How the parting of two market forces helped spur the equity rally: by Michael Mauboussin. “In 2020, companies with real options had a valuation boost for their current operations because of a fall in the cost of capital and a gain in their real options because of an increase in volatility…This might help explain some of the large stock price movements in the past year, particularly in the tech sector.”
Politico on the rise of email lists: “Renting, swapping and selling campaign email lists to new candidates and causes is a booming political business, but it comes with risks.”
The Future Will Be Decentralized: by Tyler Cown. “Why not, for example, put social media on blockchains and have efficient cryptocurrency micropayments to reward those who help maintain such mechanisms? Censoring postings on such a service would be as difficult as trying to overwrite a blockchain ledger, which is to say very difficult. (Indeed such postings would be a blockchain ledger, albeit in a more digestible form.) And instead of having to deal with the content rules of Twitter or WhatsApp, perhaps you could customize and build your own rules.”