My end of week morning train WFH reads:
• What’s the Point of the Office Again? The office is primarily a social space, not a productive one. Most humans aren’t solitary, like snow leopards, but more like birds. The office provides a place to ruffle plumage and establish a pecking order. (Bloomberg)
• Cathie Wood’s Bad Spring Is Only a Blip When the Future Is So Magnificent Her flagship fund ARKK, which had a dramatic breakout during the pandemic, is way off its peak as bold bets on Tesla and Bitcoin have faltered. But for the superstar portfolio manager, there’s always five years from now. (Businessweek)
• Most artists are not making money off NFTs and here are some graphs to prove it An acutely minuscule number of artists are making a vast amount of wealth off a small number of sales while the majority of artists are being sold a dream of immense profit that is horrifically exaggerated. Hiding this information is manipulative, predatory. (Medium)
• Bitcoin’s Reliance on Stablecoins Harks Back to the Wild West of Finance To understand the weakness of stablecoins such as Tether, it is worth a quick history lesson from pre-Civil War American finance (Wall Street Journal)
• Ready to Return: Fashion Rental Is Back The pandemic hit the world of clothing rental hard. Now, companies like Rent the Runway say the market is booming like never before. (New York Times)
• Why do people hate inflation? In theory, inflation could reduce normal people’s debt burdens while leaving their purchasing power unchanged. This is why economists used to think that inflation wasn’t a big deal. But in the 1970s, wages failed to keep up with inflation, reducing purchasing power. (Noahpinion)
• Everything Wrong with the “Money Printer Go Brrrr” Meme The main problem with this meme, aside from all the operational misconceptions it’s based on, is that it assigns a false degree of power to the Fed. Sure, the Fed is a powerful entity and I am not denying that they can theoretically do things that would cause inflation. But the traditional way in which we think of the Fed is misleading. (Pragmatic Capital)
• A ‘Perfect Storm’ Leaves Hamptons Restaurants Scrambling for Staff A lack of housing, better jobs elsewhere, and traffic are causing headaches for some longtime eateries. (Bloomberg)
• The new American status symbol: A backyard that’s basically a fancy living room Outdoor spaces are many things these days but rustic is not one of them. Neither is natural. For many well-to-do Americans and those who aspire to join their ranks, the backyard has become the ultimate family room, a place to be decorated and tamed, a receptacle for stylish stuff, while nature is held at bay. During the past decade, decks transformed into major design statements. It’s the Great Fauxdoors. (Washington Post)
• I Watched All the Fast and the Furious Movies in A Week. The problem with the Furious series: I very much want to write it off as blindingly stupid, but every now and then it will do something delightful or brilliant or downright heartwarming. Take its treatment of women – a universally problematic issue for the entire genre, the films aren’t entirely terrible with their portrayal of female characters. (The Everywhereist)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Carson Block of Muddy Waters. The firm is known for its scathing in-depth research reports and shorts of various companies, several of which have collapsed.
Infections have plummeted 89% since January peak; Hospitalizations and Deaths fell as well
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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