November 22, 2024 Weekly Recap & Good Reads
Last month in Random Walk+Good Reads, all in one email
Favorite tweet of the week.
Random Walk hasn’t done a recap in over a month, mostly because of Jewish holidays, and then lots of other commitments, so rather than let the link-list pile up, I tried to be brief.
Also, it’s a lot of work, and well, there’s only so much work I can do for free *hint, hint, nudge, nudge.* I mean, good-golly-miss-molly, look at all this high quality, original content. What kind of a lunatic does this kind of thing?
👉👉👉Reminder to sign up for the Weekly Recap only, if daily emails is too much. Find me on twitter, for more fun. Last week month in Random Walk . . .
Here’s what Random Walk published last week MONTH👇
Analysis & Ideas
Macro & Markets
The contrarian economist getting attention from Biden and Trump. “Weaken the dollar by making dollar-denominated assets less attractive, so that the world buys our stuff instead,” reflects an impoverished understanding of “trade,” imo.
Let us pause to appreciate the remarkable US economy. If you wait until the closing remarks to observe the unsustainable source of that strength, then it seems fair to interpret the argument as advocacy, rather than analysis.
Corporate insiders cash-in. Insider sales are way up. There are, of course, lots of reasons to sell, but can you really blame them?
PE/VC
PE changing loan terms to make it easier to exit. Some industry hacks to make liquidity easier to come by (for some people).
Apollo’s CEO sees private and public markets converging. Sounds a lot like Apollo’s Moonshot, but not quite as good.
Where does KKR’s private credit business go from here? More on the shift from publics to privates.
VCs have doubled-down on the winners, but the prices are getting too high. It’s hard to do follow-ons, when what’s needed are big down rounds (and no one likes those).
Is it “so over”? Thoughtful interview on the very tough sledding that emerging VCs are facing, trying to raise new funds.
Real Estate & Migration
Battle of the borders, a rap battle. Already wrote about it, but it’s so good, I’ll link to it twice.
Home builders slash prices and rates to clear inventory. Headline is a bit click-baity, but the point stands. If you’re in the housing-as-commodity business, then you price-to-market, and the market cannot pay what existing homeowners want their houses to be worth.
PGIM launches $500M JV to buy multifamily loans. Your distress, is my opportunity.
Lost rents due to office vacancy continue to pile up. The office apocalypse isn’t over yet.
Chicago Fed quietly publishes some wrong think on housing. Home values and rents declined substantially in neighborhoods that experienced “block busting” (relative to those that did not). Once again, simplistic ‘one-trick’ theories of home values will forever tilt at windmills.
Home suburban sprawl and discount retail have changed the outlet mall. The second-order effects of donut-effects.
John Burns reflecting on his 30+ years in the industry. Thoughtful thoughts from a vet who has seen a lot.
Luxury homeowners are overpricing their homes. Auctions show just how much. Self-explanatory.
Healthcare
My father’s story shows Harris’s home health care plan is no easy fix. Nicely told anecdata reflecting the fundamental challenges with the unit economics of eldercare. No one can afford the care that we’re required to provide.
Nursing shortage. A riff on an old Random Walk observation: a nursing shortage driven by a shortage of nurses to train more nurses. We need healthcare YIMBYism.
Tech
TSMC’s Arizona factory better at chipmaking than Taiwan? Promising early returns on the national chipbuilding experiment.
Energy
Datacenter anatomy, Part I: Electrical Systems. Thorough deep-dive on data centers.
Investors turn to data centers to capitalize on AI boom. Things we already knew.
Parsing Dominion Energy’s place in the PJM Grid. Data-driven look at the energy at the heart of the data center capital of the country.
AI
Google backs new nuclear plants to power AI. Hooray.
But see Rare bees stop Meta’s nuclear ambitions and US power stocks slump after regulator rejects anything good and useful. Regulators are bad, put it on repeat.
Labor
Workers for Robots. Making the case that automation is pro-worker.
Gen Z turning to the skilled trades. Smart.
Consumer
EVs selling for a bargain. As expected. There’s probably some negative-equity building up, that’s precipitating the auto-loan defaults, but the marks are too high.
Regulators
Occupational licensing roundup. Supply-side is where all the low-hanging fruit lies.
CFPB fines Goldman Sachs for failing to prioritize and perfect mandated bug-handling procedures as part of Apple Card rollout. Perfect illustration of the misbegotten priorities of regulators, and how they harm consumers. Regulators optimize for their rules, not consumer benefits or harms. The idea that anyone ought to build out fully-mature complaint-handling apparatus for a product, before discovering whether the product has any legs at all, is putting the cart miles before the horse.
People & Culture
Erring on the side of curiosity. Nice essay on Ryan Hoover, and Random Walk friend, and kindred spirit. Curiosity is good.
Technological stagnation is a choice. Against a culture of risk-aversion, and downside-maxxing.
Interview with Dave McCormick. New senator sounds like a swell guy. Max does good interviews.
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