Brigadoon Daily | Global Street Smarts

Your daily dose of the emerging issues + independent thinkers shaping commerce + culture

January 18, 2022


Happy Birthday KER!

TOP FIVE

1. ‘Trenches. The cold. That’s our reality’

2. Intel “mega-fab” coming to Ohio

3. Our obsession with morning routines

4. How Beatlemania holds us back

5. Dakar Rally 2022

GLOBALIZATION + STATECRAFT

China’s zero-COVID policy poses challenge for manufacturers and supply chains: FT reports lockdowns and restrictions risk causing greater disruption than during earlier waves of the pandemic.

+ Greece imposes vaccine mandate for people 60 and older — French parliament passes COVID vaccine passport legislation.

China halts Winter Olympics ticket sales as omicron arrives in Beijing: WP reports China had gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent the spread of the highly transmissible variant in recent weeks, locking down entire cities.

The US government is boycotting the Beijing Games, but corporate sponsors are still on board: Activists say the risk of offending the world’s second-biggest economy has caused the companies to stay mum on China’s human rights abuses.
WP

North Korea launches 4th suspected missile test this month: Axios reports North Korea's military fired "two suspected short-range ballistic missiles" eastward from Pyongyang on Monday morning local time, per South Korean and Japanese officials.

+ The USS Nevada, armed with 20 Trident II strategic nuclear missiles, made a rare appearance at America’s naval base in Guam on Saturday.

+ Japan nears debut of first offshore gas project in 32 years.

In ‘Touriste’, heroic Russians save the Central African Republic. The truth is even stranger: The Wagner Group and the warped reality of a Russian action movie made in Africa.
FT

Life on the Ukrainian border: ‘Trenches. The cold. That’s our reality’: As diplomatic tensions are on tenterhooks, the stagnation of the eastern front has allowed some aspects of trench life to assume the trappings of domesticity.
The Times

Germany's Baerbock visits Ukraine amid rising tensions with Russia: DW reports German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says she wants a "serious dialogue" on security in Europe during her visits to Ukraine and Russia. Her first official trips there come amid fears Russia might invade.

+ Britain said on Monday it had begun supplying Ukraine with anti-tank weapons to help it defend itself from a potential invasion, during a stand-off with Russia which has massed troops near the Ukrainian border.

NATO insiders fear attack on multiple fronts: Hopes are waning within NATO that Russian President Vladimir Putin can be stopped from invading Ukraine. At the military alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, officials are increasingly alarmed by even worse scenarios.
Der Spiegel

Spain moves to rein in crypto-asset advertising: Reuters reports Spain moved on Monday to regulate rampant advertising of crypto assets, including by social media influencers, tasking the stock market supervisor with authorizing mass campaigns and making sure investors are aware of risks.

France celebrates 25th unicorn in strong start to 2022 for tech sector: AFP reports France triumphantly announced the country’s 25th unicorn on Monday after the industrial company Exotec revealed that it had raised $335 million in funding to give it a valuation of $2 billion. Lille-based warehouse robotics company Exotec helped French President Emmanuel Macron reach his target of 25 unicorns by 2025, three years ahead of schedule

The end of the French left: Christiane Taubira wants to reinvigorate progressive politics. She risks splitting it even further.
Politico

'Let's pray it holds': Turkey's lira gamble keeps investors guessing: New devaluation-protected savings products halt decline but inflation still a menace.
Nikkei

Latin America’s currencies signal economic damage despite commodities boom: Divergence reflects political risk and deep-seated structural problems.
FT

DISRUPTION + INNOVATION

McDonald’s CEO confronts a supersized challenge: Chris Kempczinski is navigating the pandemic’s upheaval, political issues; seeking an alternative to ‘the “billions and billions served” experience.’
WSJ

Bitcoin’s rising correlation with tech weighs on hedge appeal
Bloomberg

Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather and a crypto token’s wild ride: Lawsuit shines a light on the booming business for celebrity endorsements.
FT

Bitcoin, crypto, and Web3 teeter on the brink of a $2 trillion bubble: Cryptocurrencies might reinvent the way we live and work, but the fortunes currently being made could come crashing down.
The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ef57237e-758b-11ec-886c-723ddd37efb5

Crypto.com will run its first Super Bowl commercial in February as it seeks to become a household name.

Crypto.com suspends withdrawals after ‘unauthorized activity’: LAT reports Crypto.com said Monday that it stopped all deposits and withdrawals while it investigates “unauthorized activity” on some accounts. The crypto wallet provider and trading platform said in a Twitter post that the measure was temporary to allow it to improve security and it would resume activity once the update was complete. The company added that all funds are safe.

Intel “mega-fab” coming to Ohio, reports say: Intel is reportedly planning to build a large chip facility in New Albany, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, the state capital. An official announcement is expected on January 21. The company reportedly plans to invest $20 billion in the site, and the city of New Albany is working to annex up to 3,600 acres of land to accommodate the facility, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which first reported the deal.

+ Massive $20 billion site would be like “a little city.”

Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft weave a fiber-optic web of power: The four tech giants increasingly dominate the internet’s critical cable infrastructure.
WSJ

Apple Vision? Apple Reality? What Apple could name its AR/VR headset
Bloomberg

Celebrity ads have never been worse: Pitt. Depp. Wahlberg. Damon. Bad. Dumb. Stupid. Awful.
Copyranter

One thing COVID can’t stop: Alcohol sales: A welcome companion during lockdowns, booze has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.
Bloomberg

+ Combined flu and COVID vaccine available in 2023, says Moderna chief

Rewilding is not just for private landowners: From scientists to teenage amphibian breeders, photographer Jo Metson Scott meets the people restoring Britain’s natural ecosystems.
FT

The Tonga eruption explained, from tsunami warnings to sonic booms: The volcanic plume generated record amounts of lightning before producing a blast heard thousands of miles away. Here’s what geologists say drove the event—and what may happen next.
Nat Geo

POLITICS + CAMPAIGNS

Who is king of Florida? Tensions rise between Trump and a former acolyte. A spat over COVID has exposed friction between the former president and a rising GOP governor unwilling to curb his ambitions.
NYT

Marianne Williamson: A politico or apolitical? The outsider from the 2020 presidential race ponders what’s next.
NYT

Dominic Cummings, ‘partygate,’ and the campaign to unseat Boris Johnson: Mastermind behind Brexit campaign is relentless in his pursuit of prime minister.
FT

+ @Dominic2306: Tory MPs: every day you delay the inevitable is a day the new PM ISN'T spending *doing stuff to save your seat*.
In 2024 youre asking for 18 yrs & 5th term. V v tough. Promises wont cut it. New PM must have DELIVERED. Tick tock...

Oculus investigation: The Federal Trade Commission and multiple states are investigating Meta Platforms Inc.’s virtual reality unit Oculus over potential anti-competitive practices.

Pew: About three-in-ten US adults are now religiously unaffiliated

+ Self-identified Christians make up 63% of the US population in 2021, down from 75% a decade ago

Military brass, judges among professions at new image lows: Gallup's annual rating of the honesty and ethics of various professions finds five of the 22 occupations rated this year at new lows in public esteem. While the majority of Americans continue to believe military officers have high ethics (61%), the score is down 10 percentage points since it was last measured, in 2017. TV reporters' ethics rating has fallen nine points to 14% over the same period, and judges' has declined five points to 38%.

+ A reduced majority of Americans give high marks to military leaders' ethics

+ Ethics of judges, clergy, grade-school teachers, TV reporters also at new lows

+ Nurses are top-rated profession for 20th straight year

A fascinating page-turner made from an unlikely subject: Federal Reserve policy
NYT

+ The Lords of Easy Money | How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy - Christopher Leonard

PERFORMANCE

Our obsession with morning routines dates back to Benjamin Franklin
Jess McHugh

+ Henry David Thoreau began his days with a brisk early morning swim in Walden Pond, in Concord, MA.

CULTURE

Sundance is going online, for the second year in a row. Here’s what’s great about that.
WP

Sloane arrangers — 40 years of decor and decorum: How have the lives and homes of this London elite changed since Peter York wrote ‘The Sloane Ranger Handbook’ in 1982?
FT

How Beatlemania holds us back: People obsess over the band because modern culture is so static.
Janan Ganesh

SPORT

Where to go wild in Scotland: From magical Mull to the stirring Trossachs, Jeremy Lazell still gets an elemental thrill from his adopted home.
The Times

Dakar Rally 2022: Veterans, debuts, and biofuels – a photo essay: This year’s rally once again returned to Saudi Arabia where 750 competitors in 430 vehicles traversed more than 8,000km over 12 stages. The rally started and ended in Jeddah, going through canyons and cliffs in the Neom region, passing by the Red Sea coastline, into stretches of dunes surrounding the capital Riyadh.
Guardian

How game theory changed poker: Professional players are learning from computers how to make their play more unpredictable and harder to beat.
WSJ


Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc

Curation and commentary by Marc A. Ross | Founder @ Brigadoon

Brigadoon is Global Street Smarts.