Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Stop, Shop, and Scroll: Behind every influencer is an army of the influenced, many adrift in debt and mass-produced clutter. The platforms need influencers and influencers need audiences — but what the influenced need is not so simple. (The Verge)
• Prediction Markets Are Becoming a National Security Problem: The bets on Maduro’s ouster should be treated like a five-alarm fire. (Slate)
• Under Armour’s Kevin Plank built an empire. Now Rome is burning. The decade brought a stunning collapse. Once a budding rival to Nike, Under Armour’s sales stalled and its stock plummeted. Forbes figures the 53-year-old Plank has lost two-thirds of his net worth. The company fended off allegations of fraud. He stepped aside as CEO. (The Baltimore Banner)
• Peter Navarro, Trump’s Ultimate Yes-Man: The tariff cheerleader established the template of sycophancy for Trump Administration officials. (New Yorker)
• Small-Time Crypto Investors Are Facing Violent Attacks: Rising prices and the irreversible nature of crypto transactions have led to a surge of brutal home invasions and kidnappings. (BusinessWeek free)
• Living in the Lie And How Not To. I find the endless lies and lying often to be the most infuriating and demoralizing part of the present situation. In the wake of this terrible killing in Minneapolis, my first thought, after the initial shock, anger, and sadness, was the knowledge that the next few days, months, weeks, and years would be filled with endless lying about what happened from the regime and its stooges. This filled me, if not quite with despair, then at least with a strong sense of depression. I suppose it has something to do with my vocation as a historian, where I can accept tragedy and even evil as unavoidable parts of the human experience, so long as witness can be borne and the truth eventually discovered. Unpopular Front)
• The Wrath of Stephen Miller: The man who turns President Trump’s most incendiary impulses into policy. (The Atlantic) see also The turbulent trajectory of Trump’s ‘Nazi streak’ acolyte: Paul Ingrassia’s almost Trumpian survival demonstrates how ideological affinity and personal loyalty can outweigh all other considerations in this administration. (Politico)
• Why are malnutrition deaths soaring in America? “We see it across the board. Every state, every education level, every race, every gender.” According to data, malnutrition deaths have jumped in the United States, especially among those 85 and older. Here’s why the numbers suddenly started to rise. (Washington Post)
• DOJ admits it has still not released 99% of Epstein files, violating law: The DOJ said it is still reviewing millions of Epstein files, after previously claiming it completed the review in July. (Popular Information)
• The Oddest Couple in American Literature: Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller’s Marilyn: A Biography sold more copies than anything Mailer ever wrote. He also believed it cost him a Nobel Prize (Airmail)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Ben Hunt, founder of Perscient, a firm that studies how narratives and stories shape markets, investing, and social behavior through the lens of information theory, game theory, and unstructured data analysis. His work analyzes the language, story arcs, and viral spread of explanations in media.
Inflation rates tended to rise in the 2 years after tariff increases and fall in the 2 years after tariff reductions
Source: Jon Hilsenrath, LinkedIn
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Source: 10 Sunday Reads
