Monday morning news drop
How to Prepare For a Recession So we could go into a recession this year or next year or four years from now. I honestly have no idea. All I know is we will have a recession at some point. Since World War II, we’ve had 13 recessions in the United States: This means that over the past 80 years or so, a recession has occurred once every 5.9 years on average. (Wealth of Common Sense)
Inflation Isn’t Going Back to Normal This Year; So says the Federal Reserve. Our central bankers aren’t ready to do just anything to bring inflation down. They aren’t mentally gearing up to do their best impression of Paul Volcker, the Fed chair who plunged the U.S. into a painful double-dip recession in order to finally slay inflation early in Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Instead, they’re willing to tolerate moderate inflation for a while longer, with the hope that they can gently ease the economy toward a soft landing by the end of this year and beginning of next. (Slate)
An Oral History of Apple’s Infinite Loop Apple’s old HQ holds stories of pizza ovens, iPhone secrets, baseball bats, and what happened to Steve Jobs’ office. (Wired)
A History: War, Oil Prices, Inflation & Trade Historically, wars have been the main catalyst of government-to-government transfers. The scale of official credits granted in and around WW1 and WW2 was particularly large, easily surpassing the scale of total international bailout lending after the 2008 crash. During peacetime, development finance and financial crises are the main drivers of official cross-border finance, with official flows often stepping in when private flows retrench. (Investor Amnesia)
Russia’s billionaires: Who they are, what they own — and can they influence Vladimir Putin? Targeting oligarchs is popular. It’s not clear it can help end a war. (Grid)
Welcome to Londongrad, Where Kleptocrats Wash Their Money Clean For years, Russian wealth has poured into Britain with few questions asked, helping to finance political campaigns and buoying the luxury property market. Russian oligarchs have been so happy to avail themselves of Britain’s laissez-faire regulatory climate to park their wealth and launder dirty money that the nation’s capital has earned the moniker Londongrad. (New York Times)
How ‘Ukrainian bioweapons labs’ myth went from QAnon fringe to Fox News A feedback loop involving Russia and Tucker Carlson is promoting claims of US funding for biological weapons in Ukraine (The Guardian)
The military-intelligence veterans who helped lead Trump’s campaign of disinformation: After Donald Trump lost the White House, ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and three other current and former U.S. Army officers challenged the vote’s legitimacy and pushed baseless conspiracy claims. Military ethicists say their actions threaten to weaken the public’s faith in democracy. (Reuters)
Covid success to covid disaster: What happened in Hong Kong? Hong Kong’s tragic turn underscores the importance of effective vaccines to protect against omicron. (Grid)
Michael Bublé Always Finds a Way Hustle, charm and a remarkable ability to slot himself into songs have made the musician a star — even though his style has never aligned with pop trends. (New York Times)