10 Friday Am Reads

My end-of-week morning train WFH reads:

• What We’ve Learned From 150 Years of Stock Market Crashes: Though they varied in length and severity, the market always recovered and went on to new highs. (Morningstar)

• The Mysterious Billionaire Behind the World’s Most Popular Vapes: Geekvape, Lost Mary, Elf Bar and other top disposable brands all trace back to one man in Shenzhen.  (Businessweek)

• Inside UBS’s Quiet Battle With the DOL to Manage Retirement Money: Trillions were at stake as the Department of Labor, which plays a role in protecting U.S. private pension assets, sifted through the bank’s checkered history before giving UBS the green light. (Institutional Investor)

• Why government spending counts in GDP: GDP aims to capture the value of all economic output produced in a given time period within U.S. borders. The formula for that tally, which you may recall from introductory economics, is that GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + net exports. So why is government spending included in that formula? Because otherwise GDP would not fully capture the value of goods and services produced. (Axios)

• The Strategic Crypto Swindle: A bitcoin reserve would be a government-backed grift. (The Atlantic)

• It’s Xi Jinping’s World, and Trump Is Just Living in It: As Donald Trump blows up the rules-based order, China is pulling ahead in the global battle for ideas. (Bloomberg)

• Where Jeff Bezos Went Wrong With The Washington Post: The billionaire handled his ownership admirably for more than a decade. But his courage failed him when he needed it most. (The Atlantic)

• Finally, something is puncturing conspiracy theories: Researchers found an AI bot is pretty good at helping people rethink false beliefs. (Washington Post)

• Trump Has Glossed Over High Prices. Republicans Worry It Will Cost Them. President talks more often about federal workers, diversity programs and foreign policy than price of eggs. (Wall Street Journal) see also Trump doesn’t seem to know why he launched a giant trade war: The president’s reasons for imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico keep changing (and none make sense). (Vox)

• The Wizard of Vinyl Is in Kansas: Chad Kassem is on a mission — saving listeners “from bad sound” — at the rural factory where he pores over LPs from some of music’s most important artists. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Philipp Carlsson, Global Chief Economist for Boston Consulting Group (BCG ). He is the co-author of “Shocks, Crises, and False Alarms: How to Assess True Macroeconomic Risk,” named one of the Financial Times Best Books of 2024.

The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People

Source: Wall Street Journal

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