As John Lennon forewarned, it is getting harder to be someone, and harder to maintain the economic growth that investors have become accustomed to. The New Normal, like Strawberry Fields will “take you down” and lower your expectation of future asset returns. It may not last “forever” but it will be with us for a long, long time.
Author: Edouard Chazal
Conquering the Capital: The Ruthless Rise of the Nazis in Berlin
On that gray Nov. 7 in 1926, there was no indication that the short 29-year-old man who walked with a limp and had just stepped off of a train at Berlin’s Anhalter Station would shape the destiny of the German capital.
Damien Hirst: Jumping the Shark
Pricing fine art might seem like a preoccupation of the wealthy few, but it’s of interest to economists, who see it as a way to test fundamental questions about value. As Mugrabi points out, the market behaves in unusual ways: Demand for an artist’s work tends to rise as prices do, because the more expensive it becomes, the more status it confers. And while value is usually a function of scarcity, the opposite can be true for artists—some great ones, like Warhol and Picasso, left behind a prolific body of work. The most unpredictable thing about art’s valuation, though, is that it’s entirely in the eye of the beholder.
Why ‘The Daily’ Failed
The Daily had no personality, no focus. It wasn’t tawdry enough to be a New York Post-style tabloid, and wasn’t serious enough to compete with the New York Times.
Comrades-in-Arms
I asked the Smart Jews what they thought and came away having to admit that they were indeed very smart. You can think about this trial in two ways, they said. One way is narrow: it’s about ascertaining the technical nature of a business relationship. The other way is broad: it’s about righting the pathological ways in which a particular society has organized itself.
Abnormal Capitalist 