Financial Daily Dose 5.12.2021 | Top Story: Fed Stands Pat on Strategy Despite Inflation Worries Roiling Markets

Despite the reemergence of inflation and bubbles as the concerns-of-the-day that caused markets to quiver their way to a 3-month low yesterday, Fed officials remained committed to their “wait and see” strategy on removing economic supports for the U.S. economy - NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch

All of which means that today’s Consumer Price Index figures will surely be received by rational investors who will take a measured approach to an expected (and likely “short-lived”) CPI increase in the 3-4% range. Riiiiight - NYTimes and WSJ

A Texas bankruptcy judge has dismissed the National Rifle Association’s chapter 11 case, “calling into question” the group’s “plan to reincorporate in Texas as it faces allegations of spending abuses and mismanagement in New York” - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch and Law360 and NYTimes

The White House is currently struggling with the thorny question in promoting a move to clean energy of whether the country’s willing to tolerate more expensive renewable energy made by Americans or whether it will allow a quicker and cheaper move to renewables by importing the tech needed for that transformation - NYTimes

Job openings in the U.S. hit a record 8.1 million at the end of March, “reflecting a widening gap between open positions and workers willing and able to take those roles”—a reality that may help explain the lower-than-expected April jobs figures - WSJ

The Senate has passed a measure that would use the Congressional Review Act of 1996 to nullify the OCC’s “true lender” rule from  the last administration that had been pitched “as a way to provide legal certainty for lending partnerships between federally chartered banks and third parties.” Consumer advocates argued that such a standard was “too formalistic” and would “facilitate predatory lending through sham ‘rent-a-bank’ arrangements” – Law360

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has opened a probe into “failed financial firm Greensill Capital” over what it’s calling “potentially criminal” matters. The FCA was already investigating the firm over its recent collapse - WSJ and NYTimes

Even as it dukes it out with Epic Games in an Oakland courthouse right now, Apple has new app-store trouble on its hands thanks to a $2.1 billion lawsuit “on behalf of 20 million U.K. customers for allegedly abusing its market dominance by charging ‘excessive’ commissions on app sales”—the “latest antitrust challenge to the tech giant’s App Store fees” – Law360

New census figures (showing its lowest number of annual births since 1961) suggests that China’s facing a “looming demographic crisis”—between “a plunge in births and a graying work force”—that could “stunt growth” in the country and pose a grave “social and economic challenge[]” to China’s Communist Party - NYTimes and Time and BBC

Google, which has had its share of several very public internal AI ethics spats in recent months, revealed this week that it “plans to double the size of its team studying artificial-intelligence ethics in the coming years, as the company looks to strengthen a group that has had its credibility challenged by research controversies and personnel defections” - WSJ

The CFTC’s entire whistleblower program is in jeopardy over a proposed $100+ million whistleblower award to a former Deutsche Bank exec that led to the 2015 $2.5 billion CFTC and DOJ settlement with the bank over alleged Libor manipulation. An award that size would be commensurate to the overall penalty against DB, but it threatens to deplete the whistleblower fund altogether, a result that would require Congressional intervention - WSJ

Old Soviet mystery. Ski party. Ural Mountains. Check, check, and check: I’m in - NewYorker

Stay safe and get vaxxed,
MDR