What we’re reading (12/7)
“The Great Labor Market Shakeup” (Brad DeLong, Project Syndicate). “What is going on in the US labor market? In normal times, the current figures would suggest that America is dealing with a great shortage of jobs. And yet, workers’ outsized willingness to quit their jobs and look for something better indicates that these are not normal times.”
“BuzzFeed’s A Public Company. Now what?” (Vox). “It’s not nearly as sexy a story as it was six or seven years ago, when BuzzFeed’s existence — along with other publishers like the Huffington Post and my employer, Vox Media — worried the New York Times enough that the paper created a what-do-we-do-now internal report dedicated to fending off the insurgents…A more concrete way of putting it: As of last week, BuzzFeed was valued at $1.5 billion — less than the $1.7 billion investors thought it was worth back in 2016, even though it has since acquired both HuffPost and Complex, both big publishers in their own right.”
“AB InBev Chief Dismisses Notion Beer Is Losing Ground To Spirits” (Financial Times). “‘Beer is big, beer is profitable and beer is growing,’ said Michel Doukeris, who this year took charge of the group behind Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona. ‘For too long there [have been] people saying the opposite without showing the data.’”
“The CIA Is Deep Into Cryptocurrency, Director Reveals” (Vice). “There's a long-running conspiracy theory among a small number of cryptocurrency enthusiasts that Bitcoin's anonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, was actually the CIA or another three-lettered agency. That fringe theory is having a fresh day in the sun after CIA Director William Burns said on Monday that the intelligence agency has ‘a number of different projects focused on cryptocurrency’ on the go.”
“CNN And Chris Cuomo Are On The Brink Of All-Out War” (Vanity Fair). “Both sides are lawyering up and issuing dueling statements, as the former host’s past comes under renewed scrutiny. CNN also needs to fill a gaping prime-time hole (don’t count on Jake Tapper), and one talent agent suggests a path for Cuomo: ‘He could start a YouTube channel like Megyn Kelly.’”
