The Phoenix Economy

My first book, The Phoenix Economy: Work, Lie, and Money in the New Not Normal, comes out on May 9. Please preorder it! If you want to do everything online there’s a bunch of links to do so here, or you can just walk into your local independent bookstore and ask them to get it for you.

I also really enjoyed narrating the audiobook, so maybe listen to it instead of reading it? Libro.fm is the audio equivalent of bookshop.org, if you want to support independent booksellers while buying the audiobook.

The idea behind the book is that the Covid pandemic ushered in an era of “the New Not Normal,” full of surprising shocks both good and bad. My hope is that it’s a fun, enjoyable read — but also one that helps you understand what we’ve been through in the past three years and what that means in terms of navigating the future. I try to take a broad view of things; the three sections are “Time and Space”, “Mind and Body”, and “Business and Pleasure”.

Daniel Defoe provided the epigraph — and Joe Stiglitz was kind enough to say that I’m “the Daniel Defoe of our time”.

Here’s what Defoe wrote in A Journal of the Plague Year:

Another plague year would reconcile all these differences; a close conversing with death, or with diseases that threaten death, would scum off the gall from our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing eyes than those which we looked on things with before.

You might not realize just how much your eyes have changed from pre-pandemic times; the New Not Normal feels increasingly normal, these days. This book is an attempt to bring those changes into focus. I really look forward to hearing what you think of it!

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Markets Weekend: In and out of debt

This week’s newsletter is debt-focused. Would you borrow money to give to charity? A new company is betting that you will. I also look at the big picture of the student loan situation. 

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Markets Weekend: What politicians believe

This week’s newsletter covers productivism, profiteering, Britain, risky housing markets, and more

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⚒️ Markets Weekend: Crypto distress

In this week’s newsletter: Where that leaves the crypto world; how well your financial adviser thinks you’ll do in the future; what happens when the rich stop intermarrying; and much more.

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🏈 Markets Weekend: Moneyball

There’s a sports theme to Axios Markets Weekend today. I know nothing about sports, so I asked my colleagues to explain it to me while I was on vacation in Denmark.

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Markets Weekend: Saving the planet

This week, I’m talking monetary policy, of course. And a bit of crypto. But first, ESG.

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Axios Capital: Don’t predict

This week’s newsletter covers all the pitfalls of economic forecasting, and more. 

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Axios Capital: 🎨 The arts edition

An arts-heavy newsletter this week

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Axios Capital: ⛈ Inflation and “intolerable suffering”

The real victims of global inflation; biodiversity; my robo-bio; and much more

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Axios Capital: This is not an exit

All-stock transactions in private companies; insider trading; NFTs of paintings; the stock-market reaction to the latest COVID-19 wave; and much more.

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Axios Capital: The last bastion of delirium

This week, I’m zooming back a bit to take stock of where the markets find themselves at the end of an insanely tumultuous 22 months. Also: The debt ceiling, the antiquities trade, T+1 settlement, and much more.

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Axios Capital: Cryptophilanthropy

Most of this week’s newsletter is devoted to charity and philanthropy in this week containing Giving Tuesday — although there is also an item on payment for order flow.

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Axios Capital: Biden vs. inflation

In this week’s newsletter I look at what Joe Biden wants from his Fed pick. I’ll also cover misery; mortgages; household wealth; EV valuations; corporate break-ups; Sweetgreen; shenanigans at Sotheby’s; and much more.

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Axios Capital: Control-shift-delete

In this week’s newsletterControlling shareholders; wealth taxes; allegations about the S&P 500; the Theranos sales pitch; and much more. 

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Axios Capital: Unstonk

In this week’s newsletterCompanies that do badly before they do well; the fall of stonk mania; Netflix gets caught by surprise; the Texas two-step; and much more. 

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Axios Capital: Fossil watch

In this week’s newsletterJust when you thought the COVID-19 crisis was abating, a new crisis emerges. Plus: Experimental macroeconomics, the minimum wage, the quit rate, “transitory,” the IMF’s political struggles, and much more. 

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Axios Capital: 🖼️ Big art money

In this week’s newsletterA dive into why Masterworks is worth $1 billion; a cheap new DAF platform; South Dakota’s tax-haven status; and much more. All in 1,738 words, a 6.5-minute read.

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Axios Capital: Moar brinkmanship

In this week’s newsletter$35 experiences, debt-ceiling unknowns, Evergrande, revolving doors, and more.

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Axios Capital: Bad education

In this week’s newsletterMore companies get into financial literacy philanthropy; crypto regulation; the USDC carry trade; China’s flex on Macau; and much more.

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Axios Capital: Don’t try to be a bank

In this week’s newsletter: How crypto can’t resist the lure of regulatory arbitrage; corporate fraud; women’s degrees; El Salvador; rising credit scores; and much more. All in 1,469 words, a 5.5-minute read.

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Axios Capital: Crypto submits to regulation

You’ll have to scroll past a very famous and very scary chart before you reach other stories on crypto, stablecoins, lawyers, bankers, and much more.

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Axios Capital: Pay no attention to economists

In this week’s newsletterThe post-pandemic economy; the uselessness of economic forecasts; the rise of BNPL; how banks are failing at anti-racism; Robinhood goes meme; and much more.

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Axios Capital: Mega-cap mega-growth

In this week’s newsletterFast-growing giants; the return of the debt ceiling; why Europe leads in sustainable investing; the CFA exam pass rate; plentiful jobs; and much more.

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Axios Capital: Green investing activates

In this week’s newsletterThe impact of ESG investing; Hong Kong’s status as a financial center; the future of trading shares in private companies; the Texas two-step; and much more. 

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Axios Capital: Inflation’s a good problem to have

In this week’s newsletterInflation, moats, deer, concrete, NFTs, and much more. 

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