What we’re reading (11/17)
“Market Rout Intensifies, Sweeping Up Everything From Tech To Crypto To Gold” (Wall Street Journal). “An intensifying selloff across financial markets Monday ensnared everything from gold to crypto to highflying tech stocks, dragging the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst three-day stretch since President Trump’s tariff turmoil in April. Investors in recent days have dumped assets in the lead-up to key tests for whether the artificial-intelligence boom and economic growth that powered stocks to successive records in 2025 will continue into the new year.”
“Arguments For A Coming Rebound In The Economy” (Torsten Sløk). “The arguments for a rebound in the economy over the coming quarters are that (1) Liberation Day was almost eight months ago, (2) fiscal and monetary policy are easy, and (3) easy financial conditions point to a reacceleration in the economy[.]”
“Fear Engulfs Bitcoin Traders Betting On Free Fall To $80,000” (Bloomberg). “The world’s largest cryptocurrency plunged below $91,500 Monday, deepening a selloff that’s erased all of its gains for the year. In the options market, traders are making increasingly bearish wagers, on the conviction that the slide is far from over as deep-pocketed buyers beat a retreat.”
“The Most Joyless Tech Revolution Ever: AI Is Making Us Rich And Unhappy” (Wall Street Journal). “The dot-com bubble, like the AI boom, had its excesses and absurdity. But it also shimmered with optimism and adventure. From Fortune 500 CEOs to college dropouts, everyone had a web-based business idea. Demand for digitally savvy workers was off the charts. Today, the optimism is largely confined to AI architects and gimlet-eyed executives calculating how much AI can reduce head count while workers wonder whether they will be replaced by AI, or someone who knows AI. Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Amazon, three of the leading purveyors of AI, have all announced layoffs this year.”
“Price Control Apologia” (John Cochrane). “A rent control only makes rental ‘affordable’ for the lucky recipient. It does not make rental housing more ‘affordable’ for society as a whole. It does not increase the number of people who have housing. Indeed it reduces that number. It just changes who gets it. It does not even make housing more ‘affordable’ on average. For those who want it must now pay with time, and inconvenience, or pay by foregoing the great opportunities that moving to the city provided. The biggest losers of rent control are the young, the mobile, the ambitious, immigrants, and people without a lot of cash. If you want to move from Fresno to take a job in San Francisco and move up, and you don’t have millions lying around to buy, you need rentals. Rent control means they are not available. Income inequality, opportunity, equity, all get worse.”
