Monday morning news drop
Biden and the Fed Wanted a Hot Economy. There’s Risk of Getting Burned. So far, in a real-world test of a new approach to economic policy, prices have been rising faster than wages. (Upshot)
Here’s More Evidence That Factor Investing Works in Fixed Income With investors concerned about future inflation as well as persistently low yields, Northern Trust researchers find that systematic factors may provide some new portfolio opportunities. (Institutional Investor)
Vanguard Total Bond Market: A Success Story For more than 30 years, the fund has delivered on all counts. (Morningstar)
New Regulation Could Cause a Split in the Crypto Community The infrastructure bill is a watershed moment in the history of cryptocurrency. The technology—at its core a crypto-anarchist, anti-bank, borderline anti-government manifesto disguised as code—has finally acquired that great marker of prestige: a lobby. The fact that some senators were ready to fight in crypto’s corner appears to show that the cryptocurrency industry is more than a gaggle of Twitter accounts and some blue-sky venture capitalists. (Wired)
From Doge Soldiers to Bitcoinists: A Field Guide to the Crypto Faithful For Ethereans, maxis, yield farmers, and no-coiners, digital assets aren’t just an investment but a way of life. (Businessweek)
The Tether controversy, explained: How stable are stablecoins? What if a digital currency wipeout could injure — or even destroy — the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem? Lately, there’s been a focus on stablecoins, the quiet power players of the cryptocurrency space. (The Verge)
Covid’s Forgotten Hero: The Untold Story Of The Scientist Whose Breakthrough Made The Vaccines Possible The scientist most responsible for this critical delivery method is a little-known 57-year-old Canadian biochemist named Ian MacLachlan. As chief scientific officer of two small companies, Protiva Biotherapeutics and Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, MacLachlan led the team that developed this crucial technology. Today, though, few people—and none of the big pharmaceutical companies—openly acknowledge his ground breaking work, and MacLachlan earns nothing from the technology he pioneered. (Forbes)
COVID Patients Fighting for Their Lives Are Still Refusing the Vaccine Arkansas has one of the lowest COVID vaccination rates in the country. VICE News embedded at a hospital in Little Rock where patients facing the threat of death still won’t get the shot. (Vice)
All-Inclusive Magic Mushroom Retreats Are the New Luxury ‘Trips’ Resorts are starting to wake up to the appeal of mind expansion. (Bloomberg)
The Real Source of America’s Rising Rage We are at war with ourselves, but not for the reasons you think. The politics of the radical right is the politics of frustration—the sour impotence of those who find themselves unable to understand, let alone command, the complex mass society that is the polity today…Insofar as there is no real left to counterpoise to the right, the liberal has become the psychological target of that frustration. (Mother Jones)
The Real C.E.O. of “Succession” How the writer Jesse Armstrong keeps the billionaire Roy family trapped in its gilded cage. (New Yorker)
Behind the Purple Curtain with Mysterious Dance Music Legend Moodymann The Detroit native grants a rare interview reflecting on his legacy, his fascination with Prince, and his appearance as a main character in Grand Theft Auto. (GQ)
Chris and Rich Robinson swore never to speak again. But for the Black Crowes, rock heals all wounds The reunion, which has also spun off a deluxe reissue of “Money Maker,” marks Robinson’s reconciliation with his younger brother, guitarist Rich Robinson, with whom Chris formed the band near Atlanta in the mid-1980s — and with whom he fought explosively over money and creative control even as the Crowes went on to sell millions of records and blanket MTV with soulful, hard-hitting Southern rock songs. (Los Angeles Times)