The Great Resignation, Mortgage Rates, and the Atlanta Braves

Thursday morning news drop

• Higher Education’s Role in the Era of the Great Resignation Hidden behind the hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., the failure of thousands of businesses, the pervasive distancing and shut-in lifestyle, has come a tidal wave of resignations of workers from coast to coast. As Anthony Klotz, an organizational psychologist at Texas A&M University who coined the term “the Great Resignation,” observes, “During the pandemic, because there was a lot of death and illness and lockdowns, we really had the time and the motivation to sit back and say, ‘Do I like the trajectory of my life? Am I pursuing a life that brings me well-being?’” (Inside Higher Ed)

• We are heading into the most challenging period to own a home since the interest rate surge of the early 1980s In a report to be issued Thursday, CIBC Economics offers some context on rate hikes. Variable-rate mortgage payments don’t generally change as rates rise – instead, the amount of payments directed toward principal as opposed to interest falls. With fixed rate mortgages, only about 20 per cent renew in any one year. Over all, about $350-billion in mortgages will be affected by changing rates in 2022. (Globe and Mail)

• What’s the risk of you choosing the wrong mortgage rate? If you believe what financial markets are telling us, today’s lowest variable mortgage rates will more than double in the next few years. If that happens, it means the best floating rates for an uninsured mortgage would jump from about 1.34 per cent today to about 3.09 per cent in three years, assuming lenders maintain similar profit margins and the Bank of Canada hikes interest rates as much as expected. (Globe and Mail)

• The Toxic Ten: How ten fringe publishers fuel 69% of digital climate change denial (Center For Countering Digital Hate)

• With Climate Pledges, Some Wall Street Titans Warn of Rising Prices Leaders of some of the world’s biggest financial firms say that the rush to transition to clean energy could have unintended consequences for the global economy. (New York Times)

• Dues Paid in Full, the Braves Are World Champions This team is about the long haul. This title is a triumph of perseverance. (Sports Illustrated)

• For Braves manager Brian Snitker, a long, winding and unlikely journey ends with the dream of a world title. In the end, when the final out was made and a bumpy 45-year journey reached its pinnacle, Ronnie Snitker, the wife of Braves manager Brian Snitker, was not even in the stands watching. (The Athletic)

• Tomahawk chop' under scrutiny as Atlanta Braves compete in World Series This comes amid a movement to remove Native American imagery from sports. (ABC News)

• Ariel Helwani Won’t Back Down The Mizrahi MMA journalist had big-time broigus with UFC head Dana White and MMA legend Khabib Nurmagamedov. Now that his three-year run at ESPN is over, there’s no telling where independence will take the Nose. (Tablet)

• Did Covid Change How We Dream? All around the world, the pandemic provoked strange nocturnal visions. Can they help shed light on the age-old question of why we dream at all? (New York Times

The Great Resignation, Explained in One Chart | WSJ

Broken Housing Market, Low Unemployment, and Recruiting Top Talent

Wednesday morning news drop

• The global housing market is broken — and it’s dividing entire countries Soaring property prices are forcing people all over the world to abandon all hope of owning a home (Financial Post)

• CPABC: Greater Victoria unemployment down to 4.4% but employment below pre-pandemic levels According to the BC Check-Up: Work, an annual report by the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC) on employment trends across the province, Greater Victoria’s unemployment rate fell to 4.4 per cent in September 2021, down from 9.6 per cent in September 2020. As of September 2021, total employment across the capital region reached 206,400, a 1.2 per cent increase compared to September 2020. (CPABC / Yahoo)

• Victoria labour market starved for talent The latest labour-market snapshot shows Victoria’s unemployment rate remains one of the lowest in Canada and B.C. is leading the pack when it comes to economic recovery, but it also paints a picture of a market that is starving for talent. (Times Colonist)

• How to Attract Top Tech Talent Labor markets are tight for many types of workers, but that’s especially true for employees with technical skills. Demand for these workers by non-tech companies has increased even as tech giants like Facebook and Amazon seek to hire thousands of them. To fill these roles at a time when highly-skilled people have many opportunities, seek to broaden the funnel of potential candidates by thinking harder about what skills are truly essential (and which are trainable), and by making your company more appealing to potential workers. (Harvard Business Review)

• Own It – fostering healthy work cultures that encourage loyalty To foster real connection and belonging within an organization, employees need genuine ownership over what they are doing — thankfully, there is more than one way to make that happen. (Douglas)

• Vancouver’s Industrial Facility Shortage Could Hurt BC’s Economy Vancouver has a vacancy rate of 0.6% in its industrial sector, which is 1.2 million sq. ft out of a total 204 million, and with a shortage of facilities larger than 100,000 sq. ft available, the provincial economy risks taking a hit. (Storyes)

• The Ruthless Math of Political Campaigns: Is Big Data Bad for Democracy? As the fate of elections is increasingly tied to analytics, we could end up with voters nobody will bother trying to persuade (Walrus)

• Fear and Loathing in Cryptoland I see far too many parallels between the DotCom bubble and crypto. There is so much outrageous behavior in these markets that it is hard for me not to see it this way. On the other hand, I also say this as a partial compliment. (Of Dollars And Data)

• How Car Shortages Are Putting the World’s Economy at Risk Because so many jobs depend on automaking, the industry’s production problems are causing the pain to ripple. (New York Times)

• Chokepoint Economy, When Shortages Start to Matter Everywhere you look, there are shortages and bottlenecks. Containers for shipping are in short supply and ports are struggling to keep up with demand. Semiconductors — a crucial component in everything from cars to iPhones — have been so scant that they’re impacting production of cars and GDP. There are shortages of lumber and pallets. (Bloomberg)

• The Unvaccinated May Not Be Who You Think 95% of those over 65 in the US have received at least one dose — a remarkable number, given that this age group is prone to online misinformation, is heavily represented among Fox News viewers and is more likely to vote Republican. Clearly, misinformation is not destiny. (New York Times)

• What’s the deal with Amazon trucks’ weird-ass backup sound? We’re used to ‘beep-beep,’ but we’re getting harsh, staticky noise. It’s super-annoying — and safer for us. (Input)

• Ranking the 75 Best Sneakers In NBA History In honor of the NBA’s 75th anniversary, The Crossover is counting down the best shoes to ever touch an NBA court. (Sports Illustrated)

The Bond Market's Tantrum, Housing Records, and Sneaker Bots

Tuesday morning news drop

• Pay attention to the bond market’s tantrum The bond market is having a hissy fit. Investors – even those who don’t own any bonds – should pay attention. The abrupt rise in recent days in short-term bond yields signals the belief in some quarters that central banks are suddenly waking up to inflationary dangers and trying to walk back a policy mistake. If so, interest rates could be headed up faster than thought, with dismal consequences for stock prices and real estate speculators. (Globe and Mail)

• The bond market is acting like it knows something about inflation that Biden doesn't. Traders are betting prices will keep going up and up. The Biden administration and the Federal Reserve still expect inflation to cool down. Wall Street is starting to think they're wrong. Data out Friday confirmed Americans' concerns: decade-high inflation still isn't going away. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rose 0.3% in September and 4.4% year-over-year, hitting levels not seen since the Great Recession. (Business Insider)

• The World’s Top Business Cities Are Still Failing Women No city is doing enough to keep women safe while ending gender inequality. (Citylab)

• The United States Has Been Going Broke For Decades In 1972 the 10 year treasury yielded around 6%. From there yields only went higher. In fact, from 1972-1985, the 10 year government bond yield would average 9.6%, getting as high as 15% in the early-1980s. Today we worry about rates going from 1.3% to 1.6%. (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• October: Another month of broken records in Victoria After a brief slowdown in the market during the summer, we’ve been on an upward trajectory again since August and in October the market again broke records in several categories. The lowest inventory on record combined with continued strong sales gave us the lowest months of inventory for any October, which drove prices accross the board to record highs. October was within a hair of the hottest market on record, beaten only slightly by March of this year. (House Hunt Victoria)

• The coming of Age Climate Trauma Three years after a devastating wildfire, a California community faces another crisis: PTSD. Is what’s happing there a warning to the rest of us? (Washington Post)

• Greedy Bots Cornered the Sneaker Market. What Now? But bots don’t just buy cool sneakers. They buy up those concert tickets you wanted, so they can then scalp them to you at an outrageous markup. At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, bots were buying hand sanitizer and face masks. Later, they were booking all the vaccine reservation spots. Anything that’s very high demand with a very limited supply. That’s an opportunity for the bots to become greedy hoarders and corner the market.(Slate)

• The Stunning Grandeur of Soviet-Era Metros Between 2014 and 2020, Frank Herfort visited more than 770 metro stations in 19 cities, creating a remarkable archive of architectural and artistic splendor. (New York Times)

• What It’s Like to Have a Record Deal and Justin Bieber For a Fan at Age 14: Prentiss Furr taught himself to make music in Jackson, Mississippi by editing YouTube videos. Now he’s playing shows in L.A. and Skrillex wants to work with him. (GQ)

Rogers Family Drama, Bond Market and Ryan Reynolds

Monday morning news drop

• On the verge of achieving his father’s dream, Edward Rogers’s actions may be threatening to shatter it. What’s going on with the late founder’s son? Edward S. Rogers III, son of Edward S. “Ted” Rogers Jr. and grandson of Edward S. Rogers Sr., is now a force in the upper echelons of Rogers Communications Inc. But he is not CEO. Ted never passed the crown through the bloodline, despite Edward’s ambition to take Rogers’ top job. Instead, he inherited the role of chairman to the Rogers Control Trust, the family trust that controls 97.5 per cent of the telecom’s voting shares, upon his father’s death in 2008. (Toronto Star)

• Bond market dares U.S. Fed to defy it after bloody week for investors Bond traders are looking to the Federal Reserve to support the hawkish shift that just drove parts of the global bond market to one of its wildest weeks in decades. (Bloomberg)

• Wall Street Starts to Doubt Facebook, Its Long-time Darling The company has lagged rivals on a key measure of investor confidence. (Businessweek)

• The Disrespect. You’re surrounded by other investors. They see things differently than you. They are operating differently than you might be. That’s okay. It’s supposed to be that way. A total and complete stranger doesn’t have to share your investment beliefs. Doesn’t have to agree with your opinions about the right way to trade or the right investments to hold. (Reformed Broker)

• ‘The Problem Is Him’: Kara Swisher on Mark Zuckerberg’s crisis and ours. One of the main problems is what he needs to be is a nearly impossible job for anyone and he is particularly ill-suited given his lack of communication skills. He’s undereducated for the job he has because he’s not just a technologist; he’s a social engineer. And a very powerful one with no accountability. He’s like an emperor that he so admires; he was a fanboy of Augustus Caesar. That was his hero. But Augustus Caesar wasn’t really equipped to be emperor either (New York Magazine)

• Brand in the Influencer Era: Social media is democratizing consumer influence, empowering ordinary individuals to shape brand perception. We identify brands with strong positioning using social media discourse and network structure. We find strong brands have outperformed the stock market. We also explore the trends of sustainable and Millennial brands. (Sparkline Capital)

• Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff Some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Rolling Stone spoke extensively in recent weeks to three of these witnesses, and they detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent. (Rolling Stone)

• The MASS model of community-focused architecture A project in Rwanda convinced a group of Harvard-trained architects to rethink their building methods, material and labor sources, and the end-use of their buildings. (60 Minutes)

• Yuval Noah Harari on the power of data, artificial intelligence and the future of the human race The bestselling author and historian offers his predictions on how technology will alter the evolution of humans and change society. (60 Minutes)

• The “phone disaster” The Muslim population in Xinjiang, China were early smartphone adopters. Then the tech betrayed them. (Rest Of World)

• Will Ferrell Just Wants to Entertain You (and Himself) The ‘Shrink Next Door’ producer-star on building (and winnowing) his empire, splitting with collaborator and pal Adam McKay and chasing the funny above all else: “I’ve always loved making other people laugh. I’ve just never needed to make you like me.” (Hollywood Reporter)

• A$AP Rocky’s ‘Live.Love.A$AP’ Showed a Purple-Tinted Vision of Rap’s Future The 2011 mixtape, which finally hit streaming Friday in honor of its 10th anniversary, is at once a product of its era and rap’s present day, when regional distinctions matter less than ever (Ringer)

• How Ryan Reynolds Built a Business Empire With a range of film and TV projects on the way, as well as initiatives through his company Maximum Effort, the actor and entrepreneur has turned his on-camera charisma into major marketing savvy. (Wall Street Journal Magazine)

Videos of the Week and the Chicago Blackhawks Scandal

Friday morning news drop and videos of the week

• Chicago sexual assault scandal raises culture questions for NHL Kyle Beach has come forward as an accuser of former assistant coach Brad Aldrich (CBC)

• The Blackhawks’ Past and Present Actions Show That Hockey Always Matters Most The team brass’s handling of Kyle Beach’s report in 2010 showed that they valued winning above all else. And even today, after 11 years and a lengthy investigation, that attitude seems to persist. (The Ringer)

• The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them Twenty-somethings rolling their eyes at the habits of their elders is a longstanding trend, but many employers said there’s a new boldness in the way Gen Z dictates taste. (New York Times)

• Why Hertz’s big Tesla deal is such a blockbuster The car rental giant is making a huge bet on electric vehicles — and bringing Uber along for the ride. (Recode)

• The Facebook Papers: Documents reveal internal fury and dissent over site’s policies (NBC News)

• The Real Reason Facebook Changed Its Name Mark Zuckerberg wants to be the hero of the metaverse because he knows Facebook is boring. (Atlantic)

• Forget dating apps: Here’s how the net’s newest matchmakers help you find love Fed up with apps, people looking for romance are finding inspiration on Twitter, TikTok—and even email newsletters. (MIT Technology Review)

• Silicon Valley’s Hottest Money Apps Depend on Old-School Banks Fintechs use conventional lenders for the mechanics of moving cash (BusinessWeek)

• Let the Market Worry For You “When I am asked what I worry about in the market, the answer usually is “nothing”, because everyone else in the market seems to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying, and so all of the relevant worries seem to be covered. My worries won’t have any impact except to detract from something much more useful, which is trying to make good long-term investment decisions.” (Irrelevant Investor)

• Most of Canada’s marine protected areas still threatened by oil and gas, dumping and trawling: report A new assessment from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society finds only a fraction of established ocean conservation regions actually enjoy enough protections to meet goals of preserving or restoring marine life (Narwhal)

Videos of the Week

Weekend Slayer - Episode 9 - Victoria We've got an extra-long weekend, and the Victoria boys are showing us everything they got! Luke Fulton and Cole Nichol invite us to their Dirtjump dream yards. Craig Lunn and Alex Volokhov show us the best trails & stunts in town, and we take a trip up-island for a day of shuttling Mount Prevost with Reece Wallace, followed by a session on his trail "Mayday" with Darren Berrecloth. Grab your rigs, and join us for a rad long-weekend.

Phil Auckland | Trails are Back

Colours Of Mexico - Kilian Bron: Discover Mexico and its magnificent mix of backdrops with Kilian Bron and his team. This is a melting pot of unusual images captured in the craziest and unique places across the country! Let yourself be transported from the tops of Mexico's most active volcanoes to the steep and colourful streets of historic villages. Prepare to feast your eyes on a month’s worth of road trip turned into five minutes of images! And let's not forget, a particular mention to the complete conception of the music, in direct link with the culture of the country and the places we visited. A whole project that we can’t wait for you to see, listen to, and read, through our various forms of media. A logical sequel to "Our Tour de France" and "Follow The Light" that we’d also love you to (re)see whilst waiting for the other projects scheduled to arrive in the not too distant future. YES, we are preparing other surprises for you!

No Straight Lines // Asher Pacey RVCA Surf advocate Asher Pacey performs his version of a masterclass with his drawing of, you guessed it, No Straight Lines, in his latest edit filmed around his home country of Australia.

Out Of The Public Eye: Vans and Public Snowboards are proud to present ‘Out of the Public Eye’, a short film starring Darrell Mathes and Kas Lemmens. Founded on the idea of building community and enabling free expression, PUBLIC shares a likeminded ethos with Vans to embrace individuality and creative expression on and off the board.

BATB 12: Nyjah Huston Vs. Paul Rodriguez - Round 1 - A couple of icons here Nyjah Huston and Paul Rodriguez's histories with Battle At The Berrics are flat-out extensive, but only P-Rod has nabbed a trophy (for 2010's BATB 3). Could P-Rod make it to Finals Night again this year, or will 'Jah say nah?

Franky Villani's "Alone with My Demons" Dickies Part Franky’s a rare breed, visualizing new potential in spots, but with veteran mastery. Witness his West-Coast tear.

Ace Pelka's "Free Spirit" Madness Part Slappies have been trending upwards, but Ace elevates ‘em to another level, skipping gaps and dive-bombing buildings. He ain’t bad in a pool either.

Jonny Gasparotto's "SPLIFADELIC" Part Adding his name to the list of certified bowl burners from Brazil, Johnny literally torches the pit and commits on every rip

The Skatepark On Treasure Island: The story of an illegally constructed skatepark on San Francisco's Treasure Island, seen through the eyes of a veteran builder who has dedicated his life to the craft.

The Great Resignation, Interest Rate Hikes, and Athletic Mortality

• ‘I quit’ is all the rage. Blip or sea change? We’ve met a once-in-a-generation “take this job and shove it” moment; For a lot of workers is their financial situation is much better than it was coming out of the Great Recession, with the expansion of the social safety net and the stimulus payments during the pandemic period. (Harvard Gazette)

• Bank of Canada ends quantitative easing, signals rate hikes could come sooner The Bank of Canada says it expects inflation to be higher than it originally thought and suggested an interest rate hike could come sooner than expected. For now, Canada’s central bank kept its overnight rate at 0.25 per cent. It also ended its stimulus program called quantitative easing (QE). QE moves into a reinvestment phase, during which Government of Canada bonds will be bought only to replace maturing bonds. (Bank of Canada)

• The Senior Investment Role That’s Dominated by Women Female investors are increasingly ascending to the senior ranks of their firms as newly appointed heads of sustainability. (Institutional Investor)

• Time Horizon is Everything For Investors Two investors can have completely different opinions about a specific stock or the market and both can be right (or both can be wrong). It all depends on the time horizon. (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• Why There Is Not Enough Housing For Sale or Rent Across the Country: Homebuilding collapsed during the housing crash over a decade ago and has been slow to recover. Construction of high-end homes and apartments recovered first, and there is now an oversupply in some urban areas across the country. However, the construction of reasonably priced homes to rent or own has only recently begun to increase and continues to lag demand. (Moody’s)

• A History of Wealth Creation in the U.S. Equity Markets U.S. stock market investments increased shareholder wealth on net by $47.4 trillion between 1926 and 2019. Technology firms accounted for the largest share—$9.0 trillion—of the total, but telecommunications, energy and healthcare/pharmaceutical stocks created wealth disproportionate to the numbers of firms in the industries (Alpha Architect)

• After 25 Years, Celebrating the Little Car That Saved Porsche Stuttgart gives fans a special edition Boxster that commemorates the anniversary of the time Porsche almost died. (Bloomberg)

• Inside the battle for control of Rogers and the ensuing family feud How an inadvertent phone call exposed the plan that has plunged the telecom giant into chaos (Globe and Mail)

• Highest-Paid NHL Players 2021-22: Connor McDavid Leads A Top Ten Still Being Stung By The Pandemic (Forbes)

• How Long Can We Play? And what does that question even mean to you? Inside the quest to prolong athletic mortality. (Sports Ilustrated)

• How Punk Bands ‘Selling Out’ Changed the Mainstream Music Landscape Dan Ozzi talks about his latest book ‘SELLOUT’, which documents the major label “feeding fenzy” that swept through punk in the 90s and 00s. (Vice)

Homebuyer Down Payments, the Retirement Gamble, and Harper Watters

Wednesday morning news drop

• Parents gifting Vancouver homebuyers $340,000 on average for down payment Homebuyers in Vancouver are increasingly dependent on their parents for the financial capacity to cover their down payment. According to a new report by CIBC Capital Markets, over the first nine months of 2021, first-time homebuyers in Vancouver received an average of $180,000. This figure increases even more for parents supporting their children buying larger homes, with the average for move-uppers at $340,000. (Daily Hive)

• B.C. government proposes legislation to speed up permitting applications B.C. has introduced the first of what is a planned series of changes to make it easier to get approvals for new housing, part of a raft of measures aimed at tackling the province’s ongoing problems with upward-spiralling rents and prices for homes. (Globe and Mail)

• Rogers drama shows how owning a company is not the same thing as controlling it The Family trust owns almost all shares that come with voting rights (CBC)

• Why Is Everyone Else Quitting? Sometimes, as in a collective bargaining situation, you do have to think about other people at work. Other times, it’s better to focus on what you really want. (New York Times)

• You Could Be Competing With Bots to Buy Gifts This Christmas: As shortages of sneakers and other goods persist, the digital cat-and-mouse game between retailers and resellers is intensifying. (Businessweek)

• Ownership Inequality in the Stock Market This data is kind of depressing. The top 10% owns 45% of the housing market while the bottom 90% owns 55% of real estate in this country. Just wait until you see the ownership numbers for financial assets: The top 1% now owns $22 trillion or about ~54% of the total in stocks and funds. The top 10% owns 89% of the stocks in this country, meaning the bottom 90% owns just 11% of the stocks. (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• The Billionaire Tax: The Worst Tax Idea Ever? In conjunction with widening inequality, the perception is building that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share in taxes. If you focus just on federal tax dollars paid by each group, the wealthy are actually paying a larger share of federal taxes collected than ever before in history. The counter argument: they are paying a lower percent of their taxes than they were 50 years ago. (Musings on Markets)

• 11 Un-Magical Secrets I Learned While Working at Disney World From parents leaving their kids with “Mary Poppins” to ladies lusting after Captain Jack Sparrow, the most magical place on Earth is also one of the most colorful places to work.(Bloomberg)

• The vinyl straw: Why the vinyl industry is at breaking point The industry is at its strongest since the advent of the CD disk, so why has it become near-impossible to get music pressed onto wax? (Mix Mag)

• In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan America’s premier science institute has been less than forthcoming about risky research it has funded and failed to properly monitor. (Vanity Fair)

• The Mysterious Case of the COVID-19 Lab-Leak Theory Did the virus spring from nature or from human error? (New Yorker)

• Can Harper Watters Make Ballet Matter Again? The Houston social-media influencer is a gay Black man with a gift for the absurd and a passion for platform heels. He’s also a star dancer in one of the world’s most rigid, gendered, and segregated art forms. (Texas Monthly)

Corporate Transition, Rogers Share Structure, and Victoria Housing Affordability

Tuesday morning news drop

• Corporate Transition When presenting as a man, this “tech bro” entrepreneur was the toast of Silicon Valley—until she stepped into boardrooms as a woman. (Elle)

• Rogers’ family feud spotlights dual-class share structures A type of corporate equity structure used by several of Canada’s most prominent companies is once again under fire from critics in light of the current chaos at Rogers Communications Inc. (Global)

• The Revolt of the American Worker The labor situation, by contrast, looks like a genuine reduction in supply. Total employment is still five million below its prepandemic peak. Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector is still down more than 9 percent. Yet everything we see suggests a very tight labor market. (New York Times)

• CityLab University: Understanding Homelessness in America As economic disruption threatens to trigger a spike in housing instability, here’s an essential primer on the causes and consequences of a thorny urban problem. (CityLab)

• A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund that has quickly, and with remarkable ease, become one of the largest newspaper operators in the country. The new owners did not fly to Chicago to address the staff, nor did they bother with paeans to the vital civic role of journalism. Instead, they gutted the place. (The Atlantic)

• Let It Be? No, Let’s Remix The Beatles Let It Be is a complicated album, initially intended as a simple way for the band to get back to its rock ‘n’ roll roots. Paul McCartney’s idea was to have the four Beatles document the process of writing songs, culminating in a live concert as part of a television special. The Beatles hadn’t performed live in three years, and with Ringo scheduled to do a film shoot, they had just about a month to make this all happen. (NPR)

• After ‘Grand Theft Auto III,’ Open-World Games Were Never (and Always) the Same Twenty years ago, ‘Grand Theft Auto III’ set a new standard for open-world video games. The titles it inspired have grown bigger and busier, but it takes more than massive maps to give gamers the freedom they felt on their first trip to 3-D Liberty City. (Ringer)

• How sensitive are we to rising rates Interest rates have been in the news again lately, with Scotiabank making an agressive forecast that inflation will stick around and the Bank of Canada will raise rates 8 times to 2.25% by the end of 2023. Others think we will likely see low rates for longer, or even get into negative rates like we’ve seen in much of Europe. The first thing to realize is that there’s no reason to believe that anyone has any information about where rates are going. Predictions of interest rates by experts (and non-experts) have been fantastically wrong for decades. (House Hunt Victoria)

• Is Victoria overpriced? The CMHC says it isn’t—but we have no reason to believe them (Capital Daily)

Rogers Communications, Worker Resignations, and the Pandemic Era

Monday morning news drop

• Board votes, backroom deals and betrayal: The battle for control at Rogers The turmoil engulfing Canada’s largest wireless carrier has turned to near chaos as Edward Rogers fights to cement control over Rogers Communications Inc. after being ousted as chair, and CEO Joe Natale and top executives consider a mass exodus from the company. (Globe and Mail)

• Edward Rogers fought plans to keep Raptors’ Masai Ujiri, but was thwarted by MLSE head, sources say Edward Rogers actively fought plans to keep Masai Ujiri as head of the Toronto Raptors this summer — saying that he was not worth the amount offered — and then tried to extract an extraordinary benefit for his own company, the Star has learned. (Toronto Star)

• ‘Bring It On’: Mom Fights Son for Control of Canada Mobile Giant There has perhaps never been a boardroom fight in Canadian financial history quite like the one that’s raging inside Rogers Communications Inc. Pitting son against mother and brother against sisters, it’s pulled out into broad daylight a nasty, internecine feud that had been brewing behind closed doors ever since the patriarch of the family, Ted Rogers, died in 2008. (Bloomberg)

• Workers Are Quitting These 4 Kinds of Jobs in Droves The high levels of quitting seems to be a good indication that people are not happy with their jobs — often due to low pay and difficult working conditions — and also that they see better opportunities elsewhere, which is unsurprising given that companies must compete for employees due to a much-heralded labor shortage. The number of job openings in America fell slightly in the most recent report, but it’s still near an all-time high. (Money)

• People Aren’t Meant to Talk This Much Breaking up social-media companies is one way to fix them. Shutting their users up is a better one. (The Atlantic)

• Past Pandemics Remind Us Covid Will Be an Era, Not a Crisis That Fades We are living in the Covid-19 era, not the Covid-19 crisis. There will be a lot of changes that are substantial and persistent. We won’t look back and say, ‘That was a terrible time, but it’s over.’ We will be dealing with many of the ramifications of Covid-19 for decades, for decades.” (New York Times)

• Unfreezing the ice age: the truth about humanity’s deep past Archaeological discoveries are shattering scholars’ long-held beliefs about how the earliest humans organised their societies – and hint at possibilities for our own (Guardian)

• When the Culture Wars Came to Liberty City ‘Grand Theft Auto III’ was far from the first controversial video game, but it became one of the most significant ones in the fights over content, ratings, and free speech. Twenty years later, is a similar backlash even possible? (Ringer)

• 25 great rockumentaries every music (and movie) fan should see From “Woodstock” to “Amy,” here are the best documentaries that every music — and movie — fan should watch (Salon)

Videos of the Week and the Cost of Upgrading Your Phone

Friday morning news drop and videos of the week

• The True Cost of Upgrading Your Phone Buying a $1,000 iPhone can be equivalent to giving up $17,000 in retirement savings or 2,500 cups of coffee. (New York Times)

• From Friends to Squid Game – why Netflix viewing figures matter Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: the problem with the streaming company’s outlandish claims (The Guardian)

• Remote work is bringing the city to the suburbs How working from home is changing the suburbs as we know them. (Recode)

• The new Fear and Greed The type of fear that now drives most market activity (because it drives most market participants) is something different than the fear we’ve been accustomed to from reading about history. I would label this type of fear Insecurity. (Reformed Broker)

• 4 Things That Will Never Change For Young Investors If you wanted to put your money to work in the financial markets, you most likely had to drive to a brick-and-mortar office to meet with a broker. You would then have to fill out some paperwork to buy a severely limited number of tax-inefficient mutual funds or individual stocks. Those securities would often require an upfront fee in the 5% to 10% range for you to buy them. The entire process could take days for all of the paperwork to go through.(A Wealth of Common Sense)

• Untethered: There’s a Potential Grenade at the Center of the Crypto Economy It’s time to get very worried about Tether, the “stablecoin” at the center of the crypto economy. (Slate)

• Steph Curry’s Repeatable Magic The Warriors star is off to a red-hot start this season, conducting Steve Kerr’s beautiful music on the court. Here’s how he’s doing it. (Ringer)

• Paul McCartney Doesn’t Really Want to Stop the Show Half a century after the Beatles broke up, he’s still correcting the record—and making new ones. (New Yorker)

Videos of the Week

Top 10 Goals from Week 1 of the 2021-22 NHL Season

Top 10 Saves from Week 1 of the 2021-22 NHL Season

Brandon Semenuk Makes Red Bull Rampage History Once Again | Winning Run 2021 The first tail-whips, the first back-to-back win and the first 4-time winner - Brandon Semenuk has done it again! After an unfortunate crash on run 1, Semenuk returned to the top for redemption and put down the run of a lifetime in front of the Utah freeride fans.

Jaxson Riddle's Stylish POV From Red Bull Rampage 2021 Jump on board with Jaxson Riddle as he hammers his mountain bike down the crazy cliffs and jumps of Red Bull Rampage, and joins the elite crew of freeriders to take home the Best Style Award 🤘

The Rise Of Hodgy | Sam Hodgson The small British island of the Isle of Wight hosts this jaw-dropping edit instalment from Sam Hodgson on his home turf of the Isle of Wight Mountain Bike Centre.

STREET RIDER OF THE YEAR NOMINEES - NORA CUP 2021

CULTCREW/ DAKOTA ROCHE/ FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

Brotherly Love - Steve & Mark Vanderhoek I have always been super close with my brother Mark. From biking, skiing, motorcycles, cliff jumping ect we have always done it together. Growing up in North Vancouver BC gave us the perfect backyard to pursue what we love. Fortunately we also share a passion for the same line of work. Starting out ski patrolling on the local hills we moved into forest fire fighting and Paramedic schooling and eventually landing our careers both working for the City of North Vancouver Fire Department. Unfortunately we share a mutual attraction to injuries. I was able to find a day when we were both somewhat healthy and coming off injury to get out to Pemberton to enjoy a nice fall day with Kelsey Toevs behind the lens.

STREET vs PURE TRIALS - Tomomi Nishikubo

"Freehand" - Jake Mageau

Mark Suciu's "Blue Dog" Adidas Part Mark and his Verso co-collaborator Justin Albert get the band back together to bang out another insane part. Firing off at Pier 7 and going absolutely nuts in New York, Suciu leaves no doubt that he’s one of the best.

Kristin Ebeling's "Guitar" Meow Part - The women are killing it these days and one of our favorite Skate Witches sweeps across the cuts of the West Coast, earning a pro broom in the process.

Nice To See You - Vans Skate - Featuring Victoria BC’s own Una Farrar: Vans proudly presents Nice To See You, our first-ever globally collaborative skateboarding film that was created with help from the Vans skate team and talented filmmakers around the world. Nice To See You expresses the shared feeling of solidarity and commonality amongst skateboarders everywhere, regardless of location, background or identity. The film was produced under the guidance of Los Angeles-based renowned filmmaker and photographer Greg Hunt, with support from creative talents including Tommy Zhao, Shari White (who directed Vans’ Credits), Paul Labadie and Max Pack (who directed Vans Europe’s Tom’s Tales), George Kousoulis, Daniel Dent, and Kyota Kamei. Nice To See You stars: Adelaide Norris, Alexey Krasniy, Breana Geering, Chima Ferguson, Daiki Hoshino, Diego Todd, Digby Luxton, Dustin Henry, Etienne Gagne, Nick Michel, Notis Aggelis, Pedro Delfino, Rio Morishige, Ronnie Sandoval, Shogo Zama, Simon Zuzic, Wang Guohua, and Una Farrar,