my midweek morning train WFH wrote:

• People refuse to put their lives on hold; this is bullish“In better health, households are shopping less online and spending more at restaurants and bars, while gas station sales soar on higher gas station prices.” Considering all the bad news that seems to have been there message, this behavior seems counterintuitive. Shouldn’t people stay home and be upset about all the wrongs in the world? (traditional knowledge) see also When Optimists Are Too Pessimistic This is why even optimists can be too pessimistic. Because we are using linear thinking to imagine a geometric future. It just doesn’t work. (dollars and figures)

• Michael Butnick: Ritholtz’s most innovative strategy For every dollar I invest in cryptocurrencies, I want to be an index. When something has the potential to go up that much, I don’t think you need to pick a winner. I don’t want negative alpha, I want wide exposure. So it’s been a blessing to work with Jeremy Schwartz and his team at WisdomTree because they have the expertise. The index covers 67% of the cryptocurrency world, so it won’t be a beta of 1, like Bitcoin. Its beta will be over 1 because there are some smaller coins in the index. (ETF trends)

• Bored Ape’s New ApeCoin Showcases NFT’s Power Problem The ApeCoin launch story also highlights a trouble spot on the crypto front, where VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz often end up being the biggest beneficiaries (Bloomberg)

• Fusion companies are selling the sun, VCs are buying Fusion power may be decades away, and its funders — and the climate crisis — demand a faster return. (grid)

• Toronto, a quiet and booming tech city As exciting as places like Austin and Miami are, the biggest tech expansion takes place in Canada’s largest city. (New York Times) but see New York City’s economy still hasn’t caught up: Although the country has largely recovered, employment in the country’s largest cities is still far worse than it was before the pandemic. (Bloomberg)

• What if working in sweatpants unleashed your superpowers? Forget black pants. Knicks blazer. At home, we wear what we want – and research shows that our work is beneficial. (Wall Street Journal)

• How ‘Shock Therapy’ Created Russian Oligarchs and Paved the Way for PutinIt’s a symbiotic relationship, where the economic power of the oligarch underpins the political power of the Russian president, and the president’s power underpins the economic power of the oligarch – like a medieval king who received tribute from a nobleman in exchange for his protection. This is an arrangement the West is now trying to disrupt. (NPR)

• Xi’s support for Putin against the US risks leaving China isolated Putin’s defeat would undermine Xi’s foreign policy strategy Chinese strategists see Russia as the linchpin of the broader U.S. battle. (Bloomberg)

• Alexa for Animals: Artificial intelligence is teaching us how creatures communicate New artificial intelligence allows scientists to better understand the sounds of the animal world, from the song of a whale to the squeak of a mouse. (Wall Street Journal)

• How the next pandemic surge will be different: Same: The Brutal Math of Exponential Growth. Different: Our pandemic fatigue is worse than ever. (sound) see also The fifth wave of Covid shows us how to live with the virus: Not all countries are equally affected by the BA.2 subvariable. This tells us a lot about what works and what doesn’t. (Bloomberg)

Be sure to check out our Master of Business interview This weekend with Darren Palmer, general manager of battery electric vehicles at Ford. He oversaw the development and launch of the Ford Mustang Mach E, F150 Lightning and E-Transit vans. The 30-year-old Ford veteran is part of their Edison Skunk team, which oversees Ford’s $50B transition to electrification and will push for a split into two companies, EV and Legacy.

Stablecoins: Growth Potential and Implications for Banking

resource: US Federal Reserve

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