Bitcoins, Books and Extinction Events

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- My Tuesday morning train reads:

• Why Digital Currency Won’t Save Us (New Economic Thinking); see also Gold Falls to 18-Month Low as Dollar Strengthens (Wall Street Journal)
• The U.S. Becomes an Oil Economy (Bloomberg View)
• Three theories on why MoviePass failed (Washington Post); see also How movie theaters are surviving big tech (Axios)
• You probably have no idea just how much water is needed to produce electricity (Quartz) 
• In U.S., wage growth is being wiped out entirely by inflation (Washington Post); see also Goldman: “Price pressures seem to be everywhere except the inflation statistics” (Calculated Risk)
• Hacking The Electric Grid Is Damned Hard (FiveThirtyEight)
• Enrolling Americans in Medicaid Is Now Cheaper Than Subsidizing Their Obamacare Coverage (Slate); see also Large Hidden Costs of Medicare’s Prescription Drug Program (Upshot)
• Why ‘Never Trump’ Godfather Rick Wilson Started Carrying a Gun in Public (Observer)
• Big Tech’s new idea: read some books (Financial Times); see also The Way You Read Books Says A Lot About Your Intelligence, Here’s Why (Medium)
• The Re-Origin of Species: bringing extinct animals back to life (The Guardian)

The Cost of the Financial Crisis

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Barry Ritholtz is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He founded Ritholtz Wealth Management and was chief executive and director of equity research at FusionIQ, a quantitative research firm. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

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