My mid-week morning train WFH reads:
• Biden’s huge bet: the economic consequences of ‘acting big’ Joe Biden’s strategy for the US economy is the most radical departure from prevailing policies since Ronald Reagan’s free market reforms 40 years ago. With plans for public borrowing and spending on a scale not seen since the second world war, the administration is undertaking a huge fiscal experiment. The whole world is watching. (Financial Times)
• The Real Reason for Texas’ Rolling Blackouts Part of the state’s power outages come down to the fact that its infrastructure was designed to withstand extreme heat, not cold (Gizmodo) see also Why the Texas power grid is struggling to cope with the extreme cold A sudden spike in energy demand and a loss of natural gas, coal, nuclear, and wind energy during a winter storm triggered blackouts across the state. (Vox)
• Future Returns: Why Family Offices Are Drawn Toward Venture Capital Throughout the last decade, wealthy families have gravitated away from hedge funds to private investments, including private equity and venture capital. A big reason is that entrepreneurs who are comfortable with risk, and evaluating management teams and the potential success or failure of a business idea, are usually the reason a family became wealthy. (Penta)
• “The United States of Amazon.” Amazon Has Transformed the Geography of Wealth and Power, Understanding America in the giant company’s shadow (The Atlantic)
• Wall Street Short Sellers: Hated For Centuries Shares of the very first stock ever created — the Dutch East India Company in the early 1600s — were soon shorted by an investor who didn’t like the fundamentals, and who was pilloried for his views. (NPR)
• How sneakerheads ruined online shopping Why shopping — for everything from the PS5 to the Nugget couch — got so competitive. (Vox)
• Respect the Base Rate The base rate is simply the probability of some event occurring when you have no other information. You can utilize base rates to make all kinds of better life decisions as well. (Of Dollars And Data)
• Facebook Meets Apple in Clash of the Tech Titans—‘We Need to Inflict Pain’ Animosity between CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook erupts over privacy and dueling visions of internet (Wall Street Journal)
• The U.S.’ vaccine rollout is world-beating That doesn’t mean it’s good enough. But let’s take a moment to appreciate it. (Noahpinion) see also After Covid-19 Vaccine, Baby Boomers Grapple With What Activities to Resume Some of the first Americans to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, older people still struggle to know what activities are safe (Wall Street Journal)
• ‘He was the Steve Jobs of audio’: how Rupert Neve changed the sound of music: The late audio engineer revolutionised recording with an innovative EQ design, his innovations used by everyone from the Queen to Dave Grohl (The Guardian)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Doug Braunstein, former Chief Financial Officer at JPMorgan Chase. Braunstein is founder and managing partner at Hudson Executive Capital, which has underwritten several successful SPAC offerings, with $1.6B in AUM. Braunstein worked directly with Jamie Dimon as CFO and a member of JPMorgan’s Executive Committee. He served as head of JPMorgan’s Americas Investment Banking and Global M&A.
Lack of Earnings Is No Obstacle for U.S. Tech-Stock Surge
Source: Dave Wilson’s Chart of the Day
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