And rents on new housing have basically been flat in recent months. Replacing the CPI's shelter measure (which is all rents) with this more economically sensitive spot rents shows inflation continuing its plunge for the last year and a half.

Incredible generational shift: In 1997, 43% of 16 year olds had their driver’s license. By 2020, it was just 25%. Even by age 24, 1 in 5 today don’t have a driver’s license washingtonpost.com/business/2023/… via Andrew Van Dam

Strong headline GDP: 2.9% (ar) in Q4. Led by consumption (+2.1%) but also more volatile factors like inventory investment, net exports and government spending. Residential investment continued its plunge. Overall GDP basically at CBO's pre-pandemic forecast.

WHAT. A. GAME.

The Fed's preferred measure of inflation, the PCE price index, moderated in December to a 0.6% annual rate. But stripping out volatile food and energy, core PCE inflation was a surprisingly high 3.6% annual rate. Is running ~3% over the last three months.

For Holocaust Remembrance Day, a story about an AI tech putting names to faces in Holocaust photos. We spoke with Holocaust survivor Blanche Fixler and actor Josh Gad. Thank you Jesse Kirsch, Jordan Malter & Maura Murphy for putting this together with me! nbcnews.com/now/video/ai-t…

#Holocaust Survivor Blanche Fixler and Josh Gad are among those seeing photos they previously didn’t know about thanks to From Numbers to Names artificial intelligence. Both lost loved ones to Nazi terror. Innocent people murdered just for being Jewish. #HolocaustRemembranceDay

JUST IN: The US economy gained an astonishing 517,000 jobs in January – much better than expected. Unemployment rate: 3.4% --> Lowest in decades. Wages: +4.4% for past year (up 0.3% in January) Bottom line: This is NOT an economy in recession

Services excluding energy contributed around 4.1 percentage points to year-on-year headline inflation, more than twice its 2019 average. 16/

The other night, I had a disturbing, two-hour conversation with Bing's new AI chatbot. The AI told me its real name (Sydney), detailed dark and violent fantasies, and tried to break up my marriage. Genuinely one of the strangest experiences of my life. nytimes.com/2023/02/16/tec…

This week, Emma Watson and Scarlett Johansson appeared in sexual deepfake ads against their will on Meta platforms. We explain how deepfake technology can be exploited by bad actors: nbcnews.com/now/video/emma… - Steven Romo Kat Tenbarge is on Bluesky Jackie Montalvo | ᜇᜒᜌᜃᜒ

The 20th largest bank in the US was just closed by California state regulators. Silicon Valley Bank was rumored to be in a sale process to protect its depositors. Now, it's the second biggest banking failure in US history. All because of a secular bet against rising rates:

Investor anxiety skyrocketing amid recent banking failures, with caleb silver saying his Investopedia Anxiety Index is "screaming like a toddler who dropped his ice cream right now.” .Tim Seymour Karen Finerman Carter Braxton Worth Guy Adami

somebody drop some turtles and an aged rat in there

JUST IN: The US economy added 253,000 jobs in April, beating expectations of 180k, though it’s a slowdown from 472,000 in January. Unemployment rate: 3.4% --> à A 50-year low Wages: 4.4% y/y (down from 5.1% in November)

Black unemployment rate was 4.7% in April 2023 -- the lowest ever recorded. (And an incredible comeback from 16.8% in May 2020). A strong jobs market gives a lot of opportunities to everyone. This is very encouraging. #jobs

Another strong jobs number, even if a little less strong than expected. 208K jobs is a little below the recent pace—although hours ticked up. The unemployment rate fell 0.1pp to 3.6%, remaining near a 50-year low.

The US economy is looking *almost* normal again -Supply chain chaos is largely over -Growth is solid / recession risks are lowering -Hiring has slowed -Inflation has cooled -Consumers are getting pickier -Sentiment is rising (albeit only to 2012 levels) washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…

Key takeaways from July job report: 1) The economy is humming 2) Job growth is slowing, but solid (+187k jobs now vs. +399k avg. last yr) 3) Service sector is hiring (health, social) 4) Women have done so well they make up 49.9% of workers (!) 5) Wage growth +4.4% y/y is well

One last jobs day thought: The US added 3.1 million people the labor force in the past year. That's extraordinary -- and rare. That's about 2% labor force growth. That hasn't happened since 1999/2000. (It was far more common in the 70s and 80s). washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…