Netflix is a Mom-and-Pop Shop, It's a Marathon for Sprint & Other Must-Reads

House of Diapers: With a stroke of a pen Netflix has suddenly become one of the family-friendliest companies on the planet. The streaming behemoth has decided to stop splitting hairs and give new parents as much of the first year with their new child — birth or adopted — as they want.

“We want employees to have the flexibility and confidence to balance the needs of their growing families without worrying about work or finances. Parents can return part-time, full-time, or return and then go back out as needed. We’ll just keep paying them normally, eliminating the headache of switching to state or disability pay. Each employee gets to figure out what’s best for them and their family, and then works with their managers for coverage during their absences.”

Netflix gets to compete with this benefit because the United States is one of only four countries in the world that doesn’t even mandate paid maternity leave. In the private sector, the best of the best don’t come close to this new Netflix policy, and don’t apply equally to men and women.

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#Chart

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The Oracle of ATL: A “centrist” Fed governor has provided fresh evidence that first interest rate hike by the U.S. central bank in more than nine years will happen in September. “I think there is a high bar right now to not acting, speaking for myself,” Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart said in an exclusive interview with Jon Hilsenrath of The Wall Street Journal.

Note: This wasn’t a public forum where he'd been under the hot lights for a while, and Lockhardt wasn’t speaking privately to a group with a rogue smart phone in the audience. This was on on the record with a financial newspaper of record. So, to borrow a phrase, bank on it. Need more?

“He is among the first officials to speak publicly since the Fed’s policy meeting last week, at which the central bank dropped new hints that a rate increase is coming closer into view," writes Hilsenrath, “a point he sought to underscore.”

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We’re #4! Sprint has slipped to the bottom rung of U.S. wireless companies, with 57 million customers to T-Mobile’s 58.9 million. The quarter was as brutal for Sprint (675,000 adds) as it was superb for T-Mobile (two million).

The good news? The flood of people leaving Sprint has slowed to a trickle year-over-year (12k vs. 620k). The bad news? At least three more months of taunts by John Legere.

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#Stat

$1.3 trillion

The loss in energy company sector value over the past year or so. That’s the equivalent of Mexico’s annual GDP.

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Print Out: Epson is upending their business by offering a line of home/small business printers that do not require frequent, expensive cartridge replacements — but they will charge considerably more for the machines. This is the opposite of the classic razor-and-blades strategy where the initial cost of a device is relatively cheap, but the consumables eat you up.

The equation will change dramatically; low-end machines can cost as little as $60 these days, and print around 220 documents per cartridge. The new line will start at $380 — but the initial ink supply will keep on going and going and going for 4,000 docs, and refills will cost $13.

“It’s a really big advantage to the end user,” says John Lang, Epson’s chief executive officer for North America told Bloomberg’s Kyle Stock. “That anxiety and that fear of running out of ink — it’s amazing to me that that was so prevalent.”

As Stock notes, "anxiety" isn't the word we were looking for. 

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#Quote

"I found it really ironic that the multi-billion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the start-up with no cash flow reacted to criticism like a corporate machine.”

— Taylor Swift, on the reactions by Apple and Spotify (respectively) to her criticism of their streaming business models.

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Last Madoff Standing: The last defendant to be sentenced in the Bernie Madoff scam learns his fate Wednesday.

Irwin Lipkin was one of Madoff’s first employees, back in 1964 when things were still legit. Lipkin pleaded guilty of falsifying records in the scheme, which defrauded investors of about $17 billion — the headline number of $65 billion refers to the phony value of Madoff’s phony fund portfolio.

The 77-year-old Lipkin is hoping for probation, citing failing health. Prosecutors are asking for jail time. Madoff himself is serving a 105-year sentence. About $10 billion has been recovered.

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Here's the official lineup for Thursday's prime-time GOP debate on Fox, the first of the 2016 election. Fox cut off the field at 10 — there are 17 announced Republican candidates — based on the standing in five national polls, as of 5 pm Tuesday.

1. Donald Trump
2. Jeb Bush
3. Scott Walker
4. Marco Rubio
5. Ted Cruz
6. Rand Paul
7. Ben Carson
8. Mike Huckabee
9. Chris Christie
10. John Kasich

The other seven Republican hopefuls have been invited to a debate at 5 pm. That's well outside of prime time, but earlier, so it could factor in to the main event. They are:

1. Rick Perry
2. Rick Santorum
3. Bobby Jindal
4. Carly Fiorina
5. Lindsey Graham
6. George Pataki
7. Jim Gilmore

For the record, the 5 pm seating has two nicknames: The Kid's Table, and — my favorite — The Happy Hour. 

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Cover Art: T-Mobile CEO John Legere (Photo by Steve Sands/WireImage)