Another Day, Another Bitcoin Disappointment

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Today’s Agenda

• Once more, with feeling: Beware crypto come-ons.
• The Dem millionaire surtax won’t tax many millionaires.
• But at least Congress is getting stuff done for once.
• Don’t expect many holiday discounts.

Crypto Snatches Defeat From Jaws of Victory

These are confusing times to be a crypto fan. Matt Damon makes an ad comparing you to the Wright Brothers, and then theaters full of people just laugh at it.

You cheer when Bitcoin and Shiba Inu prices soar to inane heights (before occasionally crashing). But you also cheer when normies such as Starbucks and El Salvador embrace crypto, even though the whole inane-heights thing I mentioned earlier makes it financially irresponsible to blow your Dogecoin on a Peppermint Mocha.

You get all excited about spending crypto on a piece of the U.S. Constitution, or at least a “governance token” for it, which is a normal thing that everybody understands, but then Ken Griffin outbids you using U.S. dollars.

And even your wins are often just Potemkin victories. Lionel Laurent tells the tale of a U.K. fintech company called Mode, which claimed it had roped 40 normie U.K. retailers into some kind of Bitcoin cash-back reward scheme. That inflated Mode stock and made the pleasure receptors in crypto fans’ brains zap pleasurably.

But oops, ha ha, some of those normie retailers responded by saying “Bitcoin cash-back what now?” which was among the more polite responses. Mode’s resulting walkback was more than just awkward for it and its investors, Lionel writes. It’s also a reminder to treat every crypto come-on like a suspicious abandoned bag in a train station: It’s probably just a bag, but it could also blow you up. Don’t get the two confused.

Congress Gives ‘Doing Things’ a Rare Go

Congress has a well-earned reputation as a place where dreams go to die. But every now and then it pulls itself off the basement floor, washes its face, puts on a suit and gets stuff done, at least for a little while.

Last year Congress helped rescue the U.S. and global economy with a robust pandemic response. This year it delivered even more pandemic relief. And in just the past couple of weeks it has:

• passed a massive, bipartisan infrastructure bill and
• carried President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan almost to the finish line, after the House overcame a record-breaking mini-filibuster by Kevin McCarthy to pass the bill this morning.

There’s plenty for partisans on both sides to dislike about BBB. Alexis Leondis points out the plan’s surtax on millionaires won’t, in fact, be paid by very many millionaires, something that should make both progressives and deficit hawks sad.

But love it or hate it, you can’t deny BBB is happening. Jonathan Bernstein argues it would make this one of the most productive Congresses in years. Heck, maybe this time it will even hold a job for a while (it won’t).

Telltale Charts

With customers still flush with cash and a “The supply chain ate my Black Friday sale” excuse at the ready, retailers are in no big hurry to offer holiday shoppers many discounts, warns Andrea Felsted.

Companies are slowly but surely finding ways to make sure their future CEOs aren’t just plucked from the Used CEO bin, writes Chris Hughes. That makes fresh perspectives more likely.

Further Reading

It’s kind of a big deal that so many countries pledged to cut methane emissions, though they must follow through. — Bloomberg’s editorial board 

A Lael Brainard Fed would be more of an international Fed. — Dan Moss 

It’s time for Israel to formally recognize the Armenian genocide. — Zev Chafets 

Roblox investors aren’t taking the damage done by its lengthy recent outage seriously enough. — Michelle Leder 

Nobody’s convinced by an email supposedly from the disappearing Peng Shuai. — Matthew Brooker 

Can a Saudi chicken-nugget chain take over the world? — Bobby Ghosh 

Just because your spouse retires doesn’t mean you have to. — Teresa Ghilarducci 

ICYMI

Vice President Kamala Harris briefly became the first woman president. Or did she?

Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges.

This is Jerome Powell’s reverse-Volcker moment.

Kickers

Invisibility cloaks are one step closer to being a thing. 

Fragment of lost 12th-century poem found stuck in another book.

Maybe we’re teaching our kids all wrong.

How to identify that light in the sky.

Notes:  Please send invisibility cloaks and complaints to Mark Gongloff at [email protected].

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To contact the author of this story:

Mark Gongloff at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Brooke Sample at [email protected]