My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Ukraine Warcasting Predictions, market accountability, pundit accountability. The first part of this post looks at various markets’ predictions of how the war will go from here (Zvi published something like this a few hours before I could, so this will mostly duplicate his work). The second part very briefly tries to evaluate which markets have been most accurate so far – though this is a topic which deserves at least paper-length treatment. The third part looks at which pundits deserve eternal glory for publicly making strong true predictions, and which pundits deserve . . . something else, for doing . . . other things. (Astral Codex Ten)
• Shameful Behavior Ignored: The Wealth Destruction for Ark Investors We can only wonder how many “expert” consultants who placed this and other ARK funds in the 401(k) plans of hardworking Americans are watching this intellectual meltdown and changing their ways. I’m guessing not too many. It’s past time enlightened company insiders take control of their retirement plans and fire these clowns. Act like fiduciaries! (Equius)
• The Wolf of Main Street: The fastest-growing landlord in the U.S. Midwest, Monarch Investment and Management Group, used evictions to drive up rents during the pandemic (Bloomberg)
• A Tale of Two Buds: The Centuries-Old Feud Between American Budweiser and Czech Budweiser There are actually a couple of different Budweisers — the American version and the Czech version that inspired it. But the world is clearly not big enough for the both of them as they’ve been fighting over the name for more than 100 years (Mel)
• Supreme Court Poised To Shift Executive Branch Power To Itself The Court is now stocked with justices hungry to shift the power back in the direction of those nonregulatory interests. In doing so, they’ll really be shifting power to themselves. (Talking Points Memo)
• Absolute Power: Asked about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Mohammed bin Salman said, “If that’s the way we did things, Khashoggi would not even be among the top 1,000 people on the list.” (The Atlantic)
• ‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes Putin is trying to take down the entire world order, the veteran Russia watcher said in an interview. But there are ways even ordinary Americans can fight back. (Politico) see also Why does Putin have superfans among the US right wing? The Russian leader is an autocrat with a homophobic and misogynistic worldview. No wonder he is so admired… (The Guardian)
• Sea Level Rise Will Be Catastrophic—and Unequal: A chilling new report predicts a foot of sea level rise in the US by 2050. But quirks of physics mean everyone will suffer in different ways. (Wired)
• Roger Stone tapes: Video shows efforts to overturn 2020 election, seek pardons Stone allowed the filmmakers to document his activities during extended periods over more than two years. In addition to interviews and moments when Stone spoke directly to the camera, they also captured fly-on-the-wall footage of his actions, candid off-camera conversations from a microphone he wore and views of his iPhone screen as he messaged associates on an encrypted app. (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with David Kotok, who co-founded Cumberland Advisors in 1973. The firm manages $4 billion in assets. Kotok is Program Chairman of the Global Interdependence Center (GIC), and was on the Treasury Transition Teams for New Jersey Governors Tom Kean and Christine Whitman, but is probably best known as the creator of Camp Kotok. His recent research is on the Economic Consequences of Pandemics, and What Long Covid Means for Financial Markets.
A comparison of NATO and Russia’s military strength
Source: Reddit via Nick Magiulli
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