My wife shared this list of great Florida bookstores with me, so I'm sharing it here for other Florida book-lovers. https://www.southernliving.com/florida-bookstores-7097442

What a bunch of f*cking cowards! "The House committee investigating the riot avoided detailed discussion in its report for fear of offending Republicans and tech companies. The sum of this is that alt-tech, fringe, and mainstream platforms were exploited in tandem by right-wing activists to bring American democracy to the brink of ruin,” the staffers wrote in their memo.https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/17/jan6-committee-report-social-media/

"You get higher gas prices and you get higher gas prices. Everyone gets higher gas prices!"
Republicans are aiming to neutralize one of the main tools that President Joe Biden used to lower gasoline prices before last year’s elections — his prolific releases of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/25/republicans-fight-against-biden-oil-drawdowns-00079289

China's net imports of refined copper totalled 3.64 million metric tonnes last year, up almost 300,000 tonnes on 2021 and 2nd highest after record-breaking 2020. The mystery is where all this metal went since visible inventories within China remain historically low. #CoSoFinance https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/while-dr-copper-waits-china-china-buys-more-copper-2023-01-27/

I know I'm harping on inflation, but this is really good news. Over the past three months, we've see Consumer Price Index (CPI) core inflation cut by half, from 6-7% to 3%-3.5%, while the economy added over 700,000 jobs.

The disinflation was exactly what and where a soft landing predicted; the Fed should let these positive developments continue. #CoSoFinance #CoSoEconomics

Chart from Mike Konczal: The Fed is flagging core services ex housing as their indicator ffor watching potential inflation from labor markets - as compared between CPI and PCE.

CPI flattened out hard; PCE is still more elevated, but also has shown a decline this month. So, if the Fed isn't moving the goal posts, there should be an end to Fed rate hikes sooner than later. That's a big "If". #CoSoFinance

Annualized December personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation (the Fed's preferred measure) fell as expected, dropping to 5% headline and 4.4% core year-over-year. There are multiple ways to measure inflation, as this article explains #CoSoFinance https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-inflation-rate-slows-again-to-15-month-low-pce-shows-11674826498

Mastodon and other new potential Twitter rivals have grown, particularly since Musk officially took control of Twitter at the end of October, data gathered by Insider shows. Daily usage of Mastodon, Hive Social, and Counter Social are all up dramatically over the last two months. Meanwhile, at least half a dozen other Twitter-like platforms have recently been launched in beta or are set to be early next year, including Post.News, Spoutible, Mozilla.Social and Bluesky.https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-rivals-downloads-plunge-mastadon-hive-social-bluesky-2022-12

Speaking of tight #gasoline supplies: Global capacity fell by 730,000 barrels per day (b/d) last year as close to 1.6 million b/d was shut or converted into bio-refineries and only 850,000 b/d new capacity came online. #CoSoFinance https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/011922-global-refinery-closures-outweigh-new-capacity-in-2021-iea