hcmacro

Nope, the Fed cares about PCE because that’s the inflation measure it targets over time. Consequently, core PCE and core PCE services ex-housing.

CPI and PPI matter for policy setting to the extent that their components feed into PCE. But Core CPI Services-XH and Core PCE Serviced-XH have little overlap in their components. The Fed is concerned about the latter falling because real rates, in the model that the Fed uses, get tighter the longer rates remain on hold. Just look at the last quarterly SEP—it forecasts PCE not CPI.

CPI ain't PCE my guy. Other than suggesting a firm January print, this print has not really changed forecasts for core PCE--the Fed's preferred target---to hit 2% yoy by May.

Rather than repeat the "markets remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent refrain," I will give you a less common reason for caution...

If you're right, you'll likely be tempted to short again.

quite possibly one of the dumbest things you can do, even if you end up being right at some point.

same same

You should look up Wynne Godley and Sectoral Balances.

I'd say Japan (China followed Singapore in development).

So Stripe going to get marked down again? Tough to IPO this far below your valuation high water mark, at least judging from its closest comp.

And not too many years later, Northern Europe went to war with the Sun King. Longevity regression is equally likely if that happens again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/magazine/ai-start-up-acce...

Read Prospects for Industrial Civilization by Bertrand Russell and you'll see that the reactionary turn by the "Old Left" was inevitable.

Perhaps the most terrifying headline I've read in a while.

Hopefully the laid off employees fared better than the retail bagholders.

The Last of Us

I get the sense that cultural malaise and managerial rent-seeking afflict many legacy firms (outside of tech). In some ways, such corporations feel like they're converging with peers in Japan---a gerontocratic society with limited social mobility (not a novel observation). If corporate America is indeed undergoing a process of "Japanification," such a phenomenon would likely result in outcomes at odds with received wisdom on career success. The type of worker "unruliness" documented here then should be unsurprising.

(As an aside, I find it interesting that Japan has had pretty low levels of unemployment over the past twenty years. One might even expect this in a paternalistic society that bolsters rent-seeking incumbents. Hence, individuals can feel "stuck" even as the media superficially assesses data to fit the narrative of a "hot economy.").

(Another observation, it's funny for the article to cite an executive comparing Americans to people in a country where menial workers are paid slave wages.)

Check out VNM, the country ETF, for a chuckle.

Headline is clickbait tbf

OTOH probably gonna be harder for startups and VCs to "pull one over" public investors and dumb management teams.

For a rebuttal to the critiques of excess found here, I recommend Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees (which Keynes references in the General Theory).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees

I do think it's worth contextualizing such debates about vice and virtue in the politics of the time. Court-favorites like the Duke of Marlborough (whom Mandeville defends here) using war to enrich themselves. Naturally this irked wealthy gentry who loathed the associated taxes and had rival commercial interests.

TINA — There is no alternative.

“At the beginning sure…”

Not even at the beginning. It’s laughable to intimate that a Crown monopoly and something exclusively owned by members of Parliament is anything but state-owned enterprise. The Company even struggled for the first half of the 17th century until Parliament pursued more heavy-handed mercantilism after the English Civil War.

The author writes: “one of the exemplars of administration that found success was the British East India Company. They ruled over an empire, created an empire in point of fact, and seemed to only be dislodged through the Queen’s velvet glove smacking them on the head, dissolving it in 1874 by government decree.”

This take is painfully revisionist. The Company was already suffering rot by the late 1700s culminating in the impeachment of Warren Hastings and later the revocation of its monopoly in 1813 (when Britain turned to more “liberal” economic policy). People like Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, and Edmund Burke throughly condemned a corrupt political system that kept this zombie entity alive.

For a more realistic overview, especially on the intimate links between government and the Company, I recommend Nick Robins’ The Corporation that Ruled the World and Priya Satia’s Empire of Guns.

"In fact the market economy has been key in fighting poverty and under-development since the industrial revolution."

Worth noting that Karl Polanyi, whose influence DeLong cites, made the opposite claim in The Great Transformation.

Worth Googling "Larry Ellison Trump" or "Safra Catz Trump"

You're right. I looked at the examples he linked and instead said "this isn't working well, f** PE for making it worse."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/kkr-brig...

Associated FT article:

https://www.ft.com/content/f5ebbc8d-c030-4e4a-b520-cbd4bdc73...

Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark is all about this.

Rising nationalism worldwide is a bane to European prosperity and I don't see that trend reversing. In the latest bout of EUR depreciation, one can interpret Russia's invasion as a nationalist imperative. The prior bout of EUR volatility accompanied Brexit, of course. And over the last decade, the US has been a better investment destination than Europe (probably the case going forward too).

In contrast, many commentators thought London (and Paris to a much lesser extent) would take financial market share away from New York during the aughts, the heyday of globalization. Celebrities like Gisele famously demanded to be paid in EUR, while Jay-Z showed off his Euro notes in the video for "Blue Magic."

$DXY has been rising since Jan 2021, not yesterday.

I spent a year and a half writing an economic history book that I knew was unlikely to be profitable. Nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable experience and I learned quite a bit.

https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Nations-Shaped-Todays-Economy...

Does it really matter? It's almost assured that private valuations will get written down with a lag (already underway). Favorable public markets are what allowed VCs to foist the turd on the greater fool for a decade.