What we’re reading (10/26)
“David Tepper Shuns Stock Market: ‘Sometimes There’s Times To Make Money…Sometimes There’s Times Not To Lose Money’” (MarketWatch). “‘I don’t think it’s a great investment,’ Tepper [founder of Apaloosa Management] told the business network, referring to his view on the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the S&P 500 index near record highs on Friday. ‘I just don’t know how interest rates are going to behave next year,’ Tepper added. ‘I don’t think there’s any great asset classes right now,’ said the owner of the National Football League’s Carolina Panthers. Tepper said that he didn’t ‘love stocks. I don’t love bonds. I don’t love junk bonds,’ referring to markets he felt were overvalued.”
“America Inc And The Shortage Economy” (The Economist). “If you look only at the scale of the profits cranked out by American businesses, they seem to be indestructible…[y]et as earnings season gets into full swing this week, bosses and investors are watching for signs that three related worries are biting: supply-chain tangles, inflation, and hints that a long era of profitable oligopolies is giving way to something more dynamic and risky.”
“Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Plans ‘Business Park’ In Space” (Financial Times). “Jeff Bezos’s space exploration company Blue Origin has announced plans to launch a commercial space station into low-earth orbit in the latter half of this decade…[a]ccording to a promotional website, the station, to be called Orbital Reef, will be an ideal location for a ‘space hotel’, ‘film-making in microgravity’ or ‘conducting cutting edge research’. Those on board would experience 32 sunsets and sunrises each day, the company said.”
“Billionaire Leon Black Is Being Investigated By The Manhattan D.A., Sources Say” (Vanity Fair). “Black’s personal and professional lives have been in a tailspin since January 2021, when the billionaire announced he was stepping down as CEO of private-equity giant Apollo following the emergence of his ties to Epstein. An investigation commissioned by Apollo’s board disclosed that Black had paid Epstein $158 million in fees between 2012 and 2017—after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl. Black’s massive payments to Epstein for purported ‘tax advice’ and ‘estate planning’ struck many on Wall Street as amounting to a preposterously inflated sum for such services.”
“The Hostile Mediator Phenomenon: When Threatened, Rival Partisans Perceive Various Mediators As Biased Against Their Group” (Omer Yair, Public Opinion Quarterly). “Rival partisans tend to perceive ostensibly balanced news coverage as biased against their respective sides; this is known as the ‘hostile media phenomenon’ (HMP). Yet complaints of hostile bias are common in contexts besides the media (e.g., law enforcement and academia). Does a process similar to the HMP occur outside the context of news coverage?…[a]n additional study (N = 2,172) shows that both Democrats and Republicans perceived the social network Facebook to be biased against their side.”
