Friday's Fast Five: Week of 10.13

Why mortgage rates are so high (Axios): The main reason mortgage rates are so high — closing in on 8% — is just that long-term interest rates are high. But the main reason mortgage rates are so much higher than other long-term rates is that U.S. mortgages can be prepaid without penalty.

Investing Has Been Ugly. Stick With It Anyway. (The New York Times): Most people have lost money in the markets over the last several months, but people who have held on have prospered, our columnist says.

What was I made for: Large Language Models in the Real World (JP Morgan - Michael Cembalest) I asked Chat GPT-4 questions on economics, markets, energy and politics that my analysts and I worked on over the last two years. This piece reviews the results, along with the latest achievements and stumbles of generative AI models in the real world, and comments on the changing relationship between innovation, productivity and employment.

‘A Galactic Embarrassment’: The Crypto World Is Already Sick of SBF’s Trial (Wired): The frustration, in crypto circles, is with the idea that the industry is on trial too—that Bankman-Fried’s alleged fraud is emblematic of the hubris and backroom maneuvering essential to crypto. They say this a case of straightforward fraud of the Bernie Madoff variety, not a reflection of issues specific to crypto businesses or technologies.

After Shunning Scientist, University of Pennsylvania Celebrates Her Nobel Prize (The Wall Street Journal):  Penn demoted Katalin Karikó, shunting her to a lab on the outskirts of campus while cutting her pay. Karikó hasn’t only proven her detractors wrong but also reached the pinnacle of science. Her research with Weissman helped lead to the mRNA vaccines that protected people worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic and now shows promise for flu, cancer and other diseases.