10 Presidents’ Day Reads – The Big Picture

My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:

• Super Bowling for cash with the NFL’s club of billionaires: Spending for last week’s Super Bowl came in around $15 billion; yearly league revenues are approaching $20 billion. League profits are likely to keep growing given the popularity of this sometimes brutal and increasingly lucrative sport. (NY Post)

• “This Is Not an Invasion of the Aliens”: How UFO Mania Went Mainstream: Mysterious aerial phenomena have been generating serious news coverage for the past few years. With unknown objects now being shot down from the skies, the latest headlines are out of this world. (Vanity Fair) but see also Alien Invasion!!! More important than UFOs¹ is the intriguing process by which humans sift through a morass of conflicting information. I believe proficiency in this ability is an important life skill and is especially important to investors. (TBP)

• Election deniers face a nationwide wave of pushback: The growing effort by election officials and others is intended to counter mistrust arising from Donald Trump’s claims of a rigged 2020 vote. (Washington Post)

• Why So Many States Want to Ban China From Owning Farmland: National Agricultural Law Center datafound 9 states have new bills aimed at expanding the existing laws to limit or prohibit foreign ownership of agricultural land, a designation that can include cropland, livestock pastures and timberland. An additional 15 states withare considering new bills on the matter, many designed to prevent foreign governments, companies and, in some cases, nonresident citizens of other countries from owning agricultural land. (FiveThirtyEight)

• The Road to Disinflation: Inflation is Coming Down, but the Journey Now Looks More Bumpy. (Apricitas Economics)

• We Will Never Fully Understand How AI Works — But That Shouldn’t Stop You From Using It: To unlock the true potential of artificial intelligence, investors need to accept the black box. (Institutional Investor)

• The World’s Plastic Use Is Getting Worse. Cheap New Plastic Is Choking the World. ‘It’s a Recipe for Disaster.’ A glut of so-called virgin plastic is pushing down prices and fueling demand as recycling fails to advance. (Barron’s) see also Fighting climate change: These 5 technologies are our best weapons: Our ever-expanding use of technology is helping to push carbon emissions upwards, but it could be used to bring them down too. Here’s how. (ZD Net)

• “Nothing” doesn’t exist. Instead, there is “quantum foam” When you combine the Uncertainty Principle with Einstein’s famous equation, you get a mind-blowing result: Particles can come from nothing. (Big Think)

• Kawhi Leonard Is Back—and the NBA Should Be Petrified: One of the most devastating two-way forces in NBA history is looking like his old self once again. That could spell trouble for the rest of the league. (The Ringer)

• Keanu Will Never Surrender to the Machines The Matrix movies brought Reeves and Chad Stahelski together. Now the duo is killing it on their fourth John Wick—and still keeping technology in check. (Wired)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Tim Buckley, CEO of the Vanguard Group, which manages $7.2 trillion in assets. He began his career at Vanguard 32 years ago as an assistant to Founder/Chairman John Bogle. He previously served roles as Chief Information Officer, as well as Chief Investment Officer.

Which billionaires lost the most in 2022?

Source: Google Docs

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