What we’re reading (7/15)
“Powell Indicates Fed Won’t Wait Until Inflation Is Down To 2% Before Cutting Rates” (NBC News). “Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Monday that the central bank will not wait until inflation hits 2% to cut interest rates. Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington D.C., Powell referenced the idea that central bank policy works with ‘long and variable lags’ to explain why the Fed wouldn’t wait for its target to be hit.”
“Stock Dudes Risk A Market Wipeout” (Wall Street Journal). “The wave that broke was the momentum trade, which had pushed the ‘Magnificent Seven’ megacapitalization stocks and anything related to artificial intelligence to dizzying heights, leaving the rest of the market far behind. The question for investors now is whether the breakers will hit the rocks, or merely prove to be white caps far from the shore. Is the megacap trade over?”
“Unearthed 1980s Bill Gates Interview Features The Microsoft Founder Talking About The Earliest Iterations Of AI” (Business Insider). “‘Another thing that we're trying to get the computer to do is learn,’ Gates said in the interview. ‘That is, after you've used it for a while, then you'll be able to refer back to something you've done previously so you don't have to repeat those commands.’ He added that the computer will be able to recognize mistakes the same way ‘a human coworker might and aid you in the working process with the machine.’”
“As Policy Types Cheer the Demise Of ‘Inflation,’ Inflation Arrives” (Forbes). “Here lies the error, one of many, in using market prices as a proxy for what is always and everywhere a currency phenomenon. As has been said here over and over again, and for years, there’s an ocean of difference between rising prices and inflation. Inflation is a shrinkage of the monetary measure, in our case the dollar. Higher prices are at best a consequence of the inflation.”
“How Janet Yellen Became An Unlikely Culinary Diplomat” (New York Times). “There was mayonnaise mixed with ants at a gastronomic taqueria in Mexico City. The garlic at a Persian restaurant in Frankfurt was aged 25 years. And, yes, the magic mushrooms in Beijing were hallucinogenic. This isn’t an Anthony Bourdain travel show but rather a taste of what Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, has been eating on the road over the more than 300,000 miles she has logged over the last three years as she has been grappling with inflation and devising new ways to cripple the Russian economy.”
