A call from the banker. Tense moment on Deal or No Deal, or something Citi private wealth clients will get more often? Turns out it’s both! The beleaguered bank needs to make money from somewhere and it thinks cosying up to its HNWIs is just the trick.

The lowdown

• 📉 UK economy falls into recession.

• 🚀 Nvidia is now worth more than Alphabet, one day after surpassing Amazon.

• 🥉 Germany becomes the world’s third largest economy as Japan slips into recession.

Flex your finance muscle 💪

Baumol’s cost disease

In theory, workers should get paid more as they become more productive, because it makes sense to link remuneration with the economic value created. But US economist William Baumol noted this wasn’t always the case.

He pointed out that you need the same number of musicians to play a Beethoven string quartet today as you did in the 19th century. Therefore, the productivity of classical music performance hasn’t increased. But the real wages of musicians have gone up substantially in that time.

The reason is that rising wages in productive parts of the economy pull up wages in less productive areas by creating competition for labour. For example, a violinist could go and work in manufacturing, which gives them better bargaining power as a musician. This is known as Baumol’s cost disease.

Featured story

Citigroup starts tracking how often private bankers call clients

Citigroup has started tracking the number of calls its private bankers make to clients, the FT reports ($). Citi’s private bankers now have to report every client conversation and what was discussed. They have also been encouraged to contact each client at least once every 90 days.

The new rule has gone down badly with some employees, who don’t feel it’s a productive use of their time. Citi bankers have had to file some call logs in the past for compliance reasons, but never to track performance.

The move comes as Citi is cutting thousands of jobs as part of a big reorganisation. It’s an edict from Andy Sieg, head of the wealth management division. He’s told employees that part of his strategy is to sell clients more investment products and charge a management fee on their assets.

The content we're consuming today

• NPR: Why dating apps may be worse than ever

• Gizmodo: Your AI girlfriend is a data-harvesting horror show

• Rest of World: How an African streaming service dethroned Netflix

Off-balance sheet items

• It’s the kind of information you need when you need it. Here’s how to jumpstart a car without any cables.

The bottom line