Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do: The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers. (Vox) see also You’ve Got (Scam) Mail Is everyone being swindled all the time and just not talking about it? (New York Times)
• The $100 Billion Luxury Complex That’s Sitting Empty and Unfinished: China’s Country Garden had big ambitions for its luxury Malaysian high rises, but the development is regarded as a ‘ghost city’ nearly a decade after construction began. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Luxury Tower Built for New York’s Elite Still Sits Half Empty: Related Companies has struggled to unload its most expensive units at 35 Hudson Yards. Now the developer is offering deep discounts. (Wall Street Journal)
• America Has a Private-Beach Problem: A shockingly small portion of the shoreline is truly available to the public. (The Atlantic)
• Many of today’s unhealthy foods were brought to you by Big Tobacco: A new study suggests that tobacco companies, who were skilled at marketing cigarettes, used similar strategies to hook people on processed foods. (Washington Post) see also Why Dollar General Might Just Be the Worst Retail Job in America: Rat infestations, blocked fire exits, expired kids’ food, machete-wielding and watermelon-throwing shoppers and other nightmares at the biggest dollar chain in the US. (Businessweek)
• How Columbia Ignored Women, Undermined Prosecutors and Protected a Predator For More Than 20 Years: For decades, patients warned Columbia about the behavior of obstetrician Robert Hadden. One even called 911 and had him arrested. Columbia let him keep working. (ProPublica)
• Elon Musk’s Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather: The billionaire has described his grandfather as a risk-taking adventurer. A closer read of history reveals something much darker. (The Atlantic)
• Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events: Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court. (ProPublica)
• Vivek Ramaswamy: Six things the Republican presidential candidate believes: Republican presidential candidate believes (BBC)
• How the $445 million Mets crashed and burned: In the span of 30 days, the Mets went from a team looking to contend for a championship to one lacking a competitive timetable — with a lot of big decisions to make ahead of the trade deadline. (The Athletic)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Armen Panossian, incoming Co-CEO and Head of Performing Credit at Oaktree Capital Management, where he oversees all performing credit 2019 at Oaktree. Previously, he was at Pequot Capital Management managing distressed debt strategy.
How the fentanyl crisis’ fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
Source: BBC
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