Bullets, Beepers, and Budgets
A second Trump assassination attempt has been all over the news, with early reports calling the event a shootout. More recent reports have clarified: no shots have actually been fired by the suspect. The suspect, Ryan Routh, has allegedly attempted to shoot Trump while he was golfing in Florida, with an SKS-style rifle. The Secret Service saw him after 12 hrs in a bush and opened fire. Routh was caught and charged with possession of a firearm as a felon, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. A deep dive into Routh’s record has revealed over 100 counts.
Internationally, hundreds of beepers belonging to Hezbollah members simultaneously exploded, seriously wounding members and passerby. Reports find 20 people have died and 3,000 wounded. The New York Times writes that Israel commissioned a Hungarian based company that would produce the beepers for Hezbollah to lace the batteries with several grams of explosives. Hezbollah recently switched to more underground types of communication such as beepers after fears that Israel has compromised their phone network. AOC (D-NY), has condemned Israel and its war in Gaza. She said, “This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.” AOC called for reports on the attack to Congress + if US technology was used. Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, states escalations risk undermining efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. He claims the U.S. was not involved and was not aware of pager explosions. However, there is discourse on the United State’s knowledge, with some news sources reporting that a few minutes before the attack, the Israeli Minister of Defense called the US Secretary of Defense and announced that Israel was going to launch an operation in Lebanon soon. The United States warned the Israeli government against initiating an all out war with Hezbollah.
Lastly, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by a half point (aka 50 basis points*). These rate cuts make it easier for families to borrow money for homes or startups and are a reaction to the recent signs of moderating inflation and a weakening labor market. This is the first interest rate cut since early on in the pandemic. Outside of emergency rate reductions during the pandemic, the last time this happened was during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. The cuts raise the question of whether the Fed’s aggressive cutting indicates that they are now more worried about the economy. The Federal Reserve has said “The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.” The impacts of the cut were immediate, with stocks hitting a record high and S&P 500 rising 1.7%, just a day after the rate cut. Furthermore, the 30-year mortgage rate drops to 6.09% in expectations of a cut over the last few weeks, which could revive appeal to buy, sell and remortgage.
*Definition of the Week (Basis Points): a unit of measure used in finance to describe the percentage change in the value of financial instruments or the rate change in an index or other benchmark
