The Weekly Distillation No.27
Inflation; Fusion; Vaccines; Facebook; Brexit; Assassinations; Ageing; Racism; Coronavirus; Non Alcoholic Spirits
This newsletter is written for entrepreneurial organisational leaders and aims to help identify themes of our current context and provide questions, tips and tools that can help in navigating these times.
“I have a great deal of confidence in what the UK does both scientifically and from a regulator standpoint” - Dr Anthony Fauci in his semi-apology to the UK
“It is [with] profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET,” Victoria Yeager (Chuck Yeager was the first person to break the sound barrier in 1947)
“I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year” - Margaret Keenan, the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine
“It’s our duty to tolerate colleagues even when they say things that we consider foolish, when we find their views offensive we should point that out politely. We should not be running to the vice chancellor asking him to censor them.” - Professor Ross Anderson (Cambridge University)
“It is against our protocols for anyone to stick any part of their body into a cage with a cat in it. Kimba grabbed her arm and nearly tore it off at the shoulder.” - Big Cat Rescue (of The Tiger King fame)
“Remember when your mama said "It could be worse"? This is what she was talking about.” - Jonas Blane (The Unit TV show)
“Some 13 shots were fired at martyr Fakhrizadeh with a machine gun controlled by satellite … During the operation, artificial intelligence and face recognition were used. His wife, sitting 25 centimetres [10 inches] away from him in the same car, was not injured.” - Brigadier General Ali Fadavi (IRGC) ”
"At the moment, I have to tell you in all candour, the treaty is not there yet and that was the strong view of our cabinet" - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Brexit & the probability of no trade deal being agreed
Coronavirus
This chart above is really interesting - although new cases in the US are going off the chart (see below), the deaths per million are no worse than Europe or the UK, where things are supposedly more under control. In Europe there was a lag between the millennials getting Covid and then passing it on to their grandparents, 2-4 weeks later. Let’s see how the post Thanksgiving stats play out in the US. It’s unlikely to be great numbers and it’s hard to see a great winter ahead for the US.
The UK has started vaccinations and the only issues so far seem to be that if you are so allergic that you carry an adrenaline pen you shouldn’t rush into taking this vaccine - which is nothing to worry about for the vast majority of people. Put it this way - relative to the above charts, the vaccine isn’t going to kill 6 people in every million each day. Some people will continue to remain vaccine hesitant. Sometimes for valid reasons. Sometimes not.
Apparently Moderna had its vaccine ready for Phase 1 trials within one month of Covid - which means we had the vaccine almost the whole time. Arguments are being made as to how you “move fast and break things” when it comes to medicine. How many people lost their life because of the trial & approval process? Is there a better way?
Ryan Holmes has been conducting regular polling through Covid on people’s thoughts on future work - the results on attitude to remote working show a big disconnect between what people want and what employers plan to offer.
We are in an Asset Inflation bubble
Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash
Although unemployment is shrinking in the US, the economy is still 10m jobs lighter than it should be. One of the fears for the next few years is that there is a slow re-hiring of many jobs and a permanent joblessness is created. Hiring has slowed sharply, data shows.
Despite the underlying economy still being moribund in parts, the expectation is that vaccine availability in 2021 will lead to a mass wave of consumer spending and an excess of spending as people realise they have a lot more savings than they want. This return to close to normality, on top of the mass Quantitative Easing and Stimulus means that more money chases fewer goods. But this is unlikely to be seen in consumer prices, as deflationary factors remain in the economy. However, assets are another story.
So is the time value of money about to reverse and money will be worth more in future than now? Will we have a decade of inflation? Do you buy Bitcoin or Gold?
Practically this might look like trends of property prices rising, stamps & fine art & unique assets being sought highly, equities markets growing (and if it’s Stagflation then tech stocks over cyclical stocks), commodities prices rising, land prices rising, interest rates rising, bonds falling in value, inflation (rather than tax) being used to reduce national debts and continued high levels of public spending. You could argue that being loaded up on debt and investing into assets might be a strategy that could do well. But I don’t give investment advice. If central banks ever reverse their throwing money at the economy, a systemic crash might be back on the cards.
How Technology is shaping our future
A fusion device in South Korea ran at 100 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds. Its heat was 7 times hotter than the sun. #burning. Whilst Fusion is combining 2 nuclei together, versus Fission splitting them, Fusion can create 4 times the energy of Fission. There remain lots of mini nuclear reactor projects around the world but South Korea are aiming to
“maintain this state of plasma for 300 seconds by the year 2025.
The breakthrough will contribute to an international mega project to create a fusion reactor which is similar to the sun.”
This will clearly never be a bad idea……..this is also the country that is hosting an attempt to bring back wooly mammoths through cloning.
Scientists have been training bacteria to be able to create metal.
Other scientists also claim to have REVERSED ageing…..sell off those anti-ageing creams. This may counter the 50 years we have all aged in 2020 through stress, boredom, too much TV and not enough exercise.
We’re pretty close to Brain-Computer interfaces. Whilst one side of the argument in any discussion on this talks about the benefits of how you can communicate with computers, or how it liberates people with serious physical disabilities, it’s obvious that the control of the computer the other way round could then be used to influence / control / damage the brain.
Should Facebook be broken up? What about if it (and other big tech) switched to being protocols rather than platforms? Open up rather than break up
How mRNA technology has gone from backwater to leading edge.
Israel (perhaps) is now (maybe) assassinating people with remote controlled machine guns using AI & facial recognition technology (according to the Iranians).
A long read for the weekend
Photo by Rachael Henning on Unsplash
I noted this week that there was a few stories around free speech, particularly around Eton. A teacher was sacked - some say for misogyny, others say it was a crime against free speech. In a Millwall FC game, fans booed the taking of a knee. (To be fair it’s not the first time Millwalls fans have been controversial). Millwall fans claimed they were taking a stand against the political views of Black Lives Matter. The UK’s Cabinet Minister for the Environment, George Eustace, said this week ““My personal view is that Black Lives Matter – capital B, L and M – is actually a political movement that is different to what most of us believe in, which is standing up for racial equality.” Until recently (September), the Black Lives Matter global website had the below text which I don’t think is helpful (I still believe the nuclear family is the optimal place to raise a child) and it’s been good to see that text removed.
“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
But all of this flies in the face of the success BLM has had in being a brand that has coalesced a wide range of people against genuine injustice, bias and in some cases outright racism. To negate all of the causes they protest because we disagree with one is an exercise in missing the point. I can be supportive of Scottish Independence and still disagree with the progressive element of the SNP. I can support the Conservatives and disagree on Brexit. I can support Labour and hate the anti-semitic element of the party. I can support BLM and disagree on some of its narratives. BLM has been brilliant at raising awareness of racial bias and injustice and catalysing a movement. If it attempts to become a redistributive force, it will fail.
In the midst of debates about BLM, free speech, violence and protests, it is important to remember that for some, this is just about their son who was killed. And there are fathers who grieve. Lead with compassion.
The other weekly distillation
“the action of purifying a liquid by a process of heating and cooling.”
One of the biggest trends in drinks, separate from Covid, is the rise of low-alcohol and non-alcoholic. Low or No in beer still comes with calories - but in spirits you save on the alcohol and the calories. Spirits also offer a better narrative and craft story, as well as superior packaging and bottles. It’s no surprise that low-alcohol and no-alcohol spirits are on the rise. This week I bought a bottle of Seedlip (owned by Diageo) as a present for someone. If you are in the mood for a non-alcoholic evening, check out Seedlip.
“Seedlip Spice 94 Bottling Note - Seedlip produce a range of non-alcoholic spirits from a selection of carefully considered botanicals, inspired by the distilled non-alcoholic remedies found in The Art of Distilling (written in 1651). Their Spice 94 expression is based around allspice, cardamom, grapefruit, lemon and oak - their recommended serve is: 50ml Seedlip Spice 94 - 125ml Tonic Water - Serve over ice with a red grapefruit twist.
Warming (almost Christmas-y) notes of nutmeg and clove, with a balancing sweetness of fresh citrus.” - Tasting notes from Master of Malt