Friday's Fast Five: Week of 12.29

Why So Many People Got This Year's Economy Wrong  (Odd Lots - Podcast): This time last year, almost everyone was predicting a recession would engulf the US economy in 2023.  In this episode, we speak with Anna, chief US economist for Bloomberg Economics, about how she's thinking about the conflicting signals in the US economy, why recession didn't materialize in 2023 in the way many people thought it would, and what she's looking out for next year.

The Succession Drama Gripping One of Baseball’s Most Storied Teams (The Wall Street Journal): Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos wants the team to be sold when he dies, but his oldest son isn’t planning to give up control. With his father incapacitated by illness, and with a motivated suitor lurking in the background, John Angelos has indicated privately that he intends to keep the club moving forward, potentially throwing the future of the franchise into turmoil.

For the Billionaire Who Has Everything, Consider an Island in the San Francisco Bay (The New York Times): The words “private island” conjure up visions of mai tais, palm trees and solitary afternoons on a white sand beach. Red Rock Island is not that kind of island. It is a six-acre, dome-shaped outcropping that is tricky to reach and even trickier to explore. Its sparse plant life consists of scraggly shrubs and pines, along with thickets of poison oak. Its beaches are rocky, its cliffs steep. And for $25 million, it can all be yours.

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (The Atlantic): More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

Blood, Guns, and Broken Scooters: Inside the Chaotic Rise and Fall of Bird (Wired): Bird was once valued at more than $2 billion—now it has filed for bankruptcy. This is the untold story of the contractors who risked it all to try to make the micromobility dream a reality.