10 Sunday Reads
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• How Brexit, a Startling Act of Economic Self-Harm, Foreshadowed Trump’s Tariffs: Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016 was sold to voters as a magic bullet that would revitalize the country’s economy. Its impact is still reverberating. (New York Times)
• Joe Biden’s Final Days: Did Aides Cover Up His Mental State—or Was It Group Delusion? Revelations from within the Biden bubble—detailed in the new book Uncharted—show how the reelection team persevered despite alarming signs of decline. Asked one top Democratic insider, “How are they letting this f—ing thing go on?”(Vanity Fair) see also The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden: The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters. (New York Magazine)
• The (Ludicrous) Psychology of Slot Machines: Slot Machines are the workhorse of the Las Vegas casinos. After decades of design tweaks, the “crack cocaine of gambling” brings in more revenue than every other casino game combined. (SatPost by Trung Phan)
• The rise of the infinite fringe: It used to be easy to kill a conspiracy theory. But the internet has made them immortal — and politically powerful. (The Verge)
• Tired of Winning: Why Peter Navarro Hates BMW. It turns out that his fixation on BMW’s operations in South Carolina is longstanding — and also quite puzzling given that Plant Spartanburg represents everything the Trump Administration says it wants to achieve: reindustrialization, manufacturing jobs, and exports. (Agglomerations)
• America’s Mad King: The president has grown more impulsive, more vindictive, and more anarchic. (The Atlantic)
• As ‘Bot’ Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond: Community colleges have been dealing with an unprecedented phenomenon: fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds. While it has caused chaos at many colleges, some Southwestern faculty feel their leaders haven’t done enough to curb the crisis. (Voice of San Diego)
• Harvard’s Decision to Resist Trump Is ‘of Momentous Significance’ But a fight with the nation’s oldest, richest and most elite university is a battle that President Trump and his powerful aide, Stephen Miller, want to have. (New York Times)
• The self-inflicted death of American science has already begun: Trump’s crackdown on foreign students and scientists will do irreparable harm to the country. (Vox)
• Jackie Robinson Would Be Appalled: As baseball gets set to celebrate the trailblazer’s legacy, it’s also placating a president who wants to dismantle everything Jackie stood for. (The Ringer)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Martin Escobari of, General Atlantic, where he is Chairman, anbd head of the Global Growth Equity Investment Committee, and Managing Director. Before joining General Atlantic in 2012, Martín was Co-Founder and CFO of Submarino.com, a leading Brazilian online retailer that went public on the Bovespa and was sold to Lojas Americanas in 2006. He was recently appointed to the Harvard Management Company Board.
Attack of the Quack-Industrial Complex
Source: Paul Krugman
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