The Fed’s July Open Market Committee meeting minutes dropped on Wednesday, and they showed a central bank pleased that early efforts to tame inflation were “beginning to have an effect” but very committed to additional rate hikes in light of what Governors viewed as “uncomfortably high” inflation in the U.S. - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch

That apparent confirmation of more increases coming down the pike was enough to push stocks lower at the end of the trading day - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch

Speaking of uncomfortably high, how about that 10.1% inflation mark in Great Britain in July—the highest pace in 40 years that’s been driven in large part by “surging energy and food costs” - NYTimes and WSJ

Back here in the States, falling gas prices have allowed U.S. consumers to keep buying “everyday goods as they weathered high inflation and a slowing economy.” Taking out gas and auto sales, consumer spending rose .7% last month from a month before, “showing shoppers maintained the ability to spend with much of the spending moving online” - WSJ and Marketplace

An Ohio federal judge on Wednesday ordered CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart—three of the country’s “largest pharmacy chains”—to pay $650.5 million to a pair of Ohio counties, “ruling that the companies must be held accountable for their part in fueling the opioid epidemic.” The order is the “first by a federal judge that assigns a firm money figure against the pharmacy chains for their roles in the opioid crisis” - NYTimes and WSJ and Law360

NLRB officials made the case to a NY federal judge this week that “Amazon’s refusal to reinstate a fired employee will kill support for a union at its Staten Island warehouse” as part of the Board’s move for a temporary injunction “requiring Amazon to rehire” the employee “who was fired from the so-called JRK8 warehouse amid protests of the company’s COVID-19 response in 2020” – Law360

Former Deutsche Bank co-chief executive Anshu Jain—“who helped transform [the bank] from a conservative middle-market lender in German into a Wall Street giant”—passed away last week of cancer at just 59. Jain resigned from his top spot at DB in 2015 “after a downturn in Deutsche Bank’s fortunes,” and he became president of Cantor Fitzgerald in 2017 - NYTimes

Any time “spidey senses” play a part in serious academic work (in this case, the determination of a university library’s prized manuscript as the work of a forger), you know we’re down for it - NYTimes

Stay safe,
MDR