My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• Small Businesses, Hit Hard by Pandemic, Are Being Starved of Credit Banks lend less to small companies today than they did before the financial crisis. Loans to big businesses, meanwhile, have multiplied. (Wall Street Journal) see also One of four small-business owners say they will have to close in next 6 months A quarter of small-business owners surveyed nationally said they will have to close unless the economic picture improves in the next six months, according to a survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
• Bitcoin is a thing that exists You don’t have to care about Bitcoin, but it’s time for everyone to accept that Bitcoin isn’t going anywhere. (Myles Udland)
• 2020 in 20 charts From voting to vaccines and from protests to pets, a look at 2020’s biggest trends. (Vox) see also How the Economy Is Actually Doing, in 9 Charts Are we still in the early stages of a long recession, or will the rollout of vaccines mean we’ll soon see the end of a short-term crisis? (New York Times)
• Only the Uber-Rich Can Afford This Asset Class. It Made Them Even Richer This Year. The super-wealthy still have money to buy Picassos — which, along with low interest rates, made art more attractive this year. (Institutional Investor)
• Midtown Is Still Empty, and Landlords Are Sounding the Alarm Developer Aby Rosen would really like this whole work-from-home thing to be temporary. And by the way you should see what he’s done with the Chrysler Building. (Businessweek) see also To Make a Building Healthier, Stop Sanitizing Everything Improve the ventilation, even spread some good germs. If you want people to be healthy and productive, tend the microbiome. (Businessweek)
• Social media companies are already losing the vaccine misinformation fight The platforms aren’t just contending with anti-vaccination communities. Conspiracy theorists, conservative groups, fringe outlets, and others are actively hyping concerns about vaccines. Recent polls indicate about 70% of Americans are willing to get the vaccine, millions of Americans are still reluctant. (Vox)
• What You Can Do Post-Vaccine, and When Particularly in the early months of vaccination, many activities should wait, experts say — and plan to keep your masks. (New York Times) see also Vaccines Bring Home the Failure of Herd Immunity Letting the disease rip now looks almost impossible to defend. Immunity (Bloomberg)
• Astronomers Get Their Wish, and the Hubble Crisis Gets Worse We don’t know why the universe appears to be expanding faster than it should. New ultra-precise distance measurements have only intensified the problem. (Quanta)
• Right-Wing Embrace Of Conspiracy Is Mass Radicalization: “They hold views they didn’t hold 10 years ago because all they listen to is that conservative infotainment. Unless we help them break the deception, we cannot operate with 30% of the country holding the extreme views that they do.” (NPR) see also Ex-cop hits truck thinking it held 750,000 fraudulent ballots, police say. It held air conditioning parts. As it turned out, the incident was the extraordinary culmination of a misguided undercover surveillance operation — financed by a conservative nonprofit group and carried out by private investigators — that sought to uncover a massive election fraud scheme before the November election. (Washington Post)
• ‘Zappa’ Biopic an Excellent Adventure for Filmmaker Alex Winter Zappa wasn’t just a prolific musical genius, he was also a major cultural icon who helped shape the art scene of the 1960s and beyond. (Bloomberg)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Tom Slater, head of the US equities team at Baillie Gifford, which has over $370 billion in assets under management. He serves as a decision-maker on Long Term Global Growth portfolios, and the U.S. Equity Growth Fund which is up +113% year to date. He also co-manages the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, which Baillie Gifford has been managing since 1908.
Companies have raised more capital in 2020 than ever before
Source: The Economist
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