News Story of the Day: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a speech at the annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming symposium, where he essentially confirmed that the central bank will raise interest rates and normalize monetary policy because the economy can handle it.
President Donald Trump will not be happy about this.
Here is what Powell said in his carefully watched remarks:
I see the current path of gradually raising interest rates as the [Federal Open Market Committee‘s] approach to taking seriously both of these risks.
As the most recent FOMC statement indicates, if the strong growth in income and jobs continues, further gradual increases in the target range for the federal funds rate will likely be appropriate.
The economy is strong. Inflation is near our two percent objective, and most people who want a job are finding one. My colleagues and I are carefully monitoring incoming data, and we are setting policy to do what monetary policy can do to support continued growth, a strong labor market, and inflation near two percent.
When the tidal wave of inflation hits the shores of the United States, you can guarantee that rates are going to skyrocket.
Chart of the Day: Alibaba is one of the biggest ecommerce companies in the world today, but the company’s revenues are still much lower than that of Amazon, possibly the biggest brand in the world today:
Illustration of the Day: We will leave this here:
Quote of the Day: We will not fault you if you haven’t been paying attention to the political drama unfolding inside the Conservative Party of Canada. On Thursday, Maxime “Mad Max” Bernier, a libertarian-leaning Member of Parliament from Quebec, quit the party because it has lost its way, Andrew Scheer does not have a conservative vision for the country, and he wants to launch his own political movement.
Here is an excerpt from his speech:
I am in politics to defend ideas, real conservative ideas. Because I passionately care about Canada’s future. Because I know that the free-market conservative philosophy has the best solutions to ensure our society is more prosperous, secure, and peaceful.
However, my party’s stand on several issues have convinced me that under the current leadership, it has all but abandoned its core conservative principles.
I still cannot understand how a party that is supposed to defend free markets supports a small cartel that artificially increases the price of milk, chicken and eggs for millions of Canadian consumers.
More importantly, supply management has become one of the main stumbling blocks to an agreement with the United States on NAFTA. Former Conservative leaders Brian Mulroney and Rona Ambrose agree that it should be put on the table.
But the Conservative Party has been siding with the Liberal government. It also supports the retaliatory tariffs of the Liberal government, even though this is going to hurt our businesses and consumers. Even though Canada has no realistic chance of winning a trade war with a neighbour ten times larger. Even though we could successfully relaunch the negotiations if we put supply management on the table, and if we accept President Trump’s offer to negotiate a dismantling of all barriers, as the European Union has done.
The Liberals are playing politics with this crucially important trade file. They are endangering the 20% of our economy that depends on trade with the U.S., and Canada’s future prosperity.
But instead of leading as a principled Conservative and defending the interests of Canada and Canadians, Andrew Scheer is following the Trudeau Liberals. I was told that internal polls are showing that the Liberals’ response to Trump is popular. And that in six months, if the polls change, the party’s stand may change too.
Tweet of the Day: The situation unfolding in South Africa today is a tragic one: People are losing their land because of the color of their skin. Yet, the media have kept quiet about it while accusing President Donald Trump of being racist. Lauren Southern makes a great point:
No republicans are calling for the murder of innocent people based on their race.
Elected South African politicians are.
Trump has never taken peoples land b/c of their ethnicity.
The SA government have.
Yet the media call Trump the racist and extremist? Utter Insanity.
— Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) August 23, 2018
Video of the Day: 1791L has been putting out some great content lately, but one of the channel’s best ones is about the democratic socialist it-girl Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Here it is:
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