Wednesday, September 09
At first glance, this year's Jackson Hole conference proceeded a lot like in years past. Attendees of the storied economics conference in Wyoming, who mostly hail from central banks around the world, engaged in a healthy debate about the outlook for monetary policy, the latest developments in inflation and structural shifts across the labor market. But increasingly hostile attacks from the White House against the Federal Reserve, including President's Donald Trump's threat to fire a sitting governor if she did not resign, created an inescapable distraction. As a result, officials at the central bank were left with little choice but to profess an unwavering focus on just doing their jobs. "It is more than a full-time job to be focusing on the data and the analytics," Susan Collins, presiden
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed Friday that the company is working with the Trump administration on a new computer chip designed for sale to China, it marked the latest chapter in a long-running debate over how the U.S. should compete with China's technological ambitions. The reasoning has sometimes changed - with U.S. officials citing national security, human rights or purely economic competition - but the tool has been the same: export controls, or the threat of them. Nvidia believes it can eventually re$50 billion from artificial intelligence chip sales in China. But it so far has been held back by restrictions imposed by President Joe Biden's administration and then reinforced by President Donald Trump before negotiating a quid pro quo deal. How did these chip export controls sta
