Tuesday morning news drop
March 2020: How the Fed Averted Economic Disaster As markets plunged, Jerome Powell and his colleagues vastly expanded the reach of the central bank, with implications that will be felt for years to come. (Wall Street Journal)
Corporate pricing is boosting inflation — but we’re still buying Corporations pass more than increased costs on to consumers. (Vox)
Wall Street Is Buying Starter Homes to Quietly Become America’s Landlord Private equity money is pouring into the Phoenix real estate market, turning first-time homebuyers into renters. (BusinessWeek)
The Mystery of the Declining U.S. Birth Rate The U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007. This decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic, or policy changes. (Econofact)
The pandemic’s true death toll: Millions more than official counts: Countries have reported some five million COVID-19 deaths in two years, but global excess deaths are estimated at double or even quadruple that figure. (Nature)
China promised Trump a better deal for America; it didn’t actually deliver. While China did ramp up its purchases of U.S. agricultural products, when it comes to buying U.S. products and services overall, it still hasn’t even returned to buying the amount of stuff it had bought from America before the trade war began. (NPR)
An incomplete history of Forbes.com as a platform for scams, grift, and bad journalism That “rapper” accused of billions in crypto fraud was also a Forbes contributor. Is it finally time to move past the contributor network? (Nieman Lab)
Does China think long-term while America thinks short-term? It’s far from clear that Chinese leaders engage in more long-term thinking than American leaders do. There are plenty of examples to show this. (Noahpinion)