The Amazon-Whole Foods Deal Means Every Other Retailer’s Three-Year Plan Is Obsolete
– Harvard Business Review
When Amazon announced last week that it will acquire Whole Foods Market, a grocery chain with over 450 retail stores and deep industry talent, for $13.7 billion, Amazon’s stock price rose 2.4% on the news, increasing its market capitalization by $11 billion. At the same time, the price of SuperValu plummeted 14.4%, Kroger dropped 9.2%, and Sprouts fell 6.3%. You could almost hear the three-year plans of every grocer, and nearly every other traditional retailer, grinding through the shredding machines.
Supreme Court To Hear Potentially Landmark Case On Partisan Gerrymandering
– The Washington Post
The U.S. Supreme Court plans to hear a case on partisan gerrymandering. If the court chooses to rule broadly on the case it could send shockwaves through the American political system. In the past, the court has ruled narrowly on related issues, usually based on race rather than partisanship. With President Obama vowing to make gerrymandering his primary issue of focus post-presidency, regardless of how the court rules, this is an issue that wouldn’t disappear from the headlines anytime soon.
The ‘Alt-Labor’ Leader Fighting for Fair Pay for Restaurant Workers
– Bloomberg Businessweek
Restaurant Opportunities Centers United has proved to be one of the most successful experiments in advocating for low-wage workers in the absence of a traditional union. ROC members don’t collectively bargain with restaurants –but they’ve successfully lobbied for laws resulting in higher pay. Bloomberg BusinessWeek profiles the face of the “alt labor” movement.
– The Washington Post
America’s cultural divide runs deep. The political divide between rural and urban America is more cultural than it is economic, rooted in rural residents’ deep misgivings about the nation’s rapidly changing demographics, their sense that Christianity is under siege and their perception that the federal government caters most to the needs of people in big cities, according to a wide-ranging poll that examines cultural attitudes across the United States.