Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Monday. It’s J.D. here with another week of Apex Money goodness for you all. Here’s what I’ve gathered to kick things off.
How to be enough. [Vox] — “Where we falter is believing that more money, more things, better things, better selves will ultimately make us happy…In one sense, the quest for self-optimization may be a means of asserting control over our lives when war, climate change, and political polarization wreak havoc around us, she says. All the wanting, though, leads to overconsumption, Dubey says.”
The man who couldn’t stop going to college. [The New York Times gift article] — “No one more fully embodies the nature of elite American higher education today, in all its contradictions, than a man who has spent so much time being molded by it, following its incentives and internalizing its values. But what are those values, exactly?” True story: When I was young, one of my ambitions was to spend my entire life as a college student.
Why haven’t home prices dropped? [Of Dollars and Data] — “If you want to know why home prices are unlikely to drop by a significant amount in the near future, this is your answer. Who wants to see half of their portfolio decline because someone built affordable housing nearby? No one. As a result, many homeowners end up fighting tooth and nail to prevent such future developments.” Meh. This is only one piece of the puzzle. According to my friends in real estate, another huge problem is institutional investors purchasing home inventory, driving up prices for actual prospective homeowners. I’m sure there are other causes too.
Today’s last feature has nothing (or little) to do with money. It’s a ten-minute film from 1976 (or 1982, the source is unclear) chronicling a day in the life of the Prudential building in Chicago. (Based on the clothing and the computers, I’d say this is 1982, not 1976.)
This video is a fascinating time capsule, for one, but it’s also relatively compelling for its intended purpose.