Monday morning news drop
In Opposing Climate and Diversity Proposals, Buffett Risks Looking Out of Step Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders are expected to follow the chairman’s lead and reject demands for more disclosures. (New York Times)
How the US won the economic recovery No country handled the economic shock of Covid-19 perfectly. Every country, the US included, made mistakes, sometimes grave mistakes. But a detailed comparison suggests that the US had the strongest economic response to the pandemic, in terms of providing income to its citizens during lockdown and ensuring a strong, rapid recovery as the economy began to reopen. The US will come out of this economically better than any country that was similarly affected by the virus. (Vox)
The Price of the Stuff That Makes Everything Is Surging: Global economic rebound is fueling a blistering commodities rally The prices of raw materials used to make almost everything are skyrocketing, and the upward trajectory looks set to continue as the world economy roars back to life. From steel and copper to corn and lumber, commodities started 2021 with a bang, surging to levels not seen for years. The rally threatens to raise the cost of goods from the lunchtime sandwich to gleaming skyscrapers. It’s also lit the fuse on the massive reflation trade that’s gripped markets this year and pushed up inflation expectations. With the U.S. economy pumped up on fiscal stimulus, and Europe’s economy starting to reopen as its vaccination rollout gets into gear, there’s little reason to expect a change in direction. (Bloomberg)
State of the Union: Kellyanne Conway and her husband, George, have spent the past several years very publicly divided. Now that America is recovering from Trump, can they? (Vanity Fair)
The Slander Industry: To get slander removed, many people hire a “reputation management” company. In my case, it was going to cost roughly $20,000. We soon discovered a secret, hidden behind a smokescreen of fake companies and false identities. The people facilitating slander and the self-proclaimed good guys who help remove it are often one and the same. (New York Times)
The Crushing Contradictions of the American University What must one believe in to be willing to borrow tens of thousands of dollars in order to pursue a certification of completion — a B.A.? What would a college have to promise in order to compel someone to do that? What would a bank have to believe to extend this person credit? Or the U.S. government, to guarantee such loans en masse — now roughly $2 trillion? And what would a society have to believe to sustain the system that keeps it all going? Our blind faith in the transformative power of higher ed is slipping. What now? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
The Problem With Apple’s Plan to Stop Facebook’s Data Collection “It’s not just giving users the choice,” said Gennie Gebhart, acting activism director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the internet-rights advocacy group. “It’s forcing these app developers to ask permission and possibly just stop tracking preemptively so they don’t have this scary permission associated with their app.” There’s a whole industry built around targeting ads using personal data, and if enough people start regularly opting out of tracking, Apple’s new tool could frustrate many of the businesses in this space. (Slate)
The U.S. Has the Shots It Needs, But Vaccine Doubt Is Prolonging the Pandemic The bigger problem for everyone, even in a now vaccine-rich country like the U.S., is that there are too many of these fence-sitters to bet on widespread immunity protecting the populace anytime soon. The fewer people who get vaccinated, the longer the pandemic will drag on and the more lives will be lost. America might have the technology and personnel to stamp out the disease, but not necessarily enough trust left in public-health efforts to get it done. (Businessweek)
Heartbreaking Photos Show How Dire This Coronavirus Surge In India Is As cases in India surge faster than anywhere in the world, Indians struggle to care for their family members who have COVID and mourn lost loved ones. (Buzzfeed)