My mid-week morning plane reads:
• Amazon’s New Challenge: Bargain Retailers That Are Playing a Different Game: E-commerce giant weighs how to respond as online shopping sites Shein and Temu notch rapid growth by stressing low prices, not fast shipping. (Wall Street Journal)
• Why My Recession Rule Could Go Wrong This Time: The highly accurate Sahm rule uses the unemployment rate to detect the start of an economic downturn. But like many indicators during the pandemic era, it’s possible it could “break.” (Bloomberg) see also The most important economic number hasn’t gotten enough attention. The Labor Department reported, “Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased 4.7% in Q3 2023, BLS reported today. Output increased 5.9% and hours worked increased 1.1%. (Washington Post)
• In the Long Run, Investing Is All About the Economy* (*Aside from government debt and the Federal Reserve, that is). (Wall Street Journal)
• 11 Things I Learned About Investing: You don’t become a great investor by reading about great investors. But it’s Friday. Why not indulge a little? (Alchemy of Money)
• ‘The tenant from hell’: She refused to pay for her luxury Airbnb for 540 days. She says she has a legal right to stay (Los Angeles Times)
• People Are Worrying About the Wrong Downtowns: Outside the “superstar” coastal markets, many central business districts were in danger even before the pandemic. (The Atlantic)
• What happened to Airbnb? Financially, the sharing economy darling is thriving, but guests, hosts, and cities have had enough. (Vox)
• The Secret Power of Swearing: Swearing can be so satisfying that it can help us withstand pain. It can shock, offend and entertain. It can release tension or increase it. It can foster intimacy. What’s swearing’s secret? How do four-letter words move us in all the ways they do? (New York Times)
• An Extremely Detailed Guide to an Extremely Detailed Map of New York City Neighborhoods: A name has power. It can foreshadow who will be moving in. By itself, it can conjure so much: gentrification, displacement, inequality, status. When we argue over names, or even invent new ones, we may be trying to exert some of that power — or lamenting that others have more power than we do. We asked New Yorkers themselves to map their neighborhoods and to tell us what they call them. The result, while imperfect, is probably the most detailed map of the city’s neighborhoods ever compiled: (New York Times)
• The Making of Joe Biden’s Conservative Democratic Politics: Joe Biden’s early years in politics established a pattern he would follow for the rest of his career: champion progressive values at select times to select audiences while on the whole running away from any association with such values. (Jacobin) but see also Who’s Ready for a Trump-Biden Rematch? Anyone? Hello? Most American voters are dissatisfied with the president and his predecessor. But when the country goes to the polls on Nov. 5, 2024, one of them is almost certainly going to win. (Businessweek)
• Ron Carter, jazz’s most prolific bassist: ‘Our band was a laboratory – and Miles Davis was head chemist’ He overcame prejudice to play on more than 2,000 albums, and is still going strong at 86. Carter recalls laughter with Aretha Franklin, composing with Roberta Flack, and what Miles taught him in their classic quintet. (The Guardian)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Zeke Faux, award-winning investigative reporter at BusinessWeek and Bloomberg News. He is the author of the new book, “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall.” The book is a hilarious deep dive into the many characters and scammers that have beset crypto.
The U.S. stock market is absolutely massive
Source: TKer
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