Thursday morning news drop
It’s so hot that Canada’s sea creatures are cooking to death in their shells Extreme heat temperatures, rising up to 40 C in Vancouver, had caused sea animals like mussels, clams and snails to cook to their death. (Toronto Star)
Why the Lightning are the most impressive Stanley Cup champions of the NHL's salary-cap era Evil has prevailed. Tampa Bay has captured a second straight Stanley Cup. The Great Lightning Heist has been completed. (ESPN)
The Billionaire Playbook: How Sports Owners Use Their Teams to Avoid Millions in Taxes Owners like Steve Ballmer can take the kinds of deductions on team assets — everything from media deals to player contracts — that industrialists take on factory equipment. That helps them pay lower tax rates than players and even stadium workers. (ProPublica)
Crypto Scammers Rip Off Billions as Pump-and-Dump Schemes Go Digital Billions are getting pilfered annually through a variety of cryptocurrency scams. In today’s cryptocurrencies, it’s known as the rug pull: Shit Coins, obscure digital something-or-others are being minted by the thousands. Telegram (a popular instant messaging app) has become a major crypto boiler room “Everybody I know has gotten rug-pulled.” The way things are going, this will only get worse. (Bloomberg Wealth)
Is This the End of the ‘Fiery’ Public Versus Private Equity Debate? 60/40 portfolios: when private assets are included within the equity allocation, the fund’s performance is stronger than its private equity-less counterparts. This is true even when underperforming funds are involved. (Institutional Investor)
Before investing in Robinhood or trusting it with your money, read these documents Finra accused Robinhood of plying millions of customers with “false or misleading information” about their account balances, of leaving millions of customers unable to trade because its IT systems broke down at crucial moments, and of approving thousands of customers for options trading even though it should have known they were unqualified to play the options market. (Los Angeles Times)
The Robinhood Conundrum 47% of traders use the product on a daily basis. Among those customers who visted the app on a daily basis, the average number of visits was seven per day. More than 98% of users use the app on a monthly basis. This type of engagement and usage is insanely high for an investment product. (A Wealth of Common Sense)
Why do we buy what we buy? A sociologist on why people buy too many things. What’s at the root of modern American consumerism? It might not just be competition among the brands trying to sell us things, but also competition among ourselves. American consumerism is also built on societal factors that are often overlooked. And in an increasingly unequal society, the Joneses at the very top are doing a lot of the consuming, while the people at the bottom struggle to keep up. (Vox)
To Expand U.S. Vaccine Access, Consider the Dollar Store: The dollar store footprint lends itself to thinking about this broader aim of making vaccines available right where people are located, and the people that are disproportionately under-vaccinated in so many of our cities and communities right now. Dollar stores could be key access points for reaching vulnerable populations who have limited access to health care services, and sometimes lack trust in the system. (Citylab)
The Internet Is Rotting Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone. (Atlantic)
The Mountain Bike Tech Infiltrating the Tour de France While mountain biking has spent the past 30 years trying to shed its road cycling similarities, the road cycling world has now begun taking some cues from its muddier cousin. Last year we talked about how mountain bike products such as dropper posts, mountain bike rotors and inserts were becoming viable options for Tour de France riders and we're back with another haul of tech trends for 2021. (Pink Bike)
The Subversive Joy of Lil Nas X’s Gay Pop Stardom A peek into a hot boy summer filled with new highs, disappointment and growth. (New York Times)