My welcome to Autumn! Its our Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• The undeniable bright spot in the pandemic economy: Low rates are one of the main reasons why home sales and prices continue to rise. The coronavirus outbreak is prompting many people in big cities to pull the plug on apartment living and buy bigger homes in less densely populated suburbs. (CNN) but see Americans Want Homes, but There Have Rarely Been Fewer for Sale: Shortage of homes for sale means prices are being pushed higher, straining buyers’ budgets (Wall Street Journal)
• Buyout groups blasted at SEC meeting for ‘misleading numbers’ US regulator urged to create level playing field for performance reporting standards (Financial Times)
• Last year CEOs pledged to serve stakeholders, not shareholders. You were right not to buy it: In the year since the Roundtable statement, there have been few signs that major corporations have taken real steps to serve nonshareholders that they wouldn’t have taken without outside pressure, whether from public opinion or government regulation. (Los Angeles Times) see also Stakeholder Capitalism Gets a Report Card. It’s Not Good. The pandemic and the movement for racial justice have tested corporate pledges to elevate social concerns alongside shareholder interests. A new study finds companies are failing to follow through. (New York Times)
• The Mysterious London Traders Accused of Manipulating Oil Markets — and the Anonymous Hedge Fund, Rare-Coin Expert, and Day Traders Who Are Fighting Back (Institutional Investor)
• Did the $600 Unemployment Supplement Discourage Work? Evidence from recent labor market outcomes confirms that the supplemental payments had little or no adverse effect on job search. (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) but see U.S. Household Net Worth Soars to Surpass Pre-Pandemic Peak: Rally in stocks boosted net worth by $7.6 trillion; Federal government, business debt surged in second quarter (Bloomberg)
• How Corporate America is trying to drive 2020 voter turnout: Urged by employees to do more amid a global pandemic and social unrest, companies step up their efforts to mobilize votes in 2020. (Washington Post)
• Facebook Has Been a Disaster for the World: How much longer are we going to allow its platform to foment hatred and undermine democracy? (New York Times) see also Facebook Needs Trump Even More Than Trump Needs Facebook: Employees fear Zuckerberg’s commitment to free speech is more about protecting the president than the company’s ideals. (Businessweek)
• N95 masks save lives. So why are they still hard to get this far into a pandemic? Nurses and doctors depend on respirator masks to protect them from covid-19. So why are we still running low on an item that once cost around $1? (Washington Post)
• Inside the Student-Led Movement to Depolarize College: Beyond the ideological brawls and anti-speaker protests is a push to make disagreement on campus cool again. (We Are Not Divided) see also The Unlikely Friendship that Helped Legalize Same-Sex Marriage in Ireland: In Ireland, 100 private citizens advise parliament on policy. Two of them changed each other’s lives — and, perhaps, their country’s constitution. (We Are Not Divided)
• Albert Pujols Passes Willie Mays in Home Runs, if Not Dominance: Pujols’s 661st and 662nd homers are cause for celebration, and offer a chance to reflect on a career that took a wildly different trajectory than many of his elite peers. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Doug DeMuro, one of the most popular YouTube car reviewers. His channel videos have been streamed more than 1.1 billion times, averaging 2 million views each. He is also the co-founder of the auction site Cars & Bids, and the author of “Plays With Cars,” and “Bumper to Bumper.”
U.S. Household Net Worth Soars to Surpass Pre-Pandemic Peak
Source: Bloomberg
