The Economist (August 29)
“The background music of Donald Trump’s second term has been the sound of norms breaking. On economic policy alone, the president has used tariffs to usurp Congress’s taxing powers and launched attack after attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, which he accuses of keeping interest rates too high.” While it may be “tempting to tune the noise out,” the Treasury’s recent intervention in bond markets “deserves to echo far and wide.” And “so long as government debt stays high,” more of these unconventional Treasury follies will probably ensue, but America will ultimately come to “regret Scott Bessent’s bond-market misadventures.”
Tags: Attack, Background, Bessent, Bond markets, Congress, Debt, Economic policy, Federal Reserve, Government, Independence, Interest rates, Intervention, Misadventures, Noise, Norms breaking, Regret, Tariffs, Taxing powers, Treasury, Trump, Unconventional, Usurp
Investment Week (September 12)
“Over the summer, the FTSE 100, S&P 500, Nasdaq and Japan’s main equity indices enjoyed record highs. Usually, you would think that this was great news…. But, instead, investors are pouring out of funds, as the background noise ratchets up ever higher.” Investor confidence has tumbled “across all global markets, with the biggest hit coming in North America.”
Tags: Confidence, Equity indices, FTSE 100, Funds, Global markets, Investors, Japan, Nasdaq, Noise, North America, S&P 500, Tumbled
The New Yorker (February 14)
“Trump’s defense was an insult to the impeachment proceedings and an assault on reason…. Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial was an artifact of his Presidency. It was a battle of meaning against noise, against nothing-means-anything-and-everything-is-the-same nihilism—and nihilism won.”
Tags: Assault, Defense, Impeachment, Insult, Meaning, Nihilism, Noise, Proceedings, Reason, Trump
The Week (October 31)
Designed to foster communication and collaboration, open office layouts are having a negative impact on employee productivity and satisfaction. “Overheard conversations can result in a 5 percent to 10 percent decline in the performance of cognitive tasks…like reading, writing, and other forms of creative work. Noise can impair workers’ ability to recall information and do basic arithmetic. It also can decrease productivity by as much as 86 minutes per day.”
Tags: Collaboration, Communication, Employees, Impact, Noise, Performance, Productivity, Satisfaction
