The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish blend coffee, grab a seat by the window, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• Thieves in the Night: A Vast Burglary Ring From Chile Has Been Targeting Wealthy U.S. Households Authorities are closing in on a sprawling network of South American bandits who arrive as “tourists,” then plunder the homes of the rich—eluding police on three continents. (Vanity Fair)
• ‘We’re having way better sex than our kids!’ The seventysomethings hitting their kinky, blissed-out peak (The Guardian)
• Peloton Got Trapped in Its Trillion-Dollar Fantasy: Fueled by manic demand during the early days of Covid, the company spent the next two years chasing a dream of fitness dominance. (Businessweek)
• What Makes a Great Opening Line? I say this as a romantic—and as a human who reads and writes fiction. Because the spark of connection can happen on the page in the same way it can in the real world. A great first line can spur intense readerly attraction—provoke a compulsion to know more. Let’s call this: love at first sentence. (Literary Hub)
• Cryptocurrencies: The Power of Memes The idea that cryptocurrencies will disrupt traditional finance is a meme, not a certainty. Cryptocurrencies are innovative, but to be disruptive they will need to overcome several difficult hurdles. Rather than overcome these hurdles, cryptocurrency has morphed into a permanently speculative investment vehicle, for which disruption lives forever in the future. (Research Affiliates)
• How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal? The U.S. is nearing 1 million recorded COVID-19 deaths without the social reckoning that such a tragedy should provoke. Why? (The Atlantic)
• Tax the land One radical idea to solve America’s housing crisis. The big question land value taxes help answer is: How can a government raise funds without distorting choices and possibly leaving people worse off? If you tax income, it provides a disincentive to work. If you tax property, it provides a disincentive to improve the physical buildings on top of the land. Sometimes the tax is intentionally disincentivizing an activity — think carbon taxes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or so-called “sin taxes” on tobacco. But there are also taxes governments want to levy to pay for valuable services without changing behaviors too much (or at all). (Vox)
• Meet the woman who builds the world’s most unique Airbnbs Kristie Wolfe has built off-grid hobbit holes, treehouses, and potato-shaped abodes — often on a shoestring budget. (The Hustle)
• In Search of Troy: It wasn’t just a legend. Archaeologists are getting to the bottom of the city celebrated by Homer nearly 3,000 years ago (Smithsonian)
• ‘What Is a Yute?’: An Oral History of ‘My Cousin Vinny’ Thirty years ago this month, the Joe Pesci-Marisa Tomei courtroom comedy arrived in theaters. To celebrate, the cast and crew take us inside the making of a not-quite-instant classic. (Rolling Stone)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Michelle Seitz, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Russell Investments, the 6th largest manager in the world. The firm manages over $331. billion in assets and advises on another $2.8 trillion.
Ukraine’s Top Trading Partners and Products
Source: Visual Capitalist
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