* GOP senators set to propose $1 trillion infrastructure counteroffer to Biden
* Exxon faces challenge on climate from an activist investor
* Is money supply the key factor driving the price of gold?
* US Consumer Confidence Index fell for first time in six months in May
* New US home sales fell more than expected in April
* Year-over-year change for US house prices reached 15-year high in March:
Earlier this month, I reviewed a model that estimates a theoretical level for the world’s most-important interest rate: the 10-year Treasury yield. In today’s follow-up, let’s consider a second model for additional context.
* EU and US impose new sanctions on Belarus after forced landing of jet
* CNN’s Back-To-Normal Index shows US economy close to full recovery
* Vaccinated Americans remain muted force for powering economic rebound
* Amazon reportedly close to acquiring Hollywood studio MGM
* China’s currency rises to 3-year high against US dollar
* Is market’s inflation focus obscuring risk of flare-up in US-China tension?
* German economy fell more than expected in the first quarter
* Germany businesses are more optimistic in May about economic outlook
* US growth cooled in April after March surge via Chicago Fed Nat’l Activity Index:
Foreign and US property shares rallied last week, posting the strongest gains for the major asset classes, based on a set of exchange traded funds through Friday, May 21.
Continue reading
* Belarus forces airliner to land, arrests opposition journalist
* Bipartisan group of Senators reach agreement on infrastructure spending
* Biden presidency faces crucial phase with its ambitious agenda
* Will consumers continue to spend as economies reopen?
* New US daily coronavirus cases fall to one-year low
* US existing home sales declined for a third straight month in April
* US economic growth continues to accelerate in May:
Global markets posted a mixed but mostly serene week of results through Friday, May 21. The tranquility spilled over to our proprietary strategies, which were essentially unchanged last week.
Will Page
Review via The Financial Times
Tarzan Economics borrows its title from technologist Jim Griffin’s 2009 speech reflecting on the music industry’s response to the file-sharer Napster. Griffin described how successful companies need always to swing forwards, Tarzan-like, by reaching “for the next vine”. Page has done time in the jungle himself, as a civil servant turned chief economist at PRS, the UK music rights collecting society, and Spotify.
He applies his “rockonomist” eye well beyond the music business, which he argues just happened to be the first industry to suffer significant digital disruption, and therefore the first to “grab a new vine” of streaming services and recover. “The customer rarely buys what the company thinks it is selling,” management thinker Peter Drucker said. “That’s why you need this book,” Page writes. “It makes you look afresh at what you think you know.”
In this issue:
Long ago and far away, economists thought they understood the relationship between unemployment and inflation. The prevailing wisdom back in the day: higher (lower) inflation aligned with lower (higher) unemployment. Believing in this relationship appeared to be reasonable for the 1960s. But then something happened to shatter this conviction: the 1970s.
* Cease-fire between Israel and Hamas puts 11-day war on hold
* US proposes minimum 15% global tax on multinational firms
* US Treasury wants crypto transfers over $10k reported to IRS
* Eurozone Composite PMI (a GDP proxy) rises to 39-month high in May
* UK private-sector growth in May jumps to fastest pace in two decades-plus
* Japan slips back into economic contraction in May via PMI survey data
* US Leading Economic Index rose in April, surpassing pre-pandemic high
* Philly Fed Mfg Index: growth cooled in May but remains strong
* US jobless claims continue falling, dropping to new pandemic low:
