The Liar's Dividend.

Spectacular resolution.

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1. One of the most famous structures in Earth's sky has just been revealed in a brand new light. Mid- and near-infrared observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have highlighted never-before-seen features in the space cloud known as the Horsehead Nebula. In a breathtakingly detailed image, the space telescope zoomed in on the region atop the head of the 'horse', capturing tendrils and filaments in spectacular resolution. (Source: sciencealert.com)

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2. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

Including the Biden Administration’s new student debt cancellation plan, we estimate all recent student debt cancellation policies will cost a combined $870 billion to $1.4 trillion. That’s more than all federal spending on higher education over the nation’s entire history. The vast majority of this debt cancellation was put in place through executive actions under President Biden.

$620 billion of debt cancellation has already been implemented, including $275 billion from President Biden’s new Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) program known as SAVE, $195 billion from cancelling interest as part of nearly 41 months of repayment pauses since March of 2020, and roughly $150 billion from a variety of more targeted actions such as discharging debt for those who attended closing schools and making it easier to cancel debt under existing loan forgiveness programs. The President’s newest debt cancellation scheme could cost an additional $250 to $750 billion based on our preliminary estimates. (Source: crfb.org, italics mine)

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3. Every major currency in the world has fallen against the U.S. dollar this year, an unusually broad shift with the potential for serious consequences across the global economy. Two-thirds of the roughly 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg have weakened against the dollar, whose recent strength stems from a shift in expectations about when and by how much the Federal Reserve may cut its benchmark interest rate, which sits around a 20-year high. High Fed rates, a response to stubborn inflation, mean that American assets offer better returns than much of the world, and investors need dollars to buy them. In recent months, money has flowed into the United States with a force that’s being felt by policymakers, politicians and people from Brussels to Beijing, Toronto to Tokyo. The dollar index, a common way to gauge the general strength of the U.S. currency against a basket of its major trading partners, is hovering at levels last seen in the early 2000s (when U.S. interest rates were also similarly high). The yen is at a 34-year low against the U.S. dollar. The euro and Canadian dollar are sagging. The Chinese yuan has shown notable signs of weakness, despite officials’ stated intent to stabilize it. “It has never been truer that the Fed is the world’s central bank,” said Jesse Rogers, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. (Source: nytimes.com)

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4. China’s ruling Communist Party vowed to explore new measures to tackle a protracted housing crisis, which remains the biggest drag on the nation’s economy, and hinted at possible rate cuts ahead. Officials will research ways to deal with unsold properties, as well as “make flexible use” of tools to support the economy and lower overall borrowing costs, a meeting led by Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. Those tools outlined by the the 24-man Politburo included interest rates and the reserve requirement ratio, which determines the amount of cash banks must set in reserve. That was the first time a readout from the elite group had mentioned either policy tool since April 2020, when China’s economy was reeling from the outset of the pandemic. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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