What we’re reading (11/11)
Happy Veterans Day!
“Claudia Sahm: ‘We Do Not Need A Recession, But We May Get One’” (Financial Times). “What I do know is that the US economy is leaving 2023 in a better place than when it came into it, and a better place than the vast majority of commentators thought it would be in. On balance, inflation is still higher than we had expected, but for almost two years running we’ve had unemployment below 4 per cent, [strong] inflation-adjusted GDP growth and real consumer spending, too. So if you take it all together, that’s really good. And the thing that happened this year that wasn’t supposed to happen was inflation came down markedly and unemployment stayed low. That opens up a conversation of whether we need to have a recession. I have said the whole time that we do not need a recession, but we may get one.”
“Bonds vs. Bond Funds: How Higher Rates Are Changing The Calculation” (Wall Street Journal). “During the yearslong period of near-zero interest rates, the answer seemed simple: Funds had low fees and were easy to buy and sell, and share values rose alongside bond prices. If any one bond defaulted, losses were minimal. The historic declines suffered by major bond funds last year highlighted the risks of that approach. Rising rates crushed funds’ share prices. That is because bond prices drop when new higher-yielding bonds come on the market and make older, lower-yielding bonds less attractive. Because funds’ share values are based on the market price of their bonds, someone who bought shares a few years ago could end up cashing out today with less money than they put in.”
“Google In-House Attys Joked About ‘Fake Privilege,’ Jury Told” (Law360). “Two in-house Google lawyers communicating on an internal company chat joked about ‘fake privilege’ — a practice of unnecessarily involving a lawyer in a matter to make it confidential — an attorney for Epic Games showed jurors in a California federal antitrust case against the tech giant.”
“Xi Jinping’s ‘Old Friends’ From Iowa Get A Dinner Invitation” (Bloomberg). “A group of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “old friends” from Iowa have been invited to a dinner he will attend in California next week — 38 years after they welcomed the then-unknown party official for a hog roast, farm tours and a Mississippi River boat ride as they showed him how capitalists do agriculture.”
“Inside An OnlyFans Empire: Sex, Influence And The New American Dream” (Washington Post). “In the American creator economy, no platform is quite as direct or effective as OnlyFans. Since launching in 2016, the subscription site known primarily for its explicit videos has become one of the most methodical, cash-rich and least known layers of the online-influencer industry, touching every social platform and, for some creators, unlocking a once-unimaginable level of wealth…If OnlyFans’s creator earnings were taken as a whole, the company would rank around No. 90 on Forbes’s list of the biggest private companies in America by revenue, ahead of Twitter (now called X), Neiman Marcus Group, New Balance, Hard Rock International and Hallmark Cards.”
