My morning train WFH reads:
• Private Equity Doesn’t Want You to Read This: Not only do private equity partners make money even if their companies blow up; they also get a pretty good deal from the government on what they earn. Private equity funds generally charge their investors two different fees: a management fee of 2 percent of invested assets per year (funds are held for an average of about six years), and a “carried interest” fee that is 20 percent of any investment gains realized in the fund.(New York Times)
• The best way to solve a labor shortage is with labor: In July we added a 1/2 million jobs on net, wages rose briskly and the unemployment rate fell to its 50-year low. That’s a sign of progress (Stay-At-Home Macro)
• Ready or not, the supply chain transformation is underway. The dream of untrammeled global growth and trade has been cut short by supply chain snags that are now familiar to CEOs and everyday consumers alike. These disruptions are a problem not only structurally, but also strategically. Decades spent building global supply chains tuned for just-in-time performance have left companies vulnerable to shortages, geopolitical uncertainty and faster shifts in consumer demand. (The Hill)
• Are the Original Growth Investments, Agriculture and Timber, Worth It? Housing and commodities markets can be vexing, but the world will always require what the soil yields. (Chief Investment Officer)
• Sam Taggart’s Hard Sell: A door-to-door salesman’s quest to rebrand his profession. (New Yorker)
• The Place With the Most Lithium Is Blowing the Electric-Car Revolution: A California-sized piece of South America is stifling production of the metal at a time when battery-makers desperately need it. (Wall Street Journal)
• The newsletter boom is over. What’s next? The Substack frenzy seems like a thing of the past, but lots of publishers are still leaning into newsletters. “They’re a great minimally viable product.” (Vox)
• The Webb telescope is astonishing. But the universe is even more so. This new tool can’t do everything, but it’s capturing some of the first light emitted after the big bang, and that is already revealing wonders. (Washington Post)
• How Russia Took Over Ukraine’s Internet in Occupied Territories: Occupied Territories (New York Times) see also Putin could give a Ukraine victory speech tomorrow. Here’s what it might say. Grid spoke to Russians who study the way the Kremlin and Russia media communicate. They helped us imagine the “mission accomplished” speech Putin might give. (Grid)
• Serena Williams Leaves Tennis Just as She Played: On Her Own Terms Williams brought her own distinctive flair to tennis, challenging norms that governed fashion, power, decorum, race and gender. By being herself, Williams’s reach far exceeded the game. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Ken Tropin, chairman and founder of Graham Capital Management, a multi-strategy quantitative hedge fund managing $17.2 billion. Previously, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of hedge fund John W. Henry & Company, working with such legendary traders as John Henry and Paul Tudor Jones.
Corporate Stagflation Means Rising Sales With Flat Volumes — Growth, but not healthy growth
Source: Bloomberg
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