What we’re reading (10/26)
“The World-Changing Technology of Textiles” (Wall Street Journal). “From cave-dwellers twisting plant fibers into string to scientists embedding computer chips into threads, the story of textiles is the story of human ingenuity in all its manifestations: technical, artistic, economic and cultural. The conflict between highly productive new technologies and fears of mass unemployment—’the robots are taking our jobs’—started with textiles. The Luddites, English weavers who smashed mechanical looms in the early 19th century, gave their name to technological resistance. Ironically, however, those weavers owed their own well-paid jobs to an earlier disruptive technology: spinning machines, which produced the yarn that weavers turned into cloth.”
“How The Virus Slowed The Booming Wind Energy Business” (New York Times). “The wind energy business was growing about 10 percent a year before the pandemic. But industry officials now fear that projects under construction might be postponed or canceled because of the pandemic. The industry had hoped Congress might provide aid to renewable energy, but it got little from the stimulus bills passed in the spring…‘[e]verybody is trying to figure out how everything is going to land,’ said Benoit Rigal, a vice president of engineering and construction for EDF.”
“How Bookstores Are Weathering The Pandemic” (Vox). “The pandemic arrived early for Emily Powell, owner of Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon. The state had one of the first confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US in February. As she watched more cases pop up across the country, ‘I felt an increasing sense of panic and crisis,’ she said. On March 15, she abruptly closed her stores in the middle of the day. She immediately shrank her staff from 500 to 60 who were ‘just helping us turn the lights off and put out-of-office messages on the website.’ Almost overnight, she shifted her business entirely to online orders.”
“Worried About Contested Election? Here’s What Went Down In Stocks During 2000 Bush-Gore Battle” (CNBC). “The last time there was a contested presidential election, the S&P 500 and technology stocks tanked. Can it happen again? Many Americans are wondering how long it will take for the winner of the presidential election to be declared. Fears about a contested election and battles over ballots that could end up in courts, as well as a president who has not said he will accept the results, could unnerve investors. That may be especially true with stocks near all-time highs in spite of so many existing headwinds, including a pandemic and massive job losses and uncertain progress on vaccines and more federal stimulus. And the top tech stocks in the S&P 500 representing as much as 20% to 25% of the index in this bull market.”
“Investors Are Pushing Into ESG For Predictable Reasons: And It Has Nothing To Do With Saving The Manatees” (Dealbreaker). “According to a recent survey by investment manager Nuveen, 53% of investors cited higher returns as the primary motivation for investing in ESG [environmental, social, and governance] funds…[w]hatever the motivation, the industry is listening. Seventeen new ESG-focused ETFs have launched so far this year, up from 10 in all of last year. ESG funds have raked in over $4.1 billion in October, on track for their best month since at least 2013…[but] [t]he Securities and Exchange Commission does not regulate how the "ESG" label is applied, and it is increasingly being used as a marketing tactic.”
