Kitchen Island Castaway → Mouse Universe 25 → Family Capitalism

Hey Neighbor. The number of mentions of "uncertainty" in the Federal Reserve's last Beige Book, the report issued before Open Market Committee meetings, was higher than at any point since 1970. No one knows what’s going to happen next except the people who know. And even they don’t seem to know.

In the field of economics, this is called “Time to Drink.”

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→ Writing in the Journal of Value Inquiry (everyone’s favorite bathroom read), Lisa Bastian proposes a solution to Upper Middle hypocrisies^[1] – stuff like fearing climate change and driving an SUV. She argues that the obligation to behave consistently, like a rational actor, is an “imperfect duty,” a moral obligation that can be fulfilled in a multiplicity of ways. In other words, it’s unreasonable to insist on consistency from an environmental activist – particular one with kids – but fair to expect some effort. (READ MORE)

→ In Bloomberg, Adrian Wooldridge points out that MAGA’s antipathy toward corporations goes beyond a critique of the managerial class as self-dealing and obstructive. Ultimately, Wooldridge suggests, there is a conflict between family capitalism and corporate capitalism – between inheritors and professionals. Donald Trump is plainly on one side. (READ MORE)

→ The number of software engineering jobs is shrinking at an outrageous rate as firms “hire” AI agents. In truth, coders never really fit into the professional class – no professional credo, no single talent pipeline – but it was nice to have some wildcards arounds. Pour out a Monster Energy Drink for our fallen falling brothers.

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There’s no such thing as a big kitchen.

On Meghan Markle’s new hyperglycemic homemaking joint, the former Duchess of Sussex plays the Loro Piana and bops around what looks like the set of a Nancy Meyer’s movie – complete with pangaeic kitchen island. But if you watch carefully (not recommended), the show rapidly becomes claustrophobic. Markle’s gestures are as small as her heart-shaped sandwiches. She’s trapped.

She’s far from alone. The big kitchen – the enflamed heart of the Upper Middle home – is a big lie. The bathroom sign guy called it. 

In 1980, the heir to kitchen giant Bulthaup rolled up to Otl Aicher’s workshop in an Alfa Romeo and begged for a 'kitchen system.' Aicher said no. Aicher was a graphic designer famous for the sport-specific pictograms used in the Munich Olympics and subsequently adapted into Men’s Room signs the world over, but he didn’t cook. The brash Bulthaup lobbed him and eventually (probably because of the car) Aicher agreed on condition: He wanted to learn to cook. 

A teutonic egotist, Aicher didn’t chop broccoli — he wrote a manifesto about it. The Kitchen is for Cooking argues for the importance of kitchens as spaces for shared labor. Aicher’s big idea was basically the reverse of his title: Whatever is for cooking is the kitchen. His Bulthaup^[2] systems were small, tidy workstations built for many hands and light work. 

"Aicher accidentally raised a question about America’s fastest-growing room: If a kitchen is just for what’s for cooking – sink, cleaning station, cutting board, oven, burners, workspace – what the hell is the rest of that space?

Well into the 1950s, most American kitchens were small and separate. In the 1960s and 1970s, ovens and sinks moved into living spaces so working women could cook and catch up with their children at the same time. This was expected of them and they expected it of themselves – and research suggests this hasn’t changed. As such, they needed a room in which to do two thing. In Aichler’s formulation, kitchens (the stuff for cooking) got moved into a nursery, a room conspicuously absent from the floor plan of most Upper Middle homes. 

The more women worked, the bigger that room got. And the more important. As of 2022, 70-ish% of real estate listings specifically tout kitchen features and for good reason: Those homes sell faster.

But what exactly are we buying? The Nancy Meyers kitchen is not really for cooking. It’s for big conversations and small movements. It’s for watching someone cook. Maybe Meghan. More likely mom.

→ Costco CEO Hamilton James is (presumably for stock-related reasons) out there bragging about the wholesaler’s ability to move luxury units: Rolexes, Dom, 10-karat diamonds, and even Porsches. Costco also sells $100-$200M in gold bars every month^[3], but James says he doesn’t know if the buyers are “just people suspicious of the economy.” (READ MORE)

→ There’s a new “Preppy Murder,” this time in Princeton, where 31-year-old Matthew Hertgen beat his brother to death with a golf club. In the 1990s this would have been on every front page in America. It’s probably for the best that it isn’t. (NO LINK)

→ Ralph Lauren just dropped the “Ralph Bag,” a burl wood handled retort to Gucci’s bamboo handled bag, which was introduced in 1947 when Italians were struggling to source leather. Burl wood is harvested from diseased trees. Anyway… weird bag. Nice though. (CHECK IT OUT)

→ Drive to Survive, Netflix’s super popular F1 docudrama, drops tomorrow on the heels of Full Swing, Netflix’s super popular golf docudrama. Both shows are ostensibly about the psychology of peak performance, but actually about homosocial office flirtation. Not a bad thing!

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In 1968, research John Calhoun put four mating pairs of mice in 9-foot square pen and let them have at it. Roughly 20 months later, the population hit 2,200 and the mice went nuts, savagely attacking each other. The experiment, “Mouse Universe 25,” became a national obsession. Cities were getting denser. Paul Ehrlich’s population bomb^[4] was about to go off. Would we turn on each other?

Calhoun’s mouse meltdown inspired dozens of novels—Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH, Judge Dredd (seriously)—but none topped J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise, the tale of a class-stratified tower falling into what Calhoun called a “behavioral sink,” which is to say anarchy. The book – exactingly adapted into a 2016 Tom Hiddleston film now on Netflix – follows Doctor Laing as he wanders the middle floors between an insurgent 2-bedroom underclass and a murderous penthouse aristocracy. He talks to himself. He talks to the building.

The story is less plausible now then when it came out – violent crime rate in New York is lower than in 1972 – but implausible doesn’t mean unrecognizable. Reading (or watching) High-Rise is like wandering into an Upper Middle Boomer’s anxiety dream that has been describe to you in great detail. It’s unreal and almost silly. But it’s impossible to shake.

→ Clear evidence of insider trader on Trump’s crypto announcements has the crypto community up in arms. Some see angry that it delegitimizes decentralized currencies (and arguably centralizes them), but most seem angry that it allows Trump associates to profiteer without mooning the price. 

→ A helpful reminder (and nice turn of phrase) from Brian Albrecht: “A price is a signal wrapped in an incentive. Prices aren’t just good or bad numbers—they tell us what’s scarce while creating pressure for change.” (READ MORE)

→ Interest rates dropped and everyone tried to get mortgage. It’s not just you. People really want to fucking move.

[2] It’s worth noting here that part of the reason Americans and Germans think differently about kitchens is that German kitchens are generally very, very small. Presumably that’s part of the reason Bulthaup systems got popular.

[3] Anyone want to make a wager that number is about to go through the fucking roof?

[4] Back in the day, I worked for a guy who worked for Paul Ehrlich. I never got to mean the man because he was treated like a social science deity. I always found that odd. His big thing – grand unified idea, if you will – was just blazingly wrong. Academia is a weird place.