Arvind's Newsletter

1. In the Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby, who is an acknowledged expert on the US banking system, explains why from a fundamental point of view, America’s banking system is in a difficult place: 
   “Consider two numbers. Total capital buffer in the U.S. banking system: $2.2 trillion. Total unrealised losses in the system, as calculated in a pair of recent academic papers: between $1.7 trillion and $2 trillion.
   
   In other words, if banks were suddenly forced to liquidate their bond and loan portfolios, the losses would erase between 77 percent and 91 percent of their combined capital cushion. It follows that large numbers of banks are terrifyingly fragile.” Read on

2.How The New York Times managed to avoid ruining Wordle
When The New York Times acquired daily puzzle mega-hit Wordle at the beginning of 2022, there were plenty of skeptics who were sure it signaled the end of the game’s incredible viral rise. Apparently, those skeptics included some of the people at the Times itself.
Just over a year after the acquisition, though, Bell said the company's efforts at "preserving Wordle as an Internet treasure" have paid off. That's largely thanks to a patient, "first do no harm" strategy that didn't seek to directly monetise the game or introduce a lot of half-baked changes to the game's successful formula, she said.

3German monks create world's first powdered beer
Just add water (and get beer). German brewery Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle says it’s created the world’s first powdered beer, and you can watch it dissolve into a lager complete with foam. The brewer says powdered beer will make shipping both cheaper and more environmentally friendly since water accounts for most of beer’s weight. For now, the powdered brew is non-alcoholic, but the brewery is confident it will eventually be able to roll out a alcoholic version.

4.Here’s another superb post from Morgan Housel about the biases and blindspots we live with that hinder us from seeing the truth. Housel argues that these biases exist as they offer us psychological paths of least resistance.

5.We mortal humans can’t behold the face of God. Those are the rules. Still, we can always try. Virginia Heffernan certainly does, in this superb piece. She very nearly succeeds. A Long Read.

So travel there with her. See for yourself. Let her set the scene: She’s in Taiwan. She wants to breach the inner sanctum of a company called TSMC, which manufactures the very technologies—the microchips—powering the device on which you’re probably reading this newsletter right now. It’s no overstatement to call TSMC one of the most consequential companies in human history.

This piece isn’t just about semiconductors, or Taiwan, or the geopolitics that entwine them. It’s about us all. It’s about human ingenuity—the awesome thing eternally protecting us from ruin.