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 whether we are downplaying the risks of endemic Covid-19.
Quote of the Day
"The first half of the twentieth century was about mastering the physical world, the first half of the twenty-first has been about escaping it."
(Derek Thompson)
Books
- An excerpt from "Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America" by Michael Glass. (theatlantic.com)
- Insights from Johan Norberg's new book "Peak Human: What We Can Learn From History’s Greatest Civilizations." (advisorperspectives.com)
- A Q&A with Emily Falk, neuroscientist and author of "What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change." (annieduke.substack.com)
- A Q&A with Alex O. Imas, co-author of "The Winner's Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now." (behavioralscientist.org)
- An excerpt from Edward J. Larson’s new book, "Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters." (theatlantic.com)
- An excerpt from Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming book, "The Greatest Sentence Ever Written." (theatlantic.com)
Industry
- What's ailing German industry? (ft.com)
- American companies are still moving away from China. (nytimes.com)
- How Dyson became a power in the beauty industry. (bloomberg.com)
- Want a six-figure job? Cargo ships are calling. (nytimes.com)
Global
- With a certain amount of global warming now baked in, more people are looking to adaptation and mitigation. (ft.com)
- The Louvre is one of many French museums hit over the past few years. (wsj.com)
- A look inside Finland's vast series of underground bomb shelters. (nytimes.com)
- Why a dying South Korean town embraced youth baseball. (bloomberg.com)
- Why global fertility is in free fall. (lrb.co.uk)
Policy
- The shutdown of USAID has led to the death of thousands of people. (newyorker.com)
- The horror stories from the men deported to El Salvador's CECOT prison. (nytimes.com)
- An investigation into who is on the boats the Trump administration is destroying. (apnews.com)
Longreads
- Why a new transmission line in Nevada is controversial. (on.ft.com)
- How rising home insurance rates are affecting communities. (npr.org)
- 16 minutes of consensus personal finance wisdom. (abnormalreturns.com)
- The how (and why) of quitting social media. (gelliottmorris.com)
- The math of ocean waves is (very) complicated. (wired.com)
- What it's like to be a private chef for the 0.1%. (thetimes.com)
- What it takes to re-tool an old musical for Broadway success. (bloomberg.com)
- What sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald 50 years ago? (smithsonianmag.com)
- Why people don't return shopping carts. (behavioralscientist.org)
