Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Powell sticks to his guns

This week, Jerome Powell made no bones about the unwavering pursuit of his ultimate objective: 2%. The Federal Reserve chair reaffirmed yet again his singular focus on restoring price stability in the US. And if that means even higher interest rates to get back to that 2% target, then so be it. That was the takeaway on what Powell intended to convey with his eagerly anticipated remarks at the central bank’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. With US inflation much cooler than its pandemic highs, policymakers are signaling they may be close to declaring victory—even if rates must remain higher for longer just to make sure. In this new phase, risk-management is “critical,” Powell says. Still, record low unemployment, strong business investment and resilient American consumers continue to burnish the reputations of soft-landing prognosticators while singing those of Team Recession.

Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, left, with Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda, center, and US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, right, at the Jackson Hole economic symposium in Wyoming on Friday. Central bank leaders unified around a note of caution in the fight against inflation. Photographer: Bloomberg

Nevertheless, other central bank chiefs echoed Powell in projecting a cautious stance, saying the inflation triggered by Covid-19 and its fallout has not been fully conquered. South Africa’s central bank governor, Lesetja Kganyago, crystalized this sentiment when he said “the job is not yet done.” European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde added that the European Central Bank will set borrowing costs as high as needed and leave them there for as long as it takes. But for all the effort to make sure the world knows the battle isn’t over, Jonathan Levine writes in Bloomberg Opinion that a subtle shift in tone by Powell is taking place. In the past, good economic news like low unemployment might encourage Wall Street fears of more rate hikes. But Levine writes that, these days, “the ‘good news’ on the economy may actually just be good news.”

Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was assassinated, probably on the orders of longtime patron Vladimir Putin, the US said, an assertion the Kremlin denied. Prigozhin and his No. 2 were among 10 people assumed killed in what intelligence officials contend was likely a midair explosion and subsequent crash of his plane. Prigozhin’s demise happened to occur exactly two months after his aborted march on Moscow. In his first comments on the crash, Putin said his former ally-turned-mutineer was “a man with a complicated fate.” As the Kremlin leader continues his brutal and flailing war on Ukraine, Prigozhin’s death may have shored up his wavering reputation as unchallengeable.

In Atlanta, Donald Trump was booked and had his mugshot taken—a first for a former president—for allegedly masterminding a sprawling racketeering conspiracy, the fourth set of felony charges leveled against the Republican this year as he campaigns to return to the White House. Here’s what you need to know about the Georgia prosecution and Trump’s 18 co-defendants. Trump faces multiple allegations that, in the context of the Jan. 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow Joe Biden’s election, could potentially implicate the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists holding elected office. But Noah Feldman writes in Bloomberg Opinion that anyone hoping that could bar Trump from running should forget it.

House hunters in the US are encountering the most-unaffordable market in almost four decades and, rubbing salt in the wound, mortgage rates have jumped to 7.23%, a 22-year high. That begs the question: Who is still buying? First-time purchasers desperate to own a home, according to a Zillow survey. The real estate company is trying to lure struggling homebuyers with a new program that offers mortgages with just 1% down. In the UK, there’s finally some slightly better news: record pay rises and the slide in property prices have caused the biggest improvement in housing affordability for more than a decade.

India made history this week by becoming the first nation to successfully send a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole. It also joined China as the only other country with an active rover on the lunar surface. This after Russia’s lunar effort ended in disaster. Meanwhile, US Fish and Wildlife Service biologists expressed disbelief at the damage caused by April’s exploded SpaceX rocket, while the International Space Station detected a plume of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket site. Back on Earth: gun lobby politics have transformed Canada’s gun culture, with the annual volume of US-made semiautomatic firearm imports increasing almost tenfold over the past two decades. In the same timeframe, shootings jumped 869%.

Where would you expect to see one of New York City’s hottest new restaurants? TriBeCa? Greenpoint? Nope. Try a grimy Midtown subway station. Korean-influenced Nōksu, slated to open next month, is located on the mezzanine level of the 34th Street Herald Square stop. The eatery will be run by chef Dae Kim, whose resume includes stints at the three-Michelin-star Per Se and at modern Chinese hideaway Silver Apricot. If food in a basket is more your speed, billionaire Charles Johnson, owner of the San Francisco Giants, has sued to block a clam shack from operating inches from his $6.5 million cottage. 

Chef Dae Kim outside what will be the entrance to his restaurant Nōksu in the Herald Square subway station. Photographer: Alex Truong

• US jobs report with the record labor market still strong.
• UBS releases its first results since swallowing Credit Suisse. 
• Europe’s August inflation reading with eyes on a potential ECB pause.
• US Commerce Secretary travels to China, expected to talk chips. 
• US Open Tennis Championships begin in New York.

China’s $18 trillion economy is decelerating. Consumers are downbeat, there’s a real estate crisis, exports are struggling, prices are falling and more than one in five young people are out of work. Many of those woes can be traced back to President Xi Jinping’s determination to shift away from the debt-fueled growth model of his predecessors. But if China’s economy is a “ticking time bomb,” as US President Biden called it, Xi’s aim is to defuse it. 

Spending by Chinese consumers on services like restaurants and travel has rebounded from 2022 pandemic lockdown levels, helping China's economy as it struggles with a real-estate downturn.  Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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