What we’re reading (5/2)
“Job Openings Near Two-Year Low As Layoffs Jump” (Wall Street Journal). “U.S. job openings dropped to their lowest level in nearly two years in March and layoffs rose sharply, in signs that demand for workers is cooling a year after the Federal Reserve began lifting interest rates to combat inflation.”
“Subway Comes Up With Debt Plan To Clinch $10 Billion-Plus Sale” (Reuters). “The bankers running the sale process for Subway have given the private equity firms vying for the sandwich chain a $5 billion acquisition financing plan, hoping to overcome a challenging environment for leveraged buyouts and fetch the company's asking price of more than $10 billion, people familiar with the matter said.”
“Michael Milken Says Recent Crisis Is The Same Mistake Banks Have Been Making For Decades” (CNBC). “Famed investor Michael Milken said Tuesday that the current banking crisis stemmed from a classic asset-liability mismatch that has played out miserably time and again in history. ‘You shouldn’t have borrowed short and lent long... Finance 101,’ Milken said on CNBC’s ‘Last Call.’ ‘How many times, how many decades are we going to learn this lesson of borrowing overnight and lending long? Whether it was the 1970s, the 1980s and 90s.’”
“What’s Driving Dollar Doomsaying?” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). “The point is that tugging on one or two strands of this web isn’t likely to cause it to unravel. Even if some governments express a desire to see payments conducted in other currencies, it’s not at all clear they can make that happen, since we’re mostly talking about private-sector decisions. And even if they can make partial de-dollarization stick, all the other advantages of the dollar as a banking and borrowing currency will remain. So ignore all the dollar doomers out there. Or better yet, consider what their hyping of a nonissue says about their own judgment.”
“‘Not My King’ Protests Are Now The Norm At King Charles III’s Events” (Washington Post). “A change of sovereign, … for the first time in seven decades, has energized the republican movement and prompted others in Britain, and the 14 other countries where Charles is king, to look at the monarchy anew and begin to question aspects of its role in modern times.”
