Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. Wherever possible, free links for premium sites are used. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at all the things working against lower coffee prices.
Quote of the Day
"The easiest way to spend stimulus checks, from home, was to dump the money into our computers. To many, Covid seemed to reveal that an intrepid country had been taken over by overcautious worry-warts — and that rebellion meant embracing risk."
(David Wallace-Wells)
Chart of the Day
Brookfield is one of the ‘world’s largest and most complex financial conglomerates.’ (chart via YCharts)
Books
- A Q&A with John Green, author of "Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection" (forbes.com)
- An unpublished excerpt from "Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe," by Carl Zimmer. (sequencermag.com)
- An excerpt from Clay Risen’s forthcoming book, "Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America." (theatlantic.com)
- A Q&A with Leslie McCall about income inequality and misperceptions thereof. (behavioralscientist.org)
Public health
- Five years on, what Covid wrought in the U.S. including 'It broke our faith in public health.' (nytimes.com)
- Some of the top vape brands in the U.S. flout regulators. (bloomberg.com)
Economy
- Recessions are temporary, but have permanent impacts. (kyla.substack.com)
- Will economic boycotts ever work in the U.S.? (moneywithkatie.com)
- What we can learn from the first Gilded Age in America. (politico.com)
- With so much uncertainty in the world, it's no wonder people feel the need to hoard cash. (abnormalreturns.com)
Global
- Scam calls are a global problem. (macleans.ca)
- Is China's economy underperforming? (noahpinion.blog)
- Why Israeli intelligence missed signs of October 7th. (wsj.com)
Longreads
- Jet engines are really hard to build. (construction-physics.com)
- Our energy is right beneath us: the case for geothermal. (newyorker.com)
- Some people take the NYTimes Connections puzzle very seriously. (insidehook.com)
- How rappers joined the booze business. (tastecooking.com)
- Do we really want chatbots of the dead? (aeon.co)
- A profile of Tyler Cowen. (economist.com)
