The Middle East may be ablaze, but there was good news about the state of the world on another front on Monday: The economy is growing faster than expected. 

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) upgraded its outlook for global economic growth in its latest quarterly report, citing the three-headed dragon’s friendly fire: slowing inflation, central bank rate cuts, and falling energy prices. Crucially, for our pals at the Federal Reserve, the OECD is also predicting the American economy will avoid slipping into a recession in 2025. 

New Year’s Resolutions

2024 is going better than the OECD could have possibly imagined. It predicted global economic growth of just 2.7% at the year’s outset — a slowdown from 3.1% in 2023 — but now the OECD, after two upward revisions, expects global growth of 3.2%. That’s thanks in large part to central banks the world over finally reaching, or nearing, their inflation targets after multiple post-COVID years attempting to tame the beast. Per the report, about 40% of the 38 countries in the OECD have reached their inflation target, while another 40% are within less than 1 percentage point of their inflation target. A year ago, just over 20% were within either mark. Meanwhile, the number of job openings per unemployed worker has finally resettled to pre-pandemic levels, the report found.

As always, some will do better than others. The US and China are both expected to see some cooling. In the former, growth is predicted to slow from 2.6% in 2024 to 1.6% in 2025, and in the latter from 4.9% to 4.5%. But that will be buttressed by Euro area GDP growth, projected to nearly double to 1.3% next year.

What could go wrong? Plenty: 

• Falling oil prices have aided disinflation and boosted growth so far this year, though rapidly escalating geopolitical conflict in the Middle East could push those prices higher, the report flagged, threatening to stall inflation progress as a result.
• Meanwhile, the report warned that “decisive fiscal actions are needed to ensure debt sustainability.” Roughly 30% of existing corporate debt in advanced economies is set to mature by 2026; emerging economies will see an even higher rate.

Inflated Expectations: One more factor possibly limiting growth, per the report: dour consumer attitudes. Widespread economic pessimism, as confirmed by a not-so-rosy US consumer sentiment report released Tuesday, has led to elevated savings levels, meaning less spending. “There is a disconnect between how the economy is perceived and how the economy is doing,” Alvaro Pereira, the OECD’s chief economist, told The Wall Street Journal. “For people who go to the supermarket, food prices relative to wages are still higher.” Who knew all of the OECD’s economists were living entirely farm-to-table?

Google has spent nearly two decades as a target of European trustbusters. Now it’s got a chance to put that experience to use.

On Wednesday, Google filed a formal complaint with the European Union, saying that Microsoft abuses its market dominance as a software maker to give itself a leg-up in the cloud market, where it’s also one of the biggest players.

Cloudburst

The cloud computing market is pretty top-heavy: The biggest player is Amazon Web Services, with roughly 32% market share. Microsoft Azure is second, with around 23%, and Google Cloud is a fairly distant third with 12%. Cloud computing is the backbone of the internet, and is becoming even more valuable as companies race for compute power to run AI models.

So why target Microsoft if the biggest piece of the pie rests with Amazon? According to Google, it’s because Microsoft leverages its Windows software to sell its cloud services:

• Google said Microsoft charges customers a 400% markup if they try to move their Microsoft workloads to a cloud provider other than Azure.
• In its complaint, Google twists the knife by mentioning a recent EU antitrust charge that claimed Microsoft illegally bundled its Teams software with its workplace suites. Google twists the knife again by evoking the enormous CrowdStrike IT outage that blue-screened computers around the world this summer.

“As highlighted by the massive security outage two months ago, Microsoft’s lock-in tactics can result in a single point of failure that harms businesses, industries, and governments,” Google said. Microsoft’s response was to say it already reached an agreement with European cloud providers, and Google is being a stick-in-the-cloud.

Blue Screen Blues: CrowdStrike, which got alluded to in Google’s complaint, has had a big week. The company sent SVP Adam Meyers to appear before Congress on Tuesday, where he apologized profusely for the July outage and seemingly managed to mollify most of the officials conducting the hearing, an unusual win for a tech exec. The people who’ve filed lawsuits against CrowdStrike, including Delta Airlines passengers and CrowdStrike’s own investors, might prove tricker to placate.

None of Masimo’s high-tech monitors helped its leader read the room. 

Three and a half decades after he founded the medical device company, CEO Joe Kiani stepped down Wednesday following a litigious, tenacious, two-year skirmish with an activist investor that ejected him from his own board despite owning just 9% of the company. And the backstabbing and braggart-filled battle isn’t quite over yet.

Proxy with Moxie

There have been few boardroom battles quite like — or anywhere near as vitriolic as — the one between Kiani and Quentin Koffey, founder of the $1.65 billion activist investor Politan Capital. Kiani’s Masimo — with tech cutting-edge enough to have bested Apple in a patent dispute over blood-oxygen measuring — reached record highs in 2021. But, since then, shares have fallen around 60%.

Last year, Politan won two board seats and ripped into Kiani for both missing targets and his acquisitions record. The Financial Times reported that Kiani and Koffey, earlier this year, hashed out a spin-off plan that would let Kiani take over the consumer wearables business; however, a committee — with Koffey on it — blocked the plan, and Koffey filed to contest two more board seats, including Kiani’s. 

In the intervening months, Masimo sued to get Politan barred from the proxy battle and lost — then, Politan was held in contempt of court for bragging about its victory before the decision was unsealed. The final blow came last week, when Politan won the additional board seats: bye, bye Joe. With Kiani walking away, the dust began to settle on Wednesday:

• Michelle Brennan, a former Johnson & Johnson executive who was elected to the board with Politan support last year, was tapped as interim CEO. 
• The company also affirmed its third-quarter financial guidance of $495 million to $515 million in sales (“Everything’s under control,” in other words).

Masimo shares rose 6%, with investors perhaps keen on a company suddenly carrying a little less drama.

The Last Duel: According to a Masimo disclosure, it’s not over yet. The company said that, after Kiani told the board he planned to quit following last week’s defeat, he filed a lawsuit in California “seeking declaratory relief that he had validly terminated his employment for ‘good reason.’” Round two is on the way.