The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• How Not to Play the Game: Magic beans, Bahamian penthouses, old-fashioned fraud and other important SBF-inspired insights. A postscript to Bloomberg Businessweek’s The Crypto Story. (Businessweek)
• 99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2022: The world didn’t fall apart this year. You just got your news from the wrong places. (Future Crunch) see also What we learned from books this year: We read 37 books in 2022 — filled with research, insights, and advice for managing yourself and your team. Here are some of the most interesting things we took away from them. (Charterworks)
• The Secret Life of Plant Killers: To take out invasives, the US relies on crews wielding hatchets, chainsaws, and herbicide. It’s a messy, fun job—but it may not be enough to stop the spread. (Wired)
• The most honest man in real estate thinks the housing market isn’t going to crash: Jonathan Miller is a real-estate appraiser who’s published monthly housing reports for 27 years. Everyone from The Wall Street Journal to The East Hampton Star quotes his data and analyses. Here’s how Miller, who doesn’t think the housing market is going to crash, became a beacon of trust. (Business Insider)
• The third magic: A meditation on history, science, and AI: Humanity’s living standards are vastly greater than those of the other animals. Many people attribute this difference to our greater intelligence or our greater linguistic communication ability. But without minimizing the importance of those underlying advantages, I’d like to offer the idea that our material success is due, in large part, to two great innovations. (Noahpinion)
• How Jersey City Got to Zero Traffic Deaths on Its Streets: This town outside of New York City scored the biggest traffic safety success story of 2022. Here’s how they did it. (CityLab)
• Finding the First Americans: Archaeology and genetics can’t yet agree on when humans first arrived in the Americas. That’s good science and here’s why. (Aeon)
• White contractors wouldn’t remove Confederate statues. So a Black man did it. He didn’t seek the job. He had never paid much attention to Civil War history. City and state officials said they turned to Team Henry Enterprises after a long list of bigger contractors — all White-owned — said they wanted no part of taking down Confederate statues. (Washington Post)
• The Hidden Details Behind David Beckham’s MLS Contract That Earned Him $500 Million: David Beckham shocked the world when he left Real Madrid to join the LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer. He was just 31 years old and agreed to take a 70 percent pay cut. But here’s the part you probably didn’t know: Beckham’s MLS contract included two unique stipulations that eventually turned his $6.5 million annual salary into more than $500 million. It’s one of the most lucrative contracts in sports history. (Huddle Up)
• Jazz Is Freedom: Thelonious Monk on Riverside: Thelonious Monk, who had only a handful of records under his belt and, then approaching forty, was still playing on other people’s dates. Indeed, he was the pianist behind Miles for the Newport performance, which would help the younger musician sign with Columbia records, putting him on the road to stardom. An oft-told anecdote has the two sharing a car back to New York. (The Baffler)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley. He was the architect of the firm’s merger with Dean Witter and then returned as CEO to lead the firm through the financial crisis. He is the author of a new autobiography, “Up Close and All In: Life Lessons from a Wall Street Warrior.”
Economists Think They Can See Recession Coming—for a Change
Source: Wall Street Journal
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