What We’re Reading
Not giving a damn about current income is the secret formula that sets you free from all terrestrial bounds of physics and logic. The way you pull it off is by executing on growth at any cost (GAAC?). Profits can come later once the market share battle is already won. Shareholders are willing to wait. And why wouldn’t they be patient. None of the money is costing anyone anything.
Jobs website ZipRecruiter says the share of postings that mention a four-day week has tripled in the past three years, to 62 per 10,000.
Japan, France and Belgium are among the nations reporting unusually abrupt drops in births nine months after the pandemic began, compared with a year earlier. In France, the number of births in January was down 13.5% compared with a year earlier, a much steeper drop than the 1.7% monthly decline recorded on average during the first 10 months of 2020.
Births in Italy plunged 21.6% in December from the previous year, according to first estimates by Italy’s statistical agency based on data from 15 major cities. That is a far bigger drop than during the first 10 months of 2020, when births declined 3.3% on average. Overall in 2020, nearly twice as many people died in Italy than were born there.
In a stark sign of the economic inequality that has marked the pandemic recession and recovery, Americans as a whole are now earning the same amount in wages and salaries that they did before the virus struck — even with nearly 9 million fewer people working.
“People used to say that hedge funds are a compensation scheme masquerading as an asset class,” William A. Ackman, the famed hedge fund manager, told me. “You could say the same about SPACs.”
Mr. Ackman himself has a SPAC — in fact, the largest raised thus far. What makes his vehicle different, aside from its $4 billion size, is a unique arrangement that makes it tougher for him to score a big payday unless the subsequent merger is successful.
“Every friend is launching a SPAC,” Mr. Ackman said. “It’s like everyone who had an internet company in 2000. It’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I got one, too.’”
Have a good weekend, stay safe.