What we’re reading (11/21)
“Supply-Chain Problems Show Signs Of Easing” (Wall Street Journal). “In Asia, Covid-related factory closures, energy shortages and port-capacity limits have eased in recent weeks. In the U.S., major retailers say they have imported most of what they need for the holidays. Ocean freight rates have retreated from record levels.”
“Don’t Let Them Tell You Inflation Is Good For The Poor. It’s Not” (Fortune). “[T]he working class depends on wages and salaries staying above inflation, which is difficult to obtain in practice once an inflationary spiral takes hold. Indeed, rising inflation has already eroded the early pandemic wage gains of American workers, and real worker compensation is now lower than its pre-pandemic trend.”
“Monetary Theory And Crypto” (Medium). “[T]ake the field [monetary theory] in general — has it had anything interesting to say about crypto developments? I don’t expect it to have predicted crypto…[b]ut surely monetary theory should be able to help us better understand crypto? And its price. How much has it succeeded in that endeavor? Or are you better off reading “amateur” pieces on Medium and other sources cited on Twitter? What should we infer from your answer to these questions?”
“The Weirdness Of Government Variation In COVID-19 Responses” (Richard Hanania, Substack). “Usually, countries and regions that share a cultural legacy and the same political system don’t differ too much in the ways in which they respond to events in the real world…[b]ut imagine at the start of the pandemic, someone had said to you ‘Everyone will face the existence of the same disease, and have access to the exact same tools to fight it. But in some EU countries or US states, people won’t be allowed to leave their house and have to cover their faces in public. In other places, government will just leave people alone. Vast differences of this sort will exist across jurisdictions that are similar on objective metrics of how bad the pandemic is at any particular moment.’ I would’ve found this to be a very unlikely outcome!”
“‘When Has There Ever Been A Moment Of Calm At Facebook?’: The Great Employee Exodus That Wasn’t” (Vanity Fair). “Outside the company, the scandal was huge; internally…it didn’t have nearly the same gravitas that it did to those who don’t work there. Now, as weeks have gone by, all of the speculation about an employee exodus and advertiser migration has not really borne out…there still has not been the mass exodus of engineering talent that some had envisioned happening as a result of the Facebook Files.”
