Facts and Figures
14% — cash and checks as an estimated share of total payments in 2023, down from 42% in 2010. ATMs peaked in 2019 at 470,000 and stood at 451,500 at the end of 2022.
The average American drove 4% fewer miles in 2022 than in 2019. (Source: DoT)
“On Jan. 20, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. had about 117.3 million shares of common stock outstanding; the stock closed that day at $3.35 per share.
“On March 27, it had about 428.1 million shares outstanding, at $0.7881 each.
“On April 10, it had 558.7 million shares outstanding, at $0.2961 each.
April 23, when it filed for bankruptcy, it had 739,056,836 shares outstanding. [1] The stock closed at $0.2935 on [the last trading day before bankruptcy].” Source: Matt Levine at Bloomberg
Books
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History — This is a vivid, sweeping history of the American West that also encapsulates many other key aspects of the era.
Articles
Inside the “Mind” of ChatGPT — It seems obligatory to have some sort of discussion of this topic these days. But this interview from David Epstein’s newsletter, which I highly recommend — and Cal Newport’s related article — come at it from a somewhat different angle.
America’s economic outperformance is a marvel to behold - But the country could still undercut its own success — This article from the Economist shouldn’t be taken too far, but it does have some useful and valid data that often gets lost in the daily noise.
The Silicon Valley Bank Rescue Just Changed Capitalism — This situation is a huge mess and cannot be summarized in one sentence or one article. But I do agree that while the implications and fallout bear almost no resemblance to the GFC, the impacts within the industry will be recognizable decades from now. No one writes better than Roger Lowenstein, and he has spent many years researching the industry, so take his word for it, not mine.
Pessimism Is the One Thing Americans Can Agree On — Phil Tetlock and others with research about the overly pessimistic views of most people. “Everybody they tested—young and old, conservative and liberal, news-addicted or not—showed the same pattern. Everybody thought that most things had gotten worse, even if they had actually gotten better. Pessimism reigned.”
This all-but-forgotten con man sold America on ‘fake it till you make it’ — Some interesting historical context here as the debate about whether and how much “faking it” there is and should be, and whether we’ve reached “the end of faking it in Silicon Valley.”
The impossible job: inside the world of Premier League referees — I thought this was a pretty interesting behind-the-scenes look. The Michael Lewis podcast several years ago on the same topic was also interesting. (Side note: I am willing to argue to the death for the addition of a second referee in the middle. Three referees in basketball for half as many players on a surface 6% as a large; seven referees in an NFL football game on a smaller surface; three in NHL hockey; four in MLB; etc. etc. One referee + two space-constrained assistants + a fourth doing substitutions just isn’t enough, as evidenced by one referee in this article running at an insanely quick 20.2 mph trying to keep up with the play!)
‘The greatest aviation mystery of all time’: what really happened to flight MH370? — I’ve linked to great articles about this story in the past, and I just watched the Netflix documentary about the still-missing aircraft. (I had serious issues with the documentary and do not recommend it.) Either way, it is fascinating and tragic that after all these years the case is still cold…
Courting the Sirens of the Southern Sky — The description and pictures of the mega-telescope projects underway in the Chilean desert are amazing. A related article here.
Love the "Pessimism" article. It is fascinating to me how we as a species tend to assume that things are getting worse when the reality is that they are getting better over time. That it covers all groups is even more intriguing.