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Happy Sunday. Welcome to the best of The Conversation.
Just published:
You may not spare much time thinking about the Federal Reserve, but interest rates set by the federal bank affect Americans’ everyday finances in many ways – from their mortgage rates to the credit card interest they have to pay.
And, as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank taught us, interest rate hikes made by the Federal Reserve Bank can do more than bring down inflation – they also made some banks’ bond holdings less valuable and ultimately helped destabilize the banking sector.
So when the Fed voted last Wednesday to raise interest rates by a small margin, our business desk asked a team of economists and financial experts to evaluate how well the Fed threaded the needle between curbing inflation and triggering a recession.
Later this week we’ll bring you stories about public forests designed to grow free food, 3D-printed buildings and curing disease with gene editing.
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Acts of secession are happening across the U.S.
Vector Illustration/Getty Images
Michael J. Lee, College of Charleston
Secession talk evokes fears of a second Civil War. But one scholar says secession is already happening in the US under a variety of guises.
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Sarah Burns, Rochester Institute of Technology
The House of Representatives is breaking norms and establishing a new way for the body to do business.
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Michael Lam, Rochester Institute of Technology
Your experience of time is relative because it depends on motion – more specifically, your speed and acceleration.
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Carl Miller, King's College London
New research shows that antisemitic posts surged as the ‘free speech absolutist’ took over the social media giant. And it has settled at a higher level since.
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Matthew Wright, Rochester Institute of Technology; Christopher Schwartz, Rochester Institute of Technology
Powerful AI tools available to anyone with an internet connection make it easy to impersonate someone’s voice, increasing the threat of phone scams.
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Fed chair Jerome Powell opted for a cautious approach on rates.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Jeffery S. Bredthauer, University of Nebraska Omaha; Arabinda Basistha, West Virginia University; Joerg Bibow, Skidmore College; Marketa Wolfe, Skidmore College
The Fed raised rates by a quarter-point – less aggressive than had been expected before the current banking crisis, but signaling inflation is still its focus.
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Robert T. Walker, University of Florida
Nearly 95% of deforestation in the Amazon occurs within 3.5 miles of a road or near a river. Brazil’s plans to ramp up exports may be on a collision course with the forest.
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Domingo Morel, New York University
Political power and a history of racism lurk behind the recent state takeover of the Houston public school system.
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Daniel Merino, The Conversation; Nehal El-Hadi, The Conversation
A US-led coalition and China are both planning to establish bases on the Moon. How the two nations will navigate actions on the Moon and how other countries will be involved is still unclear.
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Matthew Savoca, Stanford University
Many marine animals, birds and fish are ingesting plastic. New research identifies the first named health effect from it.
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