S15 EP168: Hour 2 - The Lost Years and Broken Brains

Erick spends the back half of Open Line Friday on two collapses. Nike, the company named for the Greek goddess of victory, has been dropped from the S&P 100 after almost 18 years, having wiped out more than 200 billion dollars in market value since its 2021 peak, and Kylian Mbappe just walked away to On, the Swiss brand that hired Thierry Henry to run its entry into soccer. Erick argues the Colin Kaepernick lectures and the direct-to-consumer gamble did the damage the business press will not name, then turns to a New York Times guest essay arguing the University of California should stay away from the SAT, which sets up his case that poor black kids in Mississippi are outreading and outscoring rich kids in California.

TOPICS

• Nike drops out of the S&P 100 after 18 years: more than 200 billion dollars in market cap gone since November 2021, Greater China sales down 17 percent, and CEO Elliott Hill trying to rebuild the wholesale relationships the company burned
• Kylian Mbappe leaves Nike for On, the Swiss sportswear brand that brought in Thierry Henry as director of football, and what Colin Kaepernick, the ad strategy and the direct to consumer pivot cost the brand
• The New York Times guest essay by Miriam Pawel on why the University of California should not bring back the SAT, and the sentence Erick cannot get past: students who struggle with basic math but graduate at record rates
• Why Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana are beating California on reading and math scores: phonics, accountability, and the teachers unions that pushed whole word curriculum instead
• Open Line Friday callers on oil and impeachment: why America pumps more crude than anybody on earth but refines heavy crude instead of sweet crude, and why we cannot decouple from the global price