The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• MotorTrend Lived With A Tesla Model Y For 2 Years And Hated Every Second Of It: After opening its long-term review with a paragraph about the positives of the Model Y, MotorTrend got right into it with the second paragraph: To me, our Model Y is antagonistic to enjoyable driving. I dreaded getting in it and often pushed the speed limit so I could get out of it sooner. Few things have tested my patience like this car, and I have two younger brothers. If it were a person, I’d face charges for all the times I kicked its tire or punched its steering wheel out of visceral frustration. (Jalopnik)
• Who will be in charge of interest rates? Fed independence is a question of power. And, as with many institutions today, President Trump is trying to reduce the Fed’s power and increase his own. That dramatic backdrop makes today’s Senate confirmation hearing on Stephen Miran’s nomination for Fed Governor anything but normal. The term “Fed independence” will be invoked repeatedly, but words are not enough. (Stay-At-Home Macro)
• The Magic of In-Kind Bitcoin: Making new shares of Bitcoin ETFs just got a whole lot more interesting. (ETF.com)
• As he builds US power, Justin Sun fights to control his story: A crypto billionaire who once feared arrest in the US is now a Trump business adviser and White House guest. His lawsuit against Bloomberg reveals what he doesn’t want Americans to know about his crypto fortune. (Citation Needed)
• The Mortgage Buydown Backfire: Homebuyers made a big bet on lower mortgage rates. They’re paying a high price. (Business Insider)
• How Bombas Built a Fancy Socks Empire With $500 Million in Sales: More than a decade after their Shark Tank appearance, the company’s co-founders have successfully pushed into T-shirts, slippers and undergarments. (Businessweek)
• Long Read: My Mom and Dr. DeepSeek: In China and around the world, the sick and lonely turn to AI. (Rest Of World)
• The History of The New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Checking Department: Reporters engage in charm and betrayal; checkers are in the harm-reduction business. (New Yorker)
• The Structural Solar Surge. As China and the US are reducing policy support to the solar sectors, we review the drivers of the solar boom—the fastest in the history of electricity—and our outlook for slower but still rapid growth in global solar installations. n Structural solar surge. Solar energy, which has consistently beaten expectations, is likely to meet a high share of long-run global energy demand because three drivers of the surge look structural. (Goldman Sachs)
• Is Universal Music Going to War with Rick Beato? Just when you thought major labels couldn’t get more stupid. But just when I think I’ve seen it all, some new kind of stupid comes my way via the music biz. And that’s the case right now. Universal Music Group has gone to war with Rick Beato… (The Honest Broker)
Be sure to check out our special edition of Masters in Business interview, with Neal Katyal, Milbank LLP partner and former acting Solicitor General of the US. We sat down in the studio on Wednesday, August 27th, just two days before the D.C. Court of Appeals issued its decision in VOS Selection vs Trump on Friday, August 29th, finding the Tariffs unlawful. We also spoke after the decision, and he laidf out the path forward to the Supreme Court.
This is the second longest run of positive payroll prints in history
Source: Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank
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