Good…afternoon. It's not often we pop into your inbox this close to happy hour, but it's for a good reason: Q3 is just hours away from coming to an end, and deserves a proper recap before October comes and all anyone can think about is potential Halloween costumes. We've modeled this email after a high school yearbook, so make sure to print it out after reading and have all your friends sign it. —Neal Freyman, Abby Rubenstein, Matty Merritt, Max Knoblauch, Jamie Wilde | | Al Bello/Getty Images Senior superlatives—a yearbook tradition you love if you're mentioned but hate if you got snubbed. Here are our picks for Q3. Most likely to impact your monthly budget: Student loan cancellation President Biden announced in late August that the government will forgive $10,000 in student debt for borrowers making under $125,000, and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. The debt wipeout, which is expected to cost $400 billion over 30 years, fulfilled a campaign promise to help take care of the $1.6 trillion in student debt owed by 45 million Americans. But you can't please everybody or, in this case, just about anybody. Civil rights groups complained that loan forgiveness didn't go far enough, news organizations pointed out that some borrowers could get hit with hefty taxes, and six Republican-led states have sued to block debt forgiveness from taking effect. Most likely to have an identity crisis: The Inflation Reduction Act After a seemingly endless will-they-or-won't-they make a deal dance, Democrats passed their signature piece of legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, without Republican support. The 755-page climate, tax, and healthcare package does a lot of things: It establishes a 15% minimum tax on megacorporations, boosts funding for the IRS, allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, offers $260 billion in tax credits for renewable energy projects, and more. One thing it likely won't do: reduce inflation. Despite the name, the law's impact on rising prices through 2023 is expected to be "negligible." Most likely to use a flight tracking app: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's August visit to Taiwan lasted just 24 hours, but as the highest ranking US official to visit the island in 25 years, her mere presence ratcheted up tensions with China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory. China responded by banning imports of 100 Taiwanese products and carrying out military exercises in nearby waters. Tensions remain high: President Biden has since explicitly stated that US forces would defend Taiwan if China invades. Most likely to know what a special master is: FBI agents searching Mar-A-Lago On August 8, FBI agents searched former President Trump's Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, and left with 11 sets of classified government documents, including some marked "top secret." Trump himself told the world about the search, bemoaning the violation of his "beautiful home," and ever since then information has dripped out about how the unprecedented investigation into an ex-president came about. We now know that the DOJ was seeking evidence of violation of the Espionage Act, as well as obstruction of justice laws after finding classified documents in boxes Trump reluctantly sent back to the National Archives in January. The criminal investigation into Trump is ongoing. Most likely to succeed: Serena Williams Serena Williams's retirement (or as she calls it, evolution) from tennis earlier this month capped off an incredible 27-year career during which she won a record 23 Grand Slam singles titles and became the top-earning woman athlete of all time. In an essay for Vogue, Williams said that post-tennis, she would focus on her family and growing her business empire, Serena Ventures. Since 2014, the VC firm has funded 16 unicorns (private companies valued at $1+ billion) including MasterClass, Impossible Foods, and Tonal. Most likely to have 500+ followers on LinkedIn: "Quiet quitting" Quiet quitting, the work buzz-phrase of the quarter, describes people who perform their basic work duties but don't raise their hand for extra tasks. It's the exact opposite of the "hustle and grind" culture that dominated the 2010s, and an offshoot of the "anti-work" movement that prioritizes working less and retiring earlier. The term itself may be a flash in the social media pan (just look at how much Google searches for it have tapered off since August), but prioritizing healthy work–life boundaries seems here to stay. Most likely to save cinema: Minions After Morbius's double flop, studio execs got a little nervous that moviegoers would never return. Then, the tiny yellow heroes arrived. The fifth feature-length installment of the Despicable Me franchise, Minions: The Rise of Gru, shattered the previous Fourth of July weekend box-office record with a domestic haul of $125 million. But the success of the movie wasn't a lucky break. Universal went hog-wild on marketing the meme-friendly Minions, and Gen Z created the #gentleminions trend, where groups of young men recorded themselves showing up to the movie in full suits. Most likely to clap when the plane lands: Celebs with private jets Private jet-happy celebrities found themselves in some turbulence this quarter, as internet sleuths exposed that their planes had been taking trips shorter than the length of their driveways. With some flights lasting as little as 10 minutes, celebrities like Taylor Swift, Drake, Kylie Jenner, and Elon Musk found themselves having to explain their inflated carbon footprints. With chaos reigning at airports, demand for private flight surged this summer: Charter app Jetty reported 34,000 requests in July, about 9,000 more than average. Most likely to marry rich: inflation-shunning penguins A group of penguins at a Japanese aquarium stuck up their beaks when workers tried to swap their normal Japanese horse mackerel with a cheaper, lower-quality dinner option to offset higher operating costs. It just goes to show that a New Yorker grumbling about groceries and a bougie Japanese penguin have a lot in common when inflation hits. | | | Solid customer relationships don't happen overnight. Once you've lost their trust…good luck getting it back. Do the work up front and invest in your customers' privacy and security with Vanta. Vanta introduced automated compliance that makes scaling (almost) as easy and safe as clicking a button. They've helped over 3,000 fast-growing companies automate up to 90% of the work for SOC, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more. They move quickly, too. We're talkin' weeks instead of months—bringing your biz to audit-ready status sooner.
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Register here. | | How will Q3 2022 be remembered decades from now? Here's a scrapbook of some of the most iconic cultural moments.  Illustration: Matty Merritt, Images: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis, Oli Scarff, Carl Court/Getty Images; Klondike; Patagonia; NASA; Amazon; The Pink Sauce; The Weather Channel; CNBC | | TOGETHER WITH DAME PRODUCTS | | What happened in the markets the last three quarters? Well, stocks were rallying during most of the summer…until the Fed ratcheted up its rhetoric around rate hikes and sent equities tumbling again. All three major stock indexes are currently in a bear market. Other major developments: - Oil dropped like a rock over fears of slowing economic growth, and US gas prices fell for 99 straight days.
- The US dollar surged as currencies worldwide tumbled, and it hit parity with the euro.
- Treasury yields spiked in tandem with the Fed's interest rate hikes, sending mortgage rates to their highest levels since 2007.
Here are the price changes of select assets over the last three months.  Morning Brew | | Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt/Netflix via Giphy The Brew's Bets section of the newsletter features a smorgasbord of viral videos, lifestyle recs, and tips on leveling up your career. Here are the 10 most clicked-on links from the last quarter (in no particular order). - The beer-drinking method that divided the internet. Should this baseball fan be put in jail or elected president?
- Here is the best way to cook salmon, after trying five different methods.
- Here are 31 small gadgets to make your life a little bit better.
- The deadliest road in America.
- This mesmerizing GIF shows how a sewing machine works.
- How to mess with a text scammer: One hilarious method suggests playing along with the scam.
- Inspo for Christopher Nolan: the scariest theories known to humans.
- Here are the top 10 cookbooks published so far this year.
- A collection of keyboard shortcuts for a variety of apps.
- The 3.5-star rule for finding authentic Chinese restaurants.
Top hits from around the Brewniverse Here are 10 of the most popular pieces of content from across Morning Brew (the company, not just the newsletter) over the past three months. - Dealing with your new Gen Z coworker. (YouTube)
- Ranking the top 10 pieces of education technology we all used in school. (Morning Brew)
- How much did Kate Bush make from Stranger Things featuring "Running Up That Hill"? (TikTok)
- Debt in the delivery room. (Money Scoop)
- The best wellness apps to help you achieve a healthy balance at work. (Sidekick)
- This startup is trying to become the Duolingo of cooking. (Instagram)
- What does it mean to be American-made? (Retail Brew)
- This brain–computer interface company hit a major milestone. (Emerging Tech Brew)
- The humble empire of Knees Over Toes Guy. (Morning Brew)
- The biotech company that's trying to make Jurassic Park a reality. (Business Casual)
| | Game of Thrones/HBO via Imgflip "It's easy to explain what happened, but much harder to predict the future."—Lao Tzu Okay, he didn't say that—but we did, and we're going to prove it with an ask-the-audience game. How it works: We'll present you with five questions about the next quarter, then you'll offer your best guess. We'll review the power of Brew readers' crystal balls at the end of the year. Here are the questions. 1. The midterm elections are coming in November. Which party will gain control of the Senate? 2. Elon Musk's trial over his attempt to avoid buying Twitter is set for Oct. 17. Will he be forced to buy the company? 3. The S&P 500 is currently -24.1% on the year. Will it close worse or better than -20%? 4. Two blockbuster sequels are hitting theaters this winter: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water. Which film will have the better opening weekend at the domestic box office? 5. Which team will win the World Cup? Make your predictions here | | Who said it? For today's quiz, we'll give you an iconic quote from the past quarter, and you have to guess who said (or tweeted) it. 1. "The pandemic is over." 2. "I had no intent to break Russian law." 3. "Interest rate is going up in two weeks ,rent is over the top high ,and there's no inventory on homes …WTF-_-" 4. "I know it's a hassle to come into the office, but if you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?" 5. "I'm not going to argue with people that are broker than me about money." | | - President Biden, in an interview with 60 Minutes.
- Basketball star Brittney Griner, during her trial over drug charges in Russia. Griner was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony.
- Cardi B, rapper and amateur economist, in a tweet.
- Malcom Gladwell, in controversial remarks about the downside of remote work.
- Kanye West, explaining why he ended his partnership with Gap in a CNBC interview.
| | | Written by Neal Freyman, Abigail Rubenstein, Matty Merritt, Jamie Wilde, and Max Knoblauch Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. WANT MORE BREW? Industry news, with a sense of humor → - CFO Brew: your go-to source for global finance insights
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