Every one that has eye can see that the Fed isn’t cutting interest rates. Apparently the stock market just realized? Bottom line inflation isn’t over and adding tarrifs to steel imports will only add fuel to the fire. Property and insurance is also piliing on inflation pressure

But it isn’t all gloom and doom. Long term energy production will ensure that the US economy remains top dog in the world. We produced a staggering 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023. There is also a broad consensus that natural gas is the right bridge energy to remove the last of the coal fired plants. All of this will remain a tailwind for the US, especially energy intensive industries.

The labor market is robust but wage growth has cooled. Long term worker pay needs to stabilize with long term inflation. Inflation is squeezing margins but businesses should expect increasing worker demand for raises. Demographics, increased union support and reshoring will all drive wages.

Elon Musk creates a lot of buzz, but if you look at two of his companies his actual impact is pretty visible. SpaceX has spurred an entire industry of providing cheaper commercial access to space. While success if obvious, the associated cost have not fully worked out. A recent impact of space debris on a home in Florida could become more common and the insurance industry is taking notice. Ultimately who is responsible when a Star Link microsatellite deorbits into someone’s property?

Likewise Tesla has long been the leader in electric cars it he US. Musk’s stated goal was to accelerate the EV technology, and he suceeded. With increasing competition from domestic and foreign manufacturers the company has doubled down on self-driving software side of the business. Again the insurance industry is taking notice. In my opinion, the biggest threat to Musk’s vision is not the technology or the consumers but the regulatory and risk mitigation aspects.

TOPICS

• Fed Rate
• Inflation
• Energy
• Labor Market
• Automotive
• EVs
• Commercial Space

A stark reminder of where the “big three” auto makers rank by market cap. If the future of automotive is electric, Tesla obviously has an early advantage. Toyota takes a slightly different track with hybrids. Maybe you’ve never heard of BYD, but the Chinese manufacturer has already seen success with exporting vehicles.

A brief summary of Dot-Com Bubble 2.0: How Did We Get Here? by Prithvi Raj Chauhan posted on Hacker Noon

Overview

The bubble repeated, for different underlying speculative reasons but effectively the same boom-bust cycle. What happens next to employment and the broad economy is likely a replay of the early 2000s.

@Prcwrites does a great job covering the technical aspects, I’d like to add some perspective from the employment.

Below is a list of tools and sites I use for my daily media consumption. This list is not exhaustive and represents the top-tier level of information I consume.

Newsletters

Curated SubStack and equivalents. Most are free but I have upgraded to pay for several very valuable authors. Delivered daily, topics range from tech, economy to local (Charlotte, NC) news

Hey is a great email tool from 37Signals that makes sorting, categorizing, tracking email a breeze. All the newsletters go to “the feed” which is an auto-expiring list of emails that reads more like an endless scrolling timeline or blog. Love this product.

RSS / Newsfeed

I use RSS to track various news sources including tech, business, security, national defense and local sources. Most major publications maintain active RSS feed, though sometimes you need to search for them. Inoreader is my new favorite RSS aggregation tool.

I was a long time user of Feedly but more frequently found features behind the paywall. I also experienced several feeds not updating even though the origin site was posting content. Not sure what is going on there, but either way I need to see the latest content everywhere.