My Boxing Day morning reads:
• Playing Santa Does Strange Things to a Man. What It Did to Bob Rutan Was Even Stranger. Bob Rutan is legendary among the tight-knit fraternity of Macy’s Santa Clauses. Like many of these men, playing Santa changed Bob. Profoundly. His story is one of struggle and failure, heartbreak and grace and—yes—the magic of Christmas. (Esquire)
• Can Netflix Help Save the American Mall? The entertainment company’s new “Netflix House” experience is bringing the brand’s shows into former department stores. Will streaming TV fans follow? (CityLab)
• King of Cannibal Island: The tulip bubble is the most famous financial bubble in history, but as historical examples go it is also, in one crucial respect, misleading. That’s because anyone can see the flagrant irrationality which was at work. At peak tulip madness in 1637, rare bulbs were so expensive that a single one was worth as much as a fancy canalside house in Amsterdam. You don’t have to be Warren Buffett to see that the disconnect between price and value was based on delusional thinking. (London Review of Books)
• No one knows anything. Let’s ask them about that: It’s never obvious what to do with thematic surveys. Is it positive or negative that 0 per cent of investors expect a new pandemic in the next 12 months? Should we assume their guess is probably right and buy airline stocks, or should we assume the consensus has underpriced the possibility and sell airline stocks? (FT Alphaville)
• The Untold Story of Charlie Munger’s Final Years: The Berkshire vice chair was making gutsy investments, forging unlikely friendships and facing new challenges to the end. (Wall Street Journal)
• It turns out that CBS forgot to cancel the broadcast of the piece in the Canadian market… Here’s the 60 Minutes Segment Trump and CBS News Executives Don’t Want You to See Hours before it was set to air last night, CBS News executives pulled the segment, but Canada’s Global TV app received it prior to broadcast. (The Reset)
• The Most Important Thing We Learned From Susie Wiles: Ever since the publication last week of a two-part article in Vanity Fair in which Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said all of that and more, political observers have been asking: Why did she do it? Why discard her usual discretion and speak so frankly, on the record, about her cracked compatriots in the Trump administration? (New York Times) see also 5 turning points that explain MAGA’s civil war. Today, the movement’s most consequential fights are unfolding beyond the control of its term-limited president — empowering rival factions to shape MAGA in their own image. MAGA entered the year with a sheen of invincibility, riding the high of Trump’s victory and united in his promise of a new “Golden Age.” It’s ending 2025 locked in an existential war over the future of conservatism. (Axios)
• How Willie Nelson Sees America: On the road with the musician, his band, and his family. (New Yorker)
• James Webb Space Telescope confirms 1st ‘runaway’ supermassive black hole rocketing through home galaxy at 2.2 million mph: ‘It boggles the mind!’ News By Robert Lea published December 17, 2025 “The forces that are needed to dislodge such a massive black hole from its home are enormous.” (Space.com)
• How “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” Stole Christmas: Behind the scenes of the lavish, painful, wigged-out movie that should have won Jim Carrey an Oscar. (Vulture)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with comedian Jay Leno, former Tonight Show host, and creator of Jay Leno’s Garage.
High market concentration isn’t a sell signal
Source: TKer
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