Iran War, Bitcoin, and Drop Shopping Culture

Weekly news drop

• Iran tells world to get ready for oil at $200 a barrel as it fires on merchant ships: Tehran is targeting commercial shipping and warning of triple-digit oil. The Strait of Hormuz risk premium is no longer theoretical. (Yahoo News/Reuters)

• What the Iran War Really Means for the Stock Market: The campaign in the Middle East could have far-reaching financial effects. Investing moves to consider. (Barron’s)

• Six Days of War, 10 Rationales: The administration has laid out a buffet of reasons for Operation Epic Fury—take your pick. The Atlantic catalogs the shifting justifications for the Iran strikes. When the reason keeps changing, the real reason is usually the one nobody’s saying. (The Atlantic)

• Private Credit’s Gate-Crashers Are Forcing Funds Into a Reckoning: Redemption requests are surging across private credit, and the funds that promised liquidity in an illiquid asset class are finding out what that actually means. Bloomberg on the stress test nobody wanted. (Bloomberg)

• Yield Curve Inversion History: Complete 2s10s Spread Data (1976–2026): Six of seven 2s10s inversions preceded recessions — with the 2022-2024 episode being the notable exception so far. (Eco3min)

• Bitcoin’s Plunge Should End the Hype That It Is Digital Gold: Bitcoin fell while gold rallied. Again. At some point, the “store of value” crowd has to reckon with the fact that it trades like a risk asset in every downturn. (The Hill)

• The Worst Acquisition in History, Again: Scott Galloway on whichever deal just earned this dubious distinction. After six months and eight failed bids, the Ellisons made the Warner Bros. Discovery board an offer they couldn’t refuse. The potential Netflix acquisition would’ve been akin to fusing LVMH and Walmart — HBO’s prestige TV and Warner’s iconic IP, plus Netflix’s scale. Paramount Skydance buying WBD is the fusion of a dog and a car bumper traveling 80 miles an hour. Spoiler alert: It’s not going to end well. The Prof G postmortem is always more entertaining than the deal itself. (No Mercy / No Malice)

• The Highly Exclusive Way That Everybody Shops Now: The Atlantic on the paradox of “drop” culture — artificial scarcity marketed as exclusivity, consumed by everyone, exclusive to no one. The economics of manufactured desire. (The Atlantic)

• The Uncomfortable Truth About Hybrid Vehicles: The Verge on the data showing hybrids are often driven in gas-only mode, emitting far more than their EPA ratings suggest. The gap between the sticker and the road. (The Verge)

• The Bam Game: The 83-Point Night That Broke the NBA’s Order: Historic, absurd, and a little unsettling. What do we make of one of the strangest games in NBA history? Bam Adebayo dropped 83 points and The Ringer dissects what it means for the league’s hierarchy, the evolution of the center position, and the Kobe/Wilt conversation. (The Ringer)

AI, Iran War, Crypto, and Rolex Watchmakers

News drop of the week

• The Real Reason Anthropic Wants Guardrails: The Atlantic digs into what’s really behind Anthropic’s resistance to Pentagon pressure — it’s not just ethics, it’s a calculated bet on where AI’s long-term value lies. (The Atlantic)

• In the age of AI, the fog of war thickens The debate over the power and limits of artificial intelligence (AI) is now everywhere, from boardrooms and workplaces to the halls of government. But nowhere should the conversation be more urgent than in the execution of war. (Globe and Mail)

• The Iran War’s Most Precious Commodity Isn’t Oil: Forget crude—the real strategic resource at stake in the Middle East is water, and nobody’s talking about it. (Bloomberg free)

• 40 Iranian Doctors and Nurses Describe a Massacre: As street protests spread across Iran in early January, the authorities turned off the internet. Most of the world didn’t see the bloody crackdown that followed. We surveyed Iranian medical workers across 14 cities and 11 provinces about their experiences treating wounded protesters. Despite great personal risk, they shared their stories. Medical workers who treated victims of Iran’s 2022 protest crackdown break their silence, describing in harrowing detail what they witnessed in hospitals and morgues. (New York Times)

• Apocalypse No: How Almost Everything We Thought We Knew About the Maya Is Wrong: The collapse narrative is a myth, and the real story is far more interesting than the doomsday version. (The Guardian)

• How scammers are using AI deepfakes to steal money from taxpayers: AI-generated voices and faces are being used to impersonate government officials and steal public funds. The fraud is getting more sophisticated faster than defenses can keep up. (Washington Post)

• ‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks: A British traveler with proper documentation was detained by immigration authorities. The chilling effect on international travel to the U.S. is growing. Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported, and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone’ (The Guardian)

• 10 Least Reliable Cars of 2026: Consumer Reports’ annual survey of 380,000+ vehicles names the models most likely to leave you stranded. (Consumer Reports)

• Crypto Is Pointless. Not Even the White House Can Fix That.: Despite unprecedented government support, crypto still hasn’t found a reason to exist beyond speculation. The problem was never regulation — it was utility. (New York Times)

• Luxury’s Overexposure Is Biting: The luxury sector bet on ubiquity — logos everywhere, collabs with everyone, accessibility as strategy. Now the bill is coming due as exclusivity evaporates. (Matter / Substack)

• I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day: Anonymous: Objectification, hate, rape threats: the politicians debating online abuse mean well, but to truly understand, they need to see what I see. (The Guardian)

• Child’s Play: Tech’s new generation and the end of thinking: Sam Kriss goes inside an AI startup founded by a kid and finds something stranger and more unsettling than the usual Silicon Valley origin story. (Harper’s)

• The Rise of the Manhattan Mega-Mansion: Big-money buyers are no longer content with the usual conversions. Steven Harris, an architect whose eponymous firm has worked on more than 100 single-family townhouses over the past 30 years, says demand for bigger urban homes has been booming. (Citylab)

• Rolex Opened a College—and It’s as Selective as Harvard: The Swiss watchmaker is training its next generation of craftspeople at a school with an acceptance rate that rivals the Ivy League. America has fewer than 2,000 professional watchmakers. Rolex’s new Dallas school aims to fix that—and the demand for admission says a lot about the state of work in 2026. (GQ)

Construction for Canadians - Federal Election Policy Announcements

Liberal Party of Canada: Trade-Enabling Infrastructure

Leader of the Liberal Party, Mark Carney, announced that a re-elected Liberal government would invest in trade-enabling infrastructure to diversify Canada’s trade away from the United States, create new jobs, and build “one Canadian economy.” Mr. Carney committed to:

• Invest $5 billion into a new Trade Diversification Corridor Fund.

• Build the infrastructure that will help diversify Canada’s trade partners, create new good jobs, and drive economic growth.

• Accelerate nation-building projects at Canada’s ports, railroads, inland terminals, airports, and highways.

• Allow Canadian ports to cooperate instead of compete to maximize efficiencies by leveraging comparative advantage.

Removal of GST for First-Time Home Buyers: Before officially kicking off the election, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that his government would remove the GST on all homes up to $1 million for first-time home buyers.

Build Canada Homes: Carney announced a plan for Canada to double the pace of construction to almost 500,000 new homes a year and create Build Canada Homes, to get the federal government back into building homes. Build Canada Homes will:

• Act as a developer to build affordable housing at scale, including on public lands.

• Catalyze the housing industry by providing over $25 billion in financing innovative prefabricated home builders in Canada.

• Provide $10 billion in low-cost financing and capital to affordable home builders.

The Liberal plan aims to improve the function of the housing market by:

• Catalyzing private capital.

• Cutting red tape.

• Lowering the cost of home building by:

  • Cutting municipal development charges in half for multi-unit residential housing.

  • Reintroduce a tax incentive to spur tens of thousands of rental housing units across the country.

  • Facilitate the conversion of existing structures into affordable housing units.

  • Build on the success of the Housing Accelerator Fund, reduce housing bureaucracy, zoning restrictions, and other red tape.

Conservative Party of Canada: Before the election officially began, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre made a series of announcements on how a Conservative government would manage critical construction and mining projects in Canada.

Ring of Fire: Mr. Poilievre announced that a Conservative government would green-light all federal permits for the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario within six months to begin harvesting chromite, cobalt, nickel, copper, and platinum. He also committed to:

• $1 billion over three years to the construction of a new major road connecting First Nations communities and the Ring of Fire to the Ontario highway network.

• Allowing companies investing in the Ring of Fire to pay a share of their federal corporate taxes to local First Nations communities.

Canada Shovel-Ready Zones: Mr. Poilievre shared his intention to create “Canada Shovel-Ready Zones.” These zones would be pre-permitted for construction to reduce paperwork for companies building new mines, LNG terminals, and pipelines. The goal is to allow businesses to buy the land, move in equipment and supplies, hire workers, and begin building, knowing that they already have the permits complete. To do this, a Conservative government would:

1. Identify a location that makes sense for a power station, LNG plant or pipeline, or another major project.

2. Make sure it is safe for Canadians and the environment.

3. Work with other levels of government to lock down zoning and permits in advance of construction.

4. Offer pre-permitting before an application: permits would be published online with a checklist that businesses would have to complete to protect nature and people.

Expand opportunities for apprenticeships and workers in skilled trades by:

• Reinstating apprenticeship grants of $4,000 for an apprentice.

• Training 350,000 workers by expanding the Union Training and Innovation Program (UTIP) and creating a special class of rapid EI payments for apprentices leaving to do training.

• Harmonizing health and safety regulations across provinces.

• Passing the Fairness for Travelling Trades workers Act, allowing trades workers to write off the full cost of food, transportation, and accommodation for job-related trips longer than 120 km.

Remove the Sales Tax on Homes: Mr. Poilievre reiterated previous promises to remove the GST for first-time homebuyers by increasing the exemption to include homes that cost up to $1.3 million.

Canada First Reinvestment Tax Cut: Mr. Poilievre announced that any person or business selling an asset will pay no capital gains tax if the proceeds are reinvested in Canada. This will only be available on reinvestments made until the end of 2026.

National Energy Corridor: Mr. Poilievre announced plans to create a ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor to fast-track approvals for transmission lines, railways, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure across Canada in a pre-approved transport corridor within Canada. This corridor would transport Canadian resources within Canada and internationally by bypassing the U.S. and is intended to attract new investment for the Canadian economy.

Market Downturns, DOGE, and Global Investment Returns

Articles of the week

• Perspectives on Market Downturns. The market does not care about your opinions. Stop it. Just stop it. Empirical studies on environments like this remind us that we don’t know. Goldman Sachs doesn’t know. Morgan Stanley doesn’t know. UBS doesn’t know. I don’t know. You don’t know. (Fortunes & Frictions)

• How DOGE is making government almost comically inefficient: It’s as though “efficiency” isn’t the actual goal.(Washington Post) See also Trump’s DOGE campaign accelerates 50-year trend of government privatization: Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has aggressively moved to shrink the federal government. His administration has frozen federal grants, issued executive orders aligned with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and, most prominently, created what he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. (TheConversation)

• The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem: Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI. Search through them here. (The Atlantic)

• Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2025 – what 125 years of history tells us about the future: Here is what a 125 years of historical market data looks like. In light of rising market concentration and correlations, this year’s Yearbook includes a special chapter on global and multi-asset diversification. (UBS)

• Zyn and the New Nicotine Gold Rush: White snus pouches were designed to help Swedish women quit cigarettes. They’ve become a staple for American dudes. (New Yorker)

• The 2025 NCAA Men’s Tournament Bracket Breakdown: Which teams can win it all? Which can’t you trust? And what are the Cinderella candidates you should be most aware of? That and more ahead of the start of March Madness. (The Ringer)

• Vroom! Touring Italy’s Supercar Factories: In the country’s “Motor Valley,” racecar enthusiasts can admire, and even drive, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and more. (New York Times)

• ‘Spinal Tap 2’ Sets September Release and Turns the Volume ‘Up to 11’ in First Teaser: “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” a sequel to the 1984 music mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap,” will rock and roll into theaters this fall. (Variety)

Crypto, Climate, and 40oz Jeans

News of the week

• How the Biggest Crypto Heist in History Went Down: The cryptocurrency exchange Bybit lost $1.5 billion to North Korean hackers last month — and it all traced back to an account on a free digital storage service. (New York Times)

• The Worst 7 Years in Boeing’s History—and the Man Who Won’t Stop Fighting for Answers: Fatal crashes. A door blowout. Grounded planes. Inside the citizen-led, obsessive campaign to hold Boeing accountable and prevent the next disaster. (Wired)

• The spoiled man-children set out to find waste. Here’s what happened. How Silicon Valley boys came to rule politics. (Washington Post)

• Trump doesn’t seem to know why he launched a giant trade war: The president’s reasons for imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico keep changing (and none make sense). (Vox)

• How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see: Groups involved in Public Environmental Data Partners have been archiving climate datasets our community has prioritized, uploading copies to public repositories and cataloging where and how to find them if they go missing from government websites. (The Conversation)

• Why Hasn’t Silicon Valley Fixed the Bay Area’s Problems? Examining the dark side of capitalism’s effect on urban development (Bloomberg)

• A Facebook Insider’s Exposé Alleges Bad Behavior at the Top: “Careless People,” a memoir by a former Facebook executive, portrays feckless company leaders cozying up to authoritarian regimes. (New York Times)

• How a Pro Athlete–Targeting Crime Ring Finally Got Caught: Inside the case against the men who allegedly robbed a trove of luxury goods and jewelry from NFL and NBA athletes while they played on the road. And why the case—with its combustible mix of immigration, conspicuous consumption, and fame—has become a media fixation. (Vanity Fair)

Trump Takes the Dumbest Tariff Plunge

By The Editorial Board of the Wallstreet Journal

He says the 25% levies on Mexico and Canada will begin Tuesday. Stocks fall.

President Trump likes to cite the stock market when it’s rising as a sign of his policy success, so what does he think about Monday’s plunge? The Dow Jones Industrial Average took a 650-point header after he announced that he’ll hit Mexico and Canada on Tuesday with 25% tariffs.

Mr. Trump said at the White House there was “no room left” to negotiate with the two American trade treaty partners. Some of his smarter advisers have been hoping he’d start renegotiating the USMCA and delay the tariffs. But Mr. Trump wants tariffs for their own sake, which he says will usher in a new golden age.

We’ve courted Mr. Trump’s ire by calling the Mexico and Canada levies the “dumbest” in history, and we may have understated the point. Mr. Trump is whacking friends, not adversaries. His taxes will hit every cross-border transaction, and the North American vehicle market is so interconnected that some cars cross a border as many as eight times as they’re assembled.

Mr. Trump also objected when we reported an analysis by the Anderson Economic Group that the 25% tariff will raise the cost of a full-sized SUV assembled in North America by $9,000 and a pickup truck by $8,000. Is this how the new Republican Party plans on helping working-class voters?

Mr. Trump is volatile, and who knows how long he’ll keep the tariffs in place. Retaliation that hits certain states and businesses may also cause him to reconsider sooner than he imagines. Investors are trying to read this uncertainty as they also watch growing evidence of a slowing U.S. economy. Unbridled Tariff Man was always going to be a big economic risk in a second term, and here we are.

Mark Carney - The Daily Show

MARK CARNEY is currently the U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, and the Co-Chair for the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero. He is also a Chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Head of Transition Investing, as well as Chair for Bloomberg LP. Mark was previously Governor of the Bank of England (2013-2020), and Governor of the Bank of Canada (2008-2013). Internationally, Mark was Chair of the G20’s Financial Stability Board (2011-2018). He is Chair of the Group of Thirty, and a member of the boards of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Harvard University Overseers, The Rideau Hall Foundation, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the Hoffman Institute for Global Business and Society at INSEAD. Most recently, Mr. Carney will serve as chair of a new Leader’s Task Force on Economic Growth for the Liberal Party of Canada. He is the author of Value(s): Building a Better World for All (Signal, 2021) and The Hinge: Time to Build an Even Better Canada (McClelland & Stewart, 2025). Born in Fort Smith, NWT, Mark Carney lives in Ottawa.

The end of Gore-Tex?

The end of Gore-Tex? Sweeping bans have affected the iconic brand due to its use of ‘forever chemicals’ Sweeping bans have affected the iconic brand due to its use of ‘forever chemicals’… Sometimes it’s the only option.

The wildlife photographer lying face down in the snow for hours, waiting for that perfect moment. The search-and-rescue team tromping through the forest looking for a missing person in thigh-deep snowdrifts. Or even just the weekend warrior looking to spend a few hours on the slope. All of them need a reliable way to stay warm and dry. 

Some coats can do that, but can they breathe, too? Do they give your perspiration an exit hatch? Because if not, you’ve got a moisture problem on both sides of the material.

That was the brilliance of Gore-Tex from the start. Sure, their rain jackets could block out the cold. But the real marvel was how they allowed sweat vapours to easily escape through its porous structure. This eliminated the clammy skin that results from activities like ice climbing or snowboarding, allowing people to not only be warm but also comfortable. Sometimes that meant the difference between life and death.

But at what cost? (Pique Magazine)

Canadian Infrastructure Council Being Established

Canada’s construction industry welcomes long overdue federal leadership on the National Infrastructure Assessment

Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada announced new Canadian Infrastructure Council four years following its announcement.

Ottawa, ON — [December 3, 2024] — After four years on the shelf, the federal government today announced the council appointed to deliver the National Infrastructure Assessment. This initiative has long been a cornerstone of the Canadian Construction Association’s (CCA) advocacy, with representatives recently raising awareness of the issue on Parliament Hill last month.

The newly appointed Canadian Infrastructure Council will prioritize housing-enabling infrastructure like water, wastewater, public transit, active transportation, and waste management. While this is a promising first step, more action is needed. Infrastructure demands across the country also include transportation and trade-enabling projects, which are vital to strengthening our economy and connecting communities.

“We are thrilled to see the federal government finally take leadership in addressing the need for a long-term plan for Canada’s infrastructure,” says Rodrigue Gilbert, CCA President. “While the scope of the council is incomplete, we do appreciate the government finally listening to the industry responsible for building Canada’s infrastructure.”

While the industry is overall pleased with today’s announcement, the newly formed Canadian Infrastructure Council lacks clear industry and financial representation. CCA has long urged the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities to appoint an independent representative from the construction industry to the council. Failing to consult with those that build the infrastructure Canadians rely on, and those that finance it, will create significant challenges. Without this input, there will be a lack of understanding on key issues, limitations, and opportunities that exist in building a strong and resilient Canada. 

CCA will continue to monitor the development and progress of the Canadian Infrastructure Council and welcome further consultation with industry and the federal government.

American Highways, Private Equity, and Sunk Costs

Articles of the week

• How America Can Break Its Highway Addiction: In the 1980s, an unlikely alliance slowed the construction of nature-destroying dams. We just might be able to pull it off again. (Slate)

• The Business—and Politics—of Storytelling: “Everyone is talking about ‘narratives,’” Crisis of Narration begins. Han offers no specifics about this “everyone,” or about what they may have said in their discussions about narration. He adds merely that everyone’s discourse “betrays a crisis of narration.” Our ability to make sense of our own personal experiences within the framework of an autobiographical life story, and of our collective identity and aspirations within the framework of a political history, he declares, is being degrad­ed—as love, labor, etc., are said to have been degraded in Han’s other texts—by modern technology. (American Affairs Journal)

• Meet the megadonors pumping millions into the 2024 election. The 50 biggest donors this cycle have collectively pumped $1.5 billion into political committees and other groups competing in the election, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission data. (Washington Post)

• Private Equity Is Coming for Youth Sports: Kids’ sports have become an expensive, high-pressure affair. An industry famous for squeezing out value claims it will make the experience better. (Businessweek)

• Sunk cost: The rise and fall of NFTs made and unmade OpenSea — the largest marketplace for the crypto asset. But insider accounts of the company reveal a chaotic work environment, ever-shifting priorities, and troubles with the SEC. (The Verge)

• How To Make Millions As a Professional Whistleblower: A little-known provision in US law permits anyone to blow the whistle on financial fraud — and potentially take home a percentage of the funds collected. One undercover sleuth has made a wild career out of it. (GQ)

• Experiencing Car Week Through The Lens Of Rolex: Car Week, an annual event held in August, sees the automotive world descend upon the Carmel-Monterey area for a series of shows, events, unveilings, and more – all leading up to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Rolex, the famed Swiss brand has been a long-time supporter of events, and over four days no small measure of amazing cars, along with an endless stream of timepiece spotting along the way. (Hodinkee)