Week of 1/8/24

Prepared by Will Nelson for Tom Donohue

Welcome to all our new subscribers, we hope you had a great holiday break! As always, please reach out with any feedback by hitting reply - Will

Stories that drove last week

  • Middle East tensions continue to grow with fear of a regional conflict

    • Israel declares victory in Northern Gaza

    • Houthis demonstrate the definition of asymmetric warfare

    • Attacks in Iran

  • Epstein documents unsealed but mostly confirm what we knew

  • Harvard President out after plagiarism & hill testimony complaints

Domestic News

  • Politics

    • 2024 Race

      • Republican Primary Polling

        1. Trump (61.3%) [+0.6% since last week)

        2. Desantis (12.1%) [+0.4% since last week)

        3. Haley (11.2%) [+0.2% since last week]

        4. Ramaswamy (4.8%) [1.3.% since last week]

        5. Christie (3.4%) [+0.0% since last week]

Global News

  1. Conflicts

    1. Israel

      1. Israel says Hamas dismantled in Northern Gaza

      2. Houthis attacks in the Red Sea are massively disrupting commerce with 95% of the container ships that would’ve passed through the Red Sea are now diverting around the southern tip of Africa

        1. This has already driven US west coast freight prices up by over 50%

    2. Ukraine

      1. Support for Ukraine seems to be waning

        1. Biden claimed “We are coming to the end of our ability to help Ukraine” in mid December

        2. Zelensky went on Fox News and implored the US to expand and continue its support which was not well received

          1. “Don’t build roads. Spend all your money on weapons, drones, Society and pensions… we have only one enemy: Putin.” -Zelensky

      2. New details are also emerging about the peace deal that appeared to be on the table early in the war before Boris Johnson dissuaded Zelensky from agreeing to the peace deal and promised support

  2. Russia

    1. North Korea supplying Russia with missiles fired on Kharkiv

  3. China

    1. Xi continues his ouster of senior government and military leaders. It is unclear if he is struggling to retain control over the government or is simply consolidating power further.

  4. Other

    1. Asymmetric warfare in its purest form as US is using $2,000,000 missiles to shoot down $2,000 Houthis drones

      1. In addition to cost, the US and West are burning through limited missile supplied that manufactures can’t replenish fast enough

      2. We are even asking Japan to send Patriot missiles to replenish our stock for the first time ever

      3. Fascinating and well timed: Anduril Technologies just debuted a perfect solution

    2. ISIS takes responsibility for dual blasts in Iran that killed 95 at a memorial for Qassem Soleimani who the US killed in a drone strike in 2020

Reading List

  1. If you're a capital allocator or investor I cannot recommend this podcast enough. [102 minutes, Spotify, apple podcasts, etc]

    1. Jeremy Giffon discusses esoteric opportunities in private markets, misaligned incentives, and coordination problems. The conversation also covers compensation advice, unconventional signs of alpha, meeting heroes, and the value of having an audience.

  2. A case for optimism

  3. Apple getting closer to retail launch of Apple Vision Pro

  4. For startup folks: Carta is in hot water after some sketchy self dealing and internal data sharing [X]

    1. A funny take on the drama [X]

  5. A report on the state of the Chinese Economy and their position in the world order [Hudson institute]

  6. An interesting vignette about Germany’s energy economy [X]

  7. A motivating idea from Sahil Bloom:

Keep reading

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