A Rate Cut, Another Lebanon Attack, & How We Really Work From Home
September 19, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Thursday! Today, we’ll be talking about rate cuts, another Lebanon attack, Google’s win, military moves, an airline merger, Kamala’s latest endorsement, and how people really spend their time working from home.
Here’s some good news: This week, members of the Dong family got to meet the great-grandkids of the Thompsons, a Black couple who rented a home to them a generation ago, when laws favored white residents. Also, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear banned the use of “conversion therapy” on minors in Kentucky yesterday.
“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” C. S. Lewis
It’s Cuffing And Cutting Season
After months of waiting, it’s finally here: yesterday, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point (to about 4.9%), marking the first rate cut in four years. The Fed has also signaled that we can expect more rate cuts in the near future, targeting a 4.4% interest rate by the end of 2024 and a 3.4% interest rate by the end of 2025.
Why cut interest rates now? Two factors: rising unemployment and lower inflation. The cost of goods and services has steadily declined since peaking during the pandemic, but unemployment has been steadily creeping up too. By lowering interest rates, the Fed is hoping to lessen pressure on businesses and consumers – if they lower interest rates too much, too fast, we could see inflation jump again.
All that financial jargon is cool, but what you’re really here for is what this means for you. Interest rate cuts mean mortgages, car loans, and credit card debt should cost slightly less, which directly affects most consumers. Second, with borrowing easier for businesses, they have access to more money to hire more employees. Basically, if you’re looking to buy a house or car, that purchase should become cheaper in the future, and if you’re looking for a job, there will (hopefully) be more openings available.
Technology Or Ticking Time Bombs?
For a second day in a row, Lebanon was rocked by a large series of explosions as Israel detonated small bombs hidden in another set of retro communications devices used by Hezbollah – this time, the attacks targeted handheld radios, killing at least 20 and injuring 450 others.
Tuesday’s mass bombing, which targeted pagers, has now claimed the lives of 12 people (including two children) and injured almost 3,000. According to new reporting by Axios (citing three U.S. officials), Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency pulled the trigger on its pager plot in fear that the bombs were on the verge of being discovered by Hezbollah. The walkie-talkie plot leveraged larger explosives than the pager bombings. Some explosions were big enough to cause fires, lighting blazes in 71 homes and setting 18 cars and motorcycles aflame. According to the New York Times, the affected walkie-talkies were made by a Japanese company named Icom.
In less-explosive news, the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution yesterday that demands Israel end its “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The measure passed 124-14, with 43 countries abstaining. The U.S., in case you were wondering, was one of the 14.
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Google Gets A Win
- Google has finally snapped its courtroom loss streak! Who doesn’t love to see a trillion-dollar mega-corporation winning? On Wednesday, the tech giant won a court challenge against the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, overturning a €1.49 billion ($1.66 billion) antitrust fine imposed five years ago. The 2019 decision accused Google of adding exclusivity clauses to its contracts with websites, blocking partners from running online ads similar to Google’s.
- In Wednesday’s decision, the E.U.’s General Court found that the commission “committed errors” when reviewing the contracts in question, adding that the commission’s findings failed to show how Google’s contracts had directly deterred innovation or caused harm to consumers. Google has said that the problematic clauses had been removed in 2016, long before the fine was imposed. Unfortunately for the big G, yesterday’s decision was a single victory amongst a barrage of lawsuits from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.
Putting Up A Fight In The Last Frontier
- What’s cooler than a cold war? A cold war clash in Alaska, duh. The U.S. military has shifted about 130 soldiers – accompanied by two mobile rocket launchers, a Navy destroyer, and a Coast Guard vessel – to a remote part of Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain. The troops were sent north to monitor joint military drills being held by Russia and China in the Arctic and Pacific.
- “It’s not the first time that we’ve seen the Russians and the Chinese flying, you know, in the vicinity, and that’s something that we obviously closely monitor, and it’s also something that we’re prepared to respond to,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters yesterday. The joint drills by America’s top rivals are part of their “Ocean-24” military exercise, which will see Moscow and Beijing conduct drills across the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.
More Mixed Nuts
- Trump says he will meet with Narendra Modi during Indian prime minister’s visit to US (AP)
- Australians stranded on Kokoda track resume walk after protests shut down sections (Guardian)
- Ukrainian drone attack triggers huge blasts at Russian ammo depot (NBC)
- IMF postpones Russia visit after heavy criticism across Europe (Guardian)
- Australian police infiltrate encrypted messaging app Ghost and arrest dozens (AP)
The Non-Contiguous Air Carrier Combo
- Yesterday, Alaska Airlines announced that it had completed its $1.9 billion acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines. The news is a bit surprising considering the recent track record of airline mergers – JetBlue and Spirit tossed their $3.8 billion merger agreement after a U.S. judge blocked the deal in January, and American and JetBlue’s attempted merger was also stopped.
- The U.S. Department of Transportation approved the deal after the airlines agreed to protect the value of frequent flyer rewards, maintain service on certain Hawaiian routes, ensure competitive access at the Honolulu airport, and provide travel credits or frequent flyer miles for disruptions that are the airline’s fault. Alaska is (or was) the fifth-largest domestic U.S. airline, while Hawaiian is the 10th-largest.
Turning Traitor On Trump
- Yesterday, more than 100 Republican former national security and foreign policy officials signed a public letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president. They agreed that while they “expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues,” they “believe that she possesses the essential qualities to serve as president and Donald Trump does not.”
- The letter gets harsher, saying, “We firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump. As president, he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests, and betrayed our values, democracy, and this country’s founding document.” Yikes.
More Nuts In America
- GOP senator tells Arab American witness at hate crimes hearing to ‘hide your head in a bag’ (NBC)
- Ohio Republicans are being very, very careful in correcting Trump and Vance (CNN)
- Sarah Huckabee Sanders swipes at Kamala Harris for not having biological children (ABC)
- Video: Paul Whelan shares what he is having difficulty adjusting to after 5 year imprisonment (CNN)
- Vance touts deportation plan in Wisconsin city where tensions flared over refugee resettlement (AP)
- U.S. sues Dali ship owner and operator for $100 million over Baltimore bridge collapse (NPR)
What We Do During The Zoom Calls
- Attention all remote workers: do not show this story to your boss! A new SurveyMonkey poll of over 3,000 full-time workers (both in-person and remote) has revealed some interesting new insights into how remote workers are spending their time. While office workers can find ways to while away the hours by chatting at the water cooler and…er, utilizing the facilities on company time, the new poll shows that remote workers are also (unsurprisingly) finding ways to kill time at home.
- For example, about one-third of remote and hybrid workers said they regularly used the bathroom during Zoom calls, with 14% and 12% admitting that they went online shopping or did laundry during meetings, respectively. More surprisingly, 18% of Gen Z remote workers said they had worked another job while clocking in hours for their remote positions, and 26% of remote-working millennials reported that they’d taken a nap during work hours. Remote-working managers and executives were also not fully present during Zoom meetings, with 49% of business leaders admitting to multitasking while taking calls from home.
More Loose Nuts
- Americans can now renew passports online and bypass cumbersome paper applications (AP)
- Scientists detect longest pair of jets streaming from a supermassive black hole (AP)
- Lawsuit targets maker of Amazon Prime game show ‘MrBeast’ claiming contestants were ‘shamelessly exploited’ (NBC)
- He bought a cruise ship on Craigslist and spent over $1 million restoring it. Then his dream sank (CNN)
- Hershey is turning its candy into energy drinks and protein powders (CNN)
