My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• The Revolt of the American Worker The labor situation, by contrast, looks like a genuine reduction in supply. Total employment is still five million below its prepandemic peak. Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector is still down more than 9 percent. Yet everything we see suggests a very tight labor market. (New York Times) see also Shifting Balance of Power? It may be too early to suggest that the power has shifted back to the labor side of the aisle, but it’s pretty clear that the world of the post-GFC 2020s is a different one that that of 1990s and pre-crisis 2000s: (The Big Picture)
• WeWork Goes Public, Defying Great Odds. just two years after its near-death experience, WeWork is now a public company, with a valuation of about $9 billion. Shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WE,” gaining more than 10% in recent trading. WeWork completed a merger with SPAC. That’s a stunning outcome for both WeWork and SoftBank, which remains the company’s largest investor, with a 56% equity stake. (Barron’s)
• The Hidden Ways the Ultrarich Pass Wealth to Their Heirs Tax-Free An inside look at how Nike founder Phil Knight is giving a fortune to his family while avoiding billions in U.S. taxes. (Businessweek) see also Banks engaged in multi-million dollar lobbying effort to protect wealthy tax cheats People who don’t earn income through wages — business owners and wealthy investors — operate under an entirely different set of rules. In many cases, the IRS receives no information about their income, apart from what the individual voluntarily reports to the government. (Popular Information)
• Doing Economics as if Evidence Matters And that’s the case for the latest prize, and the “credibility revolution” — a change in the way economists use data to assess theories — that has swept through economics over the past generation. It turns out that the credibility revolution is extremely relevant to current debates. (New York Times)
• Already, 18 weather disasters costing at least $1 billion each have hit the U.S. this year 2021 is on pace to be among the most active and costliest years for such disasters, which are becoming more frequent (Washington Post) see also Inside the Massive and Costly Fight Against the Dixie Fire “15 years ago, a 100,000-acre fire would be the largest fire of your career. Now, we have one-million-acre fires. It’s hard even for us to comprehend.” (New York Times)
• A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund that has quickly, and with remarkable ease, become one of the largest newspaper operators in the country. The new owners did not fly to Chicago to address the staff, nor did they bother with paeans to the vital civic role of journalism. Instead, they gutted the place. (The Atlantic)
• Rockets aren’t enough. Jeff Bezos and the growing commercial space industry now want to build space stations. Companies are competing as part of a NASA-funded program that would find a replacement for the International Space Station (Washington Post) see also This NASA spacecraft is on its way to Jupiter’s mysterious asteroid swarms The spacecraft named Lucy is just starting its 12-year journey to see what asteroid clusters can teach us about the early solar system. (MIT Tech)
• CityLab University: Understanding Homelessness in America As economic disruption threatens to trigger a spike in housing instability, here’s an essential primer on the causes and consequences of a thorny urban problem. (CityLab)
• Paul McCartney’s ‘The Lyrics’: A Life Revealed in Song In a new two-volume memoir, Paul McCartney looks back over a lifetime of creative output. Here, a closer look at 10 illuminating songs. (Wall Street Journal) see also Let It Be? No, Let’s Remix The Beatles Let It Be is a complicated album, initially intended as a simple way for the band to get back to its rock ‘n’ roll roots. Paul McCartney’s idea was to have the four Beatles document the process of writing songs, culminating in a live concert as part of a television special. The Beatles hadn’t performed live in three years, and with Ringo scheduled to do a film shoot, they had just about a month to make this all happen. (NPR)
• A rock star’s favorite guitar was stolen. One of his biggest fans tracked it down in Japan. Randy Bachman’s beloved guitar was missing for nearly 45 years (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Sukhinder Singh Cassidy author of “Choose Possibility” hailed as one of the Top 100 People in the Valley by Business Insider and a Power Woman by Elle. She has 25 years of experience founding, scaling, and running companies: She was an early hire at Junglee (acquired by Amazon), helped to build Google Maps and Local before developing Google International, was CEO of StubHub, and a co-founder of the firms Yodlee and Joyus.
Inflation and the Pandemic
Source: @PlanMaestro
