| Good afternoon! It's officially September, which means it's time to break out your turtlenecks—check out Drake-inspired recs below—and start sipping pumpkin spice lattes. At least that seems to be the general vibe as soon as we exit August. It feels like the fall rush creeps earlier and earlier each year, often as I'm still blasting the air conditioning. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Even if the temperature isn't quite autumnal yet, the shift in attitude can force us to check in with ourselves—and maybe our checking accounts, too. —Megan Hess |
| | Must Be the Money | | | Cornell economist Robert Frank is alive today because his heart stopped in the right place at the right time. Nine years later, he's still grappling with the concept of luck. And, applied to his field of economics, it's led him into some dangerous territory: Wealth. Frank isn't about to tell the rich "you didn't build that"; rather, he's arguing that all of us—even the rich—would be better off recognizing how luck can lead to success. |
| Here are today's top stories... | | A SpaceX rocket exploded on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral during testing. It was the second time Elon Musk's company lost a spacecraft in a little more than a year. Both the Falcon 9 rocket and Amos-6, an Israeli communications satellite, were destroyed on Thursday in preparation for Saturday's launch. There were no injuries, the company said in a statement. | | The EpiPen drama shows what's wrong with how drugs are priced. None of the events in this controversy—including the original price hikes—makes sense if you think of brand-name pharmaceuticals as normal products with prices set by the forces of supply and demand. It does start to make sense if you picture drug pricing as a multisided, Machiavellian, long-running, high-stakes Game of Thrones involving children with life-threatening allergies who need to bring EpiPens to school this fall. | | Speaking of expensive things: Let's talk about weddings. In the U.S., couples looking to tie the knot pay an average of about $30,000 for things like caterers, flowers, and photographers to capture the day. But why is it that weddings cost more than other large-scale parties? In this week's Benchmark podcast, former White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee explains how concepts from Econ 101 determine why celebrating eternal love costs so much. | | Cards Against Humanity has been a huge win for a small printing company. Over the past five years, Ad Magic, a New Jersey-based printer, has overseen the production of games such as Exploding Kittens and Poop: The Game. The company's revenue has quadrupled since it was hired to produce Cards Against Humanity. Manufacturing to, shall we say, out-of-the-box specifications can be a challenge, but Ad Magic CEO Shari Spiro doesn't mind—as long as the game maker is ready to plan ahead. | | The battle for the future of craft rye is sloppy. Raj Bhakta turned Whistlepig into a premier rye whiskey by selling it as a small-batch American pastoral. Now he wants to make good on the marketing in Vermont. But his partners want him out. | |
| | Hot Neck Bling | | | OK, we might be rushing the weather a bit, but it's never seasonally inappropriate to discuss Drake's fashion choices. In the music video for Hotline Bling, he wears a puffer coat, then a hoodie—and then a $400 turtleneck from Acne Studios. In those four minutes and 55 seconds, Drake brought back the much maligned piece from whatever frozen tundra the fashion gods had marooned it on. | | |
| To Silicon Valley and beyond... | This fall, get Fully Charged. Sign up to receive our forthcoming newsletter featuring insights from Bloomberg's technology reporters around the world. | |
|
If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please safely unsubscribe.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.