My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• The Crashes That Nobody’s Talking About The stock market is having a very good year. The S&P 500 printed 53 new all-time highs through the end of August, which is the most to that point in any year ever. Year-to-date, the index is up more than 20%. But as always, you have to look inside the index to understand that not every stock is moving in the same direction. (Irrelevant Investor) see also This Ain’t It The index has been within 5% of its all-time high for the last 220 days. This streak, which looks like it’s coming to an end, is the 8th longest, going back to 1950. (Irrelevant Investor)
• Xi Jinping Aims to Rein In Chinese Capitalism, Hew to Mao’s Socialist Vision Going beyond curbing tech giants, he wants the Communist Party to steer flows of money and set tighter limits on profit making (Wall Street Journal)
• 3 Inflation Scenarios: How Bad Could It Get? Investors could see either a 1970s-style double-digit ripsnorter, a return to a more normal level, or something in between. (CIO) see also OECD lifts inflation forecasts and cautions on risk of prolonged rises Paris-based club of nations says serious harm can be avoided if policymakers make the right calls (FT)
• Why everybody’s hiring but nobody’s getting hired America’s broken hiring system, explained. (Vox)
• Peter Thiel’s Origin Story His ideology dominates Silicon Valley. It began to form when he was an angry young man. (Intelligencer)
• How Nike Designed Hands-Free Sneakers for People With Disabilities The Go FlyEase is a big step for “accessible” footwear. The underlying technology has more places to go. (BusinessWeek)
• The Algorithm Tweaks Won’t Save Us What do you do about Facebook? (Galaxy Brain) see also Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows “This is not normal. This is not healthy.” (MIT Technology Review)
• Confused About Masking? It’s Time to Get Tactical The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have sorted us into three types based on our attitudes toward masking: Call them nervous maskers, never-maskers and uncertain maskers. The first feel guilty or nervous about unmasking, so they tend to default to wearing masks; the second feel angry and resentful about being told to mask, so they often refuse entirely. And the third group is just trying to do the right thing without a lot of certainty one way or another. (Bloomberg)
• The Third Revolution in Warfare First there was gunpowder. Then nuclear weapons. Next: artificially intelligent weapons. (Defense One) see also The RQ-180 Drone Will Emerge From The Shadows As The Centerpiece Of An Air Combat Revolution The Air Force’s secretive, very stealthy, and high-flying drone won’t be just a better spy aircraft, it will be a deeply networked game-changer. (The Drive)
• Jon Stewart Isn’t Laughing: He understands if you are delighted by his return to TV. But like the subjects he’ll cover on Apple’s ‘The Problem With Jon Stewart,’ his comeback is a little more complicated: “It’s ‘The Daily Show,’ but less entertaining — but also maybe more complete.” (Hollywood Reporter)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Campbell R. Harvey, professor of finance at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He is a partner and senior advisor at Research Affiliates. He is best known for his work on Yield Curve Inversion & Recessions. His most recent book is on decentralized finance, crypto and blockchain: “DeFi and the Future of Finance.”
Germany fared better at the start of the crisis but is now growing more slowly than rest of Eurozone.
Source: @Schuldensuehner
