Sneaky Netflix 📺
  Welcome back. US markets were closed today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Let's get into it. NETFLIX RAISES PRICES  When you need to release unpopular news about your company, the Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend is a time-honored PR tradition.
That's perhaps why you might have missed the news that Netflix is raising its prices. Again.
Here's the deal: In the United States, the subscription price for the standard plan is going up $1.50 to $15.49. The basic plan went up $1 to $9.99 and the premium plan went up $2 to $19.99
For once, inflation only gets part of the blame.
The primary reason behind the price hike is pretty simple: Netflix has been spending billions of dollars on content — the "Bridgerton" corset budget alone is probably equal to a small nation's GDP. And competition in the streaming space is fiercer than ever. Netflix is the OG, and as long as its producers keep churning out murder-y dystopian Korean game show dramas and eccentric big-cat breeder documentaries, the company's reign isn't under threat...for now.
But there are only so many potential subscribers on the planet, so Netflix has to find ways to bring in new revenue. Raising prices on consumers is an easy way to do that.
Look ahead: Netflix reports fourth-quarter earnings this Thursday. Wall Street analysts will be homing in on the company's subscriber growth and updates on its foray into video game streaming. #️⃣ NUMBER OF THE DAY 4,200 On Sunday and Monday, US airlines canceled roughly 4,200 flights as a powerful winter storm slammed the East Coast. Snow, rain, sleet and tornadoes from Florida to Maine snarled travel and caused widespread power outages.
BUCK-TWENTY-FIVE  Dollar Tree recently raised prices from $1 to $1.25, and that ticking off some fans. A small sampling of the social media outrage:
"I am not happy!"
"Calamity."
"Sick to my stomach."
Those criticisms highlight the risks that Dollar Tree — the last of the big dollar store chains to actually sell nearly everything for a dollar — took when it abandoned its $1 brand identity in December.
We won't know for certain whether customers are actually ditching Dollar Tree for other stores until it reports its quarterly results in a few weeks, but there are some early signs of frustration.
A weekly online survey of around 500 consumers by Coresight, a retail research and advisory firm, found a 6.2% drop from December 27 to January 3 in the number of customers who said they bought non-food items at Dollar Tree compared to the prior two weeks. A steeper decline of 12.2% was recorded among shoppers ages 45 to 60.
Other chains, including Walmart and Dollar General, did not see similar drops in the surveys.
CNN Business' Nathaniel Meyersohn has more on why Dollar Tree ditched the price point that made its name.
QUOTE OF THE DAY  Senators now face one of the most existential choices of their tenure: protect our voting rights or go down in history as an enabler of voter suppression. Martin Luther King III, son of the late civil rights leader, marked his father's birthday in Arizona on Saturday, renewing calls for lawmakers to pass legislation to strengthen voting rights.
"Today, on my father's 93rd birthday, we are not here to celebrate," King said. "We are here to issue an urgent call to President Biden and the Senate" to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The Senate was expected to take up the legislation on Tuesday.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? 📈 China's economy expanded 8.1% last year, far exceeding the government's own targets. But weakening growth in the closing months of 2021 suggests that trouble is still on the horizon as the country contends with a real estate crisis and Covid outbreaks.
💊 Unilever is attempting to take over GlaxoSmithKline's consumer healthcare business, which makes products such as Advil, Tums and Aquafresh toothpaste.
🏦 The chairman of Credit Suisse has resigned following an investigation commissioned by the bank's board that reportedly looked at claims that he broke Covid-19 rules. TWEET OF THE DAY 
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