What we’re reading (3/13)
“My Conversation With The Excellent Sam Bankman-Fried” (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution). “let’s talk about Dogecoin for a second, which I think is the purest of a type of coin, of the meme coin. I think the whole thing with Dogecoin is that it does away with that pretense. There is no sense in which any reasonable person could look at Dogecoin and be like, ‘Yes, discounted cash flow.’ I think that there’s something bizarre and wacky and dangerous, but also powerful about that, about getting rid of the pretense.”
“How The Pandemic Broke Silicon Valley’s Stranglehold On Tech Jobs” (Wall Street Journal). “In a feedback loop that could transform the economic geography of the U.S., millions of Americans are moving, and companies are following them—tech companies in particular. In turn, this migration of companies and investment is attracting more workers to places that in the past usually lost talent wars. This is a reversal of a decadelong trend in the opposite direction.”
“Morgan Stanley Trader Exits After Racking Up Millions In Losses” (Bloomberg). “[The trader], who traded dividends in the New York-based bank’s equities division, will be departing after transactions he oversaw went awry, according to people with knowledge of the matter…[t]rading dividends is a niche of Wall Street financial engineering that lets investors bet on the dividend flows from a basket of shares or even single companies. Market uncertainty in recent weeks has hit dividend books across the street, opening up those trading desks to unexpected losses, one person said.”
“Welcome To Londongrad, Where Kleptocrats Wash Their Money Clean” (New York Times). “For years, Russian wealth has poured into Britain with few questions asked, helping to finance political campaigns and buoying the luxury property market. Russian oligarchs have been so happy to avail themselves of Britain’s laissez-faire regulatory climate to park their wealth and launder dirty money that the nation’s capital has earned the moniker Londongrad.”
“Here’s What The ‘Most Favored Nation’ Status Means — And Why Russia Still Has It” (CNN Business). “As a member of the World Trade Organization, Russia is treated as a most favored nation, which gives it equal access to all of the WTO members' markets and guarantees equal tariffs. In short, the label is like a rubber stamp for permanent normal trade relations. Should Congress vote to approve its removal, normal trade with Russia will effectively end, paving the way for higher tariffs.”
