That 70s Inflation Show — MMM #18

Thomas Konings
3 min readMay 9, 2022

Hi there,

Still in the middle of exam preparations so a bit of a smaller newsletter today. This week I’ve focused on my Finance course and debated discount rates for tax shields under the APV method, maybe a good idea to write an article about that at some point.

📃In today’s Monday Morning Mashup:

  • ⭐Highlight: Back to the 70s? Inflation in perspective
  • 💽Data: using free satellites to track ships?
  • 🌐Web: Meta’s new language AI, a free alternative to GPT-3
  • 🌍Geopolitics: EU to ban Russian oil

Have a great week!

⭐Highlight: Back to the 70s with inflation?

Excellent coverage by Prof. Damodaran of the possible scenarios that can unfold over the next year(s) regarding inflation and economic growth. Worth a watch if you’re interested in macroeconomic development, everyday impact of inflation, and if the market is fairly priced. Also covers some key economic theory about inflation expectations in a very clear and accessible way.

In search of a Steady State: Inflation, Interest Rates and Valuewww.youtube.com
After a decade of low and stable inflation (2011–2020), the reappearance of inflation in the early parts of 2021 was a surprise. While the Fed and administra…

💽Data: using free satellites to track ships?

I recently came across a cool project: using “synthetic aperture radar” satellites to visualize shipping lanes. SAR-satellites allow you to see through clouds by bouncing signals off it, much like conventional radar but then in image form.

Using the freely accessible Sentinel constellation ships can be seen and hence busier shipping lines can be determined (and drawn). For the full technical details check out the excellent post below:

Visualizing shipping lanes from Sentinel-1 — Séries Temporelleslabo.obs-mip.fr
Your description for this link…

🌐Web: Meta’s new language AI

Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) released a massive new language AI this week which is a free alternative to GPT-3 (for which you have to pay per use). Here’s an article covering why that’s great, and the inherent flaws that come with the model.

Meta has built a massive new language AI — and it’s giving it away for free | MIT Technology Reviewwww.technologyreview.com
In an uncharacteristic move, Facebook’s parent company is inviting researchers to pick apart the flaws in a language model like GPT-3

🌍Geopolitics: EU to ban Russian oil (but not yet)

As sanctions continue to tighten Russian oil continues to flow into Europe. Last week we saw Dutch dock workers refuse to unload a (non-Russian) vessel containing Russian oil, after Sweden had refused it.

Now, the EU wants to ban Russian oil altogether, reducing its dependence to zero in as little as a year. But: not quite yet, Hungary has blocked the proposal for now (talks continue on Tuesday).

EU’s Russian oil ban stalls as Hungary holds up sanctions — POLITICOwww.politico.eu
Orbán wants a ‘crazy’ total opt-out from the ban, one diplomat says. Talks are set to re-start by Tuesday.

An EU oil ban is a tightening noose on Russia’s economy

www.ft.com
An EU oil ban is a tightening noose on Russia’s economy

Have a great week!

--

--

Thomas Konings

MSc in Management (MiM) student at London School of Economics, MSc Finance from RSM, seeking to connect Finance & Management for better decision-making.