My end of week morning train WFH reads:
• Stock Market Returns Are Anything But Average From 1926-2020, average U.S. stock market return was ~10% / year. Investing in the stock market would be way easier if you could simply bank on 10% year in and year out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. It’s the Catch-22 of investing in risk assets. If you want consistency over the long haul, you have to accept lower returns. And if you want higher returns over the long haul, you have to accept more volatility. (Wealth of Common Sense)
• Corporate Tax Loopholes Matter More Than a Higher Rate A larger percentage figure just gives companies more room to maneuver to avoid paying what they should. (Bloomberg) see also Making the Top 1% Its Own Tax Class This administration has decided that the 1% have amassed so much money and power, that they deserve their own (higher) tax bracket. That is the philosophy behind the new cap gains proposal: Treat the top 1% as unique, and tax them accordingly. (TBP)
• Elon Musk’s War on Regulators: He’s become one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs by reinventing industries from electric cars to rockets. Along the way, he’s also rewritten the rules of engagement with U.S. regulators. Elon Musk has emerged a winner in a series of run-ins with a range of regulatory agencies that have watched as he sidestepped rules or ignored enforcement attempts. He has overmatched an alphabet-soup of agencies that oversee financial markets and safety in the workplace, on highways and in space flight —and generally gets away with it (Wall Street Journal)
• The Economy Is (Almost) Back. It Is Looking Different Than It Used To. The central reality of the economy in 2021 is that it’s profoundly unequal across sectors, unbalanced in ways that have enormous long-term implications for businesses and workers. The economy is recovering rapidly, and is on track to reach the levels of overall G.D.P. that would have been expected before anyone had heard of Covid-19. But that masks some extreme shifts in composition of what the United States is producing. That matters both for the businesses on the losing end of those shifts and for their workers, who may need to find their way into the growing sectors. (Upshot)
• Bitcoin Doesn’t Fix DeFi, DeFi Fixes Bitcoin “Bitcoin fixes this.” I cringe every time I see this popular meme. I find it worse than nails on a chalkboard. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency (crypto) supporters seem to wheel this tired trope out for every problem they see, particularly at economic ones. To their credit, they genuinely want to fix the financial system’s problems. I do too! However, crypto’s supporters have their subjects completely reversed. (Integrating Investor)
• What Everyone Gets Wrong About Voting Recent studies have confirmed that changes to voting in 2020 had little or no effect on turnout, and even though Democrats took more advantage of mail voting, there’s no evidence that those voters wouldn’t have shown up anyway. And if there was a partisan benefit from expanding voting by mail, it probably helped Republicans, not Democrats. (Businessweek)
• How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine It’s the start of a complex manufacturing and testing process that takes 60 days and involves Pfizer facilities in three states. The result will be millions of doses of the vaccine, frozen and ready to ship. (New York Times)
• The Supreme Court Is “Frightened to Death” by the Case of a Foul-Mouthed Cheerleader In 2017, Brandi Levy posted a message on Snapchat that would lead her all the way to the Supreme Court. The Pennsylvania public high school student and junior varsity cheerleader was disappointed that she did not make varsity. While hanging out at a local convenience store, she snapped a picture of herself shooting the bird with the caption: “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” The photo was initially seen by <250 friends on Snapchat. But one of those friends was the daughter of the cheerleading coach, who showed it to mom. The coach, grievously offended, told Levy that she would be suspended from the team for the rest of the year. (Slate)
• Satellites show world’s glaciers melting faster than ever Glaciers are melting faster, losing 31% more snow and ice per year than they did 15 years earlier, according to three-dimensional satellite measurements of all the world’s mountain glaciers. Scientists, using 20 years of recently declassified satellite data, blame human-caused climate change. (AP) see also Joanne Chory is using plants to save the planet In the Breakthrough Prize video, Chory laid out a vision for a new kind of agriculture: She wanted to create crops like wheat or rice that are bred to store huge amounts of carbon in their roots. If enough farmers replanted their fields with these engineered species, she said, they could pull as much as 20% of carbon dioxide emitted by humans out of the atmosphere each year. (Washington Post)
• How the Largest Animals That Could Ever Fly Supported Giraffe-Like Necks These pterosaurs had wingspans as long as 33 feet, and scans of fossilized remains reveal a surprise in their anatomy. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Jonathan Miller, co-founder of Miller Samuel. Miller is the go-to expert on real-estate appraisals and transactions, running one of the most prominent real-estate data analytics firm, and their data engine powers numerous real estate brokerage research nationally. He is also sought after as the go-to appraiser for many of the most expensive penthouses in Manhattan.
Clothes dryer vs the car: carbon footprint misconceptions
Source: Financial Times
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