The Digest #221
Bezos on Media Bias, Marks on Asset Allocation, Moral Hazard, Meta's AI Prospects, Vision Pro: Success or Failure?, Berkshire in the 1960s, Whole Foods, Black Diamond, Merck, Wormholes, and more ...
Jeff Bezos on Media Bias
“Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”
Readers of Jeff Bezos’ brilliant letters to Amazon shareholders will doubt the notion that he only recently became aware of the bias that has infected The Washington Post for many years. But his diagnosis is accurate. If he is serious about charting a new course, this would represent a healthy development for American journalism.
There are many examples of media bias but the coverup of President Biden’s decline is the most obvious. The media finally began to do its job after President Biden’s debate performance left no room for doubt regarding his mental state. This followed months of complicity with the Democratic Party to downplay the President’s impairment, a topic that I addressed in late July. I would like to think that the media focused on this story after the debate out of a sense of civic duty, but this is doubtful. Instead, the goal was to change nominees once it was clear that the President was on a path to defeat.
Since Kamala Harris was named as the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee, not by primary voters but by party bosses, the media has fallen into line. Stories about President Biden’s decline have nearly vanished despite the fact that he is still serving as President. A greater indictment is that Vice President Harris has not been pressed regarding when she realized that President Biden’s cognitive abilities were failing.
What did the Vice President know and when did she know it?
If President Biden had withdrawn from the race earlier in the year, primary voters could have selected the party’s nominee. Was Vice President Harris reluctant to compete in an open primary, knowing that she would likely be named the nominee by party bosses if the issue was deferred until the summer? These are fair questions to ask, especially by a newspaper declaring that “democracy dies in darkness.”
If Donald Trump is elected to a second term, there is no doubt that the media will hold him accountable on a daily basis. The same cannot be said if Kamala Harris wins the election. A well-functioning and unbiased news media is critical for the long term health of any democratic society, especially one with a severe trust deficit.
If Mr. Bezos is serious about restoring credibility, he should insist on unbiased coverage in the Post’s newsroom regardless of who wins the election next week.
Articles
Ruminating on Asset Allocation by Howard Marks, October 22, 2024. “My recommendation at this time is that investors do the research required to increase their allocation to credit, establish a ‘program’ for doing so, and take a partial step to implement it. While today’s potential returns are attractive in the absolute, higher returns were available on credit a year or two ago, and we could see them again if markets come to be less ruled by optimism. I believe there will be such a time.” (Oaktree Capital)
A Small Bank’s Failure Leaves Big Depositors Feeling the Pain by Jonathan Weil, October 22, 2024. After the FDIC provided unlimited deposit insurance for the failures of Signature and Silicon Valley Banks in early 2022, observers questioned whether this policy will apply universally. Apparently not, at least not for small, less politically connected institutions. The risk of moral hazard is obvious. (WSJ)
Barney Frank’s Signature Bank Compensation, March 13, 2023. “If current politicians and regulators see former politicians and regulators rewarded in this manner, they will get a clear message from the private sector: ‘Let’s be friends while you are in public service and we will take care of you once you retire.’” (The Rational Walk)
Meta’s AI Abundance by Ben Thompson, October 29, 2024. The future is bright for Meta according to a longtime industry analyst. Unfortunately, Meta is uninvestable for me at any price due to the company’s record of willful disregard for the impact of their products on young people. Mark Zuckerberg has never adequately answered for the damage his company has knowingly done to a generation of children. (Stratechery)
Meta, October 28, 2024. 6 hours, 22 minutes. I have not listened to this marathon podcast, but Acquired generally does a great job with long form discussions and I’m including it here for readers who might be interested. (Acquired)
TikTok and Instagram are intellectual poison by
, October 2, 2024. “Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are engines of distraction and cultural rot. They stand in front of the more difficult but more rewarding aspects of life: deep work, intimate connections with friends and loved ones, focused attention for hobbies with intrinsic rewards. By training users to crave constant novelty and the immediate approval of anonymous audiences, these platforms slowly destroy our humanity one scroll at a time.” (Hot Takes)Vision Pro Bites Dog by John Gruber, October 25, 2024. Apple is likely to halt production of the current version of its Vision Pro headset by the end of the year, but does this mean that the product launch was a failure? The question is whether the product has underperformed Apple’s expectations. This article argues that Vision Pro has performed in line with company and industry expectations. (Daring Fireball)
, October 27, 2024. A longtime skeptic of Silicon Valley’s recent innovations believes that industry’s heavy investment in virtual reality is likely to be a massive failure. I agree that much of what has taken place recently has dystopian qualities, but I’m not as certain as the author regarding the long-term failure of these investments. Form factors will eventually become smaller, less “nerdy,” and more transparent for mainstream users. (The Honest Broker)Becoming Berkshire: The Go-Go Years of the 60s by
, October 26, 2024. Included in this article is one of my favorite Warren Buffett stories of all time: “When we were due to close the purchase [of National Indemnity] at Charlie [Heider]’s office, Jack [Ringwalt] was late. Finally arriving, he explained that he had been driving around looking for a parking meter with some unexpired time. That was a magic moment for me. I knew then that Jack was going to be my kind of manager.” (Becoming Berkshire)If someone responds to this joke by questioning whether Ringwalt was making an irrational economic choice since his time was surely worth more than a few cents per hour, you are probably dealing with a humorless person who is best avoided!
Alice Schroeder Talks Buffett, Berkshire, and The Snowball by
, October 28, 2024. This is a transcript of a talk given by Alice Schroeder in 2008 shortly after the release of Snowball, her biography of Warren Buffett who cooperated fully with the book project. In later years, this relationship frayed and I do not recall any recent commentary about Berkshire from Alice Schroeder. This is unfortunate since few analysts have a better understanding of the company. (Kingswell)Problems at The Wall Street Journal by
, October 24, 2024. This article contains disturbing allegations of communications between a Wall Street Journal reporter and a short seller prior to publication of market moving information. In my opinion, the WSJ operates with far more integrity than other mainstream media publications. I hope this incident is an isolated case. (The Bear Cave)The Crazy Election of 1800, January 19, 2021. “The election of 1800 was absolutely wild — it had everything from slanderous personal attacks, anonymously written screeds in newspapers, claims that Adams was a monarchist, counterclaims that Jefferson was a radical who favored the lawlessness of the French Revolution — and the outcome was eventually decided by the House of Representatives in a contingent election that required 36 rounds of voting before Jefferson was declared the President-elect.” (The Rational Walk)
Podcasts
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, October 29, 2024. 2 hours, 12 minutes. This is a great interview of a founder who built a premium brand in a highly competitive industry. “John Mackey takes us from the inception of SaferWay—the precursor to Whole Foods—to building one of the most successful natural food empires in the United States. He shares how a life-altering experience shifted his consciousness about food and health, leading him to pioneer the organic food movement.” (The Knowledge Project)
Black Diamond Equipment: Peter Metcalf, October 28, 2024. 59 minutes. I am a big fan of Black Diamond’s products for backpacking. The Black Diamond Sprinter Headlamp is also essential safety equipment for my runs in darkness during the fall and winter months. Peter Metcalf’s story is inspiring, both in terms of his business success and how he’s still an active adventurer at the age of seventy. (How I Built This)
Merck & Co: Blockbuster Drugs, October 30, 2024. 1 hour, 8 minutes. I once thought that pharmaceutical companies were within my “circle of competence” before being told otherwise by Mr. Market. Like a cat who jumped on a hot stove, I’ve avoided the sector for decades. I found this discussion fascinating, although it reinforced the fact that I have no business investing in companies like Merck. (Business Breakdowns)
Wormholes, October 24, 2024. 1 hour. “The idea [of wormholes] emerged in the context of Einstein's theories and the challenge has been not so much to prove their unlikely existence as to show why they ought to be impossible. The universe would have to folded back on itself in places, and there would have to be something to make the wormholes and then to keep them open. But is there anywhere in the vast universe like that?” (In Our Time)
The Conquest of Constantinople, 40 minutes. “On May 29, 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople, bringing an end to over a thousand years of Byzantine rule. The city's formidable walls, which had stood nearly impenetrable for eight centuries, finally fell to his forces. With its conquest, Constantinople was declared the new capital of the Ottoman Empire.” (History Unplugged)
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