Here's some Friday advice for those who aspire to public office: try being like Harry Truman.

Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. He was also one of the few politicians to emerge from the Kansas City machine without being corrupted.

He said: "In all this long career, I had certain rules I followed, win, lose or draw. I refused to handle any political money in any way whatever. I engaged in no private interest whatever that could be helped by local, state or national governments. I refused presents, hotel accommodations or trips which were paid for by private parties. I made no speeches for money or expenses while I was in the Senate. I lived on the salary I was legally entitled to and considered that I was employed by the taxpayers, and the people of my country, state and nation."

Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO wrote a letter to employees a few days back which is a fantastic read. Unfortunately, the media latched on to the part where he talks about needing fewer people to do certain jobs, and that stole the limelight. If you dig a little deeper, you will see some of the amazing things being achieved at Amazon through generative AI. Here are a few highlights.

1)Alexa can now provide intelligent answers to almost any question.
2)An AI shopping assistant is being used by tens of millions of clients to help make purchase decisions.
3)Lens allows shoppers to take a picture of an item they want and it will find it on the Amazon catalogue.
4)Independent sellers can navigate marketplace a lot more efficiently due to advice given by AI bots. Advertising is more targeted and has better conversions.
5)They are also using generative AI on all their internal systems from fulfilment to inventory placement to demand forecasts.
6)Lastly, AI has put AWS on steroids for developers and software builders.

The future is very exciting for Amazon.

On Wednesday, Stats SA reported that inflation for May was 2.8%, lower than the SARB's official target of 3-6% for the third consecutive month. Low inflation is great news, and it would have been lower if government services like water and electricity hadn't had large increases. Interestingly, even with low inflation, insurance premiums still went up on average by 8.2% - maybe give your insurer a call to renegotiate your premium.

Byron and I were chatting in the office yesterday about the significance of the SARB's official inflation target. Does the target even matter if inflation is already low? For the long term, the target does matter because it anchors expectations.

A key reason to lower our inflation target is because lower inflation means lower interest rates. Low long-term interest rates are only possible if investors believe that the value of the Rand will remain stable, which is tied to the credibility of the central bank in keeping inflation at its target. A lower target helps with their credibility.

I think unofficially, our target is already 3%. We just need politicians to make it official. My prediction is that interest rates will drop slowly over the next two years, as the economy gets its head around new low levels of inflation. After that, the historically low rates we saw from Covid, will become the norm, which will be great news for property prices and our economy in general.

Some internet brands are like fireworks - they burn bright, then vanish. Myspace, Vine, Napster, Bebo. . . all once-popular, now internet relics. So the fact that Yahoo is still kicking at 31 is borderline miraculous.

This week, the OG web brand rolled out a new AI-powered email "catch-up" feature - it summarizes your inbox so you can mass-delete or keep stuff. Not exactly bleeding edge, but a nod to modernity. They even dropped some cheeky "Anti Email Email Club" merch to go with it. Cute.

But here's something interesting, Yahoo Mail still has 200 million users, and Yahoo.com is somehow the sixth most visited site in North America, ahead of X (Twitter), LinkedIn, even Wikipedia and ChatGPT.

That said, signs of grey hair are showing. Weekly traffic just hit a 13-month low, according to Similarweb. So, while Yahoo's still relevant today, the big question is: can it survive to 40 or 50? Only time (and maybe another private equity rebrand) will tell.

Many places on earth are faced with rising temperatures. One solution is pretty straight forward - Plant more trees.

If you stand near a waterfall you will get wet. That saying relates to generating wealth, and highlights how it is easier to do well when the people around you are rich - America added 1 000 new millionaires every day last year.

Asian stocks are upbeat this morning, with the MSCI Asia-Pacific index up around 0.5%. Benchmarks in China, Hong Kong, and South Korea all caught a bid. Japan's inflation nudged to a two-year high - just in time for PM Shigeru Ishiba's election prep and more policy soul-searching at the BoJ.

In local company news, Stadio, the private higher education group, reported an 8% rise in student numbers to just under 51 000 for the six months to end-June. They called the growth "satisfactory." In a tough South African economy, any upward trend in enrollments is a win.

US equity futures are in the green pre-market. The Rand is trading at around R17.99 to the greenback.

Tomorrow is the winter solstice, so the countdown to summer is almost here. Have a good weekend.