In testimony before the Senate yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stated that it was past time to stop using the term “transitory” to describe the present inflation dynamics in the United States. This is the background: Powell has been leading Team Transitory since May, when due to the disruption in supply chain caused due … Read more
Yesterday, Jack Dorsey announced that he was stepping down as the company’s CEO after eight years of seeing brands harass random people on Twitter. Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s current Chief Technology Officer, has been given the keys to the birdcage. Background information in 300 characters or less: Dorsey cofounded Twitter in 2006 and served as the … Read more
What happens when we take a three-day gap from producing a newsletter? A new Covid-19 strain known as Omicron emerges, putting the entire world on high alert because of its propensity to spread swiftly, circumvent protection provided by current vaccines, and raise the danger of reinfection. Never, ever again. So, what exactly is Omicron, and … Read more
The most amusing part about the current inflation hysteria is that everything happened so quickly. The first Covid wave swept through the United States last spring, causing more than 20 million Americans to lose their jobs and plunging the country into its worst recession in recorded history. With the economy contracting by 31.4 percent in … Read more
I swear it seems like every other week, a new corporation announces a huge project in the state of Texas. Today’s entry: Samsung, the Korean technology behemoth, announced plans to develop a $17 billion advanced chipmaking facility in Taylor, Texas, roughly 30 miles north of Austin. It’s a major thing, both in terms of monetary value … Read more
Prepare to see Jerome Powell in our daily columns for the next four years, as President Biden recently appointed him to run the Federal Reserve for another four years. Lael Brainard, a Fed Governor who was also in the race to replace Powell, was also selected as vice chair of the Fed by the president.By picking … Read more
Visa is starting to feel as left out as those of us who didn’t get invited to a Friendsgiving in the fast-changing world of payments. Amazon announced this week that starting next year, it will no longer accept Visa-branded credit cards from UK consumers. This follows Amazon’s retaliation in Australia and Singapore, where it imposed … Read more
There were many of distractions this week, from Crypto.com Arena to Adele’s new album, from the more sobering news that Covid-19 is rearing its spiky head once again, prompting lockdowns, moving markets, and increasing the urgency around the launch of booster shots. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new. Unleash the booster shots: The CDC … Read more
On a night when the world witnessed the longest partial lunar eclipse in 581 years, the House of Representatives moved closer to making its own history by passing the Build Back Better (BBB) measure. This $1.75 trillion proposal, backed by Democrats but opposed by Republicans, invests in everything from education to healthcare to combating climate … Read more
The best way to describe what’s happening right now is that Supply chains have taken a laxative. That is, the supply chain bottlenecks that have troubled the global economy for more than a year are slowly but steadily easing—or at the very least being avoided. This week, the country’s leading retailers said in unity that supply chain … Read more