The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• Free-market economics is working surprisingly well: Which economic approach works depends a lot on where you start from. (Noahpinion)
• ETFs Are Eating the World. The Right—and Wrong—Ways to Invest. More than 700 ETFs launched last year, including ones that hold crypto or make leveraged bets on individual stocks like Nvidia. How to make sense of it all. (Barron’s) see also How Index-Fund Investing Turned Into an Extreme Sport: Exchange-traded funds are becoming far more concentrated, amplifying risks. (Wall Street Journal)
• How Far Will AI Video Go? Mapping Out the Scenarios: The last 10-15 years in video1 have been defined by the disruption of content distribution and the next 10 years are poised to be defined by the disruption of content creation. (The Mediator)
• Meet the Army of Staffers Who Manage the Mansions of the Ultrarich: It takes a village—and sometimes millions of dollars—to keep luxury properties running smoothly. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller: Mr. Miller, 39, is both a committed ideologue and a ruthless bureaucratic operator — and he has cast himself as the only person capable of fully carrying out Mr. Trump’s radical policy vision. (New York Times)
• The Geological Sublime: Butterflies, deep time, and climate change. (Harper’s Magazine)
• Our Privacy Expert Tried, and Failed, to Disappear From the Internet: As a privacy journalist, I have given all manner of advice for how to secure and obscure an online life, but I’d never undertaken a project that extends the idea of privacy to its logical conclusion: by disappearing completely. So I set out to erase my online life. I failed (New York Times) see also How to Disappear: Inside the world of extreme-privacy consultants, who, for the right fee, will make you and your personal information very hard to find (The Atlantic)
• The French Seaside Factory Trying to Break China’s Chokehold on Rare Earths: The continent wants to reduce the risks of depending so heavily on China for the valuable minerals. The question is how. (New York Times)
• From the Glass King to QAnon: A long time ago, a French king believed he was made out of glass. Here’s his story, why it matters—and how it can help us understand modern delusions such as QAnon or insane anti-vax theories. (The Garden of the Forking Paths) see also The French liar: René Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, was furiously condemned by his contemporaries. Why did they fear him? (Aeon)
• Is Gary Shteyngart One of the Last Novelists to Make Real Money From the Craft? Mr. Shteyngart was once told he might be. With his sixth novel, “Vera, or Faith,” out now, he’s spent the last few years spending it well. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business rhis week with Richard Bernstein, founder of RBA. The firm focuses on Macro trends, and manages (or advises on) $15.7B AUM. Previously, he was Chief Investment Strategist at Merrill Lynch from 1988-2009. Bernstein was named to Institutional Investor’s “All-America Research Team” 18X, and inducted into the Institutional Investor “Hall of Fame.”
The bond market is pricing in slowing growth; the stock market is pricing in growth is about to accelerate…
Source: Apollo
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