The Daily Feather — Dorian Gray

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

Oscar Wilde

Since its release in 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray has stirred controversy. The novel’s premise is simple: Dorian Gray’s close friend and admirer Basil Hayward paints a portrait of him, and Dorian wishes that this portrait would age, rather than himself. His wish unexpectedly comes true, and he pursues a life dedicated to indulging in any and all vices. Dorian maintains his youth and beauty while his portrait grows more grotesque, illustrating the decaying state of his soul. Victorian society, known for its emphasis on reputation and maintaining appearances, was scandalized by the book and its sly social commentary. A few years after its release, it became evidence in author Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial for “gross indecency,” for which he was convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor. To this day, the Gothic tale lands on “banned book” lists. As recently as 2014, Highland Park ISD in our hometown of Dallas required parental permission for high schoolers to read it.

Just as Dorian Gray coveted his own youthful good looks, markets admired the beauty that they saw in two releases that crowned last week’s data docket. Thursday’s final revision to second-quarter GDP lifted the growth rate by five-tenths to a 3.8% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) annualized pace, the strongest since 2023’s third-quarter gain of 4.7%. As noted in Saturday’s Intelligence Briefing, this lifted real private demand, the sum of consumer spending and business investment, from 1.9% to 2.9% QoQ annualized. As an encore, Friday’s Consumer Spending print beat expectations by one-tenth, rising 0.6% MoM in August. Axios called out both as evidence of clear skies in, “Recession Warnings Are Looking Flat Wrong as Consumers Power the Economy Forward.” Bloomberg’s benign consensus recession probability of 30% seemingly concurs.