Alternative link: https://archive.ph/ce08r

"Specifically, let me make three points. First, while $34 trillion is a very large figure, it’s a lot less scary than many imagine if you put it in historical and international context. Second, to the extent debt is a concern, making debt sustainable wouldn’t be at all hard in terms of the straight economics; it’s almost entirely a political problem. Finally, people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites — the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal.

How scary is the debt? It’s a big number, even if you exclude debt that is basically money that one arm of the government owes to another — debt held by the public is still around $27 trillion. But our economy is huge, too. Today, debt as a percentage of G.D.P. isn’t unprecedented, even in America: It’s roughly the same as it was at the end of World War II. It’s considerably lower than the corresponding number for Japan right now and far below Britain’s debt ratio at the end of World War II. In none of these cases was there anything resembling a debt crisis. ..."

Highlights include PCE 1 year price index dropping to 3.0 (mostly due to base effects as 2022 data rolls off).

Income increase slowed, but spending picked up. Not a good direction for metrics like savings rate, but good for GDP.

Heavy societal undertones...

FedNow appears to be launching July 23, 2023. To me, it doesn't seem very good in the sense that the Fed now gets to be a middle man to payment transactions (sure it's "instant" but we're all aware that security != convenience).

It's also a "centralized" solution.

It could be a stepping stone to a centralized digital bank currency is my fear. And also the fed will now be able to see/monitor all transactions through it.

Another solid US jobs report, 209K jobs added.

According to a recent announcement, China will be imposing new regulations on the export of gallium and germanium, both of which are metals that are utilized in the production of computer chips and solar cells and are therefore vitally important. This action is seen as an escalation of the trade dispute that the United States and China are currently engaged in, and the trade dispute has been going on for a long time. The restrictions will begin to take effect on August 1, and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce has stated that their purpose is to “safeguard national security.” Despite this, the specifics of these limitations have not yet been made available to the public at this time.