Good morning, Quartz readers!
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Donald Trump is close to collabing with Elon Musk. The presidential candidate wants the tech billionaire to lead a “government efficiency commission.”
Google is gearing up for another antitrust trial. The first one was about its search dominance, and this one is about its ad tech dominance.
JetBlue actually made out pretty good during the CrowdStrike outage. The carrier raised its revenue guidance because it sopped up its competitors’ stranded passengers.
Kroger promised to cut prices. Of course, it would have to be allowed to merge with Albertsons first.
Verizon is buying $20 billion in internet fiber. It’s acquiring Frontier Communication to boost its reach.
CHICAGO FED PREZ SAYS ECONOMIC VIBES ARE WHATEVER
Austan Goolsbee says that America is getting tantalizingly close to a so-called “soft landing” where the Federal Reserve has successfully raised interest rates to bring inflation down without destroying the economy.
From his presidential perch at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Goolsbee says that things are getting to the point that he and his colleagues can focus less on doomer vibes and more on data points that seem to be painting a rosier picture of the country’s fiscal well-being.
Quartz’s Rocio Fabbro chatted with Goolsbee about his outlook on where things go from here and whether the Fed is behind the curve on getting there.
THAT’S A MIGHTY BIG MATTRESS
Family offices are gaining ground on hedge funds as the favorite safe havens of the wealthiest people’s wealth, says Deloitte.
The consultancy expects the fortunes stowed with the investment vehicles to reach $9 trillion by 2030 — nearly triple the amount from just a few years ago — as the upper-est crust grows tired of sharing its returns with riff-raff who don’t share a bloodline.
Quartz’s Madeline Fitzgerald explains not just what a family office is, but what the concept’s growing popularity means for the future of global finance.
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🎄 Half of Americans will start their holiday shopping even before Halloween
💉An Eli Lilly experiment could let insulin-using diabetes patients avoid 313 injections
🏈 These are the 10 wealthiest sports franchise owners in America
SURPRISING DISCOVERIES
A newly found antibody could be a beat-all COVID-19 vaccine. Scientists think they may have found a treatment that can recognize slippery changes in the virus’s spike protein.
Cats might be hiding how much they like playing fetch. A survey of cat people says 41% of them “sometimes, frequently or always” bring back thrown objects.
Colonial Americans rioted over pine trees. The British Crown’s efforts at conservation were fairly unpopular.
A dye used for Gatorade might turn your skin clear. Scientists tried using yellow-tinting tartrazine on mice first; humans might get their turn, too, one day.
Michael Jordan has been trying to sell his house for 12 years. The basketball star lowered his price from $29 million to $14.855 million in 2015 — 1+4+8+5+5=23, his playing number — and hasn’t budged since.
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Our best wishes on a safe start to the day. Send any news, comments, economic vibes, or transparent skin pics to talk@qz.com. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Melvin Backman and Morgan Haefner.