A quick note: Your intrepid columnist and social observer will be in transit over the next few weeks, so deliveries of interesting things may become a bit sporadic. (I missed last week, in fact.)
We live in some interesting times right now. So many high velocity changes occurring at once: climate anomalies piling up, economies re-opening, supply chains contracting, financial markets climbing, COVID infections simultaneously increasing and decreasing, all within a globally bifurcated, highly adversarial political/social climate. While I have neither the expertise nor ego to make proclamations about “what this all means,” I am certain that it’s always a good time to learn by seeking a different perspective.
Knowing where and how to look is the trick, of course. So, here are three interesting things that relate to the “new-new” that actually might just be flavors of the “same old,” the need to actively look for what we can’t see, and how questioning favored beliefs can uncover useful insights
1) Generally speaking, extended periods of stock market growth feature at least one new type of investment alchemy/innovation/boobytrap that acts as mascot or villain or scapegoat. For today’s market, that doodad appears to be the Special-Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC)1. Hailed as the next revolution in democratizing markets, or derided as the next ticking financial time bomb,2 SPACs generate large amounts of investment, hype and hand-wringing. Charles Duhigg’s latest New Yorker article combines a deeper analysis of the instrument’s mechanics and potential long-term impact along with a fascinating profile of Entrepreneur/Investor/Hype-man/Gazillionaire Chamath Palihapitiya.
2) Ever since Nicolas Nassim Taleb’s book of the same name, the term “black swan’ has become an all-purpose descriptor for “stuff we didn’t think could happen”. (Taleb offers a more nuanced definition.) And while one can have limitless discussions and argument about the truly unpredictable, analyzing how to better anticipate potential undesired outcomes is the one tangible way to make a difference. This Harvard Business Review piece describes how normal business practices break down3 when faced with “novel risks” and prescribes actively looking for anomalies vs. waiting for stuff to break.
3) Thinking ahead, and about risk in particular, requires a curious dance between accepting certain heuristics and rejecting others…which assumptions do you decide to value vs. interrogate? And how do you know if you’re right? While not related to economic matters, this investigative piece from the BBC questions the accepted wisdom that people lived shorter lives in “ye olden tymes.” Not surprisingly, it’s complicated. But also possible that living well into one’s 70’s was commonplace thousands of years ago, at least for those lucky enough to survive childhood and/or who came from economically privileged backgrounds.4
BONUS LINKS!!!
B1) With travel coming back, it’s time to think of visiting new places again…and here’s a fun piece from Bloomberg that provides architecture histories of six famous cities (starting with Paris)
B2) Fewer COVID restrictions also mean we can finally spend more time “in town,” but in these over-caffeinated, over-hydrated times, managing the output of all that input can be challenging…thanks to the Flush app, now you can find a potty virtually anytime, anywhere
B3) Start your summer off right with some musical cool courtesy of the Jackie Brown soundtrack
Okay, maybe it will end up being Meme Stocks or Non-Fungible Tokens…we will just have to wait and see.
Or, in a nod to Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe a bit of both.
There’s no small amount of irony here. Processes of any kind become more and more efficient by relying on past experience and by removing “least likely” occurrences. Taleb calls that “fragility,” and we are living it right now thanks to COVID supply chain disruptions.
An interesting contention: That decreasing childbirth/childhood mortality and removing everyday health risks like disease, over-work and malnutrition played as large a role as medical innovation in expanding lifespans.