What we’re reading (12/1)
“Amazon Offers Test Of ‘Ultrafast’ Delivery In Two US Cities” (Bloomberg). “Amazon.com Inc. plans to offer deliveries of hundreds of household items, including some fresh groceries and over-the-counter medicines, within 30 minutes in a test program beginning in Philadelphia and its home city of Seattle.”
“Office-To-Residential Conversions Are Booming And New York Is The Epicenter” (Wall Street Journal). “Over the past two decades, developers in New York have converted nearly 30 million square feet of office space into residential living, with the pace of transformation picking up in recent years. Most office buildings were considered too wide and mechanically complex to repurpose into apartments with kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. But New York developers are solving those problems with new architectural hacks—cut-through notches, carved light wells, and strategic wall-offs of interior cores that create space for new residential floors.”
“Working From Home Is Harming Young Employees. They’re Starting To See That.” (New York Times). “New research sheds some light on why that might be. In a recent paper, a team of economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Virginia and Harvard University found that younger workers suffered career-wise by working from home, receiving less training and fewer opportunities for advancement. The economists found that remote work even contributed to higher unemployment among younger workers. They calculated that younger workers appeared to be responding accordingly, spending more time in the office than older workers over the past few years.”
“Getting Ready To Party Like It’s 2008” (Paul Krugman). “The clear lesson of 2008 is that effective financial regulation is essential. For three generations after the great bank runs of 1930-31, America avoided “systemic” banking crises — crises that threaten the whole financial system, as opposed to individual institutions. This era, which Yale’s Gary Gorton calls the Quiet Period, was the result of New-Deal-era protections — especially deposit insurance — and regulations that limited banks’ risk-taking. But post 1980, finance was increasingly deregulated. In particular, the government failed to extend bank-type regulation to shadow banks that posed systemic bank-type risks. And the crisis came.”
“Michael Burry Says Tesla Is ‘Ridiculously Overvalued,’ Slams Musk Pay Package” (Yahoo! Finance). “His post took aim at the "tragic algebra" of stock-based compensation, and Tesla was an example. Tesla dilutes its stock by 3.6% a year, he said, and offers no buybacks. ‘Tesla's market capitalization is ridiculously overvalued today and has been for a good long time,’ Burry said, adding that CEO Elon Musk's $1 trillion dollar pay package will dilute Tesla stock even further. Last month, Tesla shareholders approved the controversial pay package at its shareholder meeting.”
