What we’re reading (10/23)
“Stocks Typically Climb, Regardless Of Who’s In The White House” (Wall Street Journal). “Stocks tend to go up regardless of which party controls Washington. From 1929 through 2019, one party controlled both chambers of Congress and the presidency in 45 of those years. The S&P 500 on average rose 7.45% during those years, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The index was up 30 times and down 15 times. In the other 46 years when there was a split government, the index climbed 7.26% on average, rising 29 times, falling 16 times and remaining unchanged once.”
“Recession Risk Grows [In Europe] As Covid-19 Cases Continue To Surge” (CNN Business). “The world's top economies took huge steps in recent months to recover from the worst recession in a generation. Now, with coronavirus cases surging again, that progress could be reversed. What's happening: Business activity has fallen back into decline in Europe, according to the latest reading of the Purchasing Managers' Index from IHS Markit, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors. Earlier this week, both Spain and France — which are deep into the second wave of the pandemic — surpassed 1 million recorded coronavirus cases.”
“Uber And Lyft Face Setback In Case To Reclassify Workers, But It’s Far From Over” (CNBC). “Uber and Lyft must comply with a preliminary injunction requiring them to stop classifying drivers as independent contractors pending further action, an appeals court ruled Thursday. But the order won’t take effect right away and an upcoming ballot measure could still undermine the entire case.”
“A Chasm Deepens In America’s Credit Markets, Swallowing Smaller Firms” (Bloomberg). “Times are tough at SeaWorld, home of killer whales and bottlenose dolphins. But they’re even tougher at GeckoParx, a few hours down the Florida Turnpike. Both amusement parks were forced to close temporarily when the coronavirus pandemic struck. Despite setback after setback, SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. — a publicly traded corporation — easily secured something that every business needs: credit. It borrowed almost $730 million in the capital markets. And smaller GeckoParx? It’s shutting its doors after burning through nearly all of its money.”
“Are We Trading Our Happiness For Modern Comforts? (The Atlantic). “One of the greatest paradoxes in American life is that while, on average, existence has gotten more comfortable over time, happiness has fallen…[t]here are several possible explanations for this paradox: It could be that people are uninformed about all of this amazing progress, that we can’t perceive progress very well when it occurs over decades, or that we are measuring the wrong indicators of ‘quality of life.’ I suspect the answer is all three. The last idea, however, is especially important to understand in order to improve our own happiness. There’s nothing new about the idea that consumption doesn’t lead to happiness—that concept is a mainstay of just about every religion, and many philosophical traditions as well. Arguably, Karl Marx’s greatest insight came from his theory of alienation, in part defined as a sense of estrangement from the self that comes from being part of a materialistic society in which we are cogs in an enormous market-based machine.”
