What we’re reading (12/16)
“The ‘To the Moon’ Crash Is Coming” (Vice). “The market today reminds [venture capitalist Josh] Wolfe in many ways of the same forces that were so prominent at the height of the dot com boom, and perhaps no single person better encapsulates the moment than the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. Motherboard spoke to Wolfe about the worrying signs he sees, and the downside of prioritizing hype over fundamentals.”
“Why Jerome Powell Pivoted On Inflation” (New York Times). “Inflation has been building for months. But it was over 13 days this fall that Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, decided the central bank needed to get more serious about trying to choke it off.”
“The Bank Of England Surprises Investors By Raising Interest Rates” (The Economist). “The Bank of England has sprung its second surprise in as many months. In November it failed to raise interest rates after it had steered markets to expect an increase. On December 16th it did raise rates after all, surprising investors—despite the most obvious change in the economic outlook being a worsening of the pandemic. The bank’s monetary policy-committee voted by a margin of eight to one to raise interest rates from 0.1% to 0.25%. That makes Britain the first big rich economy to experience interest-rate rises since the pandemic struck.”
“Inside Wall Street's Culture War With Gen Z” (Insider). “[M]ost Gen Z analysts and interns ‘are looking to have work-life balance. They're not willing to go through the hazing and the boot-camp type mentality,’ added [Patrick] Curtis, [former investment banker and] the founder of Wall Street Oasis, an online water cooler for the finance industry where insiders trade secrets and commiserate with one another.”
“Beware Prophecies Of Civil War” (The Atlantic). “[F]everish talk of civil war has the paradoxical effect of making the current reality seem, by way of contrast, not so bad. The comforting fiction that the U.S. used to be a glorious and settled democracy prevents any reckoning with the fact that its current crisis is not a terrible departure from the past but rather a product of the unresolved contradictions of its history. The dark fantasy of Armageddon distracts from the more prosaic and obvious necessity to uphold the law and establish political and legal accountability for those who encourage others to defy it.”
