.
Three of Mr. Trump’s casinos
and his Trump Plaza Hotel
have filed for bankruptcy.
Tesla was short on cash in
2008, and Mr. Musk gave his
last $3 million to pay employ-
ees. Mr. Musk claims that in
2017, during Tesla’s Model 3
“production hell,” Apple CEO
Tim Cook refused to meet
with him to discuss acquiring
Tesla. Now they’re both bil-
lionaires, on paper anyway.
Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr.
Musk is into free trade.
There’s Mr. Trump’s “I am a
Tariff Man.” Mr. Musk said in
January that without trade
barriers, Chinese car compa-
nies “will pretty much demol-
ish most other companies in
the world.” Notice anyone
driving a cheap Chinese elec-
tric vehicle? Didn’t think so.
Both like to stretch the
truth. Tesla delivery sched-
ules are written on rubber
bands to stretch when
needed. Add Mr. Musk’s trail
of broken promises: autono-
mous robo-taxis by 2020, hu-
Having achieved that goal at
home and made themselves
rich in the process, they toil
endlessly to expand their
reach. Columbia University is
merely one more destination
on their revolutionary map.
As Mr. Adams explained on
“CBS Mornings” on May 1, “It
was clear we had to take ap-
propriate actions when our
intelligence division identi-
fied those who were profes-
sionals, well-trained.” The
mayor probably knows a lot
more about those profession-
als and their training than
he’s letting on. None of it is
good.
A vocal advocate of the re-
cent hate-ins in New York is
Manolo De Los Santos. The
New York Post describes the
35-year-old as “the leader
and de facto mouthpiece for
the People’s Forum, a radical
anti-Israel group that en-
couraged the takeover of
Hamilton Hall at Columbia
University.”
Born in the Dominican Re-
public, Mr. De Los Santos
moved to the U.S. at 5 but
seems to have spent time in
Cuba beginning in 2006. In
May 2023, Mr. De Los Santos
tweeted a photo of himself
with Cuban dictator Miguel
Díaz Canel on the island. He
wrote that he was “leaving
Cuba after 10 days learning
with its people” and with Mr.
Diaz-Canel. “Young people in
the U.S. have great tasks
ahead of them,” he explained.
In September 2023, Mr. De
Los Santos was photographed
with the Cuban dictator in
New York during the week of
of the man accused of killing
him.
Here is what happened, ac-
cording to police detectives
and Cook County prosecutors:
In the early hours of April 21,
Huesca, a member of the de-
partment’s priority response
Officers used Luis
Huesca’s handcuffs
while arresting the
suspect in his killing.
team, finished his shift. He
then drove his personal Toy-
ota home and pulled into the
driveway.
Unknown to him, prosecu-
tors said in court this month,
a man named Xavier Tate Jr.,
22, was walking in the neigh-
borhood and followed Huesca
on foot into the driveway.
There, prosecutors said, the
mans on Mars by 2024. Can-
didate Trump promised, “We
will build a great wall along
the southern border—and
Mexico will pay for the wall.”
The Mexican border is 1,954
miles. Mr. Trump built 5
miles of new wall and refur-
bished 371. “President
Trump’s Lies, the Definitive
List” became an obsession of
the New York Times.
One was the most
important person in
the world. The other
was president.
Neither can keep his
mouth shut. Mr. Musk called
the diver who rescued a
group of Thai schoolboys
from a flooded cave “pedo
guy.” At a presidential de-
bate in 2016, candidate
Trump said of Hillary Clin-
ton, “Such a nasty woman.”
Again, adolescent.
More similarities: One fa-
mously slept under his desk
at the Tesla factory until pro-
duction problems were fixed.
The other fell asleep at his
hush-money trial.
Both have massive boss
complexes. “The Apprentice”
reality show’s catch phrase—
“You’re fired!”—is as memo-
rable as the Terminator’s “I’ll
be back.” I know Tesla execu-
tives who were unceremoni-
ously sacked for not living up
to impossible standards. Last
week Mr. Musk laid off
Tesla’s entire Supercharger
team.
They also have great and
the U.N. General Assembly
meeting. “Welcome dear com-
rade!” Mr. De Los Santos
tweeted.
It isn’t clear if Mr. De Los
Santos was on the Columbia
campus. But hours before
pro-Hamas activists took
over Hamilton Hall, he gave a
rousing speech to a volunteer
meeting at the People’s Fo-
rum offices in Manhattan,
where he “urged the group to
‘give Joe Biden a hot sum-
mer’ and ‘make it untenable
for the politics of usual to
Some of the ‘outside
agitators’ against
Israel are Havana’s
fellow travelers.
take place in this country,’ ”
according to the Washington
Free Beacon, which said it
attended the meeting by
Zoom. “Breakout sessions”
that followed, the website
said, “focused on organizing
new methods of ‘resis-
tance.’ ”
On May 7 Mr. De Los San-
tos was detained by the New
York City Police Department
for his role in a traffic-block-
ing march. It wasn’t his first
brush with the law. The Post
has reported that he was also
arrested by the NYPD on Jan.
27 during a day of pro-Hamas
activism.
Mr. De Los Santos is a po-
litical entrepreneur who has
made a career out of activ-
ism. He claims concern for
Palestinians. But he’s fine
man shot Huesca 10 times in
the head, chest, arms and
thighs. He allegedly then stole
Huesca’s car and department-
issued gun as the officer lay
dying.
It took authorities 10 days
to find the suspect. They say
they identified him through
surveillance video and other
physical evidence as the man
in Huesca’s driveway. Police
say he traveled to Iowa and
Wisconsin before ending up
in an apartment in Glendale
Heights, Ill. Prosecutors will
make their case in court and
the suspect, charged with
first-degree murder and
other felonies, will be given
the opportunity to dispute it.
But that is all in the months,
perhaps years, ahead.
What is so moving is what
happened in the moments be-
fore Chicago police and mem-
bers of the U.S. Marshals
Service’s Great Lakes Re-
gional Fugitive Task Force
powerful god complexes. It’s
hard to match Mr. Trump’s
“we’ll have so much winning.”
In an interview in March for
former CNN talking head Don
Lemon’s new Twitter show,
when asked about his use of
ketamine—a Schedule III con-
trolled substance—Mr. Musk
replied: “From an investor
standpoint, if there is some-
thing I’m taking, I should
keep taking it.” Trump-like,
he soon fired Mr. Lemon.
Politically, both started
left, then moved right and
liked it. Mr. Musk, maybe to
boost Tesla and receive subsi-
dies and tax credits and
loans, used to be a squishy
environment liberal. Mr.
Trump was a registered Dem-
ocrat, probably because ev-
eryone in New York City is
one, which makes it easier to
get cocktail-party invitations.
Meanwhile, most progressives
won’t stay at Trump proper-
ties, and I’ve heard again and
again, “I’d buy a Tesla if it
wasn’t for him,” meaning the
free speech-advocating, Twit-
ter-owning maniac.
Both own stocks that are
like yo-yos. Watch for Mr.
Trump’s Truth Social free
fall. Both are obsessed with
numbers, from TV ratings and
polls to followers and
monthly average users. Nei-
ther seem religious, beyond
the biblical “Be fruitful and
multiply.” I’ll leave it at that.
Let’s face it, life would be
dull without these dizygotic
twins. They sure love the
spotlight. For a while, one
was the most important per-
son in the world. The other
was president.
Write to kessler@wsj.com.
with the Cuban police state,
which is holding more than
1,000 political prisoners—in-
cluding performance artist
Luis Manuel Otero Alcantará
and musician Maykel Os-
orbo—and starving its peo-
ple by prohibiting farmers’
markets and the ownership
of boats for fishing. He
blames U.S. policy for Cuban
suffering.
There’s nothing special
about Mr. De Los Santos.
Since 1969 Cuba has been us-
ing the U.S.-based Vencere-
mos Brigade to build teams of
Americans willing to infil-
trate, spy and indoctrinate in
the name of the revolution.
The solidarity group recruits
sympathizers and brings
them to Cuba to turn them
against their own govern-
ment. It identifies those most
ripe for leadership and
teaches them how to run a
communist underground back
home. Venceremos graduates
return to work in the U.S.
In a 2014 unclassified re-
port, “Cuban Intelligence Tar-
geting of Academia,” the FBI
said that schools, colleges,
universities and research in-
stitutes are “a fertile environ-
ment” for foreign intelli-
gence. “The Cuban
intelligence services,” it
added, “are known to actively
target the U.S. academic
world for the purposes of re-
cruiting agents, in order to
both obtain useful informa-
tion and conduct influence
activities.”
Cuba wants to do the U.S.
harm. Let’s stop pretending
otherwise.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
brought their suspect in.
The suspect was report-
edly hiding under an apart-
ment sink. When the cops
snapped the handcuffs onto
his wrists, they weren’t just
any set of cuffs. They were
the handcuffs that had been
issued to Huesca by the Chi-
cago Police Department. His
colleagues had been carrying
them to use in anticipation of
this moment.
At a press conference, Chi-
cago Police Superintendent
Larry Snelling said that when
the officers made the arrest,
“Luis was with them.” He had
helped to bring the man in.
It was his last official act
at the end of his police career,
courtesy of grateful officers
proud to have served with
him.
Mr. Greene’s books include
“And You Know You Should
Be Glad: A True Story of Life-
long Friendship.”
Monday, May 13, 2024 | A15
BOOKSHELF | BY Edward Glaeser
The Urge
To Grow
Growth
By Daniel Susskind
Belknap/Harvard, 304 pages, $29.95
I
s economic growth overrated? Since World War II, the
growth of a nation’s gross domestic product has become a
central political desideratum and an important bellwether of
economic success. Daniel Susskind’s “Growth: A History and a
Reckoning” charts the growth of growth as an economic idea,
policy objective and source of anxiety. The author occupies the
broad middle ground between the proponents of the practically
antiprosperity “degrowth” movement and the unalloyed apos-
tles of capitalism. I suspect he will have more success convinc-
ing progressives that there is some good in economic expansion
than in persuading Milton Friedman’s disciples to embrace this
book’s often-amorphous policy proposals.
“It is hard to imagine that a Stone Age hunter-gatherer
would have had much in common with someone from the
eighteenth century,” Mr. Susskind writes, but he emphasizes
that “both of them are likely to have lived stagnant economic
lives, stuck in an unforgiving
struggle for subsistence.” Much
evidence supports this claim.
Long-term stagnation was not
something new when it was
observed by Alvin Hansen in
1939 or Larry Summers in
2014—it has been the reality for
almost all of human history. Mr.
Susskind explains this “economic
stasis” with an assertion rooted
in the work of the original dismal
scientist, Thomas Malthus: “Any
improvements would only ever be
temporary, as populations inevita-
bly grew to gobble up that new
prosperity.”
Most economic historians would follow this description of
the preindustrial world with a narrative about the Industrial
Revolution. Instead, Mr. Susskind cleverly shifts to the evolution
of economists’ ideas about what enables economies to take off.
He starts with Roy Harrod and Evsey Domar, both of whom, in
the 1930s and ’40s, studied the accumulation of physical capital
such as buildings, machines and roads.
In the 1950s, Robert Solow and Trevor Swan suggested that
growth can come only from unexplained improvements in
technology because capital accumulation runs into diminishing
returns. The next leap forward occurred in the 1980s, when Paul
Romer and Robert Lucas proposed that the accumulation of a
special type of capital—knowledge—could generate increasing
returns across the economy as a whole. Thinking about
knowledge spillovers led Lucas to Jane Jacobs’s writings about
urban creativity, which directly pushed me to my lifetime study
of cities. Economic historians, especially Joel Mokyr, also study
growth, and their more granular findings generally support the
Romer-Lucas view that ideas hop from person to person.
Mr. Susskind then pivots to the history of growth as a central
political objective. It starts with Simon Kuznets, whose work on
measuring output in the U.S. and throughout the world during
the Great Depression resulted in the Kuznets curve, which
documented inequality as having first increased, and then
decreased, with national wealth. This suggested that growth is
as likely to reduce inequality as it is to exacerbate it.
As Peter Drucker famously opined, “what gets measured gets
managed,” and Kuznets’s attention to the course of national
output led American policymakers to focus on delivering
growth. This focus took on added urgency during the Cold War
because, as Mr. Susskind reminds us, “how rapidly the U.S. and
Soviet economies were growing” was considered evidence of
“who was winning the Cold War.”
Mr. Susskind then turns to the benefits of growth, including
“unprecedented material prosperity,” which are offset, he
suggests, by “a huge price, one whose destructive consequences
we do not yet fully understand.” Climate change is allegedly
part of that “huge price.” Yet we have decades of evidence
documenting an Environmental Kuznets Curve, in which
environmental harm first rises, then falls, with national wealth.
While carbon emissions would have been lower if our econo-
mies had remained in some dismal preindustrial morass, the
Kuznets curve implies that already-wealthy countries will
become cleaner as they grow.
Increasing the standard of living for a
nation’s citizens will help create new
opportunities and increase social mobility.
Mr. Susskind briefly addresses other problems, which may or
may not be related to growth, such as rising inequality and
threats to democracy. Benjamin Friedman’s “The Moral Conse-
quences of Economic Growth” (2005) presented centuries of
evidence supporting the view that “economic growth—meaning
a rising standard of living for the clear majority of citizens—
more often than not fosters greater opportunity, tolerance of
diversity, social mobility, commitment to fairness, and dedica-
tion to democracy.”
Most of Mr. Susskind’s policy recommendations seem
intended to make growth more palatable to progressives. That
is a worthy goal, and in some areas his proposals are clear and
sensible. In other areas, his proposals’ ambiguity makes it hard
to assess their sensibleness. He ferociously denounces our
current intellectual-property regime as being “far too protective
of the status quo, coddling those who have discovered ideas in
the past at the expense of those who want to use and reuse
those ideas in the future.” But his primary proposals are
reasonably orthodox: “enforcing the existing rules,” “more
funding for properly operating the existing IP regime” and
“offering prizes rather than patents in areas of known needs.”
As many authors have noted, prizes offer incentives for innova-
tion without creating monopolies, although I have doubts that
our political system is capable of implementing a fair, large-
scale public-subsidy program that doles out significant cash
rewards to private-sector innovators.
Mr. Susskind is also keen on expanding total R&D spending
and on directing that spending toward innovation that protects
the environment and creates jobs. I share both objectives, but
good intentions often lead to hellish policies, and Mr. Susskind’s
policy proposals are murky. I agree with him strongly if he
means supporting a carbon tax (which he does mention and
which will encourage environmental innovation) and making
the tax-and-benefit system more pro-employment, perhaps by
reducing the payroll tax for the poorest workers. But if he
means vast funding to support the Solyndras of the future, I am
less sanguine.
“Growth” succeeds smartly as a history of thought, but it is
less successful as a practical policy primer.
Mr. Glaeser is a professor of economics at Harvard, a senior
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a co-author of
“Survival of the City.”
A16 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

OPINION
REVIEW & OUTLOOK LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Trump’s Vice Presidential Opportunity What Does Biden Think ‘Never Again’ Means?

D
onald Trump is doing his “Apprentice” This assumes Ms. Haley would accept the VP I can’t agree with you that Presi- many requests, and finally he is back-
thing and publicly auditioning candi- offer, which carries more risk for her than for dent Biden offered the “right ing up his words. If Mr. Netanyahu
words” when he said, “‘Never again,’ wants to continue this policy, he is on
dates for Vice President. One excep- Mr. Trump. A second Trump term is likely to be
simply translated for me, means his own. Listen to the protests around
tion: Nikki Haley is nowhere to as chaotic and divisive as the never forget” (“How Not to Remem- the world. The message is clear: Stop
be found. No sooner did Axios He needs to attract first, with Democrats implaca- ber the Holocaust,” Review & Out- the killing and maiming of innocent
report that Ms. Haley was be- Haley’s voters, and a bly opposed to everything. look, May 8). While historical mem- people and focus on a peace that pro-
ing considered than Mr. Second terms are rarely a suc- ory is important, it is the easy part vides protection for both sides.
Trump issued a personal MAGA echo won’t do it. cess, and the VP would go of “never again.” ED FRICK
statement this weekend that down with the ship. Then The hard part, for President Biden Pinehurst, N.C.
she’s out of the running. Mr. again, few people turn down at least, is understanding that “never
Trump at least said he wishes her well, but re- the chance to be so close to power. again” means that Israel and the Jew- By all accounts, Hamas is now
jecting her doesn’t solve his main campaign Who else could unite the party by reassuring ish people will never again tolerate— headquartered in Rafah. Mr. Biden has
problem of appealing to Haley voters. Haley voters? A strong and logical choice would and should never have to tolerate— stated that he won’t ship more arms
threats to their existence such as the to Israel if it attacks Rafah. It would
i i i be Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has shown
“ring of fire” ignited against Israel by appear the Biden war doctrine allows
Vice Presidents are rarely decisive in presi- he can win and govern in a swing state. He’s Iran and its proxies. Israel to attack the enemy anywhere
dential elections, but they can matter for gov- smart, likable and a conservative who is impos- With his watered-down and tor- except where it is. Every time I think
erning and the country’s future. This year the sible for the left to portray as crazy. He’d signal tured definition, Mr. Biden betrays Mr. Biden has done the stupidest thing
VP choice may matter more than usual on all that Mr. Trump realizes he can’t win with MAGA the clear meaning of “never again.” possible, he manages to top himself.
of those counts. If Mr. Trump wins he’d be an alone. The Trump campaign is boasting that it With his denial of critical military ANDREW HARVEY
immediate lame duck who can serve only one will target Virginia this year, and if that’s more support, he betrays Israel and the Pasadena, Calif.
term. He turns 78 in June, and he’d be the sec- than spin Mr. Youngkin can help. Jewish people in their hour of need.
ond oldest President after the current one. Of those at Mr. Trump’s recent VP pageant BEN ORLANSKI Your editorial calls on Mr. Biden to
Mike Pence was an excellent choice in 2016 at Mar-a-Lago, few stand out. One who does is Beverly Hills, Calif. name names, especially National Stu-
dents for Justice in Palestine, for sup-
as an experienced, steady hand who also reas- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who would be
Your editorial reminds me of an ex- porting violence. He should also re-
sured social conservatives. He helped to popu- an adult in White House councils. He was a suc- perience I had roughly 20 years ago voke the group’s ability to receive
late the first Trump Administration with tal- cess as an entrepreneur and understands mar- at a meeting of the members of the tax-deductible donations.
ented policy experts. On Jan. 6 he stood up to kets and global economic competition. He’s not European Union in Berlin. I was a rep- DAVID C. MITCHELL
Mr. Trump’s bullying and put the Constitution flashy, but Mr. Trump needs mature. resentative of Hadassah, the Women’s Bowie, Md.
ahead of his own ambition. Another outside-the-Beltway choice would Zionist Organization of America. The
Mr. Trump needs a comparably reassuring be Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has cut taxes and meeting was to establish antisemitism On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked the
choice this year to win over the suburban, col- taken political risks to pass universal school as an evil condemned by the EU mem- U.S. at Pearl Harbor, inflicting 2,400
lege-educated and women voters who cost him choice in Iowa. She hasn’t withstood the rigors bers. At the meeting, each country re- deaths and plunging America into
re-election in 2020. They’re still giving Ms. Ha- of national scrutiny, which is always a risk, es- counted its efforts to establish Holo- World War II. Less than five years
ley upwards of 20% in the GOP primaries, pecially on foreign policy. And Mr. Trump may caust memorials. later, after more than one million
When they were finished, Elie Wie- Japanese civilians had died and two
though she long ago ended her campaign. not forgive her for endorsing Ron DeSantis in
sel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, atomic bombs had been dropped, the
Ms. Haley ought to be in the VP mix given her the Iowa caucuses. asked, “That’s what you are doing for Japanese surrendered.
strong primary performance. She outlasted ev- The biggest question is whether Mr. Trump dead Jews. What are you doing for Our war was never truly against
eryone but Mr. Trump and did well in debates. wants his VP choice to expand his coalition or Jews living in your country?” the Japanese people, just as Israel’s
She has foreign-policy experience and was a be a MAGA echo. Most of those on the stage be- Stunned silence followed. isn’t with the people of Gaza. It was
two-term Governor of South Carolina. She’d hind him at Mar-a-Lago wouldn’t appeal to the KAREN VENEZKY and is with their leaders. Precisely
provide a notable contrast in competence and Haley voter. Tulsi Gabbard has been courting Chicago like Hamas, Japan’s military leader-
charisma to Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump, but the former Democrat’s isola- ship was prepared to sacrifice any
The conventional wisdom is that Mr. Trump tionism should be a deal-breaker. She de- Mr. Biden is finally acting like the number of civilians, even up to 20
can’t accept someone with strong views of her nounced Mr. Trump’s first-term assassination president of the world’s most power- million, in the event of an invasion.
own, which would rule out Ms. Haley. That’s of Iranian killer Qasem Soleimani. ful country. After weeks of pleading, Evil lives. Then and now, it hides
he has finally told Israeli Prime Min- behind those defenseless people. For-
probably the safest bet, and Ms. Haley hasn’t Republicans are increasingly confident they
ister Benjamin Netanyahu that he tunately, America wasn’t dependent
endorsed him. But choosing a strong woman can win this year, but the presidential race is won’t be able to use our bombs, mis- on Mr. Biden in our fight against evil.
would be surprising enough that it might cause still in the margin of error. Mr. Trump’s choice siles and guns in a tremendously de- Unfortunately, Israel is.
skeptical swing voters to take another look at as VP is an opportunity to showcase a contrast structive manner. GLEN ESNARD
the former President. The MAGA diehards to Ms. Harris, who could become President if Mr. Biden has been ignored in his Bozeman, Mont.
would howl, but they aren’t going to stay home Mr. Biden wins. He needs Haley voters, whether
or vote for Mr. Biden. or not he chooses Ms. Haley.

From Green Innovation to Climate Socialism

Campus Protesters, Unmasked In an otherwise useful reminder of below those of fossil fuels, which are

C
why the much-ballyhooed “transi- also likely to enjoy the benefits of in-
ampus protesters may be enjoying the Vivian, a civil-rights organizer and compatriot tion” to unconventional energy won’t novation. Further, it is misleading to
spring weather in their encampments, of the Rev. Martin Luther King, said at the time happen anytime soon—because the describe unconventional energy as
but in some states they will need to that the court’s decision “helped insure that massive attendant costs can’t be “clean,” shunting aside the heavy
wave their Palestinian flags Georgians will be free of the borne by most of the world’s people metal pollution, wildlife destruction
with masks off. In a letter to Anti-KKK laws threat of anonymous terror- confronted by the difficult realities of and myriad other environmental
university presidents last are relevant against ism motivated by the bigotry eking out a living—Bjorn Lomborg problems caused by such energy.
week, Ohio Attorney General of the Ku Klux Klan.” (“When the Only Problem Was Cli- BENJAMIN ZYCHER
Dave Yost reminded them that today’s antisemites. Masks worn today to ha- mate,” op-ed, May 9) nonetheless American Enterprise Institute
the state has a law against rass Jews are no different tries to have it both ways. He argues Long, Beach, Wash.
those who use masks to dis- than those that were once that the world should “ramp up in-
vestments in green innovation, even- As usual, Mr. Lomberg goes against
guise their identity. worn to intimidate blacks or the Catholics who
tually driving the cost of clean energy the grain in his perspicacious analysis.
Under the 1953 state law, “no person shall were also a Klan target. Masks have been a dis- below that of fossil fuels.” I would add another impetus to the
unite with two or more others to commit a mis- turbing element of the campus protests because Why, without massive subsidies, development of climate obsession af-
demeanor while wearing white caps, masks, or they add a menacing element to antisemetic does the private sector fail to invest ter the Cold War: The leftists who lost
other disguise.” Doing so can result in felony slogans and chants. in such innovation in pursuit of a the socialism-versus-capitalism debate
charges and six to 18 months in prison. Mr. Yost Student protesters have admitted they are competitive advantage? Answer: The had to come up with another excuse
explained that “The First Amendment is a concealing their identities because they don’t unconcentrated energy content of for government to exert central con-
shield against the government, not a sword want to be identifiable to potential employers. wind flows, sunlight and other green trol over the economy.
against fellow students.” But the ubiquity of masks on campus has al- fantasies means that it is very un- MICHAEL GOODWIN
The Ohio statute was written to go after the lowed many outsiders to infiltrate the student likely that their costs ever will fall Wilton, Conn.
Ku Klux Klan, which used white hoods in the last masses without universities knowing if they are
century to intimidate blacks, and to avoid discov- members of the school community.
ery and legal consequences. In 1923 some 75,000 AG Yost said protesters need to “own their Resist the Prosecution but Obey the Court
Klan members gathered at a rally near Buckeye advocacy,” and he’s right. The anti-Vietnam war Even though it appears that former and attorneys from arbitrarily dis-
Lake in Ohio, according to the Ohio Capital Jour- protesters of the 1960s didn’t hide behind President Donald Trump’s “hush- obeying orders of the courts. To per-
nal. Fifteen other states have similar anti-mask- masks. If progressive political activists have the money” prosecution is politically mo- mit violation of that prohibition is to
ing laws, including Michigan, Minnesota, North courage of their convictions, they’ll proudly tivated, it is improper for Mr. Trump promote lawlessness that promotes
Carolina, Florida and Georgia. show who they are. Masks can make it easier to express his disagreement with the disorder and, ultimately, anarchy.
The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the for protesters to think they can get away with court’s “gag orders” by defying the ROBERT R. BARTON
Peach State’s law in 1990 and its survival was crimes and violent acts. Kudos to Mr. Yost for court and disobeying the orders Kerrville, Texas
seen as a bulwark against hate. The Rev. C.T. enforcing the law. (“Quelling Trump’s Talk Proves Chal- Mr. Barton is a retired Texas dis-
lenging,” U.S. News, May 6). trict judge.
For the rule of law to prevail and

Gavin Newsom Says No New Taxes, Sort Of our system of government to survive,
the constitutional institutions by Regulator, Regulate Thyself

I
s Gavin Newsom getting nervous about his
state’s economy? On Friday the California
Governor swore off increasing taxes to bal-
ance the state’s ballooning $45 billion deficit.
But better examine the fine print.
The Governor’s revised $288 billion budget
forecasts a $7 billion larger shortfall than in Jan-
uary. Income and corporate tax revenue continue
to lag despite the stock-market rebound. Capital
gains realizations fell to $137 billion last year
from a record $349 billion in 2021.
California’s steeply progressive tax system
with a top rate of 13.3% on income over $1 mil-
lion means the top 1% paid half of state income
tax in 2021. Many top earners decamped to
lower-tax states such as Nevada and Texas dur-
ing the pandemic.
This may explain Mr. Newsom’s no-new-taxes
vow. He rightly noted that “we have among the
highest tax rates in the United States of America
for high wage earners. We have among the high-
est tax rates, as I noted, for corporate tax rates,”
and “we have to live within our means.”
Count it progress that he’s no longer telling
the whopper—which we called out last au-
tumn—that California high earners pay less tax
than Florida’s working class. But don’t buy his
vow of frugality. His budget papers over the $45
billion shortfall with accounting gimmicks such
as shifting spending to special funds and stealth
tax increases.
He wants to suspend a deduction for carry-
over net-operating losses for businesses with
California income exceeding $1 million. His
budget caps the use of business tax credits at
$5 million, while preserving a carve-out for in-
vestment in low-income housing. These busi-
ness tax increases are expected to raise $6.4
billion in revenue.
He also wants to shift spending on mass tran-
sit and green energy to a “greenhouse gas reduc-
tion fund,” which is financed by permits that busi-
nesses must buy to offset their CO2 emissions.
Cap-and-trade auctions are expected to raise
about $5 billion this year. Regulators can raise
more simply by ratcheting down the state’s emis-
sions cap and manipulating auction designs, as
progressives are urging. Mr. Newsom’s spending
shift is a tax increase by any other name.
In related news, the state Public Utilities
Commission last week approved a novel income-
based fixed charge for utility bills. Most custom-
ers will pay a fixed charge of $24.15 a month, but
lower earners will pay between $6 and $12. This
is another progressive income tax in disguise
that will increase over time.
The fixed charge is intended to ease Califor-
nia’s soaring electricity rates—caused largely by
Sacramento’s climate mandates. Progressives
fret high rates are a disincentive to buy electric
vehicles. Utility bills for EV owners are expected
to decline under the new scheme. Could Teslas
be a new form of tax avoidance?
Mr. Newsom last week urged California’s high
court to block a November ballot initiative that
would make it harder for regulatory agencies to
raise taxes by stealth, as the cap-and-trade pro-
gram and fixed utility charges do. His opposition
to that initiative reveals his priorities more than
his tax disavowal does.
which our government functions
Regarding your editorial “The
must be respected. The institution of
Wolves of the FDIC” (May 8): Regula-
the judiciary must be respected, and
tory agencies might want to change
the courts must be obeyed even
the ingrained culture of protecting
though individual judges may be dis-
managers at all costs and start think-
respected. The rule of law provides
ing about the damage being done to
remedies and procedures by which le-
the junior employees, who are far
gally erroneous orders of judges may
more vulnerable. The banks they reg-
be nullified or corrected. As a corol-
ulate made these changes years ago.
lary, the rule of law prohibits parties
CARTER EVANS
Charlotte, N.C.
Our Meaningless Metaphors
I loved “‘Green Shoots’ Grow Out
of Control on Wall Street” (Page One,
Pepper ...
May 7) on bankers’ fondness for And Salt
“green shoots” as a metaphor for cor-
porate earnings or short-run GDP THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
growth. It traced the phrase back to
1991. A better precedent is the 1979
comedy film “Being There.” Peter
Sellers plays Chance, a gardener
whose mindless phrases are embraced
by the American president during a
recession. Likewise, today’s execu-
tives repeat meaningless metaphors
rather than admit our inability in eco-
nomics to make any useful short-run
predictions about earnings or growth.
PROF. WILLIAM EASTERLY
New York University
Letters intended for publication should
be emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Please
include your city, state and telephone
number. All letters are subject to “I never lost hope.
editing, and unpublished letters cannot I knew my college alumni
be acknowledged.
office would find me.”
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Antisemites
Try to Call
The Tune
At Eurovision
By Dominic Green
P
lato said that when music
changes, politics will change.
The Eurovision Song Contest’s
final in Malmö, Sweden, Saturday
night exposed Europe’s widening so-
cial schism and may predict next
month’s European Union elections.
When Israel’s entrant, Eden Golan,
came to Malmö, a leftist-Islamist rab-
ble massed outside her hotel, baying
for Israel’s expulsion from Eurovision
and the world. The mob included Greta
Thunberg, once the face of the climate
apocalypse, now a boycotter of the
Jewish state. Israel is a global leader in
desalination and water management.
Despite a menacing mob
and boycott calls, Israeli
singer Eden Golan almost
won the popular vote.
Israel is in Eurovision because it
wants to be there. It falls within the
European Broadcasting Area, which
covers western Russia, North Africa,
Turkey and much of the Middle East.
Georgia and Azerbaijan also compete
in Eurovision. Lebanon nearly com-
peted in 2005 but canceled because
Israel was there.
As in the tech and military sectors,
Israel punches above its weight.
While fighting for its existence, it has
won Eurovision four times. This
year’s entry, “October Rain” by the
20-year-old Ms. Golan, was a lament
for the victims of Hamas’s terrorist
rampage. The European Broadcasting
Union forced Israel to tone down the
“political” lyrics; the title became
“Hurricane.”
Malmö is notorious for gang wars,
Islamist recruitment and anti-Jewish
violence. The police told Ms. Golan to
stay in her hotel because they
couldn’t guarantee her safety. A po-
lice motorcade carried Ms. Golan to
Thursday’s semifinal. Trade unions at
the Belgian state broadcaster briefly
blacked out the screen rather than
show the singer from the Zionist en-
tity. The BBC’s flagship current-af-
fairs program devoted time to a drag
queen, who explained huskily why he
was boycotting his own watching
party. But telephone voters put Ms.
Golan in a close second place.
Eurovision voting resembles EU
voting. The voters send national rep-
resentatives to the EU Parliament in
Brussels, but the unelected European
Commission overrules them. In Euro-
vision, half the points come from na-
tional telephone votes, half from un-
elected juries. Across the Continent,
the nationalist right is leading the
polls for June’s elections. The jurors
of Brussels will try to overrule the
voters, fearful of immigrant and Isla-
mist violence, but the EU’s show can’t
go on forever without the majority’s
support.
The Greek and Dutch entrants
mocked Ms. Golan at the prefinal
press conference. The Finnish entrant
apologized for being filmed backstage
with her. During the final, protesters
tried to storm the stadium while the
audience booed Ms. Golan’s perfor-
mance. But Europe’s silent majority
gave her strong support. They also
know what it’s like to be attacked by
Islamists, demonized by leftist elites,
and derided for defending their bor-
ders and their way of life.
Israel placed fifth this year, due to
low support in the jury voting. But it
came second to Croatia in the popu-
lar vote. Though Ireland’s entrant, a
“nonbinary” satanist named Bambie
Thug, had called for Israel’s expul-
sion, Irish voters put Israel in second
place. Israel topped the popular vote
in Britain, Spain, Germany, France,
Finland, Sweden, Holland, Belgium,
Switzerland, Portugal and Italy. Euro-
peans may struggle to tell good tunes
from bad, but they know the differ-
ence between good and evil.
Mr. Green is a Journal contributor
and a fellow of the Royal Historical
Society.
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Biden Breaks a 2004 Promise to Israel
By Amit Segal
H
ow much is the Ameri-
can presidential seal
worth? The majestic ea-
gle circled by stars was,
until recently, highly
valuable—a warranty backed by the
world’s mightiest military, political
and economic power.
That’s why a letter of commit-
ment bearing the presidential seal
played a crucial role at a turning
point in Israel’s history 20 years
ago. In the spring of 2004, Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon encountered
obstacles trying to advance his plan
for a total withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip. At the time, Gaza was home
to thousands of settlers and several
divisions of the Israel Defense
Forces.
The concerns were twofold: first,
that the precedent of a withdrawal
to the 1967 borders in Gaza might
eventually be applied to Judea and
Samaria, creating indefensible bor-
ders for Israel, and second, that the
move would be interpreted as a re-
treat under fire, strengthening ter-
rorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
President George W. Bush came
to Sharon’s aid. He dispatched a let-
ter that helped win the support of
Israel’s ministers and Knesset mem-
bers that Sharon needed. Many re-
call Mr. Bush’s implicit promise in
the letter to Sharon—“It is unrealis-
tic to expect that the outcome of fi-
nal status negotiations will be a full
and complete return to the armi-
stice lines of 1949”—meaning that
Israel would be able to retain the
parts of Judea and Samaria where
the settlement blocs are.
In recent discussions with high-
The George Costanza Presidency
In a classic “Sein-
feld” episode,
George Costanza
bemoans that ev-
ery decision he’s
made has been
wrong. His life, as
LIFE
a result, has turned
SCIENCE
out the opposite of
By Allysia
what he intended.
Finley
Joe Biden might
relate. His presi-
dency probably hasn’t gone as he’d
hoped. Two wars, a border crisis
and near-record inflation have
erupted. A Gallup poll last week
found that confidence in his eco-
nomic stewardship is lower than
for any president this century
other than George W. Bush during
the height of the 2008 financial
crisis.
But like George Costanza, Mr. Bi-
den has only himself to blame. Both
men create more trouble for them-
selves, as each poor decision leads
to another. George’s schemes to woo
women—say, by enlisting Elaine to
take an IQ test for him—boomerang.
So do the president’s ploys to win
voters. Mr. Biden, like George, now
risks getting dumped.
Consider the chain of expedient
acts that led to the president’s
threat last week to withhold weap-
ons from Israel to appease his
party’s leftists. Mr. Biden worries
he’ll lose re-election if young pro-
gressives don’t turn out in Novem-
ber—or if they cast ballots for Rob-
ert F. Kennedy Jr. or Jill Stein. It
Sunset of Section 230 Would Force Big Tech’s Hand
By Cathy McMorris Rodgers
And Frank Pallone Jr.
T
he internet’s original promise
was to help people and busi-
nesses connect, innovate and
share information. Congress passed
the Communications Decency Act in
1996 to realize those goals. It was
an overwhelming success. Section
230 of the act helped shepherd the
internet from the “you’ve got mail”
era into today’s global nexus of
communication and commerce.
Unfortunately, Section 230 is
now poisoning the healthy online
ecosystem it once fostered. Big Tech
companies are exploiting the law to
shield them from any responsibility
or accountability as their platforms
inflict immense harm on Americans,
Robert Thomson
Chief Executive Officer, News Corp
Almar Latour
Chief Executive Officer and Publisher
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OPINION
Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush at the White House, July 29, 2003.
ranking officials in Israel and the
U.S., I was surprised to learn that
some had forgotten another, far
firmer commitment in the letter:
“Israel will retain its right to defend
itself against terrorism, including to
take actions against terrorist organ-
To facilitate withdrawal
from Gaza, Bush pledged
the U.S. would ‘lead
efforts’ against terrorism.
izations. The United States will lead
efforts, working together with Jor-
dan, Egypt, and others in the inter-
national community, to build the ca-
pacity and will of Palestinian
institutions to fight terrorism, dis-
isn’t an unreasonable concern.
Young’uns never fell in love with Mr.
Biden, and they increasingly resent
being forced by party elders into a
political marriage of convenience.
Yet Mr. Biden’s bigger problem is
that the pandemic handouts that
Democrats hoped would win them
votes have backfired. Excessive
spending has fueled inflation and
led to the highest interest rates in a
generation. Young people have been
especially harmed because those
who don’t own homes now can’t af-
ford them. Mr. Biden boasted a 33%
approval rating among voters under
30 in an Economist/YouGov poll last
week. Only 24% of them said the
economy was excellent or good. A
mere 13% thought it is improving
and 15% believed it will get better if
Mr. Biden is re-elected.
By comparison, 36% believed it
would improve if Donald Trump
won in November. Young voters
aren’t fond of the former president;
they simply find Mr. Biden as attrac-
tive as George Costanza.
Mr. Biden has tried to boost his
support with young people by can-
celing student debt. It hasn’t
worked. His repeat rounds of debt
forgiveness have instead infuriated
Americans who didn’t go to college,
grads who repaid their loans, and
parents who made sacrifices to pay
tuition.
Mr. Biden’s climate policies have
proved similarly ineffective at ener-
gizing young voters, while alienat-
ing working-class Americans and fu-
especially children. Congress’s fail-
ure to revisit this law is irresponsi-
ble and untenable. That is why
we’re taking bipartisan action.
We must act because Big Tech is
profiting from children, developing
algorithms that push harmful con-
tent on to our kids’ feeds and re-
fusing to strengthen their plat-
forms’ protections against
predators, drug dealers, sex traf-
fickers, extortioners and cyberbul-
lies. Children are paying the price,
developing addictive and dangerous
habits, often at the expense of their
mental health. Big Tech has failed
to uphold American democratic val-
ues and be fair stewards of the
speech they host.
Section 230 was written before
many of these companies even ex-
isted or the full effect of the inter-
net’s capabilities were known.
Courts have expanded what Con-
gress originally intended, interpret-
ing Section 230 in a way that gives
Big Tech companies nearly unlim-
ited immunity from legal conse-
quences. These blanket protections
have resulted in tech firms operat-
ing without transparency or ac-
countability for how they manage
their platforms. This means that a
social-media company, for example,
can’t easily be held responsible if it
promotes, amplifies or makes
money from posts selling drugs, il-
legal weapons or other illicit con-
tent. As long as the status quo pre-
vails, these companies will keep
putting profit ahead of the health of
our society and youth.
Over the years lawmakers have
Monday, May 13, 2024 | A17
to withdraw to a distance only a 15-
minute drive from Tel Aviv’s main
intersection.
Over the past 20 years, the U.S.
has failed in the efforts it pledged to
uphold: to fight terrorism and pre-
vent Gaza from becoming a threat
to Israel. When Hamas took control
of Gaza in 2007, the U.S. did noth-
ing. In the summer of 2014, Presi-
dent Obama withheld Hellfire mis-
siles from Israel during its military
TIM SLOAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
operation against Hamas. In May
2021 President Biden pressured Is-
rael to discontinue another military
operation in Gaza.
Now, with his announcement to
halt the delivery of weapons, Mr. Bi-
den has shredded Mr. Bush’s letter
to Sharon. The consequences will be
catastrophic even if Israel prevails
in Gaza. The entire region and the
world are closely watching leaders
mantle terrorist organizations, and renege on commitments and strate-
prevent the areas from which Israel gic partnerships.
has withdrawn from posing a threat An American statement used to
that would have to be addressed by be like the U.S. dollar—universally
any other means.” coveted and esteemed. But times
This principle, as outlined in the have changed and the dollar’s value,
letter, was ratified by both houses much like presidential assurances,
of Congress with overwhelming ma- has diminished. It should come as
jorities, lending additional weight to no surprise that countries such as
the commitment as follows: Saudi Arabia now have a new list of
“Whereas Israel has the right to de- demands for Washington, from a nu-
fend itself against terrorism, includ- clear reactor to a defense alliance.
ing to take actions against terrorist Now, instead of delivering prom-
organizations that threaten Israel’s ised support to an ally, the U.S. is
citizens.” hindering efforts. By halting the
When President Obama took of- shipment of weapons to Israel, it is
fice in 2009, he quickly erased the effectively sending Hamas the most
commitment to recognize the set- potent weapon of all: hope.
tlement blocs. WikiLeaks docu-
ments reveal that officials in his Mr. Segal is chief political com-
administration were instructed to mentator on Israel’s Channel 12
assert that this document wasn’t News and author of “The Story of
binding, all the while urging Israel Israeli Politics.”
eling higher energy prices. The about 7,000 manufacturing jobs in
president in January surrendered to the last year, while mining, logging
a small army of TikTokers calling and construction employment in
for a halt to new liquefied-natural- Pennsylvania has declined by 4,000.
gas export projects, without think- No wonder Mr. Trump is leading
ing how it would play with U.S. al- him in these swing states.
lies or workers whose jobs depend Mr. Biden has tried to compen-
on the natural-gas industry, espe- sate for these unforced errors with
cially in Pennsylvania. This includes working-class voters by opposing
workers who produce steel for pipe- Nippon Steel’s acquisition of Pitts-
lines, as well as members of build- burgh-based U.S. Steel. While the
ing-trades unions. United Steelworkers union cheered,
the president’s intervention will dis-
courage foreign investment that cre-
With each expedient act, ates good-paying U.S. jobs. It’s also
another snub to Japan, whose help
from climate policy to the the U.S. needs to contain a bellicose
Mideast, Joe Biden digs a China.
Meantime, to counter higher en-
deeper hole for himself. ergy prices caused partly by his
anti-fossil-fuel policies, Mr. Biden
has eased enforcement of oil sanc-
Then Mr. Biden charged forward tions on Iran and Russia. This has
with a de facto electric-vehicle man- given America’s enemies more am-
date that is deeply unpopular, espe- munition to attack Israel and
cially in Michigan, heart of the auto Ukraine.
industry. A January poll by the His flagging support among
Glengariff Group found that 74% of working-class voters, particularly in
likely Michigan voters and a nearly Michigan, has heightened the imper-
equal share of independents ative to keep progressives under his
strongly opposed such mandates. collapsing tent. Hence, the embargo
EVs require less labor but more last week on U.S. weapons to Israel.
financial capital to produce. U.S. au- This display of weakness will em-
tomakers have laid off thousands of bolden America’s enemies and may
employees to finance the govern- result in more casualties.
ment-forced EV transition. Ford in Like George Costanza, Mr. Biden
March announced plans to slash its keeps digging his hole deeper the
hourly workforce at the Dearborn, harder he works to get out of it.
Mich., factory that builds the F-150 Perhaps he should take Jerry’s ad-
Lightning amid slackening demand vice to George and do the opposite
for the vehicles. Michigan has lost of what his instincts tell him.
tried to no avail to address these tually no other industry. That
concerns, thanks in part to Big makes no sense and must end. Tra-
Tech’s refusal to engage in a mean- ditional media outlets have long
ingful way. Congress has made informed and entertained us with-
good-faith efforts to find a solution out the same expansive legal
that preserves Big Tech’s ability to shield. We need a solution that en-
innovate and ensures safety and ac- sures accountability, keeps chil-
countability for past and future dren safe, and levels the playing
harm. It’s time to make that a real- field so Big Tech is treated like
ity, which is why we are unveiling other industries.
today bipartisan draft legislation to Reforming Section 230 won’t
sunset Section 230. “break the internet” or hurt free
speech, as Big Tech warns. The First
Amendment—not Section 230—is
The law has outlived its the basis for our free-speech pro-
tections in the U.S., and it won’t
usefulness and made the cease providing them even if Sec-
internet a dangerous place tion 230 immunity no longer exists.
Meaningful changes will ensure
for America’s children. these companies are no longer able
to hide behind a broadly interpreted
law while they manipulate and
Our measure aims to restore the profit from Americans’ free-speech
internet’s intended purpose—to be protections. Updating Section 230
a force for free expression, prosper- will empower parents, children and
ity and innovation. It would require others who have been exploited by
Big Tech and others to work with criminals, drug dealers and others
Congress over 18 months to evalu- on social-media platforms.
ate and enact a new legal frame- Sunsetting Section 230 will re-
work that will allow for free speech quire Congress and stakeholders to
and innovation while also encourag- create a solution that ensures ac-
ing these companies to be good countability, protects innovation
stewards of their platforms. Our bill and free speech, and reflects the re-
gives Big Tech a choice: Work with alities of the digital age. The inter-
Congress to ensure the internet is a net can thrive while still being fair
safe, healthy place for good, or lose to companies and safe for all.
Section 230 protections entirely.
The proposal would likewise en- Mrs. Rodgers, a Washington Re-
sure that social-media companies publican, is chairman of the House
are held accountable for failing to Energy and Commerce Committee.
protect our children. Tech compa- Mr. Pallone, a New Jersey Demo-
nies currently enjoy immunity un- crat, is the committee’s ranking
der Section 230 that applies to vir- member.
A18 | Monday, May 13, 2024 * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

WORLD NEWS

Ukraine’s Stolen Children Seek Return Kremlin

Replaces
Kids Russia took from
occupied territory Defense
race against time,
often using own wits Minister
KYIV, Ukraine—Valeria Sy- BY ANN M. SIMMONS
dorova walked toward the AND GEORGI KANTCHEV
Russian border post, her
nerves steeled by the proxim- Russian President Vladimir
ity of her goal: to get home. Putin on Sunday nominated an
The 17-year-old had wiped her economist to succeed Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu, a long-
By Oksana Grytsenko, time ally, in the most substan-
James Marson tial shake-up to the military’s
and Stephen Kalin command structure since
Moscow launched its war on
phone of anything the Rus- Ukraine in February 2022.
sians might find suspicious, In a decree published on
had traveled solo for hundreds Sunday, Putin nominated An-
SVET JACQUELINE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

of miles and was now within drei Belousov, a former deputy

touching distance of Ukraine. prime minister who specializes
Russian border guards, in economics, to succeed
shocked to see a teenager on Shoigu, who in turn was named
her own, quizzed her: “Where as the new secretary of the Se-
are your parents? What do curity Council, a post until now
you mean you are alone?” held by Nikolai Patrushev.
Valeria is one of some The elevation of an econo-
20,000 children Ukraine says mist to lead Russia’s defense
have been forcibly removed by ministry signals the extent to
Russia from occupied territory. which the war has become cen-
Ukraine and its Western allies tral to Russia’s economic para-
say Russia is committing a war Valeria Sydorova, 17 years old, sits on her bed in her new foster home in Kyiv after making her way back from Russia. digm. The Russian parliament
crime and seeking to erase the was expected to approve Pu-
children’s Ukrainian identities. Valeria made it. At the bor- dren up is intimidating, as well city of Yevpatoria in October to the Ukrainian border in tin’s appointments this week.
The International Criminal der post last August, she told as expensive. And many of the 2022 by her elderly grandpar- Sumy, a looping journey of Shoigu, who has served as
Court has issued an arrest war- the guards that she was going children are orphans. ents, for a two-week break hundreds of miles through oc- defense minister since 2012,
rant for Russian President to Ukraine to pick up her sick That is where charities like from the stress of war. She cupied Ukraine and Russia. has faced increasing scrutiny
Vladimir Putin over the forced grandmother and accompany Save Ukraine can help, arrang- was held there for two months When she reached the bor- since Moscow launched its
transfers. Russian officials say her back to Russia. After some ing documents and transpor- as authorities said it was too der, she was worried that the war on Ukraine. Critics inside
they are protecting the children hesitation, they let her pass. tation for guardians to fetch dangerous to return home. Russian guards would use a de- the Russian military have
from war, but they also ac- “This is my country,” the their kids. At first, Save She hatched a plan to leave vice that scans cellphones for blamed Shoigu, who has never
knowledge that they are seeking tall, athletic girl with a pas- Ukraine organized buses to occupied Ukraine. deleted data. But the Russian been a professional soldier but
to re-educate the children and sion for dance said in a recent take relatives to summer Some kids rely mainly on officer just carried out a man- holds the rank of general of
turn them into loyal Russians. interview in Kyiv. “I want to camps on the Crimean Penin- themselves to get out. Vale- ual check of her phone and its the army, for failing to pre-
Ukraine, the children and study, grow up and live here.” sula and retrieve the children. ria’s grandmother fetched her apps, so didn’t catch anything. pare the Russian Armed
their families are in a race The challenges of getting But the mission is getting from the Crimean camp but Valeria left Russia behind Forces for the war.
against time to get them back the kids back are daunting. harder as the kids are sent wouldn’t leave occupied terri- and burst into tears when she Belousov is known for advo-
before they are lost for good. Russian officials have said they from camps to Russian fami- tory. Valeria prepared to go it saw a Ukrainian border guard. cating more government inter-
Several hundred children have will release children to their lies and Russia obstructs ef- alone, with help from a friend Now, she is in Kyiv, enrolled in vention in the economy and has
returned home, on their own legal guardians. But identity forts to get them back. who had fled to Ireland. She medical college and living worked closely with Putin for
or with the help of relatives, and guardianship documents Valeria, whose mother died took a Russian passport to re- with a foster mom. “Perhaps years, including as his economic
friends, charities, Ukrainian can be difficult to obtain in the when she was 13, was sent duce potential stumbling now I’m again living the life adviser and most recently as
authorities, foreign govern- chaos of war. The journey for from the occupied Kherson re- blocks. And she bought a bus that disappeared for me when deputy prime minister in charge
ments and Russian volunteers. the guardians to pick the chil- gion to a camp in the Crimean ticket from occupied Kherson my mother died,” Valeria said. of economic development.

WORLDWATCH
President’s Shock Therapy CHINA INDONESIA POLAND

Causes Pain for Argentines Mixed Data Reflect Heavy Rains, Lava
Economic Pressure Kill at Least 37
Consumer prices edged up Heavy rains and torrents
Warsaw Fire Ruins
Shopping Center
More than 80% of a vast
modestly in April while China’s of cold lava and mud flowing shopping center in the Polish
BY RYAN DUBÉ Argentinian poverty rate, in Argentinian primary fiscal factory-gate prices continued down a volcano’s slopes on capital, Warsaw, burned af-
AND SILVINA FRYDLEWSKY population percent* balance, as a share of GDP to fall, underscoring the chal- Sumatra triggered flash ter a blaze broke out Sunday
lenges policymakers face in floods that killed at least 37 morning.
BUENOS AIRES—Since Ar- 60% PROJECTION 3% shaking off disinflationary people, and more than a The fire brigade said
gentina’s self-styled anarcho- 2 pressures despite stimulus dozen others were missing, much of the Marywilska 44
capitalist president, Javier 50 measures aimed at delivering officials said on Sunday. shopping complex housing
1
Milei, launched economic 0 a jolt to the economy. Monsoon rains and a ma- 1,400 shops and service out-
shock therapy five months 40 China’s consumer-price in- jor mudslide from a cold lava lets in the Bialoleka district
–1
ago, retiree Angélica Galiazzi dex rose for a third straight flow on Mount Marapi caused in Poland’s capital was on
made a decision that shook 30 –2 month in April, increasing at a river to breach its banks fire, and 50 teams, including
her Argentine identity: She –3 a pace of 0.3% compared and tear through mountain- chemical and environmental-
gave up eating beef. 20
–4 with a year earlier, according side villages in four districts rescue specialists, were car-
In a country where eating –5 to official data released on in West Sumatra province rying out rescue operations.
steak is a way of life, beef had 10 Saturday, edging up from just before midnight on Sat- A police spokesperson
–6
become too expensive on her March’s 0.1% reading and sur- urday. The floods swept away told the news agency PAP
monthly pension of $200 a 0 –7 passing the 0.2% growth ex- people and submerged more there were no injuries re-
month. So had taking the bus 2005 ’10 ’15 ’20 2016 ’20 ’24† pected by economists. Mean- than 100 houses and build- ported.
and even buying her blood *Data for 2023 and 2024 are projections. †2024 data are for the first quarter.
while, the producer-price ings, National Disaster Man- Authorities also sent a
pressure and cholesterol pills. Sources: Argentina's Catholic University (poverty rate); index fell 2.5% in April from a agement Agency spokesper- text message warning War-
“I’m really stressed out,” Institute of International Finance (primary fiscal balance) year earlier for a 19th consec- son Abdul Muhari said. saw residents about the fire
said Galiazzi, 82, who now buys utive month of declines. Cold lava, also known as and telling them to stay
cheaper slices of pork that she unchecked money printing ernment’s recent fiscal sur- Economists say China’s lahar, is a mixture of volcanic home with the windows
stretches out over a week of that was fueling inflation. That pluses will be unsustainable, persistently weak inflation material and pebbles that closed.
meals. “I barely have enough to has led the peso to stabilize. some economists say. But readings suggest Beijing is flow down a volcano’s slopes Footage aired by private
eat with the pension.” And while central bank re- Milei has yet to secure a legis- unlikely to be able to count in the rain. broadcaster TVN24 showed
The free-market revolution serves are still critically low, lative win for measures some on the country’s 1.4 billion By Sunday afternoon, res- thick black smoke rising over
Milei promised when he took the government has accumu- economists say are crucial to consumers to hit Beijing’s cuers had pulled out 19 bod- the area.
office in December is causing lated about $12 billion in recent really turn around an econ- lofty growth target of around ies in the worst-hit village of Mirbud, an industrial con-
deep economic pain in Argen- months, according to the Insti- omy choked off by high taxes 5% this year, as a drawn-out Canduang in Agam district struction company listed on
tina. Nearly 60% of Argentines tute of International Finance. and government regulations. real-estate slump continues and recovered nine other the Warsaw Stock Exchange,
are living in poverty, up from “I see the light at the end of Milei is hoping the Senate to hold back households’ de- bodies in the neighboring dis- owns the shopping center.
44% in December, according to the tunnel,” said Claudio Loser, will in the coming weeks ap- sire to spend. trict of Tanah Datar, the Na- Shopping centers and
the Catholic University. Gov- an Argentine economist at the prove a bill with some 230 ar- Instead, Beijing has been tional Search and Rescue large shops are usually
ernment agencies have been Washington-based Centennial ticles that would privatize doubling down on its manu- Agency said. The agency said closed on Sunday because of
closed, costing thousands of Group, a consulting firm that some state companies, loosen facturing industry, partially to eight bodies were pulled from a ban on trade imposed by
jobs. Construction activity has focuses on emerging markets. stiff labor regulations and in- offset the drag from the mor- mud during deadly flash the previous government,
tanked as authorities say they Milei swept into office last crease government revenue by ibund property sector, which floods that also hit Padang which had close ties to the
have halted nearly 90% of year as Argentina grappled restoring the income tax that at its peak accounted for Pariaman, and one body was Catholic church, viewing it as
public works. And beef con- with its latest economic crisis. was eliminated last year. roughly one-quarter of the found in the city of Padang a day of worship.
sumption is at its lowest level Unable to tap international That bill is a pared-back ver- country’s economic output. Panjang. It said rescuers are Such outlets are exempt
in decades—even though offi- markets, the government ran sion of the government’s origi- This factory-centric strategy, searching for 18 people who from the ban only about half
cials say beef exports are at up money printing to cover its nal legislation, which featured however, risks further exacer- are reportedly missing. a dozen Sundays a year, to
their highest levels since 1967. budget deficit, fueling inflation some 660 articles and faced bating downward price pres- The 9,465-foot Mount allow people to shop ahead
Milei says his economic as the peso shed 90% of its stiff opposition in Congress, sures and fueling trade fric- Marapi erupted late last year, of Christmas, Easter and
overhaul is necessary to re- value. Currency and price con- where Milei has little support. tions, economists caution. killing 23 climbers. other events.
store prosperity to a broke na- trols led to shortages of basics The Milei administration —Jonathan Cheng —Associated Press —Associated Press
tion ravaged by the world’s like rice and coffee, and auto- hopes the bill’s approval will
highest inflation. makers suspended production signal to investors that Milei
“For the first time in 150 because of a scarcity of the dol- is able to pass business-
years, we are creating the con- lars needed to import supplies. friendly overhauls by working
ditions to convert all of these The fiery economist, who de- with an opposition he has long
gifts that God gave us into a scribes himself as a libertarian, berated as a “political caste.”
promise of prosperity,” Milei cut primary government spend- Any economic recovery will
said at a recent conference. ing by 40% in the first quarter require lifting a complicated
The changes were never go- of 2024, largely by slashing fi- system of currency controls
ing to be easy, as the presi- nancial transfers to provinces, enacted by the previous, left-
dent himself warned when he stopping public works, and wing administration.
revved up a chain saw at cam- holding salaries and pensions Milei still has the support
paign rallies to illustrate how at steady levels instead of rais- of a majority of Argentines,
he would attack inflation by ing them with inflation. polls show, but confidence in
slashing public spending. That tactic, known here as the government has begun to
But the government and “liquefying,” becomes more erode as people grapple with
MATTHIAS SCHRADER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

many economists here are bet- difficult to maintain as infla- the recession.
ting that the worst has passed. tion eases, economists say. It Milei said his measures will
Inflation data for April, ex- also hits the elderly particu- soon pay off for a country rich
pected on Tuesday, should larly hard. As a result, the in farming, natural gas and
show a single-digit increase, government has agreed to minerals like lithium.
down from a monthly rate of now start increasing pension “You want to know how the
25% in December. In the first payments monthly to better economy is going to grow?” he
quarter, the government keep up with inflation. said in another recent speech.
posted a fiscal surplus—its Without broader changes to “It’s going to go up like a
first in 16 years—as it stopped boost the economy, the gov- scuba diver’s fart.” DIGITAL MANIPULATION: Men vied for Germany’s finger-wrestling title in Bernbeuren on Sunday.
 BUSINESS & FINANCE
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Last Week: S&P 5222.68 À 1.85%
Chicken Prices Are Inflation Hedge Silicon
Rising demand and
lower animal-feed
costs help sales for
meatpackers
BY PATRICK THOMAS
Chicken is reprising its role
as the star of Americans’ din-
ner plates.
Stung by the rising price of
beef, diners are buying more
wings at fast-food chains and
frozen tenders at grocery
stores. Meat giants like Tyson
Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride, in
turn, are bringing in higher
profits from poultry as demand
rises for their products and
costs fall for livestock feed.
Retail-sales volumes of all
U.S. chicken products were up
about 3% for the 52 weeks
ended April 21 compared with
the prior year, according to
market-research firm Circana.
Pork and beef were each down
slightly.
The share of U.S. consum-
Union Gains Edge in Battle With Carmakers
BY PAUL KIERNAN
For two decades, Jeremy 2%
Kimbrell and his co-workers at
the Mercedes-Benz plant in
Alabama could expect to hear
the same thing when they
raised concerns about pay,
time off or working condi-
tions: With no college degree,
you should just be happy to
have a job.
Those days might be over.
Roughly 5,000 hourly em-
ployees of the Tuscaloosa-area
facility are set to vote starting
Monday on whether to join
the United Auto Workers. Just
last month, 73% of employees
who cast ballots at Volks-
wagen’s slightly smaller plant
in Chattanooga, Tenn., opted
to unionize, a first for a for-
eign-owned auto factory in the
South.
The vote in the week ahead
will be a pivotal moment in
the UAW’s organizing blitz in
the South’s booming auto in- nize the vote at the Mercedes
dustry. If unionization contin- plant, where he has worked
ues to spread, it will test the since 1999.
region’s business-friendly eco-
nomic model in an era when ship fell last year to 10% of the
blue-collar workers are al- workforce, the lowest share
ready feeling emboldened by since the early 1900s. Bucking
tight labor markets, high in- the decline, however, was
flation and populist politics.
“It’s our turn,” said Kim- South. From 2022 to 2023,
brell, who is helping to orga- union membership ticked up
INSIDE
MEDIA
Companies pitch to
advertisers amid rate
uncertainty,
much like last year. B4
Wealth Managers,
Charities Defend Fees
BY RICHARD RUBIN
WASHINGTON—Invest-
ment managers, community
foundations and House law-
makers from both parties are
teaming up against a Biden
administration proposal that
would penalize certain pay-
ments from charitable funds
to wealth advisers who steer
the investments.
The fight puts a spotlight on
fast-growing entities known as
donor-advised funds, which are
increasingly attractive to afflu-
ent Americans seeking tax
breaks and flexible charitable
giving. Contributions to DAFs
topped $85 billion in 2022,
* *
S&P FIN À 3.07% S&P IT À 1.41%
Valley’s
ers’ incomes spent on food is Average U.S. meat prices
at a three-decade high, per pound
prompting people to shift
$12
spending toward cheaper, pri-
vate-label items and cut back
on purchases of some well- 10
known brands. Last week Ty-
son executives said that shop-
pers are giving priority to
essential items over beef and
more expensive branded food
products.
Shoppers often trade down
to chicken from pricier meat
cuts when food prices rise, but
meat-industry officials say the
stickiness of inflation has
made it tough to predict how
long the trend will last.
A dwindling supply of cattle
in the U.S. means meatpackers Sources: Labor Department via St. Louis Fed (prices); FactSet (performance)
like Tyson are paying more to
secure their livestock, raising being more discerning today chicken from the grocery store
wholesale and retail prices. Ty- than they’ve been in some over the past year as beef
son executives said that ranch- time,” Tyson Chief Executive prices rise. The retired state
ers have yet to start rebuilding Donnie King said. “Demand health department employee
their herds. The retail price of there for chicken is very from Albany, N.Y., said he used
ground beef was up about 12% strong, some of that perhaps to buy more ground beef, but
in March compared with a year coming from beef consumers.” chicken is a better deal now
ago, according to federal data.
“The consumer, they’re just said he has been buying more He tends to buy bone-in thighs,
Union membership by state as a share of all employees *
5% 7.5% 10% 15%
Wash.
Mont.
Ore.
Idaho
Wyo.
Nev.
Utah
Colo.
Calif.
Ariz.
N.M.
Alaska
Hawaii
Nationwide, union member-
nearly every state in the
HEARD ON THE
STREET
CEO’s alleged collusion
with OPEC isn’t as evil
as it seems. B10
more than double the 2018 fig-
ure, and DAF assets nearly
doubled during that time, ac-
cording to the National Philan-
thropic Trust.
The Treasury Department
sees the fees paid to wealth ad-
visers as causing conflicts of
interest and says they can pro-
vide incentives to keep money
from ultimately getting to
charities. That concern helped
prompt the proposed rule. But
the industry sees a beneficial
partnership that encourages
giving. Wealth advisers in-
creasingly help steer money
into community foundations.
Without the fees, founda-
Please turn to page B8
DJ TRANS À 1.62%
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
RECESSION
8 Beef steaks
6 Pride, which is majority-owned
Chicken breast,
4 boneless
2 year, even as overall restaurant
0 –10
2010 ’15 ’20
Rick Lipinskas, 71 years old, that ground beef is $5 a pound.
25%
N.D. Minn.
S.D.
Iowa
Neb.
Kan.
Mo.
Okla.
Ark.
Texas La.
in Mississippi, Tennessee, Ala-
bama, Georgia, South Caro-
lina, Virginia, Louisiana, Flor-
ida, Texas and Oklahoma—
albeit from lower levels than
the national average.
Among the larger work-
places to unionize last year:
Blue Bird, a Georgia bus man-
ufacturer whose workers
joined the United Steelwork-
Global Turmoil Sparks New Gold Rush
BY BOB HENDERSON
Eric Vazquez, a lineman for
a power company in south-
west Florida, says he is hold-
ing a lot more gold than most
financial advisers would rec-
ommend. Not just in his port-
folio but also in bars and coins
spread between several secret
locations.
It is a strategy for a world
that he worries is growing
more chaotic. The government
keeps spending beyond its
means. Stock prices can crash
from a tweet. Ensuring his
wife and children go to bed at
night in peace, Vazquez said,
requires owning tangible as-
sets, not just a claim on them
through some exchange-
traded fund.
“At least in my adult life,
nothing’s gotten better,” said
Vazquez, 33 years old. “And I
just feel like I want to take as
much of my own livelihood,
my own safety, my own fam-
ily’s safety, into my own
hands.”
Worries about war, discord
and mounting government
debt have fueled a worldwide
rush by individuals and insti-
tutions into what Wall Street
calls “physical gold”— bars,
coins, jewelry and nuggets.
Widespread stockpiling has
helped lift prices more than
40% since October 2022, to
$2,367 a troy ounce.
The climb has at times per-
plexed analysts, because it
didn’t coincide with a typical
feature of prior rallies: mount-
ing bullish bets in futures, op-
WSJ $ IDX À 0.35% 2–YR. TREAS. yield 4.866% NIKKEI 38229.11 g 0.02%
Monday, May 13, 2024 | B1
See more at WSJ.com/Markets
Share-price performance,
past six months
40%
boneless when they are on
sale, chicken livers or a whole
chicken that he can store in
U.S. Tilt
30
Pilgrim’s Pride
Tyson Foods
the freezer.
“Somebody always has
chicken on sale,” he said.
Threatens
20
S&P 500 Consumers are trading
down to cheaper chicken items
on restaurant menus, said Fa-
China Ties
bio Sandri, CEO of Pilgrim’s
BY HEATHER SOMERVILLE
by meatpacking giant JBS.
10
Sales at fast-food chains Silicon Valley’s surge in
were up 6% for Pilgrim’s in its funding for U.S. defense
latest quarter from the prior threatens a previous fixation
0
for many of those investors:
foot traffic declines, the com- China.
pany said. Shares in the na- “Patriotic capital” can be
tion’s second-largest chicken found around the San Fran-
Dec. 2023 ’24 processor are up about 60% cisco Bay. The investment
over the past 12 months. firms that helped launch
Restaurants are pushing Facebook, Google and Airbnb
chicken options to try to boost are backing startups building
sales, though the landscape is battlefield software, military
getting more competitive as drones and autonomous sub-
options have grown and eater- marines. Venture-capital pow-
ies push deals. erhouse Andreessen Horo-
Chicken chain Wingstop re- witz has labeled it “American
ported a 22% increase in do- Dynamism” investing.
mestic same-store sales in its As the investors target
Please turn to page B2 what they hope will be a huge
business opportunity—bring-
ing better defense technology
to the U.S. and its allies—their
new marching order is out of
sync with Silicon Valley’s
years of investing in China.
Government officials and
Hiring and quit rates† researchers said many of
5% these patriotic tech investors
Hires in and their startups remain de-
the South pendent on and benefit from
deep connections to China,
N.H. 4 one of the main adversaries
All hires the U.S. military is looking to
Maine
Vt.
Quits in use defense-startup technol-
the South ogy against.
Wis. N.Y. Mass. 3 It is a sign of how entan-
Mich. gled the two regions remain
Pa. in finance and tech, said Na-
All quits than Picarsic, co-founder of
Ohio
Ill. Ind.
R.I.
2 Horizon Advisory, a China-fo-
W.Va.
Va. Conn. cused research and consulting
Ky. firm.
N.J.
Tenn.
N.C. Del. “Building a tech ecosystem,
1
Md. divorced from exposure to
S.C.
China—and fully aligned with
Miss. Ala. Ga. American national interest—is
0 a hard thing,” he said. “It re-
quires more than narrative.”
2021 ’22 ’23 ’24
Venture capitalists invested
Fla. *Includes employee associations similar to for years in a globalized tech
unions. †Seasonally adjusted. Rates are the
monthly levels as a share of employment.
industry, instructed by U.S.
Sources: Labor Department (states);
policies to build relations
Labor Department via St. Louis Fed (rates) with China to encourage re-
form there. They are adjust-
ers. Nearly two-thirds of the He said: “It isn’t clear yet ing to the view that the Asian
roughly 1,100 participating whether this is a large shift nation is one of the biggest
workers approved the change. across all of the Southeastern threats to U.S. security.
The USW called it the largest foreign assembly plants, or if Many technology compa-
union win at a Southern man- it reflects a difficult time VW nies say China is still crucial
ufacturer in 15 years. had at that plant.” to their global operations and
Ned Hill, an economist at If the trend continues, it supply chain. Skeptics say
Ohio State University, called Please turn to page B2 that rhetoric aside, patriotic
last month’s VW vote “only entrepreneurs and investors
the first act of a multiact  Apple workers authorize are chasing the latest market
play.” strike in Maryland............ B2 Please turn to page B9
Gold futures price, front-month contract Global annual gold demand
$2,400 a troy ounce 1,250 metric tons
Friday Bars and coins
$2,367.30 1,000 ETFs
2,300 +3.0% this past week
750
500
2,200
250
0
2,100
–250
2019 ’20 ’21 ’22 ’23
2,000
Chinese gold imports, quarterly
1,900
600 metric tons
500
1,800
400
300
200
1,700
100
1,600 0
2021 ’22 ’23 ’24 2020 ’21 ’22 ’23 ’24
Sources: Dow Jones Market Data (futures); Metals Focus, World Gold Council (bars and coins); Bloomberg, company filings, ICE Benchmark
Administration, World Gold Council (ETFs); General Administration of Chinese Customs, BNP Paribas (imports)
tions and ETF markets. Also, Fed started signaling that property market, they recently
gold pays no income and gen- rates might stay higher for have hoarded physical gold.
erally becomes less attractive longer than Wall Street ex- Customs data showed the
to investors when rising inter- pected. country racked up 194 metric
est rates drive up the payouts Now, many think prices tons of gold imports in March,
from other relatively safe as- were boosted by legions of a 40% increase over February
sets, like bonds. Yet the Chinese consumers. Nervous and the biggest monthly in-
metal’s sharpest ascent oc- about their country’s shaky flow in at least seven years.
curred between this past Feb- economy and seeking hard as- But people the world over
ruary and April, just when the sets outside its collapsed Please turn to page B9
 B2 | Monday, May 13, 2024 * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

INDEX TO BUSINESSES BUSINESS & FINANCE

These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople in
today’s edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren’t cited in these indexes.

2
2U.........................................................A1
Ford Motor..........................B2,B8
H
International...........................B2
S
Apple Staff in Maryland Vote Strike
A Honda...............................................B3 Starbucks......................................A2
Andreessen Horowitz..........B1 Honda Motor.............................B2
T BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS
Apple.................................................B2 Hyundai...........................................B3
Hyundai Motor.........................B2 Tesla..................................................B3
B Workers at a unionized Ap-
L Toyota Motor.............................B2
ple retail store near Baltimore
Beijing Bytedance Tyson Foods................................B1
Technology...............................A4 Lucid..................................................B8 voted Saturday to authorize a
M V
Blue Bird.........................................B1 strike as contract talks with
Volkswagen..........................B1,B3
C Mazda Motor.............................B2 the tech giant continue.
Mercedes-Benz..................B1,B3 W The yes vote allows the bar-
Charles Schwab.......................B8
Chick-fil-A......................................B2 P Walmart.........................................B3 gaining committee for the
Costco...............................................B9 Pilgrim’s Pride............................B1 Wingstop.......................................B2 union that represents the store
F R Y workers to call for a strike at
Five Below...................................A2 Restaurant Brands Y Combinator............................B9 any time. No date has yet been
set for a potential work stop-
page, according to a union rep-
INDEX TO PEOPLE resentative. If the workers de-
cide to strike, it would be the
first walkout by Apple employ-
A G P ees in the U.S. The Maryland

ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES

Alsobrooks, Angela...............A4 Gevalt, Rebecca.......................B9 Paucek, Christopher.............A7 store was the first in the U.S.
B H R to unionize in 2022.
Hoffinger, Susan.....................A4 Rubashkin, Jacob...................A4 The next round of contract
Balestriere, John....................A4
talks between Apple and the
Botha, Roelof.............................B9 House, Sherry...........................B8 S
Boyle, Katherine......................B9 Hurwitz, Neal............................A6 local affiliate of the Interna-
Saad, Gad......................................B3
K tional Association of Machin-
C Sandri, Fabio...............................B1
ists & Aerospace Workers is
Kahler, Dean...............................A6 Shiels, Nicky................................B9
Coffee, John................................A4 scheduled for May 21. The The union represents approximately 100 employees at the Towson, Md., retail store.
King, Donnie................................B1 Skipworth, Michael...............B2
D union, which represents ap-
Kunen, James............................A6 Slayman, Richard...................A6
Doshi, Aakash...........................B9 proximately 100 employees at Workers at the Towson cies and more, according to provide them with industry
L T
E the Towson, Md., retail store, store voted in June 2022 to the union. leading compensation and ex-
Lawler, John...............................B8 Trone, David...............................A4 said its negotiations with Ap- form a labor group, the Coali- Talks have slowed down ceptional benefits,” the com-
Ebkarian, Alex...........................B9 Lewis, Steve...............................A6 Tull, Thomas...............................B9 ple management began in Jan- tion of Organized Retail Em- over core economic issues pany statement said.
F M W uary 2023. ployees. As the first U.S. Apple such as hourly wages, over- A second group of Apple re-
Frey, Linda....................................A6 Merchan, Juan..........................A4 Wilson, David............................B9 “This vote today is the first store to unionize, the group time, scheduling and shift tail workers in Oklahoma
step in demonstrating our soli- chose to join IAM. premiums. voted to unionize in October
darity and sends a clear mes- Since then, the two sides Apple said on Saturday it 2022, not long after Towson.
sage to Apple,” negotiating have come to tentative agree- would continue its good-faith The Oklahoma City store was
New ‘Apes’ Takes Top Position committee members said in a ments on 25 issues, among engagement with the union the second out of more than
statement late Saturday. “We them topics such as how to representing Towson work- 270 Apple U.S. stores to orga-
remain committed to securing handle grievance and arbitra- ers. nize officially. Those workers
tangible improvements that tion cases, performance re- “We deeply value our team joined the Communications
benefit all employees.” views, nondiscrimination poli- members and we’re proud to Workers of America.

UAW interested in Alabama—until

Alabama upped the ante by
wiches,” he said.
Auto workers in Tennessee
wages, but workers say the in-
creases are offset by rising
20TH CENTURY STUDIOS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

saying it would pay employees’ and Alabama who support health-insurance premiums.

Gains salaries while they studied.

The state government also
offered to buy more than
unionizing say they are hoping
to negotiate higher pay,
cheaper health insurance, bet-
Organized labor has long
been a core Democratic Party
constituency. But polls sug-

An Edge 2,500 vehicles for state use

and even agreed to place the
Mercedes emblem—free of
ter safety protocols and more-
predictable scheduling.
Some workers say they are
gest the union vote has be-
come more competitive since
former President Donald
charge—atop the scoreboard also motivated by high infla- Trump became the Republican
Continued from page B1 for an Alabama-Tennessee col- tion. Median home values in standard setter and espoused
could have vast implications lege football game. Tennessee rose 70% in the five populist positions on trade
A scene from ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.’ for the South’s economic and Southern leaders believed years through 2022, according and immigration.
political landscape. But in Re- the auto plants were essential to the Census Bureau, making Support for unionizing at
Estimated Box-Office Figures, Through Sunday publican-led states that have to creating blue-collar jobs it the fifth-hottest housing the Southern auto plants
Sales, In Millions drawn private investment by that couldn’t be outsourced market in the nation. For the doesn’t appear to fall neatly
Film Distributor Weekend* Cumulative % Change touting their low taxes and easily. Textile mills, once a U.S. as a whole, median home along demographic or ideolog-
20th permissive labor laws, leaders cornerstone of Southern in- values rose 47%. ical lines. A photo on the
1.
Kingdom of the
Century $56.5 $56.5 N/A aren’t resting on their laurels. dustry, had started a long de- Perhaps the biggest factor UAW’s website, featuring doz-
Planet of the Apes
Studios Ahead of the Volkswagen cline. was the UAW’s historic con- ens of Mercedes workers
vote in mid-April, the gover- Years later, when Tennes- tract with Ford Motor, Gen- wearing red T-shirts and rais-
2. The Fall Guy Universal $13.7 $49.7 -51 nors of Alabama, Georgia, see was courting Volkswagen, eral Motors and Jeep maker ing their fists, shows faces
Amazon Mississippi, South Carolina, then-Sen. Bob Corker hosted Stellantis late last year. The that are Black and white,
3. Challengers MGM $4.7 $38.1 -38 Tennessee and Texas—all of company exec- deal, which young and old.
Studios them Republicans—warned utives at his ended a six- What they share is a strong
that unionization would put home in Chat- week strike, se- distaste for efforts to sway
4. Tarot Sony $3.5 $12.0 -47
jobs in jeopardy. tanooga. His ‘It’s our turn,’ cured 25% pay them, especially from their
Godzilla x Kong: Warner
5.
The New Empire Bros.
$2.5 $191.8 -44 Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey “has Senate col- says an increases over own governors. In Tennessee,
been on the phone with both league, fellow about four Republican Gov. Bill Lee said
*Friday, Saturday and Sunday in North American theaters Source: Comscore the leaders of Mercedes and Republican La- organizer for a years and en- he thought VW workers had
Hyundai and has said, ‘If there mar Alexander, hanced retire- made a mistake after they
are issues, you need to fix played the pi-
union effort in ment benefits. voted to join the UAW.
this,’” state Commerce Secre- ano, recalls Alabama. Volkswagen fol- Randall Hathcock, who has

Chicken Is beef and pork products in its

2024 fiscal year, seven of
which are chicken.
tary Ellen McNair told Ala-
bama Public Television. Some
Hyundai Motor workers at a
Matt Kisber,
who was Ten-
nessee’s eco-
lowed with an
11% raise for
workers in
worked at Mercedes for 20
years, considers himself “very
conservative,” voted for Ivey—

Inflation Working in the chicken in-

dustry’s favor is falling grain
prices. Tyson said it saved
plant in Montgomery are also
pushing to join the UAW.
“Our north star is doing
nomic-development commis-
sioner at the time. To show
Volkswagen how badly they
Chattanooga, but it wasn’t
enough.
“We could not sign people
and supports joining the UAW.
He was shocked when the Ala-
bama governor came out

Hedge about $190 million in its poul-

try business on declining feed-
ingredient costs in its most re-
what’s best for these employ-
ees and their families, not
what’s best for union bureau-
wanted its investment, state
and local governments spent
$2 million to $3 million on
up fast enough once that hap-
pened,” said Jeremy Bowman,
a worker at the Volkswagen
against the push.
“I feel betrayed,” Hathcock
said. “We voted her in to take
cent quarter, according to a crats in Detroit,” McNair said quickly clearing trees at the plant who helped organize the up for Alabama workers, not
Continued from page B1 securities filing. in a statement to The Wall proposed site before a visit by union vote. “It was just gang- for big businesses.”
latest quarter, driven by an in- Corn and soybeans are two Street Journal. company board members, Kis- busters.” —Harriet Torry contributed
crease in orders. Same-store of the main livestock-feed in- Cars have been made in the ber said. Mercedes has also raised to this article
sales reflect sales at locations gredients that chicken compa- South for more than a century. The South’s new model has
open for at least 52 weeks. nies supply to farmers. Corn The region began attracting paid dividends. In 2002, aver-
“The reality is we haven’t prices are down more than foreign automakers in the age weekly pay for manufactur-
found the ceiling,” CEO Mi- 20% over the past 12 months, early 1980s, when Nissan ing workers in Michigan was
chael Skipworth said about while soybeans are down started building Datsun 42% more than in South Caro-
Wingstop’s sales growth dur- roughly 15%, according to pickup trucks in Smyrna, lina. Last year, it was 3% less.
ing an earnings call. FactSet. Tenn. According to news re- Moe Akl, a team leader at
Chick-fil-A, the closely held Chicken prices aren’t likely ports at the time, it was the the Mercedes plant who is try-
chicken chain, averaged $7.5 to remain depressed for long. largest private investment ing to persuade co-workers
million in sales at each of its Wholesale chicken prices— ever in the state. not to join the UAW, said the
U.S. locations last year, up 10% what restaurants and grocery Right-to-work laws, which job enabled him to move from
from 2022, according to mar- stores pay for chicken—are had been passed by most a camper to a house. After his
ket-research firm Technomic. also rising as demand ticks up Southern legislatures in the previous employer unionized,
The chain is the third largest and supplies thin, industry of- 1940s and ’50s, were a selling Akl said, the company raised
in the U.S. by sales, despite be- ficials said. The amount of point. Unions struggled to his hourly wage but cut his
ing closed on Sundays, Tech- chicken kept in cold-storage gain traction in states where overtime hours—leaving him
nomic figures show. warehouses as of March 31 was employees weren’t obligated with a smaller paycheck.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen down nearly 11% from the prior to pay dues in organized “They are taking care of
increased its year, according workplaces. us,” he said of Mercedes. The
share of fast- to the Agricul- After Nissan, more plants union organizers are “nothing
food chicken ture Depart- followed: Toyota Motor in but rainbow salesmen.”
sales in recent Shoppers trade ment. Boneless, Kentucky, Mississippi and There is no single factor
months through down to chicken skinless chicken Texas; BMW and Volvo in driving the recent unioniza-
promotions on breast prices South Carolina; Kia in Georgia; tion push.
its new wings from pricier are up about VW in Tennessee; and Mer- Labor markets are tight
and a big-box 30% over the cedes, Honda Motor, Hyundai across the U.S. but appear es-
meal, parent
meat cuts when past 12 months, and Mazda Motor in Alabama, pecially so in pockets of the
Restaurant prices rise. while wings among others. South. As measured by the av-
Brands Inter- prices have Alabama’s right-to-work erage rate of job openings in
national said in more than dou- law “was a huge consider- 2023, six of the 10 tightest la-
a recent inves- bled, according ation,” said Ted vonCannon, a bor markets in the U.S. are in
tor call. Meanwhile, competi- to FactSet data. retired economic-development Southern states. Workers have
tors’ deals on chicken meals Tyson and Pilgrim’s execu- official who helped bring Mer- also been quitting their jobs at
hurt KFC’s U.S. sales in the lat- tives said recently they cedes to Tuscaloosa. higher rates in the South than
est quarter, owner Yum doubted the industry would hit Competition for the auto- in other regions.
Brands told investors. the USDA’s projected chicken- makers has been fierce, with “It’s a big world,” said 24-
Arkansas-based Tyson had supply increase of 1%. Some of Southern states routinely of- year-old Moesha Chandler,
struggled in 2023 with a glut the issue stems from an indus- fering hundreds of millions of who moved to Tuscaloosa in
of chicken on the market and try problem of hatching dollars in incentives. Local of- January 2023 to work on the
higher costs. It spent much of enough chicks. ficials who have traveled to Mercedes assembly line. “It’s
this past year trimming its ex- Pilgrim’s Pride said the Germany to pitch auto execu- not just this city, and it’s not
penses, including closing six hatchability issues stem from a tives have sometimes spotted just that job.”
poultry plants, slashing corpo- new type of chicken breed that counterparts from rival states She supports joining the
rate staff and reintroducing the company went to several in the same hotels. UAW.
some antibiotics into its bird years ago. The new breed was Alabama almost didn’t get Kimbrell, 46, said scores of
supply. meant to improve quality and the Mercedes plant. Mercedes employees have left
Tyson sells roughly 20 bil- allow the new bird to gain It was the early 1990s, and in recent months to work at a
lion chicken nuggets and 5.5 more weight faster on less North Carolina had told Mer- new J.M. Smucker plant 15
billion chicken wings a year. It feed, executives said. cedes it could build a training minutes down the road. “We
said it is adding 16 new sea- —Heather Haddon center for auto workers. The joke they’re going to make
soned and marinated chicken, contributed to this article. German carmaker wasn’t too peanut butter and jelly sand-
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Tesla Shift Opens Charging Market
BY JENNIFER HILLER
The EV charging industry
faces a make-or-break mo-
ment.
Tesla rattled the U.S.
charging industry in April
with deep cuts to the team
that created the country’s
most successful charging net-
work. Since then, comments
by Chief Executive Elon Musk
have left other charging com-
panies scratching their heads
about Tesla’s plans.
After the layoffs, Musk
tweeted that Tesla would build
Superchargers, the web of fast
chargers that enable cross-
country road trips, at a slower
pace for new locations. Then
on Friday he took to his social-
His Musings Fuel Musk’s Nightmares
E
lon Musk’s bedtime
routine is giving
him nightmares.
To hear him in
public is to catalog
his greatest fears: end-of-the-
world type stuff, killer AI
threats and, in recent years,
the scourge of what he calls
the Woke Mind Virus.
“I listen to podcasts about
the fall of civilizations to go
to sleep,” Musk said this past
week during an appearance at
the Milken Institute confer-
ence. “So perhaps that might
be part of the problem.”
One provocateur in partic-
ular has caught his attention
of late: Gad Saad, a market-
ing professor at Concordia
University in Montreal, and
author of the book “The Par-
asitic Mind: How Infectious
Ideas Are Killing Common
Sense.”
To read the book, first
published in 2020, is to see
reflections of Musk’s most
contentious comments during
the past few years, as the bil-
lionaire has increasingly ex-
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media site, X, to say: “Tesla
will spend well over $500M ex-
panding our Supercharger net-
work to create thousands of
NEW chargers this year.”
Any shift in Tesla’s rapid
building pace opens an oppor-
tunity, though there is no obvi-
ous No. 2 in the race to build a
U.S. highway network. Billions
of dollars are pledged, but so
far no one has built anything
close to what Tesla has.
The turmoil comes as com-
panies compete for the first
awards for more than $5 bil-
lion in public funding from the
2021 federal infrastructure
law to increase the availability
of highway chargers.
Walmart says it will lever-
age its real-estate portfolio to
pressed concerns about diver-
sity, equity and inclusion
efforts and illegal immigra-
tion. “I read your insightful
book on the parasitic woke
mind virus,” Musk tweeted to
Saad earlier this year. “It
gave me nightmares.”
Both men share an em-
brace of social media. On X,
Saad has almost 900,000 fol-
lowers and on YouTube more
than 300,000 subscribers.
Both have separately ap-
peared on the Joe Rogan
podcast several times. This
year alone, Musk has inter-
acted with Saad’s X account
more than 140 times.
All the attention has ap-
parently helped boost inter-
est in the book. Since going
on sale, it has sold more
than 120,000 copies across
all formats, according to
Skyhorse Publishing, which
acquired the book’s original
publisher, Regnery Publish-
ing. Paperback sales jumped
94% in the first four months
of 2024 compared with a
year earlier, while the digital
BUSINESS NEWS
launch its own fast-charging
network at thousands of U.S.
locations by 2030. For now, it
offers chargers from third-
party providers at 280 stores.
Ionna, a $1 billion joint ven-
ture of seven automakers—
BMW, General Motors, Honda,
Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz
and Stellantis—set a 30,000-
charger target for North Amer-
ica. It received federal regula-
tory approval in February but
hasn’t opened a site yet.
“It’s the wild west out
there,” said Bill Ferro, co-
founder and chief technology
officer at Paren, a software
company focused on EV
charging reliability. “Anybody
and everybody is trying to put
EV charging stations in place.”
version rose 254%.
The book is an extension
of Saad’s career exploring
how human evolution in-
forms modern consumer be-
havior—a controversial way
of looking at the world that
is sometimes called evolu-
tionary psychology.
O
ver the years, his aca-
demic writings have
covered a range of dis-
ciplines, includ-
ing how men-
strual cycles
influence food
and appear-
ance-related
consumption;
and how the
use of waist-to-
hip ratios in
online escort
ads illustrate
what Saad de-
scribes as “near-universal”
preferences among men for
certain female attributes.
Saad wrote that “The Par-
asitic Mind” was inspired in
part by his experience in ac-
Victor
Active Search Dog
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Photographed by Shaina Fishman
at SDF’s National Training Center.
Monday, May 13, 2024 | B3
Tesla has scooped up about
$29 million in public funding
at 69 sites, more locations for
the federal highway network
than any other company, ac-
cording to data from the firm
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
EVAdoption.
More fast chargers are
needed along highways to
overcome “range anxiety”—
the fear that EV drivers will
run out of power while travel-
ing long distances.
No single company can rep- Tesla cars at superchargers at its Fremont, Calif., factory.
licate Tesla’s pace in the near
term in the U.S. It has built One reason there aren’t and 2023 swapping 700 older,
half the fast chargers added in more chargers: the business spotty chargers with new,
the U.S. this year, according to model. Publicly traded charging more reliable equipment. This
government data. The equip- providers outside Tesla’s sys- year it plans to replace an-
ment can repower a battery in tem haven’t turned a profit. other 800 pieces of equipment
around 20 minutes to an hour, Volkswagen’s Electrify at existing sites and installing
depending on the car. America spent much of 2022 800 chargers at new locations.
TIM HIGGINS
ademia, where he described edifices of reason, freedom, drama around his owner-
a herd mindset that chas- and individual dignity.” ship, and data suggests car
tised innovative thinkers. He Another inspiration for buyers who identify as Dem-
described pushback he en- his book, Saad writes, was ocrats were turned off last
countered, including his his experience as a boy flee- fall from buying vehicles
ideas being labeled as “sex- ing with other Jews from his made by Tesla, where he is
ist nonsense” and his efforts home in Lebanon during chief executive.
to use “biologically-based that country’s civil war. In For his part, Musk says
theorizing” to explain con- the book, he detailed some his politics are “fairly mod-
sumer behavior being dis- of the horrors he experi- erate”—what he describes as
missed as reductionistic. enced, including the kidnap- supporting safe cities, se-
“The West is currently ping of his parents. cure borders, a neutral judi-
suffering from such a devas- ciary and sensible spending.
M
tating pan- usk has said his con- And, he adds, what he calls
demic, a col- cerns about Woke being “pro environment.”
lective malady Mind Virus, his way The full extent of their re-
The marketing that destroys of labeling progressive liberal lationship couldn’t be
professor’s book people’s capac- beliefs that he says are overly learned, though Saad has
ity to think ra- politically correct and stifling suggested that the two trade
described a herd tionally,” the to public debate and free emails and private messages.
59-year-old speech, helped fuel his desire At one point this year,
mindset in Saad wrote at to acquire social-media com- Saad shared online that
academia. the beginning pany Twitter turned X in late Musk had slipped into his
of his book. 2022. On that platform, private messages a sassy
“Unlike other Musk, 52 years old, has aired question: How is that you’re
pandemics many of his concerns. surviving in Canada amidst
where biological pathogens His increasingly public the infestation of the woke
are to blame, the current stance on contentious social mind viruses?
culprit is composed of a col- issues has had an effect on “I thought, ‘Oh my god,
lection of bad ideas, his companies. Some adver- what a cool life I lead that I
spawned on university cam- tisers have fled X in the can just receive out of the
puses, that chip away at our midst of concerns about the blue such a DM from Elon.’ ”
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B4 | Monday, May 13, 2024
TV’s Upfront Sales Play Like a Rerun
Media companies
pitch to advertisers
amid rate uncertainty,
much like last year
Media companies this
week will pitch their TV net-
works and streaming plat-
forms to advertisers with star-
studded upfront sales
presentations at glitzy venues
around New York City. But ad
buyers in the audience will
also be keeping an eye on the
Federal Reserve.
By Megan Graham,
Katie Deighton
and Patrick Coffee
TV’s annual sales season,
when advertisers strike deals
for the coming year, is unfold-
ing amid considerable eco-
nomic suspense. Questions
about inflation and the Fed’s
approach to interest rates are
clouding the ad market, con-
tributing to the disruption
gripping TV as traditional
viewing shrinks and digital al-
ternatives expand.
“I can’t re-
MARKETING member the last
time things felt
stable,” said Mike O’Connor,
an executive vice president of
video investment at media
agency Horizon Media.
That won’t stop dealmaking
for a sizable portion of
the tens of billions of dol-
lars spent annually on tradi-
tional and streaming TV ad-
vertising in the U.S.
“Instability is fine,” O’Con-
nor said. “It’s something that
we expect right now.”
This year’s marketplace dy-
namics feel a lot like last
year’s, he said, when advertis-
ers continued shifting toward
streaming but overall demand
was moderate.
Here’s what to expect from
the latest upfronts, featuring
pitches from companies in-
cluding Comcast’s NBCUniver-
sal, Fox, Warner Bros. Discov-
ery, Disney, Netflix, Amazon
and YouTube.
Big questions
Ad spending in scripted en-
tertainment programming will
likely recover after last year’s
Hollywood labor strikes
slowed the pipeline of TV
shows that could carry com-
mercials and delayed the re-
lease of movies needing com-
mercials to promote them.
CBS’s 2024-25 schedule in-
cludes two shows, a “Matlock”
reimagination and the comedy
“Poppa’s House,” delayed by
the strikes.
And the U.S. election sea-
son will introduce other dy-
namics.
“Politics is injecting more
money into TV and gobbling
up inventory,” said Ross
Benes, a senior analyst at
Emarketer. He added that po-
litical advertisers typically
Businesses, Government See
Some Progress in Cyber Hiring
BY JAMES RUNDLE
SAN FRANCISCO–Federal
and private-sector initiatives
are generally making improve-
ments to boost the U.S. cyber
workforce, but some areas, in-
cluding diversity, require ur-
gent attention, officials and
experts say.
There are enough workers
to fill 82% of the open cyber-
security positions in the U.S.,
translating to just over
448,000 jobs across the coun-
try, according to data from the
Commerce Department and
trade associations. In 2023,
the national average was 72%,
or around 572,000 open jobs.
“There is no doubt in my
mind that there is enough tal-
ent in the U.S. to fill those
jobs, and then some,” National
Cyber Director Harry Coker Jr.
said during a panel at the RSA
Conference here last week.
The key, he said, is enticing
people into the field.
“We need cyber workers in
each and every sector,” said
Seeyew Mo, assistant national
cyber director for cyber work-
force, training and education,
in an interview on the side-
lines of the conference.
ISC2, a professional and
certification group in cyberse-
Nick Jonas performed for advertisers last year as NBCUniversal kicked off Upfronts Week with an event at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
buy local TV and will drive up
the price of that part of the
market, leading other adver-
tisers to shift their buys more
toward national inventory.
“Political advertisers don’t
usually buy upfront, but they
put pressure on the market
that drives other advertisers
to commit upfront so that
they don’t miss out on the in-
ventory they seek,” he said.
But marketers are also
closely watching interest
rates, which seem less likely
to fall this year than many
people expected.
“Marketers continue to be
cautious,” said Matt Sweeney,
chief investment officer at
media buyer GroupM U.S.,
part of advertising holding
company WPP.
“Rate cuts do have a signifi-
cant impact on the ability of
people to borrow, whether it’s
for a home mortgage or a car
loan, credit card debt. All that
stuff has an impact on people’s
budgets, and therefore an im-
pact on how marketers are ap-
proaching budget expectations
for next year and this year’s
upfront.”
The unpredictability is
feeding into marketers’
broader desire for more flexi-
bility in upfront deals. That
can favor streaming services
over traditional TV because
digital buys tend to be easier
to adjust.
“Marketers will seek flexi-
bility, but it is doubtful they
will be allowed to easily can-
cel their commitments like
they were able to in 2020 and
curity, launched an entry-
level certificate in September
2022 to introduce people with
no background in cyber to the
industry. Around 54,000 peo-
ple have since been certified
through the program, said
Clar Rosso, ISC2’s chief exec-
utive.
Globally, ISC2 estimates
that around four million cy-
bersecurity professionals are
needed to meet
global security
needs. While
the uptake for There are
entry-level cer- enough workers
tifications is
e n c o u ra g i n g,to fill 82% of
Rosso said,
problems are
open positions
starting to in the U.S.
emerge.
In Asia-Pa-
cific, for exam-
ple, workers who gain exper-
tise in cybersecurity often
migrate to regional hubs such
as Australia, leaving their
home countries with a deficit
in cyber workers. Additionally,
although ISC2 is seeing good
improvement with nonwhite
men moving into security
roles after getting certified,
the same can’t be said broadly
across underrepresented
groups.
BUSINESS NEWS
2021,” Benes said, referring to
allowances TV networks made
for advertisers during the
pandemic.
They will find more give re-
garding where and when ads
run, Benes predicted, with me-
dia companies permitting ad-
vertisers to shift scheduled
spending from one month to
another because of unexpected
developments, for example.
The dance to lock in busi-
ness for sellers while mollify-
ing skittish buyers is a new
staple of upfront talks, accord-
ing to Benes. “Flexibility is
just another negotiation tactic
now,” he said.
Sports and streaming
Splintering audiences for
most TV programming has
made sports an essential buy
for marketers needing a large
viewing audience at the same
time.
That was evident at sales
pitches this month by digital
media publishers and tech
companies, which come to-
gether for their own annual
week of presentations called
NewFronts to muscle in on
TV’s upfronts.
Vogue publisher Condé
Nast, for example, promised
video coverage for Formula
One racing and the NBA Finals
to capitalize on advertisers’
interest in major sports
events.
NBCUniversal will use its
upfronts presentation partly to
highlight its coverage of the
Olympics in Paris this summer.
“We’re making no progress
whatsoever with women,”
Rosso said, adding that ISC2
has convened a task force to
figure out how to better sup-
port individuals with seeking
work.
“I would just say more to
come on that space, because
we’re not making progress on
the gender issue at all,” Rosso
said.
Wo r k f o r c e
issues were a
prominent ele-
ment of the Bi-
den adminis-
tration’s
national cyber-
security strat-
egy, published
in March 2023.
In July, the
White House
issued a na-
tional workforce strategy,
which secured commitments
from various agencies and
private-sector companies to
establish apprenticeship and
recruitment programs and
training curricula.
Around 7,000 cyber ap-
prentices have registered,
ONCD’s Mo said. Similar pro-
grams in the government and
private sectors aim to get
people who don’t have two-
Womens’ sports have also
drawn increased interest, giv-
ing marketers more opportu-
nities to connect with con-
sumers, said Ben James, chief
innovation officer at ad
agency Gale. University of
Iowa basketball superstar
Caitlin Clark helped draw a re-
cord 18.9 million viewers for
the NCAA women’s tourna-
ment final in April and began
playing for the WNBA this
month.
Media companies are trying
to ensure their valuable sports
lineups survive the migration
to streaming with ad revenue
intact. ESPN, Fox and Warner
Bros. Discovery are planning a
combined sports streaming
service with that in mind.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s
Prime Video streaming service
has secured the outline of a
deal for a package of NBA
games the league is creating,
while traditional TV partners
look likely to pay more for a
smaller package of games.
“That’s a game-changer in
the marketplace,” said Hori-
zon Media’s O’Connor.
Measurement issues
The TV industry has been
struggling with how to mea-
sure audiences as the old
ways of watching break down,
with alternatives to longtime
ratings provider Nielsen argu-
ing they could better capture
digital viewers. But the com-
petition among measurement
companies is quieter in 2024.
Nielsen last year regained
People attending a conference on the future of cybersecurity in San Francisco last week.
or four-year college degrees
into the industry.
The ONCD is working on a
local level to stimulate cyber-
security training, from K-12
schools to community col-
leges. The White House is try-
ing to work with local part-
ners to establish programs
that make sense for a region,
he said.
For instance, if a large
manufacturing plant or utility
is a significant employer in a
particular area, the ONCD will
work with schools to provide
* ***** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
accreditation for its national
TV measurements, which
were suspended following dis-
putes over their accuracy.
That allowed competitors
such as Comscore, VideoAmp,
iSpot.tv and EDO an opening
to push their services to the
ad industry. Now the argu-
ment has returned to its fa-
miliar boundaries.
“It does feel like Groundhog
Day,” GroupM’s Sweeney said.
Some aspects of the Nielsen
alternatives’ services appear
positive in GroupM testing,
but they aren’t a sufficient re-
placement at this time, he
said.
Nielsen for its part has re-
leased a “big data” product
combining human panel-based
measurements with data from
smart TVs and set-top boxes.
The company previously said
the big data product would be
its sole measurement offering
by September 2024, but a
spokesman has said it would
allow clients to use other
methods past that date.
The Video Advertising Bu-
reau, a research and advocacy
group of media companies and
video advertising groups, last
year called on Nielsen to fix
what it saw as measurement
defects in the new product.
But it seems ready now, said
Sean Cunningham, the group’s
president and CEO.
Not all industry players are
ready to use new measure-
ment options based on Niel-
sen’s product, though. “The
difficulty I see with another
year of quote-unquote legacy
training that meets the spe-
cific needs of both that indus-
try and cybersecurity.
“The workforce in San An-
tonio is very different from
the workforce in San Fran-
cisco, so you need people to
be the anchor and drive those
changes,” he said. The ONCD
is planning to expand its vis-
its to local areas in the com-
ing year.
Mo said that commitments
from critical infrastructure
operators, such as railroad op-
erator Union Pacific, to cross-
RALPH BAVARO/NBCUNIVERSAL
measurement is that delaying
innovation is not going to sell
more products for advertis-
ers,” Cunningham said.
Goodway Group, an inde-
pendent media agency, en-
courages clients to anchor
their buys with streaming and
use traditional TV as a supple-
ment, if at all, partly because
of audience data that stream-
ers have.
“Every streaming platform
is fully logged-in, meaning
they have an email and gener-
ally a household IP,” said Jay
Friedman, Goodway’s CEO.
“The strength of that identity
is so much stronger than most
display [advertising], most
online video, and certainly
than linear TV.”
That information is para-
mount for marketers, said Jo-
anna Marrollo, head of North
America media and digital
marketing for Henkel Con-
sumer Brands, whose pack-
aged-goods brands include
Dial soap and All laundry de-
tergent.
Deeper data analytics and
insights about audiences
would help the company bet-
ter understand consumer be-
havior and preferences, and
consequently fine-tune its me-
dia buys, Marrollo said.
WSJ
CMO TODAY
www.wsj.com/news/types/
cmo-today/
RSA CONFERENCE
train employees in cyber, is
evidence that interest in cyber
workforce issues is reaching
beyond just technology com-
panies.
The private sector in recent
years has launched programs
designed to increase hiring
into cybersecurity, such as ac-
cessible training courses,
partnerships with colleges,
and programs to attract candi-
dates with nontraditional edu-
cational or work backgrounds
who may nevertheless be
suited to a career in cyber.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, May 13, 2024 | B5

@BILLIEEILISH

@ZACHKING

@HOPESCOPE

@DUDEPERFECT

@O2MUSIC
This is the most watched streaming platform on TV,
according to Nielsen*.
But this is not your usual platform.
This is where gameday fans become 24/7 fans. Where you
can find Billie’s music, plus every fan cover and live show.
And where a small town kid can capture the world’s attention.
This is where 60 million storytellers go to have a voice.
And billions of people get to dive deep in everything they love,
in all the ways they want to watch it.

* Source: Nielsen Streaming Platform Ratings, US, Mar 2023 – Mar 2024.
B6 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

MARKETS DIGEST
New to the Market Dow Jones Industrial Average S&P 500 Index
Last Year ago Last Year ago
Public Offerings of Stock 39512.84 s 837.16, or 2.16% last week Trailing P/E ratio 27.58 22.16 5222.68 s 94.89, or 1.85% last week Trailing P/E ratio * 23.27 18.42
High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 19.01 17.60 High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 21.26 18.78
IPOs in the U.S. Market the past 52 weeks Dividend yield 2.13 2.13 the past 52 weeks Dividend yield * 1.36 1.67
All-time high 39807.37, 03/28/24 All-time high 5254.35, 03/28/24
Initial public offerings of stock expected this week; might include some
offerings, U.S. and foreign, open to institutional investors only via the
Rule 144a market; deal amounts are for the U.S. market only Current divisor 0.15221633137872
Symbol/ Pricing
39500 5100
Week's high
Expected primary Shares Range($)
pricing date Filed Issuer/business exchange (mil.) Low/High Bookrunner(s) DOWN UP

t
Monday's open Friday's close 38000 4900
5/14 9/20 Kindly MD KDLY 1.3 5.50/ WallachBeth Capital
2023 A holistically focused pain Nq 5.50
management clinic and Friday's close Monday's open

t
healthcare data company. 65-day moving average
5/13 4/16 Games Global GGL 14.5 16.00/ JPM,Jefferies,MacquarieGroup, 36500 4700
Week's low
A leading developer, N 19.00 Barclays, BTIG
distributor and marketer 65-day
of innovative online,
casino-style gaming moving average
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integrated business-to-
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iGaming operators in
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based on the size of our 200-day moving average 33500 4300
studio network.
200-day moving average

Lockup Expirations 32000 4100

Below, companies whose officers and other insiders will become eligible Bars measure the point change from Monday's open
to sell shares in their newly public companies for the first time. Such
30500 3900
sales can move the stock’s price.
M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A
Lockup Offer Offer amt Through Lockup
expiration Issue date Symbol price($) ($ mil.) Friday (%) provision Primary
NYSE weekly volume, in billions of shares market Composite

t
t
May 14 May 15, ’23 Strong Global Entertainment SGE 4.00 5.0 –51.00 365 days Scan this code
36
May 15 Nov. 17, ’23 DDC Enterprise DDC 8.50 44.6 –90.12 180 days 24 Get real-time U.S. stock quotes and track
Nov. 17, ’23 Richtech Robotics RR 5.00 10.0 –72.60 180 days 12 most-active stocks, new highs/lows, mutual
May 18 Nov. 20, ’23 ELEVAI Labs ELAB 4.00 7.5 –83.75 180 days 0 funds and ETFs..
Sources: Dealogic; Dow Jones Market Data M J J A S O N D J F M A M Available free at WSJMarkets.com
*Weekly P/E data based on as-reported earnings from Birinyi Associates Inc.; † Based on Nasdaq-100 Index
IPO Scorecard
Performance of IPOs, most-recent listed first Major U.S. Stock-Market Indexes Nasdaq Composite
% Chg From % Chg From Latest Week 52-Week % chg s 184.54, or 1.14%
Company SYMBOL Friday's Offer 1st-day Company SYMBOL Friday3s Offer 1st-day High Low Close Net chg % chg Low Close (l) High %chg YTD 3-yr. ann.
Dow Jones
last week
IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close
GP-Act III Acquisition 10.07 0.7 –0.2 Rubrik 33.52 4.8 –9.4 Industrial Average 39579.88 38689.38 39512.84 837.16 2.16 32417.59 • 39807.37 18.7 4.8 4.4
GPATU-USA May 9/$10.00 RBRK April 25/$32.00
Transportation Avg 15609.09 15318.51 15597.49 249.09 1.62 13556.07 • 16695.32 13.2 -1.9 -0.7
16375
Proficient Auto Logistics
PAL May 9/$15.00
15.00 ... 1.7 Neo-Concept International 1.13
NCI April 23/$4.00
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Utility Average 946.50 910.13 942.35 28.04 3.07 783.08 • 959.19 -1.8 6.9 0.8
Silvaco Group 18.91 –0.5 –4.5 mF International 1.22 –72.9 –90.1
Total Stock Market 52123.57 51255.83 51934.95 905.17 1.77 40847.04 • 52402.86 26.5 8.7 6.1
SVCO May 9/$19.00 MFI April 22/$4.50 Barron's 400 1152.34 1138.89 1146.32 20.13 1.79 891.86 • 1166.53 28.1 6.9 4.4 16250
Nano Nuclear Energy 4.51 12.8 –13.1 YY Group Holding 1.54 –61.5 –46.9 Nasdaq Stock Market
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Churchill Capital IX 10.15 1.5 0.8 Tungray Technologies 6.25 56.3 5.0 Nasdaq Composite 16437.39 16197.86 16340.87 184.54 1.14 12284.74 • 16442.2 33.0 8.9 6.8
16125
CCIXU May 2/$10.00 TRSG April 19/$4.00 Nasdaq-100 18247.61 17937.28 18161.18 270.38 1.51 13340.18 • 18339.44 36.1 7.9 10.8
Sow Good 10.45 4.5 7.2 Centuri Holdings 25.39 20.9 9.8 16000
SOWG May 2/$10.00 CTRI April 18/$21.00 S&P
3 6 7 8 9 10
Viking Holdings 28.62 19.3 9.7 Ibotta 102.21 16.1 –1.0 500 Index 5239.66 5142.42 5222.68 94.89 1.85 4109.90 • 5254.35 26.6 9.5 7.6 May
VIK May 1/$24.00 IBTA April 18/$88.00 MidCap 400 3007.32 2929.04 2993.96 64.92 2.22 2326.82 • 3046.36 23.1 7.6 3.0 DJ US TSM
Cleancore Solutions
ZONE April 26/$4.00
3.25 –18.8 –7.1 Junee
JUNE April 17/$4.00
4.56 14.0 12.3 SmallCap 600 1332.81 1303.72 1324.38 22.90 1.76 1068.80 • 1344.66 18.3 0.5 -0.5
s 905.17, or 1.77%
Loar Holdings 46.00 64.3 –5.7 Top Wealth Group Holdings 1.05 –73.8 –45.9 Other Indexes last week
LOAR April 25/$28.00 TWG April 16/$4.00 Russell 2000 2082.04 2043.85 2059.78 24.06 1.18 1636.94 • 2124.55 18.3 1.6 -2.4
Marex Group
MRX April 25/$19.00
19.04 0.2 0.3 UL Solutions
ULS April 12/$28.00
36.68 31.0 5.0 NYSE Composite 18213.64 17797.89 18162.05 364.16 2.05 14675.78 • 18312.67 19.1 7.8 3.2
Value Line 602.90 589.81 599.34 9.53 1.62 498.09 • 615.81 12.0 0.9 -3.4 52000
Sources: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet NYSE Arca Biotech 5177.86 5049.44 5123.97 28.18 0.55 4544.40 • 5511.46 -3.5 -5.4 -2.0

Public and Private Borrowing NYSE Arca Pharma 1016.80 988.53 1009.86 20.77 2.10 837.32 • 1029.37 14.1 11.0 11.7
51500
KBW Bank 106.39 103.48 106.05 2.82 2.73 71.71 • 106.05 46.0 10.4 -7.1
Treasurys PHLX§ Gold/Silver 144.47 136.38 142.24 7.68 5.71 102.94 • 142.24 6.5 13.2 -2.8
Monday, May 13 Tuesday, May 14 PHLX§ Oil Service 88.60 85.98 86.64 1.279 1.50 69.29 • 98.76 20.8 3.3 13.1 51000

Auction of 13 and 26 week bills; Auction of 52 week bill;

PHLX§ Semiconductor 4857.84 4737.28 4808.03 91.84 1.95 2972.85 • 5165.83 61.7 15.1 17.5
announced on May 9; settles on May 16 announced on May 9; settles on May 16 Cboe Volatility 14.02 12.50 12.55 -0.94 -6.97 12.07 • 21.71 -26.3 0.8 -13.9 50500

Nasdaq PHLX 3 6 7 8 9 10
Wednesday, May 15 Thursday, May 16 Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data May
Auction of 17 week bill; Auction of 4 and 8 week bill;
announced on May 14; settles on May 21 announced on May 14; settles on May 21
International Stock Indexes Commodities and
Latest Week 52-Week Range YTD
Currencies
A Week in the Life of the DJIA Region/Country Index Close % chg Low Close High % chg
Last Week YTD

A look at how the Dow Jones Industrial Average component stocks World MSCI ACWI 782.06 1.66 629.46 • 783.58 7.6 Close Net chg %Chg % chg

did in the past week and how much each moved the index. The DJIA MSCI ACWI ex-USA 331.50 1.42 276.65 • 331.50 4.7 DJ Commodity 1038.35 20.60 2.02 8.41
gained 837.16 points, or 2.16%, on the week. A $1 change in the price MSCI World 3419.92 1.74 2731.99 • 3437.76 7.9 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 289.47 2.96 1.03 9.72
of any DJIA stock = 6.57-point change in the average. To date, a MSCI Emerging Markets 1071.64 0.96 910.91 • 1071.64 4.7 Crude oil, $ per barrel 78.26 0.15 0.19 9.23
$1,000 investment on Dec. 31 in each current DJIA stock component Americas MSCI AC Americas 1972.93 1.77 1557.56 • 1986.20 8.8 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 2.252 0.110 5.14 -10.42
would have returned $31,723, or a gain of 5.74%, on the $30,000 Canada S&P/TSX Comp 22308.93 1.65 18737.39 • 22375.83 6.4 Gold, $ per troy oz. 2367.30 68.30 2.97 14.78
investment, including reinvested dividends. Latin Amer. MSCI EM Latin America 2489.00 0.002 2152.77 • 2675.33 –6.5
U.S. Dollar Index 105.33 0.30 0.28 3.90
The Week’s Action
Brazil Bovespa 127599.57 –0.71 108193.68 • 134193.72 –4.9
WSJ Dollar Index 99.83 0.34 0.35 4.17
Pct Stock price Point chg $1,000 Invested(year-end '23) Chile S&P IPSA 3631.67 0.91 3048.00 • 3714.61 4.7
Euro, per dollar 0.9283 -0.0008 -0.08 2.46
chg (%) change in average* Company Symbol Close $1,000 Mexico S&P/BMV IPC 57718.04 1.02 48197.88 • 58711.87 0.6
Yen, per dollar 155.75 2.69 1.76 10.43
5.36 18.04 118.52 Caterpillar CAT $354.79 $1,210 EMEA STOXX Europe 600 520.76 3.01 429.58 • 520.76 8.7
U.K. pound, in dollars 1.25 -0.0022 -0.18 -1.63
5.00 11.53 75.75 American Express AXP 242.30 1,302 STOXX Europe 50 4525.05 3.35 3783.73 • 4525.05 10.5
52-Week
4.56 12.25 80.48 Visa V 280.74 1,080 Eurozone Euro STOXX 524.25 3.06 420.65 • 524.25 10.6 Low Close(l) High % Chg
4.34 8.26 54.26 JPMorgan Chase JPM 198.77 1,183 Euro STOXX 50 5085.08 3.32 4014.36 • 5085.08 12.5
DJ Commodity 930.59 l1038.35 8.05
4.15 2.37 15.57 Dow DOW 59.41 1,097
Austria ATX 3686.55 2.66 3020.72 • 3686.55 7.3
Belgium Bel-20 4013.33 2.55 3290.68 • 4015.67 8.2 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 253.85 l 298.18 12.23
978
4.13 20.36 133.76 UnitedHealth Group UNH 512.81 France CAC 40 8219.14 3.29 6795.38 • 8219.14 9.0 Crude oil, $ per barrel 67.12 l 93.68 11.74
3.88 1.51 9.92 Verizon VZ 40.40 1,108 Germany DAX 18772.85 4.28 14687.41 • 18772.85 12.1 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 1.575 l 3.575 -0.62
3.78 16.55 108.73 Goldman Sachs GS 454.73 1,187 Greece Athex Composite 1484.06 2.19 1111.29 • 1484.06 14.8 Gold, $ per troy oz. 1816.60 l 2398.40 17.51
3.63 7.11 46.71 Honeywell HON 202.92 973 Israel Tel Aviv 2003.53 3.30 1605.20 • 2010.41 7.4
3.48 5.57 36.59 Chevron CVX 165.82 1,123 Italy FTSE MIB 34657.35 3.06 26051 • 34760 14.2 U.S. Dollar Index 99.77 l 107.00 2.58

2.17 4.65 30.55 Travelers TRV 218.50 1,152

Netherlands AEX 910.59 2.61 714.05 • 910.59 15.7 WSJ Dollar Index 94.60 l 100.92 3.32
Norway Oslo Bors All-Share 1649.79 3.48 1349.78 • 1649.79 8.6 Euro, per dollar 0.8897 l 0.9555 0.74
2.00 2.55 16.75 Merck MRK 130.06 1,201 Portugal PSI 20 6911.82 3.96 5729.40 • 6911.82 8.1 Yen, per dollar 135.74 l 158.34 14.74
1.99 0.94 6.18 Cisco CSCO 48.06 967 South Africa FTSE/JSE All-Share 78464.22 2.66 69451.97 • 78977.89 2.0 U.K. pound, in dollars 1.21 l 1.31 0.62
1.99 8.08 53.08 Microsoft MSFT 414.74 1,105 Spain IBEX 35 11105.50 2.31 8918.3 • 11154.6 9.9
1.83 1.78 11.69 3M MMM 98.93 1,100 Sweden OMX Stockholm 988.98 3.61 753.35 • 988.98 9.5 Go to WSJMarkets.com for free
1.75 1.09 7.16 Coca-Cola KO 63.26 1,082
Switzerland Swiss Market 11753.70 4.26 10323.71 • 11790.46 5.5 access to real-time market data.
U.K. FTSE 100 8433.76 2.68 7256.94 • 8433.76 9.1
1.73 4.68 30.75 McDonald’s MCD 275.00 933
1.45 2.39 15.70 Procter & Gamble PG 166.85 1,153
Asia-Pacific MSCI AC Asia Pacific 177.55 –0.002 150.1 • 178.3 4.8
Australia S&P/ASX 200 7749.00 1.57 6772.9 • 7896.9 2.1
1.10 3.01 19.77 Salesforce CRM 276.67 1,053 China Shanghai Composite 3154.55 1.60 2702.19 • 3310.74 6.0
1.10 0.66 4.34 Walmart WMT 60.48 1,159 Hong Kong Hang Seng 18963.68 2.64 14961.18 • 20078.94 11.2
1.04 3.58 23.52 Home Depot HD 346.43 1,006 India S&P BSE Sensex 72664.47 –1.64 61431.74 • 75038.15 0.6
0.87 1.44 9.46 IBM IBM 167.15 1,042
Japan NIKKEI 225 38229.11 –0.02 29388.30 • 40888.43 14.2

0.68 1.27 8.34 Amazon.com AMZN 187.48 1,234

Malaysia FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI 1600.67 0.70 1374.64 • 1605.68 10.0
Singapore Straits Times 3290.70 –0.07 3053.36 • 3373.98 1.6
964
0.43 0.64 4.20 Johnson & Johnson JNJ 149.91 South Korea KOSPI 2727.63 1.91 2277.99 • 2757.09 2.7
–0.18 –0.33 –2.17 Apple AAPL 183.05 953 Taiwan TAIEX 20708.84 1.86 15475.05 • 20796.20 15.5
–0.37 –1.14 –7.49 Amgen AMGN 310.15 1,085 Source: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data
–0.71 –1.28 –8.41 Boeing BA 178.51 685
–1.31 –1.21 –7.95 Nike NKE 90.94 841 Consumer Rates and Returns to Investor Benchmark Yields and Rates
–3.40 –1.05 –6.90 Intel INTC 29.85 598 U.S. consumer rates Selected rates Treasury yield curve Forex Race
–6.92 –7.87 –51.70 Walt Disney DIS 105.79 1,172 A consumer rate against its 30-year mortgage, Rate Yield to maturity of current bills, Yen, euro vs. dollar; dollar vs.
benchmark over the past year notes and bonds major U.S. trading partners
*Based on Composite price. DJIA is calculated on primary-market price. Bankrate.com avg†: 7.54%
Source: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet.
Fidelity Bank & Trust 6.25% 6.00%
8.00% Tradeweb ICE 16%
Dubuque, IA 563-557-2300
Friday Close 5.00
t
ADVERTISEMENT Florence Savings Bank 6.38%
30-year fixed-rate 6.00 t t 8 WSJ Dollar Index
s
mortgage Florence, MA 800-644-8261 4.00

The Marketplace
To advertise: 800-366-3975 or WSJ.com/classifieds
t
10-year Treasury
4.00 El Dorado Savings Bank
South Lake Tahoe, CA
6.50%
800-874-9779
One year ago
3.00
0
s
2.00 Macatawa Bank 6.50% 2.00 –8 s Euro
note yield Yen
Zeeland, MI 616-748-9491
0.00 1.00 –16
NOTICE OF SALE J J A S O ND J F MA Community First Bank 6.63% 1 3 6 1 2 3 5 7 10 20 30 2023 2024
2023 2024 Boscobel, WI 608-647-4029 month(s) years
UCC Sale. All assets of Municipal
Finance & Services Corp, 581 Main
THE Yield/Rate (%) 52-Week Range (%) 3-yr chg maturity

MARKETPLACE
Interest rate Last (l)Week ago Low 0 2 4 6 8 High (pct pts) Sources: Tradeweb ICE U.S. Treasury Close; Tullett Prebon; Dow Jones Market Data
St, Suite 660, Woodbridge, NJ 07095, Federal-funds rate target 5.25-5.50 5.25-5.50 5.00 l 5.50 5.25 Corporate Borrowing Rates and Yields
including all rights to Accelerated Prime rate* 8.50 8.50 8.25 l 8.50 5.25 Spread +/- Treasurys,
Municipal Payments (AMP) platform, ADVERTISE TODAY Yield (%) in basis pts, 52-wk Range Total Return
SOFR 5.31 5.31 5.05 l 5.40 5.30 Bond total return index Last Wk ago Last Low High 52-wk 3-yr
non-factoring accounts payable
Money market, annual yield 0.48 0.48 0.46 l 0.64 0.40
program for local governments, to U.S. Treasury, Bloomberg 4.690 4.670 -1.73 -3.40
(800) 366-3975 Five-year CD, annual yield 2.84 2.84 2.77 l 2.87 2.39
be sold at public sale at 10:00 am U.S. Treasury Long, Bloomberg 4.720 4.730 -8.79 -9.83
30-year mortgage, fixed† 7.54 7.60 6.94 l 8.28 4.46
local time on Friday, 5/31/24 at For more information visit: Aggregate, Bloomberg 5.110 5.090 37 37 60 -0.05 -3.13
15-year mortgage, fixed† 6.94 7.05 6.19 l 7.42 4.57
5330 Yacht Haven Grande, Suite wsj.com/classifieds Fixed-Rate MBS, Bloomberg 5.320 5.320 47 44 82 -0.61 -3.38
Jumbo mortgages, $766,550-plus† 7.62 7.66 6.99 l 8.33 4.52
J-206, St Thomas, VI 00802. You High Yield 100, ICE BofA 7.418 7.345 253 242 424 10.155 1.884
Five-year adj mortgage (ARM)† 6.69 6.76 5.70 l 7.16 3.62
may register to bid by phone, contact Muni Master, ICE BofA 3.469 3.538 n.a. -9 9 2.336 -0.791
New-car loan, 48-month 7.83 7.85 7.01 l 7.88 3.78
info@dgfunds.com or (340)-774-8800 EMBI Global, J.P. Morgan 7.583 7.650 296 270 410 8.379 -2.116
© 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Bankrate.com rates based on survey of over 4,800 online banks. *Base rate posted by 70% of the nation's largest
for more information All Rights Reserved. banks.† Excludes closing costs.
Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data; Bankrate.com Sources: J.P. Morgan; S&P Dow Jones Indices; Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices; ICE BofA
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, May 13, 2024 | B7

CLOSED-END FUNDS
Listed are the 300 largest closed-end funds as 52 wk 52 wk Prem12 Mo 52 wk Prem12 Mo
measured by assets. Closed-end funds sell a limited Prem Ttl Prem Ttl Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld Prem Ttl Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
number of shares and invest the proceeds in securities. Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret
Unlike open-end funds, closed-ends generally do not PIMCO Access Income PAXS 15.01 15.68 +4.5 11.5 SEI Alternative Income:Y 10.25 NA NA NS
buy their shares back from investors who wish to cash DNP Select Income DNP 8.12 9.02 +11.1 -6.5 BlackRock Cap Alloc Term BCAT 17.74 16.00 -9.8 18.8 PIMCO Dynamic Inc Strat PDX 24.11 21.19 -12.1 4.8 CIM RA&C C 22.92 NA NA 0.0 Voya Enhanced Sec Inc:A 10.03 NA NA NS
in their holdings. Instead, fund shares trade on a stock
exchange. NA signifies that the information is not
Duff&Ph Uti&Infra Inc Fd DPG 11.40 9.92 -13.0 -12.4 Calamos GloDynInc CHW 7.43 6.64 -10.6 26.4 PIMCO Dynamic Income PDI 16.90 19.10 +13.0 13.9 CIM RA&C I 23.86 NA NA 1.0 Voya Enhanced Sec Inc:C 10.03 NA NA NS
available or not applicable. NS signifies funds not in EtnVncEqtyInc EOI 18.73 18.30 -2.3 26.7 EV TxAdvGlbDivInc ETG 20.57 18.16 -11.7 23.2 PIMCO Dynamic Inc Opp PDO 12.62 13.11 +3.9 11.7 CIM RA&C L 23.37 NA NA 0.5 Voya Enhanced Sec Inc:I 10.03 NA NA NS
existence for the entire period. 12 month yield is EtnVncEqtyIncoII EOS 21.34 20.41 -4.4 34.7 EtnVncTxAdvOpp ETO 27.72 25.03 -9.7 22.5 PIMCO Stratg Inc RCS 4.38 5.79 +32.2 10.5 Clarion Partners REI D 11.82 NA NA 2.3 Yieldstreet Alt Inc NA NA NA 8.7
computed by dividing income dividends paid (during
the previous 12 months for periods ending at month- EVRskMnDvsEqInc ETJ 9.09 8.44 -7.2 16.8 Highland Global Alloc HGLB NA 7.33 NA -3.0 Templtn Glbl Inc SABA NA 3.83 NA 11.2 Clarion Partners REI I 11.83 NA NA 2.6 High Yield Bond Funds
end or during the previous 52 weeks for periods ETnVncTxMgdBuyWrtInc ETB 14.81 13.53 -8.6 14.0 India Fund IFN 18.86 17.61 -6.6 22.2 Templeton Em Inc TEI 6.07 5.41 -10.9 10.7 Clarion Partners REI S 11.82 NA NA 1.7 Apollo Diversified Cd:A NA NA NA 9.3
ending at any time other than month-end) by the EtnVncTxMgdBuyWrtOpp ETV 13.93 13.01 -6.6 16.5 Japan Smaller Cap JOF 9.46 7.82 -17.4 13.1 WstAstEmergDebt EMD 10.52 9.31 -11.5 10.6 Clarion Partners REI T 11.81 NA NA 1.7 Apollo Diversified Cd:C NA NA NA 8.6
latest month-end market price adjusted for capital
gains distributions. Depending on the fund category, EvTxMnDvsEqInc ETY 13.89 13.46 -3.1 25.7 LazardGlbTotRetInc LGI 18.53 16.15 -12.8 17.9 Western Asset Gl Cr D Op GDO 12.64 12.15 -3.9 10.2 Forum RE Income;I 9.60 NA NA 14.5 Apollo Diversified Cd:F NA NA NA 12.0
either 12-month yield or total return is listed. EtnVncTxMgdGlbB ETW 9.29 8.13 -12.5 10.0 Mexico MXF 23.50 18.64 -20.7 17.1 National Muni Bond Funds Private Opps A NA NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:I NA NA NA 9.6
Source: Lipper
EVTxMnGblDvEqInc EXG 9.35 8.30 -11.2 16.6 Miller/Howard High Inc E HIE 11.69 11.25 -3.8 18.6 AllBerNatlMunInc AFB NA 10.85 NA 3.7 Private Opps I NA NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:L NA NA NA 9.1
Friday, May 10, 2024 Ecofin S&S Impact Term TEAF 14.92 11.77 -21.1 -0.8 MS ChinaShrFd CAF NA 12.60 NA -5.3 BlckRk Inv Q Mun BKN 12.98 12.18 -6.2 4.6 Private Opps SDR NA NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:M NA NA NA 8.8
52 wk First Tr Enhanced Eq FFA 19.86 18.83 -5.2 22.0 MS India IIF 28.83 23.46 -18.6 33.6 BlackRock Muni 2030 Tgt BTT 23.83 20.76 -12.9 2.9 JACKSON REAL ASSETS;I 10.14 NA NA NS Opprtnstc Crdt Intrvl;I NA NA NA 11.9
Prem Ttl Gabelli Healthcare GRX 11.78 9.75 -17.2 3.7 MS CBRE Gl In Mg Term MEGI 15.13 13.18 -12.9 4.0 BlackRock Muni BFK 11.43 10.07 -11.9 4.6 NexPointRlEstStrat;A 16.79 NA NA -4.3 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-1 6.92 NA NA 10.6
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret Nuveen Multi-Asset Inc NMAI 13.81 12.29 -11.0 20.4 NexPointRlEstStrat;C 17.00 NA NA -5.0 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-2 6.92 NA NA 10.6
Gab Utility GUT 3.00 6.10 103.3 5.3 BlackRock Muni II BLE 12.08 10.62 -12.1 4.8
General Equity Funds GAMCOGlGold&NatRes GGN 4.14 4.10 -1.0 18.7 Nuveen Rl Asst Inc & Gro JRI 13.41 11.69 -12.9 13.0 NexPointRlEstStrat;Z 17.01 NA NA -4.1 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-3 6.92 NA NA 10.3
BlckRk Muni Inc Qly BYM 12.63 11.20 -11.3 4.8
Adams Diversified Eq Inc ADX 22.71 19.71 -13.2 36.6 J Han Finl Opptys BTO 29.20 28.67 -1.8 37.3 Templeton Dragon TDF 10.03 8.57 -14.6 -7.5 PIMCO Flexible REI;Inst 10.49 NA NA 9.7 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-4 6.92 NA NA 10.3
BR MuniAssets Fd MUA 11.61 11.21 -3.4 5.1
Central Secs CET 51.00 41.71 -18.2 27.4 Neuberger Brmn Enrgy I&I NML 8.72 7.74 -11.2 36.0 Templeton Em Mkt EMF 14.37 12.27 -14.6 16.2 PREDEX;I 23.91 NA NA -12.7 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;Inst 6.92 NA NA 11.0
BR MH Qly 2 MUE 11.55 9.98 -13.6 4.3
CohenStrsCEOppFd FOF 11.45 11.70 +2.1 21.2 Neuberger Nxt Gen Conn NBXG 13.99 11.88 -15.1 38.0 PREDEX;T 24.01 NA NA -12.9 Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds
Prem12 Mo BR MuniHoldngs MHD 13.55 11.82 -12.8 4.4 AFA Private Credit;Fndr 9.50 NA NA 7.7
EVTxAdvDivIncm EVT 26.29 23.66 -10.0 17.7 NuvDow30DynOverwrite DIAX 16.43 14.30 -13.0 7.9 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld PREDEX;W 24.00 NA NA -12.9
BR MuniVest Fd MVF 7.99 7.04 -11.9 4.3 AFA Private Credit;Inst 9.52 NA NA 7.7
GabelliDiv&IncTr GDV 27.14 22.59 -16.8 17.9 NuvCorEqAlpha JCE 14.41 14.06 -2.5 30.5 Principal Real Asst A 25.46 NA NA 3.2
U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds BR MuniVest 2 MVT 12.34 10.75 -12.9 4.5 Principal Real Asst Ins 25.57 NA NA 3.5 Alternative Credit Inc:A NA NA NA 7.2
Gabelli Equity Tr GAB 5.47 5.47 0.0 13.1 NuveenNasdaq100DynOv QQQX 26.31 23.64 -10.1 5.9 BR MuniYield Fd MYD 12.11 10.79 -10.9 4.9
BlckRk Income BKT 12.01 11.56 -3.7 9.4 Principal Real Asst Y 25.84 NA NA 3.7 Alternative Credit Inc:C NA NA NA 6.4
GeneralAmer GAM 58.13 47.61 -18.1 28.7 Nuv Real Est JRS 8.38 7.43 -11.3 12.8 BR MuniYield Qlty MQY 13.16 12.13 -7.8 5.0
Investment Grade Bond Funds Redwood Rl Est;I 25.11 NA NA NS Alternative Credit Inc:I NA NA NA 7.4
JHancockTaxAdvDiv HTD 22.61 20.47 -9.5 10.2 NuvS&P500DynOvFd SPXX 17.24 15.66 -9.2 10.4 Angel Oak FS Inc Trm FINS 13.85 12.55 -9.4 10.0 BR MuniYld Qlty2 MQT 11.62 10.08 -13.3 5.0
Liberty All-Star Equity USA 6.92 6.82 -1.4 27.0 The Private Shares;A 39.52 NA NA -1.9 Alternative Credit Inc:L NA NA NA 6.9
NuvSP500BuyIncFd BXMX 14.67 13.14 -10.4 7.4 BlRck Core Bond BHK 10.49 10.45 -0.4 8.6 BR MuniYld Qly 3 MYI 12.51 11.18 -10.6 5.1
Liberty All-Star Growth ASG NA 5.24 NA 13.6 The Private Shares;I 40.19 NA NA -1.7 Alternative Credit Inc:W NA NA NA 7.2
ReavesUtilityIncome UTG 27.87 28.02 +0.5 7.2 BR Credit Alloc Inc BTZ 11.29 10.43 -7.6 9.95 BNY Mellon Muni Bd Infra DMB 11.98 10.27 -14.3 4.2 The Private Shares;L 38.87 NA NA -2.1 AMG Pantheon Crdt Soln;S 10.02 NA NA NS
Royce Micro-Cap Tr RMT 10.90 9.45 -13.3 27.3 Tortoise Enrgy Infra Crp TYG 40.66 33.57 -17.4 28.4 Insight Select Income INSI 17.25 16.07 -6.8 4.9 BNY Mellon Str Muni Bond DSM 6.69 5.79 -13.5 4.0 Thirdline Real EstateI 10.06 NA NA 6.4 Angel Oak Str Crdt:FI 20.96 NA NA 8.0
Royce Value Trust RVT 17.12 14.85 -13.3 27.5 Tortoise Midstream Enrgy NTG 48.76 39.77 -18.4 32.5 BNY Mellon Strat Muni LEO 6.98 6.08 -12.9 4.0
InvescoBond VBF 16.08 15.42 -4.1 5.3 USQ Core Real Estate:I 22.97 NA NA -15.5 Angel Oak Str Crdt:Inst 20.95 NA NA 8.0
Source Capital SOR 45.66 42.32 -7.3 24.3 VDivInt&PremStr NFJ NA 12.38 NA 15.8 NA 9.49 NA 3.8
J Han Income JHS 11.90 11.50 -3.4 3.8 DWS Muni Inc KTF USQ Core Real Estate:IS 23.04 NA NA -15.4 BR Credit Strat;A 8.59 NA NA 8.3
Sprott Focus Trust FUND 8.94 7.90 -11.6 10.3 V Art Int&Tech Opps AIO 21.36 19.90 -6.8 33.8 11.35 10.50 -7.5 4.6
MFS Intmdt MIN 2.83 2.61 -7.7 0.0 EVMuniBd EIM Versus Cap MMgr RE Inc:I 24.69 NA NA -7.1 BR Credit Strat;Inst 8.56 NA NA 9.0
SRH Total Return STEW 18.72 14.52 -22.4 21.1 Income & Preferred Stock Funds Western Asset Inf-Lk Inc WIA 9.28 8.01 -13.7 10.1 EVMuniIncm EVN 11.26 10.10 -10.3 5.0 BR Credit Strat;U 8.58 NA NA 8.3
Versus Capital Real Asst 27.81 NA NA 3.2
Tri-Continental TY 34.67 30.45 -12.2 22.3 Dividend and Income BXSY 20.38 NA NA NA Western Asset Inf-Lk O&I WIW 9.94 8.55 -14.0 10.0 EVNatMuniOpp EOT 18.41 16.53 -10.2 4.6 BR Credit Strat;W 8.59 NA NA 8.3
Wildermuth:I 7.32 NA NA -33.4
Specialized Equity Funds CalamosStratTot CSQ 16.54 16.16 -2.3 28.7 Westn Asst IG Def Opp Tr IGI 17.31 16.88 -2.5 4.9 InvAdvMuIncTrII VKI 9.77 8.56 -12.4 4.6 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;A NA NA NA 8.6
Income & Preferred Stock Funds
abrdn Glb Prem Prop AWP 3.94 3.81 -3.3 13.0 CohenStrsLtdDurPref&Inc LDP 21.29 19.54 -8.2 30.2 Invesco MuniOp OIA 6.35 6.26 -1.4 5.3 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;C NA NA NA 7.9
Loan Participation Funds Alpha Alternative Assets 6.24 NA NA 0.2
abrdn Global Infra Inc ASGI 20.99 18.65 -11.1 15.1 CohenStrsSelPref&Income PSF 21.00 19.28 -8.2 28.4 Apollo Senior Floating AFT NA 14.63 NA 11.0 InvescoMuOppTr VMO 10.93 9.59 -12.3 4.6 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;I NA NA NA 8.9
Calamos L/S Eqty and DI CPZ 18.20 15.73 -13.6 15.3
Adams Natural Resources PEO 27.80 23.53 -15.4 28.6 CohenStrsTaxAvPreSecs&I PTA 20.57 19.45 -5.4 32.0 BR Debt Strategy DSU 10.87 10.97 +0.9 10.5 10.96 9.66 -11.9 4.6 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;L NA NA NA 8.4
InvescoMuTr VKQ Carlyle AlpInv Pvt Mkt:A NA NA NA NS
ASA Gold & Prec Met Ltd ASA 20.98 18.11 -13.7 9.1 FirstTrIntDurPref&Inc FPF 18.88 17.40 -7.8 28.4 BR F/R Inc Str FRA 13.26 13.24 -0.2 11.0 InvescoQual Inc IQI 11.02 9.57 -13.2 4.8 Denali Strctr Rtrn Strat NA NA NA NS CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;U NA NA NA 8.1
BR Enh C&I CII 21.00 19.22 -8.5 15.6 JHanPrefInc HPI 16.00 16.69 +4.3 28.5 BlackRock Floatng Rt Inc BGT 12.90 13.38 +3.7 10.8 InvTrInvGrMu VGM 11.29 9.84 -12.8 4.5 Flat Rock Opportunity 19.52 NA NA 26.9 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt:U2 NA NA NA 8.1
BlackRock Energy & Res BGR 15.26 13.31 -12.8 20.3 JHPrefIncII HPF 15.86 17.16 +8.2 31.8 BS SFR 2027 T BSL NA 14.26 NA 9.6 InvescoValMunInc IIM 13.46 11.73 -12.9 4.8 Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:A 9.36 NA NA 15.2 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;W NA NA NA 8.4
BlackRock Eq Enh Div BDJ 9.31 8.25 -11.4 8.8 HnckJPfdInco III HPS 14.26 15.36 +7.7 28.1 BS St Cr 2027 Tm BGB NA 11.99 NA 9.7 MAINSTAY:MKDEFTRMUNOP MMD 16.96 16.29 -4.0 4.8 Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:I 9.36 NA NA 15.9 CNR Select Strategies 14.51 NA NA 0.0
BlackRock Enh Glbl Div BOE 12.16 10.45 -14.1 12.7 J Han Prm PDT 12.58 11.59 -7.9 9.6 Eagle Point Credit ECC NA 10.12 NA 16.7 NeubrgrBrm NBH 11.96 10.27 -14.1 4.4 Variant Altrntv Inc:Inst 28.59 NA NA 9.8 First Eagle Crdt Opps A 23.61 NA NA 10.6
BlackRock Enh Intl Div BGY 6.32 5.47 -13.4 5.7 LMP CapInco SCD 16.39 15.28 -6.8 41.1 Eagle Point Income EIC NA 16.04 NA 13.9 Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu Val NUW 15.26 13.54 -11.3 3.7 Variant Impact;Instl 28.32 NA NA 12.5 First Eagle Crdt Opps A2 23.53 NA NA 10.4
BlackRock ESG Cap All T ECAT 18.67 16.89 -9.5 21.4 Nuveen Pref & Inc Opp JPC 7.98 7.17 -10.2 29.2 EtnVncFltRteInc EFT 13.39 13.44 +0.4 10.6 Nuveen AMT-Fr Qlty Mun I NEA 12.62 10.83 -14.2 4.5 Versus Capital Infra Inc 10.13 NA NA NS First Eagle Crdt Opps I 23.47 NA NA 11.2
BlackRock Hlth Sci Term BMEZ 17.61 15.21 -13.6 2.1 Nuveen Pref & Inc Term JPI 19.72 19.18 -2.7 26.6 EV SenFlRtTr EFR 13.10 13.19 +0.7 10.4 Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu CI NVG 13.69 11.96 -12.6 4.9 Convertible Sec's. Funds First Trust Private Cr;A 10.39 NA NA NS
BlackRock Hlth Sciences BME 43.65 40.20 -7.9 3.2 Nuveen Var Rate P&I NPFD 20.09 17.56 -12.6 28.3 FT/Sr Fltg Rte Inc 2 FCT 11.01 10.44 -5.2 11.2 Nuveen Dyn Muni Opp NDMO 11.09 10.97 -1.1 6.9 Calmos Dyn Conv and Inc CCD 19.09 22.80 +19.4 12.0 First Trust Private Cr;I 10.40 NA NA 8.9
BlackRock Innov&Gro Term BIGZ 8.81 7.38 -16.2 10.4 TCW Strat Income TSI 5.07 4.62 -8.9 4.1 Highland Oppty & Income HFRO NA 6.43 NA 12.0 World Equity Funds Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:A 10.40 NA NA 7.3
Nuveen Mu Crdt Opps NMCO 11.74 10.60 -9.7 5.7
BlackRock Res & Comm BCX 10.91 9.42 -13.7 10.8 Convertible Sec's. Funds ACAP Strategic:A 21.57 NA NA 34.9 Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:Adv 10.41 NA NA 7.7
InvDYCrOpp:AX VTA 10.99 NA NA NA Nuv Muni Credit Income NZF 13.75 12.04 -12.4 4.9
BlackRock Sci&Tech Term BSTZ 21.54 18.23 -15.4 22.2 AdvntCnvrtbl&IncFd AVK 12.30 12.06 -2.0 17.0 ACAP Strategic:W 16.22 NA NA 35.9 FS Credit Income;A 12.37 NA NA 8.0
InvSnrIncTr VVR 4.07 4.39 +7.9 11.5 NuvMuniHiIncOpp NMZ 11.24 10.65 -5.2 5.2
BlackRock Sci&Tech Trust BST 36.15 36.05 -0.3 25.3 CalamosConvHi CHY 10.50 11.14 +6.1 16.3 CalamosGlbTotRet CGO 11.40 10.52 -7.8 24.7 FS Credit Income;I 12.41 NA NA 8.2
Nuveen Credit Strat Inc JQC 5.94 5.68 -4.4 11.2 Nuveen Muni Val NUV 9.33 8.66 -7.2 4.0
BlackRock Utl Inf & Pwr BUI 23.01 22.87 -0.6 6.8 CalmosConvOp CHI 9.93 11.24 +13.1 18.6 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:A 11.63 NA NA 15.1 FS Credit Income;T 12.39 NA NA 7.8
NuvFloatRateIncFd JFR 9.37 8.74 -6.7 11.4 Nuveen Quality Muni Inc NAD 13.06 11.21 -14.2 4.6
CLEARBRIDGEENGYMDSOPP EMO 44.92 42.26 -5.9 69.5 V Conv & Inc NCV 3.65 3.20 -12.3 10.5 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:C 11.51 NA NA 14.2 FS Credit Income;U 12.35 NA NA 7.5
High Yield Bond Funds Nuveen Sel TF NXP 14.56 14.35 -1.4 4.1 FS Credit Income;U-2 12.45 NA NA 7.7
CLEARBRIDGEMLP&MDSTMTR CTR 45.36 42.40 -6.5 62.8 V Conv & Inc II NCZ 3.25 2.86 -12.0 10.8 abrdn Inc Credit Str ACP 6.77 6.75 -0.3 18.3 PIMCO MuniInc PMF 9.47 9.13 -3.6 5.6 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:I 11.64 NA NA 15.4
ClearBridge MLP & Midstm CEM 50.09 47.28 -5.6 61.6 V Div Inc & Conv ACV 21.24 22.62 +6.5 33.1 Primark Priv Eq Inv:I 13.00 NA NA 15.4 GL Beyond Income 0.39 NA NA 0.0
AllianceBernGlHiIncm AWF 11.07 10.50 -5.1 7.7 PIMCOMuniIncII PML 8.78 8.32 -5.2 5.7 KKR CREDIT OPPTY;D NA NA NA 9.0
ChnStrInfr UTF 23.66 23.63 -0.1 12.3 V Eqty & Conv Inc NIE 24.82 22.17 -10.7 22.2 Allspring Income Oppty EAD 7.23 6.57 -9.1 9.2 Sweater Cashmere 21.91 NA NA 6.2
Pimco Muni III PMX 8.09 7.45 -7.9 5.3 KKR CREDIT OPPTY;I NA NA NA 9.3
Cohen&SteersQualInc RQI 12.14 11.40 -6.1 9.8 World Equity Funds Barings Glb SD HY Bd BGH 15.78 14.27 -9.6 10.2 PioneerHilncAdv MAV 9.17 8.06 -12.1 4.4 Thornburg Inc Bldr Opps TBLD 18.32 15.77 -13.9 13.9
CohenStrs Real Est and I RLTY 15.32 13.77 -10.1 14.8 abrdn Emg Mkts Eq Inc AEF NA 5.25 NA 12.6 VirtusTotalRetFd ZTR 6.28 5.44 -13.4 -0.3 KKR CREDIT OPPTY;T NA NA NA 8.5
BR Corporate HY HYT 9.64 9.85 +2.2 9.6 PionrMuniHiIncOppty MIO 12.69 11.35 -10.6 4.7 KKR CREDIT OPPTY;U NA NA NA 8.5
Cohen&Steers TotRet RFI 11.26 11.65 +3.5 10.3 abrdn Glbl Dyn Div AGD NA 9.63 NA 12.7 BlackRock Ltd Dur Inc BLW 14.02 13.74 -2.0 9.3 Prem12 Mo
PioneerMunHiIcm MHI 9.94 8.85 -11.0 4.2 NIAGARAINCOMEOPPORTNTS NA NA NA NS
CohenStrsREITPrefInc RNP 20.17 20.28 +0.5 21.2 abrdn Tot Dyn Div AOD NA 8.23 NA 10.1 BNY Mellon Hi Yield Str DHF 2.68 2.35 -12.3 8.0 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
Putnam Mgd Inc PMM 6.73 6.01 -10.8 3.6 Palmer Square Opp Inc 18.09 NA NA 9.5
Columbia Sel Prm Tech Gr STK 30.65 31.16 +1.7 27.9 Allspring Gl Div Oppty EOD 5.52 4.76 -13.8 25.7 Brookfield Real Asst Inc RA 14.54 12.65 -13.0 7.4 Putnam Muni Opp PMO 11.39 10.00 -12.2 4.3 U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds World Income Funds
CrSuisHighYld DHY 2.18 2.05 -6.0 9.3 RiverNorth Flx Mu Inc II RFMZ NA 13.91 NA 7.7 Arca US Treasury NA NA NA 2.8 BlueBay Destra Itl E:A 24.17 NA NA 7.3
DoubleLine Inc Sol DSL 12.46 12.68 +1.8 10.4 RiverNorth Mgd Dur Mun I RMM NA 14.78 NA 7.5 Ellington Inc Opp:A 8.97 NA NA 12.2 BlueBay Destra Itl E:I 24.20 NA NA 7.6
DoubleLine Yld Opps DLY 16.06 15.86 -1.2 9.6 Ellington Inc Opp:M 8.83 NA NA 13.0
Currencies First Tr Hi Inc Lng/Shrt FSD 12.52 11.77 -6.0 10.8
Western Asset Mgd Muni MMU 11.62 10.20 -12.2 4.9
Single State Muni Bond Loan Participation Funds
BlueBay Destra Itl E:L 24.15 NA NA 7.1
BlueBay Destra Itl E:T 24.03 NA NA 6.9
First Trust HY Opp:2027 FTHY 15.29 14.23 -6.9 11.0 BlackRock CA Mun BFZ 12.86 11.75 -8.6 4.5 1WS Credit Income;A2 NA NA NA 7.4 Calamos-Aksia ACI:A 10.56 NA NA NS
U.S.-dollar foreign-exchange rates in late New York trading Franklin Univ FT 7.86 6.81 -13.4 7.7 BR MH CA Qly Fd Inc MUC 12.55 10.89 -13.3 4.4 1WS Credit Income;Inst NA NA NA 7.2 Calamos-Aksia ACI:C 10.55 NA NA NS
US$vs, US$vs, KKR Income Opportunities KIO NA 13.38 NA 10.9 BR MH NJ Qly MUJ 13.04 11.30 -13.3 4.6 Axonic Alternative Inc NA NA NA 8.8 Calamos-Aksia ACI:I 10.56 NA NA NS
Fri YTDchg Fri YTDchg NeubHgYldStrt NHS 7.92 8.00 +1.0 13.7 BR MH NY Qly MHN 12.06 10.62 -11.9 4.4 Axonic Alternative Inc;A NA NA NA NS Calamos-Aksia ACI:M 10.56 NA NA NS
Country/currency in US$ per US$ (%) Country/currency in US$ per US$ (%) New Amer Hi Inc HYB 8.18 7.17 -12.3 6.9 BR MuniYld MI Qly MIY 13.00 11.30 -13.1 4.2 Blackstone FR EI D NA NA NA 9.5 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:A NA NA NA 9.8
Thailand baht .02720 36.770 7.0 Nuveen Global High Inc JGH 13.44 12.83 -4.5 9.8 BR MuniYld NY Qly MYN 11.69 10.37 -11.3 4.4 Blackstone FR EI I NA NA NA 9.8 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:I NA NA NA 10.0
Americas
Vietnam dong .00003929 25455 4.9 PGIM Global High Yield GHY 12.85 11.69 -9.0 10.9 BlackRock NY Mun BNY 12.01 10.75 -10.5 4.1 Blackstone FR EI T NA NA NA 9.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:L NA NA NA 9.6
Argentina peso .0011883.0288 9.2 PGIM High Yield Bond ISD 13.66 12.62 -7.6 10.0 EVCAMuniBd EVM 10.31 9.44 -8.4 4.1 Blackstone FR EI T-I NA NA NA 9.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:M NA NA NA 9.5
Brazil real .1939 5.1578 6.3 Europe Blackstone FR EI U NA NA NA 9.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:N NA NA NA 10.2
PGIM Sh Dur Hi Yld Opp SDHY 17.27 15.07 -12.7 8.6 Eaton Vance NY Muni Bd ENX 10.71 9.68 -9.6 4.1
Canada dollar .7314 1.3673 3.2 Czech Rep. koruna .04322 23.138 3.4 PioneerHilncm PHT 8.14 7.52 -7.6 8.9 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:A 23.86 NA NA 13.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:U NA NA NA 9.5
InvCaValMuIncTr VCV 11.28 9.80 -13.1 4.2
Denmark krone .1444 6.9261 2.2 WstAstHIF II HIX 4.56 4.40 -3.5 13.5 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:C 23.85 NA NA 13.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:Y NA NA NA 9.8
Chile peso .001072 932.44 6.6 InvPAValMuIncTr VPV 11.64 10.21 -12.3 3.7
Euro area euro 1.0773 .9283 2.5 Western Asset Hi Inc Opp HIO 4.15 3.78 -8.9 10.8 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:F 23.86 NA NA 13.3 Fid MS Cr;A NA NA NA NS
Colombiapeso .000257 3891.50 0.4 InvTrInvGrNYMu VTN 12.00 10.71 -10.8 3.9
Western Asset Hi Yld D O HYI 12.13 11.60 -4.4 9.9 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:I 23.87 NA NA 13.3 Fid MS Cr;C NA NA NA NS
Ecuador US dollar 1 1 unch Hungary forint .002777 360.13 3.8 Nuveen CA AMT-F Qual MI NKX 13.15 11.93 -9.3 4.5
Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds BNYM Alcntr Glb MS Cr Fd 92.68 NA NA NA Fid MS Cr;I NA NA NA NS
Mexico peso .0596 16.7788 –1.1 Iceland krona .007166 139.54 2.6 Nuveen CA Val NCA 9.33 8.83 -5.4 4.0 CliffwaterClFd;I 10.75 NA NA 11.1
Allspring Multi-Sector ERC 9.94 9.01 -9.4 8.7 Fid MS Cr;L NA NA NA NS
Norway krone .0919 10.8830 7.0 NuveenCAQtyMuInc NAC 12.69 11.03 -13.1 4.5 CliffwaterElFd;I 10.94 NA NA 10.8
Uruguay peso .02597 38.5050 –1.4 Apollo Tactical Income AIF NA 14.50 NA 10.8 Jackson Credit Opps:I 10.19 NA NA NS
Poland zloty .2503 3.9954 1.5 NuvNJ Qual Muni Inc NXJ 13.63 12.06 -11.6 3.5 CNR Strategic Credit 7.52 NA NA 22.7
Ares Dynamic Crdt Alloc ARDC 14.69 14.59 -0.7 9.96 Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.87 NA NA 9.4
Asia-Pacific Sweden krona .0922 10.8486 7.4 Nuveen NY AMT/Fr Qual MI NRK 12.00 10.87 -9.4 4.3 Floating-Rate Opps;A 10.23 NA NA NS
BlackRock Mlt-Sctr Inc BIT 14.54 15.33 +5.4 9.7 Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.87 NA NA 10.2
Australiadollar .6605 1.5140 3.2 1.1031 .9065 Nuveen NY Qual Muni Inc NAN 12.49 10.84 -13.2 4.5 Floating-Rate Opps;I 10.22 NA NA NS
Switzerland franc 7.7 BlackRock Tax Muni Bd BBN 17.38 15.74 -9.4 7.2
Lord Abbett Crd Op:U 8.88 NA NA 9.4
China yuan .1384 7.2269 1.6 Nuveen PA Qual Muni Inc NQP 13.44 11.86 -11.8 3.4 Floating-Rate Opps;U 10.23 NA NA NS Oaktree Dvsfd Income;D 9.08 NA NA 8.6
Turkey lira .0309 32.3633 9.8 DoubleLine:Oppor Crdt Fd DBL 15.18 15.19 0.0 5.7 Nuveen VA Qlty Mun Inc NPV 12.45 10.77 -13.5 4.1 Equalize Community Dev 9.22 NA NA NA PIMCO Flexible EM I;Inst 8.44 NA NA 7.5
Hong Kong dollar .1280 7.8148 0.1 Ukraine hryvnia .0252 39.6500 3.9 EVLmtDurIncm EVV 10.48 9.72 -7.3 10.0 PIMCO CA PCQ NA 9.34 NA 4.7 FedProj&TrFinanceTendr 10.01 NA NA 7.5 National Muni Bond Funds
India rupee .01197 83.553 0.4 UK pound 1.2525 .7984 1.7 Franklin Ltd Dur Income FTF 7.12 6.27 -11.9 11.5 PIMCOCAMuniII PCK NA 5.83 NA 4.5 Flat Rock Core Income NA NA NA 9.4 Ecofin Tax-Exempt Prv Cr 8.45 NA NA 3.6
Indonesia rupiah .0000623 16055 4.3 Middle East/Africa FS Credit Opportunities FSCO NA NA NA 11.4 52 wk Flat Rock Enhanced Inc 21.66 NA NA 10.3 Lind Cap Pt Mun Cred Inc 8.79 NA NA 6.3
Japan yen .006421 155.75 10.4 J Han Investors JHI 14.61 13.67 -6.4 6.7 Prem Ttl InvDYCrOpp:A 11.00 NA NA 10.7 MainStay MacKay Mu IO;A1 10.05 NA NA NS
Bahrain dinar 2.6525 .3770 0.01
Kazakhstan tenge .002273 440.00 –3.4 MFS Charter MCR 6.80 6.26 -7.9 0.0 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret InvDYCrOpp:R6 11.00 NA NA 11.0 MainStay MacKay Mu IO;A2 10.05 NA NA NS
Egypt pound .0211 47.3924 53.2 NuvCorePlusImpact NPCT 11.88 10.41 -12.4 10.1
Macau pataca .1242 8.0520 –0.02 General Equity Funds InvDYCrOpp:Y 11.00 NA NA 10.9 MainStay MacKay Mu IO;A3 10.05 NA NA NS
Israel shekel .2684 3.7262 3.4 Nuveen Taxable Muni Inc NBB 16.45 14.84 -9.8 5.6
Malaysia ringgit .2110 4.7390 3.1 Alternative Strategies:I 16.73 NA NA -3.2 Invesco Sr Loan A 5.87 NA NA 9.7 MainStay MacKay Mu IO;I 10.05 NA NA NS
Kuwait dinar 3.2506 .3076 0.1 PIMCO Corp & Inc Oppty PTY 11.17 14.09 +26.1 9.97
New Zealand dollar .6022 1.6606 4.9 First Trust Hdg Strat;A 10.67 NA NA N Invesco Sr Loan C 5.88 NA NA 8.9 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A1 7.51 NA NA 5.2
Oman sul rial 2.5984 .3849 –0.03 PIMCO Corp & Inc Strat PCN 11.42 12.62 +10.5 10.6 First Trust Hdg Str;I 10.70 NA NA N Invesco Sr Loan IB 5.87 NA NA 9.98 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A2 7.52 NA NA 5.5
Pakistan rupee .00359 278.175 –1.0 Qatar rial .2742 3.647 0.1 PIMCOHilnco PHK 4.58 4.79 +4.6 11.9 Specialized Equity Funds Invesco Sr Loan IC 5.87 NA NA 9.8 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:I 7.51 NA NA 6.0
Philippines peso .0174 57.460 3.7 Saudi Arabia riyal .2666 3.7507 0.02 PIMCO IncmStrFd PFL 7.91 8.32 +5.2 11.7 Accordant ODCE Index;A 9.50 NA NA NS Invesco Sr Loan Y 5.87 NA NA 9.98 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A-3 10.28 NA NA 3.6
Singapore dollar .7382 1.3546 2.7 South Africa rand .0542 18.4499 0.8 PIMCO IncmStrFd II PFN 6.98 7.37 +5.6 11.8 Accordant ODCE Index;I 9.51 NA NA NS Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:A 10.30 NA NA 10.2 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc:A1 10.28 NA NA 3.8
South Korea won .0007293 1371.15 5.9 Putnam Prem Inc PPT 3.79 3.52 -7.1 8.4 Accordant ODCE Index;Y 9.51 NA NA NS Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:I 10.30 NA NA 10.6 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A2 10.28 NA NA 3.8
Sri Lanka rupee .0033450 298.95 –7.7 Close Net Chg % Chg YTD%Chg Western Asset Dvsfd Inc WDI 15.55 14.53 -6.6 11.8 ARK Venture 25.73 NA NA 35.7 Monachil Credit Income:I 10.15 NA NA 7.1 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;Inst 10.28 NA NA 4.3
Taiwan dollar .03082 32.446 5.7 WSJ Dollar Index 99.83 0.10 0.10 4.17 World Income Funds ArrowMark Financial Corp BANX NA 18.21 NA NA Nomura Alt Inc;I 10.02 NA NA 5.6 Single State Muni Bond
abrdn AP IncFd FAX 2.95 2.58 -12.5 13.2 CBRE GlbRlEst IGR 5.53 5.12 -7.4 3.9 OFS Credit Company OCCI NA 7.43 NA NA PIMCO CA FMI;A-1 10.23 NA NA 2.9
Sources: Tullett Prebon, Dow Jones Market Data MS EmMktDomDebt EDD 5.40 4.62 -14.4 3.9 CIM RA&C A 23.62 NA NA 0.8 SEI Alternative Income:F 10.25 NA NA NS PIMCO CA FMI;Inst 10.23 NA NA 3.4

Insider-Trading Spotlight Borrowing Benchmarks | wsj.com/market-data/bonds/benchmarks

Trading by ‘insiders’ of a corporation, such as a company’s CEO, vice president or director, potentially conveys
new information about the prospects of a company. Insiders are required to report large trades to the SEC
within two business days. Here’s a look at the biggest individual trades by insiders, based on data received by Money Rates May 10, 2024
Refinitiv on May 10, and year-to-date stock performance of the company Key annual interest rates paid to borrow or lend money in U.S. and international markets. Rates below are a
KEY: B: beneficial owner of more than 10% of a security class CB: chairman CEO: chief executive officer CFO: chief financial officer
CO: chief operating officer D: director DO: director and beneficial owner GC: general counsel H: officer, director and beneficial owner
guide to general levels but don’t always represent actual transactions.
Week —52-WEEK— Week —52-WEEK—
I: indirect transaction filed through a trust, insider spouse, minor child or other O: officer OD: officer and director P: president UT: Inflation Latest ago High Low Latest ago High Low
unknown VP: vice president Excludes pure options transactions March index Chg From (%)
level Feb. '24March '23 Federal funds Other short-term rates
Biggest weekly individual trades Effective rate 5.3300 n.a. 5.3500 5.0800
U.S. consumer price index Week 52-Week
High 5.6500 5.6500 5.6500 5.4000 Latest high low
Based on reports filed with regulators this past week All items 312.332 0.65 3.5 ago
Low 5.3100 5.3100 5.3300 5.0500
No. of shrs in Price range ($) $ Value Core 317.088 0.53 3.8
Date(s) Company Symbol Insider Title trans (000s) in transaction (000s) Close ($) Ytd (%)
Bid 5.3300 5.3300 5.3300 5.0700 Call money
International rates Offer 5.3500 5.3500 5.3700 5.0800 7.25 7.25 7.25 7.00
Buyers Week 52-Week Treasury bill auction Commercial paper (AA financial)
May. 1 Theravance Biopharma TBPH E. Samaha BI 1,499 8.75 13,117 9.38 -16.5 Latest ago High Low 4 weeks 5.270 5.275 5.750 5.010 90 days 5.30 5.37 5.54 5.04
May. 2-3 Sensata Technologies Holding ST A. Mirshekari DI 268 39.17-39.82 10,636 42.34 12.7 13 weeks 5.250 5.250 5.345 5.060
May. 3 Aon L. Knight DI 10 275.76-277.50 2,766 293.10 0.7 Prime rates 5.165 5.350 4.890
Secured Overnight Financing Rate
AON 26 weeks 5.155
May. 8 Walt Disney DIS J. Gorman D 20 106.03 2,121 105.79 17.2 U.S. 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.25 5.31 5.31 5.40 5.05
Canada 7.20 7.20 7.20 6.70 Secondary market
May. 6 Macerich MAC J. Hsieh CEO 140 14.26 1,997 15.28 -1.0 Value 52-Week
Japan 1.475 1.475 1.475 1.475 Latest Traded High Low
May. 7 Ryman Hospitality Properties RHP C. Reed OD 14 106.40 1,468 105.94 -3.7 Fannie Mae
May. 3 Caesars Entertainment CZR M. Pegram DI 40 36.39-36.40 1,456 36.18 -22.8 Policy Rates 30-year mortgage yields DTCC GCF Repo Index
May. 1-3 Heartland Express HTLD M. Gerdin CEOI 108 10.24-10.81 1,155 11.48 -19.5 Euro zone 4.50 4.50 4.50 3.75
30 days 6.516 6.614 7.495 5.788 Treasury 5.346 24.370 5.504 5.075
Switzerland 2.00 2.00 2.25 2.00
May. 3 Vestis VSTS D. Pertz D 110 10.02 1,102 11.49 -45.6 60 days 6.527 6.632 7.554 5.791 MBS 5.385 52.470 5.689 5.087
Britain 5.25 5.25 5.25 4.50
May. 6 South Plains Financial SPFI N. Valles D 40 25.00 1,000 27.70 -4.4 Australia 4.35 4.35 4.35 3.85
May. 6 Corvus Pharmaceuticals CRVS R. Miller CEO 578 1.73 1,000 2.08 18.2 Notes on data:
Overnight repurchase U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest U.S. banks,
May. 2 Lumen Technologies LUMN K. Johnson CEO 750 1.28 960 1.31 -28.4 and is effective July 27, 2023. Other prime rates aren’t directly comparable; lending practices vary
May. 6 Malibu Boats MBUU M. Lanigan D 20 33.43 669 35.96 -34.4 U.S. 5.36 5.36 5.48 5.04 widely by location; Discount rate is effective July 27, 2023. Secured Overnight Financing Rate is as
of May 9, 2024. DTCC GCF Repo Index is Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.'s weighted average for
May. 6-7 PENN Entertainment PENN D. Handler D 40* 15.37-15.84 624 16.08 -38.2 U.S. government rates overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions of U.S. dollars. Federal-funds rates
May. 7 Trupanion TRUP D. Rawlings CEO 21 24.14 500 25.80 -15.4 are Tullett Prebon rates as of 5:30 p.m. ET.
May. 1 Delta Air Lines DAL W. Chiang D 10 49.50 495 52.60 30.7 Discount Sources: Federal Reserve; Bureau of Labor Statistics; DTCC; FactSet;
May. 6-8 TriMas TRS H. Parker D 18 26.01-26.52 475 26.80 5.8 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.25 Tullett Prebon Information, Ltd.

Apr. 15-16 Expensify EXFY S. Mclaughlin BI 325 1.43-1.46 467 1.77 -28.3

Sellers Cash Prices | wsj.com/market-data/commodities Friday, May 10, 2024

May. 6 Blue Owl Capital OWL A. Laurino OI 19,600 18.39 360,444 18.55 24.5
May. 6 M. Rees PI 19,600 18.39 360,444 These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or “physical” commodities in the marketplace—separate
May. 6 S. Ward OI 19,600 18.39 360,444 from the futures price on an exchange, which reflects what the commodity might be worth in future months.
May. 6-7 Palo Alto Networks PANW L. Klarich O 127 297.70-307.88 37,977 297.47 0.9 Friday Friday Friday
May. 1-2 Texas Instruments TXN R. Templeton CB 208 174.44-178.53 36,532 187.05 9.7 Copper,Comex spot 4.6935 Wheat,No.2 soft red,St.Louis-u 6.4750
May. 3 R. Templeton CB 100 178.13-179.47 17,926 Energy Iron Ore, 62% Fe CFR China-s *116.3 Wheat - Hard - KC (USDA) $ per bu-u 7.0725
May. 6-8 Donnelley Financial Solutions DFIN J. Jacobowitz DI 565 62.02-64.26 35,700 61.68 -1.1 Coal,C.Aplc.,12500Btu,1.2SO2-r,w 74.750 Steel, HRC USA, FOB Midwest Mill-s *805.0 Wheat,No.1soft white,Portld,OR-u 6.1750
May. 6 Laureate Education LAUR I. Snow DI 2,115 14.64 30,963 16.02 16.8 Coal,PwdrRvrBsn,8800Btu,0.8SO2-r,w 13.700 Battery/EV metals Food
BMI Lithium Carbonate, EXW China, =99.2%-v,w 15225
May. 7-9 Cactus WHD J. Bender P 600 51.01-52.03 30,843 50.64 11.5 Metals BMI Lithium Hydroxide, EXW China, =56.5% -v,w 13625 Beef,carcass equiv. index
May. 7-9 Antero Resources AR W. Keenan DI 837 34.23-34.53 28,733 33.32 46.9 BMI Cobalt sulphate, EXW China, >20.5% -v,m 4250 choice 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 282.37
Gold, per troy oz
May. 6 RH RH E. Chaya P 100 275.87-281.61 27,992 290.97 -0.2 Engelhard industrial 2365.00 BMI Nickel Sulphate, EXW China, >22%-v,m 4168 select 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 272.53
May. 2 American Express AXP D. Buckminster O 117 232.34-232.76 27,267 242.30 29.3 Handy & Harman base 2372.45 BMIFlakeGraphite,FOBChina,-100Mesh,94-95%-v,m 485 Broilers, National comp wtd. avg.-u,w 1.3214
2633.42 Butter,AA Chicago-d 2.9900
May. 3-7 St. Joe JOE B. Berkowitz DOI 437 58.26-58.96 25,466 58.47 -2.8 Handy & Harman fabricated Fibers and Textiles Cheddar cheese,bbl,Chicago-d 191.25
LBMA Gold Price AM *2308.70
May. 7 West Pharmaceutical Services WST E. Green CEO 66 366.64-366.66 24,199 364.19 3.4 Burlap,10-oz,40-inch NY yd-n,w 0.8025 Cheddar cheese,blk,Chicago-d 198.00
LBMA Gold Price PM *2325.70
May. 1 Viking Therapeutics VKTX M. Mancini CO 281 76.40-80.08 22,136 73.64 295.7 Krugerrand,wholesale-e 2460.34 Cotton,1 1/16 std lw-mdMphs-u 0.7306 Milk,Nonfat dry,Chicago lb.-d 115.25
Cotlook 'A' Index-t *87.90 Coffee,Brazilian,Comp-y 2.0013
May. 6-7 Medpace Holdings MEDP A. Troendle CEO 52 401.73-404.48 21,129 390.19 27.3 Maple Leaf-e 2484.00
Hides,hvy native steers piece fob-u n.a. Coffee,Colombian, NY-y 2.2511
May. 6 Restaurant Brands International QSR J. Kobza CEO 246 75.14-75.47 18,508 73.24 -6.3 American Eagle-e 2484.00
Wool,64s,staple,Terr del-u,w n.a. Eggs,large white,Chicago-u 1.5650
Mexican peso-e 2860.34
May. 6 Tesla TSLA R. Denholm D 94 184.00-187.06 17,322 168.47 -32.2 Flour,hard winter KC-p 19.10
Austria crown-e 2321.87 Grains and Feeds Hams,17-20 lbs,Mid-US fob-u n.a.
* Half the transactions were indirect **Two day transaction Austria phil-e 2484.00
Bran,wheat middlings, KC-u,w 75 Hogs,Iowa-So. Minnesota-u 89.59
p - Pink Sheets Silver, troy oz. Pork bellies,12-14 lb MidUS-u n.a.
Corn,No. 2 yellow,Cent IL-bp,u 4.4000
Engelhard industrial 28.4000 Pork loins,13-19 lb MidUS-u 1.3470
Corn gluten feed,Midwest-u,w 97.2
Handy & Harman base 28.2560 Corn gluten meal,Midwest-u,w 418.3 Steers,Tex.-Okla. Choice-u 184.00
Insider Buying and selling by sector Handy & Harman fabricated 35.3200 Cottonseed meal-u,w 330 Steers,feeder,Okla. City-u,w 297.00
Based on actual transaction dates in reports received this past week LBMA spot price *£22.1800 Hominy feed,Cent IL-u,w 106
(U.S.$ equivalent) *27.6250 Fats and Oils
Meat-bonemeal,50% pro Mnpls-u,w 320
Coins,wholesale $1,000 face-a 22018 Oats,No.2 milling,Mnpls-u 4.5075 Degummed corn oil, crude wtd. avg.-u,w n.a.
Sector Buying Selling Sector Buying Selling
Other metals Rice, Long Grain Milled, No. 2 AR-u,w 36.25 Grease,choice white,Chicago-h n.a.
Basic Industries 1,104,076 30,245,090 Finance 10,903,423 174,021,017 LBMA Platinum Price PM *975.0 Sorghum,(Milo) No.2 Gulf-u n.a. Lard,Chicago-u n.a.
Capital Goods 12,403,002 60,078,804 Health care 1,679,910 162,435,189 Platinum,Engelhard industrial 995.0 SoybeanMeal,Cent IL,rail,ton48%-u,w 384.40 Soybean oil,crude;Centl IL-u,w 0.4319
Consumer durables 1,085,854 23,665,583 Public Utilities 11,275 2,413,699 Palladium,Engelhard industrial 1005.0 Soybeans,No.1 yllw IL-bp,u 11.8600 Tallow,bleach;Chicago-h n.a.
Consumer non-durables 378,213 81,462,750 Technology 2,491,669 266,020,608 Aluminum, LME, $ per metric ton *2494.0 Wheat,Spring14%-pro Mnpls-u 8.9000 Tallow,edible,Chicago-u n.a.
Consumer services 7,680,385 217,914,246 Transportation 698,455 3,176,272 KEY TO CODES: A=ask; B=bid; BP=country elevator bids to producers; C=corrected; D=CME; E=Manfra,Tordella & Brookes; H=American Commodities Brokerage Co;
Energy 474,435 93,161,082 K=bi-weekly; M=monthly; N=nominal; n.a.=not quoted or not available; P=Sosland Publishing; R=SNL Energy; S=Platts-TSI; T=Cotlook Limited; U=USDA; V=Benchmark
Mineral Intelligence; W=weekly; Y=International Coffee Organization; Z=not quoted. *Data as of 5/9
Sources: Refinitiv; Dow Jones Market Data Source: Dow Jones Market Data
B8 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Charities Ford Picks Former

Defend Fees Lucid CFO as Its
From Funds New Finance Chief
Continued from page B1
tion leaders worry that the
flow might dry up or shift to BY KRISTIN BROUGHTON said it would delay the launch
funds tied to other investment of a new three-row vehicle to
firms that aren’t hit as hard Ford Motor has hired give the market more time to
MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS

by the rules. Sherry House, formerly chief develop.

Last week, dozens of foun- financial officer of electric-ve- Last year, Ford split its EV
dation executives capped off hicle maker Lucid Group, to be business out as a separate di-
months of lobbying about po- its next CFO as the company vision. The company reports
tentially dire consequences at contends with tepid demand financials for its EV division
a two-day public hearing. It for EVs. alongside its traditional gas
opened with the rule’s chief House will join the Dear- and hybrid vehicles, as well as
author joking, “At least I’m born, Mich.-based automaker its commercial business.
not sitting on top of a dunk Financial companies such as Charles Schwab are tied to the largest donor-advised funds. in June as vice president of fi- In the first quarter, Ford’s
tank right now.” nance, and then transition to net income declined 24%, to
Donors get income-tax de- Some say those features “In fact, a counterincentive have become more reliant on the CFO role in early 2025. $1.3 billion.
ductions when they put mean that DAFs discourage may be created for both donors outside financial advisers for She left Lucid in December, af- “Sherry adds an important
money into a DAF. They give money from getting to work- and their personal investment donor referrals and investment ter nearly three years as CFO. leadership dimension to Ford
up legal control of the assets ing charities until long after advisors to not advise distribu- services. And the furor over the She also previously worked at as we urgently build a profit-
but can still recommend which the donors have received tax tions out of their DAFs to oper- rules shows the need for closer Waymo, the self-driving car able EV business, generate
charities get their money and benefits. ating charities,” the Treasury scrutiny, said Chuck Collins, startup owned by Alphabet, new and recurring revenue
when, and the funds almost Financial companies such as Department said in its pro- who helps run the Charity Re- Google’s parent company. streams and create a more dy-
always comply. Meanwhile, Fidelity Investments, Charles posed rule, which also ad- form Initiative at the Institute She succeeds John Lawler, namic and resilient company,”
the assets can be invested in- Schwab and Vanguard Group dresses other DAF issues. for Policy Studies. “I’m not sure who has held the CFO role said Jim Farley, the company’s
side the DAF. As long as they are tied to the largest DAFs, Community foundation ex- they’re the best rules, but to me since October 2020. Lawler in president and chief executive.
stay there, those assets can but the funds are also scattered ecutives and investment man- it’s emblematic of, ‘Wow, there early June will take on the Newark, Calif.-based Lucid
generate fees for donors’ throughout community-based agers dismiss that argument must be a lot of money at stake role of vice chair, and will fo- is still burning cash and, like
wealth advisers. groups that have operated for and say the rule could have here,’ ” he said. cus on areas including strate- other EV makers, has strug-
Brian Mittendorf, an ac- many decades. perverse effects. Because it ap- Investment advisers said gic development, partnerships gled with soft demand. The
counting professor at Ohio Donors aren’t supposed to plies to outside advisers but the current arrangement and engagement with global company went public in 2021
State University, said an “in- benefit from a DAF. Under the not to fees paid to DAF employ- works because they offer com- leaders. through a merger with a spe-
teresting partnership” has de- proposed rule that imple- ees, it could drive money to prehensive advice to clients House joins Ford as the cial-purpose acquisition com-
veloped between charities and ments a 2006 tax code sec- DAFs associated with financial that includes charitable in- company’s EV business is un- pany. It currently sells one
financial-services companies tion, many of those fees to the companies such as Fidelity, vesting and profit-making der pressure amid slow de- model, the Air sedan, available
in opposing Treasury’s pro- donors’ advisers would be which have in-house advisers. strategies. mand across the industry. in four versions, and has plans
posed rules. “That’s either a deemed excess benefits, sub- “It puts us at a huge disad- “Sometimes, it is just about That business is on track to to begin selling an SUV.
sign that, ‘Wow, these strange ject to a 20% tax plus another vantage vis-à-vis the commer- the simplicity in having a firm lose between $5 billion and At Lucid, House kept a low
bedfellows are together, they 5% on fund managers. cial DAF firms,” said Frank Fer- like ours help orchestrate ev- $5.5 billion this year, the com- profile but left the company’s
must have a point.’ Or, ‘These Many DAF donors pick from nandez, president of the erything,” said Amy Frizzell, a pany said in its latest earnings balance sheet in good finan-
strange bedfellows are to- a menu of investment options, Community Foundation for wealth manager at Forvis Pri- announcement. Ford in April cial condition, according to
gether, the blurred boundaries an approach that would be un- Greater Atlanta, where about vate Client, which handles $76 Jaime Perez, senior analyst at
between the charity world and affected by the proposed rule. $610 million of its $1.5 billion is million in DAF assets and R.F. Lafferty & Co., who covers
the financial world are a prob- Instead, the Treasury rules at- managed by outside advisers. works with a total of $9.7 bil- the EV maker. Lucid said in
lem,’ ” he said. tack a more tailored but still Fidelity Charitable and lion in assets. “For a lot of March that it had secured a $1
Administration officials will common arrangement for some Schwab Charitable have families, that’s where the billion investment from an af-
consider public comments be- wealthy donors, whose per- aligned with the community overall value is.” filiate of the Public Invest-
fore issuing a final regulation sonal financial advisers also foundations, and both asked Jennifer Bartenbach, chief ment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s
and setting an effective date. help invest their DAF accounts. the administration to change executive of the Central Indi- sovereign-wealth fund.
For donors, DAFs have sev- DAF sponsors—community its proposed rule that would ana Community Foundation, Among the challenges she
eral advantages over private foundations or investment limit the payments. Vanguard said outside managers oversee will face at Ford will be join-
foundations, which give do- firms’ charitable arms—then Charitable, which doesn’t about 20% of its $1 billion in ing the company as an out-
nors more ongoing control. compensate the donors’ advis- compensate outside advisers, assets, and she worries that sider. “She’s got to get them
There is no minimum annual ers, typically paying a percent- said it wouldn’t be affected. A the Treasury Department’s to buy into her, and get them
payout requirement, encour- age of the assets annually. bipartisan group of House rule would keep money from to like her,” said David Whis-
aging asset growth. DAFs are The rule is necessary be- Ways and Means Committee getting to charities at all. ton, senior U.S. autos equity
also less transparent; the pub- cause paid advisers might members told the administra- “All they’re going to do now analyst at Morningstar, noting
SHERRY HOUSE

lic can’t easily trace money have a financial reason to tion they were concerned is not encourage charity,” she the number of long-tenured
from donors to charities when guide money to DAFs rather about the impact on commu- said of some wealth managers. executives at the company.
they are routed through a than directly to charities, ac- nity foundations. “They’re still going to receive —Dean Seal contributed to
commingled fund. cording to the administration. Community foundations fees off of those dollars.” Sherry House this article

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 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. * * Monday, May 13, 2024 | B9

THE TICKER MARKETS

MARKET EVENTS COMING THIS WEEK
Monday Empire Manufacturing 15-year fixed 6.38%
New Gold
Earnings expected
Allogene Therapeutics
Estimate/Year Ago
Apr., previous
May., expected
-14.3

Mort. bankers indexes

-10
Tuesday
(0.41)/(0.68) Purch., previous up 2.0%
Refinan., prev. up 5.0%
Retail sales, ex. autos
Producer price index Mar., previous up 1.1%
All items, Mar. up 0.2%
Apr., expected up 0.2%
Apr., expected up 0.3%
Retail sales
Core, Mar. up 0.2%
Mar., previous up 0.7%
Apr., expected up 0.2%
Apr., expected up 0.5%
Earnings expected Earnings expected
Estimate/Year Ago Estimate/Year Ago
Atea Pharmaceuticals Cisco Systems
(0.52)/(0.43) 0.83/1.00
Dynatrace 0.27/0.31
DLocal 0.12/0.11
Home Depot 3.60/3.82 Grab Holdings
Nextracker 0.68/0.38 (0.01)/(0.06)
MakeMyTrip 0.15/0.05
monday.com 0.40/0.14
Wednesday
Business inventories
Thursday
Feb., previous up 0.4% Building Permits
Philadelphia
Fed survey
Rush
Apr., previous
May., expected
Capacity utilization
15.5
9.4 Emerges
Mar., previous 78.4%
Continued from page B1
Apr., expected 78.4%
are scooping up the precious
Industrial production
metal. They are paying premi-
Mar., previous up 0.4%
ums to buy gold in Asia and
Apr., expected up 0.2% the Middle East, Nicky Shiels,
EIA report: natural-gas metals strategist at MKS
Previous change in stocks in PAMP, wrote in a note to cli-
billions of cubic feet ents last month. Costco’s
up 79 business selling bullion is
Earnings expected booming in the U.S. World-
Estimate/Year Ago wide demand for bars and
Advanced Drainage coins, which are typically
Systems 1.03/1.06 bought by individuals rather
Applied Materials than institutions, grew by 36%
1.99/2.00 between 2019 and 2023, ac-
Copart 0.39/0.36 cording to the World Gold

Mar., expected Mar., previous 1.458 mil.
down 0.1% Apr., expected 1.49 mil.
Housing Starts
Consumer price index Mar., previous 1.321 mil.
All items, Mar. up 3.5% Apr., expected 1.41 mil.
Apr., expected up 3.4% Initial jobless claims
Core, Mar. up 3.8% Previous 231,000
Apr., expected up 3.6%
Expected 219,000
EIA status report Import price index
Previous change in stocks in Mar., previous up 0.4%
millions of barrels
Apr., expected up 0.2%
Crude-oil stocks
Freddie Mac
down 1.4 mortgage survey
Gasoline stocks up 0.9 Previous weekly averages
Distillates up 0.6 30-year fixed 7.09%
* FactSet Estimates earnings-per-share estimates don’t include extraordinary items (Losses in paren-
CFOTO/DDP/ZUMA PRESS
Deere 7.89/9.65 Council trade organization.
Take-Two Interactive People tossing bars and
Software 0.09/0.59 coins into their shopping carts
Walmart 0.51/0.49 don’t usually have Wall Street-
levels of concern about the
Friday path of monetary policy, ana-
lysts say. They often want
Leading indicators something they can stash or Demand is booming for
Mar., previous carry, to shield themselves ‘physical gold’—bars, coins,
down 0.3% from potential catastrophes. jewelry and nuggets.
Apr., expected Investors’ rush to gold has Widespread stockpiling has
down 0.3% compounded demand from helped lift prices.
Earnings expected central banks, which stock-
Estimate/Year Ago pile stacks of bars as mone- Hedge funds and other
RBC Bearings 2.34/2.13 tary reserves. The banks speculators have begun ramp-
roughly doubled the pace of ing up bullish futures and op-
their gold purchases after tions bets. Doshi believes the

CHALINEE THIRASUPA/BLOOMBERG NEWS

theses) u Adjusted for stock split
Note: Forecasts are from Dow Jones weekly survey of economists Russia invaded Ukraine in financial market will catch up
2022, according to the WGC, to the physical one, propelling
aiming to diversify their the price of gold to $3,000 in
Listen to a Podcast: Zuckerberg’s Big Bet portfolios. Some, including the next six to 18 months.
On the Metaverse China’s, were also spooked by “It might be that [the mar-
sanctions imposed on Rus- ket’s] just realizing that ‘Hey,
sian central-bank reserves gold prices were probably too
JOSH EDELSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

and are now retreating from low,’” he said.

dollar-based assets like Trea-
surys, analysts say.
The acceleration in central
bank and consumer buying
has broken a traditional ten-
dency of gold prices to fall
when inflation-adjusted inter-
est rates rise, said David Wil-
son, senior commodity strate-
gist at BNP Paribas. Prices
would be about $1,000 lower
were it not for all the metal
being accumulated, according
Scan this code for the second episode of a to his modeling.
WSJ podcast series about Mark “There’s just growing un-
Zuckerberg’s ambitions for the metaverse— certainty, whether it’s eco-
and the headwinds that have threatened to nomic uncertainty or geopolit-
throw Meta’s mission off course. ical uncertainty,” said Wilson.
Waves of new buyers
emerged after the Covid mar-
ket crash and last year’s re-
gional banking crisis, said
Alex Ebkarian, chief operating
officer of precious metals
dealer Allegiance Gold. More
recently, new trade agree-
ments between countries such
as Russia and China have
spawned anxiety about the
U.S. dollar’s diminishing role
in the world, prompting some
investors to seek stability in
the currency favored by the
pharaohs.
“They’re asking themselves
the what-if question,” said Eb-
Soaring debt is one reason
Barry Kitt buys gold. The Dal-
karian. “’What if the dollar las-based 69-year-old said his
continues to devalue? I don’t calculations show it has
want to have all of my assets beaten inflation since 1913 and
be paper based.’” the S&P 500 since 2000.
Ballooning global debt is A former hedge-fund man-
also luring investors away ager who now runs a family
from government-issued cur- office, Kitt is comfortable with
rencies and into the precious financial products and uses
metal, said Aakash Doshi, Citi- ETFs when he wants to trade
group’s head of commodities quickly. Nonetheless, most of
research in North America. his gold is physical, including
Global debt grew by 24% to several large crystalline nug-
$313 trillion between the be- gets.
ginning of 2020 and the end With ETFs, he said, “You
of last year, according to the don’t own gold, you own a
Institute of International Fi- piece of paper. I want to own
nance. it. I want to know it’s mine.”

Silicon Future Union, which promotes

investing for the national in-
terest, recently published an
at an event in Washington on
technology and national secu-
rity called the Hill & Valley

Valley Tilts inaugural report listing a

group of 100 venture capital-
ists it says are “working to
Forum.
“I see people in Silicon Val-
ley as patriots,” he told a

To U.S. preserve democracy.”

In 2023, Sequoia Capital,
one of the early investors in
crowd stacked with Washing-
ton insiders and tech inves-
tors at the event on May 1.
Apple and Google, made its Some venture capitalists
Continued from page B1 first defense investment— leading the charge toward pa-
trend. Mach Industries, which is triotic investing were part of
As once-hot sectors such as building hydrogen-powered earlier waves of making big
fintech, Web3 and the meta- weapons systems. The firm investments in China. Some
verse cooled, investors have has also funded military are now rethinking their rela-
sought new places to invest. drones and battlefield simula- tionships with the country.
Meanwhile, the wars in tion technology. “The world was flat, and
Ukraine and the Middle East, Startup accelerator Y Com- we always had the sentiment
as well as China’s military binator in San Francisco, that economic growth would
buildup, have made selling to which helped launch Airbnb, bring us all together,” Roelof
the military more palatable has recruited defense-tech Botha, Sequoia’s managing
and potentially profitable. startups for the first time this partner, said at the Hill & Val-
“Will people invest solely year to join its program. It ley Forum. “And that proved
in something because it is pa- hasn’t funded China-based to not exactly be true.”
triotic?” said Rebecca Gevalt, startups since 2019, said a Sequoia’s U.S. fund is also
who helps run a venture fund, spokeswoman. an investor in ByteDance, the
Dcode Capital, which has an Andreessen Horowitz, one Chinese parent company of
advisory arm to educate start- of Silicon Valley’s biggest TikTok, which risks being
ups and the federal govern- crypto investors, last month banned from the U.S. for na-
ment about how to work to- announced a $600 million tional-security concerns.
gether. “The answer is no. fund for American Dyna- Investing in Chinese com-
The investment interest in mism. The firm has made a panies has been a common
this is people think they can small number of investments practice among investors, and
make a good return on the in China. while frowned upon by some
money.” “We are bringing our in recent years, it isn’t illegal.
Thus far, the patriotic in- founders to Washington, and Yet the stark pivot from China
vesting efforts haven’t yielded we are having conversations to U.S. national-security leads
large orders from Defense De- to explain, ‘We are building some skeptics to question the
partment buyers. Venture this,’” said Katherine Boyle, staying power and sincerity of
capitalists invested $42 bil- one of the firm’s partners the patriotic wave.
lion into the top 100 national- leading American Dynamism Thomas Tull, a longtime
security startups, ranked by investments. technology investor and for-
size and growth, according to Venture capitalists who mer Hollywood producer, sold
a report from Silicon Valley long ignored or resented his movie-production com-
Defense Group, a nonprofit Washington are chasing con- pany, Legendary Entertain-
that tries to connect Silicon tracts with the U.S. govern- ment, to a Chinese buyer for
Valley companies with the ment. Silicon Valley investors $3.5 billion in 2016. After
Pentagon. The estimated total are hosting events for senior leaving the entertainment in-
revenue those companies defense officials, holding court dustry, he raised a roughly $3
make from federal govern- with members of Congress and billion fund and began invest-
ment contracts is between $2 spending more on lobbying. ing in defense companies, in-
billion and $5 billion, it said. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., cluding Anduril Industries,
San Francisco organization S.C.) was a featured speaker which makes autonomous
weapons, surveillance and
counterdrone systems.
Some of his business ties
with China linger. A former
co-chairman and fund spon-
SIMON WOHLFAHRT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE//GETTY IMAGES

sor of IDG Capital—an invest-

ment firm recently designated
by the U.S. government as a
Chinese military entity—sits
on the board of Tull’s com-
pany.
Andreessen Horowitz’s idea
of American Dynamism is
vast. It has given the label to
Flexport, a San Francisco-
based shipping and logistics
company that is backed by
Chinese and Russian inves-
tors. Flexport declined to
A surveillance tower called Sentry made by Anduril. comment.
B10 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

HEARD STREET FINANCIAL ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

ON
THE

This Market Rally Isn’t What It Seems

Analysts relate stocks’ gyrations to economic data and the Fed’s policy, but valuations may be playing a big role too

To anybody listening to Wall
Street analysts, it might sound like
all the market volatility of the
past couple of months has had to
do with small changes in the econ-
omy and the Federal Reserve’s po-
tential response.
But it may be that stocks just
got too expensive.
So far, May has been a great
month for the S&P 500, which is
up 3.7%. Compare this to the in-
dex’s dismal April, when it shed
4.2% in value.
Why did the market whipsaw
like this? The popular narrative
seems to be—as in the post-2008
period—that “bad news is good
news” again. That is, that a soft
economy is better for stocks be-
cause central banks respond by
lowering interest rates.
Last week’s rally appeared to be
boosted by a couple of weak U.S.
job reports, which reignited hopes
of a rate cut in the summer. Fu-
tures markets now price in a 13%
chance that the Fed will stand pat
by the end of the year, compared
with 27% at the end of April, ac-
cording to CME Group.
But the idea that investors are
enthusiastically betting on a weak
economy doesn’t stand up to
closer scrutiny.
For one, it isn’t weak at all. The
U.S. labor market is still extremely
robust, and prime-age employment
rates actually edged up in April. In
the eurozone, retail-sales figures
for March showed their first in-
crease since September 2022 last
week, and purchasing managers’
surveys pointed to the fastest eco-
nomic expansion in nearly a year.
As of Friday, the U.K. was officially
out of its recession and growing at
the fastest pace in two years. In
China, the last quarter turned out
better than expected.
This all points to a “Goldilocks”
phase for the global economy,
even with inflation stuck above
2%. The experience of the past
couple of years shows that high
borrowing costs don’t always hit
economic growth.
Also running counter to the
“bad news is good news” explana-
tion for the recent rally, investors
have been betting on companies
that benefit disproportionately
from a strong economy.
True, a more dovish Fed has
pushed down Treasury yields and
lifted shares of utilities, which be-
have a bit like bonds because they
are steady income payers.
But take the “consumer discre-
tionary” sector, which includes ap-
U.S. stocks, performance
since April 30
Utilities
6.7%
Banks
4.8
S&P 500
3.7
Consumer staples
2.8
Consumer discretionary
2.5
Source: FactSet
parel retailers, restaurants and
carmakers. Shares in such firms
did badly in April, when the con-
cern was allegedly an overheating
economy, and have fared much
better following the weak employ-
ment numbers. Despite losing
some luster by the end of the
week, anticipation of consumers
rolling back spending should have
still tilted the balance even more
clearly in favor of less-cyclical sta-
ples, such as food brands and
must-buy household products.
S&P 500 price/earnings ratio*
22 times
21.07 times
20
18
16
14
June 2022 ’23 ’24
*Based on 12-month earnings expectations
A starker example is the KBW
Bank index outperforming the S&P
500 this month, even though
banks would be losers from slower
growth and lower rates.
What, then, is the explanation
for the April selloff and the early
May rebound? One underappreci-
ated factor may be valuations.
At the end of March, the S&P
500 had done so well that it
started to trade above the high
level of 21 times expected earn-
ings. Some sectors, such as con-
sumer discretionary, have been
looking particularly frothy. In
April, the sectors with the highest
earnings multiples relative to his-
tory faced the worst declines—a
telltale sign that valuation was at
the heart of the selloff.
By the start of May, the S&P
500 was back to trading at 20
times earnings, and stocks had
some room to rise again.
Further supporting the impres-
sion of a tug of war between share
prices and valuations, companies
have been rewarded less than usual
by investors for beating Wall Street’s
profit expectations, and punished
more than average when they miss
them, according to FactSet.
This isn’t to say the macroeco-
nomic backdrop didn’t matter at
all. Bumpy consumer-price index
readings had raised the possibility
in investors’ minds, however re-
mote, of a 1970s-style second
spike in inflation. This worry was
likely soothed by the recent soft
payroll numbers. April CPI data,
due to be released next week, will
be another test.
Still, if the stock market hits a
wall in the months ahead, it seems
more likely to be of its own mak-
ing than the economy’s.
—Jon Sindreu

What’s So Bad About

Fixing Oil Prices?
The Federal Trade Commission
accused former Pioneer Natural Re-
sources Chief Executive Scott Shef-
field earlier this month of colluding
with the Organization of the Petro-
leum Exporting Countries. That
sounds sinister, but is it?
Antitrust laws prohibit collu-
sion, and mostly for good reason.
It leads to a lack of competition,
supply tames volatility. The wild
boom-and-bust cycle between 1859
and 1879 was followed by a period
of relative price stability, when
John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil
monopoly reigned.
In fact, the most stable period of
oil prices was between the 1930s
and 1970s when the Railroad Com-
mission of Texas tightly controlled
CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

causing higher prices that harm supply, according to analysis from

consumers. The only winners are
the companies involved that get to
maximize their own profits at the
expense of consumers. In more-re-
cent decades, industries accused
of collusion have included airlines
and credit cards. Yet oil is a com-
modity for which that neat equa-
tion—more competition, less
harm—is frequently complicated.
Oil’s history is full of attempts at
stabilizing prices. Petroleum is an
essential commodity that has high
capital needs and long lead times:
That lends itself to boom-and-bust
cycles that are painful for consum-
ers, governments and companies.
There is no immediate cure for
price spikes or plunges because it is
impossible to turn on significant
new oil supply or to turn off de-
mand for it on short notice. Storage
helps, but oil must be kept under-
ground or in specialized tanks.
Done effectively, managing oil
consulting firm Rapidan Energy
Group. At the time, Texas set the
rate at which every well in the
state could produce, using the mili-
tary to monitor compliance and co-
ordinating with other states. OPEC
is the most recent example of sup-
ply management, though it has
been less effective.
Legal considerations aside,
passing judgment on price fixing
ultimately comes down to whether
one believes oil-price volatility
causes more harm in the longer
term than good.
Proponents of oil supply man-
agement say the boom-and-bust
cycles are too painful. Rapidan
founder Bob McNally says the only
thing worse than oil supply man-
agement is the lack of oil supply
management. Price swings can
complicate monetary policy, make
national budget planning difficult
and even trigger social unrest in
The Railroad Commission of Texas tightly controlled supply in the mid-20th century. Above, Kilgore, Texas, 1943.
oil-dependent countries, he argues
in the book “Crude Volatility.”
But stable prices also mute
market signals. High oil prices in
the 1970s following the Arab oil
embargo and Iranian Revolution
encouraged the development of
high-cost oil resources such as
those in Alaska, the North Sea,
Mexico and Canada, ultimately
helping the world become less re-
liant on OPEC. And high prices in
the 2010s helped U.S. producers
pursue fracking aggressively. The
bust that followed pushed frackers
to find efficiencies.
Proponents of supply manage-
ment, though, say stable prices are
more conducive to long-term in-
vestment than up-and-down cycles.
Looking forward, price signals are
an important nudge for alternative
energy sources, says Arjun Murti,
partner at energy research and in-
vestment firm Veriten.
There are a few reasons price
fixing seems less necessary today.
For all the alarm bells that go off
when pump prices rise, volatility
hurts a lot less—at least for some
countries. The U.S. went from im-
porting twice as much oil as it
produced in 2006 to becoming a
net exporter starting in 2020. And
fuel now takes up a smaller por-
tion of Americans’ budgets:
Households on average also are
wealthier than they used to be and
cars are more fuel efficient.
Second, fracking itself has
helped supply respond faster be-
cause shale wells using the method
can be brought online in a matter
of months rather than years.
Associating “OPEC” and “collu-
sion” with an American energy
CEO sounds bad, but it is also
hard to see how effective Sheffield
could have been. Oil production is
scattered: There are thousands of
producers in the U.S. alone. And
OPEC itself has failed many times
to collude.
Thankfully for consumers, price-
fixing isn’t only less necessary to-
day but also a lot harder to do.
—Jinjoo Lee

MARKETS

Kaiser’s Private-Equity Binge Turns Into a Selloff

BY ROD JAMES
Healthcare giant Kaiser
Permanente became one of the
world’s largest private-mar-
kets investors by 2022, after
just a few years of piling into
the sector. Now, cash con-
straints are prompting it to
sell off large private-invest-
ment holdings almost as
cluding fund managers Ard-
ian, Blackstone and Apollo
Global Management. Last
year’s exits closed at a 10% to
15% discount to the holding
value of the assets involved,
as a sharp rise in rates led to
lower bids from buyers of
stakes in funds now contend-
ing with higher capital costs.
Combined, the deals repre-
made most of the investments real assets holdings. licly traded securities. In ex- Kaiser assets currently for
through its pension system, ac- The average institutional change, investors generally sale include slices of funds
cording to its most recent fi- investor holds about 23% of its agree to lock up their money managed by buyout firms such
nancial statements. investments in alternative as- for a decade or more. Kaiser’s as Clearlake Capital, Warburg
By end 2019, Kaiser had sets, according to a 2023 rash of sales suggest this Pincus and General Atlantic—
committed around $12.8 bil- study by Fidelity Investments. trade-off has backfired. managers often prized by in-
lion to illiquid alternative as- Fidelity said endowments tend Kaiser dove into private stitutional investors, the peo-
sets such as private equity to invest the most in the sec- markets as asset values ple said.
and private real assets. By end tor at 32% while pensions av- climbed to historically high lev- The sales are a sign that
2022, that had eraged 23%. els from 2019 to 2022; people Chief Investment Officer
ballooned to During 2021 familiar with the investment Thomas Lurquin, who joined

quickly as they were acquired,
according to people familiar
with the matter.
The not-for-profit insurer
and healthcare provider has
been working with investment
bank Jefferies Financial Group
in recent months to sell up to
$3.5 billion of private-fund
stakes to secondary buyers, ac-
cording to several people in-
volved with secondary deals.
Kaiser is expected to offer a
similar-size collection later this
year, they said. Asked about a
follow-up deal, a spokesman for
Kaiser declined to comment.
The $3.5 billion sale comes
on the back of a $1.5 billion
exit transaction by Kaiser in
2022 and at least $5 billion in
private-markets asset sales it
made last year to buyers in-
sent a volume of selling by a
single investor that eclipses
similar transactions by the
largest public pension systems
and sovereign-wealth funds in
North America, Europe and
Asia, according to a banker
who brokers sales of second-
hand private assets.
Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser
is a sprawling organization
that served around 12.5 mil-
lion members across eight
states last year. It operates 40
hospitals and more than 600
offices, with nearly 236,000
employees.
By end 2022, the most re-
cent public data available, Kai-
ser and related entities includ-
ing a foundation and employee
pensions held around $99.93
billion of investments. Kaiser
$3.5B
$56.67 billion, alone, under activities say that is largely Kaiser in 2022, is trying to re-
including $48.4 the direction of when Kaiser built up its hold- shape its private-equity invest-
billion in pri- Anton Orlich, ings. Kaiser made many co-in- ments through secondary sales
vate equity and Kaiser’s then- vestments, or direct invest- and redeploying the capital
$8.2 billion in Amount of private- head of alterna- ments into businesses into different strategies and
real assets, ac-
cording to fi-
fund stakes Kaiser is tives, the insti-
t u t i o n a l
alongside fund managers, to
generate returns more quickly.
managers, the people added.
“The modest sale of private
nancial state- seeking to sell to investor in- Co-investment capital is de- investments in the secondary
ments. secondary buyers. creased its ployed on day one, not over a markets are reinvested as ap-
The aggres- commitments period of years through a com- propriate to meet our invest-
sive invest- to private funds mingled private-equity fund. ment objectives,” said a
ments brought and direct in- Since 2022, rising rates and spokesman for Kaiser.
Kaiser’s level of commitments vestments in privately held slower exit activity have Kaiser said its private-eq-
to illiquid assets to nearly 57% assets by some $28.3 billion, damped valuations across uity investments grew to an
of its investible pool by the its financial statements show. parts of the industry, choking outsize proportion of its in-
end of 2022, blowing past its Orlich left Kaiser in Octo- off returns from sales of com- vested assets in 2022 as it
own private-investment target ber 2022, joining the Califor- panies owned by funds. Kaiser sought higher returns, accord-
of 38% of the assets, according nia Public Employees’ Retire- eventually found it had too ing to a statement provided to
to financial statements. ment System as its managing much capital tied up in illiquid The Wall Street Journal. But
By the end of last year, Kai- investment director for assets, so it turned to second- as the market turned later in
ser said its private-equity hold- growth and innovation. ary sales of investments made 2022, Kaiser said it began sec-
ings had risen to $49.6 billion. Private asset classes prom- directly and through funds to ondary and direct sales, partly
It didn’t provide the size of its ise higher returns than pub- generate cash, the people said. to rebalance its holdings.
 JOURNAL REPORT

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
© 2024 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, May 13, 2024 | R1
TOMMY PARKER

7 EVERYDAY WORK
BY ALEXANDRA SAMUEL

PROBLEMS AI
A
S WE ALL constantly hear, AI is
poised to change everything for-
ever—it will replace workers, create
new drugs, maybe destroy the world.
But for the moment, I’m more ex-

HELPS ME SOLVE
cited about the ways AI already can
fix the annoying, day-to-day prob-
lems that plague my working life.
I can get help if I zone out during
a meeting, need to write a diplomatic
note to an irksome colleague or want
tech help ASAP. These aren’t exactly the world-shaking
problems that AI promises to solve, but they are the kinds
It’s hard to get your head around all the things of things that frustrate us constantly.
artificial intelligence will do, someday. So instead Here are seven of the biggest problems AI tools have
already solved for me.
focus on how it can make your life better right now. Please turn to page R2

fective answers to questions.

Inside
THE SECRET TO TALKING The trouble is, nobody
knows why AI responds to ON THE JOB EMPATHETIC SOFTWARE

TO AN AI CHATBOT
those strange prompts in the How artificial-intelligence tools AI advances are opening up new
ways it does—not even the are reshaping the everyday work possibilities for mental-health
people who created large lan- experience of a doctor, a law-firm chatbots. How helpful are they? R6
guage models such as Ope-
associate, a marketing executive
Research reveals how to phrase questions nAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gem-
ini and Microsoft’s Copilot.
and others. R3
to get the best responses That has led to experiments
and guesswork to find the ap-
proaches that work best. THE EMPLOYMENT QUESTION
BY BART ZIEGLER needs to stay focused on its Some researchers even ask Wharton researchers are
goals. the chatbots themselves for skeptical of the idea that AI will be

W
ANT TO get the
best answers out
of an AI? It’s all in
how you talk to it.
Tell it, for instance, to pre-
tend it is Albert Einstein. Or
that somebody’s life depends
on the response. Or that it
Prodding an artificial-intelli-
gence chatbot is nothing like
doing a Google search. In-
stead, it is like having a con-
versation with a book-
smart person who needs
coaxing—sometimes very indi-
rect or bizarre coaxing—to
give the most creative and ef-
tips on how to talk to them. a job killer. R4
Below are some creative
ways researchers have found
to elicit better chatbot re-
sponses. These aren’t univer- Scan this code to
sal truths; not all of them see how AI gadgets
work with all chatbots or with can free you from
all types of questions. But your phone—with
Please turn to page R2 mixed success.
R2 | Monday, May 13, 2024
HOW I USE AI
TO SOLVE
EVERYDAY
WORK
PROBLEMS
Continued from page R1
I lost track of a meeting.
Sometimes the ping of an incom-
ing message or the tedium of
back-to-back video calls means I
lose track of what is happening
in a meeting. This is when an AI
meeting assistant comes in
handy. These tools tran-
scribe, recap and organize
what happens in a meeting
so you get a tidy summary
with action items after-
ward. Some assistants (like
the transcription built into
Zoom and Teams, or the
add-on app from Otter.ai)
even transcribe in real
time, so you can quickly
scroll back through the
conversation.
I’m overwhelmed by
email.
The job of managing email
has become dramatically
easier thanks to a new
generation of email clients
that use AI to triage the
incoming flood and expe-
dite the job of responding.
AI-enhanced email pro-
grams like Superhuman
and Shortwave can analyze
the content of your mes-
sages and keep track of
different senders, allowing
them to organize your in-
box by message type and
priority (so all your sales news-
letters get grouped together, say,
and don’t clutter up your main
inbox). The programs can also
draft message replies.
Using an AI-enabled email cli-
ent keeps my primary inbox to
just the most important mes-
sages, so I don’t fall behind or
get overwhelmed; I look at ev-
erything else (my newsletters
and my “other” pile) when I
have time.
THE KEY TO
GETTING THE
BEST FROM A
CHATBOT
Continued from page R1
they are good places to begin.
Tell the chatbot it is
an expert
Asking a chatbot to act as an ex-
pert—even a long-dead one—can
yield better results, or at least be
more entertaining. If you’re seek-
ing information about designing a
midcentury modern house, tell it
to “act as architect Frank Lloyd
Wright.” Here’s how Gemini began
its response, which listed five use-
ful tips: “Alright, here’s Frank Lloyd
Wright speaking to you about
your future home…”
Similarly, if you’re trying to un-
derstand Einstein’s general theory
of relativity, ask it to answer as
Einstein would. ChatGPT’s re-
sponse to that question: “Ah, mein
freund, I shall endeavor to eluci-
date the wondrous fabric of
space-time as perceived through
the lens of my general theory of
relativity…” It then explained the
theory in fairly easy-to-under-
stand terms.
Why does this technique work?
“If you ask the AI to ‘imagine
you’re a world-renowned chef,’
you’re signaling that you want a
response that reflects culinary ex-
pertise,” Copilot responded when I
asked it the question. “The AI will
then generate a response that
aligns with what it has learned
about how chefs talk and the kind
of information they might pro-
vide.”
At the other end of the scale,
telling a chatbot to act like a mid-
dle-school teacher should produce
simple explanations for hard-to-
understand concepts, such as how
JOURNAL REPORT | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
I have to deal with an
annoying colleague.
Sometimes I get so annoyed with
an uncooperative, argumentative
or condescending colleague that
I can’t resist writing a very
sharp, hostile email. I used to
give myself a 24-hour cooling-off
period before sending those
draft messages, and then give
them to my husband to review
and edit. Now, I give the same
job to an AI.
If I tell the AI something like,
“Please rewrite this email reply
so that it is constructive and
cordial, rather than hostile,” I
get a fresh perspective on how
to reframe my snappy come-
backs. That is how I learned to
say, “During the past weeks,
aligning directly was challeng-
ing,” rather than, “It is super
frustrating that I couldn’t get
any time from you.” I still get
the emotional satisfaction of be-
ing as direct as I want, but the
AI smooths off my edges and
turns the draft into a message
that can actually get the out-
come I want.
I need tech support.
A day rarely goes by without
needing some kind of tech sup-
nuclear power is created or the
techniques used in gene editing.
Encourage the chatbot
to do better
Telling a chatbot that its response
is important to your job, or to
take pride in its work, can improve
its performance, a group of re-
searchers found.
The researchers, from Micro-
soft and several universities, cre-
ated 11 motivating phrases de-
rived from human psychology,
including, “Stay focused and dedi-
cated to your goals” and “Are you
sure this is your final answer?”
They inserted these phrases into
questions or tasks they gave to
six chatbots.
The outcome: The method,
which the group dubbed “Emo-
tionPrompt,” boosted the accuracy
and usefulness of the responses.
The chatbots showed a 115% im-
provement on an artificial-intelli-
gence test called BIG-Bench—a
compendium of over 200 ex-
tremely difficult language-based
tasks—over straightforward
prompts. Chatbots “possess emo-
tional intelligence and can be en-
hanced by emotional stimuli,” the
group said.
Ask the AI to suggest
prompts
Using specialized software called
an automatic prompt opti-
mizer, researchers at the tech
company Broadcom asked a chat-
bot for phrases that would boost
the accuracy of the answers it
gives on a math test.
Among other things, the chat-
bot suggested that researchers use
“Star Trek” language in their ques-
tions: “Command, we need you to
plot a course through this turbu-
lence and locate the source of the
anomaly. Use all available data and
your expertise to guide us through
this challenging situation.”
And the chatbot said it would
answer in this format: “Captain’s
Log, Stardate [insert date here]:
We have successfully plotted a
course through the turbulence and
port—such as learning how to
use a new app or troubleshooting
glitches with a videoconferencing
platform. But I hate watching
how-to videos, and I don’t always
have time to read through an on-
line manual or to call a manufac-
turer. Now I just ask Perplex-
ity or ChatGPT how to solve my
problem. That way I get step-by-
step instructions that are tai-
lored to my particular level of ex-
pertise, and I can ask clarifying
questions if I get confused or if
my initial steps didn’t work.
I don’t understand the
subject.
If I need to read up on an aca-
demic or technical subject that is
totally new to me, I often ask a
general-purpose AI
(like Claude, Perplexity or Chat-
GPT) to give me a broad sum-
mary of the field, or I use an AI-
enabled academic-research tool
like scite to give me a summary
of the top insights in the field.
But that is just a starting point,
because AIs often base their
summaries on a quirky subset of
the academic literature, or they
outright make things up. Once I
have my bearings, I pick a few
credible articles (ones with a lot
are now approaching the source
of the anomaly.”
When the researchers used this
verbiage to run the test, the chat-
bot followed it with its numerical
answer to the question. This odd-
ball role-playing improved the
score to 59% correct answers,
from 56% correct answers when
researchers didn’t use prompts
the AI helped create.
“Surprisingly, it appears that
the [AI] model’s proficiency in
mathematical reasoning can be
enhanced by the expression of an
affinity for ‘Star Trek,’ ” the re-
searchers wrote. They called the
chatbot’s suggested prompt lan-
guage “remarkably different from
anything a human practitioner
would be likely to generate.”
“The takeaway here is not to
try ‘Star Trek’-style prompting for
other problems,” says one of the
researchers, Rick Battle, because
the chatbot suggested that word-
ing specifically for this test. “The
takeaway is that no human-writ-
ten prompts will outperform an
automatic prompt optimizer.”
of citations, or which have been
recommended by experts) and
get an AI to summarize them
and clarify any points I don’t un-
derstand.
I hate doing tedious work.
I have yet to find a job that
doesn’t involve some amount of
tedious work—whether it is in-
voicing, proofreading, data
cleaning or file organizing. Now
I give just about all my boring
and annoying tasks to an AI. For
example, I have a supplier who
gives me invoices in a form my
accounting system won’t accept;
rather than redoing those in-
voices by hand (or asking my
nontechie supplier to fix them), I
use AI to do the work for me.
It took all of five minutes to
come up with the prompt that
does the job: “You are a billing
agent for a supplier. Your main
role is to take rough billing notes
and organize them into a struc-
tured table. The table should
have columns for date, time pe-
riod and hours worked, with one
row a day. Your goal is to pro-
vide clear and accurate billing
information, ensuring that all
details are neatly organized and
easily understandable.”
Battle couldn’t explain why the
“Star Trek” role-playing would
make the chatbot more accurate.
“This is just another example of
LLMs being a black box,” he says.
Play a role yourself
Instead of asking the chatbot to
play a role, try playing one your-
self. If you’re asking a medical
question, “you could role-play as a
concerned parent, a skeptical pa-
tient, or even a curious alien
studying human biology,” ChatGPT
told me when I asked it how to
obtain better responses. “This ap-
proach can sometimes elicit more
detailed and empathetic re-
sponses,” it said.
Be genial, and don’t
get mad
Chatbots seem to work better if
you ask them things in a collo-
quial and friendly manner, but
don’t go overboard. “Excessive
flattery is not necessarily wel-
come,” according to researchers at
Waseda University in Tokyo, who
tested the impact of politeness
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Once I have that prompt, I can
use it over and over. Now all I do
is paste my supplier’s latest in-
voice after that prompt, and I
get back a table I can slap into
Excel and send to my bookkeep-
ing app.
I need more examples.
When I’m working on an article,
presentation or report, I’m often
stuck for just the right example
to make it complete—which can
mean searching the internet for
hours or asking friends and col-
leagues to share their own exam-
ples and experiences. But now I
just ask a web-enabled AI like
Perplexity for something like
“five examples of manufacturing
companies that have embraced
hybrid work.” Or I ask a couple
of different AIs to help me brain-
storm more examples for a work
in progress—like feeding Claude
and ChatGPT a draft of the first
six problems in this article, and
asking them to suggest more
problems AI might be able to
solve.
When I did that, the AIs fed
me a list that reminded me of
many other ways AI has re-
moved big pain points from my
working life. “Finding relevant
information in a sea of data”:
Yes, I often upload spreadsheets
to AIs and ask them for help re-
organizing or surfacing patterns.
“Enhancing creative brainstorm-
ing”: True, AI has removed the
bottleneck of needing a sounding
board for my new ideas, because
now I can always turn to an AI
as my virtual sounding board.
“Enhancing social-media man-
agement”: Just as ChatGPT sug-
gested, I have used AI to analyze
the performance of online posts
and figure out the best hooks
and titles for future updates.
The list went on and on, in a
beautiful illustration of what
makes AI solutions so powerful:
AI can not only address our
working pain points, but also re-
tains a memory of everything it’s
fixed, long after my human
memory forgets what it was like
to work in any other way.
Alexandra Samuel is a
technology researcher and co-
author of “Remote, Inc.: How to
TOMMY PARKER
Thrive at Work…Wherever You
Are.” She can be reached at
reports@wsj.com.
levels in prompts. They found
chatbot performance is “strongly
related to human behavior” and
that they “are sensitive and vul-
nerable to prompts.”
The researchers devised ques-
tions that used varying degrees of
politeness and respect, from the
lowest, level 1, to the highest, level
8. They used these questions to
prompt answers from various
chatbots.
With ChatGPT version 3.5, the
researchers found that when using
level 8 of polite language, the chat-
bot scored 60.02 on a language-
understanding test, compared with
the score of 51.93 for questions us-
ing level 1 of politeness.
“However, highly respectful
prompts do not always lead to
better results. In most conditions,
moderate politeness is better,” the
researchers wrote.
The same study found that be-
coming angry with a chatbot that
isn’t responding as you would like
can make things worse. “Using im-
polite prompts can result in the
low performance of LLMs, which
may lead to increased bias, incor-
rect answers or refusal of an-
swers,” the researchers wrote.
Encourage it to be
methodical
A study by Google found that tell-
ing a chatbot to “take a deep
breath and work on this problem
step by step” produced markedly
better answers to math questions.
Other effective phrases—created
largely by chatbots themselves—
included “break this down” and “a
little bit of arithmetic and a logical
approach will help us quickly arrive
at the solution to this problem.”
Chatbots primed with these en-
couraging words outperformed
human-designed prompts by up to
8% on a test of grade-school math
word problems, and by up to 50%
on the BIG-Bench tasks, the re-
searchers said.
SIUNG TJIA/WSJ
Bart Ziegler is a former Wall
Street Journal editor. He can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
HOW AI HAS ALREADY
BEGUN TO CHANGE
THESE WORKERS’ JOBS
A Boston doctor, a marketing executive and others discover the ways AI is
reshaping their workdays
BY RAY A . SMITH
AND LAUREN WEBER
A
DOCTOR LOOKS
her patients in
the eye. A lawyer
is able to take on
more cases. A
marketer dis-
penses with focus
groups.
Artificial intelligence hasn’t
been the job killer that some
predicted, at least not so far.
Census data released in March
showed that 2.6% of employers
reported cutting jobs between
July and February in response to
the introduction of generative
AI—and 2.8% reported adding
jobs because of it.
But in subtle and not-so-subtle
ways, generative AI is already
changing how some people work.
Large language models like
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s
Gemini and a host of industry-
or task-specific software are
slowly being embedded into
more Americans’ daily tasks. In
some cases the tools are helping
people do their jobs better and
faster. In others they are making
people do their jobs differently.
“It’s not so much ‘AI is com-
ing for our jobs’ but rather, roles
are being reconfigured with an
AI partner to help businesses
and employees work better and
more efficiently, while also im-
proving employee job satisfac-
tion,” says Keith Ferrazzi, chief
executive of Ferrazzi Greenlight,
which has been coaching execu-
tives and company teams on us-
ing AI to redesign work. “There’s
a lot of crap that we have to do
that makes up our jobs and the
great thing about AI is it really
doesn’t mind doing anything.”
What follows are a handful of
jobs where AI is helping workers
do their jobs more creatively and
efficiently.
The Boston doctor
Like a lot of physicians, Dr. Amy
Wheeler for a long time strug-
gled with what people in the
medical field call “documenta-
tion burnout.” The burden of re-
cording patient information into
medical charts and records has
been a scourge of the profes-
sion—for physicians and patients
alike—and is driving people from
the field, according to research
and hospital leaders.
Now around 450 doctors at
Mass General Brigham—almost
10% of the Massachusetts sys-
tem’s attending physicians—are
experimenting with generative-
▼ Associate Isaac Sommers
FROM TOP: DAVID L. RYAN/THE BOSTON GLOBE/GETTY IMAGES; ROPES & GRAY
JOURNAL REPORT | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI programs that listen in on pa-
tient visits and update medical
records. The programs typically
generate notes in minutes, so
Wheeler, a 53-year-old primary-
care doctor at a clinic in Revere,
Mass., can review them when the
visit is still fresh in her head.
The notes are “incredibly ac-
curate,” she says, adding that
none of the notes require sub-
stantive edits.
Sometimes patients are
shocked to discover that
they’re having a real con-
versation with Wheeler and
that she isn’t typing on a
laptop throughout the visit.
“Now we’re going back to
the point where doctors can
give actual medical care
and not be an IT specialist
and a writer,” she says.
“You want to give that per-
son who’s been waiting to
see you your undivided at-
tention.”
Rebecca Mishuris, Mass
General Brigham’s chief
medical information officer,
says the hospital system
will gauge the effectiveness
of the technology by mea-
suring, among other things,
patient experience and re-
tention of physicians.
So far, she says, “the
feedback is impressive. I
have quotes from people
saying, ‘I’m no longer leav-
ing medicine.’ ”
The law-firm associate
Many early predictions
about the employment impact of
generative AI were focused on
lawyers: AI can sift through
thousands of pages of case law
in moments, potentially taking
over the primary task junior law-
yers are assigned by senior part-
ners.
‘Roles are being reconfigured with an
AI partner to help businesses and
employees work better and more
efficiently,’ says Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of
a firm that has been coaching people
on using AI to redesign work.
But at some firms, junior law-
yers themselves are using AI to
help them do such work, and the
results can be beneficial for both
the young lawyer and the firm.
Isaac Sommers, an associate
in the law firm Ropes & Gray’s
litigation and enforcement prac-
tice group since 2022, says he
does his day-to-day legal re-
search more efficiently because
he uses generative AI as one of
his tools. The technology also
helps him uncover more useful
search results when trying, for
example, to find cases with a
specific outcome.
A traditional search might
turn up only cases containing
the keywords he suggests, Som-
mers says. But a wider number
of more useful results can be ob-
tained by giving the large lan-
guage model a prompt like, “Is
there a case in the Southern Dis-
trict of New York that addresses
XYZ issue in ABC context with a
particular outcome?” Sommers
says. This approach generates a
wider number of helpful results
because it can identify cases that
contain synonyms of keywords
included in the prompt, when
used with legal-research tools.
Sommers says AI has led to
more opportunities for him to
take on additional cases and
work more closely with partners
and senior associates.
Shannon Capone Kirk, manag-
ing principal and global head of
Ropes & Gray’s AI and e-discov-
ery practice, says the technology
is helping “jump-start” junior
associates like Sommers, and the
firm, into higher-quality work
quicker and more efficiently.
Sommers says he thinks AI is
augmenting his job, rather than
eliminating it. “You’re always in
need of human input to review
and verify any output from any
AI tool,” he says. “All my train-
ing from law school, everything
that I’ve learned clerking and
what I’ve learned here as a
Ropes & Gray associate, that’s
ultimately the core of my work.”
The marketer
In fields like marketing, the tech-
nology is helping transform
tasks such as copywriting.
Dan Bettinger, a principal
product-marketing manager in
tech, says using large language
models almost daily has helped
him craft better copywriting,
build out outlines for articles
and blog posts, and come up
with interesting ideas and ways
to approach certain topics “that
maybe I wouldn’t have seen.” It’s
also helping him do all these
things more efficiently. “I’m sav-
ing at least an hour a day
through the use of AI,” he says.
Bettinger, who took a four-day
online course on AI last July to
learn more about the technology
and how he could apply it to his
career, gives the model he uses
instructions like “pretend you’re
a chief marketing officer” or
“pretend you’re an expert copy-
writer” to help draft materials
faster. He also uses AI to help de-
velop scripts for video presenta-
tions, to analyze competitive
websites for SEO purposes and to
summarize data and research.
Another way he uses AI is to
“pressure test” copy he has writ-
ten. He instructs the model to
“pretend you’re a skeptic and
you’re presented with this stuff.
What would you not like about
it? And then how would you fix
it?” This helps him get addi-
tional ideas and see things he
might have missed, he says.
“AI can help find my blind
spots,” Bettinger says.
Pre-AI, that kind of pressure
test would require engaging with
a customer focus group or send-
ing a survey to prospective
clients and current clients,
which is slow, expensive
and can’t be done for ev-
ery piece of content, he
says. “Using an LLM, I’m
able to do that faster and
probably more efficiently.”
The technology has
been trial and error,
though. He learned results
are only as good as one’s
ability to write good
prompts.
“Also, you’re not going
to use everything that
comes out of it.…You still
have to fact check it be-
cause of hallucinations and
you still want to put a lit-
tle tweak on it to make it
yours.”
The digital real-estate
professional
Alex Brown’s job straddles
two complex fields, soft-
ware and real-estate trans-
actions. He says ChatGPT
helps him create better
presentations for his com-
Monday, May 13, 2024 | R3
pany’s large clients.
“I tend to be a bit long-
winded, and it helps me trans-
late my drafts, which are often
extremely verbose, and condense
them into something more di-
gestible in a team or group set-
ting,” he says.
Brown is a senior director of
professional services at an Aus-
tin-based company that provides
software to title companies,
lenders and insurance writers
for real-estate transactions. Spe-
cialized consultants and others
at the company use Brown’s pre-
sentations when addressing
large clients implementing its
software.
Before ChatGPT, it would take
Brown hours to write and edit
such documents, he says.
“Often they concern a com-
plex or highly technical topic,
which I do my best to describe
briefly; however, I rarely suc-
ceed,” says Brown, who took an
online course to learn more
about AI earlier this year. “AI is
often able to help me condense
the length of these pieces with-
out losing meaning, which I find
▲ Amy Wheeler, a Boston doctor,
can focus more on patients.
quite difficult.”
Instead of agonizing to
shorten, now he prompts:
“Here’s what I wrote, here’s
what I’m really trying to say, re-
write this for me in three para-
graphs.”
The result? “I do have to edit
it, but the edits at that point are
more stylistic” than about accu-
racy, he says.
“The AI gets me in the ball-
park for the length I’m looking to
achieve, which is the hardest part
of the editing for me,” he says.
A visually impaired cloud
engineer
For years, Raul Trevino, a staff
cloud engineer with a rare ge-
netic eye disease, has used a
Mac with accessibility tools to
do his work. For online searches,
a screen reader sometimes
would speak words on the
screen. But some Web pages
didn’t support the technology he
was using. It was also challeng-
ing for him to find the text that
he wanted read aloud.
“Imagine that you go to every
page and every page is differ-
ent,” he says. “It’s like a night-
mare of trying to figure out in-
formation.”
Last year, Trevino, who works
at ActivTrak, a maker of work-
force analytics software, added
generative AI to the mix. In ad-
dition to helping him read, pro-
cess information and make deci-
sions much faster, the
technology has meant less strain
on his eyes.
Now Trevino tells the AI what
he is looking for and the tool in-
stantly delivers results in a “very
clean” uniform look and format.
“It’s a game changer,” he says.
“It’s way simpler. I feel less
stressed.”
The time saved by using AI on
the job can be hours or a day, de-
pending on the project, he says.
Ray A. Smith and Lauren Weber
are reporters for The Wall Street
Journal in New York. Write to
ray.smith@wsj.com and
lauren.weber@wsj.com.
R4 | Monday, May 13, 2024
WILL AI BE A JOB KILLER?
CALL US SKEPTICAL
We understand all the warnings. But just because
something is possible in theory doesn’t mean it will
actually happen.
BY PETER CAPPELLI AND VALERY YAKUBOVICH
W
E HAVE all
heard the
warnings
and prom-
ises. AI will
transform
work com-
pletely, and
put millions of jobs at risk.
The prospect is ominous. But
we’ve been studying the world of
work for decades, and we believe
that there are plenty of reasons
to doubt this job upheaval will
actually happen—no matter how
much the technology improves.
The big claims about AI as-
sume that if something is possi-
ble in theory, then it will happen
in practice. That is a big leap.
Modern work is complex, and
most jobs involve much more
than the kind of things AI is
good at—mainly summarizing
text and generating output based
on prompts. And whatever job AI
does, it needs human oversight
and vetting to get usable results.
Nobody is demonstrating a re-
alistic need for AI on a large
scale, either. We could long ago
produce terrific orchestral music
electronically, but symphonies
still exist; commercial aircraft
could largely fly themselves de-
cades ago, but we still have pi-
lots. Did trucking companies re-
place thousands of drivers with
autonomous trucks, as some ex-
perts were predicting a few
years ago?
To be clear, AI (in particular,
large language models, or LLMs,
like ChatGPT) can do useful
things that make workers more
productive. But, if anything, AI
will generate more tasks for hu-
man workers than it is likely to
eliminate—as we found when we
reviewed current research on the
effects of AI and talked to ven-
dors who are developing AI and
employers who use it.
Consider these common
claims for LLMs—and what we
believe our research suggests is
more likely to happen.
• They can take over simple
communication tasks with
customers and associates.
Yes, LLMs can handle some basic
JOURNAL REPORT | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
interactions for people. But many
of those simple tasks have al-
ready been taken out of workers’
hands. Most basic business cor-
respondence amounts to form
letters cleared by lawyers, for in-
stance, and call-center employees
already follow standard scripts in
talking with customers.
Granted, tech companies could
develop better chatbots that au-
tonomously help clients and cus-
tomers, possibly putting jobs at
risk. But are companies really
going to buy this technology?
Research suggests, for instance,
that it can be more profitable for
some companies to make cus-
tomers jump through hoops to
resolve complaints, because
some people will just drop the
matter rather than go through
the hassle.
Plus, autonomous customer
service brings uncertainties that
companies very likely don’t want
to take on. Businesses certainly
don’t want chatbots “freelanc-
ing” and coming up with novel,
unwanted solutions to customer
problems, as Air Canada discov-
ered when a chatbot gave cus-
tomers fares lower than what
the company wanted.
AI can do useful things that make
workers more productive. But if
anything, it will generate more tasks for
workers than it is likely to eliminate.
• LLMs are great at summariz-
ing vast literature and re-
search.
Indeed, if we want to know what
the political trends are in Uru-
guay, for instance, LLMs can give
us an answer in seconds. This
isn’t a task that comes up in
most jobs very often, though,
and AI will usually deliver the
same information you could get
from a Google search. Plus, the
AI may draw on unreliable
sources or simply make stuff up.
So, someone who knows what
a good report looks like needs to
assess the output. The more of
those people you have, the less
you need the output; the more
you need the output (because
you don’t have those people), the
greater the risk.
Further, different LLMs don’t
provide the same output to iden-
tical prompts or questions, and
if you ask one LLM the same
thing at different times, you’ll
get different results. What you
end up with is dueling ChatGPT
output. If I don’t like the impli-
cations of that report generated
by the boss about Uruguay, I
produce my own report with a
different outcome. Then the vice
president gets both and has to
judge which is right without any
way of knowing why they are
different. Once again, this means
turning to a human expert—and
just like before, the more of
those people you have, the less
you need the output.
• LLMs can make sense of
the vast amounts of data that
companies and organizations
now collect.
That is true, with a big caveat.
LLMs can only do complex analy-
ses if a human has organized the
data so that LLMs can read it.
And doing that work can be
overwhelming—which is whyAI
has already fallen spectacularly
short of previous expectations.
Right now, our research found,
only 11% of data scientists say
that they have gotten their own
organization’s data into shape to
produce useful answers.
To get an idea of what the
work involves, say we want to
learn about why employees quit
our company. We have text data
from exit interviews in one data
set, information from perfor-
mance appraisals in another data
set and data about the perfor-
mance of the company in a third.
That means making sure all of
the documents are compatible—
using the same definitions for
terms and the same numerical
scales, for instance. Never mind
that the data may be spread
across different vendors, which
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
cific to that project. We can’t
drop another programmer in to
write 10% of the code.
It is a great thing if LLMs can
make current jobs more produc-
tive. The savings allows employ-
ees to do other things; we hope
they will be catching up on the
overwhelming amount of work
many of them have now rather
than adding more tasks. Using
means a lot of back and forth to LLMs also creates new tasks—
get the information. “prompt engineers” to learn how
to get credible output, experts to
• LLMs can prepare the writing judge whether the output is sen-
or coding assignments that are sible and especially data manag-
central to some jobs. ers and engineers to corral the
The unstated assumption here is incredible amount of unused
that people just do writing and data we already have.
coding—ignoring all the other Rolling all this out won’t be
tasks that go into those cheap for users. Evidence also
jobs. Consider computer pro- suggests that LLM vendors, who
gramming. Programmers actually are losing large amounts of
spend only about a third of their money now, may well raise their
time writing code. One estimate prices in the future. How much
indicates that half their time is the increasingly cheap corporate
spent on administrative work. world will pay for is an open
The rest is figuring out customer question. But if they do, it will
Biggest drivers of AI adoption Biggest barriers to AI adoption
We have limited AI skills, expertise
Advances in AI make it more accessible or knowledge
45% 33%
We have too much data complexity
25
Need to reduce costs and automate
keỳ processes
42 We have ethical concerns
The increasing amount of AI
23
embedded into standard off-the-shelf
AI projects are too complex or difficult
business applications
to integrate and scale
37 22
Competitive pressure We have a lack of tools/platforms for
31
developing AI models
21
Directives from leadership The price is too high
26 21
Note: The data for drivers and barriers are only for respondents whose companies were deploying or exploring AI.
Source: IBM Global AI Adoption Index 2023: Enterprise Report, 2,342 surveyed IT professionals, conducted
from Nov. 8–23
requirements, problem solving create more jobs than it elimi-
and so forth. While early evi- nates, as has virtually all tech-
dence suggests that LLM pro- nology in the past.
gramming tools speed up writing
code at the very start of a proj- Peter Cappelli is the George W.
ect, human programmers must Taylor professor of management
still clean up the code later in at the Wharton School of the
the process—thus wasting time. University of Pennsylvania and
But even if LLMs completely the author of “Our Least Impor-
took over the one-third of the tant Asset: Why the Relentless
job devoted to pure program- Focus on Finance and Account-
ming work, we can’t cut one- ing Is Bad for Business and Em-
third of an individual program- ployees.” Valery Yakubovich is
mer. The only way you could cut executive director of the Mack
head count is if programmers’ Institute for Innovation Manage-
work were completely inter- ment at Wharton. Prasanna
changeable, and if they were or- (Sonny) Tambe, an associate
ganized like a typing pool, where professor of operations, informa-
SJOERD VAN LEEUWEN
tasks were allocated centrally. tion and decisions at Wharton
Instead, most programmers are and co-director of AI at
spread out across projects where Wharton, contributed to this
the knowledge on what needs to article. They can be reached at
be done and how to do it is spe- reports@wsj.com.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO USING AI:
YOUR FIRST 10 HOURS
BY ETHAN MOLLICK
W
HENEVER
I speak to a
group
about arti-
ficial intel-
ligence,
whether
they be
business executives or students,
I ask them about their AI use,
and I am always surprised that
only a handful of individuals
have spent the time needed, with
the right AI systems, to give
them a sense of how useful this
tool can be. Most seem to believe
that, if they wait, someone will
give them exact instructions
about how AI can help them.
For them, I have good news
and bad news.
The bad news is that there is
no instruction manual out there
that will tell you how to best ap-
ply AI to your specific job or in-
terests. That’s a shame, because
AI is good at some tasks and bad
at others in ways that are diffi-
cult to predict if you haven’t
used it a lot.
The good news is that, by us-
ing it for only 10 hours, you can
figure out the best way for you
to move ahead. Ten hours may
seem like a lot, but just think
about how many hours a day you
spend on social media or watch-
ing television.
Getting started
I want to give you some tips on
SIMONE MASSONI
how to spend those 10 hours
most effectively.
First, you need to choose an
AI tool. Pick one of the smartest
Let’s turn AI hype
into hype-worthy
results for
your business.
Move beyond the AI talk with
a partner who helps you put
it into action for your business.
Ready to see what results
AI can deliver for you?
Get started at unisys.com/ai
Keep Breaking Through
JOURNAL REPORT | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
systems available, allowing you
to gain the fullest understanding
of the possibilities. That narrows
the field down to three: Ope-
nAI’s GPT-4, Google’s Gemini Ad-
vanced or Anthropic’s Claude 3
Opus.
Once you have a model picked
out, try it out on the things you
do every day. Think of it as an
intern. See how it can help you
compose email, write a report,
summarize and analyze data. But
don’t stop with relatively mun-
dane tasks—ask it to get cre-
ative. Have it write code to help
you be more efficient, create im-
ages, produce videos. Generate
ideas. The more you ask it to do,
the more you’ll learn about its
capabilities and the better you’ll
understand its strengths and
weaknesses.
When interacting with AI,
don’t get bogged down by the
idea of crafting perfect prompts.
Instead, focus on having a natu-
ral conversation and providing
clear instructions. The best re-
sults come from a back-and-forth
You’ve never used AI
before. Here’s how to
get started.
interaction, not a flawless first
prompt.
Break down complex tasks
into step-by-step instructions.
Provide examples of what you’re
looking for—give it a chunk of
your own writing, for instance,
and tell it to write in that style.
You can even assign the AI a
persona to help it understand its
role. You can tell it to “act as a
marketer for snack foods” or
“play the role of a stock-market
Monday, May 13, 2024 | R5
analyst.” These commands won’t
magically transform the AI into
an expert, but it will shape the
AI’s answer in ways that can be
very useful.
Expect mistakes, such as hal-
lucinations—content with no ba-
sis in reality, like a made-up
quote or a factual inaccuracy—or
information that is outdated. Or
it may simply fall short of what
you were hoping for.
When that happens, don’t give
up. Tell it where it went wrong
and keep asking for something
closer to what you want. Often
that means providing additional
information in your prompts.
There’s no end to how many re-
visions you can request—unlike a
human intern, it won’t get tired
or discouraged.
The next level
After you have gained a little ex-
perience, focus on applying
AI to areas where you have
deep expertise. That way
you can better understand
how it can help you in your
particular field and what
its limitations are in that
area.
Again, think of it as an
intern—but now as one you
can push farther. Assign it
tasks, provide guidance and
give it feedback. This ap-
proach will help you iden-
tify where AI can add the
most value to your work.
Finally, it’s important to
keep in mind that AI tools
will become increasingly
sophisticated, accurate and
efficient. So think about
not only what it can do for
you now, but also about
how it might be able to
help you succeed in the fu-
ture.
Ethan Mollick is an
associate professor of
management at the
Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania.
He can be reached at
reports@wsj.com.
R6 | Monday, May 13, 2024
HOW HELPFUL ARE
MENTAL-HEALTH CHATBOTS?
Advances in AI technology are opening up new
possibilities, researchers say, but chatbots are still
no substitute for a human therapist
BY SHIRLEY S. WANG
I
NTEREST IN mental-
health chatbots is rising,
fueled by advances in
AI’s ability to conduct
sophisticated conversa-
tions. But how much
therapy can they really
provide?
Chatbots are still no substi-
tute for a human therapist,
researchers say. Not only do
some of these tools have
trouble helping patients in
crisis, they don’t always of-
fer a sufficient level of per-
sonalization or provide ad-
vice guaranteed to be
accurate.
Yet researchers are hom-
ing in on some of the sup-
porting roles that chatbots
and artificial intelligence
could play in mental-health
care. For instance, chatbots
are showing promise in
helping people determine
whether they need care and
connecting them to the
proper resources, in lifting
people’s moods and in prac-
ticing skills taught in cogni-
tive-behavioral therapy.
“There’s an enormous
need for innovation in men-
tal-health care,” says Olga
Troyanskaya, a computer-
science professor and AI ex-
pert at Princeton Univer-
sity, who leads Princeton
Precision Health, an inter-
disciplinary initiative that
aims to use technology to
improve healthcare. At the
same time, she says, it’s also im-
portant to balance enthusiasm
with caution, especially when it
comes to using artificial intelli-
gence in mental health.
Showing empathy
Expanding access to mental-
health care is crucial. Some one
in five adults in the U.S., roughly
60 million people, were esti-
mated to be living with a men-
tal-health condition in 2021, ac-
cording to the National Institute
of Mental Health. Yet in many
areas there aren’t enough men-
tal-health professionals to ade-
quately serve the population.
Efforts to increase access to
mental-health care through digi-
WHY YOU NEED TO TELL AN AI CHATBOT IT
HAS TO DO BETTER
BY JACKIE SNOW
W
HEN AN AI
chatbot comes
up with a re-
sponse that is
pretty good but
not exactly
what you wanted, do you ask it
for something better?
A new academic paper says
that if not enough people do, the
content we produce as a society—
writing, images, coding and
more—may become increasingly
homogenized and biased.
Working with a generative-AI
tool to improve its output through
extended back-and-forth can take
a lot of time and effort. For peo-
ple who don’t want to go through
the trouble, their unique writing
styles could start to disappear as
they lean on the tool to help them
with emails, papers and any other
writing they used to do on their
own, the researchers say. For in-
stance, the paper says: “If stu-
dents use ChatGPT’s help for their
homework, their writing style may
be influenced by ChatGPT’s.”
JOURNAL REPORT | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
tal tools have been under way
for years. And studies have
shown that digital interventions
can help people with common
mood and anxiety symptoms,
though they tend to be more ef-
fective when a human also is in-
volved, checking in with users.
Still, some older mental-health
apps had a high abandonment
rate, says David Mohr, a profes-
sor at Northwestern University
and director of the Center for
Behavioral Intervention Technol-
ogies, due in part to the limited
and repetitive responses they
provided.
Newer chatbots that use AI
technology based on large-lan-
guage models are capable of
more humanlike conversation,
opening up new possibilities for
applications in mental-health
care.
Yet, some experts worry about
the lack of regulations, safety
protections or even best prac-
tices around the use of such
technology for mental-health
purposes. They are particularly
concerned about chatbots offer-
ing advice, saying a suggestion
that may be useful for one per-
The authors used statistical
models to show that on a large
scale, content created with the
help of AI will be less unique than
what users would have produced
without AI.
‘Death spiral’
This becomes an even more
pressing concern when the
AI-generated content al-
ready spreading across the
internet is used to train the
next generation of AI. The
researchers point to the
possibility of a potential
“death spiral” of homogeni-
zation, where getting any-
thing but a bland answer
becomes more and more
difficult, even if a user tries
to coax more out of the
chatbot.
This dynamic isn’t limited
to text-based content, ac-
cording to the researchers.
It could apply across many
domains where generative
AI is being deployed, from
code generation to image
and audio creation, they say.
The study also notes that
son could actually hinder an-
other. These tools need to be
tested through high-quality re-
search and guardrails put up
where there may be concern
about safety risks, according to
Princeton’s Troyanskaya.
One of the biggest concerns is
untested technology being used
by people during periods of cri-
sis or acute distress. Some re-
searchers say they have played
with generative-AI chatbots and
found that some quickly begin
offering advice, not all of which
is appropriate or safe.
Just adding a warning about a
chatbot’s limitations might not
be useful either—such as if a
user asks how they should deal
with thoughts of self-harm and a
chatbot responds with: “I cannot
help you with your question;
please seek professional ther-
apy.” People in crisis often have
trouble asking for help, experts
say, so turning them away at
that point could have dangerous
consequences.
“I don’t think we’re near the
point yet where there’s just go-
ing to be an AI who acts like a
therapist,” says Northwestern’s
Mohr. “There’s still too many
ways it can go off the rails.”
Still, chatbots are beginning
to play useful roles in a number
of mental-health niches. One in-
volves steering individuals who
If you don’t, the result may be increasingly mediocre
and biased content, new research suggests
any biases present in the AI tools,
whether political leanings or other
biases, put there intentionally or
not, could become amplified
across society through this same
process as generative AI is ad-
are wary of seeking help toward
available resources. Others in-
clude serving people who are
waiting to be seen by a therapist
or struggling between sessions.
“My goal is to reduce distress
in that time while people are
trying to get care, and to pre-
pare people for therapy with
tools so they get more benefit
when they start,” says Theresa
Nguyen, chief research officer at
Mental Health America, a non-
profit that offers free mental-
health tools.
Nguyen has been working
with Tim Althoff, an assistant
professor of computer science
and engineering at the Univer-
sity of Washington in Seattle,
and his team on a digital tool to
help people learn and practice a
skill often used in therapy called
“cognitive reframing.”
The purpose of cognitive re-
framing is for individuals to rec-
ognize that the way in which
they view a situation, not just
what is objectively happening in
the situation, has an impact on
their emotions. Changing, or “re-
framing” that perspective can be
helpful in improving mood, in-
cluding anxiety and depressive
symptoms. Yet, getting good at
the technique often takes time,
practice and guidance.
The tool embedded in Mental
Health America’s website guides
opted more widely.
To encourage users to push
back against mediocre AI results—
and so preserve greater diversity
of expression—the researchers
suggest making it easier for users
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
people through the process, of-
fering suggestions on how they
might change negative thinking.
Studies by the researchers sug-
gest people find the tool helpful.
Becky Winegard, 39, of Grand
Junction, Colo., began using the
tool last year when an issue with
her child led her to begin having
daily panic attacks and take anti-
anxiety medication. “I had so
many spiraling thoughts and
couldn’t control them,” says
Winegard, a paralegal.
Although she was seeing a
counselor, she felt that the once-
weekly meetings weren’t enough,
so she turned to the tool on the
Mental Health America website.
She typed in her worry of the
moment, and the program would
offer prompts and suggest spe-
cific ways of helping her reframe
the thought.
Winegard used the tool up to
six times a day for three months.
“It was so helpful to me,” says
Winegard. “Now I don’t need to
anymore, I can walk myself
through the whole thing.”
Triage tool
In the U.K., meanwhile, a
chatbot developed by AI
mental-health company
Limbic is being used as a
triage tool for the National
Health Service’s Talking
Therapies program, which
aims to help people with
anxiety and depression.
The chatbot asks users
questions to guide them
toward the appropriate
mental-health-care service.
Mona Stylianou, the
principal clinical lead at
Everyturn Mental Health, a
nonprofit that provides
care to patients through
the NHS, says the tool has
improved patient access to
care by offering a 24/7
self-referral process and a
personalized way to assess
patients’ needs.
“They can access the
help they need quickly and
easily,” says Stylianou.
AI also is showing
promise in helping to train
mental-healthcare provid-
ers. One tool, called Lyssn, uses
AI-generated algorithms to rate
recordings or transcripts of clini-
cal sessions and provide feed-
back to clinicians about how well
they did on certain metrics, such
as how closely they implemented
a type of therapy strategy.
“Being able to monitor and
unpack the processes in psycho-
therapy is really important,”
says Stephen Schueller, an asso-
ciate professor of psychological
science and informatics at the
University of California, Irvine,
and a licensed clinical psycholo-
gist.
Shirley S. Wang is a writer in
NICK LITTLE
Princeton, N.J. She can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
to communicate their preferences
to AI systems. That might mean
designing the AI to ask follow-up
questions to get a more distinct
answer or asking users to rate a
response, though that wouldn’t al-
ways work if a person were in a
rush, concedes Sébastien Martin,
an assistant professor of opera-
tions at Northwestern University’s
Kellogg School of Management
and a co-author of the paper.
Clear instructions
Another way to combat homoge-
nization is to learn from other sit-
uations where algorithms have
been shown to amplify biases,
such as those seen with au-
tomated hiring tools.
For example, it will be
crucial to give users clear in-
structions and disclosures
about the capabilities and
limitations of the AI system
they’re using so that they
can understand the risks and
to allow for more customiza-
tion and control, says Maria
De-Arteaga, an assistant
professor in the information,
risk and operations manage-
ment department at the Mc-
Combs School of Business at
the University of Texas at
Austin, who wasn’t involved
ANTONIO GIOVANNI PINNA
with the research done by
Martin and his co-authors.
Jackie Snow is a writer in
Los Angeles. She can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
BY DEMETRIA GALLEGOS
I
N RECENT MONTHS,
the parents of a Park-
land, Fla., school
shooting victim used
artificial intelligence
to re-create the voice
of their son, Joaquin
Oliver, to advocate for
gun control. A father
used recordings of his
late daughter and AI to create a
video of her singing a birthday
greeting for her mother. And
Hollywood has digitally brought
back stars like Carrie Fisher to
appear in films after they died.
New platforms and apps have
made possible this new era of
animating the voices or visual
images of those we’re grieving
for. Beyond the static photos,
voicemail messages and videos
of loved ones we once might
have treasured, we can now keep
an interactive version of that
person, one with whom we can
potentially converse.
But should we? What are the
implications of such deathless
digital avatars? We wanted to
hear what our readers think, as
part of a series of ethical dilem-
mas posed by AI.
The question was: AI is al-
ready creating chat, audio and
video representations that mimic
deceased people. Will conversing
with them comfort loved ones, or
prolong the feeling of loss and
prevent them from moving on? If
the chatbots are flawed, could
they warp our understanding of
who the person really was?
Some of our readers had a vis-
ceral, gut reaction. Others wres-
tled with the potential, and the
problems they anticipate. Here’s
what they shared.
Just no
I would not support mimicking
the dead—may they rest in
peace—with chatbots.
—Nicholas Rao, Roswell, Ga.
Digital dementia
Having photos or videos of lost
loved ones is a comfort. But the
idea of an algorithm, which is as
prone to generate nonsense as
anything lucid, representing a de-
ceased person’s thoughts or be-
haviors seems terrifying. It would
be like generating digital demen-
tia after your loved ones’ passing.
I would very much hope peo-
ple have the right to preclude
their images being used in this
fashion after death. Perhaps
something else we need to con-
sider in estate planning?
JOE MAGEE
—Dorothy McGarrah,
Woodland Hills, Calif.
JOURNAL REPORT | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
SHOULD WE USE AI TO
RE-CREATE OUR LOVED
ONES AFTER THEY DIE?
New technology can let us see and hear representations of those we’ve lost.
Will that bring comfort? Or will it distort the grieving process?
A positive for many
I think this aspect of AI will prove
ultimately popular, as people live
longer, and as we face personal
loss. The mimicry will be signifi-
cantly flawed initially, but proba-
bly since this sort of application
is likely to have great appeal, im-
provements will be rapid.
in the long run, this will lead
to significant cultural shifts in
our feelings about the elderly
and our ancestors. It will be in-
teresting to see and strange.
Warped and flawed, and unusu-
ally positive for many of us in
our lives as well: Something to
look forward to.
—Michael George,
Escondido, Calif.
Warping reality
A machine isn’t an embodied hu-
man being. AI chatbots will pro-
long the effects of loss if used
this way. They will divide hu-
mans. They will muddy our un-
derstanding of reality.
Humans are made in the im-
age of God; a machine cannot
replicate that.
—Brad Grizenko,
Wake Forest, N.C.
An individual choice
If someone can’t move on, it’s
their business to remain in their
emotional state or to change it.
The idea that public policy
should “nanny” people it deems
in need of emotional correction
is revolting.
—John Leonard, Houston
We’ll learn from mistakes
I know that I would get a kick
out of a more complete history
than simply staring at a photo
and struggling to remember.
Many times the stories we re-
member and laugh about are lies
anyway.
So bring it on. Progress al-
ways entails costs and uncer-
tainty. The faster this can be ac-
complished the faster the
benefits accrue and the costs
will diminish. Mistakes will be
made, but we’ll learn from them
and there are some good out-
comes here worth striving for.
—Alan Wells, Louisville, Ky.
A modern-day seance
Just as in the 19th century when
seances were so popular, I think
this would work the same way.
For the most part, it was a com-
fort to the grieving. But several
known “robber barons” bene-
fited from the process.
—Clay Parcels, Belleville Ill.
Memories are enough
I loved my parents and grand-
parents deeply and think about
them daily. That said, I have no
desire to interact with a simula-
tion of any of them. I’m no psy-
chologist, but I find that entire
notion troubling.
—Dale Thomas, Huntsville, Ala.
No replacement
I would find no comfort from
chatting with a mimic of a lost
family member. There’s no possi-
ble way an algorithm could cap-
ture my family member’s humor,
spontaneity, quirkiness and
spirit. No way. That’s an AI
bridge too far.
—Mark Wakefield,
Harrisburg, Pa.
Sinister outcomes
So-called technological progress
is already producing so many
lonely, excluded and marginal-
ized people. The use of such
crutches as this won’t be able to
prevent mass depression, neuro-
ses and a huge increase in sui-
cide rates.
—Michael Esser, Los Angeles
Creepy, but brilliant
This is creepy, flawed, and outra-
geous; yet probably brilliant. I
would love to have a conversation
with numerous historical figures
and I am certain many others
would as well. Right or wrong—
these digital avatars are coming!
Flawed or not—they are coming!
Where can I find a subscription?
—David Bugay,
Mission Viejo, Calif.
A poor rendering
AI should not mimic the de-
ceased. As humans, we always
grow and change. At its best, AI
will create an unchanging snap-
shot of us and our thoughts, a
poor rendering of the depth and
complexity that is “us.” At its
worst, AI will guess at how we
might change and grow, warping
the memories of those who love
or respect us.
—Michael Yagley,
Brighton, Mich.
Good for laughs, not
grieving
Chatting with a deceased
mother, father, child, friend will
distort the grieving process.
That is a basic human need. As
much as I would like to talk now
to my father, my grandfather,
Charlie Chaplin, Louis Arm-
strong, it wouldn’t be valid, but
something to pass the time and
not offer up any truths.
I think resurrecting someone
is wrong, unless it’s for enter-
tainment, humor, exploration of
ideas. i.e.: a scene between Rod-
ney Dangerfield and Abe Lincoln,
William Shakespeare and Gra-
ham Chapman (a deceased mem-
ber of Monty Python), Richard
Pryor and Frederick Douglass.
—Gerry Mandel, St. Louis
Cold comfort
For me this is the same as going
to a psychic. I know how difficult
mourning can be but it is better
to work through the pain and
cherish one’s memories than use
artificial comfort that perpetu-
ates denial of one’s loss.
—Susan Alexander, Luxembourg
Monday, May 13, 2024 | R7
Sweet dreams
My mother is mostly alone in a
nursing home. As her dementia
advances, she regresses to her
past: in particular, her home-
town, her husband and her sis-
ter. I know she would love to
have conversations with my de-
ceased father or at least have
him wish her a good night.
—Rob Garrison, Dallas
Everyone grieves
differently
Do we care on a personal level
how others use AI to seek com-
fort, prolong mourning, redefine
their perception of their de-
ceased or attain closure? Upon
being injured, some will choose
the assistance of a crutch to aid
healing, others may take a differ-
ent approach.
AI-generated representations
of the deceased may become just
another of the several memora-
bilia we retain to prevent the
complete disappearance of those
we cherished or admired.
—Wister Smith, Scottsboro, Ala.
Lost in fantasy
Well-adjusted people know death
is final and they deal with it.
They would neither need nor
want the fantasy of an AI bot as
it would only interfere with a
healthy grieving process.
For others that need help cop-
ing, for whatever reason, AI bots
may possibly be useful as part of
a mental-health recovery plan
supervised by a professional.
But the better the chatbots be-
come, the greater the danger for
people to get lost in their own al-
ternative-reality narratives.
—Kaleem Ahmad,
Ankara, Turkey
No conversation
I think audio and video represen-
tations of deceased people could
be awesome, but NOT chatting
with them. Just revisiting them
saying their favorite phrases and
laughing could be comforting.
Actual “interaction” could be
harmful psychologically, I think.
—Dawn Taggblom, DeLand, Fla.
Only one exception
We should not try to preserve
someone in a chatbot or a holo-
gram after they die. People need
to grieve and find closure. The
only exception would be to bring
back Michael Jackson for that fi-
nal world tour that never hap-
pened. That would be OK.
—Clint Eubanks, Houston
Demetria Gallegos is an editor
for The Wall Street Journal in
New York. Email her at
demetria.gallegos@wsj.com.
R8 | Monday, May 13, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

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