My mid-week morning train WFH reads:
• People are refusing to put their lives on hold; And that’s bullish. “Households pared back their online shopping and spent more at restaurants and bars amid a better health situation while gas stations’ sales surged reflecting higher prices at the pump.“ This behavior seems counterintuitive considering all of the bad news that seems to be out there. Shouldn’t people be staying home, upset about all that’s wrong in the world? (TK) see also When the Optimists are Too Pessimistic This is why even the optimists can be too pessimistic. Because we are using linear thinking to imagine a geometric future. It just doesn’t work. (Of Dollars And Data)
• Michael Batnick: Inside Ritholtz’s Most Innovative Strategies For every dollar I invest in crypto, I want to be in an index. When something has the potential to go up this much, I don’t think you need to pick the winners. I don’t want negative alpha, I want broad-based exposure. So working with Jeremy Schwartz and his team at WisdomTree was just such a blessing because they have the expertise. The index covers 67% of the crypto universe, so it won’t be a beta of 1, to say, bitcoin. It’ll be a beta of more than 1 because the index has some of the smaller coins in there. (ETF Trends)
• Bored Ape’s New ApeCoin Puts NFTs’ Power Problem on Display The story of ApeCoin’s launch also highlights a trouble spot at the cutting edge of crypto, where venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz often end up among the biggest beneficiaries (Bloomberg)
• Nuclear fusion companies are selling the sun, and venture capital is buying Fusion power is likely still decades away, while its funders — and the climate crisis — demand a much quicker return. (Grid)
• Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town For all the excitement around places like Austin and Miami, the biggest tech expansion has been in Canada’s largest city. (New York Times) but see New York City’s Economy Still Hasn’t Caught Up: While the nation has largely recovered, the jobs picture for the country’s biggest city is still far worse than before the pandemic. (Bloomberg)
• What if Working in Sweatpants Unleashed Your Superpowers? Forget the black pants. Nix the blazers. At home, we wear what we want—and research suggests that our work benefits. (Wall Street Journal)
• How ‘shock therapy’ created Russian oligarchs and paved the path for Putin. It’s a symbiotic relationship in which the oligarchs’ economic power buttresses the political power of the Russian president, and the president’s power buttresses the economic power of the oligarchs — like a medieval king getting tribute from his aristocracy in exchange for his protection. It’s an arrangement that the West is now fighting to disrupt. (NPR)
• Xi Risks Leaving China Isolated by Backing Putin to Counter U.S. Defeat for Putin would undermine Xi’s foreign policy strategy Chinese strategists view Russia as key in broader U.S. fight. (Bloomberg)
• Alexa for Animals: AI Is Teaching Us How Creatures Communicate New kinds of artificial intelligence are enabling scientists to better understand the sounds of the animal world, from whale songs to mouse squeaks. (Wall Street Journal)
• How the next pandemic surge will be different: The same: The brutal math of exponential growth. Different: Our pandemic fatigue is worse than ever. (Vox) see also Covid’s Fifth Wave Shows Us How to Live With the Virus: Not all countries are impacted equally by the BA.2 subvariant. That tells us a lot about what works and what doesn’t. (Bloomberg)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Darren Palmer, General Manager of Battery EVs at Ford. He has overseen the development and rollout of Ford’s Mustang Mach E, F150 Lightning, and the E-Transit van. The 30 year Ford veteran is part of their Team Edison skunkworks group and is overseeing Ford’s $50B shift to electrification, and will be driving the split into two firms, EV, and legacy business.
Stablecoins: Growth Potential and Impact on Banking
Source: Federal Reserve
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