Is Walmart's big raise a sign the economy's back on track?

1. Everyday higher wages (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Walmart, the largest employer in the US, will raise its minimum wage for sales associates to $9 per hour this year, and $10 per hour next year. [Walmart] In total, about 500,000 people will be getting raises; that's about 40 percent of the company's workforce. [AP / Anne D'Innocenzio] This could represent good news for the economy: "Walmart's announcement signals that the company wants to keep attracting good talent and doesn't want to lose its workers to competitors … which itself signals that there's increased competition to get good workers." [Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben] But higher wages can help Walmart's bottom line for other reasons, such as by boosting worker productivity or reducing turnover. [Peterson Institute / Justin Wolfers and Jan Zilinsky] CEO Doug McMillon expressed hope in a CNBC interview that the raises would boost employee morale, and sales in turn. [CNBC] Walmart's revenue growth has slowed recently, which might be prompting it to try new approaches to boost sales. [Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben] A more cynical explanation is that this is a preemptive strike meant to anticipate future minimum wage increases and make workers less eager to form unions. [Washington Post / Lydia DePillis] Of course, $9 / $10 an hour is still very low relatively speaking, and both wages fall below the $10.10 minimum wage President Obama's been pushing. [Vox] This is as good a time as any to revisit the argument of Jason Furman, now President Obama's top economist, that Walmart's low prices save poor families enough money that the company is a net boon, even with very low wages. [Slate / Jason Furman] 2. Nein, danke An anti-austerity demonstration in front of the parliament on February 11, 2015 in Athens, Greece. Austerity has destroyed the Greek economy, and yet European lenders continue to insist upon it. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images) Remember how Greece and European officials were working out a debt deal? Everything's gone to shit. [Vox / Matt Yglesias] The Greek government submitted a letter asking for an extension of its bailout, in which it gets funding from the rest of the Eurozone in exchange for massive austerity and economic reforms. [Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis via Der Spiegel] The letter included big concessions from Syriza, the left-wing party that just took power in Greece and had campaigned on vehement opposition to austerity. [Reuters / Renee Maltezou and Jan Strupczewski] But European officials, led by Germany, rejected the deal anyway, calling the letter a "trojan horse" that didn't actually commit to following the austerity requirements of the bailout. [WSJ / Matthew Dalton and Bertrand Benoit] In fairness to the Germans, Syriza's Labor Minister said on Greek television that the request "in no way translates into an extension of the existing program. [NYT / Niki Kitsantonis and James Kanter] But in fairness to the Greeks, the existing policy regime is an unmitigated disaster and German insistence on enforcing it is a foolhardy and cruel maneuver that greatly increases the likelihood Greece abandons the euro. [Washington Post / Matt O'Brien] 3. Can we call it something that is not "iCar"? Apple's CarPlay product. Presumably you'd see more interfaces like this in an Apple car. (Apple) All indications are that Apple is working on some kind of car-related product. [Vox / Matt Yglesias] But it appears the company is "snapping up engineers with expertise in motors, transmissions, drive trains, car interiors, and so forth," suggesting that it's interested in making a full-fledged car, not just accessories. [Vox / Timothy Lee] Why creating a car would make sense: (a) Apple has $178 billion in cash to throw around, so why not; (b) they already have a retail network for selling them. [Bloomberg / Tim Higgins] Apple is also unusually good at entering and taking over markets it previously didn't compete in at all (MP3 players, smartphones, tablets, etc). [Vox / Timothy Lee] Reasons to be skeptical: cars are unusually complex to manufacture, you might have to deal with unions, and the profit margins are much lower than for Apple's other products. [Mashable / Lance Ulanoff] Assuming they are indeed working on a car, one major question will be whether it's self-driving (or to what degree it's self-driving). [The Verge / Chris Ziegler] Creating a self-driving vehicle would put Apple in competition with Google, which has self-driving prototypes but whose plans for selling self-driving cars commercially are unclear. [Vox / Brad Plumer] That could be tough for Apple; Google not only has a five-year head start, but also has a much better mapping product, which is essential for self-driving vehicles. [Vox / Timothy Lee] Self-driving or not, the car would purportedly be electric. [The Verge / Chris Ziegler] 4. Misc. The Congolese rebel group Allied Democratic Forces is one of the most brutal militias in the world; how, after 20 years, hasn't it been stopped? [Washington Post / Daniel Fahey] The owner of some of Twitter's most desirable handles — @canada, @japan, @rome, @madrid — is "a 50-year-old shoeshine guy at a cafe in Malaga, Spain." [Washington Post / Caitlin Dewey] How pharmaceutical companies woo doctors: "If you’re willing to promote suboxone ineffectively for free, why not promote suboxone effectively for $10,000 plus nice hotels?" [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander] Schools are conducting school shooting simulations to prepare students — but given how rare shootings are, is the trauma of a trial run worth it? [The Atlantic / Angela Almeida] A new study finds that outside campaign spending by super-PACs and other groups had basically no effect in last year's Senate races. [Bloomberg View / Jonathan Bernstein] "How to make your email inbox less gargantuan" pieces are a dime a dozen, but this one has some very solid, practical, advice. [BuzzFeed / Jessica Misener] 5. Verbatim "There is not a single substantive claim in this column that appears to be true." [NY Mag / Jonathan Chait] "People who consider themselves empiricists, and who believe in A/B testing and in the known science of the human ear, are convinced that selling high-res music is a scam that separates fools from their money." [Slate / Seth Stevenson] "Data from the phones’ signals and sensors is used to determine how lonely students are." [Boston Globe / Michelle Leslie] "Your genitals are wonderful. You should show them to the world." [Wired / Mat Honan] "Green became so accustomed to seeing the quote that he simply assumed it was in the book he’d written seven years before." [Washington Post / Caitlin Dewey] Read the latest Vox Sentences here!

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