• ‘A Billion Streams and No Fans’: Inside a $10 Million AI Music Fraud Case. A chart-topping jazz album! Loads of Spotify and Apple Music plays! Just one problem: The success might not be real. (Wired)
• How America Lost Control of the Seas: Thanks to decades of misguided policy choices, the U.S. has an astonishing lack of maritime capacity. (The Atlantic)
• Luxury Brands Are Paying for Over-the-Top Price Hikes: Companies that raised prices the most during the pandemic are now reporting disappointing numbers. Wait, you jack up prices during an emergency because you think no one is paying attention, and your loyal clientele politely tell you piss-off? Who woulda guessed it! (Wall Street Journal)
• Boeing! How to kill 346 people and get away with it: Boeing admitted that the crashes were related to a flaw in the design of the 737 MAX. Specially, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which could abruptly point the nose of the plane downward in certain situations. Moreover, Boeing has admitted that its employees “knowingly, and with intent to defraud, conspired to defraud the FAA,” by downplaying the role of the MCAS. (Popular Information)
• Trump Has Botched His Tariff War With China: President Trump’s long-promised trade war with China has only just got going, and he’s already botched it. (New York Times) see also Trump’s Tariffs Will Pay Off, for China: This misguided, incompetent attack on global trade threatens to irreparably harm U.S. influence across the world’s most commercially dynamic region, leaving a vacuum for China to fill. (New York Times) see also In the Future, China Will Be Dominant. The U.S. Will Be Irrelevant. When historians look back they may very well pinpoint the early months of President Trump’s second term as the watershed moment when China pulled away and left the United States behind. (New York Times)
• North Korea Infiltrates U.S. Remote Jobs—With the Help of Everyday Americans: A LinkedIn message drew a former waitress in Minnesota into a type of intricate scam involving illegal paychecks and stolen data. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Trump Family’s Money-Making Machine: Since he kicked off his campaign, Trump’s empire has landed billions of dollars of deals at home and abroad. (Bloomberg)
• 3 takeaways from the most authoritative autopsy of the 2024 election yet: New data that debunks the left’s favorite explanation for Harris’s defeat. (Vox)
• Ron DeSantis’s fall from grace: ‘He’s completely crashed to the ground’ Florida governor stands isolated from Trump and is feuding with Republicans at home – is he drifting to irrelevance? (The Guardian)
• America’s College Towns Go From Boom to Bust: Many state universities are losing more students every year, failing the local economies they once fostered. (Wall Street Journal)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Tom Barkin, Richmond Federal Reserve President & CEO and voting member of the the Federal Open Market Committee. He previously spent 30 years at McKinsey & Company , eventually becoming Chief Risk Officer and Chief Finaacial Officer.
American workers work from home on average 1.6 days per week, which is more than workers in Italy, France, and China, see chart below
Source: Apollo
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