I believe it’s time for another post about some of my favorite things I’ve watched, listened to, or read recently.
If you’re not interested in checking out my fantastic content recommendations but are yearning for something strictly finance-related, here’s a link to the main blog page where you can read past articles.
NOTE: The content is linked in the green titles.
How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future by Scott Galloway
This TED Talk by Professor Scott Galloway was somehow presented to me through my YouTube algorithm on an early Saturday morning as I watched my kids eat breakfast and I ended up watching the whole thing.
If you’re looking for some scorching takes about our current economy, this is the video for you. I’m not sure I agree with everything Professor Galloway states here, but I’ve thought about the video quite a bit since watching it.
The 67-Hour Rule by Derek Thompson
In this article, Derek Thompson poses that historically when nations become more wealthy the people within that country will begin to work less. He then ponders why this phenomenon hasn’t happened with American households over the past 140 years or so. No matter how prosperous people may become, they continue to work the same amount of hours.
“The consistency of the workweek for married couples might also reflect a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses effect. As workers get raises, some of them could choose to work less. But richer economies also create new categories of desire: movies, amusement parks, electronics, travel, summer camps, Stanley water coolers. If people become envious of their peers’ rising standard of living, they’ll instead choose to continue working at higher wages to buy nicer stuff. Thus the hedonic treadmill sustains higher working hours and holds the 67-Hour Rule in place.
At any rate, there is something a little disappointing about the possibility that married couples have the same market workweek that they did in 1880.
The overwork worrywarts are narrowly wrong: Americans really do have more leisure time than they used to. But they’re broadly right: Americans ought to have more leisure time than they have, and it is a little scandalous that they don’t.”
Murtagh by Christopher Paolini
This is for all my fantasy book nerds out there. Did you know that a sequel to the Inheritance Cycle book series was released at the end of last year?
Well, now you do.
I love the original four books and it was fun to jump back into that world with this new book. It starts a little slow, but I’ve enjoyed it.
As of now, I think this is my favorite TV show of 2024. It’s a sci-fi series on Netflix from the showrunners of Game of Thrones. It poses big, existential questions about the universe. I don’t want to give any of the plot away, but I was entertained by it so much that I watched the entire thing over a long weekend.
Richard Linklater is one of my favorite movie directors. To name just a few of his movies, he made Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, and Boyhood. This is his latest movie that you can watch on Netflix. It stars Glen Powell who is a boring university professor who moonlights as a fake hitman.
Like almost all of Linklater’s movies, it’s a great movie to pop on and hang out with for a couple of hours.
This movie is less of a fun time than Hit Man is, it’s a thriller set in a dystopian future where state governments are rebelling against the federal government, but it’s equally as good. The story follows military journalists who are racing to the White House before it can be overthrown.
The movie unfolded way differently than I was expecting going into it but in a good way. It’s visually great to look at and has some awesome action sequences. And like most good movies it causes you to think about it for a while afterward.
If you have any other content recommendations, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. I’d love to hear them!
Thanks for reading!