News From the Control Tower - 12/13/2022

News from the Control Tower: Our weekly curated list of news stories affecting you and your finances.

This week’s reads include:

1.       Americans are draining the money they saved during the pandemic

Pandemic savings have helped keep people spending even as inflation has spiked. But their stockpiles are increasingly dwindling.

2.       India Chases Clean Energy, but Economic Goals Put Coal First

“I will not compromise on the availability of power,” India’s energy minister has declared in defense of fossil fuel use, which is heavily subsidized.

3.       Why Is Howard Schultz Taking This So Personally?

His opposition to a union isn’t primarily about the bottom line, friends say. It clashes with his image of Starbucks as a model employer.

4.       Let’s Stop Treating Crypto Trading as If It Were Finance

Crypto trading isn’t economically similar to any part of the traditional financial services system and serves none of the productive purposes that define finance. In fact, despite the “dress-up” clothes it wears, crypto trading isn’t finance or financial services at all. It is a game emulating finance – or, perhaps more accurately, gambling emulating finance.

Bonus: The Mystery of the Blue Whale Songs

Earth’s largest animals are singing in ever-lower tones, and nobody knows why.