Hello: I’m writing to you from Minneapolis, which had the worst air quality in the world today as smoke from wild fires up north settled over the midwest.

I’ve been researching how to keep my dog comfortable and shopping for air purifiers. Turns out clean air is not cheap! The big brands are all too happy to sell you a filter subscription, which will surpass the cost of the purifier itself after a few years. It's the razor/razor blade model.

Maybe all those subscriptions are part of why the consumer seems so resilient, even when they feel lousy? We’ll talk about it in today’s newsletter, along with a bunch of other new economic data and what it means for interest rates.  — Tony Wagner, newsletter editor

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how tech is helping humanity adapt to climate change, check out our podcast “How We Survive.” I just revisited this 2019 episode about researchers working to clean the air in schools and offices.

If you work at the Federal Reserve, this week has been pretty, pretty, pretty good.

We got data Tuesday showing inflation slowed for households in June. The next day we learned inflation slowed for businesses last month too. Today we got retail sales, which grew a hair, 0.2%, from May.

These are all things the Fed wants. Is it enough? Remember, the FOMC has 12 voting members, and lately they’ve been more divided than ever. 

“I guess it depends which Fed official you ask, right?” said Stephanie Kelton, an economist at Stony Brook University.

We’ve gotten mixed messages from Fed officials this week about the future of interest rates. But for now, that’s OK, said Randy Kroszner, a former Federal Reserve governor. This stretch of good data creates a buffer, he said.

“That takes pressure off the Fed from having to raise rates. I think the Fed is going to be on hold for a bit,” Kroszner said.

As in, no rate hikes or cuts while they suss out the situation. Which is a little hard to do when the situation is changing.

South Korea’s soccer team didn’t make it to the knockout stage, and that poor performance has ballooned into a national scandal. It’s not the only one either. Kim came on the show this morning to talk about other countries reeling from a World Cup loss — and the payday U.S. players enjoy just for getting to the round of 16.

And if you’re the guy running the president’s teleprompter, it must be a very tempting opportunity to make a quick $100,000. Federal investigators are in fact investigating President Donald Trump’s longtime prompter guy Gabriel Perez for insider trading after Kalshi reported suspicious trades tied to Trump’s speeches. ABC News reported the aide would even back out on bets in real time as he saw the president ditch his prepared remarks. The White House says Perez is on leave, and a settlement is reportedly in the works.