Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of the favorite things we read over the past week. The links are mostly market related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.
While you’re here, join Bespoke Premium with a 30-day free trial!
Human Resources
The job market is beginning to show cracks by Abha Bhattarai and Lauren Gurley (MSN/WaPo)
As financial markets take a header, spending on high-end goods and services is starting to slow and the result is a weaker job market; layoffs are also being announced across mortgage lenders, auto manufacturers, convenience stores, and more. [Link]
With Few Able and Fewer Willing, U.S. Military Can’t Find Recruits by Dave Philipps (Yahoo!/NYT)
Enlistments have plunged thanks to COVID-19, strong labor markets, and less cultural interest in the military, leading to higher enlistment bonuses and more aggressive recruiting tactics. [Link]
Cost of Living
People Are Losing It Over These $90 Chicken Tenders In Montauk… (Guest of A Guest)
Hamptons life has always been an expensive proposition, but one menu item in a Montauk haunt caught social media attention this week as a particularly egregious bit of price gouging. [Link]
Inflation for Americans at each age (USA Facts)
A fascinating infographic that re-weights CPI to show how inflation impacts people with different ages, since consumer spending patterns vary across the age spectrum. [Link]
America’s favorite family outings are increasingly out of reach by Zachary Crockett (The Hustle)
Widely-accessible leisure activities that used to be par for the course are now completely out of reach for most families: baseball games, movies, and Disneyland trips have all more than doubled in cost. [Link]
Life Science
Blots On A Field? By Charles Piller (Science)
A short seller-funded tear-down of groundbreaking science tying protein plaques to Alzheimer’s disease has turned out to be little more than a mirage and may even rise to the level of fraud. [Link]
New York reports 1st US polio case in nearly a decade by Mike Stobbe (AP)
An unvaccinated person has been paralyzed by the polio virus in New York, with the virus originally coming from a live-virus vaccine that is not available in the United States and must have been transmitted to the patient by someone visiting the US. [Link]
‘Holy grail’ of blood tests could diagnose any type of cancer years in advance (Study Finds)
Many cancers appear to release a protein marker in the early stages of a tumor’s development, when the disease is much easier to treat. [Link]
Politics
A guide to Chile’s constitutions, old and new by Ana Lankes (Medium)
Chile’s constitution has been re-written and will go to a plebiscite later this year. Some history on why the re-write took place and how it looks like it might fare in the approval vote. [Link]
Black Districts Gutted as Suburban Flight Reshapes Congress Maps by Gregory Korte (Bloomberg)
Once a staple of multiracial democracy in the United States, majority-Black Congressional districts have started to disappear in the wake of the Supreme Courts paring-back of the Voting Rights Act. [Link; soft paywall]
Energy
BlackRock Is Buying Renewable Natural Gas Producer for $700 Million by Amrith Ramkumar (WSJ)
While natural gas produced from manure and food waste is still expensive, the market is growing as investors and customers look for gas that is produced from a closed loop rather than extracted from the ground. [Link; paywall]
Sizewell C nuclear plant gets go-ahead from government (BBC)
The UK is moving to expand existing nuclear facilities in Suffolk, with French utility Electricite de France leading the project which will cost tens of billions and see 3.2 GW of electricity supplied with a useful life of 60 years. [Link]
The curious incident of the gas and the turbines by Alexandra Scaggs (FT Alphaville)
A fascinating dive into a financial markets rumor that spread like wildfire and proved to be deeply misleading in terms of actual government policy. [Link; registration required]
Weird News
Final DIY Project: Build Your Own Coffin by James R. Hagerty (WSJ)
It’s one thing to pick your coffin out before you go, but entirely another to build it by hand and have it ready when you kick off this mortal coil. [Link; paywall]
JPMorgan Trader Spoofed So Fast Colleagues Urged Ice on Fingers by Eddie Spence (Bloomberg)
A trader working at Bear Stearns and JPMorgan in the 2000s reportedly spoofed orders so aggressively that colleagues suggest he ice down his hand. [Link; soft paywall]
Media
Media Confidence Ratings at Record Lows by Megan Brenan (Gallup)
Gallup’s tracking of confidence in newspapers and television news has fallen to record lows over the last few years, with only 11% of people reporting “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in television and 16% for newspapers. [Link]
Read Bespoke’s most actionable market research by joining Bespoke Premium today! Get started here.
Have a great weekend!
