Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• Inside the DOGE Succession Drama Elon Musk Left Behind: What really happened when he logged out of Washington. (Politico)
• They were looking for work — but found a scam instead: Innovative scammers are posting jobs that are nearly indistinguishable from legitimate listings, including on trusted websites like LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter. (NBC News) see also Americans With Four-Year Degrees Now Comprise a Record 25% of Unemployed Workers: Americans with four-year college degrees now comprise a record 25% of total unemployment, underscoring a sharp slowdown in white-collar hiring this year. (Bloomberg)
• AI Meets Aggressive Accounting at Meta’s Gigantic New Data Center: Favorable treatment off the balance sheet hinges on some convenient assumptions. (Wall Street Journal)
• What It Takes to Defeat the Leaf Blowers: To end the use of gas-powered blowers, advocates in one New Jersey town focused on public health and made their case directly to local elected leaders. (CityLab)
• New X Games: Legitimate Groyper or Bangladeshi Bot? The ragebait in your timeline may be coming from abroad. (The Bulwark) see also On the Internet No One Knows You’re a “MAGA patriot” in Lagos: On X’s new location feature… (Agents of Influence)
• The Ultrarich Are Spending a Fortune to Live in Extreme Privacy: In Miami and elsewhere, the wealthy are moving in increasingly private spheres, shelling out big money to bypass the indignities of public life. (Wall Street Journal)
• Deportation Inc.: Cost to Deport One Person: The US government says it spends an average of $17,121 to deport a single person. One man’s journey through the process shows the price can be significantly higher. (BusinessWeek)
• It’s the ‘most important fish in the sea.’ And it’s disappearing. If the menhaden decline continues, striped bass could be next to vanish. (Washington Post) see also First, the frogs died. Then people got sick. An emerging area of research is uncovering surprising links between nature and human health. (Washington Post)
• Recycling Lead for U.S. Car Batteries Is Poisoning People: This is what the auto industry wants people to see: sparkling factories turning reclaimed lead into batteries for Ford, Toyota, GM and the rest. But in Africa’s lead recycling capital, reality looks very different. Factories are poisoning people. We know because we tested them. (New York Times)
• The Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr. Affair Is Messier Than We Ever Could Have Imagined: Inside the most important, and also least important, story of our time (The Ringer) see also We Are Not Amused: The Olivia Nuzzi Return is a Disgrace. Olivia Nuzzi Return is a Disgrace (Unpopular Front)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Wilhelm Schmid, CEO of famed watchmaker A. Lange & Söhne, the Glashütte, German watchmaker, recorded live at the Audrain Newport Concours d’Elegance.
More Americans are getting their power shut off, as unpaid bills pile up
Source: Washington Post
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