What we’re reading (4/10)
“The Best Explanation Of Biden’s Thinking I’ve Heard” (New York Times). “With the $2 trillion American Jobs Plan, the economic theory that is Bidenomics is taking shape. It’s big. It puts climate at the center of everything. It is more worried about political risks — losing the House, giving Donald Trump a path back to power — than some traditional economic risks, like wasting money and bumping up inflation. It prefers to err on the side of spending more and making sure people know they got a bridge or a job than doing less and having people question whether government is working for them.”
“Coinbase’s Lofty Valuation Might Erode As Crypto Markets Mature” (Wall Street Journal). “Coinbase plans to go public Wednesday through a direct listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The company, which runs the largest U.S. exchange for bitcoin and other digital currencies, could achieve a bigger market capitalization than any of the world’s traditional exchange operators. But it faces a number of threats, including competition in the fast-evolving cryptocurrency industry, that could undermine its stock price in the long run.”
“Earnings Season Is About To Get Underway And That Could Be A Positive Catalyst For Stocks” (CNBC). “‘It isn’t what they report,’ said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group. ‘For the first time, we are going to hear more and more companies now actually making comments about the future. Are they going to upwardly revise some of their outlooks or are they not? That’s what’s really going to be key about it.’”
“The Ponzi Career” (Dror Poleg). “The future of work is a pyramid scheme, where every person sells his favorite person to the next person…[a]s more occupations become scalable, jobs that were previously stable are becoming risky. Telehealth enables superstar doctors to serve customers in markets that were previously inaccessible to them. Connected fitness devices like Peloton allow superstar instructors to serve thousands of customers at a time, making the average instructor in your local gym redundant. The same dynamic applies to many other service and knowledge jobs.”
“Inside Williston, ND, Where Men Work Hard, Make Bank And Get Into Trouble” (New York Post). “In 2008, as the US economy was in shambles and the housing market collapsed, Williston’s oil boom was just beginning, with prices peaking at $145 a barrel. Workers with little or no experience in oil drilling flocked to the state, looking for jobs. The population of Williston tripled between 2008 and 2013, from around 12,000 to a sudden influx of over 30,000 new arrivals. Between July 2012 and July 2013, ‘one new person arrived in Williston every three hours…[e]ight new people each day.’”
