The Rebrew Intelligencer

Chart by the Intelligencer from figures by the Energy Information Administration, via FRED

LONDON, Oct. 21. Consumer prices in Britain rose 3.5 per cent in the 12 months to September, up from 3.1 per cent in August, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected 3.4 per cent, and the Bank of England aims for 2 per cent. Motor fuel made the largest upward contribution, its prices up 29.8 per cent on the year, while restaurants and hotels pulled the other way.

Petrol averaged 169.5 pence a litre in September, up 8.2 pence in a single month and the highest since August 2022, which works out to about 6 pounds 42 pence for an American gallon. Diesel averaged 192.5 pence a litre, the highest since July 2022. Prices beyond the pump are rising faster as well: core inflation, which leaves out energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, rose to 2.8 per cent from 2.6 per cent, and inflation in services rose to 3.7 per cent from 3.4 per cent.

Photograph by Sergio López Prieto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

VATICAN CITY, Oct. 21. Pope Leo XIV needs no further treatment for lung cancer, his doctors said in a statement released by the Vatican on Wednesday. Final tests on the tissue taken when surgeons removed the lower lobe of his right lung last week confirmed a diagnosis of adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer, and showed that it had not spread. "A subsequent oncology assessment confirmed that no further treatment is necessary," said the statement from his personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, and his surgeon, Dr. Stefano Margaritora.

The nodule was found by chance during routine abdominal examinations, Dr. Margaritora told Vatican News, and the Pope disclosed it and the planned operation himself at his Sunday blessing on Oct. 11. He left Rome's Gemelli hospital four days after the surgery, sooner than the week the Vatican had expected, and has since given the Sunday blessing and Wednesday's general audience. His next large undertaking is a journey to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru from Nov. 6 to 17, and Dr. Margaritora said there is no clinical reason to prevent it.

Photograph by Drovetochicago, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

MILWAUKEE, Oct. 21. The Milwaukee Brewers said Tuesday that Jacob Misiorowski will start the first game of the World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night at American Family Field, the club's first Series game since 1982. Misiorowski, who is 24 and stands 6 feet 7, led the major leagues during the season with an earned run average of 1.80 and 252 strikeouts. The Rays had not named a starter, though Drew Rasmussen is in line to pitch on regular rest.

His fastball has been faster in October than in summer, averaging 101 miles an hour against 100.6 in the regular season, but batters have learned to stay with it. According to CBS Sports, they swung and missed at 40.2 per cent of his fastballs during the season and at 16.1 per cent in the playoffs, and in the playoffs they fouled off 67.9 per cent, against 38.9 per cent in the season. He threw 88 pitches in four innings in the first game of the division series and 94 in four and a third innings in the first game of the league championship series. The Brewers swept the Dodgers for the pennant and have played only eight games in 25 days.

Courtesy of Transnet Freight Rail

SALDANHA, South Africa, Oct. 20. Transnet Freight Rail, South Africa's state freight railway, ran a train of 696 empty iron ore wagons, about 7.6 kilometers or 4.7 miles long, from the port of Saldanha toward the mines of the Northern Cape over the week end, and has claimed the world record for the longest freight train. The mark it means to beat is a 682-wagon train that BHP ran to Port Hedland, Australia, in 2001, and Guinness World Records has yet to review the evidence. The railway said the run was also meant to advance its technical knowledge of train design and handling, and the locomotives were spaced along the train and worked together by radio.

Courtesy of Supermicro

The Dow rose 360.21 points, or 0.69 per cent, on Wednesday to close at 52,856.09, its highest in a month. The S&P 500 gained 44.60 points, or 0.58 per cent, to 7,757.17, its third gain in a row. The Nasdaq composite rose 1.05 per cent, to 26,702.86, with chip and artificial intelligence hardware shares in the lead.

Super Micro Computer, which builds servers for artificial intelligence, rose about 9.5 per cent after saying it now expects $18.5 billion to $19.5 billion of revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30, against its earlier forecast of $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion. It also raised its forecast of gross margin to between 12 and 12.5 per cent, from 10.4 to 10.8 per cent.

Netflix fell about 5.3 per cent to its lowest price in more than two years, although its third-quarter earnings of 87 cents a share beat forecasts of 82 cents. The company's forecast of fourth-quarter revenue fell short of expectations, and it cut its estimate of advertising revenue for the year to about $2.7 billion, from about $3 billion, owing to a slower rollout of some of its advertising tools.

Photograph by Minnaert, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19. An affiliate of Kam Sang Company has bought the $290 million loan secured by Wells Fargo Center South, a 45-story office tower of about 1.16 million square feet at 355 South Grand Avenue on Bunker Hill, Newmark said. Newmark, which arranged the transaction for the seller, called it a discounted sale, and the price was not disclosed. The tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, was about 42 per cent leased at the time of the sale.

The buyer, New Age 355, LLC, bought the debt rather than the building. The holder of a mortgage note collects the borrower's payments, and if the borrower defaults, the holder is the party that may foreclose and take the property.

The tower's neighbor, the 55-story North Tower at 333 South Grand, changed hands in June, when 601W Cos. bought it from Brookfield with a $132 million loan from Northwind Group and an additional $48 million facility for future leasing costs. About $506 million of debt on that building was in default. The note sale came as the 10-year Treasury yield, the benchmark for most commercial mortgages, stood above 5 per cent in the Federal Reserve's daily figures for mid-October.

Elon Musk said this week that a merger of SpaceX and Tesla, the two great companies he runs, would be a good idea, though the decision belongs to committees of independent directors at each. He added that, as a conflicted party, he cannot take part in their talks. The case for a combination has been argued at length. The question worth a reader's time is the price, and who stands on which side of it.

Mr. Musk owns about 48 per cent of SpaceX and about 20 per cent of Tesla, according to Time. Suppose, as reports suggest, that SpaceX buys Tesla with its own shares. Every extra dollar paid to Tesla's owners then comes out of the pockets of SpaceX's owners. Of that dollar, Mr. Musk would give up about 48 cents as a SpaceX holder and get back about 20 cents as a Tesla holder. That is not an accusation but arithmetic, and it would hold for anyone in his position. It means that the people with the most at stake in a good price for Tesla are its other shareholders, who own roughly four-fifths of it, and the directors on Tesla's committee who bargain for them.

James Madison stated the general rule in the tenth Federalist: "No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause; because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity." Corporate law reached the same place by its own road. In Delaware, where most of that law grew up, when a controlling owner sits on both sides of a deal the courts ask whether it was entirely fair, in its price and in the way it was struck, and a committee with its own advisers and the power to say no is the usual means of showing that it was.

Tesla's shareholders have been here before. In 2016 Tesla bought SolarCity, a solar company in which Mr. Musk was also the largest shareholder. Shareholders sued, and after an 11-day trial the Delaware Court of Chancery found in 2022 that the deal was entirely fair, and the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in 2023. The process, in other words, can survive a court. But a court can only ask whether a price was fair after the fact, and only a committee can ask for a better one beforehand.

There is one more figure worth watching. Barclays has estimated that after an all-stock deal Mr. Musk would own about 37 per cent of the combined company but command about 56 per cent of its votes, because his SpaceX shares carry extra votes and his Tesla shares do not. A Tesla shareholder asked to approve the deal would be trading a vote in a company where Mr. Musk holds about a fifth of the say for one where he holds a majority. That may be a fair exchange at the right price, and the price is the thing to know before the vote.

From a reader

My neighbor told me to cut it out with the street parking seeing as I have a driveway. I had parked 2 cars on the street near my house, as I needed extra space for the work I was doing. My cars had been on the street a full 30 minutes. I noticed her trying to get by and ran out. She rolled down the window and, without looking at me, said, “it’s getting old…” (my car was parked on the street for 5 minutes the prior day. Poor timing, really. I simply replied saying, “I’ll stop.”

Not that this has any to do with the paper, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, Mr. Langston, as the altercation has been bothering me all day.

[You gave the soft answer, and Proverbs 15:1 holds that "A soft answer turneth away wrath"; the driveway will see to the rest. ED.]

A loyal reader

Broadway's 30 productions took in $33,963,816 in the week ended Sunday, down 3.76 per cent from the week before and 11.06 per cent from the same week a year ago, according to figures from the Broadway League. Hamilton led with $2,777,340, filling 101.3 per cent of its seats at an average of $258.86 a ticket, nearly twice the Broadway average of $131.05. Other Desert Cities opened at the Hudson on Sunday, sold every seat during the week and took in $1,817,584.

The National Weather Service promises Greenville a sunny Thursday with a high near 74 and a clear night falling to about 47, then a sunny Friday near 68 and a sunny Saturday near 65, with a northeast wind gusting to 23 miles an hour. The barometer in the front hall was consulted at breakfast and has nothing to add.