Weekly article drop
The Stock Market Has a Real Problem—a Real Yield Problem: Real yields—adjusted for inflation—have been steadily climbing as rates rise and inflation decelerates. The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury inflation-protected securities was negative until May of last year. It touched 2% on Friday, its highest level since 2009. That’s an attractive-enough after-inflation yield for many investors, and it presents more competition for stocks, especially those with high valuations. (Barron’s)
The Great and Awful Thing About These Interest Rates: If you’re depending on income to fund your retirement, 5% rates are a blessing. But if you’re in need of credit, current rates are a curse. (Irrelevant Investor)
Global Household Wealth Drops for First Time Since 2008: Financial Crisis Assets shrunk by $11.3 trillion amid inflation, strong dollar North America, Europe hit hardest as Russia added millionaires. (Bloomberg)
Credit card debt collection: One core waste stream of the finance industry is charged-off consumer debt. Debt collection is a fascinating (and frequently depressing) underbelly of finance. It shines a bit of light on credit card issuance itself, and richly earns the wading-through-a-river-of-effluvia metaphor. (Bits About Money)
How Nvidia Built a Competitive Moat Around A.I. Chips: The most visible winner of the artificial intelligence boom achieved its dominance by becoming a one-stop shop for A.I. development, from chips to software to other services. (New York Times)
The Booming Business of American Anxiety: A flurry of companies and entrepreneurs aim to fill the demand for mental-health help. (Wall Street Journal)
US Housing Market Recoups $3 Trillion Lost in Recent Slowdown: Total value of US homes hit a record $47 trillion in June Redfin’s Zhao says shortage of homes is propping up values (Bloomberg)
Too Many Vacant Lots, Not Enough Housing: The U.S. Real-Estate Puzzle: In Chicago, Pittsburgh and Detroit neighborhoods where houses are surrounded by empty lots, authorities are starting to bulldoze obstacles to development. (WSJ)
How does Elon Musk get away with it all? The billionaire’s heroic image is built on media praise, breathless fans, and … romance novel tropes. (Vox)
Heat, Floods, Fire: Was Summer 2023 the New Normal? Climate scientists say a warming planet is contributing to, and worsening, extreme weather events (Wall Street Journal)
47 Days in Extreme Heat, and You Begin to Notice Things: You notice things in sustained heat. Paying attention is a strategy for survival. The red rock landscape I love and have lived in for a quarter of a century is a blistering terrain. The heat bears down on our shoulders with the weight of a burning world. (New York Times)
Does The Ocean Floor Hold The Key To The Green Energy Transition? Abundant minerals at the bottom of the ocean could be vital for renewable energy infrastructure. But what harm will be caused by mining them? (NOEMA)
‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere. What Are They Doing to Us? PFAS lurk in so much of what we eat, drink and use. Scientists are only beginning to understand how they’re impacting our health — and what to do about them. (New York Times)
The Man Who Made the Suburbs White: J.C. Nichols pioneered racial covenants in Kansas City’s surrounding enclaves. The country is still grappling with them. (Slate)
The Supreme Court is taking a wrecking ball to the wall between church and state: The Court’s Republican majority has ground the Constitution’s establishment clause down to a nub. (Vox)
Two Months in Georgia: How Trump Tried to Overturn the Vote: The Georgia case offers a vivid reminder of the extraordinary lengths Mr. Trump and his allies went to in the Southern state to reverse the election. (New York Times)
How Donald Trump tried to undo his loss in Georgia in 2020: Nowhere was the effort more acute than in Georgia, where all of their strategies came together in a complex and multilayered effort that unfolded against the hyperpartisan backdrop of two ongoing U.S. Senate races. (Washington Post)
There’s a way to get healthier without even going to a gym. It’s called NEAT. All the calories that a person burns through their daily activity excluding purposeful physical exercise: Think of the low-effort movements that you string together over the course of your day – things like household chores, strolling through the grocery aisle, climbing the stairs, bobbing your leg up and down at your desk, or cooking dinner. (NPR)
Wish you weren’t here! How tourists are ruining the world’s greatest destinations: Overtourism has long been a problem – and besieged cities are fighting back. But can angry locals stop the tide of stag parties, ‘anus burners’, noise and graffiti? (The Guardian)
The Vicious, Multibillion-Dollar War Over Sports Trading Cards: The two firms atop the industry are exchanging accusations of anti-competitive practices as the wholesome hobby gets sucked into the antitrust wars. (New Republic)
Dave Portnoy Bought Barstool Back. Can Erika Ayers Badan Keep His Pirate Ship on Course? As Penn pivots from Portnoy’s brand of bro-ish excess to family-friendly ESPN, Barstool is free to be itself. (Vanity Fair)
Andy Roddick’s Open Era: Twenty years after winning the U.S. Open, Andy Roddick has thrown away his trophies and moved on with his life. But in a rare interview, the last American man to win a grand slam reflects on that historic triumph—and all the pressure, fame, failure, love, and loss that came after. (GQ)