My back to work morning train WFH reads:
• Higher Taxes? Deficit Spending? Why the Stock Market Isn’t Worried. “To some extent, higher taxes are priced into the market. Since Biden was elected, people have gotten prepared for that,” says Byron Wien, of the Blackstone Group.“ (Barron’s)
• Low cost is better than free In a decision involving paying for something, you have to ask “is this worth it” in money terms. Prices are easy to compare, quality is not. Supposing that two things are similar, you know that the lower price one is a better deal (Daniel P. Egan) see also Cheap is Great, But Beware of Free The basic, fundamental foundation upon which all economics is built: everything has a cost. At times, that cost can be hidden from view. In financial services, free is bullshit. (The Big Picture)
• Robinhood Trader’s Battle Cry: ‘It’s All Just a Game to Me’ Traders who boast about their own cluelessness are upending the traditional investing hierarchy. It probably won’t last. (Wall Street Journal)
• A Q&A on Inflation With prices up in some corners of the economy, we examine what inflation is—and isn’t. (FI) (BR notes: I see inflation somewhat differently, but reach a similar conclusion)
• Down in the Mine Is the monetization of digital art worth the energy expenditures required to verify a work’s authenticity and ownership on the blockchain? Many artists say no. “Carbon offsets are, and I cannot stress this enough, a fake idea.” (Art News) see also What Does It Mean To Buy a Gif? Digital art takes this unbundling of artistic experience from physical object a step further. Because these artifacts can be reproduced and distributed at essentially no cost, they can be enjoyed in perfect fidelity by anyone with an Internet connection free of charge. (Jack Rusher)
• Goodhart’s Law Rules the Modern World. Here Are Nine Examples “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” True. (Businessweek)
• What Happened to the Corporate Income Tax? Biden wants companies to pay a bigger share of their profit to the federal government, but he’ll have to reverse a decades-long slide. (Bloomberg)
• How to Stop Misinformation Before It Gets Shared It’s never been easier for mistruths to go viral, and content moderation is inadequate. What social media needs is some old-fashioned friction. (Wired)
• Far-Right Extremists Move From ‘Stop the Steal’ to Stop the Vaccine Extremist organizations are now bashing the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines in an effort to try to undermine the government. (New York Times)
• 30 Of The Best Nature Photos From The Tokyo International Foto Awards The winners of the Tokyo International Foto Awards, showcase talent and effort the photographers invested in each shot. The result? Truly breathtaking images from every corner of the globe (Bored Panda)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Gary Chropuvka, President of World Quant. The firm was spun out of Millennium Management in 2007, and manages about $7 billion dollars. Previously, Chropuvka was co-head of the Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) team at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM).
How a Chip Shortage Snarled Everything From Phones to Cars
Source: Bloomberg
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