The Daily Valet. - 3/27/23, Monday
✔️It Just Gets Bigger, Doesn't It?
Monday, March 27th Edition
By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor
Trigger warning: We talk about spiders down below.
Today’s Big Story
The Wealth Gap Grows
And it comes with some interesting side effects
The rich get richer. No news there, right? Wealth continues to grow, there's no doubt about that. In the year 2000 for instance, Forbes estimated there were just 470 billionaires in the world, owning $898 billion collectively. Fast forward to last year, and the annual rich list named 2,668 billionaires, with the top six collectively earning more than all 470 billionaires from the 2000 list combined.This is the same publication that just pointed out that while wealth is soaring for many, there's a far larger number of people whose circumstances are getting worse. The cost-of-living crisis, as well as soaring inflation, is causing many people's real wage to drop significantly. And it's not just here in America. The picture is the same across the pond in Europe too. In the U.K., the number of people seeking help to feed themselves and their families through food banks has increased from 26,000 in 2010, to more than 2.56 million in 2022.And thanks to recent interest rate hikes, things won't be changing much. Along with making credit cards harder to pay off, one Federal Reserve economist argues that these rate hikes are also doing something else—making the wealth gap worse by pricing a number of low- and moderate-income Americans out of the housing market.And at a time when more people are staying single for longer, building wealth by yourself is becoming increasingly difficult. Yahoo Finance reports that while it's not surprising married couples have a higher net worth than singles, over the last decade, that gap has more than doubled and married couples are pulling out far ahead of singles. The skyrocketing value of assets—especially homes—over the past couple of years is largely to blame for that growing gap.Another unfortunate side effect of income disparity? Children and adolescents from homes with less money are participating far less in sports and fitness activities than their more affluent peers, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It's devastating for kids,” one superintendent told the New York Times. She said that school sports promote good grades and boost physical and emotional health among students who participate.
Black Widows Are Vanishing
The spiders are waning in the southern United States and brown widows may be the culprit
Few insects have a more fearsome reputation than the black widow spider. But the bulbous arachnids—with the telltale red hourglasses mark and venomous bite—have their own predator ... the brown widow.Throughout the Southern United States, the spiders are engaged in a lethal competition with the brown widow, a relative from abroad, coming out on top. “They don't seem to be good neighbors with each other,” one biologist who led a recent study on the spiders, told Mashable. When these two species occupied the same territory in the wild, scientists observed that black widows slowly decline, until sometimes they were gone.Exceedingly shy insect hunters, black widows like to live in crawl spaces, woodpiles and sheds. Brown widows are less venomous than their native cousins, but aren't at all shy. When the researchers observed the brown and southern black widows meeting face-to-face, they also noted that brown widow females aggressively stalked, captured and consumed southern black widows at all stages of development. But apparently, a venomous spider becoming prey isn't all that unusual. The researchers said that spiders are highly cannibalistic creatures. It's a spider-eat-spider world out there.
FYI:
Occasionally, people are bit by black widows. 1,004 cases in 2021, according to America’s Poison Centers, but deaths are extremely rare
It seems like we might never stop talking about fast food chicken sandwiches, but even amid the biggest boom of the now popular menu item there’s been a glaring void.”
- The Takeout on the fastest growing chain
Giving Gas Stations a Second Life
As we enter the EV era, there’s about to be a lot of gas stations out of commission
As gas stations slowly lurch toward obsolescence in the age of electric vehicles, there's been talk about what will happen to the ones that don't convert into charging stations. Will they simply become convenience stores? Do we need that many?Now, the land they use is being seen as a unique real estate development opportunity. One project in Seattle shows how former gas stations can take on dramatically new lives, even with all their complicated environmental baggage. Mini Mart City Park, in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, is an art venue, community space, and publicly accessible park built on the site of a decommissioned gas station.“With over 700 derelict gas stations in the Puget Sound region and over 200,000 nationwide, the project explores the potential of art and architecture as a way to heal an urban problem while simultaneously creating a shared, multi-use park and community space,” the architect told Dezeen. It reminds me of Full Service coffee in Los Angeles, that did the same thing. Of course, not every gas station is as handsome as these old beauties.
Coming Soon:
Speaking of electric vehicles, Car and Driver has a list of all the EVs that are expected to come to market in the next five years.
Canyon’s Half-Car, Half-Bike Hybrid
The people seem to really want this “Future Mobility Concept”
Known for their popular high-end bikes, Canyon is hyping up what might be the cycle brand's next major venture. This is the Future Mobility Concept and it's got people talking and wishing it were here already.As traffic becomes more and more clogged, people are increasingly experimenting with alternative transportation—from powered-bikes and scooters to electronic skateboards that whirl you right around all the gridlock. The only downside is that those personal platforms expose the rider to the elements, which can easily ruin someone's day. So Canyon has developed a recumbent bike that encapsulates the user within an aerodynamic carbon-fiber shell.Cool Material says you can ride it on bike paths thanks to its narrow width, but you can also use pedal assist on urban streets for speeds over 15 MPH and full-electric up to 37.3 MPH with a range of up to 93 miles. What's more, according to Man of Many, the concept has the chops to garner the buy-in of some big name investors for over $900 million. But no word on if it has cupholders or air conditioning, yet.
In Other News
After Netanyahu fires minister who opposed judicial overhaul.
Have you heard about ...
The Long Read
A new coffee-table book celebrates 50 years of the Design Firm, Pentagram
From company logos to magazine design, from subway signs to cookware, to playgrounds, to billboards, to the credit cards in your wallet, Pentagram's work surrounds us, and no matter what the project is, at its core is good design.”
- By Jim Kelly
Read It:
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Shopping
What We’re Buying
A Madras Shirt
The weather is warming up, and that means it's time to break out the madras. And if you want the best, Sid Mashburn has just the collaboration for you. Original Madras Trading Company is a third-generation family business that's been handweaving since the 1970s on traditional looms in—where else?—Madras, India. In fact, the cloth for a single shirt takes 4-6 hours of handwork from a single weaver. The Mashburn capsule includes four madras shirts ($250), each with Sid's impeccable tailoring and a soft, nonfused button-down collar.
Want More?
The five style items you should buy this week.
Morning Motto
Give yourself some credit for sticking to it.
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