Scott Galloway

This seems a pretty good retelling of economic lore. The details of the banking and finance industry this past few weeks will take time to come to light. But what happened in 1907 has much better press and the long term ramifications as well.

As read, JP Morgan absolutely had no need for a moral imperative back then. It was simply in his best economic interest to act as a financial backstop. If anything, the imperative is so strong and towards market concentration that maybe a great reason, in itself, for the FDIC to act instead of corporate interest.

Some other great economic reads:

From yesterday:
https://www.profgalloway.com/venture-catastrophists/

https://archive.org/details/greatcrash19290000galb_z1d6

Galbraith is the standard on the Crash of 1929.

Prof G builds on my points here and much further. One stark point between business of yesterday and now in SV is a degree of cutthroat business to the point of shortsightedness. I think that’s at the heart of what Prof G describes as the backlash against SV. They’ve forgotten it’s not always best to go with the absolute cheapest option in any negotiation-and it’s bad long term to author a contract with somebody that leaves the other party too short. It’s bad business because that other party is most probably not acting in their own best interests in that agreement. Or, when moving overseas, the business is leaving the local economy and contributing to the detriment of the very economy that gave rise to it. It’s in the…

I wouldn't give that much worship to Galloway it's not like he is always right or my guess even close to that (and nobody is). For example this post circa 2017 about the bubble. I can't tell you how many people have not called the bubble since the last bubble correctly. Galloway is one of them:

https://www.profgalloway.com/every-seven-years

Market was at 21,600 (very roughly) on the approx. date of that post and now is at close to 27,000. It did not go lower than 22,400 in the interim.

To wit (that post):

> There are several hard metrics for why we may be nearing full-monty bubble, including things my NYU colleagues spend a great deal of time thinking about, and understand much better. But you don't need a Nobel to see the similarities between 1999 and 2017. (Btw, NYU Stern has three active Nobel Prize winners… We. Rule. But that's another post.)

Very generally if you are predicting a collapse ala 1999 you need to be a bit more accurate than that.

I didn't do a great deal of work to find that post either, it was linked in the post you gave.

Edit: Also love his being so proud of the anointed 3 active nobel prize winners. Would like to remind everyone that until recently the game in business was making money or a great product or being loved by your customers not winning academic awards and platitudes.

I don't believe you're wrong. There is strong evidence that there are unrealistic expectations in the current iteration of the dating marketplace. I have no advice other than to be secure in your self, prioritize being the best person you can be for your own wellbeing, and make as much opportunity as reasonable to meet other healthy people open to relationships. Good luck out there. Fortune favors the prepared. The right person might not come along, but if they do, be ready to connect.

High level, what you describe is the Instagram Reality imprinted on relationship expectations. People are chasing a fairy tale, not reality.

https://www.profgalloway.com/a-fewer-good-men/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444819888720

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chia-Chen-Yang/publication/309419236_Instagram_Use_Loneliness_and_Social_Comparison_Orientation_Interact_and_Browse_on_Social_Media_But_Don't_Compare/links/585324b808ae7d33e01ab5c8/Instagram-Use-Loneliness-and-Social-Comparison-Orientation-Interact-and-Browse-on-Social-Media-But-Dont-Compare.pdf

Scott Galloway of NYU called it, and has been increasingly louder about it.

Like he says, it seems like this is the turning point for many middle-tier universities. Once you start viewing colleges as brands and luxury goods, especially the Stanfords and Harvards, it becomes clear there’s a massive revenue shortfall for them.

>This fall, I’m scheduled to teach MKTG-GB.2365 (Brand Strategy) in KMC 2-60 Tuesday nights at 6-9pm. It’s not going to happen. The room would normally be filled with 170 full- and part-time MBAs looking to garner the skills to build economic security for themselves and their families, and improve the world. Mostly the former. However, a room full of 170 NYT subscribers, sitting elbow to elbow, spells one thing — recurrence. So, while Liberty University will likely welcome kids back to campus, I speculate we, and anybody else that does not have their head up their a, will not.
https://www.profgalloway.com/post-corona-higher-ed

The best one, of course, is Bret Devereaux's acoup (https://acoup.blog). It's the only one I follow with any regularity. It's a weekly blog focussing on history and sometimes on its interaction with popular media, like GoT or EU4.

Scott Galloway is also a great read. He writes about the digital economy and tech. (https://www.profgalloway.com/)

I also enjoy reading Martin Tournoij's blog whenever he updates it (https://www.arp242.net/). He's the author of goatcounter and writes about tech and sometimes certain social issues in tech.

Vedica Kant and Anmol Maini write about the Indian startup ecosystem at https://www.kuwi.news/ (it's a substack newsletter). I don't read it all the time but certain pieces are pretty good.

And, finally, to plug my own self, I write about health economics, health policy, and systems thinking at Hawk Radius (https://hawkradius.com)

https://www.profgalloway.com/jumping-the-spac/

Over in reality, the company’s operations burned $34 million in 2020, and they’re projected to burn $133 million in 2021. In the rest of the deck, Aspiration refers to its “EBITDAM profitability this quarter” and then uses EBITDAM throughout its financial analysis. Which is rich for a company whose entire (projected) profit model is dependent on explosive customer acquisition, which (to date) has been really, really expensive.

And I just love comments like this hah

This is a firm that registered less than $15 million in revenue last year. PayPal makes $15 million in revenue every five hours. It’s less than most NFL starting quarterbacks made in 2020 — Leo’s former girlfriend’s husband made over twice that.