The shortest email ever

This’ll be a short email with just a few roundup links - I’m in Italy on vacation this week and trying my best not to do much work. That said, I thought these links were worth sharing.

Roundup

• The Denominator - I love Arthur Hayes’ writing style. The way he opens with seemingly unrelated topics and then weaves them together is so powerful. But also... the things he points out related to the nature of the banking industry, the impact of Fed & Treasury policy, & the expected outcomes from the choices they're making are unpleasant thoughts. This is another good read by Arthur.

• Base Reality: An Interview with Grimes - This is a Pirate Wires interview with Grimes on her open embrace of AI. In a nutshell - she has willingly accepted and embraced the public use of her AI-generated “voice” to create music. Some of the early creations have been very interesting. More importantly though (and the reason I’m interested in this story) is that because of her willingness to embrace this technological change, we’re likely to get an early understanding of what comes next from AI generated content by watching what comes out of this experimentation. We’ll see the good and the bad. And that’s important information for understanding what future impact AI generated content might have on the world. This was a solid interview.

• 26 Empire State buildings could fit into New York’s empty office space. That’s a sign. - “The economic future of the city that never sleeps depends on embracing this shift from vocation to recreation and ensuring that New Yorkers with a wide range of talents want to spend their nights downtown, even if they are spending their days on Zoom. We are witnessing the dawn of a new kind of urban area: the Playground City.”

• How the immigration system works after Title 42 ends - I personally think the idea of borders, nationalism, and immigration as defined by the late industrial age are becoming obsolete. How we manage the flows of people around the world should change. That said, I'm not naive. I understand that nations won't just magically let everyone in, nor do I think they should.

  But something does need to change at the structural level. This story on the ending of Title 42 in America has been so interesting to watch unfold. It's highly politicized but I could care less about the political talking points in the lead up to an election cycle. What’s interesting to me though is watching all the masses of people that still willingly set out on a massively difficult journey with no guarantees they will make it to America. No guarantee that their lives will be better. I find this story interesting because it conveys a compelling narrative that America is still a highly desirable place to live. Don’t believe that? Just look at the tens of thousands of people trying to get across the border.

• “Stranded assets”: Investors reckon with obsolete offices - Evidence of an office space reckoning continue to mount. “The uncertain future demand for office space, given the popularity of hybrid working in the wake of the pandemic, has made workplaces the epicentre of anxiety about the wider commercial property market, which has been buffeted by rising interest rates. In the UK, older offices in peripheral locations are the most threatened.”