My morning train WFH reads:
• Wages Are Heading Up, But They’re Not Pushing Inflation The pay increase is nice, but it will have to be a lot higher before it contributes meaningfully to faster price growth. (Bloomberg) See also Productivity Is Offseting Wage Gains Wage gains are a reset, and supply-chain price increases are temporary; productivity gains, on the other hand, will persist forever. That is a deflationary, not inflationary result. (The Big Picture)
• Bitcoin and Inflation “There are several plausible explanations for why bitcoin doubled this year. Inflation is probably one of them.” (Irrelevant Investor)
• What Are the Best Value Stocks—and the Ones to Shun? Northern Trust screens for the top of the class, and also to red-flag the less appealing bargain plays. (Chief Investment Officer)
• Should You Invest With Fund Managers Who Have Lots of Experience? Longer-tenure fund managers are more reliable than rookies, but hit fewer home runs, research shows (Wall Street Journal)
• In the supply chain battle of 2021, small businesses are losing out to Walmart and Amazon Independent retailers are getting squeezed out as suppliers, factories and freight companies prioritize national brands: ‘We’re at the whim of a broken supply chain.’ (Washington Post)
• Vintage cars are chic again Enthusiasm for vintage cars has emerged at a time when microchip shortages have fueled bidding wars for new and used contemporary vehicles. (Axios)
• The Truth About Those Dollar Stores: Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and others offer low prices but also raise concern in communities that feel choked by them (Consumer Reports)
• What Is Web3 and Why Are All the Crypto People Suddenly Talking About It? A new iteration of the internet that runs on public blockchains. The appeal is that it is decentralized, not mediated by the likes of Google, Apple, or Facebook. Web3 does not require “permission,” — central authorities don’t dictate who uses what services. Web3 protects user privacy better as wellz. (Slate)
• Yuval Noah Harari Believes This Simple Story Can Save the Planet Many of the philosophical questions that have bothered humanity for thousands of years are now becoming practical. It’s the primacy of fictions, that to understand the world you need to take stories seriously. The story in which you believe shapes the society that you create. (New York Times)
• Angry about ‘The Last Dance,’ Scottie Pippen keeps taking shots at Michael Jordan Pippen’s unsparing assessments of Jordan may come as a surprise to those who assumed the longtime teammates were on friendly terms. They formed a dominant duo for most of 11 highly successful seasons in Chicago, and their half-dozen championship runs provided endless scenes of them hugging in jubilation. (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Robin Wigglesworth, the FT’s global finance correspondent based in Oslo, Norway. He focuses on the trends reshaping markets and investing, from technological disruption to quantitative investing. His new book is Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever.
Record 74% of Americans say now is a good time to find a quality job
Source: @GregDaco
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