Finishing off inflation

As far as the Fed is concerned, the message is stay the course. Chair Jerome Powell says the US central bank is prepared to raise interest rates further if need be and intends to keep borrowing costs high until inflation looks on track for 2%. “Although inflation has moved down from its peak—a welcome development—it remains too high,” Powell said Friday at the central bank’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He welcomed the slower price gains the US economy has achieved under tighter monetary policy and loosening supply constraints. However, he cautioned that the process “still has a long way to go, even with the more favorable recent readings.” —Natasha Solo-Lyons and David E. Rovella

His wholly expected remarks seemed to have a (probably intended) calming effect on markets. “Powell, as has been the case for some time, didn’t offer markets anything revelatory today—which was likely the goal,” said Tom Garretson, senior portfolio strategist at RBC Wealth Management. “The market reaction looks consistent with the idea that the Fed is likely done raising rates over the near term.” Here’s your markets wrap.

Social Security checks may not provide as much income as many older Americans expect—and that’s before possible cuts are needed to address a projected shortfall a decade from now. Baby boomers anticipate that 47% of pre-retirement earnings will be replaced by Social Security. But the reality for someone making what the Social Security Administration considers the average wage in recent years, about $60,000, is more like 37%, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Digital nomads are working overnight to keep the same hours as coworkers back home. Ambitious “Workcation” trips are seen as a way to make up for lost time during pandemic lockdowns. But for others who choose to wander far from their home timezone, such adventures can veer off course—becoming hellish journeys to the land of sleep deprivation.

A group of Tesla investors stands to recover an average of about $12,000 each for losses they incurred from Elon Musk’s infamous 2018 tweet that he had “funding secured” to take the carmaker private at $420 a share—which he didn’t.

US politicians seem keener than ever to juice the economy with government cash, a shift that’s already helping drive up borrowing costs and may keep them high long after inflation is done.

A new private jet is America’s most popular. For years, the most-flown version in the US has been Textron's Cessna. Not anymore. The Embraer Phenom 300, a medium-sized jet that seats as many as nine passengers, had more than 360,000 takeoffs and landings at US airports in the year so far. That’s about 1,400 more than the Cessna Citation Excel family.

“Risk blindness” is making the climate crisis worse. Catastrophes like the deadly Maui wildfire may be avoidable if governments and insurers stop looking to the past to predict a warming future. In the Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary Maui Fire: How ‘Risk Blindness’ Made It Worse, we explore why people, companies and politicians who are well aware of climate risk nevertheless fail to plan or react appropriately—and the consequences that result.

Prices for the most popular higher-end watches from Rolex and Patek Philippe kept falling over the past month, even as mid-tier timepieces from brands like Cartier outperformed. The Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index, which tracks prices for the 50 most-traded watches on the secondary market by value, declined by 1.1% in a month. After an unprecedented surge during the pandemic, prices for the most hyped pre-owned models from Rolex, Patek and Audemars Piguet began dropping sharply in March 2022 due to higher interest rates, slowing economies and the crash in cryptocurrency values.

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