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Primordia DAO launches campaign to help structure 100 DAOs

Primordia DAO, a NEAR Foundation-funded, Web3-powered impact organization, on June 23 at the High Bar in New York City’s historic Times Square District…

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Primordia DAO, a NEAR Foundation-funded, Web3-powered impact organization, on June 23 at the High Bar in New York City’s historic Times Square District launched a campaign to inspire and help structure 100 Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) with the aim of creating significant global social impact.

The one hundred DAO will leverage the NEAR Protocol, a carbon-neutral layer 1 blockchain, in creating a higher quality of life and social justice in communities around the world

Prior to the launch of the campaign, thirty mission-driven DAOs leveraging the NEAR Protocol had already launched. The DAOs are concerned with activities like dispersing food to unhoused persons, onboarding excluded communities into the Web3, securing equitable land ownership, and finding solutions to climate change among others.

History of Primordia DAO

The Primordia DAO was launched by The Kin DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization based in San Francisco. The Kin DAO itself was established during the Covid-19 pandemic and it helped over 55,000 people (IRL) to access critical services and resources during the Pandemic.

Commenting on the objective of Primordia DAO, the co-founder Adrian Bello, said:

“DAOs are about more than hype. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (or DAOs) empower communities online and throughout the world. While media headlines typically focus on NFTs, blockchain technology offers organizational tools that allow individuals with a shared vision to collectively vote (governance), transact transparently, and function as asset management. This is the next wave in global social justice as an organizing movement.”

DAOs highlighted at the 100 DAOs campaign launch event

During the launch event of the 100 DAOs campaign event, DAOs from around the globe were highlighted including DAOs from Scandinavia, Mexico, the United States, and beyond.

From Mexico, there was the Petgas Dao which deals with fossil fuel sustainability, Xibalbanft DAO which is a Cenote Conservation project, and the Sacred Waters DAO which is a water conservation project.

DAOs mentioned from the United States include Lowkey Giant DAO which deals with NFT/Crypto creativity and culture, Seven Vision DAO which is a Sovereign media production studio with life-affirming values for transformative times, and the EFAM DAO which deals with direct food & medicine to displaced people.

There was also the Verse Gallery DAO, which is the first Scandinavian physical NFT gallery bridging the knowledge gap around NFTs & blockchain to people in Norway.

The co-host and Primordia DAO highlighted that they were “village building in the metaverse and beyond,” and their focus is “human-centric”. They also went ahead to say that they wanted to support what the Blockchain has to offer for all those with smartphones and access to the NEAR Protocol.

The post Primordia DAO launches campaign to help structure 100 DAOs appeared first on Invezz.

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Five Below makes checkout changes shoppers may not like

The value retailer is discouraging theft at the checkout counter.

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Huge retail chains like Walmart  (WMT) , Target  (TGT) , CVS  (CVS) and others have faced a high amount of retail theft, or what they call inventory shrink, since 2020 and have been implementing measures to eliminate those costly losses.

Among the most common measures used by Walmart, Target and some others has been locking up popular items behind glass cases to prevent shoplifting. Customers shopping at these stores have encountered a lot of their favorite products, such as cosmetics, shampoo, over-the-counter drugs and even laundry detergent locked up in those cases.

Related: Target limits self-checkout, makes a change customers will love

Shoppers need to either push a button near the product to alert a worker to unlock the case or, in some situations, run around the store looking for a worker with the proper key to open the case. It's a very inconvenient problem for shoppers, and not all stores are consistent with their lockup policies.

For example, one Walmart store might lock up some of their instant coffee products, while another cross-town Walmart location, or even a Target competitor, doesn't lock up any coffee.

Retail stores have also implemented new self-checkout rules to discourage inventory shrink, but again, stores are inconsistent with their rules. Walmart stores have a 20 items or less rule for their self-checkout lanes to try to steer shoppers with more items to checkout clerks that might help reduce the occurrence of theft. But neither customers, nor workers seem to be observing that rule. Target on March 17 implemented a new 10 items or fewer rule in its self-checkout lanes, but we'll see if anyone enforces it.

These self-checkout requirements are also supposed to speed up the checkout process, but that only works if all the self-check registers are working and an adequate amount of checkout clerks are working registers as well.

The next step for retailers in addressing inventory shrink at self-checkout would be to eliminate self-check altogether.

Shopping in a Five Below store.

Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Five Below cuts back on self-checkout lanes 

After finishing the fourth quarter of 2023 with a "higher-than-planned shrink," or higher level of theft than expected in its stores, value retailer Five Below  (FIVE)  has implemented associate-assisted checkout in all of its stores for 2024, CEO Joel Anderson said on the company's earnings call on March 20.

"In addition, in our high-shrink stores, the primary option for checkout is more of the traditional, over-the-counter associate checkout," Anderson said. "We expect to have 75% of our transactions chain-wide assisted by an associate with a goal of 100% in our highest shrink, highest-risk stores to be fully transacted by an associate."

The retailer also checks receipts and adds guards

"Additionally, in those stores, we’re implementing further mitigation efforts, including receipt checking, additional store payroll and guards. We intend to measure progress as soon as Q2 when we perform a limited number of store counts," Anderson said.

Five Below tested several inventory shrink mitigation initiatives late in the third quarter and into the fourth quarter of 2023, which included product-related tests, front-end initiatives and guard programs, Anderson said in the earnings call. He said the most significant change the Philadelphia-based company made across most of the chain was to limit the number of self-checkout registers that were open, while positioning an associate upfront to further assist customers.

Anderson said he is confident the company's measures will help it over time, but the company has not included any financial impact for shrink reduction in its 2024 guidance. The company, however will aggressively pursue returning to pre-pandemic levels of shrink or offsetting the impact over the next few years, he said.

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After 625 Days, The Longest Yield Curve Inversion In History

After 625 Days, The Longest Yield Curve Inversion In History

Today is a historic day, as last night – DB’s Jim Reid reminds us – we quietly…

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After 625 Days, The Longest Yield Curve Inversion In History

Today is a historic day, as last night - DB's Jim Reid reminds us - we quietly passed the longest continuous US 2s10s inversion in history. After the 2s10s first inverted at the end of March 2022, it has now been continuously inverted for 625 days since July 5th 2022. That exceeds the 624 day inversion from August 1978, which previously held the record.

As regular readers are aware, an inverted yield curve has been the best predictor of a US downturn of any variable through history: the yield curve has always inverted before all of the last 10 US recessions, with a lag that is usually 12-18 months, but some cycles - certainly this one - take longer.... much longer.

In fact, the lack of a recession so far has prompted Red to ask - in his latest Chart of the Day note - if the inverted yield curve recession indicator has failed this cycle?

"Possibly", the DB strategist responds, "but in many ways the yield curve has already accurately predicted many of the drivers that would normally lead to a recession. However, these variables haven't then created recessionary conditions as they normally would have done." He explains:

It led, as it always does, the very sharp deterioration in bank lending standards, and led the declines in bank credit and money supply that are almost unique to this cycle. It was also at the heart of why we had some of the largest bank failures on record with SVB, Signature Bank and First Republic collapsing. A significant part of their failure was a big carry trade that went wrong when the curve inverted.

However, even with the above, a recession - according to the highly political "recession authority" known as the NBER - hasn't materialised. This is perhaps because of the following.

  • When lending standards were at their tightest, the borrowing needs of the economy were low relative to previous cycles.
  • Excess savings have been unusually high in this cycle (and were revised higher with the GDP revisions last September), so consumers haven't been as exposed to tight credit as they normally are.
  • The Fed unveiled a huge series of measures to ensure the regional bank crisis didn't naturally unravel as it would have done in a free market or perhaps in many previous cycles.
  • Whilst the Fed’s tightening has been reducing demand, the supply-side of the economy has bounced back strongly from the pandemic disruption, which has further supported growth and made this cycle unique.

So far so good, however, an inverted yield curve should ultimately be a significant headwind for an economy, as capitalism works best when there is a positive return for taking more risk with lending and investments further out the curve. As such, Reid notes, "the rational investor should be prepared to keep more of their money at the front end, or not lend long-term when the curve is inverted" as you are not giving up yield for being able to sleep at night.

So thanks to a historic flood of fiscal stimulus and a daily orgy of new record debt as discussed earlier...

... which means that the US is now running a 6.5% deficit with unemployment near "historical lows", an unheard of event....

... the economy has not succumbed to the inverted yield curve to date, but while it remains inverted the Fed is encouraging more defensive behavior at some point if sentiment changes. As such, the DB strategist concludes that "the quicker we get back to a normal sloping yield curve the safer the system is."

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/21/2024 - 22:20

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Another major retailer cracks down on self-checkout at its stores

The value retailer is discouraging theft at its self-checkout counters by introducing more associate-assisted checkout transactions in its stores.

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on

Huge retail chains like Walmart  (WMT) , Target  (TGT) , CVS  (CVS) and others have faced a high amount of retail theft, or what they call inventory shrink, since 2020 and have been implementing measures to eliminate those costly losses.

Among the most common measures used by Walmart, Target and some others has been locking up popular items behind glass cases to prevent shoplifting. Customers shopping at these stores have encountered a lot of their favorite products, such as cosmetics, shampoo, over-the-counter drugs and even laundry detergent locked up in those cases.

Related: Target limits self-checkout, makes a change customers will love

Shoppers need to either push a button near the product to alert a worker to unlock the case or, in some situations, run around the store looking for a worker with the proper key to open the case. It's a very inconvenient problem for shoppers, and not all stores are consistent with their lockup policies.

For example, one Walmart store might lock up some of their instant coffee products, while another cross-town Walmart location, or even a Target competitor, doesn't lock up any coffee.

Retail stores have also implemented new self-checkout rules to discourage inventory shrink, but again, stores are inconsistent with their rules. Walmart stores have a 20 items or less rule for their self-checkout lanes to try to steer shoppers with more items to checkout clerks that might help reduce the occurrence of theft. But neither customers, nor workers seem to be observing that rule. Target on March 17 implemented a new 10 items or fewer rule in its self-checkout lanes, but we'll see if anyone enforces it.

These self-checkout requirements are also supposed to speed up the checkout process, but that only works if all the self-check registers are working and an adequate amount of checkout clerks are working registers as well.

The next step for retailers in addressing inventory shrink at self-checkout would be to eliminate self-check altogether.

Shopping in a Five Below store.

Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Five Below cuts back on self-checkout lanes 

After finishing the fourth quarter of 2023 with a "higher-than-planned shrink," or higher level of theft than expected in its stores, value retailer Five Below  (FIVE)  has implemented associate-assisted checkout in all of its stores for 2024, CEO Joel Anderson said on the company's earnings call on March 20.

"In addition, in our high-shrink stores, the primary option for checkout is more of the traditional, over-the-counter associate checkout," Anderson said. "We expect to have 75% of our transactions chain-wide assisted by an associate with a goal of 100% in our highest shrink, highest-risk stores to be fully transacted by an associate."

The retailer also checks receipts and adds guards

"Additionally, in those stores, we’re implementing further mitigation efforts, including receipt checking, additional store payroll and guards. We intend to measure progress as soon as Q2 when we perform a limited number of store counts," Anderson said.

Five Below tested several inventory shrink mitigation initiatives late in the third quarter and into the fourth quarter of 2023, which included product-related tests, front-end initiatives and guard programs, Anderson said in the earnings call. He said the most significant change the Philadelphia-based company made across most of the chain was to limit the number of self-checkout registers that were open, while positioning an associate upfront to further assist customers.

Anderson said he is confident the company's measures will help it over time, but the company has not included any financial impact for shrink reduction in its 2024 guidance. The company, however will aggressively pursue returning to pre-pandemic levels of shrink or offsetting the impact over the next few years, he said.

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