Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Levy: I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong: Tech got what it wanted by electing Trump. A year later, it looks more like a suicide pact. (Wired)
• Inside the Jaguar Land Rover hack: Stalled smart factories, outsourced cybersecurity and supply chain woes: Being a carmaker where ‘everything is connected’ has left JLR unable to isolate its plants or functions, forcing a shutdown of most systems. (The Guardian)
• What researchers suspect may be fueling cancer among millennials. (Chemicals and microplastics): For many years, research into the origins of cancer largely centered on two main factors: genetics and specific lifestyle choices such as smoking and heavy alcohol use. But only a small fraction of cancers can be explained by inherited genetic mutations. Today, scientists are scrutinizing the much broader set of environmental exposures people encounter over their lifetime. (Washington Post)
• I’ve Written About Loads of Scams. This One Almost Got Me. The caller ID said “Chase Bank,” and the man on the line said I might be a victim of fraud. His supervisor would explain. (New York Times)
• Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College: ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project. (New York Magazine)
• The Florida Divorcée’s Guide to Murder: Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors inspired a triple murder and led to a major First Amendment case. Still, the book is just one chapter in the bizarre story of its author, “Rex Feral,” a 77-year-old great-grandmother wrestling with decades of guilt and living anonymously—until now. (Vanity Fair)
• How One J6er Has Been Emboldened by His Pardon: Some insurrectionists have reoffended. Others have run for office. Cleveland Grover Meredith, Jr., is campaigning to get reparations—from “the deep state” and his parents. (New Yorker)
• Secret Service traced swatting threats against officials. They found 300 servers capable of crippling New York’s cell system. The wave of false alarms about shootings and violence continued to assail high-level government officials: the federal judge overseeing Trump’s election subversion case, then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state. (CNN)
• As Texas flooded, key staff say FEMA’s leader could not be reached: The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s acting administrator, David Richardson, is often inaccessible, several current and former officials say, raising concerns within the agency. (Washington Post)
• Social Platforms Duck Blame for Inflaming Divisions Before Charlie Kirk’s Death: After authorities said Mr. Kirk’s suspected shooter had been “radicalized” online, Meta, Reddit, TikTok and other platforms have stayed quiet — though not Elon Musk, who owns X. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Dmitry Balyasny, co-founder of Balyasny Asset Management, and the firm’s managing partner and chief investment officer. BAM nmanages $28B for clients. Balyasny began his trading career with Schonfeld Securities in 1994; he just received Institutional Investor’s 2025 Hedge Fund Lifetime Achievement Award.
The global free market sets long rates. History proves you can’t predict long rates from short rate wiggles — at all.
Source: New York Post
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