Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Lessons From the Catastrophic Failure of the Metaverse: Did the “creative class” learn anything from buying into a product that was obviously destined to flop? (The Nation)
• How China Came to Dominate the World’s Largest Nickel Source for Electric Cars: Chinese firms mastered a process that unlocked Indonesia’s ore for use in making EV batteries. (Wall Street Journal)
• Those 10,000 5-star reviews are fake. Now they’ll also be illegal. The FTC has proposed new rules that clarify what is and isn’t a deceptive online review — and would give it the power to fine $50,000 for each fake. (Washington Post)
• A Drug for Itchy Dogs Costs $1,200. Why Is the Human Equivalent $43,000? What a shot that treats pet eczema reveals about how pharma companies actually price their drugs. (Barron’s)
• New York State Built Elon Musk a $1 Billion Factory. ‘It Was a Bad Deal.’ New Tesla facility in Buffalo was supposed to house a huge solar-panel operation, but the project hasn’t turned out as planned. (Wall Street Journal)
• David Zaslav kills everything he touches, including GQ: Zaslav is the man in charge of frankencorp Warner Bros. Discovery and, in an impressively short period of time, has managed to f—k up nearly everything within its considerable portfolio. Freelance writer Jason Bailey attempted to note all of those f—k-ups for posterity just this week, when he wrote an article for GQ excoriating Zaslav for his pathetic stewardship of WBD. It noted all of Zaslav’s lowlights, which I will repeat here for reasons that will soon become evident. SFGATE columnist Drew Magary unpacks the latest in the saga of the HBO-slayer. (SF Gate)
• What Makes Putin and the World’s Autocrats So Resilient? Regimes are cooperating more closely to withstand diplomatic pressure from the West. (Wall Street Journal)
• ‘Thanks for visiting Florida’: one Black family’s road trip to a ‘hostile’ tourist trap: The NAACP has issued a warning about the state. But being Black in America was a long-odds game well before DeSantis showed up. (The Guardian)
• How Trump has flaunted sensitive information: A history: Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary says she witnessed him showing off such information at Mar-a-Lago. Here’s how the allegation fits into his long record. (Washington Post) see also 4 revelations from the latest unsealed records in the Trump classified documents case: Security footage, unwitting lawyers, and more details in the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit reveal how prosecutors built their case against Trump. (Vox)
• Inside Moms for Liberty’s summit: Big money and even bigger conspiracy theories Manufacturing terror to mobilize parents and take over your kids’ school. (Media Matters)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, which manages $1.5 trillion dollar in client assets. She has worked at FT since 1988, and held leadership roles in investment management, distribution, technology, operations, and high-net-worth clients. Franklin Templeton oversees more than 9000 employees and 1300 investment professionals. Johnson is on the list of most powerful women (Barron’s, Forbes, American Banker, and more). She has been CEO February 2020.
Signs of Frustration With the Two-Party System
Source: Pew Research Center
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