Crypto, Wedding Planners, and Teacher Shortages

Monday morning articles

• Millions in Cryptocurrency Vanished as Agents Watched Helplessly: Feds locked up a storage device full of ill-gotten tokens. Then someone started stealing the loot. (Bloomberg)

• Wedding planners on their biggest scams: You know what your wedding doesn’t need? Doughnut walls. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry for a reason. (Vox)

• Why Nancy Pelosi Sabotaged Wildly Popular Bipartisan Legislation: Most Americans do not think lawmakers should be able to trade stocks at all, which is why some thought this was going to be the year Congress reined itself in when it came to the stock market. After all, there are multiple bills floating around the Capitol that could ban elected officials from investing in companies directly. “There’s not a whole lot of issues that are talked about on the agenda right now that command such bipartisan support.” (Slate)

• Attacks Expose Vulnerability of European Infrastructure: The search for the perpetrators has begun following Monday’s sabotage attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Which countries could have been behind it, and how secure is Europe’s critical infrastructure at the bottom of the sea? (Spiegel)

• The teacher shortage problem has been going on for 50 years. Why are so few entering the profession? Since the 1970s, the number of people choosing teaching as a career has tanked. Here a look at the stats. (Grid)

• They Legitimized the Myth of a Stolen Election — and Reaped the Rewards: On the day the Capitol was attacked, 139 Republicans in the House voted to dispute the Electoral College count. This is how they got there. A majority of House Republicans last year voted to challenge the Electoral College and upend the presidential election. That action, signaled ahead of the vote in signed petitions, would change the direction of the party. (New York Times) 

• Capitol attack officer Fanone hits out at ‘weasel’ McCarthy in startling interview: In an extraordinarily candid and profane interview with Rolling Stone, Michael Fanone – the former Washington police officer who was seriously hurt at the US Capitol during the January 6 attack – called the Republican House leader, potentially the next speaker, a “fucking weasel bitch.” (The Guardian)

• Confidence Man: Key revelations from new book on Donald Trump: Former US President Donald Trump nearly fired his daughter and routinely flushed documents down the toilet. These explosive details and more are revealed in New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman’s highly-anticipated book Confidence Man, which is released on Tuesday. (BBC) 

Hating Your Job, Time, Book Sales, and the NBA

Friday morning articles

• Why You Hate Your Job: A theory on the function of bullshit jobs: to maintain the illusion of meritocracy and to provide status and prestige for elites. (Current Affairs)

• You weren’t supposed to see that. I’m going to tell you a quick story in the order in which it happened. You were there. You will be familiar with the sequence of these events. But you may not have reached the shocking conclusion that I have. At least not yet. Wait for it… (Reformed Broker)

• Why does time go forwards, not backwards? The arrow of time began its journey at the Big Bang, and when the Universe eventually dies there will be no more future and no past. In the meantime, what is it that drives time ever onward? (BBC)

• This miracle plant was eaten into extinction 2,000 years ago—or was it? Silphion cured diseases and made food tasty, but Emperor Nero allegedly consumed the last stalk. Now, a Turkish researcher thinks he’s found a botanical survivor. (National Geographic)

• Where Is All the Book Data? I went looking for book sales data, only to find that most of it is proprietary and purposefully locked away. What I learned was that the single most influential data in the publishing industry—which, every day, determines book contracts and authors’ lives—is basically inaccessible to anyone beyond the industry. And I learned that this is a big problem. Culture industries increasingly use our data to sell us their products. It’s time to use their data to study them. (Public Books)

• This astronaut trains by flying fighter jets. We went along for the ride: Jared Isaacman, who commissioned a private astronaut flight to orbit last year, has purchased three more space trips from Elon Musk’s SpaceX (Washington Post)

• What Einstein and Bohr’s debate over quantum entanglement taught us about reality: The microscopic world behaves very unlike the world we see around us. The idea of quantum entanglement came at a time when the world’s greatest minds debated if the world’s tiniest particles are governed by chance. The 2022 Nobel Prize in physics was just awarded for the experimental test of Bell’s Inequality, showing that there is an uncertainty built into the Universe. (Big Think)

• Laughter is vital For philosopher Henri Bergson, laughter solves a serious human conundrum: how to keep our minds and social lives elastic. (Aeon)

• This Is What Life After the N.B.A. Looks Like: Life is good for some N.B.A. retirees who use millions in earnings to do whatever they want. But others say they have struggled to find a new identity without basketball. (New York Times)

Labour Shortages, Global Economy, and China Invading Taiwan

Thursday morning articles

• The best way to solve a labor shortage is with labor: In July we added a 1/2 million jobs on net, wages rose briskly and the unemployment rate fell to its 50-year low. That’s a sign of progress. (Stay-At-Home Macro)

• The Market’s Peak Inflation Story Fights the Fed: There’s no sign the Fed will change its mind and agree that rates should come down again next year (Wall Street Journal)

• The Fed Might Just Break the Global Economy: The real stress is in the energy-supply system to certain parts of the world, notably Europe. The U.S. real economy is not in crisis mode. There are some signs of a downturn in the real-estate market, but the real economy is not slowing as fast as the Fed would like. (Intelligencer)

• Florida’s insurance market was already in crisis. Then came Hurricane Ian. Will taxpayers end up on the hook? Experts expect insurers will have to cover up to $40 billion in damages. (Grid)

• There’s more upside than downside for long-term investors For long-term investors, time in the market matters more than timing the market. “It pays to remain invested and balanced precisely when it is most difficult to do so.” (TKer)

• Is the Efficient Market Hypothesis True? A widespread assumption about the stock market is that it’s efficient. But is that strictly true? (U.S. News)

• What Does an Office Mean? Two Architects Discuss: Technology has transformed the contours of our workspaces. The authors of a new book spanning 50 years of design history explain how. (CityLab)

• An Epidemic of Delusions: When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People: Something is seriously wrong. An alarming number of citizens, in America and around the world, are embracing crazy, even dangerous ideas.” (Commonweal)

• The Secret Microscope That Sparked a Scientific Revolution: How a Dutch fabric seller made the most powerful magnifying lens of his time—and of the next 150 years—and became the first person ever to see a microorganism. (Wired)

• How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan: If war is Beijing’s plan, there would be reliable indications that it is coming. (Carnegie Endowment For International Peace)

• Steve Cohen’s New Edge Is Hedge Fund Moneyball at Playoff-Bound Mets The billionaire investor has turned from high-stakes trading to professional baseball and is pressing his advantage by spending big to win. (Bloomberg)

Low Interest Rates, Bonds, Market Bottom, and EV Classic Cars

Wednesday morning articles

• Is the Era of Low Interest Rates Over? There were fundamental reasons interest rates were so low three years ago. Those fundamentals haven’t changed; if anything, they’ve gotten stronger. So it’s hard to understand why, once the dust from the fight against inflation has settled, we won’t go back to a very-low-rate world. (New York Times)

• What to Buy? Bonds. When? Now. My short and simple answer to the question, “What to buy and when?” is: buy bonds today. There are still developments that need to play out further before we can get clarity on stocks and the labor market, which calls for patience, but I believe bonds are attractive now. (Van Eck) see also Farewell, TINA: For years, we have heard that “there is no alternative” – TINA – to equities, and that thanks to the Fed, “Cash is trash.” No longer. The Federal Reserve, in its belated attempt to fight inflation, has cranked up rates to the point where today, there is an alternative to stocks: Bonds. (The Big Picture)

• Was that the Bottom? Stocks got washed out in the third quarter. Whether you were looking at prices or people’s reactions to said prices, it was hard to find anything positive to say other than things are so bad they’re actually good. (Irrelevant Investor)

• Oh Elon Well! That was stupid. Elon’s Back Though he still has a few days to change his mind again. (Bloomberg)

• The Climate Crisis Spells Big Business for Carbon Capture: At a recent expo in Houston, innovators claimed they can spare us a global catastrophe—and make billions in the process. (Texas Monthly)

• Working From Home Is Not an Urban Escape Hatch: Contrary to popular perception, the nation’s WFH hotbeds are big-city neighborhoods and expensive suburbs, not mountain retreats and beach cottages. (Bloomberg)

• Working From Home Is Sticking in US as Office Occupancy Stalls: New York City’s results hurt by last week’s religious holidays; RTO mandates at some big employers delayed by worker pushback. (Bloomberg)

• A brief guide to the weird and revolutionary world of quantum computers. This year’s physics Nobel Prize went to pioneers in quantum tech. Here’s how their work could change the world. (Vox)

• Everyone Has the Wrong Idea About EV-Converted Classic Cars: People keep asking me about converting their troublesome old sports cars into low-maintenance EVs. It’s a mistake — they’re looking at the wrong genre of vehicle. (Road & Track)

Elon Musk and Twitter, Real Estate, Housing Prices, and Paul McCartney

Tuesday morning articles

• Elon Musk’s Twitter Will Be a Wild Ride His deal to buy the company is back on. Here are six predictions about Twitter under Musk’s control, if it happens. (New York Times)

• Retail Real Estate Is Enjoying Its Biggest Revival in Years: U.S. retail real-estate vacancies are down, rents are up and more stores are opening than closing. (Wall Street Journal)

• Vanguard Closes In on BlackRock ETF Crown: With $45 Billion Haul Bogle-founded firm led ETF flows last quarter amid volatility Vanguard will surpass BlackRock in ETF assets in 2025, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. (Bloomberg)

• House Prices: 7 Years in Purgatory: 10%+ Nominal Price Declines Now Seem Likely. (Calculated Risk)

• Guys, it looks like Truth Social might not work out: Trump startup investors demand: “Give us a better deal or we’ll walk.” Ultimately, if Digital World is able to coax the investors to stay in, the company will still need SEC approval before it can close the Trump Media transaction. (Politico)

• Is Having Too Many Choices (Versus Too Few) Really the Greater Problem for Consumers? Choice deprivation—a feeling of not having enough to choose from—not choice overload is the most common consumer experience. And choice deprivation isn’t just more common—it’s also more harmful to choice satisfaction than overload. (Behavioral Scientist)

• The Onion has filed an amicus brief in Novak v. Parma, and its the best amicus brief I’ve ever read: Novak challenges the 6th Circuit use of Qualified Immunity to deny Free Speech protections to a parodist. (Pjaicomo) see also Novak-Parma – Onion Amicus Brief (Document Cloud)

• Bad Losers: Election deniers are a threat to democracy. The midterms could be the last chance to stop them. (The Atlantic)

• What NASA’s Crash Into an Asteroid Looks Like Astronomers on Earth — and a shoebox-size Italian spacecraft called LICIACube — captured the DART mission’s successful strike on Dimorphos. (New York Times)

• Paul McCartney’s freakish memory: And what it tells us about his creativity. (The Ruffian)

Stock Market, Bond Market, Peak Oil, Chess Cheating, and Aaron Judge

Monday morning articles

• Washout: If the leaders are falling, you know the rest of the bunch already got washed out. Indeed, only 8% of the Nasdaq-100 is above the 200-day moving average. (Irrelevant Investor)

• Getting Long-Term Bullish: My general investment philosophy is the more bearish things feel in the short run the more bullish I should be over the long run. If I’m taking my own advice right now I should be getting much more long run bullish.  (Wealth of Common Sense)

• Wall Street’s 2022 LOL Outlook for Stocks: A roundup of 14 forecasts for 2022 of the S&P 500, including highlights from the strategists’ commentary. The targets range from 4,400 to 5,300.(S&P closed 2021 at 4,766) which implies returns between flat and +22%: (TKer)

• The bond market massacre of September 2022: We are reaching the point in the monetary tightening cycle in which things begin to break. Truss and Kwarteng are clearly counting on the Bank of England to offset the shock to markets by raising rates. And yields have certainly surged as UK bonds have sold off. (Adam Tooze) 

• Office Markets Are the Real Estate Crash We Need to Worry About While a soft landing is still possible for housing and labor, it’s going to get ugly for city business districts. (Bloomberg)

• How the U.S. Is Making a Bottom-Up Recovery Households with the lowest incomes are bouncing back better from the Covid-19 crisis than more-affluent ones. (Wall Street Journal)

• Peak Oil Has Finally Arrived. No, Really: Those who have called a top in oil may finally be proven right as sharp global rate hikes hurt consumption. (Bloomberg)

• The Disappearing Art Of Maintenance: The noble but undervalued craft of maintenance could help preserve modernity’s finest achievements, from public transit systems to power grids, and serve as a useful framework for addressing climate change and other pressing planetary constraints. (NOEMA)

• The cheating scandal roiling the chess world has a new wrinkle: The cheating controversy gripping the world of elite chess was already enigmatic — but it deepened even more this week, when world champion Magnus Carlsen abruptly resigned after making a single move in his highly anticipated rematch with Hans Niemann. (NPR)

• All of Aaron Judge’s Homers, From 1 to 61: Judge, the slugging outfielder, is having an incredible year. We have been tracking his pursuit of the all-time greats. (New York Times)

Friday Morning Articles

• A Ponzi scheme by any other name: the bursting of China’s property bubble: Only state intervention can save the day, but the pain is likely to fall on ordinary citizens, say observers. (The Guardian)

• The Legacy of Jack Welch’s Managerial Capitalism: Welch did not leave a good legacy for GE or its shareholders: its stock fell 25% during Welch’s final year, and if you held stock in GE from 1984 (three years into Welch’s tenure) until 2020, your total shareholder return was 745% versus 3,385% for the S&P. GE was replaced by Walgreens in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and survived the 2008 subprime mortgage fiasco thanks only to bailouts from Warren Buffett and the federal government. (Law & Liberty)

• They Were Entitled to Free Care. Hospitals Hounded Them Anyway: How a Private Equity Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits: Bon Secours Mercy Health, a major nonprofit health system, used the poverty of Richmond Community Hospital’s patients to tap into a lucrative federal drug program. With the help of a consulting firm, the Providence hospital system trained staff to wring money out of patients, even those eligible for free care. (New York Times)

• ‘Putin Is a Fool’: Intercepted Calls Reveal Russian Army in Disarray: Russian soldiers made thousands of calls from the battlefield in Ukraine to relatives at home. Here are their conversations. (New York Times)

• Ukraine Military Breakthrough Threatens Russian Grip: Higher costs seen for gains in southern Kherson offensive Kharkiv region attacks threatening key Russian logistics hub (Bloomberg)

• Ten handy phrases for bluffing your way through the new financial crisis: Those screams you hear are ten thousand self-appointed financial experts howling into the existential abyss. (The Spectator)

• Cash Retakes Its Crown as the Fed Wrestles With Inflation: Investors are piling into products that shield them from losses in a rising rate environment. (Businessweek)

• Bonds May Be Having Their Worst Year Yet This has been the most devastating time for bonds since at least 1926, and maybe in centuries. But, our columnist writes, much of the damage is already behind us. (New York Times)

• Macro Hedge Funds Turn In Banner Year in Volatile Market Biggest interest-rate and currency moves in decades fuel gains after years of subpar returns. (Wall Street Journal)

• Will Anyone Ever Buy or Sell a Home Again? High interest rates! Just what this bonkers housing market needed. (Slate)

• Taller Towers, Fewer Homes: New boutique condo towers, some with fewer apartments than the buildings they replace, are squandering high-density sites in Manhattan, urban planners say. (New York Times)

• Stuck on an Investment Problem? It Might Be Time for a Change. By breaking down silos and pushing investors into new workflows, investment offices can encourage creative problem solving, our columnist writes. (Institutional Investor)

• 20 Predictions for the Music Business in 10 Years: Music Business (The Honest Broker)

• Apple’s Tech Supply Chain Shows Difficulty of Dumping China Covid Zero, deteriorating US-Sino relations pressure US firms Chips are in the crosshairs as Taiwan-China tensions increase (Bloomberg)

• Are You Too Old to Wear That Now? Lockdown wrought a lot of changes—and, for many men, the clothes they wore pre-Covid don’t match who they are now. Two writers of different generations hunt for cool, age-appropriate solutions. (Wall Street Journal)

• The Not-So-Silent Friendship of Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith: The two, who have played the characters Jay and Silent Bob for 28 years and counting, reflect on their time as best friends and professional partners. (New York Times)

Thursday Morning Articles

• The Great Bluff: How the Ukrainians Outwitted Putin’s Army: Russia’s army was thought to be vastly superior. But Ukraine has nevertheless managed to secure an almost unbelievable coup, taking back huge swaths of territory in the northeast. Can Ukraine actually win? (Spiegel)

• Boaz Weinstein Reveals the Secret Trade That Helped Make Him Famous: The Saba Capital Management founder talks about the little-known deal that showed him how to take on JPMorgan’s chief investment office, and describes the new opportunities he’s finding in today’s credit market upheaval. (Bloomberg)

• Beware the Illusion of Certainty: We like to think that our lives are ordered, predictable and subject to a great deal of control. The past is finite; we see only one outcome. We attach causality and narrative to it so that it makes sense. We roll our ability to make sense of the past over into the future, which is infinite; there are many outcomes, as yet unknown and unknowable. Randomness, chance, and luck influence us far more than we realize. Certainty is an illusion. Uncertainty is everywhere. (Richard Hughes Jones)

• The Blackstone rebellion: how one country took on the world’s biggest commercial landlord: The giant asset management firm used to target places where people worked and shopped. Then it started buying up people’s homes. In one country, the backlash was ferocious https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/29/blackstone-rebellion-how-one-country-worlds-biggest-commercial-landlord-denmark

• Indistinguishable from Magic. Magical Technology: iPod, Spotify, Figma, AI Art, Arc, web3, and beyond: Last week, I asked people on Twitter for the best essays and blog posts they’ve ever read. They delivered. You should check out the replies. There’s so much gold in there. I think as a result of reading so much great stuff, I had more fun writing this week’s piece than I’ve had writing in a long time. It just flowed, like some of those other authors’ je ne sais quoi rubbed off on me. (Not Boring)

• How one of America’s last piano manufacturers stays alive: Piano-building was once one of the country’s largest industries. Today, only two companies remain in business. (The Hustle)

• The Jetsons, Now 60 Years Old, Is Iconic. That’s a Problem. Science was cool, technology was blossoming, and more and more Americans were dreaming of owning their own homes, replete with the latest gadgets. The Jetsons took that dream and supercharged it, riding the wave of optimism to depict a future where technology catered to our every need, at the touch of a button or at the command of our voice. It was a fantastical vision that deeply appealed to our needs and desires for comfort and convenience. (Slate)

Wednesday Morning Articles

• Hillary Clinton’s campaign was crippled by voters who stayed home (Washington Post) see also Trump needed a huge drop in turnout to win and that’s exactly what happened. (New Republic)

• The Week When Advice Mattered (Reformed Broker)

• One in every five Americans is about to get legally high AF after this election (Quartz) see also Weed is the real winner of the 2016 election (Daily Dot)

• Trump Was Not a Media Fail: The press succeeded in exposing Trump for what he was. Voters just decided they didn’t care (Politico)

• The greatest threat from a Trump presidency may be his toxic brew of unscientific beliefs (Quartz) but see It’s Going to Be Okay (Wait But Why)

• If Your Quiet Quitting Is Going Well, You Might Be Getting ‘Quiet Fired’: Workers who coast risk being written off—and eventually laid off—by bosses with ‘productivity paranoia.’ (Wall Street Journal)

• TikTok: Will posting salaries online close the pay gap? Gen Z is known for sharing everything about their lives – from their outfits to their latest meals – online. Now, they’re sharing their salaries, defying a long-held taboo and ruffling employers’ feathers in the process. (BBC)

• Swimming naked: The tide of liquidity is turning. Faster, perhaps, than many investors anticipate. (Ruffer)

• The mysterious ad slump of 2022: Four theories on why ad sales are plummeting even as the economy is doing fine. (Vox)

• Pound’s Swoon Echoes Declines in British Power, Past and Present: The Bank of England had to step in Wednesday after markets deemed a new government economic plan unwise, but the pound has been on a longer slide. (New York Times)

• Hurricane Ian’s rapid intensification is a sign of the world to come: How Hurricane Ian got so powerful — in just two days. (Vox) see also Hurricane season gets weird: Fiona, Ian and climate change’s effects on the strongest storms. It was a quiet hurricane season, until it wasn’t. (Grid)

• How Gaslighting Manipulates Reality: Gaslighting isn’t just between people in a relationship—it involves social power, too. (Scientific American)

• Scientists have calculated how many ants are on Earth. The number is so big it’s ‘unimaginable.’ We conservatively estimate our planet harbours about 20 quadrillion ants. That’s 20 thousand million millions, or in numerical form, 20,000,000,000,000,000 (20 with 15 zeroes) (Washington Post)

• Girls Are Leaving High School Basketball, and Here’s Why: More sports options, single-sport athletes and the physical demands of the game have depressed participation even as the women’s college and pro games grow. (Wall Street Journal)

• The Last, Painful Days of Anthony Bourdain: A new, unauthorized biography reveals intimate, often raw, details of the TV star’s life, including his tumultuous relationship with the Italian actor Asia Argento. And it’s drawing criticism from many of his friends and family. (New York Times)

Tuesday Morning Articles

• ‘Not Chump Change:’ Home Prices in Canada Strain Affluent Budgets Even in cities that were once considered a good bet for house hunters seeking affordability, affluent households find that prices are high. (New York Times)

• The Forbes 400 2022: The Definitive Ranking of The Wealthiest Americans: In 2022 The wealthiest people in the U.S. are poorer than a year ago—and the cutoff to make the list fell for the first time since the Great Recession. (Forbes)

• The Reinvention of Goldman Sachs: what has David Solomon achieved? After almost four years in charge, the CEO’s strategy to diversify the bank has not been as transformative as many had hoped. (Financial Times)

• What happened to giving money to charity? The ultrawealthy are donating more than ever. That doesn’t mean the rest of us are giving less. (Vox)

• John Paulson on Frothy US Housing Market: This Time Is Different Unlike subprime era, financial system is not at risk, he says Real interest rates blamed for lackluster gold price. (Bloomberg)

• How the Bank of England should respond to UK fiscal policy crashing the pound: Given the irresponsible fiscal policy announcement of the UK government and the rout of the pound that followed, the Bank of England has few good options. While there cannot be a currency crisis in the UK — it has a flexible exchange rate and issues public debt in its own currency — a collapsing currency is still a major problem for its inflation and financial stability. (Peterson Institute for International Economics)

• Silicon Valley Slides Back Into ‘Bro’ Culture Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Andreessen show how the tech industry’s insular culture remains largely unchanged. (New York Times)

• Long COVID Has Forced a Reckoning for One of Medicine’s Most Neglected Diseases: Only a couple dozen doctors specialize in chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Now their knowledge could be crucial to treating millions more patients. (The Atlantic)

• Elizabeth Banks Thinks This Interview Is Dangerous for Her: There are very few female directors in Hollywood. There are even fewer who are actresses who have become directors. I’ve [expletive] worked my tail off to be able to do what I’m doing. I would love for you to interview the studio heads and the corporations and ask them these questions, because I can’t solve it. (New York Times)