Articles of the week
What recession? This summer’s economy is defying the odds. Americans still have jobs and are continuing to spend — on plastic surgery, motorcycles and cruises — leading many to revise their doom-and-gloom forecasts. (Washington Post)
Bond Yield Hits Highest Since 2008, Adding Pressure to Borrowing Costs: Bets that interest rates will fall have suppressed 10-year yields for most of 2023, but analysts warn that may be changing. (Wall Street Journal)
How bonds ate the entire financial system: A very short, very wild history of the market that will shape the next financial crisis. (Financial Times)
Do Valuations Even Matter For the Stock Market? If we look at valuations going back to 1990, out of slightly more than 400 monthly observations, the CAPE ratio has been below the long-term average for just 22 months. That’s around 5% of the time. Mind you, this is not valuations at screaming buy levels, just below average. (Wealth of Common Sense)
Are You Rich? Billionaires know they are. Low-wage workers are very well aware that they aren’t. But vast swaths of America’s “regular rich” don’t feel that way, and it’s keeping everybody down. You know them. They’re lawyers in New York, doctors in Phoenix, dentists in Memphis. They own construction companies in your hometown, burger franchises off the highway, homes in the resort villages your parents want to retire in. They’re young, old, Democrats and Republicans. They have two things in common: They’re rich. But they don’t feel that way. (Bloomberg)
Why Are NYC Rents So High? It’s Complicated: COVID spurred many tenants to vacate city apartments, but changing rent laws and rising interest rates are among factors now encouraging people to stay put — with few new apartments available. (The City)
A.I. Can’t Build a High-Rise, but It Can Speed Up the Job: Developers are embracing artificial intelligence tools like drones, cameras, apps and robots, which can reduce the timelines and waste that have made construction increasingly costly. (New York Times)
How a Small Group of Firms Changed the Math for Insuring Against Natural Disasters: Climate change, inflation and global instability have thrust companies that sell insurance to insurers into the spotlight. (New York Times)
How Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into a Tinderbox: Declining rainfall, rising temperatures and invasive species have left the islands more susceptible to wildfires. (New York Times)
Hawaii Is a Warning: The world doesn’t need more reminders that climate change is accelerating. But we’re going to keep getting them. (The Atlantic)
The Secret Life of the 500+ Cables That Run the Internet: Laced across the cold depths of the world’s oceans is a network of multimillion-dollar cables, which have become the vital connections of our online lives. (CNET)
The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI’s breakout year: As organizations rapidly deploy generative AI tools, survey respondents expect significant effects on their industries and workforces. (McKinsey)
See Inside a Ghost Town of Abandoned Mansions in China: Now, farmers are reportedly putting the land of the deserted development to use. (Architectural Digest)
Google’s Search Box Changed the Meaning of Information: Web search promised to resolve questions. Instead, it brought on a soft apocalypse of truth. (Wired)
Bring On the E-Boats! The most exciting electric vehicles in the world are for sailors only. (Slate).
The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think: The United States is pivoting away from fossil fuels and toward wind, solar and other renewable energy, even in areas dominated by the oil and gas industries. (New York Times)
Behind All the Talk, This Is What Big Oil Is Actually Doing: The industry can point to efforts to reduce emissions and pursue green energy technologies. But those efforts pale in comparison with what they are doing to maintain and enhance oil and gas production. As the International Energy Agency put it, investment by the industry in clean fuels “is picking up” but “remains well short of where it needs to be.” (New York Times)
How Fake Science Sells Wellness: Dubious claims in product marketing are everywhere. Don’t fall for them. (New York Times)
Influencers Built Up This Wellness Startup—Until They Started Getting Sick: Inside the fiasco that turned Daily Harvest, a vegan food company backed by celebs including Gwyneth Paltrow, into a cautionary tale. (Businessweek)
Comedian Jim Gaffigan Starred in 200 Commercials Before Landing on ‘Letterman’ The ‘Linoleum’ star on cereal battles, overcoming anxiety and how copywriting led to stand-up and acting. (Wall Street Journal)
50 Years Later, Everything Is Hip-Hop: Rappers didn’t just change the sound of music—they changed the business of it too. ‘The only rule was to be successful.’ (Wall Street Journal)
For Dua Lipa, Just Being a Pop Star Isn’t Enough: Though the singer has maintained a strict line between her music and her private life, she’s leveraging her personal passions in a bid to become a media mogul. (New York Times)
Taylor Swift’s Viral Era: a Timeline: Fan demand broke Ticketmaster, and that was just the prologue. These are the moments that turned the Eras Tour into a phenomenon. (New York Times)
How Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Conquered the World: The pop star’s record-breaking, career-spanning show has dominated the summer, commanding attention and whipping up demand at a level thought unachievable in a fragmented age. (New York Times)
The Most Emotional Video Game Music in the Unlikeliest of Places The Eleanor Rigby of video game music. (IGN)
The A’s Don’t Just Want to Leave Oakland. They Want to Leave Moneyball Behind, Too. In an interview, team president Dave Kaval says the team hopes revenue from a new stadium will help it pay more for players than its famous cost-conscious strategy. (Wall Street Journal)
Why Did Scouts Whiff on Luis Arraez, MLB’s Base-Hit King? And will the unexpected success of baseball’s batting average leader pave the way for other unconventional prospects? (The Ringer)