My end of week morning train WFH reads:
• The Covid-19 Death Toll Is Even Worse Than It Looks: More than 2.8 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic, as Deaths surged more than 12% above average levels. Less than two-thirds of that surge has been attributed directly to Covid-19 (Wall Street Journal)
• Bitcoin: Magic Internet Money Crypto violates core rules of investing: Always know what you are investing in; Not a capital asset or store of value; nearly certainly a bubble and likely manipulated. (Research Affiliates) see also The Secret Pension Fund Manager: Bitcoin has no clothes Our columnist, a former portfolio manager at a major UK pension fund, gives a professional investor’s view on the crypto currency craze. (City Wire Selector)
• Jack Ma was China’s most vocal billionaire. Then he vanished The richest person in China was about to orchestrate the world’s biggest IPO. His retreat from public life raises a number of questions (Wired)
• Business travel: ‘We don’t know how many people will choose to fly’ The sector lost an estimated $710bn of revenue in the pandemic. Will hotels and airlines ever claw that back? (Financial Times)
• Scott Sumner on the Princeton School of Macroeconomics and Overcoming Inflationary Fears Jay Powell and the Fed have worked hard to dispel inflationary fears rooted in the past, and this bodes well for a post-COVID economic landscape. (Mercatus Center)
• What Japan’s Disaster-Proofing Strategies Can Teach the World The country’s infrastructure is already one of the world’s safest, and investment in risk management is ramping up. (Bloomberg)
• Yes, the Pandemic Is Ruining Your Body Quarantine is turning you into a stiff, hunched-over, itchy, sore, headachy husk. (The Atlantic)
• The Capitol Insurrection Was The End Result Of A Trump Presidency Defined By Violence: Crimes fueled by hate and online conspiracy theories over the past four years repeatedly offered warnings of the forces that drove last week’s attack on the US Capitol. (Buzzfeed)
• Self-pardon? It might not go how Trump thinks. The president’s cherished Supreme Court majority has disappointed him before — and it might again. (Politico)
• The Catch They are strangers, arms outstretched, waiting for the boy to fall. Minutes earlier, three of them had tried to wrench open the apartment door. But it was too swollen by the heat of the fire. So the brothers, three and 10 years old, are trapped. They are crying at a window, 15m (49 feet) up, choking on thick black smoke billowing behind them. To their left, flames rage from a carpet draped over a balcony railing. (BBC)
• After ‘Hamilton,’ Leslie Odom Jr. just wanted to be himself. Then the role of Sam Cooke came calling. “When ‘Hamilton’ is going to be released, you’re going to try to set up things around that,” says Odom, 39, who won a Tony and Grammy for playing Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton’s tragic foil. “Maybe I’m going to record a record, or maybe I’m going to get some meetings. This is maybe the biggest moment of my career, and I’m locked in the house — we’re all locked in the house.” (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Adam Karr, portfolio manager at Orbis Investments and head of the US division. The firm, which manages $37B in assets, has a unique fee approach, where they only pay if they outperform, and refund fees when they underperform.
Mortgage rates have moved up a bit, but are still very very low
Source: @lenkiefer
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