Goldman Sachs is beginning to admit it’s more comfortable on Wall Street than Main Street.

During the bank’s high-stakes investor day yesterday, CEO David Solomon said the company is “considering strategic alternatives” for its consumer business, which includes credit cards and a specialty lending platform. Solomon and other executives also hinted at a potential sale of Goldman’s struggling retail banking assets.

It was a cringey episode

The bank’s foray into consumer finance has been about as successful as Michael Jordan’s baseball career, and its flop has put Solomon—the initiative’s main cheerleader—in the hot seat.

The company launched its consumer bank, Marcus, in 2016 and scored some early wins, but its focus on regular people has ultimately been a major drain.

• Goldman recently said it lost $3 billion since 2020 on parts of its consumer lending push.
• Its credit card issuing business has struggled to nab major partnerships. After the splashy rollout of a joint card with Apple in 2019, it only managed to snag another deal with GM.

The buck stops with Solomon

Some Goldman insiders blame the lackluster results on missteps by its part-time DJ CEO, according to CNBC. A few months ago, Solomon tried to soothe critics by reorganizing Goldman’s Main Street business, scrapping personal loans, and suspending a costly checking-account project. But any good vibes from that reorg. have worn off, as yesterday’s unclear messaging failed to win over investors.

Zoom out: Goldman’s consumer push was a daring attempt to replicate the success of rival banking giants JPMorgan and Bank of America that diversified revenue away from trading and investment banking. Instead, this clunker of a consumer bet only weighed down profits at a time when its investment banking business slowed dramatically.

To trim costs, the bank announced plans to cut up to 3,200 jobs earlier this year in one of its biggest rounds of job cuts ever.—SK

SCOTUS could scrap student loan debt forgiveness. On the first day of arguments over the Biden administration’s plan to wipe out some student debt, members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority were skeptical that Biden had the authority to cancel debt without the authorization of Congress. It appears that the debt forgiveness plan’s only chance for survival is if SCOTUS finds the states and individuals challenging the program didn’t have the legal standing to sue in the first place.

Chips money comes with strings attached. Yesterday, the Commerce Department began inviting chipmakers to apply for $39 billion in funding through the CHIPS and Science Act, which they can use for expanding production in the US. But it’s not a blank check: The companies must follow rules, including sharing excess profits with the government, providing affordable childcare for workers, and curbing stock buybacks and dividends.

Tobacco giant wants to move on from Juul. Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes and a major investor in Juul, is in talks to buy e-cigarette brand NJOY for $2.75 billion, the WSJ reported. While Altria goes after NJOY, it also wants to sell its 35% stake in Juul, which might go down as one of the worst corporate investments ever. Juul was worth $38 billion when Altria bought its stake, but following a regulatory crackdown, Juul is now valued at ~$700 million.

The city known for making pizza that needs a fork will get a new mayor. In Chicago’s election yesterday, Lori Lightfoot became the first mayor of Chicago to lose a reelection bid in 40 years.

But Chicago doesn’t have a new leader...yet. Brandon Johnson will face Paul Vallas in a runoff on April 4.

Whoever gets elected will be tasked with stemming a corporate exodus. In the last several years, major companies headquartered in Chicago have been ditching it for places that don’t even have a giant bean statue.

• Manufacturing powerhouses Caterpillar and Boeing are moving their HQs out of the city. Boeing had been based in Chicago since 2001.
• The richest man in Illinois, Ken Griffin, announced last summer that he was moving—himself, his hedge fund Citadel, and his hundreds of millions of dollars in philanthropic donations and tax payments—to Miami.

Big picture: Even before he left town, Griffin said that downtown crime was preventing the firm from attracting top talent. Crime was the biggest issue in the mayoral election for 57% of voters, ahead of inflation.—MM

There are plans for long-term human habitation on the moon and we need to figure out when exactly the party starts. So, the European Space Agency (ESA) this week called for establishing a new moon time zone.

If you’ve never considered what time it is on the moon, don’t feel bad: You don’t know anyone who lives there and it doesn’t really have a “time” anyway. Until now, every mission to the moon has used its own timescale linked to Coordinated Universal Time (or UTC, the time standard that’s used to set global time zones).

Why moon time is necessary: An increase in lunar activity from a diverse collection of agencies will require coordination, and agreeing on what time it is will certainly help with that. Plus, there are plans to create a satellite navigation system (essentially GPS) for the moon, and such systems require precise time calculations to work correctly.

But it won’t be easy. A “day” on the moon can last as long as 29.5 Earth days. And, according to the ESA, clocks on the moon run 56 microseconds faster per day than on Earth. Plus, clocks on the moon’s surface run at different rates than those in lunar orbit. While it might take an Earth minute to reach an agreement, the ESA said that a joint international effort is being set up to figure it out.—MK

Stat: One of the world’s longest Covid mask mandates is ending today. After 945 days, Hong Kong will scrap its requirement that people wear masks in public spaces—or get fined up to $1,275. The goal, according to Hong Kong leader John Lee, is to get the city’s economic engine humming again. “We are completely returning to normalcy. This year and the next year, we will focus on the economy and development,” he said.

Quote: “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident.”

For the first time, FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly acknowledged that his agency believes the most likely cause of Covid-19 spreading to humans was a mistake at a Chinese lab. This week, the Energy Department joined the FBI in assessing that a lab leak was the most probable origin of the pandemic, though other US agencies believe it began through transmission from an animal.

Watch: How South Koreans got so much taller. (Vox on YouTube)

Chart of the week: The MPAA ratings of top movies, 1980–2022.

Data analysis: The greatest unexpected NBA performances. (YouTube)

For the medically curious but squeamish: Check out this “Playdough Surgery” series.

Question for you: What’s your favorite way to drink a Coke?

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Word search: Head down to MLB spring training for today’s Word Search. Play it here.

Map quest

In this map of the world, can you guess what the size of the countries correlates to?

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Ready, set, recruit: Join HR Brew and Duolingo tomorrow for a virtual event on the future of recruiting.

Carbon emissions.

Source: The Carbon Map.