What we’re reading (10/1)
“Yellen Lends Support For Effort To Remove The Debt Ceiling Altogether” (CNBC). “With a potential default looming for the U.S. in October, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday she would just as soon see the power over debt limits taken away from Congress. A bill introduced in May would repeal the national debt ceiling, and Yellen said ‘yes, I would’ when asked during a House hearing if she backs the effort. She noted Congress makes the decisions on taxes and spending, and should provide the ability to pay those obligations.”
“Mail Delivery Slowdown: USPS To Slow Delivery Starting October 1” (CBS News). “Mail delivery for many Americans will slow starting on Friday, part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's blueprint for overhauling the U.S. Postal Service in order to slash costs. But critics say the slower delivery standards could cause problems such as late bill delivery while more broadly undermining the public's faith in the USPS…[s]tarting [today], the postal service's current three-day delivery standard for first-class mail — letters, bills, tax documents and the like — will drop to delivery anywhere within the U.S. within five days. “
“Boy, Robinhood And Citadel Securities Sure Were Chatty During That Whole GameStop Thing” (Dealbreaker). “More or less from the moment Robinhood and others began to place limits on retail customers’ trading of GameStop and other meme shares, those thereby blocked from doing so have presumed nefarious motives. The degenerates and diamond hands looked at the relationship between, say Robinhood and Citadel Securities, a company which contributes it share of 80% of Robinhood’s revenue, and whose sister hedge fund had rather a vested interest in seeing the short-squeeze crushing founder Ken Griffin’s buddy end, and concluded that the fix was in. Well, the internal communications over at Robinhood in the run-up to the trading restrictions isn’t likely to disabuse them of that notion.”
“Inside America’s Broken Supply Chain” (Washington Post). “The commercial pipeline that each year brings $1 trillion worth of toys, clothing, electronics and furniture from Asia to the United States is clogged and no one knows how to unclog it. This month, the median cost of shipping a standard rectangular metal container from China to the West Coast of the United States hit a record $20,586, almost twice what it cost in July, which was twice what it cost in January, according to the Freightos index. Essential freight-handling equipment too often is not where it’s needed, and when it is, there aren’t enough truckers or warehouse workers to operate it.”
“Review Analysis: Stanford Students Are More Likely To Wear Masks On Bicycles Than Helmets” (Stanford Review). “On Wednesday, September 22nd, in the 1:00 pm hour, I observed 400 Stanford cyclists on Lasuen Mall, a popular campus street for bicycles. I simply noted whether each cyclist wore a mask, a helmet, neither, or both. Here are the final tallies: Total cyclists: 400 - (100%)[;] No mask, no helmet: 195 - (49%)[;] Mask, no helmet: 134 - (34%)[;] Helmet, no mask: 42 - (10%)[;] Mask and helmet: 29 - (7%)[.] That works out to a masking rate of 41% and helmet-wearing rate of 17%. So, Stanford students are about twice as likely to wear a mask on a bicycle as a helmet…at one of America’s leading research universities, students wear masks on bicycles at a higher rate than they wear helmets.”
