Articles of the week
Americans Like Sharing Bad Economic News Way Too Much: The misery index was twice as high in the 1970s than it is now, yet consumers report hearing negative things about the economy at a much greater rate. Social media is partly to blame. (Bloomberg)
The pandemic has broken a closely followed survey of sentiment: Americans’ opinions about the state of the economy have diverged from reality: Americans are gloomy about the state of the economy. Since the covid-19 pandemic began, consumer sentiment has been in the doldrums, hitting its lowest level ever in June 2022. Such negativity has prompted claims that the country is suffering a “vibecession”—although the market appears healthy, good vibes are lacking (Economist)
The Myth of the Great Boomer Wealth Transfer: So when is this Great Wealth Transfer going to happen? Are our parents sitting on millions that they haven’t told us about? Will we soon see a life-changing jump in younger generations’ net worth? If the past is any indication, younger generations shouldn’t get their hopes up. (Business Insider)
The Bond Market, a Sleeping Giant, Awakes: Soaring interest rates have the power to alter the direction of the economy and command the attention of Washington, our columnist says. (New York Times)
Bond Market Outlook: Valuations Suggest Potential for Equity-Like Returns With Less Risk (PIMCO)
Higher Bond Yields Could End the Fed’s Historic Rate Rises: Some economists say the rise in yields’ term premium is worth two or three Fed rate hikes (Wall Street Journal)
This is a Wonderful Market for Dollar Cost Averaging: This has not been a fun time to hold small cap stocks. There have been in four bear markets and two outright crashes of 30% or worse. There is a silver lining here though. This has been an outstanding market for dollar cost averaging into small cap stocks. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I’ve been buying small caps during every correction along the way. (A Wealth of Common Sense)
World’s Safest Market Becomes a Magnet for Big Investors: US government debt was once among the sleepiest corners of finance. No longer. (Businessweek)
It’s official: The era of China’s global dominance is over: Getting rich isn’t China’s big project anymore; the project is power. As a result, both the government’s priorities and its behavior have changed. In the past, whenever it seemed that a recession was on the horizon, the CCP came to the rescue. There’s no hefty stimulus coming this time. Nor will the explosive growth that experts once expected from China return. Beijing’s relationship with the outside world is no longer guided by the principles of economic rationality, but rather by its yearning for political power. (Business Insider)
America’s shoplifting problem, explained by retail workers and thieves: Retailers would rather complain about shoplifting than invest in fighting it. (Vox)
They Cracked the Code to a Locked USB Drive Worth $235 Million in Bitcoin. Then It Got Weird: lost the password to an encrypted USB drive holding 7,002 bitcoins. One team of hackers believes they can unlock it—if they can get Thomas to let them. (Wired)
Is Crypto Financing Terrorism? A report that terror groups raised more than $130 million in crypto during recent years has set off a debate in Washington and finance circles. (New York Times)
How Telegram Became a Terrifying Weapon in the Israel-Hamas War: Hamas posted gruesome images and videos that were designed to go viral. Sources argue that Telegram’s lax moderation ensured they were seen around the world. (Wired)
In the Cities of Killing: The Hamas massacre, the assaults on Gaza, and what comes after. (New Yorker)
How AI is crafting a world where our worst stereotypes are realized: AI image generators like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E amplify our worst stereotypes — bias in gender, race and beyond — despite efforts to detoxify the data fueling these results. (Washington Post)
The Story of a Gun: After 60,000 deaths from firearms use over the past two years, America is in a gun crisis. Yet gun laws remain weak, gunmakers continue to promote killing power, and gun dealers accept no responsibility for the criminal use of what they sell. (The Atlantic)
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren’t working: At earnings this week, several auto execs pulled back on EV targets. Dealers have been warning of slowing EV demand for months. “This is a pretty brutal space,” Mercedes-Benz’s CFO said this week. (Business Insider)
A Tangle of Rules to Protect America’s Water Is Falling Short: The Times asked all 50 states how they manage groundwater. The answers show why the country’s aquifers are in trouble. (New York Times)
The World Solved Acid Rain. We Can Also Solve Climate Change: Lessons from how we tackled acid rain can be applied to our world today. (Scientific American)
Daylight Saving Time as Americans know it was instituted by corporate lobbies, not farmers: At some point in elementary school, many American children learn that Daylight Saving Time was originally intended to give farmers an extra hour of light to work the fields. That is, in fact, a lie. (Quartz)
'No one fears a defensive team': What's driving hockey's offensive boom Steve Yzerman, the Hall of Fame center turned mastermind general manager, rarely partakes in media interviews. When he does, the Detroit Red Wings executive tends to play his cards close to his chest. (Sportsnet)
The surprising science that explains why we love thrillers: Entertainment isn’t frivolous. Walter Hickey’s new book You Are What You Watch explains why. (Vox)
What Mitt Romney Saw in the Senate: In an exclusive excerpt from my forthcoming biography of the senator, Romney: A Reckoning, he reveals what drove him to retire. (The Atlantic)
Kanye and Adidas: Money, Misconduct and the Price of Appeasement: A year ago, after producing hundreds of shoe styles and billions of dollars together, Adidas broke with Kanye West as he made antisemitic and other offensive public comments. But Adidas had been tolerating his misconduct behind the scenes for nearly a decade. (New York Times)
The Streisand Effect: At home with the legend, talking music, movies, and her revealing new memoir, My Name Is Barbra. (Vanity Fair)
Why is it so hard to work out how much money Taylor Swift is making? Turns out everyone likes a gold rush, gold rush. (Financial Times)
Taylor Swift Hits Billionaire Status as Net Worth Surges With Eras Tour Success: The most definitive account yet of the pop star’s wealth shows she’s one of the few recording artists to build a 10-figure fortune almost entirely from her music. (Bloomberg)
Taylor Swift’s 1989: Her biggest album returns with new tracks from the vault: On Friday, Taylor Swift released a new version of 1989 – the biggest-selling album of her career, and the one that definitively turned her into a pop star. Featuring hits like Shake It Off, Blank Space and Style, it was originally written during the 2013-14 Red Tour, with demos stored on her phone in a folder named “Sailor Twips”. Awarded a Grammy for album of the year, it has spent 325 weeks in the UK charts. But now she has re-recorded it as the latest part of an ongoing campaign to regain control of her work, after an investment company bought her master tapes in 2019. (BBC)
The last new Beatles song, ‘Now And Then,’ will be released this week: Sixty years after the onset of Beatlemania and with two of the quartet now dead, artificial intelligence has enabled the release next week of what is promised to be the last “new” Beatles song. (AP News)