What we’re reading (10/10)
“The Endless Downfall Of A Crypto Power Couple” (New York Times). “He was a wealthy cryptocurrency executive with a shiny white Porsche and a luxury condo in the Bahamas. She was a crypto policy expert with political ambitions, advocating for the industry in Washington…Two years ago, the FTX executive Ryan Salame and the crypto advocate Michelle Bond were an industry power couple. Mr. Salame gave tens of millions of dollars to conservative politicians, who celebrated him as a “budding Republican megadonor,” while Ms. Bond ran for Congress, drawing support from Donald Trump Jr. But this tale of crypto boy meets crypto girl has turned into a legal nightmare. Mr. Salame, 31, once a top lieutenant to Mr. Bankman-Fried, is set to report to federal prison in Maryland on Friday to start a sentence of seven and a half years, after he pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud. In August, Ms. Bond, 45, who lives with Mr. Salame and their infant son in Potomac, Md., was also charged with campaign finance violations linked to FTX.”
“Fed’s 2% Inflation Target Is ‘Sacrosanct’ — And Here” (Semafor). “[Austan Goolsbee on “how sacrosanct is the Fed’s 2% target?] When the Fed announced the 2% inflation target in 2012 and made it official, I was critical because I thought it was overly precise for a data series with a lot of noise in it. But that is now a sacred promise, and I will say that I’ve come — if not a full 180 degrees, maybe 178 degrees on this. The target was an anchor when inflation surged and kept things from spiraling.”
“Activist Accuses Pfizer Of Pressuring Former Executives” (Wall Street Journal). “The fight between Starboard Value and drug giant Pfizer took an unusual, bitter turn Thursday. Hours after two former top Pfizer executives said they would no longer participate in Starboard’s activist campaign, the investor accused the drugmaker of pressuring the executives to remain loyal to their longtime employer.”
“Elon Musk Is About To Reveal Tesla’s Robotaxi. Uber And Lyft Should Be Nervous.” (Business Insider). “Elon Musk's highly anticipated Robotaxi Day is finally happening Thursday evening in Hollywood — and it has the potential to shake up the ride-hailing industry. Musk has been touting Tesla's Full Self-Driving software and its potential to create a robotaxi network for years. Analysts have told Business Insider that Tesla's emergence in the ride-hailing industry could pose a long-term threat to Uber and Lyft. It may also force them to develop and expand their own autonomous-vehicle offerings or seek out a partnership with Musk's company, similar to Uber's partnership with Alphabet-owned Waymo.”
“The Conflict-Of-Interest Discount In The Marketplace Of Ideas” (Barrios, et al.). “We conduct a survey of economists and a representative sample of Americans to infer the reduction in the perceived value of a paper when its authors have conflicts of interest (CoI), i.e., they have financial, professional, or ideological stakes in the outcome of the results…We show that, on average, conflicted papers are worth less than half of non-conflicted ones, though this effect varies significantly depending on the nature of the conflict.”
