What we’re reading (8/22)
“Citadel To Redeem About $500 Million From Melvin Capital” (Wall Street Journal). “Ken Griffin’s Citadel LLC and Citadel partners are planning to redeem roughly $500 million of the $2 billion they put in Melvin Capital Management after Melvin got slammed by bad short bets on GameStop Corp. and other soaring stocks, said people familiar with the matter.”
“Check, Please? How New York’s Restaurants Suddenly Got So Expensive — And Why That’s Probably For The Best.” (GrubStreet). “The food-service research firm Technomic pegs typical annual menu inflation at around 2.5 percent, accounting for natural fluctuations in costs of goods and labor. But according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices at full-service restaurants have risen 4.3 percent in the past year, the largest 12-month increase ever recorded. So, what’s really going on? Well, restaurants are enmeshed within a vast and highly sophisticated ecosystem of supply and demand, which is being tested by a perfectly terrible storm of events.”
“A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out To Be Based On Fake Data” (Buzz Feed). “A landmark study that endorsed a simple way to curb cheating is going to be retracted nearly a decade later after a group of scientists found that it relied on faked data. According to the 2012 paper, when people signed an honesty declaration at the beginning of a form, rather than the end, they were less likely to lie. A seemingly cheap and effective method to fight fraud[.] […] [yet] [y]ears later, he [Ariely] and his coauthors found that follow-up experiments did not show the same reduction in dishonest behavior…[and] more recently, a group of outside sleuths scrutinized the original paper’s underlying data and stumbled upon a bigger problem: One of its main experiments was faked “beyond any shadow of a doubt,” three academics wrote in a post on their blog, Data Colada, on Tuesday.”
“Bad News: The Selling The Story Of Disinformation” (Harper’s). “A common account of social media’s persuasive effects provides a convenient explanation for how so many people thought so wrongly at more or less the same time. More than that, it creates a world of persuasion that is legible and useful to capital—to advertisers, political consultants, media companies, and of course, to the tech platforms themselves. It is a model of cause and effect in which the information circulated by a few corporations has the total power to justify the beliefs and behaviors of the demos. In a way, this world is a kind of comfort. Easy to explain, easy to tweak, and easy to sell, it is a worthy successor to the unified vision of American life produced by twentieth-century television. It is not, as Mark Zuckerberg said, “a crazy idea.” Especially if we all believe it.”
“The Economics Of Taliban Finance” (FT via Marginal Revolution). “An example of Islamist governance can be found on the stretch of road from Kabul to the Mile 78 border crossing in south-west Farah province that borders Iran. The road has more than 25 government checkpoints and a fee is charged at multiple points on the journey. By contrast, the Taliban who police the same road have far fewer checkpoints and give a receipt, so only a single payment is necessary. Ibraheem Bahiss, an Afghanistan consultant at International Crisis Group, said the Taliban sought to portray themselves as better administrators.”
