The Daily Valet. - 6/14/22, Tuesday

✔️ Where Do We Go From Here?

June 14, 2022

Tuesday, June 14th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

If you’ve got crypto, don’t even look at it today. Let’s just think good thoughts ...

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

Bear Markets and Inflation

Investors raise bets on aggressive Federal Reserve interest-rate increases

The stock-market selloff deepened Monday, with the S&P 500 officially entering a bear market, as investors took another look at Friday’s red-hot inflation data and liked it even less.

At the center of the selloff was the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is scrambling to get inflation under control. Its main method is to raise interest rates—a blunt tool that could slow the economy too much and risk a recession if used too aggressively.

Some economists are speculating the Fed may raise its key rate on Wednesday by three-quarters of a percentage point. According to the Associated Press, that’s triple the usual amount and something the Fed hasn’t done since 1994.

But while inflation in the U.S. is at a 40-year high, America isn’t alone in this mess. Soaring prices are a truly global phenomenon. An analysis of inflation across 111 countries from Deutsche Bank puts the U.S. near the middle of the pack. Among those countries, the median rate of 7.9% year-over-year inflation has more than doubled from 3.0% one year ago, thanks largely to spiking energy and food prices.

Of course, tackling runaway inflation won’t be easy and it won’t be quick. President Joe Biden himself noted that much of the heavy lifting has to be done by the Fed. “Slow descent” is how Wells Fargo senior economist Sarah House described it to CNBC. “If you think about inflation, a lot of it is momentum driven. Price setting is slow moving. Companies don’t just change their prices on a dime.”

But while this train slowly chugs along, some good news has already arrived. A new report from Adobe confirmed that online prices are increasing at a slower rate than last month—with prices actually dropping for categories like tech and apparel. So we got that going for us.

↦ FYI: Food commodity prices are at a record high, according to the World Bank’s index.

The Big Lie and the Big Ripoff

Congress hears from Trump’s inner circle that he was ‘detached from reality’ in defeat

Did you watch yesterday's hearing? Admittedly, I was busy working and didn't catch any of it live, unlike the first one shown in primetime. In fact, at least 20 million people watched the first hearing—that's in the ballpark of big television events like a “Sunday Night Football” game.

As for Monday's hearing, the House panel made the case that several of Trump's inner circle warned him against making false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election that he lost. But the former president would not listen and persisted in making baseless claims that laid the groundwork for the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

A parade of top advisers—including son-in-law Jared Kushner and former attorney general William Barr—testified that Trump ignored their advice. The panel also showed clips where Trump previewed his strategy in speeches throughout his 2020 campaign. Four months before Election Day, he told an audience that fraud was the only way he would lose.

The committee is also tracking the money. One big reason why Trump and his allies continued to push false election fraud claims long after the courts had ruled against Trump was to continue raising millions from fervent supporters. (The House panel previously hinted that money could be a theme that runs throughout the hearings, including who paid for the Jan. 6th rally.) The next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at 10 am ET.

↦ Dig Deeper: NBC News says the first two hearings are shaping up to look like the Trump impeachment trial that his accusers wanted last year but never got.

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Ukraine Vows to Recapture Fallen Cities

The battle for the Donbas region will be remembered for its brutality, Zelensky says

Ukraine’s fight to defend the Donbas region against Russia will “go down in military history as one of the most brutal battles in Europe and for Europe,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Monday.

Russian forces have pushed Ukrainian troops from the center of Sievierodonetsk, a key eastern city, and one of the last in the Luhansk region of the Donbas that had yet to be overtaken.

According to Reuters, Russian troops now control about 70% of the city. And Ukrainian forces are finding escape difficult after a series of bridges have been destroyed. Russia was surprisingly sloppy in its early invasion of Ukraine, but the daily bombardment of the Donbas region shows that the Kremlin has pivoted its strategy to a steady devastation that could make the imbalance of weapons and troops between the two countries even wider.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, was “straightforward” on Monday about what Ukraine needs— 1,000 drones, 2,000 armored vehicles and other equipment—as key cities endure attacks. He tweeted that Ukraine will be waiting to see what decision comes out of a Wednesday meeting in Brussels where NATO ministers of defense will discuss the ongoing war.

↦ Meanwhile: State Department officials met Monday with members of Brittney Griner’s WNBA team about the her monthslong detention in Russia.

There’s Still a Rental Car Shortage

And now peer-to-peer upstarts are scrambling to fill the gap

In 2019, the last year in “the great before,” the average rental car in the U.S. cost about $51 per day. This summer, renting the same car will cost you about $96 per day.

What happened? The pandemic, the chip shortage and the war in Ukraine, for starters. Rental car companies knew that Americans wouldn't be traveling much during the pandemic. They sold off large portions of their fleets to help make ends meet and avoid the expense of maintaining cars no one wanted. But this isn't just a short-term shock; the car rental market could be changed forever.

According to Wired, peer-to-peer car-sharing platforms might be the wave of the car rental future. Think of it as Airbnb for cars. But, unlike Airbnb (which is currently valued at $78.8 billion), car sharing has yet to take off—despite cars sitting idle 96% of the time. But now, with old-fashioned rentals expensive and hard to get a hold of, car sharing might finally have its moment.

Personally, I've used Getaround here in California plenty of times and while the cars aren't as nicely maintained as a fresh rental from Hertz, they're conveniently located in my neighborhood. And once you have the app, securing a car just takes a few taps—there's no unnecessary upsells or time-consuming forms to fill out.

↦ Save: Kelly Blue Book has tips on how to secure a rental car these days and maybe even save a few bucks too.

In Other News

↦ Yellowstone Floods Wipe Out Roads, Bridges and Strand Visitors

↦ Leaving Russia: Rockstars, Writers, Actors and Filmmakers on the Country’s Cultural Brain Drain

↦ How Deep Does the Library of Congress’s Collection of Sound Go?

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Philip Baker Hall

The newest Scout motorcycle

The omni-Spritz

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