My morning train WFH reads:
• The Republicans’ Catastrophic and Culpable Failure: The GOP is dominated by two overlapping groups: the clueless and the compromised. The clueless have no idea how to get the country out of the mess it has gotten itself into, or if they have, mum’s the word. As for the compromised, it’s all about Trump, who in the past 24 months has made the Republican Party repulsive. (The Next American Century) see also Frum: Trump Lost the Midterms. DeSantis Won. If the Florida governor ever intends to wrest control of the GOP from Trump, now is his moment. (The Atlantic)
• The Enduring Appeal of ‘I Voted’ Stickers: Election day is a time to showcase your civic spirit and local flair with free stickers — usually with patriotic designs, sometimes with demon spider-crabs. (CityLab)
• With a Recession Enroute, Should Pension Funds Be Worried? Maybe not, data from WTW and others show. Despite some losses lately, they remain in resilient shape. Here’s how. (Chief Investment Officer)
• Musk’s Bride of Reverse Frankentwitter: Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to retweet it. (Financial Times)
• A Rich Man Walks Into a Bar: An overly obvious metaphor for an overly obvious situation. (At the Mountains of Sadness)
• Crypto collapse: J. Pierpont Moneygone — FTX rekt: The 2021–2022 crypto bubble made a lot of traders look like geniuses. Then the bubble popped, the tide went out, and the traders turned out to be hugely overleveraged formerly-lucky idiots. Sociologists know that when a cult prophecy fails, most cultists exit the cult, and the remaining factions turn on each other. Crypto watchers know that this can also be exceedingly funny. (Amy Castor) see also Crypto Reinvented Centralized Finance—but Forgot the Central Bank: After Binance agreed to takeover rival FTX, the danger is obvious: There’s no one big enough to rescue Binance. (Wall Street Journal)
• The default effect: why we renounce our ability to choose: Why is it that we like having choices, but we don’t like choosing? Being able to decide between several options makes us feel in control. Yet, we tend to exhibit a preference for the default option when presented with a selection of choices. This is called the default effect, and it rules many aspects of our lives from the products we buy to the career we build. (Ness Labs)
• The tragedy of John Roberts: He wanted to be at the helm of a court that was more often unanimous than splintered; now it is cleaved, 6-3, along hardened ideological lines. Roberts wanted to help shore up the court’s institutional standing; instead, he has watched it plunge in public esteem, helpless to prevent the fall. He has been outflanked and marginalized by five conservative justices to his right, even as he has been subjected to unsparing criticism by those to his left. He is at times isolated and even a tragic figure. (Washington Post)
• Why Is The College Football World Sleeping On Ohio State? The Buckeyes are off to one of their most dominant starts in years. (FiveThirtyEight)
• How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed American Music: The season finale of Sidedoor tells the story of an indigenous Hawaiian instrument with a familiar sound and unexpected influences. (Smithsonian Magazine)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Dave Nadig, Financial Futurist at VettaFi. The ETF industry pioneer has over 25 years of ETF experience. As Managing Director of ETF.com, he was a key participant in the rise of the passive and ETF industry. Previously, he was Was Managing Director at Barclays Global Investors. He co-authored the definitive book on ETFs, “A Comprehensive Guide To Exchange-Traded Funds,” for the CFA Institute.
Marijuana Will Be Legal in Half the U.S. If These Ballot Measures Pass in the 2022 Midterms
Source: Time
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