Thursdays are now all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the revival of walking in pandemic.
Quote of the Day
"Money is perhaps humanity’s greatest invention, the tool we created that ultimately became our governor. It forever changed human nature in every way possible. It forever changed the nature of work, the alignment of incentives, the identity of the individual, and the inner workings of every community out there."
(Lawrence Yeo)
Book excerpts
- You are showering too much: an excerpt from James Hamblin's "Clean: The New Science of Skin." (theatlantic.com)
- An excerpt from Maria Konnikova's new book “The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win.“ (vanityfair.com)
- A Q&A with Melissa Mazmanian co-author of "Dreams of the Overworked: Living, Working and Parenting in the Digital Age." (theatlantic.com)
Pandemic
- Ferris Jabr, "Other animals’ diseases have not so much leapt onto us as flowed into us through channels we supplied." (nytimes.com)
- We need to prepare for pandemics like we do any other natural disaster. (wired.com)
- The US had a loneliness problem even before the pandemic hit. (rollingstone.com)
- In a change, America is now a figure of pity by other countries. (theatlantic.com)
History
- Speculation ends badly: a history of the 1920s land boom in Florida. (awealthofcommonsense.com)
- The history of the Civil War is largely about the battles and less about the operation of the CSA. (theatlantic.com)
Business
- Apollo Global ($APO) is aggressively putting cash to work in anticipation of a return to normal, post-pandemic. (institutionalinvestor.com)
- Purdue Pharma is the poster child for the American opioid epidemic. However Insys was right there with them pushing Subsys. (ft.com)
- Corporate management today makes and create the rules for their own protection, not shareholders. (epsilontheory.com)
- Lessons learned from quitting your job at the onset of the pandemic to start a new venture. (theprofile.substack.com)
Longreads
- What does money mean if physical cash goes away? (ftalphaville.ft.com)
- The image England puts forth to the world is very different than reality. (longreads.com)
- How Carrie Lam has failed Hong Kong in order to appease China. (theatlantic.com)
- Dean Kamen is now focused on being able to mass produce lab-grown organs for humans. (onezero.medium.com)
- A compendium of knowledge from the collected work of Jim O'Shaughnessy. (letter.substack.com)
- Why we are living in the golden age of conspiracy theories. (politico.com)
