My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• America’s unemployed are sending a message: They’ll go back to work when they feel safe – and well-compensated September marked the weakest hiring this year, and an alarming number of women had to stop working again to deal with unstable school and child-care situations (Washington Post) see also The Delta Jobs Slowdown? Four quick thoughts on what looks like unpleasant news (The Overshoot)
• Fund Managers Start Axing ESG Buzzword as Greenwash Rules Bite Some of Europe’s biggest asset managers are starting to drop a once-ubiquitous ESG label from their company filings amid concern that regulators will no longer tolerate vague descriptions of environmental, social and governance investing. (Bloomberg Green)
• Pandora Papers: Stop the enablers that help billionaires dodge taxes While we should hold the billionaire tax dodgers to account, not enough scrutiny is focused on the enablers, what social scientists describe as “the wealth defense industry.” These are the tax attorneys, accountants, wealth managers and family-office staffers that are paid millions to help billionaires sequester trillions. (The Hill) see also Is the Income-Tax Rate on the Rich 8%, or 23%? Depends on Whose Math You Use Figuring out your tax rate—or Elon Musk’s—requires assumptions about what counts as income and what counts as taxes (Wall Street Journal)
• The fiscal policy elephant in the room: The global macro debate is focussed on monetary policy. Fiscal policy will play a bigger role in the coming 12-18 months. (Value Added)
• Nature Shows How This All Works The real magic of evolution is that it’s been selecting traits for 3.8 billion years. The time, not the little changes, is what moves the needle. Take minuscule changes and compound them by 3.8 billion years and you get results that are indistinguishable from magic. (Collaborative Fund) see also Gradually, Then Suddenly Changes compound, just as surely as dollars do. A mathematical sleight of hand that also occurs at a near geologic pace. But miraculous all of these changes are. This is how the world changes. (The Big Picture)
• Mauboussin: Categorizing for Clarity: Cash Flow Statement Adjustments to Improve Insight Today’s accounting creates a huge gap between financial statements and what an investor needs to understand a business. This is despite the conceptual match between categories on the statement of cash flows and how businesses work. (Morgan Stanley)
• Commuting is psychological torture: Not doing that commute gave me 15 hours per week of my life back “I am never going back to that commute five days a week every single week again,” a friend told me recently. Before Covid he was spending about three hours a day in his car driving back and forth. When things started to shut down last year his employer was staunchly against people working from home at first, but before long it became unavoidable. (Welcome to Hell World) see also Seven Ways to Ease Your Fears About Commuting Again Dreading going back and forth to the office? Rethink the time you spend getting from Point A to Point B. (Businessweek)
• How the ultra-rich are traveling during covid, according to their travel advisers Forget about renting private yachts and jets. They’re just buying them now. (Washington Post)
• Trump True Believers Have Their Reasons Compared to the overall voting-age population, they are disproportionately white, Republican, older, less educated, more conservative and more religious (particularly more Protestant and more likely to describe themselves as born again). (New York Times) but see ‘Life Is Simple’ Review: A Blade to Shave Away Error A 14th-century friar challenged the idea that archetypal forms lay behind material things. That led to trouble. (Wall Street Journal)
• Collectors Who Caught the Bug Volkswagen’s original Beetle, cute and petite, still thrills aficionados. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of Social Capital. He began his career as an engineer and team leader at AOL, Facebook, and Slack, but soon moved into Venture Capital. He earned the nickname “SPAC King” for numerous successful deals he has done, and today is a part-owner of the Golden State Warriors.
Debunking the market-cap-to-GDP ratio
Source: @TimmerFidelity
