• This New Investing Idea Isn’t Right for Your Retirement Plan: Why don’t ‘alternative assets’ like private credit belong in your 401(k)? Let us count the ways. (WSJ)
• Can Bill Ackman create a ‘modern-day’ Berkshire Hathaway? Hard-charging hedge fund boss faces steep hurdles in bid to emulate Warren Buffett. (Financial Times)
• Rugpull: Crypto Is Still for Criming: Crypto has been used to scam naïve Trump loyalists. An investigative report by the Washington Post found that while a handful of large investors made a lot of money from the coin $Trump, tens of thousands of small investors, lured in by the Trump name, bought the coin near its peak and have seen most of their money vanish. (Paul Krugman)
• Meta Battles an ‘Epidemic of Scams’ as Criminals Flood Instagram and Facebook: Fake puppies and phony offers of mouthwatering bargains are often seeded by overseas crime networks; employees say company is reluctant to impede its advertising juggernaut. (WSJ date says 2025, but this ain’t much different than 2015). (Wall Street Journal)
• The Mess at Airports Is Part of a Larger Pattern: What’s behind the Newark-airport fiasco. (The Atlantic) see also Newark Flight Chaos Shows the Crisis Rocking Air Traffic Control Jobs: The path to alleviating a shortage of air traffic controllers runs through a training academy in Oklahoma City. (Bloomberg) see also Newark’s Air Traffic Control Staffing Crisis Is Dire. It’s Also Not Unique. Ninety-nine percent of the air traffic control facilities in the United States are operating below recommended staffing levels, a New York Times analysis has found. (New York Times) see also This Air-Traffic Controller Just Averted a Midair Collision. Now He’s Speaking Out. Jonathan Stewart says controllers didn’t walk off the job after recent FAA equipment outages; ‘I don’t want to be responsible for killing 400 people’. (Wall Street Journal)
• UnitedHealth’s Collapse Has Nothing to Do With Luigi Mangione: The company’s stock tells a darker story about how American health care really works. (Slate)
• Keep calm (but delete your nudes): the new rules for travelling to and from MAGA America: Many people have decided a trip to the US isn’t worth the risk after recent border detentions. But if you are going, what do you need to know? Immigration lawyers explain it all (WTF?!?). (The Guardian)
• Trump’s Real Secretary of State: How the president’s friend and golfing partner Steve Witkoff got one of the hardest jobs on the planet. (The Atlantic) see also Trump radically remade the US food system in just 100 days: The people who grow and sell America’s food no longer trust the USDA. We made a timeline to show you what happened. (Grist)
• The ‘R-word,’ embraced by Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, inches back into the mainstream: Many still consider the word a disability slur, and while its use has percolated in the comedy world for years, only recently has it — and discussion of its return — become more common. (NBC News)
• Creepy: Why is Maga-land so obsessed with Kai Trump turning 18? Do you really need to ask? The birthday of Donald Trump’s granddaughter has been forced upon my consciousness because an awful lot of people are being weird about it. (The Guardian)
Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business with John Montgomery, founder and CEO of Bridgeway Capital. The firm, which was founded in 1993, manages ~$5B in assets; they have become known for donating 50% of their annual company profits to non-profit organizations.
The Top 10% of American Households hold 67.2% of the National Wealth (the top half holds 97.5%)
Source: Bloomberg
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