Inflation Hits 4.7% in Canada, BC Climate Disaster, Looney Tunes, and Fogo Island

Thursday morning news drop

• After a year of climate disaster, B.C. grapples with the urgent need to adapt to its dangerous future ‘Climate change is upon us,’ but B.C.’s not yet prepared to face the heat, wildfires and floods ahead (Narwhal)

• Canada's inflation rate stays at 18-year high of 4.7% Inflation rates are soaring around the world right now, as the combination of record government spending, supply chain disruptions and a surge in demand for consumer goods has caused prices to rise quickly. (CBC)

• Federal Reserve to wind down stimulus faster — and likely hike rates faster, too In abrupt shift, the US Federal Reserve bank will wind down so-called QE program much faster than previously planned (CBC)

• What Could Possibly Go Wrong? These Are the Biggest Economic Risks for 2022 Economists have struggled to see ahead in the pandemic. They’re upbeat about next year, but could easily get blindsided again (Bloomberg)

• The Age of Financial Misinformation. Because it’s never been easier to spread financial information, but also never been harder to check it.But this is just the tip of the financial misinformation iceberg. Because it isn’t just incorrect information that’s the issue, but misinterpreted information as well. For example, last week I tweeted out this chart from Bloomberg showing how net equity flows this year have eclipsed the combined inflows of the past 19 years. (Of Dollars And Data)

• Simply adding supply won’t solve our housing crisis Housing is both a human right and a profitable asset — and that’s the problem (TVO)

• NFTs explained: Why people are spending millions of dollars on JPEGs People are spending millions for a reason, regardless of how weird it seems. (CNET)

• Corner Stores Are the New Darlings of the Global Tech Industry A billion-dollar effort to turn these unassuming shops into mini–tech hubs is only just beginning. (The Atlantic)

• Unvaccinated Covid Patients Push Hospital Systems Past the Brink There are consequences to a health system locked up by Covid patients. There were still strokes, heart attacks and accidents coming in. The Unvaccinated are not only killing themselves, they are killing these other people also, as they take scarce ER/ICU beds. Hospital around the state are full, and transfers to other hospitals were nearly impossible. (Bloomberg)

• Looney Tunes Will Never Die and That’s All, Folks! How Bugs Bunny and his pals managed to become a TV success impervious to time and changing standards (Walrus)

• Fogo Island: Bringing new life to a remote Canadian fishing community A remote jewel of land off the coast of Canada, Fogo Island floats in the northeast corner of the northeast province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the outstretched right fingertip of this continent. The place might be drop-dead gorgeous, but it wasn't immune to the fate befalling so many small and isolated communities in North America: its one and only industry went into steep decline, and so in turn, did its population. Then about a decade ago, a local returned home, fresh off making a fortune in the tech sector. Her pockets were deep. So was her desire to lift up the place and bring people back. So she unleashed a sort of economic experiment. (60 Minutes)

Inflation, Bond Traders, SEC and Ripple, Steph Curry, and Connor McDavid

Wednesday morning news drop

• Is gold over inflation? A historic market trend may be ending Gold has so far failed to rally in the face of the highest U.S. inflation in almost 30 years, suggesting that a long-held market orthodoxy may be breaking down. (Globe and Mail)

• Bond Traders Stare at Worst Real Returns Since Volcker Era Treasury returns trail CPI by most since the early 1980s; Negative real yields help government at expense of savers. (Bloomberg)

• Can We Trust What’s Happening to Money? All over the world, people are abandoning old forms of money and adopting new ones, like cryptocurrency, faster than our brains and customs can process. “We are at an interesting juncture.” (New York Times)

• SEC case against Ripple Labs for XRP crypto sale a ‘Bit’ of a double standard This is where things get nonsensical on the part of the SEC. The commission is now arguing that whatever Hinman said, his speech meant nothing. It’s simply his opinion, nothing more. In court, the SEC is telling the crypto world it really hasn’t made an official ruling whether Bitcoin or Ethereum’s Ether comport with securities laws. (New York Post)

• How Fear of Disruption, ‘Free Money,’ and the Lure of Alts Profits Drove Record M&A: Alternatives firms are outperforming their traditional peers, giving them more resources to reinvest in their businesses and spend on growth. (Institutional Investor)

• First U.S. vaccine mandate in 1809 launched 200 years of court battles “It doesn’t seem to have triggered widespread opposition at the time. People were terrified of smallpox, and people’s own experience with vaccination reassured them. When smallpox outbreaks struck their area, people could see that those in their community who had been vaccinated didn’t get sick.” (Washington Post)

• The Scramble for EV Battery Metals Is Just Beginning Global miners have an opportunity to sell ESG-friendly natural resources to the automotive and energy industries, but it will require investment (Wall Street Journal)

• Trump’s White House Emailed About a PowerPoint on How to End American Democracy: Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows handed over a trove of pre-Jan. 6 documentation. It’s damning stuff (Rolling Stone)

• Meet the real NASA scientist behind Netflix’s Don’t Look Up. All in a day’s work: discovering comets, saving the planet, and smashing the patriarchy (The Verge)

• Steph Curry Just Broke the 3-Point Record and He’s Not Even Close to Finished Stephen Curry never wanted to say it himself, even if others have been saying it for years. He refused to call himself the greatest shooter of them all until the numbers said so. And now? "I got that baby," Curry said, raising his arms high in the air. (Sportsnet)

• Football, basketball coaches on how McDavid’s skill transcends hockey world Amid a career that’s already been stuffed with trophies, records and plenty of highlight-reel fodder, there are times, even still, when Connor McDavid makes you just stop and watch. (Sportsnet)

• Flippin’ Victoria BC has a Speculation & Vacancy Tax, the results of which I’ve discussed several times. It’s a pretty good vacancy tax, but it’s debatable how well it targets speculation. That’s partially because in my mind speculation is hard to define, with every owner being part speculator. How many people would be buying right now if they were convinced prices would fall? However many people believe that flippers – those owners that buy only to sell shortly afterwards – should be specifically targetted by a speculation tax. How many of those flippers are there? It’s a more difficult question to answer than it should be since it requires the history of all property sales, but I’ve extracted the last few years of data for detached homes to see what order of magnitude we are talking about. There’s no set definition for flipping, but I’ve charted sales pairs that happened within 12 months, and those that happened within 18 months. Are flippers a substantial factor in the market? (House Hunt Victoria)

Bank of Canada Mandate, Great Escape or Resignation, and Jennifer Lawrence

Tuesday morning news drop

• New Bank of Canada mandate maintains inflation target but keeps one eye on jobs picture, too There has been a suggestion in recent years that central banks should consider moving away from inflation targeting, and try to achieve other goals with their monetary policy. That could include setting their policy to encourage full employment, for example, or to raise or lower the value of the country's currency — even if that means inflation heats up or cools down as a result. (CBC)

• The Great Escape: Why workers are quitting their jobs, after the trauma of the pandemic According to a July survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, 41 percent of U.S. workers are either actively searching for a new job, or planning to do so in the next few months. Two-thirds of those searching have considered a career change, rather than moving within their industry. Bankrate’s job seeker survey in August found even more turbulence; 55 percent of the workforce said they would likely look for a new job in the next year. (American Prospect)

• Everything’s Getting More Expensive. Here’s What You Can Blame It On. The supply chain is still screwed up, Energy prices spiked in November and People are still spending their stimulus money. (New York Magazine)

• 3 Small Ways to Be a More Inclusive Colleagues Over the last three years the author has been investigating the impact of peer relationships on an individual’s experience of inclusion at work. She found that peers have the power to include or exclude other individuals, and the exercise of that power can make a meaningful difference to work performance. Peer inclusion is demonstrated through three small acts that can make a world of difference: 1) Instrumental assistance, or acts that help a peer to perform their work tasks (such as by providing information, making introductions to contacts, giving endorsements in meetings, or offering advice); 2) Emotional bonding, or socializing with their peers, joking and banter, as well as providing space for venting and showing an authentic interest in a peer’s personal life; and 3) embodied connection, creating and communicating a closer connection with through body language and the sharing of space, such as walking to a meeting together or pulling a chair closer during a conversation. (Harvard Business Review)

• New People Are Coming to Crypto — And They May Not Like Bitcoin For a long time, there’s been a perception that it’s rooted in some kind of anarchy, with Bitcoin specifically often associated with right-wing, anti-Fed, gold-bug types. The fact that Bitcoin uses a lot of electricity to secure the network has helped cement the perception of “crypto” as a kind of antithesis of popular, liberal, ESG-ish ideals. But things are changing on that front, and mainstream commenters who previously turned up their noses at the space are capitulating. (Bloomberg)

• Expected Returns Over the Next Decade Annual returns over the past 10 years: U.S. growth is up almost 20% per year. The S&P 500 is up more than 16% per year. Small caps are up almost 14% per year. REITs rose more than 11% annually. Everyone has been dancing on the grave of value stocks for years now, yet they’re up nearly 14% per year over the last decade. A simple 60/40 portfolio of U.S. stocks and bonds is up around 11% per year over the past 10 years. (Wealth of Common Sense)

• The Office Is an Efficiency Trap: As office design evolved over the last century, one feature remained: the goal of filling your life with even more work. (Wired)

• Two years after B.C. passed its landmark Indigenous Rights act, has anything changed? The province promised to align all of its laws with the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), but a full two years in, only one clause of one B.C. statute has been amended (Narwhal)

• The Compay Man Tse Chi Lop, the suspected ringleader of a $21-billion crime syndicate, may be the world’s most innovative drug lord. And Toronto was his training ground. (Toronto Life)

• Jennifer Lawrence: “I Didn’t Have a Life. I Thought I Should Go Get One” After a long break, the Oscar winner returns with the ferocious satire Don’t Look Up, and talks to V.F. about love, fame, and boundaries. (Vanity Fair)

Fogo Island, Superfan Misses 1st Raptors Game, and Hallmark Movies

Monday morning news drop

• Fogo Island: Bringing new life to a remote Canadian fishing community A remote jewel of land off the coast of Canada, Fogo Island floats in the northeast corner of the northeast province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the outstretched right fingertip of this continent. The place might be drop-dead gorgeous, but it wasn't immune to the fate befalling so many small and isolated communities in North America: its one and only industry went into steep decline, and so in turn, did its population. Then about a decade ago, a local returned home, fresh off making a fortune in the tech sector. Her pockets were deep. So was her desire to lift up the place and bring people back. So she unleashed a sort of economic experiment. We took two planes, a long drive and a ferry to reach Fogo Island, and check on the early results. (60 Minutes)

• 'Superfan' Nav Bhatia, in isolation, misses 1st ever Raptors home game Friday night's Toronto Raptors game was notable for who wasn't in attendance. The Raptors' COVID-19 scare kept Superfan from Toronto's game against the New York Knicks. It's the first home game he's missed since the Toronto franchise joined the NBA in 1995. (CBC)

• Hallmark’s trademark American Christmas movies? They’re made in Canada In a quaint Oregon firehouse decorated with more Christmas trees than would seem fire code compliant, a bewildered fireman places a cardboard box, teeming with kittens, on a table. Beside him, his silver-haired colleague chuckles as a mewling tabby paws his chest. “There are only seven kittens here,” exclaims the younger, “but we started with nine!” The kittens gambol and chirp, a plucky score accompanying the men as they try to control the roving felines. The elder assesses where this life has taken him, so unlike what he had planned. He sighs – “We’re gonna need a bigger box.” (Globe and Mail)

• Canada’s rural-urban divide is getting deeper, and that hurts all Canadians Much of Canada’s political power lives in cities, and that has led to cultural biases and blind spots that risk erasing a vital kind of diversity in the country (Globe and Mail)

• Misreading Inflation Why we should err on the side of inaction—and why we won’t. Indisputably, all other factors held constant, inflation is bad. It erodes the real value of money, reducing purchasing power. The same money buys less than it did before, including things like food and shelter. But all other factors are not constant. “Nominal” values—such as the dollar cost of items—are less important than “real” values such as actual purchasing power. (Boston Review)

• Jim Belushi Left Hollywood to Grow Weed and Heal His Soul: The iconic comedian and sitcom dad wants to save all of us—one dank, wondrous, sticky-icky trip at a time. (Men’s Health)

• He Voted to Impeach. Can He Survive in the GOP? The political education of Peter Meijer After January 6, Peter Meijer thought he could help lead the Republican Party away from an abyss. Now he laughs at his own naïveté. (The Atlantic)

• Built to Lie A new book about the Boeing 737 MAX disaster exposes the company’s allergy to the truth. (American Prospect)

Before The Mets, Steve Cohen Was The Hedge-Fund King | FRONTLINE (full documentary) Inside the government’s crackdown on insider trading, drawing on exclusively-obtained video of hedge fund titan Steven A. Cohen, incriminating FBI wiretaps, and interviews with both Wall Street and Justice Department insiders.

Videos of the Week and Inflation is 6.8% in the USA

Friday morning news drop

• U.S. inflation rate spikes to 6.8% — highest level in almost 40 years Food, energy and housing costs major contributors to spike (CBC)

• Bank of Canada to keep two per cent inflation target in new mandate The new five-year mandate, however, will include some new language around employment (Financial Post)

• Canada's central bank appears more concerned with job creation than about inflation Bank of Canada must keep an eye on Ottawa — and one on Washington — in inflation fight (CBC)

• We'll all be paying a lot more for food next year, says Canada's Food Price Report 2022 expected to see the biggest annual increase in food bills on record, new report says (CBC)

• Wall Street Finally Learns It Can’t Ignore Crypto and NFTs Digital currencies have been around for a while, but 2021 was the year the wider crypto world made its mark. Its “memeification” and pop culture normalization happened at a pace that detractors found baffling and that true believers argued was still too slow. As it gained another raft of high-profile supporters, it also captured the attention of Wall Street as a force that could no longer be ignored—and of regulators. (Bloomberg)

• Half a Billion in Bitcoin, Lost in the Dump: For years, a Welshman who threw away the key to his cybercurrency stash has been fighting to excavate the local landfill. (New Yorker)

• Brookfield sees 'truly massive' opportunities in energy Investors face an historic opportunity to put their money into renewable energy assets given the global consensus that now exists around the urgent need for decarbonization, according to Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (Bloomberg)

• From the Great Resignation to Lying Flat, Workers Are Opting Out In China, the U.S., Japan, and Germany, younger generations are retinking the pursuit of wealth. (Businessweek)

• What’s Really Behind Global Vaccine Hesitancy: Countries with low vaccination rates are suffering from more than just inequity. South Africa has 150 days’ worth of vaccine supply. It’s now facing the same problem that’s bedeviling countries the world over: Lots of people don’t want to get their shots. South Africa recently paused deliveries of the J&J and Pfizer vaccines because it has more stock than it can use. “We have plenty [of] vaccine and capacity but hesitancy is a challenge.” (The Atlantic)

• The Long Way Home How NFL wide receiver Demaryius Thomas lost his mother and grandmother to drug dealing, and how he plans on bringing them home. (ESPN)

Powell Peralta Skateboard Stories Presents: Christopher Hiett

“Flora” Episode 3: Mark Suciu With his forth segment of the year Mark will win SOTY with this banger rail segment where Mark and Justin return to The Bay for an unreal performance that pushes the physical, mental and creative limits of skateboarding, culminating in a dizzying spectacle of handrail achievements.

Chima Ferguson's "Nice to See You" RAW Files: His Vans part shocked the world with its glorious onslaught of first-rate stunts. Now see how much punishment Chima endured in his pursuit of the sublime.

PEAK CONDITION - CH | 11 | TV | 013 Epic all time surfing in the rain

Brett Rheeder - Continuum | SHIMANO Everything is connected. Each ride is an extension of the one before. Each reentry is a transition to the next launch. Each experience builds on one another toward a flow state of endless progression. Only the settings and perspectives change along this continuum. In this film by Brett Rheeder and Harrison Mendel, the sequence of individual movements are all linked together as a cohesive collection, with each maneuver unique yet forming a coherent visual journey across ever-changing landscapes by maintaining a locked perspective.

Crossover - Christian Rigal: “What started as a blank canvas on a friend’s property quickly turned into a BMX inspired MTB zone. Using an old Church foundation from 1876 as our centrepiece, we went to work for nine days on the tools and machines to make this crossover dream build a reality. Five Ten let me run wild with this and I can't thank them enough for trusting me and my vision for this project. Opportunities like this are rare and I am stoked to have had the chance to bring some of these crazy ideas to life, and hoping it inspire others to look at things differently and do the same! You don’t need a mountain to ride mountain bikes” - Christian Rigal

TRENT LUTZKE - ROAD HAWG | Sunday Bikes | BMX Michigan's own Trent Lutzke packed up his van and road-tripped across the country on two separate occasions for this one. Racking up miles on the road and stacking footage in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Wisconsin, California and of course, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Trent has been killing it on both sides of the lens for a while now, so we were stoked to spend some time working with him on this one. Road Hawg indeed

Home Ownership in Victoria, Data Science, and Canadian Multiculturalism

A friend asked me who or what is to “blame” for house appreciation in Victoria? There is no one issue. Here are ten case facts making home ownership in Victoria, BC, a desirable asset class.

1. Low interest rates

2. No capital gains tax on principal residence

3. Cultural values around prioritizing home ownership

4. Desirable climate and geography (they aren't building anymore land)

5. A lack of residential construction between the mid 1990’s to the mid 2000’s

6. A lack of high density zoning and construction that reflects the regional growth rate

7. Inadequate government investment in purpose built rental housing

8. Retained equity and home equity lines of credit (HELOC) allowing older home owners to buy a second property or fund their children’s first home purchase

9. Population growth as individuals migrate to Victoria from other areas across Canada and various foreign countries

10. A long history of stable appreciation as an asset class that has outpaced inflation and fixed income investments

And now for the Thursday morning news drop

• This Bull Market Hasn’t Always Been Easy Every new generation of investors has to learn the same lessons as the previous generation. But experience alone isn’t always enough to make you a successful investor. Experienced investors panic all the time. Who do you think holds all of the money that actually moves the markets? They also miss big trends, hold onto legacy positions for too long, become overconfident in their assertions and can’t see how the world is changing around them. (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• Everyone Is Talking About Data Science. Here’s How J.P. Morgan Is Putting It Into Practice. J.P. Morgan Asset Management is building machine learning and predictive analytics tools for its fundamental portfolio managers. Just don’t call them quants. (Institutional Investor)

• Canadian Multiculturalism: A Work in Progress As we mark fifty years since the adoption of Canada’s federal multiculturalism policy, human rights advocate Amira Elghawaby celebrates its merits and reflects on the work that is yet to be done when it comes to inclusion, acceptance, and fighting systemic racism in our country (Walrus)

• Without Dorsey, Can Twitter Finally Flourish? There was only one little idea that there was Jack’s. But today, you look at it, and even in his resignation letter, he is the “inventor.” One of the greatest quotes I ever heard about him was someone said, “The greatest product that Jack Dorsey ever made was Jack Dorsey.” (Slate)

• The Dark Side of 15-Minute Grocery Delivery: Mini-warehouses dubbed “dark stores” are quietly taking over urban retail space. Left unregulated, the insatiable demand for faster delivery will only hasten the erosion of community life. (Bloomberg)

• Can Apple Take Down the World’s Most Notorious Spyware Company? Pegasus was used to target Al Arab editor Abdulaziz Alkami eight years ago. The same spyware was also employed to surveil Emirati human rights advocate Ahmed Mansoor and Saudi-American dissident Jamal Khashoggi. On Friday reports even emerged that at least nine State Department officials working on East Africa-related issues were hacked using Pegasus over the past few months, representing the widest known hacks of American officials using NSO technology to date. (Slate)

• Want to help animals? Here’s where to donate your money. If you care about animals and want to reduce their suffering, but aren’t sure exactly how, Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is an organization that might be able to help. The California-based nonprofit puts out an annual guide for recommended animal charities, and it just released its list for this year. (Vox)

• Well I Guess This Is Growing Up Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus got cancer—and then accidentally shared his diagnosis with the public over social media. Turns out getting sick renewed his faith, healed his old friendships, and reminded him what makes life worth living. (GQ)

• The story of the Beatles rooftop concert at the heart of ‘Get Back’ The rooftop show and the associated “Let It Be” album are at the heart of Peter Jackson’s three-part documentary series “Get Back,” which has earned a strong critical reception and catapulted the album into the UK Top 40, more than a half century after its release.(Washington Post)

Interest Rate Hikes, Meal Kits, and the Best Movies of 2021

Wednesday morning news drop

• Bank of Canada to lay groundwork for rate hike The Bank of Canada is expected to keep the spotlight on inflation at its policy decision this week, as it nears the start of an aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes. (Bloomberg)

• Branding the Billion-Dollar Dark Stores Instant grocery delivery is a sector on steroids. But how can brands stand out in a super-saturated market? (Bloomberg)

• Let’s get real: the American Rescue Plan was the best economic policy in forty years Nearly a year and a half into the recovery from the Covid recession, it’s indisputable that fiscal relief was a success. Not so, after the Great Financial Crisis — it fell far short. Blame Larry Summers. (Stay-At-Home Macro)

• Is the Correction Over? Was that it? It feels ridiculous to ask, given that at the lows of last week, the peak-to-trough decline in the S&P 500 was just 5.2%. It feels ridiculous to ask, given that at the lows of last week, the market was still up 21% YTD. But it is a reasonable question, given that stocks have aggressively bounced, with S&P 500 futures currently sitting less than 2% below all-time highs. (Irrelevant Investor)

• How Meal Kits Changed My Mind about Cooking The pandemic sparked a boom in cooking from scratch. Where do boxes of premeasured ingredients fit in? (Walrus)

• Why insects are more sensitive than they seem: For decades, the idea that insects have feelings was considered a heretical joke – but as the evidence piles up, scientists are rapidly reconsidering. (BBC)

• ‘I spontaneously burst into tears’: How 13 songwriters felt watching the new Beatles documentary We spoke to more than a dozen songwriters about their reactions to the series about the iconic quartet, the viral moment when McCartney writes the backbone of “Get Back” in minutes, and the sometimes smooth, sometimes arduous process of how to craft a song in the first place. Here’s what they had to say. (Washington Post)

• Trump’s Coup Has Already Began January 6 was practice. Donald Trump’s GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election. (Atlantic)

• The Best Movies of 2021 It was a year of octogenarian high jinks, long yet revealing documentaries, and masters reasserting themselves (Method)

House Hunt Victoria, ESG in the Boardroom, and TikTok Reads Your Mind

Tuesday morning news drop

• Why boardrooms must be fluent in the ABCs of ESG After Larry Fink demanded companies in BlackRock’s portfolio to provide climate-focused disclosures, other major investors and regulators are making similar demands (Globe and Mail)

• Return-to-Office Chaos Is the Best Thing to Happen to Consultants Since Y2K A new breed of “experts” is here to help desperate employers navigate these uncharted waters. Too bad no one knows anything. (BusinessWeek)

• There Is Finally a Visible Way Out of the COVID Pandemic Two new developments could mean a real endgame is near. (New York Magazine)

• Why you should care about Facebook’s big push into the metaverse The futuristic tech Mark Zuckerberg is investing billions in could remake the internet. (Vox)

• How TikTok Reads Your Mind It’s the most successful video app in the world. Our columnist has obtained an internal company document that offers a new level of detail about how the algorithm works. (New York Times)

• The Best Music of 2021 So, 2021 wasn’t quite the “post-pandemic” return to normal we’d all hoped for. But once again, music carried us through, and not even ever-mutating variants could stop incredible artists from releasing great new records. Below, in our 2021 wrap-up package, Pitchfork looks back on the year that was, with lists of the best songs and albums in a variety of genres, plus the best books, best music movies and TV shows, and more. Happy new year, and, as always, thanks for reading. (Pitchfork) and top 100 Pitchfork songs of 2021 (Youtube)

• Nature Shows How This All Works Two little stories from nature that teach us a few things about investing: 1. Extremes lead to extremes. 2. Small changes compounded for long periods of time are indistinguishable from magic. (Collaborative Fund)

• Bubble watch: has anything changed? hough he has moved on to the pensions field, the old boss of CMHC was making news again this week on the topic of housing. In an interview with CTV, Evan Siddall said “I really don’t think we’re in a bubble. If demand is going up and supply is not, prices will go up, that’s not a bubble.” Is he right? Well he doesn’t have the greatest track record as a prognosticator of housing, but it’s a worthy topic of discussion especially if you’re wondering about whether it still makes sense to jump in to the market now or if it’s primed for a big dip. In some ways, a bubble can’t be positively identified until it has popped. I’d say we’d need to see at least a 20% drop in prices to say that what came before was a bubble. We’ve heard the Canadian housing market be called a bubble hundreds of times for decades, and despite going in radically different directions from the US market especially after 2008, so far there’s been no crash. Even if today’s prices are a bubble, those calls were clearly incorrect. A 20% drop in national prices would only bring us back to July 2020. (House Hunt Victoria)

Bitcoin Sell-off, Crypto Scams, Flexible Employers, and the Market Drawdown

Monday morning news drop

• Why employers may need to bend toward a more flexible future to stay competitive Demand for flexibility should be factored into staffing recruitment, retention efforts, experts say (CBC)

• In the Tarantino Market, the Hottest Stocks Are Getting Quietly Killed Turmoil under the surface of the S&P 500 is reminiscent of the quant crisis. (Bloomberg)

• 95% of the time the market is in a state of drawdown. One out of every 5 stocks is down 20% or worse from its 52 week high. One out of every 8 stocks is down 30% or more from 52 week highs and more than 6% of stocks are down 50% from one year highs. (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• Gambling Addiction Is Metastasizing: When life feels this precarious, it’s only natural to roll the dice on just about everything. (The Atlantic)

• Vigilantes Are Hunting Crypto Scams in $100 Billion DeFi Market These types of scams are exploding in DeFi, the wild west of the crypto market. There, anyone and everyone can mint digital tokens — some that create outrageous fortunes, and far more that flop within hours. FOMO coin culture is the perfect breeding ground for fraudsters looking to take investors’ money and run. (Bloomberg)

• The Science of Mind Reading The results of the study were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The paper caused a sensation. The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about it, with the headline “brains of vegetative patients show life.” It weas estimated that 20% of patients who were presumed to be vegetative were actually awake. (New Yorker)

• The futuristic plan to fix America’s power grid This year, millions of Americans across the country lost power at times when they needed it most. As the US power grid deals with an onslaught of heat waves, winter storms, and stronger hurricanes caused by climate change, these kinds of failures are happening more often, taking longer to fix, and harming more people. Power blackouts, which used to be mostly seasonal occurrences, now occur year-round. Winter is often the season for blackouts. Smart grids could change that. (Vox)

• Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victory Trump on the afternoon of 6 January. Multiple sources described Trump’s involvement in the effort to subvert the election result. Donald Trump on the afternoon of 6 January. Multiple sources described Trump’s involvement in the effort to subvert the election result. Sources tell Guardian Trump pressed lieutenants at Willard hotel in Washington about ways to delay certification of election result. (The Guardian)

• Your Herbs and Spices Might Contain Arsenic, Cadmium, and Lead CR tested 126 products from McCormick, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and other popular brands. Almost a third had heavy metal levels high enough to raise health concerns. (Consumer Reports)

• A stunning shift in the way rain falls in America Think your area has had more rain than usual? You’re probably right. Think your area has had less rain than usual? Again, you’re probably right. 126 years of monthly data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing annual precipitation at 344 climate divisions + daily precipitation data from weather stations to measure the change in frequency of extreme rain events across the U.S. from 1951-2020. (USA Today)

Videos of the Week, Roe v Wade, Kenny Omega, and LeBron's Decline

Friday morning news drop

• What will US’s future look like if abortion becomes a crime again? As Roe v Wade faces a direct challenge, criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors, local judges and cops begin to lay out what it would look like to criminalize abortion (Guardian)

• New People Are Coming to Crypto — And They May Not Like Bitcoin. Specifically often associated with right-wing, anti-Fed, gold-bug types, and the fact that Bitcoin uses a lot of electricity to secure the network has helped cement the perception of “crypto” as a kind of antithesis of popular, liberal, ESG-ish ideals. But things are changing on that front, and mainstream commenters who previously turned up their noses at the space are capitulating. (Bloomberg)

• The 'Carolina Squat' is now illegal on North Carolina's roads They're certainly eye-catching, but they're also dangerous: that's the verdict on the "Carolina squat," a modification to vehicles that raises their front while keeping their rear end low to the ground. (NPR)

• How Morale at Facebook Tumbled After Trump’s “Looting and Shooting” Post After optimism in the company peaked at 82% in mid-May 2020, it plummeted in early June to about 60% and further sank throughout July. It dropped sharply after November, hitting 50% in December—just before the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, which, as the Washington Post reported as part of its own examination of the Facebook Papers, the platform played no small part in fomenting. (Slate)

• If wrestling is art, then Kenny Omega is one of Canada's greatest performing artists The boundary-defying Winnipeg-born wrestler compares it to episodic television or a night out at the theatre (CBC)

• LeBron's decline phase has finally arrived For years we've been wondering when all the games and minutes would finally catch up to LeBron James. And for years, right up until this season, whenever Father Time seemed to gain enough ground to appear in his rearview mirror, LeBron - the historic anomaly who continued to lord over the NBA deep into his second decade in the league - managed to pick up the pace and put some distance between himself and the unrelenting force stalking him (and the rest of us).(Score)

Videos of the Week

Joe Sexton in South Paw for Public Snowboards

Sebastian Keep - More Walls: "I want to put my wheels places no one has ever been". - Sebastian Keep.

Thomas Estaque - COMMENCAL Segment: If Thomas Estaque dreamed of a track, what would it look like? Since filming, Thomas and the shape team have redeveloped the trail to make it accessible to the entire community. For those who wish to ride it, it starts at the following GPS coordinates: 42.915732, 1.114997. Rider: Thomas Estaque. Video: Leon Perrin.

Corey Glick's "Uprise" Part

Yuto Horigome's "Spitfire" Part Yuto's had a helluva year, from droppin' his hit April part to snatchin' that weight back home. Still going, he hits LA landmarks and stacks a spine-crackin' hammer you won't forget. Jesus.

Roots - Foundations of Freeskiing - Full Film: Starring: Alex Hall, Alexis Ghisleni, Antti Ollila, Astrid Cheylus, Bella Bacon, Ben Buratti, Blake Wilson, Cody Cirillo, Daniel Hanka, Duncan Adams, Elisabeth Gerritzen, Kadi Gomis, Mac Forehand, Margaux Hackett, Markus Fohr, Matěj Švancer, Mathilde Gremaud, Micah Evangelista, Sam Anthamatten, Sandra Eie, Sarah Hoefflin, Simon Charrière, Sophia Rouches, Tim McChesney, Tim Sivignon, and Yann Rausis.