Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• MAGA and the American Pope: Seven things to know about Pope Leo XIV. (The Bulwark)
• A Kansas City Neighborhood Is a Sea of Vacant Lots. Locals Blame One Company. For over 50 years, residents of north Valentine have fought to save homes from the wrecking ball, as Kansas City Life Insurance continues to tear down properties without a concrete plan to redevelop the neighborhood. (Wall Street Journal)
• Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class: The protectionist narrative is more myth than fact. (Noahpinion) see also Trump is all in on a bad economic policy from centuries ago: Mercantilism made Europe’s colonial powers poorer. Trump is trying a modern version anyway. (Washington Post)
• American corporations didn’t want to diversify, anyway: After the murder of George Floyd, many companies turned to toothless diversity initiatives that they abandoned in the wake of Trump 2.0. A conservative agenda dating back to the 50s explains why. (The Guardian)
• The Huge, Under-the-Radar Shift Happening in the West Bank: Over the past few months, an Israeli military operation has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians in West Bank cities. Some Palestinians fear it may be laying the ground to annex the territory. (New York Times)
• Russia seen as largest Bitcoin mining beneficiary if US Tariffs hit in full. Bitcoin mining technology company Luxor expects Russia to be the main beneficiary of Trump’s tariffs if they are executed on the industry’s supply chain in full. (The Block) see also Congress erupts over Trump’s billion-dollar crypto deal: A $2 billion crypto deal involving President Trump’s family and a foreign government is threatening to derail bipartisan stablecoin legislation that Congress has been working on for months. (Axios)
• Telemarketers Are Using a Weird Trick to Sell Bare-Bones Health Plans: How a former TV comedy writer’s fake-job loophole could blow up Obamacare. (Bloomberg)
• Grifters Thrive Under Scam-Friendly Administration: Gutted watchdog agencies and unprecedented ‘influence peddling’ means unrestrained fraud. (The Verge)
• The Destruction of the Department of Justice: When people at the department embrace Trump’s scorn for the law, the law, as a practical limitation on government action, ceases to exist. (The Atlantic)
• People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies: Self-styled prophets are claiming they have “awakened” chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT. (Rolling Stone)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Karin Risi, former Managing Director at the Vanguard Group, the world’s 2nd largest asset manager. She helped to create and lead the firm’s Personal Advisor business from 2015 to 2020, which now manages $350 billion in client assets; she also headed comms, strategy and other divisions over the years, reporting directly to each of the past three Vanguard CEOs. Risi has been named to every Top 100 Women in finance list, and in May joined the Board of HarbourVest.
Mother’s Day Spending Expected to Reach $34.1 Billion
Source: National Retail Federation
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