Million-dollar Closets & Big Macs 🍔
This Week in Review☕: Luxurious wardrobes boost home prices | Meta stock skyrockets as digital advertising rises | McDonalds launches its biggest burger yet | India to be Worlds third largest economy
Quick Bites:
Culture👛: When you have no budget, you obviously need the perfect place to store all of those expensive designer items.
From lit shelves with color co-ordinated shoes to massive center islands and sparkling chandeliers.. The million-dollar closet is here.
A champagne bar, meditation room, revolving glass doors, hair salon and private spray-tan room.. For the 1%, closets are no longer just about storage.
They are a place to socialize because "clients actually do hang out in their closet" these days, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Umm we could buy less shoes to cut down on wardrobe space. But we're not quitters.
PS. We're going swimsuit shopping for the extra cupboard we bought this morning.. which means we'll be having Ozempic for lunch 😉
While such spending may come across as frivolous, they may also count as investments. Luxurious closets often boost home values, real estate professionals say.
A 2023 study by ClosetMaid found that 93% of homebuyers are willing to pay a 10% premium for properties with upgraded closets, WSJ reports.
Average budgets for a high-quality closet has skyrocketed to $200,000 to $300,000, up from $60,000 to $80,000 a decade ago, according to custom-closet builders.
Our Thoughts:
Us: Should we buy it?
Brain: No
Bank account: No
Husband: No
Universe: No
Us: SOLD
Ugh all this talk makes us wanna redesign our own wardrobe. We need a massive upgrade- preferably a walk-in closet the size of a small country. Monaco or smh.
We're thinking thumb-protected jewellery cases, built-in watch winders, rotating shoe racks and cupboards with dry-cleaning capabilities. Ya know, nothin fancy. Just the basics. 🙏🏻
Big Tech📱: Meta stock skyrockets.
Meta hit a record by clocking in the largest ever single-session gain in market value.
The company's market cap grew by roughly $200 billion on Friday (aka pretty much the entire net worth of McDonalds)
Meta recently regained its trillion-dollar status.
As of this month, Zuckerberg's personal net worth was estimated at $167 billion by Forbes, making him the 4th richest person in the world.
$167 billy?! 😮 Guess the Zucks makes his coffee and avo toast at home
On another note, Elon now owns X, Bezos owns the Washington Post, Bill Gates has invested over $300 million in media platforms and Mark Zuckerberg owns WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook aka our entire effing life.
Free speech in 2024? MY A**🖕🏻
Key Highlights, according to The New York Times:
💡Meta stated its latest quarterly profit more than tripled, due to a rebound in digital advertising
💡Meta reported $40.1 billion in revenue last quarter; $900 million more than expected
💡The previous single-day stock rally record holders were Amazon and Apple with $190 billion gains in 2022
💡Meta’s Facebook marked its 20-year anniversary on Sunday
Because of its size, Meta holds major weight over indexes like the S&P 500, which gained about 1% from Meta's stock rally
The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose by about 1.7%
Our Thoughts💡:
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta:
💡Copied Facebook from MySpace
💡Copied Reels from TikTok
💡Copied Stories from Snapchat
💡Copied Blue Tick verification from Elon
💡Copied the FULL Twitter app
Based of his resume, this guy is a complete crook😡
PS. We used to be obsessed with Instagram, until Zuckerberg decided to kill the app by altering the algorithm to pump non-stop ads
Were click rates dropping so much on Meta, Mark?! Was the competition from TikTok that much?? 🤔Because nothing lights up our day like a 20 second unskippable ad before a 10 second video🤬
Education 📚: Dartmouth College wants SAT scores again.
Dartmouth will become the first Ivy League to once again require SAT or ACT scores for next year's applicants.
Over a thousand colleges had eliminated the requirement during the pandemic in 2020, as standardised testing centers closed across the world, The New York Times reports.
Ugh we’re sick of numbers defining us:
💡Our GPA
💡Our SAT score
💡Our weight
💡Our DUIs
💡Our 1st degree murder charges
These things are NOT who we are🙄
This decision comes after new research showed that SAT scores help to predict first-year college performance over high school GPAs.
Dartmouth also found that many low-income students were not showing their SAT result when in truth, the admissions office would always view the scores in context of the student’s background, NY Times.
For example💡: A 1250 score kid from a private school in New York is not comparable to a 1250 score low-income kid at a poorly-funded state school.
“For our increasingly large pool outside the US, we need some way in a standardised framing to get more data.
The pandemic imprint is ending. I have a feeling in the next six months, colleges will begin to reactivate tests or stay permanently optional.”
-Lee Coffin, Dartmouth’s dean of admissions
Food 🍔: Feeling hungry? McDonalds launches its biggest burgers yet.
McDonald’s isn’t messing around this year. Last week, the burger giant announced the return of the "Double Big Mac".
“The Double Big Mac is double the fun with FOUR meat patties and more Big Mac sauce, of course. It’s topped with pickles, crisp shredded lettuce, finely chopped onions, and a slice of American cheese, all sandwiched between a fluffy sesame seed bun.”
Umm this burger looks like we're deducting a year from our lives
PS. When you're trying to diet but your favorite fast-food restaurant drops a new item on the menu👇🏻
“In a number of markets, around the world, having a larger burger is an opportunity.”
“We think we’re going to be able to deliver a great tasting large burger at a superior value to what customers can get anywhere else”
-McDonalds CEO Chris Kempzinski
Our Thoughts💡: Gotta be honest guys.. This is fantastic news if you're a burger lover BUT still have a death wish 💀
Economy 🇮🇳: India set to be the world’s third-largest economy by 2027.
With an estimated GDP of $5 trillion, the economy is poised to grow at or above 7% this year, the finance ministry has said.
If it meets this year’s target, it will be the third straight year of 7% GDP growth for India. The country’s GDP currently stands at $3.7 trillion, CNBC reports.
The government claims that India saw a pandemic like never seen before, which set the country back.
However, with reforms and every possible measure, the country has been brought to the level of the 5th largest economy in the world (now).
Despite these projections, the advancements in AI is threatening the job market in India, with millions already unemployed.
On being questioned on how to address this, the Finance Minister of India stated:
"1. AI also requires human intervention. It is not going to operate on its own.
2. On investment; it has to happen and if it brings jobs together, it’s very well [..] If not, those (businesses) are getting located in an area. They are going to create indirect jobs as well.
3. "So, it is a layered debate"
Quicker Bites:
Taylor Swift won ‘Album of the year’ for a record 4th time- surpassing Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder.
Snapchat to lay off 10% of global workforce; 500 employees.
King Charles diagnosed with cancer.
Novo Nordisk signs $16 billion deal to boost Wegovy supply.
China comes closely behind Japan as the world’s largest car exporter.
Tesla sued by 25 California countries for mishandling hazardous waste.
Powell: Don’t expect an interest rate cut in March.
New Jersey to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final.