This week’s hot U.S. inflation report sent a shudder through global markets, but bets that it would nudge the Federal Reserve to raise rates at the end of this month are fading. Bond prices worldwide have enjoyed a nice bounce and old-school dividend paying stocks have too. Futures point to modest gains to end the week. Follow our live markets data and coverage. “Throw it in the fire.”

The leading left-wing candidate to be France’s next president has a proposal for tackling its runaway debt—asking the European Central Bank to just cancel nearly half a trillion euros’ worth of it.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s seductively simple idea is music to the ears of thousands of people demonstrating in French cities and millions more who benefit from the country’s unsustainable social safety net. Give him points for audacity, not originality: Politicians in Italy, Spain and Greece have had similar brain waves.

It’s tempting for Americans to shake their heads at European profligacy, but France is just the bleeding edge of a fiscal crisis approaching other Western governments, including the U.S. Investors everywhere should understand why the idea of canceling debt keeps cropping up and what it would mean.

It’s the path of least resistance. No taxes have to be raised or benefits cut, so why not erase some bonds held by a central bank? It’s technically money that the government owes itself anyway.

Because nothing is free. Pundits often say that the Fed or other central banks are “printing money” when they buy bonds. They actually aren’t. It would turn into money printing if the temporary bank reserves created became permanent.

The resulting inflation would be bad for savers. It would also erode investors’ trust in lending again to any government that tried it. What’s more, ideas like Mélenchon’s aren’t the sole province of Socialists or even Europeans.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise given the idea’s seeming simplicity. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul proposed it via the Debt Crisis Resolution Act in 2011. Then candidate Donald Trump mused in 2016 about making “a deal” on the national debt before quickly backtracking. “I love debt. I love playing with it.”

Political pressure on the Fed to lower rates at a time of high inflation also can help Uncle Sam’s finances because it makes the “real,” inflation-adjusted cost lower. That slow burn, so-called fiscal dominance, is less-controversial than just torching bonds, but it can have the same effect on savers and consumers.

Especially after the recent jump in bond yields and federal interest costs—and increasing dependence on short-term borrowing—the Treasury would love for the Fed to keep rates it controls low. Monetary policy is supposed to be politically independent, of course.

Fudging that relationship is easier for the U.S. than France, which no longer has its own currency. The eurozone’s biggest borrower needs to tread a delicate political path because actually canceling bonds would punish savers in many other countries too. Their temptations are similar, but American politicians usually know not to say the quiet part out loud.

CoreWeave: Shares of the compute provider fell 4% premarket as yesterday’s rebound proves short-lived. The stock has come under pressure this week as investors fret over how higher interest rates will impact the highly-indebted company.

Tesla: Shares of the EV maker climbed nearly 5% premarket. Tesla yesterday revealed its long-awaited second-generation Roadster, which it describes as the world’s first flying car. Shares of SpaceX, whose rocket technology underpins the vehicle, also rose premarket.

J.B. Hunt: Shares fell 1.3% premarket. The logistics company reported profit and revenue that topped Wall Street’s expectations in the latest quarter, but warned higher fuel prices and other costs are weighing on the business.

Alcoa: Shares rose more than 2% premarket after the aluminum producer reported higher profit and revenue in its latest quarter.

AI agents are inserting themselves into relationships between businesses and customers. That could be a win for consumers and the tech companies behind the agents, but it poses challenges for many e-commerce players caught in the middle.

On this day in 2001, Enron surprised investors by reporting a $618 million quarterly loss connected with write-downs of soured investments. In a call with analysts, Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lay also divulged that the company had cut its shareholder equity by $1.2 billion, meaning Enron was suddenly worth a lot less money. The company filed for bankruptcy less than two months later.

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Business and finance have fascinated me for a long time. Before writing this newsletter, I edited The Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street team for a decade, wrote two investment books and managed a team of stock analysts at a global investment bank.

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