My Taco Tuesday morning train strike Lyft reads:
• Words That Mattered: Fed Chair Jay Powell: A close reading of Powell’s most consequential lines, dated and re-contextualized. Excellent reference for the next FOMC parse. (Stay-at-Home Macro)
• How Trump plans to keep tariffs at the center of his economic policy despite stinging court losses: The legal setbacks haven’t shifted the strategy — only the legal authorities being invoked. Tariff policy as a will-to-power exercise. (The Conversation) see also Trump’s Accounts Investment Fund for Babies May Shortchange Them. Here’s a Better Approach.: Barron’s on the so-called MAGA baby accounts and why a $1,000 seed wrapped in fee-heavy mechanics will likely leave kids worse off than a boring old custodial Roth. (Barron’s)
• Under one roof: housing and inflation expectations. Using household surveys for the United States, we find that people tend to overweight their expectations about house prices when thinking about inflation with a coefficient of 25%–45%, significantly above the weight of house prices in the inflation index. Should central banks care about this? The short answer is yes. The Bank of England’s staff blog on how the price of the place you live shapes the inflation you expect. A nice empirical piece for anyone tired of the “inflation is dead” / “inflation is back” pendulum. (Bank Underground)
• A Personal Finance Star on What Millennials Need From Their Boomer Parents: Ramit Sethi in NYT Magazine on the great wealth transfer’s awkward middle act — kids don’t need another inheritance lecture, they need the actual numbers and a willingness to talk before the funeral. (New York Times)
• Kushner Disappoints Mideast Clients Who Spent Millions Seeking Sway: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE backed Affinity Partners in hopes of gaining White House influence and investment returns. The US war with Iran that they opposed has shown the constraints of that approach. (Bloomberg free)
• CBS Cancels Itself, Not Just Colbert: What I didn’t anticipate was that the foundation of Mr. Colbert’s success was something new to late night: hard-core, point-of-view political comedy. He had developed it while contributing to “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. A broadcast network, steeped in the traditional “both sides” style of Johnny Carson, was going to expect him to drop that as well as the character. The NYT opinion page on a network deciding it would rather not have an audience than have one with opinions. A useful case study in what happens when corporate parents start managing for the regulator, not the viewer. (New York Times)
• Your iPhone Gets Stolen. Then the Hacking Begins: Wired on the international crews who lift iPhones in the West and then phish the owners overseas to unlock iCloud. The hardware was never the real prize. (Wall Street Journal)
• The surprisingly strong case for feeling great about your coffee habit: Another week, another coffee-is-actually-fine review. The effect sizes are real, the mechanism is still hand-wavy. Drink up. (Vox)
• Attenborough at 100 — A Nature Documentary Archive: Sir David Attenborough just turned 100. In recognition of his brilliant career and life, here’s everything he’s ever worked on, in one place. Nearly 5,000 episodes across 90 series — from Zoo Quest in 1954 to Secret Garden in 2026. Search by animal, habitat, location, natural phenomenon, or theme to find exactly the episode you’re looking for. A loving fan-built archive of David Attenborough’s seven decades of nature programming, organized for browsing. The closest thing to a centralized index of a body of work that quietly shaped how the world sees wildlife. David Attenborough’s life’s work, searchable. (Attenborough at 100)
• How Nicki Minaj Became Trump’s ‘No. 1 Fan’: The WSJ on the unlikely Minaj–Trump alliance and what it says about celebrity-political brand alignment in 2026. Less about the policy than about the audience each side thinks it’s buying. The rap superstar is throwing her weight behind the White House agenda after being courted by Trump’s 29-year-old celebrity whisperer (Wall Street Journal)
Video of the day: How Concerned Should Boeing and Airbus Be About the New Flying V?
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Sheila Bair, former Chairperson of FDIC from 2006-11. She helped steer the agency through worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Her new book is aimed at young adults and teenagers, titled “How Not to Lose a Million Dollars”
Stocks are cheaper, but their prices are higher
Source: Mike WIlson via Sam Ro
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