1. U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP (WSJ)

The United States has crossed a major fiscal milestone: publicly held national debt now exceeds 100% of GDP for the first sustained period since the aftermath of World War II. As of March 31, publicly held debt stood at roughly $31.3 trillion, slightly larger than the country’s annual economic output. The federal government is currently spending about $1.33 for every dollar it collects, with annual deficits nearing 6% of GDP and projected to remain elevated for years. While economists caution there is nothing magical about crossing the 100% threshold itself, the number symbolizes the long-term fiscal pressures building across the American economy.

As debt rises, interest payments consume a growing share of federal spending—now roughly one out of every seven federal dollars. Higher debt also makes the economy more sensitive to interest-rate increases, crowds out private investment, and can place upward pressure on borrowing costs across mortgages, auto loans, and credit markets. Economists warn that over time, excessive debt can reduce productivity growth and limit economic flexibility, even for a country like the United States that benefits from issuing the world’s reserve currency.

Unlike the temporary spike during the COVID-19 pandemic, today’s deficits are increasingly structural, driven by aging demographics, entitlement spending, repeated tax cuts, and political unwillingness to make major fiscal adjustments. Congressional Budget Office projections show debt potentially reaching 120% of GDP within a decade and 175% by the 2050s absent major policy changes. Stabilizing debt levels alone, not reducing them, would likely require trillions of dollars in tax increases, spending cuts, or much faster economic growth than currently projected. The broader anxiety among economists is the growing sense that the political system lacks the willingness to confront it seriously.

NOTE: Yes, as I’ve been saying, our political system must confront this issue sooner rather than later. It’s only continuing to get worse. We either face pain now, or much more pain later.

2. The Great $110 Trillion Wealth Transfer Won’t Happen Any Time Soon (WSJ)

For years, the coming “great wealth transfer” has been portrayed as a massive handoff of baby boomer wealth to millennials and younger generations. The reality may look much slower and far less transformative. Older Americans now control roughly $110 trillion in wealth, with baby boomers alone holding nearly $90 trillion, but longer lifespans, rising healthcare spending, luxury retirement lifestyles, and wealth transfers between spouses are delaying when much of that money actually reaches younger heirs.

The result is that inheritances are arriving later in life. Americans who once commonly inherited wealth in their 50s are now more likely to receive inheritances in their mid-60s, meaning many heirs are already approaching retirement themselves before substantial transfers occur. While millennials are often portrayed as the primary beneficiaries of future inheritances, projections suggest Generation X will actually receive the largest share of inherited wealth over the next decade. Even then, the distribution will remain highly unequal, since many middle- and lower-income families have little or no wealth to pass down at all.

3. Can a country get too rich? (Economist)

NOTE: I hear a lot about Nordic countries and happiness (Norway is currently the 6^th happiest country in the world). It appears, at least for Norway, that happiness comes at a cost.

Norway has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world thanks to decades of oil revenue and a massive sovereign wealth fund now worth roughly $2.2 trillion. The country enjoys extraordinarily high living standards, generous public services, and GDP per capita near the top globally. Yet growing debate inside Norway suggests that extreme wealth may also be creating complacency, inefficiency, and economic stagnation. A bestselling Norwegian book titled *The Country that Became Too Rich* argues that easy oil money has weakened incentives for both politicians and citizens to make difficult decisions or maintain long-term economic discipline.

As the sovereign wealth fund has ballooned, government spending increasingly relies on investment returns rather than taxation. That dynamic, critics argue, allows politicians to postpone reforms and simply spend more when problems emerge. Healthcare costs, infrastructure projects, and public renovations have become notoriously expensive, while economic cost-benefit analysis often takes a back seat to political convenience. Large portions of state revenue are also directed toward foreign aid and charitable causes at levels far exceeding many peer countries. Meanwhile, households have accumulated some of the highest debt levels in Europe, reflecting confidence that national wealth will cushion economic risks.

The effects are showing up in the labor market and broader economy. Youth unemployment is significantly higher than in neighboring Denmark, dropout rates are elevated, and many highly educated Norwegians end up working low-skill service jobs despite extensive free higher education. Productivity growth has stalled, real wages are beginning to decline, and the Norwegian krone has weakened. The broader concern is not whether Norway can continue funding its welfare state—it likely can for decades—but whether a society sustained primarily by accumulated wealth gradually loses the pressures and incentives that drive innovation, accountability, productivity, and personal ambition.

4. These Are the Hiring Hot Spots Where College Grads Are Landing Good Jobs (WSJ)

A growing number of cities across the American Sunbelt are emerging as some of the strongest job markets for recent college graduates, even as the broader entry-level labor market remains difficult and uneven. New research from ADP ranked metro areas based on hiring rates for college-level jobs, wages, and affordability, and found that Southern cities dominate many of the top spots. Birmingham ranked first, followed by Tampa, with other strong performers including Raleigh, Tulsa, Nashville, and Charlotte. Recovery in graduate hiring is happening selectively, favoring regions with strong growth industries and relatively manageable living costs. Many young graduates increasingly see Southern cities as places where they can access opportunity without the crushing housing costs associated with traditional coastal hubs.

The rankings also reveal how rapidly local labor markets are shifting. San Jose surged despite recent tech layoffs, helped by renewed AI-related hiring and exceptionally high salaries, while Columbus emerged as a Midwest standout thanks to expansion in advanced manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and defense-related industries like drone production. Meanwhile, former high-flyers such as Austin, Phoenix, and Boston slipped in the rankings.

Prediction Markets

5. Why Almost Everyone Loses—Except a Few Sharks—on Prediction Markets (WSJ)

NOTE: Last week, I shared a Bloomberg article on this topic, here’s a WSJ one for you. I think the topic bears repeating.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket market themselves as democratized forecasting platforms where ordinary users can profit from predicting sports, politics, celebrity appearances, and economic events. In practice, however, the overwhelming majority of users lose money while a tiny group of sophisticated professional traders capture most of the gains. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that 67% of profits on Polymarket went to just 0.1% of accounts, while more than 70% of users lost money overall. On Kalshi, the company acknowledged that unprofitable users outnumber profitable ones by nearly three to one. Trading volume has exploded, rising from $1.8 billion to $24.2 billion year-over-year, attracting quantitative trading firms, algorithmic market makers, and high-frequency traders that use expensive live data feeds, AI systems, and automated trading infrastructure to exploit less sophisticated participants.

Prediction markets increasingly resemble a hybrid of gambling, day trading, and high-frequency finance. Professional firms staffed by statisticians, coders, and quantitative traders dominate many markets through speed, discipline, and superior data access. Some firms reportedly execute tens of thousands of trades daily and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on infrastructure. Critics warn that these markets are vulnerable to insider trading and behavioral biases such as “long shot bias,” where inexperienced traders overestimate unlikely outcomes. Mention markets in particular were found to systematically overprice “yes” outcomes, producing returns worse than many casino slot machines. Supporters counter that uninformed traders improve market liquidity and forecasting accuracy, arguing that prediction markets function similarly to other regulated financial exchanges.

Technology

6. You Have No Idea How Much You Still Use BlackBerry (WSJ)

BlackBerry may have disappeared from the smartphone spotlight years ago, but the company quietly reinvented itself as a major player in the software infrastructure powering modern vehicles and critical industrial systems. Its subsidiary, QNX, now provides the operating system embedded in roughly 275 million cars worldwide, supporting essential safety and driver-assistance functions such as collision warnings, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot detection, and lane-keeping systems. The software is designed for extreme reliability, making it attractive not just to automakers but also to hospitals, factories, robotics companies, and medical-device manufacturers where system failure is unacceptable.

Originally acquired in 2010 to help modernize BlackBerry phones during the company’s decline against the Apple iPhone ecosystem, QNX quietly evolved while much of the company’s attention remained focused on its collapsing handset business. As tech giants like Google and Apple entered automotive infotainment, QNX pivoted away from competing for dashboard screens and instead focused on the deeper software layers controlling safety-critical vehicle functions. That strategic shift proved pivotal as cars increasingly became “computers on wheels.”

A company once considered obsolete is now profitable again, with QNX generating roughly half of BlackBerry’s revenue and helping deliver the company’s first stretch of consecutive profitable quarters in years. BlackBerry’s stock remains far below its historic peak, but executives increasingly frame the company not as a failed phone maker but as a hidden infrastructure provider embedded across modern transportation, automation, and healthcare systems. Most consumers never see the software or know it exists, but millions rely on it every day without realizing it.

Health

7. Don’t Get Too Comfortable. Your Quality of Life Depends On It. (WSJ)

NOTE: I agree with this article wholeheartedly.

Modern life increasingly eliminates friction. AI, convenience technology, endless entertainment, and instant gratification make it possible to avoid discomfort almost entirely. Yet the same frictions people try to escape, like effort, challenge, uncertainty, and adaptation, are often the very things that keep human beings healthy. A growing danger is not stress or burnout, but stagnation: lives optimized for comfort that slowly erode resilience, vitality, and long-term well-being.

The core idea is “progression,” not in the sense of relentless productivity or constant achievement, but in the biological and psychological benefits that come from forward movement and adaptation. Research increasingly shows that when people consistently engage in manageable challenges, the body and brain respond positively.

• Physical progression through exercise and progressive overload improves cardiovascular health, cognition, mood, and stress regulation.

• Behavioral progression—taking action even when motivation is low—helps disrupt depression and avoidance cycles.

• Mental progression, especially exploratory thinking and openness to novelty, improves creativity, flexibility, and emotional resilience, while repetitive rumination and mental loops are strongly associated with anxiety and depression.

The difference between pleasure and progression is a big one. Many modern habits—doomscrolling, passive entertainment, sugar, alcohol—can temporarily improve mood without making people stronger, healthier, or more capable afterward. Progression often involves discomfort, uncertainty, or effort, but it leaves behind expanded capacity. That may help explain why reaching goals often produces only fleeting satisfaction, while sustained engagement in meaningful challenges predicts better health, greater resilience, and even lower mortality risk over time. In an age increasingly designed around efficiency and convenience, human beings are not optimized by ease, we are optimized by challenge and adaptation.

8. Young New Yorkers Have a New Hot Spot: Sunday Mass (WSJ)

For years, many churches worried about declining attendance and aging congregations. In parts of New York City, especially among young adults, the opposite is happening. At St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village, Sunday evening Masses are overflowing with Gen Z worshipers packed into pews, aisles, balconies, and folding chairs. Much of the growth has been driven by informal young-adult communities like “Pizza to Pews,” a meetup started by two twenty-somethings that draws hundreds of young Catholics to dinner before walking together to Mass. Some attendees travel from outside the city simply to participate.

According to Barna Group data, Gen Z churchgoers now attend services more frequently than millennials, Gen X, or boomers, with attendance rates rising notably since 2020. Young adults describe several forces pulling them toward faith communities: loneliness after the pandemic, political and economic uncertainty, desire for stable values and in-person connection, and dissatisfaction with hyper-online social life. Practices once seen as old-fashioned are being rediscovered by people who often had little religious upbringing themselves.

Church participation has also become deeply social. Young worshipers linger after services to exchange numbers, organize dinners, or join prayer walks through Central Park. Some document their routines on TikTok, blending church attendance with lifestyle culture in ways that feel accessible rather than institutional. Dating has become another major dynamic, with religious matchmaking platforms and social scenes growing rapidly.

For Fun

9. Kentucky Derby 2026

NOTE: In case you missed it, Golden Tempo won the Kentucky Derby---coming from last place to first in an amazing surge. Amazing!

10. Radiohead but it’s all jazz musicians

A Toronto-based soul and R&B artist, Kubla, sings Radiohead’s Creep in the style of jazz.

Share

Economy

1. Corporate America Is Minting Money—and Not Just in Tech and Finance (WSJ)

Large U.S. companies are reporting strong profits and revenue growth despite economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and weak consumer sentiment. Early results from S&P 500 firms show earnings expected to grow more than 13% year-over-year for a sixth straight quarter, with gains expanding beyond tech into sectors like finance and materials. Many companies are benefiting from real sales growth, efficiency gains, and pricing power—even in industries affected by higher costs, such as airlines.

However, this strength is uneven. Consumer-facing sectors are lagging as households feel pressure from inflation, high energy prices, and broader uncertainty, contributing to record-low consumer sentiment. Spending remains resilient among wealthier individuals, creating a “K-shaped” economy where strong corporate performance masks underlying disparities. Larger firms continue to outperform smaller and more consumer-dependent businesses, reinforcing a widening gap in economic outcomes.

2. Aircraft Technicians Make Six Figures and Airlines Can’t Find Enough of Them (WSJ)

The aviation industry is facing a growing shortage of aircraft maintenance technicians as a large share of the workforce nears retirement. More than 40% of mechanics are over 60, and demand is rising as airlines manage aging fleets and a backlog of new aircraft orders. The shortage is expected to reach thousands of workers in North America, pushing wages up sharply and making the role an increasingly attractive, high-paying career path that doesn’t require a traditional college degree.

Despite strong pay and job security, the pipeline of new workers remains limited due to low awareness, training bottlenecks, and high dropout rates in certification programs. Schools also struggle to retain instructors who can earn more in the field. In response, airlines and companies are expanding training programs, offering bonuses, and improving working conditions, but the industry still risks losing significant experience and expertise as older technicians retire.

3. America’s Pandemic Car Bubble Is Now Trapping Buyers in Debt (WSJ)

A growing number of U.S. car buyers are “underwater” on their loans, owing more than their vehicles are worth, with the problem worsening in recent years. About 30% of trade-ins now carry negative equity, with borrowers owing an average of $7,200, up sharply from five years ago, and some cases far higher. This trend is largely driven by pandemic-era vehicle price spikes, when buyers overpaid amid shortages, and are now trying to trade in depreciated cars.

To manage high costs, many buyers are taking on longer loans and rolling old debt into new ones, increasing total borrowing and monthly payments. This cycle compounds financial strain, raising the risk of defaults and repossessions, which are already climbing. While some consumers remain financially stable, those with negative equity face growing difficulty securing loans and escaping mounting debt.

4. The $50 Movie Ticket Has Arrived (WSJ)

Movie theaters are increasingly adopting airline-style pricing, charging significantly higher prices for premium experiences as overall attendance declines. Tickets for top formats, like IMAX showings of major releases, can reach $50, reflecting a shift toward maximizing revenue from dedicated moviegoers willing to pay more. While theaters are earning more per customer, total ticket sales remain down more than one-third from pre-pandemic levels, as many consumers turn to streaming platforms instead.

To offset fewer visitors, theaters are expanding premium screens, adding surcharges for popular films, and relying more heavily on concessions, where spending has surged. This strategy, however, risks turning moviegoing into an occasional luxury rather than a regular habit, raising concerns within the industry about affordability and long-term demand, especially as studios release fewer films and tensions grow over pricing and distribution strategies.

5. World’s Top Producer of Condoms Raises Prices as Iran War Rattles Supply Chains (NYT)

Karex, the world’s largest condom producer, plans to raise prices by up to 30% as the Iran war disrupts global supply chains. The conflict, especially the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has driven up oil and gas prices, sharply increasing costs for essential materials like synthetic rubber, nitrile, and packaging. Some inputs have doubled in price, forcing the company to pass costs on to consumers.

Karex, which manufactures about one in five condoms globally for brands like Durex and Trojan, warned that continued disruptions could halt production if even a single key material becomes unavailable. Despite rising demand, particularly in developing countries, the company fears shortages, potential job losses, and even panic buying if the conflict persists.

Energy

6. U.A.E.’s OPEC Exit Deals Major Blow to Cartel Amid Middle East Oil Squeeze (WSJ)

The United Arab Emirates has announced it will leave OPEC and the broader OPEC+ alliance, delivering a major blow to the cartel’s ability to manage global oil markets. The move comes amid heightened geopolitical strain from the Iran war, which has disrupted exports through the Strait of Hormuz and deepened divisions among member states. As OPEC’s third-largest producer, the UAE’s exit removes about 13% of the group’s production capacity and one of its few members with significant spare capacity—undermining its influence during a critical supply shock.

Frustrated by production limits and strained relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE is seeking greater independence to expand output and pursue its own energy strategy. Its ability to bypass Hormuz via overland routes, combined with relatively low production costs, gives it flexibility to increase exports and stabilize revenues as regional instability disrupts tourism and broader economic activity.

NOTE: The following charts from the 2025 OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin do a good job of showing the leverage the UAE has and how its production has been limited by OPEC to a greater degree than Saudi Arabia’s production.

Prediction Markets

7. Most Prediction Market Traders Are Losing Money While Bots Rack Up Gains (Bloomberg)

Prediction markets are often promoted as an easy way to make money, but most participants are losing—frequently by large amounts. Data from Polymarket shows that since early 2025, over 100,000 accounts lost at least $1,000, nearly double the number that achieved similar gains, with total losses among typical users reaching about $131 million. Research indicates that around 69% of traders lose money, while profits are heavily concentrated among a tiny top tier.

The gains are largely captured by a small group of high-frequency, bot-like traders who dominate trading volume and exploit timing and pricing advantages rather than superior predictions. Retail traders, despite often correctly forecasting outcomes, tend to enter markets too late and at worse prices, leading to losses. The structure of these markets, where a wrong bet can result in a total loss, combined with the dominance of sophisticated players, makes consistent profits unlikely for most users.

8. Did a Mystery Trader Tamper With the Temperature to Win Big on Polymarket? (WSJ)

Prediction markets are facing growing scrutiny after multiple incidents suggesting manipulation of outcomes used to settle bets. The latest controversy involves weather-based wagers on Polymarket, where suspicious temperature spikes at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport triggered large payouts. Investigators at Météo-France are examining whether the data was tampered with after anomalies showed sudden temperature jumps not reflected at nearby stations, allowing traders to profit thousands of dollars from unlikely bets.

Traders have previously raised concerns about manipulation in markets tied to geopolitical events, including incorrect data used to settle bets on the war in Ukraine and pressure placed on journalists whose reporting influenced outcomes. Because many of these contracts rely on external data sources, any error or interference can directly affect payouts. In response, platforms have begun tightening rules. Polymarket recently banned insider trading and participation in markets where users could influence outcomes, aligning more closely with regulated competitors like Kalshi. Still, its international platform remains largely unregulated, leaving ongoing concerns about integrity, oversight, and the vulnerability of these markets to manipulation.

9. Enforcement update: Kalshi continues crackdown on political insider trading (Kalshi)

Kalshi disclosed three enforcement cases involving political candidates illegally trading on markets tied to their own elections, flagged through new safeguards designed to prevent insider trading. The cases involved candidates in Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia who placed bets on their own races or candidacies, violating exchange rules. Two cooperated with investigations and received smaller fines and five-year suspensions, while a third who failed to cooperate was fined more heavily and also suspended.

Kalshi emphasized that even small trades can undermine market integrity and that violations will be penalized, with more serious cases potentially referred to regulators like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or the Justice Department. The enforcement actions underscore the platform’s effort to proactively monitor and prevent manipulation in politically sensitive markets.

Artificial Intelligence

10. America’s Largest Landowner Is Using AI to Digitize the Forest (WSJ)

Weyerhaeuser, the country’s top logging company and largest landowner, is investing heavily in artificial intelligence to modernize forestry, aiming to boost profits by $1 billion by the end of the decade through efficiency gains rather than higher lumber prices. The company is applying AI across its operations, from monitoring mill equipment and optimizing truck routes to matching production with real-time market demand. More advanced initiatives include building a “digital twin” of its vast timberlands using satellite imagery, drones, and lidar to track individual trees and improve long-term forest management decisions.

AI is also transforming how forests are planted and harvested. Models analyze drone footage to measure seedling survival rates faster and more accurately than manual counting, while experiments with semi-autonomous logging equipment allow operators to control machinery remotely. The company is developing systems that guide which trees to cut or preserve, using algorithms to maximize long-term value. These efforts reflect a broader push to bring automation and data-driven decision-making to an industry that has historically relied on manual labor and experience-based judgment.

Education

11. Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators (WP)

A growing trend in higher education, often called “degree hacking” or hyper-accelerated degrees, allows students to earn college credentials in months instead of years by leveraging online, competency-based programs. At schools like the University of Maine at Presque Isle and Western Governors University, students can transfer large amounts of prior credit, complete coursework at their own pace, and take unlimited classes per term for a flat fee, dramatically reducing both time and cost. Some students have completed bachelor’s and even master’s degrees in a matter of weeks or months for just a few thousand dollars.

Supporters argue these programs provide flexible, affordable pathways for working adults who need credentials quickly, especially those with prior experience. Critics, however, question whether such rapid completion undermines the depth and value of a degree, raising concerns about learning quality, academic integrity, and long-term credibility. While the model is expanding and helping many advance their careers, it is also sparking debate over what a college degree should represent.

12. States Are Learning the Wrong Lesson From the ‘Mississippi Miracle’ (Atlantic)

In this piece, Rachel Canter argues that Mississippi’s dramatic rise in reading and math performance, often called the “Mississippi miracle,” was not driven by the science of reading alone, but by a broader system of strict accountability and high expectations. Beginning in the early 2000s and accelerating after 2008, the state implemented policies that graded schools, intervened in failing districts, and enforced consequences for poor performance. Its 2013 literacy law required students to meet reading standards before advancing, backed by frequent assessments and parent notifications, ensuring pressure across the entire system to improve outcomes.

Equally important was strong implementation by the state education system, which took a more active role in enforcing reforms and supporting schools. While other states have tried to replicate Mississippi’s success by adopting phonics-based instruction, many have avoided the strict accountability measures that made the reforms effective. The result is that without sustained pressure, clear standards, and consistent execution, similar efforts elsewhere are unlikely to produce the same gains. Mississippi’s success reflects a long, disciplined process, not a quick policy fix.

Life

13. We’re All Talking to Each Other Less Than We Did a Decade Ago (WSJ)

People are speaking significantly less than they did a decade ago, largely due to the rise of digital communication and lifestyle changes that reduce everyday interaction. Research from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Arizona found that average daily word counts dropped from about 16,600 in 2005 to 11,900 in 2019—a decline of roughly 28%, with further decreases likely after the pandemic. Younger people show slightly sharper declines, but the trend spans all age groups, driven by factors like smartphones, texting, fewer shared living arrangements, and reduced community engagement.

This decline has broader implications for social connection and cognitive development. Conversation builds attention, responsiveness, and social skills, and reduced speaking, especially among parents with young children, may hinder language development and increase loneliness. While experts caution that more data is needed, they suggest small behavioral shifts, like talking more in daily life or engaging more with children, could help reverse the trend.

14. Sabastian Sawe just broke the 2-hour marathon barrier in $450 Adidas “supershoes” (Sherwood)

Sabastian Sawe became the first person to run a sub-two-hour marathon in an officially recognized race, finishing the London Marathon in 1:59:30—an extraordinary pace far beyond elite 5K standards and more than a minute faster than the previous world record set by Kelvin Kiptum in 2023. Just seconds later, Yomif Kejelcha also broke the barrier, marking a historic moment in distance running.

All three top performers, including Tigist Assefa—who set a women-only world record of 2:15:41—wore the same cutting-edge shoe from Adidas, giving the brand a major victory over rival Nike, which had long pursued the sub-two-hour milestone.

Share

Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a musical about her—Evita. In 1996, the musical was turned into a movie starring Madonna as Eva. The titular song of the musical was Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, which you can watch Madonna sing here:

The song speaks to the complexities of her rise from poverty to power, as she reassures the people that, through her transformation, she is still there to support them. It’s a plea to the Argentinian people to show understanding for all she’s been through, and ultimately, not mourn her death.

I’m reminded of the song as I watch what Javier Milei, the current Argentinian president, is attempting to do.

Eva Perón became one of the defining faces of Peronism by championing the working class and turning the state into an instrument of social protection and mass loyalty. She helped create the emotional and political style of Peronism itself—direct appeals to “the people,” strong symbolism, organized labor as a pillar of power, and a government expected to care for ordinary Argentines.

The current President, Javier Milei, by contrast, has taken a different path. Since taking office in December 2023, he has pushed a libertarian, pro-market agenda centered on cutting state spending, deregulation, labor reform, and weakening the old Peronist model of unions, subsidies, and state-led economic management.

His policies have led to a strong GDP rebound and reduced inflation. For now, he has achieved meaningful stabilization.

But he has plenty of critics, and some believe that Milei has abandoned the people. Public backlash over austerity measures, along with corruption allegations and stagnant incomes, has eroded his approval ratings.

And so, the lyrics of Don’t Cry for Me Argentina echo in my mind.

It won’t be easy, you’ll think it strange
When I try to explain how I feel
That I still need your love after all that I’ve done

….

Don’t cry for me, Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise, don’t keep your distance

In Eva Perón’s pleas to the Argentinian people, I can’t help but wonder if, reimagined, the lyrics could serve as a plea from Milei—that he has not forgotten the people and that his austerity measures are in their long-term best interest, if they’d only trust him and have patience.

No doubt there are many who see Milei’s approach as “mad”—it’s hard not to when you see images like this:

But keep in mind that the inflation rate in Argentina was nearly 300% in 2024, so perhaps a mad approach was required. Even now, at a more “normal” rate, inflation in Argentina sits around 32%. And you thought our U.S. inflation rate was bad at 3.3%.

Time will tell if Milei’s approach works—whether he “kept his promise”—and whether the people have the patience to see it through or instead “keep their distance.”

If not, there’s always the potential for a second, or third, chance.

In a bit of a political twist, Eva’s husband, Juan Peron, was overthrown as President of Argentina in a coup in 1955. Then, almost 20 years later, in 1973, he was elected president again. By that time, he had remarried, and his new wife, Isabel, became vice president alongside him1. When Juan Peron died in 1973, Isabel became president but was later overthrown in another military coup in 1976.

So, when it comes to Latin American politics, the people can be fickle, cycles happen, and anything’s possible.

Share

Economy

1. Wealth-Tax Fever Is Spreading to Less-Wealthy States (WSJ)

Maine has enacted a new 2% surtax on income over $1 million, joining a broader trend among Democratic-led states seeking to raise revenue from top earners. The measure increases the top tax rate to 9.15% and is expected to generate about $150 million over two years, funding priorities like healthcare, education, housing, and property tax relief. Supporters argue the tax is necessary amid economic uncertainty and federal spending cuts, while pointing to growing numbers of millionaires in the state. Critics warn the policy could backfire by discouraging investment, pushing wealthy residents to relocate, and hurting small business owners whose income may temporarily exceed $1 million.

NOTE: This topic made wonder which taxpayers generally pay the most taxes at the federal level. This recent CATO Institute article does a good job of breaking it all down. Of note: “At the federal level, the top 10 percent of income earners pay more than 60 percent of all taxes and 72 percent of income taxes, shares that have been increasing over time.”

As a percent of income, our taxes are progressive—meaning the more you make, the higher you’re taxed:

If we wanted to increase taxes—and I’m not saying that we should—perhaps the focus should be on corporate income tax instead of individual tax.

Here’s the above info in dollars versus percentages:

Here’s what that’s looked like over time:

Regardless, increasing taxes doesn’t solve the overall problem of overspending—something we’ve done every year since 2001.

The cumulative effect of which has led to an ever increasing debt:

Leading to our debt payments to be more than our GDP:

And in case you’re wondering, the Congressional Budget Office has some great infographics that show where our mandatory and discretionary spending is going and how it’s changed over time:

2. Around 14% of Enrollees in ACA Plans Failed to Make Payments, Data Shows (WSJ)

Rising premiums following the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies have led to a sharp drop in participation in plans under the Affordable Care Act. About 14% of enrollees this year failed to pay their first premium—far above the typical mid-single-digit drop-off—with some states seeing nonpayment rates of 25% or more. Overall enrollment has already declined from its peak, and projections suggest it could fall by as much as 17% to 26% as higher costs push people out of the market.

The increases have forced many individuals to abandon coverage or switch to cheaper, less comprehensive plans, leaving them financially vulnerable in the event of serious illness. As healthier individuals are more likely to drop out, the remaining insured population becomes costlier, driving insurers to raise premiums further—a cycle that risks destabilizing the market.

3. Why Gasoline Is So Much Cheaper in the U.S. Than Overseas (WSJ)

U.S. gas prices have climbed above $4 per gallon due to the war in Iran, reaching a four-year high, but they remain lower than in most developed countries. The U.S. is relatively insulated from global shocks because it is the world’s largest oil producer. The main reason for cheaper U.S. gasoline is lower taxation. Taxes make up only about 60 cents per gallon in the U.S., while in many European countries they account for 50–60% of the total price. As a result, countries like Germany see prices far higher, and even neighboring Mexico has significantly higher fuel costs. Beyond tax levels, policy differences also matter. The U.S. primarily uses fuel taxes to fund roads, while many other countries use them more broadly, including for public transit and environmental initiatives. Although some U.S. states have begun adding carbon-related costs, these measures remain more limited than in Europe, contributing to the persistent price gap.

So, what about California’s gas prices?:

As this piece points out, California’s nation-leading gas prices (over $5 per gallon) are driven by a combination of state-specific factors, including high taxes, strict environmental regulations, costly refining requirements, and an isolated fuel market. Refinery closures have worsened the situation, eliminating nearly 20% of the state’s refining capacity and forcing California to rely more on overseas suppliers, particularly in Asia, to produce its specialized gasoline blend. This reliance introduces delays, higher costs, and greater vulnerability to global disruptions, increasing the likelihood of price spikes during supply shortages or geopolitical conflicts.

Education

4. Why Everyone Hates the Ivy League (WSJ)

In 2025, only 42% of Americans expressed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, up slightly from recent years, but still down from 57% in 2015, according to Gallup. In response, last spring, Yale University President Maurie McInnis asked a group of faculty to examine why Americans were losing confidence in higher education—and to propose remedies to restore it.

The committee concluded that the declining public trust stems from concerns about political bias, unclear admissions standards, and rising costs. The committee argued institutions should refocus on their core mission—creating and disseminating knowledge—rather than broader societal goals, and take responsibility for contributing to this erosion of trust.

To address these issues, the group recommended making admissions more transparent and merit-based, potentially including minimum testing standards, while reducing preferences for legacy applicants, donors, and athletes. It also called for efforts to promote intellectual diversity on campus, such as reviewing curricula and hiring practices to ensure a wider range of perspectives, along with introducing civic education for students.

On affordability, the committee highlighted the growing disconnect between tuition costs and household income, urging expanded financial aid and higher income thresholds for free tuition eligibility. It also pointed to excessive graduate student debt in certain fields and recommends targeted support. Overall, rebuilding trust will require greater openness to criticism, clearer academic standards, and a renewed emphasis on universities’ foundational purpose.

You can find the report here.

Food & Drink

5. San Diego Now Has So Much Water That It’s Selling It (WSJ)

Arizona and Nevada are exploring an unconventional solution to the worsening crisis of the Colorado River: tapping desalinated ocean water from California. With the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people, declining due to overuse and climate pressures, water levels at key reservoirs like Lake Mead have dropped dramatically. In response, the states are negotiating agreements with the San Diego County Water Authority to effectively “trade” water access—funding desalinated supply in exchange for a portion of California’s Colorado River allocation. This could provide enough water for roughly 500,000 people while helping offset ongoing shortages.

After severe drought in the early 1990s, the San Diego region diversified its supply through infrastructure, desalination, and conservation, cutting dependence on imports from 95% to 10%. Despite higher costs, reduced consumption and expanded supply have left San Diego with surplus water, now seen as both a buffer and a revenue opportunity.

6. US court strikes down 158-year home distilling ban (The Spirits Business)

A federal appeals court struck down a 158-year-old prohibition on distilling spirits at home, ruling that the government cannot justify a blanket ban simply to protect tax revenue. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the restriction violated constitutional limits on Congress’s taxation powers, rejecting the argument that banning home distillation was necessary to prevent tax evasion. The court warned that such logic could justify banning many ordinary activities, from home businesses to remote work.

The case was brought by the Hobby Distillers Association and individual hobbyists who wanted to produce spirits for personal use, similar to the already-legal practice of home brewing beer or making wine. The ruling allows distillation at home regardless of location, overturning longstanding restrictions that applied to houses, garages, and adjacent property.

However, the decision does not fully legalize home distilling. Individuals must still obtain a federal permit from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, meaning the regulatory framework remains in place even as the location-based ban has been removed. The ruling is seen as a significant step toward broader legalization, but further legal and regulatory changes would be needed to put home distilling on equal footing with home brewing.

Life

7. If America’s So Rich, How’d It Get So Sad? (Derek Thompson)

In Thompson’s words:

American sadness this decade has been forged by the fact of, and the feeling of, a permanent unrelenting economic crisis, amplified by a uniquely negative news and media environment, and exacerbated by the rise of solitude and the declining centrality of trusted institutions. Inflation has made today’s life harder to afford, while the ambient awareness of other people’s triumphs on social media had made tomorrow’s success feel harder to achieve. The ongoing collapse of confidence in the establishment has made Americans feel unusually adrift and dissatisfied with institutions outside of their control, while the chosen self-isolation of modern life has demolished communal trust, as we increasingly experience other people’s minds through the toxic surreality of our screens rather than through the embodied reality of strangers who are, for the most part, just as nice as we are.

He offers this chart:

It’s an informed article definitely worth reading.

My advice: Put down the phone, stop watching 24-hour news, go outside, and go do things with people, in person. Get to know your neighbors, make friends with people who have different opinions than you, and assume the best in others.

8. Women in Their 20s May Not Be Having Babies, but by 45 Most Probably Will (NYT)

Fertility in the United States has been steadily declining since the Great Recession, reaching a new low, but the drop is less about people having fewer children and more about having them later…or so this article posits.

This is the chart shown in the article, which makes it appear that the increased number of births occurring by women 35 and older are offsetting the decline in births by women under age 35:

However, one reader of the article looked at the actual numbers (not percentages), and this is what he found:

Thus, the increase in births by those 35 and older are not offsetting the declining number of births by those women under 35.

Artificial Intelligence

9. AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks And Emails (Forbes)

As companies shut down, their internal digital records—emails, Slack messages, code repositories, and project logs—are emerging as valuable assets that can be sold to AI firms for training data. One example saw a defunct company earn hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling its “operational exhaust,” highlighting a growing market where real-world workplace data is prized for building more capable, task-oriented AI systems. This shift comes after AI labs largely exhausted publicly available internet data and now need detailed, authentic examples of how work actually gets done.

The surge in demand has sparked a “gold rush,” with startups facilitating these transactions and even creating marketplaces for companies to sell their data. At the same time, a new industry of “reinforcement learning gyms” is emerging, using this data to simulate workplace environments where AI agents can practice tasks like scheduling, communication, and problem-solving.

The trend raises significant privacy concerns. Even with anonymization efforts, experts warn that sensitive employee information could be exposed or inadvertently reproduced by AI systems. Critics argue that workers never expected their internal communications to be repurposed this way, and regulators are being urged to scrutinize the practice as the line between useful data and personal privacy becomes increasingly blurred.

10. Gen Z’s AI Adoption Steady, but Skepticism Climbs (Gallup)

Gen Z’s use of generative AI remains widespread and steady, with about half using it at least weekly, but attitudes toward the technology have grown more negative. Over the past year, excitement and hopefulness have declined, while anger and anxiety have increased. While those who use AI more often tend to view it more positively, overall sentiment is shifting toward skepticism, especially regarding its impact on learning, creativity, and critical thinking.

Many in Gen Z worry that AI’s short-term convenience may come at the cost of long-term skill development. Large shares believe it could harm their ability to think deeply, generate ideas, and learn effectively, and most say it is likely to make future learning harder. In the workplace, young workers are particularly wary, with far more saying the risks of AI outweigh its benefits and expressing greater trust in human-produced work than AI-assisted output.

At the same time, Gen Z recognizes AI’s importance for the future. Many students expect they will need AI skills for education and careers and are increasingly confident they will be prepared, even as schools expand access and set clearer rules. The overall picture is a generation that uses AI regularly but is increasingly cautious about its broader consequences.

NOTE: Even more great charts in article than just these:

Share

Twelve years ago, my family and I experienced one of the most unique stage shows that we had ever seen, or that we’ve seen since. It was called The Intergalactic Nemesis.

In The Intergalactic Nemesis, comic book images are shown on the screen while actors on stage speak the lines you’d normally read in the comic panels; meanwhile, sound effects are played by someone else on stage. Think of a 1930s radio drama, along with still images, played out in front of you.

It is quite an engaging storytelling experience.

Originally performed and recorded as a radio drama in 1996 in an Austin coffeehouse, the show eventually grew to broadcast quality, and they ended up going on the road as a live stage play. They were even on Conan O’Brien’s show and NPR’s All Things Considered. Kansas State even put together a study guide for the show, providing background on the creator and the genre. We saw the show in 2014—almost 20 years later—as they toured the country. We loved the show.

To me, this is another story of something that started small, then grew after continued work and time, into something people might think happened overnight. Sadly, though the show is no longer being performed in person, you can watch episodes here. And, you can get their graphic novels (comic books) here.

But wait, there’s more!

In a surprise twist, while researching the creator, Jason Neulander, I found out that he’s put together a new show, this one based on Treasure Island, called Jane Hawkins and the Pirate’s Gold! It looks like they’ll be touring this fall and it’s a family-friendly show.

The Austin Chronicle describes it as, “The live version of Treasure Island Reimagined will do something very similar [to The Intergalactic Nemesis], bringing to…life the exploits of young Jane Hawkins, a 12-year-old working in a sleepy seaside inn on the coast of Scotland in 1754. Her world is turned upside down when a mysterious stranger washes up at the inn, sending her on a journey of peril and plunder.”

Share

The following series of articles are all related in a circular way. To best understand the relation, I recommend watching this YouTube video explaining how South Korea faces a future of economic decline, shrinking cities, cultural erosion, and a vanishing workforce:

Much like South Korea, the U.S. economy is increasingly operating in a self-reinforcing cycle driven by rising incomes and demographic decline. As wages grow—especially among educated, dual-income households—more people move into higher income tiers, but higher living costs (housing, childcare, education) simultaneously make raising children more expensive, leading many to delay or forgo having kids. This contributes to falling fertility rates and an aging population, which shrinks the labor force over time. With fewer workers available, economic growth becomes more dependent on productivity gains rather than job creation, reinforcing demand for skilled, higher-paid labor and further boosting incomes at the top. That, in turn, sustains the high-cost environment that discourages family formation, continuing the cycle of rising incomes, fewer births, and a tightening labor supply that reshapes long-term economic growth.

1. More Americans Are Breaking Into the Upper Middle Class (WSJ)

New data shows a shift in the U.S. income landscape, with the upper-middle class expanding while the core middle class shrinks. More families are moving into higher income tiers, driven by rising wages, especially among college-educated, white-collar workers, and dual-income households. As a result, fewer Americans fall into lower-income categories than in past decades, and a growing share now earns well above traditional middle-class levels.

Despite this upward movement, many households don’t feel wealthy. Higher costs for housing, childcare, and education continue to strain budgets, even for high earners. While individuals are often doing better than their parents, there is lingering concern about whether future generations will maintain that progress. The result is a paradox where more Americans are objectively better off, yet still feel financially pressured and uncertain about long-term stability.

2. Did Millennials or Boomers Have It Harder? We Went Searching for the Answer (WSJ)

Comparisons between millennials and baby boomers show a more nuanced picture than the common narrative that one generation had it easier. Millennials’ incomes, adjusted for inflation, are roughly comparable to boomers’ at similar ages, and recent gains have put many millennials in a stronger financial position than often assumed. Both generations faced economic challenges early in adulthood—millennials with the Great Recession and pandemic, and boomers with high inflation and interest rates. However, millennials have struggled more with rising costs in key areas like housing and education, particularly student debt, which delayed wealth-building early in their careers.

Despite these challenges, millennials have made significant financial progress over time. Many have benefited from strong stock and housing markets, and their household net worth now exceeds that of boomers at similar ages. At the same time, boomers remain the wealthiest generation overall, largely due to decades of asset appreciation and earlier entry into the housing market. The broader takeaway is that economic experiences vary widely within each generation, and while both faced real challenges, long-term outcomes have been more similar—and in some cases better for millennials—than the generational debate often suggests.

Many more charts in the article than just the ones below.

3. The Economy Is Growing, Jobs Aren’t. Why That Might Be OK. (WSJ)

Economic growth is continuing even as job creation stalls, creating an unusual dynamic where productivity has become the primary driver of expansion. Slowing immigration, an aging population, and declining birth rates have sharply reduced labor-force growth, with the workforce shrinking by over 500,000 in the past year. As a result, the number of jobs needed to maintain stable unemployment has dropped dramatically—potentially to near zero—helping explain why unemployment hasn’t surged despite minimal hiring.

In this environment, gains in worker productivity (output per hour) are carrying the economy. Productivity has grown at about 2.1% annually in recent years, a noticeable improvement over the pre-2020 period and stronger than many peer economies. Factors driving this include post-pandemic workforce reshuffling into more efficient roles, increased automation, longer job tenure, and early impacts from artificial intelligence. While AI’s full effect remains uncertain, economists expect it to contribute meaningfully over time, especially as firms adapt workflows and invest in complementary changes.

This shift marks a departure from historical growth patterns, where both labor expansion and productivity contributed. With labor-force growth potentially flat, future gains in living standards will depend heavily on sustained productivity improvements. If productivity growth remains strong, it could offset demographic headwinds; if not, the U.S. risks slower growth similar to countries with shrinking workforces.

4. Why More People Are Dropping Out of the Job Market (WSJ)

The U.S. labor market showed solid job growth and lower unemployment, but labor-force participation continued to decline, falling to 61.9%—its lowest level since 1977 outside the pandemic. This long-term drop has been driven primarily by demographic shifts, especially the retirement of baby boomers, along with reduced immigration that has limited the influx of younger workers. Early retirements, accelerated during the pandemic and supported by rising home and investment wealth, have further reduced participation among older Americans.

Fewer workers can slow long-term economic growth unless productivity rises to compensate. While recent productivity gains have helped offset the impact, economists warn that may not continue indefinitely. Despite the overall decline, participation among prime-age workers remains strong, which is good—so perhaps the issue is less about people giving up on work and more about structural factors like aging and a shrinking labor supply, which could eventually lead to labor shortages and slower population growth.

5. Why the U.S. Fertility Rate Has Hit a Record Low (WSJ)

U.S. fertility rates fell to new record lows in 2025, with the general fertility rate dropping to 53.1 births per 1,000 women and the total fertility rate declining to 1.57—well below the replacement level of 2.1. Despite this, total births held steady at about 3.6 million for the sixth consecutive year. The long-term decline is driven largely by sharp decreases in births among teens and women in their 20s, while births among women in their late 30s have now surpassed those in their early 20s for the first time, reflecting a continued shift toward delayed parenthood.

Much of this trend is tied to uncertainty around finances, relationships, and the broader future, even though many still want children. Teen birthrates have dropped dramatically—down more than 70% since 2007—due to public health efforts and increased contraceptive use. With births no longer significantly outpacing deaths, the U.S. is approaching a point where population growth will depend on immigration, mirroring a broader global pattern of declining fertility across developed countries.

Health

6. Why the U.S. Spends So Much on Healthcare (WSJ)

Healthcare in the U.S. is the most expensive in the world, driven primarily by much higher prices for the same services and products. Prescription drugs cost significantly more because the government does not broadly negotiate prices like other countries do. Hospital consolidation has also given large systems more power to charge higher rates, while administrative costs—such as billing and insurance processing—consume a much larger share of spending than in other nations.

Labor costs further increase expenses, as American doctors and nurses earn more than their international counterparts. At the same time, Americans are using more healthcare, including costly hospital services and new high-priced drugs, which has accelerated overall spending. Together, higher prices, heavier administrative overhead, higher wages, and increased utilization explain why U.S. healthcare costs far exceed those of other countries.

Lots of great charts in this WSJ article. Just a few of them below.

Artificial Intelligence

7. Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First (OpenAI)

AI is advancing so quickly and powerfully that it could fundamentally reshape the economy, and proactive planning is essential to manage both its benefits and its risks. In this vein, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has proposed a sweeping blueprint for how governments should respond to the rapid rise of AI, arguing that its impact will be so transformative that it requires a new social contract. He warns that advances in AI could soon lead to major disruptions, including cyberattacks, biological threats, and widespread job displacement, making urgent policy discussions necessary. His plan reflects a belief that existing economic and regulatory systems are not prepared for what’s coming.

The proposal includes bold ideas such as a public wealth fund that would give citizens a stake in AI-driven growth, taxes on automated labor, and a shift away from payroll taxes as jobs decline. It also suggests a four-day workweek enabled by AI productivity gains, universal access to AI tools, and automatic expansion of social safety nets when job displacement rises. The plan even addresses extreme scenarios, including how to contain autonomous AI systems that could act beyond human control.

Definitely recommend reading considering it’s coming direct from the OpenAI CEO.

8. Claude Mythos Is Everyone’s Problem (The Atlantic)

Anthropic has revealed a highly advanced AI model, Claude Mythos Preview, that it believes is too dangerous for public release. The system is capable of identifying thousands of serious software vulnerabilities, including flaws in every major operating system and browser, some of which had gone undetected for decades. Unlike earlier AI tools that improved hacking through speed and scale, this model appears to represent a leap in capability, potentially rivaling or exceeding elite state-sponsored cyber operations. In response, Anthropic is limiting access to a small group of major tech companies so they can strengthen defenses before broader deployment.

9. Anthropic Model Scare Sparks Urgent Bessent, Powell Warning to Bank CEOs (Bloomberg)

U.S. financial regulators are increasingly concerned that advanced AI could trigger a new wave of cyber threats. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell held an urgent meeting with major bank CEOs to warn about risks tied to Anthropic’s new model, Mythos. The system is reportedly capable of identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities across major operating systems and web browsers, raising fears about what could happen if such tools are used maliciously. In response, Anthropic has limited access to the model and is coordinating with select firms and government officials to strengthen defenses before broader release.

The concern extends beyond the U.S., with regulators in countries like Canada and the U.K. also engaging financial institutions on the issue. Officials view AI-driven cyber risk as a potential systemic threat, especially given the interconnected nature of global banking. While banks already hold capital to guard against operational risks like cyberattacks, the rapid advancement of AI is introducing new uncertainties that are harder to measure and defend against, increasing urgency across the financial system.

10. We’re Using So Much AI That Computing Firepower Is Running Out (WSJ)

The rapid surge in demand for artificial intelligence, especially more advanced “agentic” systems that perform tasks autonomously, is outstripping the available computing power needed to run them. This shortage of compute capacity has led to outages, product delays, and companies being forced to prioritize certain services over others. AI usage has exploded, with token consumption (a measure of compute usage) rising dramatically, and firms scrambling to secure scarce GPU resources and data-center capacity.

The bottleneck is being driven by long infrastructure lead times, limited power availability, and surging demand for high-performance chips like those made by Nvidia. Prices for GPU access have climbed sharply, and companies are making difficult trade-offs—cutting projects, limiting user access, or raising prices. Even leading AI providers have struggled with reliability, as seen in frequent outages and reduced uptime, prompting some customers to switch providers.

This capacity crunch reflects a familiar pattern from past tech booms, where demand grows faster than infrastructure can keep up. Unless computing supply expands significantly, the shortage could slow AI adoption and limit the effectiveness of tools that businesses are increasingly relying on for productivity gains.

11. These Cities and States Are Taking Aim at Data Centers (WSJ)

Growing backlash against data centers is spreading across the U.S., driven largely by the rapid expansion of AI-related infrastructure. Maine is on track to potentially become the first state to temporarily halt new data-center construction, while lawmakers in more than 10 states and numerous local governments are considering or have already enacted similar bans. Most of these measures are temporary, reflecting rising concerns at the community level.

Despite this pushback, data-center development continues to surge, especially in states like Virginia and Texas, which lead the nation in the number of facilities. The boom is being fueled by demand for large-scale, AI-driven “hyperscale” data centers.

12. The Real Energy Cost of AI, Explained With Steaks and a Data Center Trip (WSJ)

AI data centers could use up to 12% of all U.S. electricity by 2028. But how much power does it take to create one video and what really happens after you hit “enter” on that AI prompt? WSJ’s Joanna Stern visited “Data Center Valley” in Virginia to trace the journey and then grills up some steaks to show just how much energy it all takes.

NOTE: I highly recommend watching this video to better understand energy consumption from AI use.

Technology

13. Kids Are Discovering the Joys—and Pains—of the Landline (WSJ)

A growing number of American families are turning to low-tech solutions like landlines to delay giving children smartphones. Parents see these devices as a way for kids to communicate with friends while avoiding the risks of social media, including anxiety, bullying, and excessive screen time. New internet-enabled phones designed for kids—such as screen-free devices with parental controls—are gaining popularity, reflecting a broader effort to introduce technology in stages rather than all at once.

14. The secret, never-before-used CIA tool that helped find airman downed in Iran: ‘If your heart is beating, we will find you’ (NYP)

The CIA used a newly revealed technology called “Ghost Murmur” to locate and help rescue a downed American airman in Iran. The system combines quantum magnetometry with AI to detect the faint electromagnetic signal of a human heartbeat from long distances, even across vast terrain. Developed by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division, the tool was used operationally for the first time in a remote desert environment, where minimal interference made it easier to isolate the signal. The technology proved critical in identifying the pilot’s location after traditional tracking methods, including a survival beacon, failed to provide precise positioning.

Prediction Markets

15. Polymarket’s $269 Million Question: Did U.S. Forces ‘Enter’ Iran? (WSJ)

A major dispute on Polymarket exposed a key weakness in prediction markets. Traders wagered $269 million on whether U.S. forces would “enter Iran.” No large-scale operation took place, but a limited special forces rescue mission was ruled to meet the contract’s terms. That decision triggered payouts and frustration among participants who believed the bet was meant to reflect a more significant military intervention.

As prediction markets expand into areas like geopolitics, disagreements over definitions and interpretation are becoming more common. Platforms rely on systems like UMA to resolve disputes, where token holders vote on outcomes. Critics argue that large stakeholders can influence decisions, while supporters say complaints mainly come from losing traders. Ambiguous real-world events, especially in war, make it difficult for these markets to function as reliable forecasting tools.

Share

Then I wondered how hard it would be to make my own site that would do the same thing as Series Graph.

What I found was that it was both easier and harder than I thought it would be. Here’s what my site, Episode Graph, looks like:

If you just want to go to my site and don’t care at all how I made it, go here and skip the rest of this post.

But, I’ll tell you up front that there are some issues with my site, so don’t plan to use it as a substitute for Series Graph. Here are the limitations of my site:

• My site has trouble getting information for certain TV episodes, so some ratings will be missing. This could be rectified if I paid money for a proper API feed (more on that later).

• The “dark mode” colors aren’t right, making that mode difficult to read. To change it to “light mode,” click on the asterisk/moon icon to the right of the search bar.

• My site may stop working. I actually wrote this post weeks ago, but I had used up all my “credit” from my free Netlify account (read more about how I use Netlify here) and had to wait until a new billing cycle kicked off for the site to become active again. My free account came with 300 credits, the next level up costs $9 per month and gives you 1,000 credits per month. I want to try to keep all of this at the free level, so I didn’t upgrade. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know how many credits I was eating up each time I uploaded a change to my site, though I do know that it took quite a few iterations to get the site I have now. Either way, when I exceed my free credits, all sites I’ve created on Netlify (to include my Olympics spinner and geography game) stop working until the next month, as you can see below.

How I made my site

I went to Claude’s Codex and typed in this prompt:

ok, i want you to make an html site that allows me to look up tv series or movies and see the imdb ratings of each episode (or movie) in graphic form similar to the Series Graph app/website. can you do that?

Codex said it could do this, but that I’d need to get access to an API and would need to upload files to Github.

I vaguely knew what these two things were, so after some back-and-forth with Codex, I was given background and instructions.

APIs

API stands for Application Programming Interface. In plain English, it is a set of rules that says: 1) what you can ask a system to do, 2) how to ask it, and 3) what kind of answer you will get back.

From Claude:

Websites use APIs by sending requests to external services and receiving data back in a structured format (usually JSON), which they then display to users.

For example, when a website shows weather, maps, or login options, it sends a request like “get current weather for this location” to another service’s API, receives the data, and uses it to update the page in real time.

Think of an API as a request for data from another organization that stores that data. For instance, if you wanted the latest stock prices, you’d sign up for an API to get stock prices from an organization that track them, like Bloomberg. If you wanted hotel pricing and availability data, you might sign up for an API from Expedia. Or, if you wanted to get weather data, you might sign up for an API from Weather.com.

You get the idea—basically anyone out there who has information on the web will likely offer you the ability to sign up for an API to get their data. Some agencies offer their data for free, like the government, and others require you to pay for the data—IMDB falls into this latter category, charging $150,000 per year. Obviously movie data is a big business!

I did not have an extra $150K lying around, so I asked Codex what other options were available, and we settled on The Open Movie Database (OMDb) API, which was free for a limited number of queries.

Unfortunately, I quickly used up my allotted queries in building my site and playing with it, so for now I pay $1 per month to get unlimited queries but limited data (as I later learned).

GitHub

GitHub is a website and platform for storing, managing and collaborating on code. Codex originally wanted me to have the code stored on my computer, which would mean every time someone accessed my Episode Graph website it would go to my computer to run the code. My previous two projects, Your Vibe Code Guide to the Olympics and Your Vibe Code Guide to World Geography, both had static data, so no outside information was required. This project, however, would require going and looking at data that would constantly be updated (new TV episodes and movies come out every day).

I am not a fan of running a website from my computer, so Codex told me that Github is a good alternative. And, that it is—especially since it offers a free option for my limited use. There are also paid options depending on your needs:

So, with that background, off I went. I had never used APIs or Github before, so I asked Codex to walk me through every step of signing up, and uploading code.

Though this all may sound complicated, it actually wasn’t. I did this all one night sitting on the couch watching another episode of The Lincoln Lawyer—which, as an aside, is a great series, both as TV and in book form (and so is the semi-related Bosch series)!

Within a couple of hours, I had a fully functioning site.

It started out with a basic line graph:

But I wanted the option for boxes, so I went back into Codex, told it what I wanted (along with an image from the Series Graph website), and within a couple of minutes it gave me new files to upload to Github.

Once that loaded, I wasn’t happy with the large size of the boxes, so I asked it to make a slider tool enabling the user to make the box sizes as large or small as they wanted:

Note that you can choose between boxes or a line graph—it kept both options. From there, I asked Codex to provide “average” lines on the line graph. It wrote new code to show linear average, moving average, or no trend line at all, then I uploaded the new code to Github.

You might also notice that when you type a movie or TV show title in the search bar that the left panel of the site shows a list of all possible movies or shows with that title that you can choose from. I did not choose this option, Codex put it there in the initial version.

The information at the top and the sortable list at the bottom of the page were all created on the first iteration of the site by Codex as well…I didn’t even have to ask for them either.

However, this is where things started to get hard.

I wanted a button to toggle between light mode and dark mode, so Codex built that functionality in via a moon/asterisk button to the right of the search bar.

But, dark mode is horrendous:

I played around with Codex for quite a while trying to fix this issue, but eventually gave up because it was taking too long.

Also, it was around this time that I realized that some episode ratings were missing and I couldn’t figure out why.

I queried numerous other TV series in my new app and inevitably certain episode ratings would be missing from those also. For the next few nights, I worked for hours with Codex to try and diagnose and fix the problem. Ultimately, what I narrowed it down to (I think) is that the $1/month OMDb API does not give me all TV and movie information; if I want all TV and movie information, I’d have to pay $150K per year to IMDB for their API.

So, there my imperfect site sits.

I think what strikes me as most interesting about these projects is how easy they are to code with no coding experience. Some of these websites or apps, like Series Graph, are popular because of how they’ve coded their site to display information or be interactive. If I, as a novice, can take a screenshot of cleverly done website and just ask Codex to make it for me, then where does the competitive advantage lie? Are site designs considered Intellectual Property? If all the information on the internet is available for vacuuming up and repackaging, where’s the limit?

As a coda to this post, while doing some research for a Global Hot Spots (areas of conflict in the world) course that I’m developing, I came across a site that looks very much like it was developed with the help of AI—World Factbook Archive—which is designed to be a replacement for the now-defunct CIA Factbook. The website, though glitchy at times, has suspiciously similar components to some of the coding projects I’ve had Claude do for me. I’ll admit, though, the website is well done with lots of great graphics and interactive tools. The interesting part of it is that all of the past CIA Factbook data was uploaded to GitHub, and since it’s static and no longer being updated, anyone could create a similar website without using an API.

Share

Drop in federal workforce

The federal workforce shrank sharply in 2025 after the DOGE-era push for government efficiency, falling 10.3% and dropping to about 2.68 million workers by February 2026, the lowest level in nearly 60 years. Roughly 348,000 employees left through resignations, retirements, layoffs, or other departures, while federal hiring fell more than 55% from the year before. Some of the largest staffing reductions occurred at Veterans Affairs and the Treasury, and agencies like USAID were especially hard hit. Now, the administration appears to be shifting from cuts to selective rehiring, aiming to fill gaps created by last year’s downsizing. In some cases, agencies that were heavily reduced are hiring again, though not necessarily to rebuild prior functions.

Drop in crime

At the same time, and unrelated, the country has one of its clearest good-news stories in years— violent crime and homicide are dropping sharply. Researchers disagree on the precise mix of causes, but better policing, restored post-pandemic routines, and broader social changes all appear to be helping.

Rise of technology, efficiency, solitude and prices

Though the chart below actually comes from the WSJ article discussed above, I thought it was a good bridge to this piece by Derek Thompson that blends the topics of technology, efficiency, solitude and prices. His core argument is that businesses built around shared, in-person experiences—restaurants, theaters, childcare, bookstores, and other social spaces—are labor-intensive and therefore become more expensive over time, while businesses that keep people alone—streaming platforms, delivery apps, social media, and smartphone entertainment—scale efficiently and become more profitable. As a result, our current economy increasingly rewards anti-social business models, making solitude cheaper and more convenient than connection.

This dynamic is known as the Baumol Effect, or Baumol’s cost disease, in which some sectors can boost productivity through automation and technology, but others still require roughly the same human labor they always have. A farmer or tech company can serve far more people with fewer workers, but a teacher, server, actor, or musician cannot compress human interaction in the same way. As wages rise across the economy, these social, labor-heavy services become harder to afford, which helps explain why institutions that bring people together are under pressure. His conclusion is that if social connection matters, society may need to subsidize or otherwise support the spaces and services that make hanging out, gathering, and building community easier. Not sure how I feel about further subsidization by the government, as I continue to have grave concerns about our nation’s debt and social security’s solvency (see article farther below), but I do think that we need to engage in more activities that bring people together for healthy activities.

Speaking of not leaving your home…

Amazon is expanding faster delivery options across the U.S., introducing one-hour delivery service in hundreds of locations and three-hour service in more than 2,000. The offerings focus on everyday items such as household essentials, health and beauty products, and over-the-counter medications. One-hour delivery is $9.99 for Amazon Prime members and $19.99 for non-Prime members. Three-hour delivery is $4.99 and $14.99, respectively.

Wait, social media is bad for your health?

Speaking of people’s health, the legal pressure on Meta and Google’s social-media platforms is intensifying. A California jury found Meta and Google liable for $3 million in damages to a 20-year-old woman, identified as K.G.M., who argued that addictive features on their platforms contributed to her app addiction. Meta, through Facebook and Instagram, was assigned 70% of the damages, while YouTube was assigned 30%. TikTok and Snap were also named in the lawsuit but settled separately out of court. Both Meta and Google said they disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal.

The case is part of a much broader wave of litigation against major social media companies over claims that their platforms harm users’ mental health. That pressure is growing: in a separate New Mexico case, Meta was also ordered to pay $375 million after a jury found it violated state unfair trade practices tens of thousands of times. The broader concern is reinforced by usage trends among young people. A 2025 Pew study found that about 36% of teenagers said they were online using a social media or video app almost constantly, with YouTube and TikTok among the most widely used. In testimony, the plaintiff said she began using YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine and described being unable to stop.

Oh, and if that wasn’t bad enough, reports that Meta contractors reviewed intimate footage from AI glasses have surfaced. Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses were initially a breakout success in sales, but that growth comes with major privacy and labor concerns. The glasses let users capture first-person video and use AI to interpret what they see, yet some of that footage is reportedly sent to offshore contractors for data labeling. Workers in Kenya said they were required to review deeply private material, including people undressing, using the bathroom, watching pornography, exposing bank cards, and even filming sexual activity.

Artificial Intelligence

This wouldn’t be a news update if I didn’t include something about AI.

At the infrastructure level, AI is concentrating enormous power in a small number of firms. Nvidia’s growing role as investor and ecosystem architect can be seen in the charts below. And, Amazon’s huge AI spending bet points in the same direction: the firms with the deepest balance sheets are trying to turn capital into strategic advantage.

In other AI news, Anthropic is facing new scrutiny after accidentally releasing more than 500,000 lines of code connected to Claude Code, an incident that has alarmed lawmakers because of Claude’s growing role in U.S. national security work. Representative Josh Gottheimer warned that repeated leaks could undermine America’s competitive edge if rivals are able to replicate the system, while also criticizing the Trump administration for blocking Claude from government contracts, arguing that doing so could hurt the U.S. in its AI competition with China.

The episode has sharpened concerns not just about internal security at AI firms, but also about how vulnerable advanced models may be to foreign exploitation. Gottheimer pressed Anthropic on whether it has weakened safety protections and warned that Chinese-linked actors, including DeepSeek, could use model distillation or cyberattacks to benefit from Claude’s capabilities. Anthropic has tried to minimize the incident, saying no customer data or credentials were exposed and that the release stemmed from human error rather than a breach, but the leak is likely to intensify debate in Washington over how AI systems tied to defense and intelligence should be secured and regulated. Alas, human error…the weakest link in cyber security.

Yep, I’m still concerned about our economy

A year ago, I posted an article, It’ll get worse before it gets better, about the economy. Well, it’s not getting any better. I have serious concerns about our nation’s debt, which continues to go up:

And relatedly, I also have serious concerns about Social Security, which is heading toward a funding crisis because payroll taxes from current workers are no longer enough to cover benefits for retirees. The system is drawing down its Treasury credit balance, but that reserve is projected to run out around 2033, or possibly sooner, at which point benefits would automatically be cut by about 23% unless Congress acts. The central problem is that people are living longer, while lower birthrates and fewer immigrants mean there are not enough younger workers paying into the system.

Several broad fixes are on the table, all of them politically painful. Options include raising the retirement age, increasing taxes on high earners or on everyone, reducing initial benefits for future retirees, slowing cost-of-living increases for current beneficiaries, or even replacing the current earned-benefit structure with a flat anti-poverty payment. Lawmakers will almost certainly end up using some mix of higher taxes and lower benefits, with the burden likely falling more on higher earners and future retirees…though Congress has so far shown little urgency in confronting the issue. So, bottom-line: We’ve got seven years.

Private-credit problems

In other disappointing economic news, the private-credit boom that fueled major growth on Wall Street is now showing signs of strain as investors rush to pull money out of funds. Large redemption requests—such as investors trying to withdraw 14% from a major fund—are forcing firms to limit payouts, delaying access to capital and exposing liquidity constraints.

For us laypeople, what does that mean?

Private-credit funds made a lot of loans during a period when money was easy, interest rates were lower, and investors were eager to chase higher returns. Many of those loans went to riskier companies, including firms with weaker finances. Now that borrowing costs are higher and the economy is less forgiving, some of those companies are struggling more, which makes investors wonder whether the loans inside these funds are really as safe or valuable as advertised.

Once that doubt starts, it feeds on itself. Investors think, “If these loans weaken further, I may want out now rather than later.” But because private-credit funds cannot easily sell those loans quickly for cash, people worry they could get stuck waiting to withdraw. That fear causes more people to ask for their money back, which creates even more concern. So the root cause is a mix of weaker underlying loans, higher interest-rate pressure, and a growing loss of confidence.

There is also a structural reason. Private credit grew very quickly, and more of the money came from wealthy individuals and other noninstitutional investors who can be quicker to react when sentiment turns. When times were good, that rapid growth looked like strength. Now it means the industry is more exposed to mood swings. So, at bottom, this is happening because the market expanded fast, took on risk, and is now being tested in a tougher environment.

Other news about other markets

More and more (and more and more) articles are coming out about the dangers of prediction-markets. In case you’re not aware, a prediction-market is a website where people put money behind their predictions about future events, and the shifting prices show what the crowd thinks will happen. They are all the rage right now. Here’s a screenshot from Polymarket on just a few (of hundreds) of bets you could make:

Prediction-markets bring numerous problems. College students are describing sports betting as a growing social and financial problem. Campus prediction-market frenzies are being fueled by rumors and side information leading to speculative behavior becoming normalized among young people before strong guardrails are in place.

And it’s not just happening on campuses.

After U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, attention turned to prediction-market platform Polymarket, where traders had wagered heavily on when the attacks would occur. Roughly $529 million was traded on strike-related contracts, and six newly created accounts reportedly earned about $1 million in profits by betting the U.S. would strike Iran by Feb. 28. Some of the bets were placed hours before the attacks, raising suspicions among blockchain analysts that the trades could reflect insider knowledge rather than simple speculation.

All of this points to the same problem: once money can be made from an event, people gain incentives not only to predict outcomes, but to manipulate information, pressure participants, or blur the boundary between analysis and exploitation.

Expanding on Iran

Speaking of Iran, last week, I posted about the dangers of chokepoints and how they can turn into chokeholds. Interestingly, later that day, WSJ published a piece titled, The Islands That Give Iran a Stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz. Chokeholds, Strangleholds…great minds think alike, I suppose. However, in my analysis, I focused on mainland Iran, I didn’t really talk about the islands. The WSJ article is worth the read as it goes into more detail about Iran’s islands.

Mixing it up in Mexico

Meanwhile, in Mexico, cartel control across much of the country continues to blur the line between criminal power and territorial governance. Mexico’s major drug cartels expanded their territorial control beginning in the 1980s to manage cocaine trafficking from Colombia into the United States and protect their operations from government interference. Their influence has grown further in the past decade with the rise of fentanyl. Today cartel groups operate across nearly all of Mexico’s 32 states, prompting increased pressure from the United States, where several major cartels have been designated foreign terrorist organizations, to curb their power.

No more wining

China’s anti-drinking crackdown is reshaping the global wine trade. Policies banning alcohol at government and Communist Party events, combined with anti-corruption campaigns, have eliminated a major source of demand that once fueled luxury wine imports. As a result, foreign wine imports have fallen dramatically, now sitting at roughly half their 2018 peak, and major producers are left with massive unsold inventory.

Machines inside humans and humans inside machines

As Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip continues to push the boundary of human-machine integration by allowing a patient to navigate video game control purely through thought control, Cortical Labs, an Australian company, is developing computers powered by human neurons. Rather than using traditional GPU servers, these “biological data centers” would run on the company’s CL1 units, each of which contains about 200,000 human brain neurons grown on a multi-electrode array chip. The neurons receive electrical signals, respond to them, and effectively produce computing output. The company recently drew attention by demonstrating that this system could play a version of the video game DOOM.

The company is pitching the technology as a possible low-energy alternative to conventional AI infrastructure, which has become increasingly expensive and power-hungry as major tech firms expand their data-center footprints. Cortical Labs says each CL1 unit uses less power than a handheld calculator. Its Melbourne facility is expected to house 120 units, while its Singapore project, built with data-center company DayOne at the National University of Singapore, will begin with 20 units as a prototype. If testing goes well, the partnership could eventually scale to as many as 1,000 units in a commercial DayOne facility.

And speaking of data centers…

The startup, Deep Fission, is developing a system that places small nuclear reactors in narrow boreholes drilled about a mile into the earth, using water pressure and surrounding rock to replace much of the expensive above-ground infrastructure that makes conventional nuclear plants costly and slow to build. Each borehole reactor is designed to generate 15 megawatts, and a field of them could power major electricity users such as AI data centers. The company says this design could produce electricity at about six cents per kilowatt hour, and the Department of Energy selected it for its Reactor Pilot Program as officials look for faster, cheaper nuclear options to meet rising power demand. Supporters see the concept as a possible breakthrough for nuclear deployment, especially for data centers and military bases, while critics in Kansas worry local communities will bear the risk. The inventor argues the surrounding geology makes the design exceptionally safe, and the company’s disposal plan is simply to seal spent fuel in place at the end of a reactor’s life.

The non-trophy generation

Large age gaps in marriage used to be more common among very wealthy men, which helped fuel the “trophy wife” stereotype. Earlier research found that America’s richest men were often married to significantly younger women, especially if they remarried. But newer census-based analysis suggests that pattern has faded. By 2024, men in the top 1% of earners were no more likely than average to have wives at least ten years younger.

The same shift appears on the women’s side. High-earning women are not especially likely to choose much younger husbands, and in the past they were actually somewhat more likely to marry slightly older men. Today, the biggest age gaps are more common among lower earners than among the rich or middle class.

The main explanation is that education and social environment matter more than wealth. People who spend more time in school tend to meet and date peers close to their own age, and those people also often go on to earn higher incomes. Age-gap marriages therefore appear to be less about status and money than about education, social networks, and changing cultural norms.

The non-coffee generation

Dutch Bros, the third-largest coffee chain in the U.S. behind Starbucks and Dunkin’, actually sells very little hot coffee. While Starbucks still dominates nearly half the U.S. coffee-chain market, Dutch Bros is gaining traction—especially with Gen Z consumers drawn to its highly customizable cold beverages and colorful energy drinks like the “Shark Attack Rebel.” About 90% of Dutch Bros drinks are served cold, and customizable energy drinks now account for roughly 25% of its $1.6 billion business.

The company’s strategy centers on extensive drink customization and youth-focused branding. Customers can mix more than 40 flavors across coffee, energy drinks, teas, lemonades, and sodas, often adding toppings like cold foam or boba. Dutch Bros also studies trends in grocery stores, coffee bars, and even cocktail culture to create new flavors. Its strong loyalty program—responsible for about 73% of transactions—helps drive repeat visits and engagement with younger customers through social media and merchandise promotions.

Let me cut to the chase—this headline is a filler. I didn’t have the bandwidth to create a good one.

Work-email openings are mostly social filler rather than sincere expressions of concern. Phrases like “I hope you are well” or “I hope this email finds you well” usually mean nothing beyond polite throat-clearing, while slight variations can signal things like distance, laziness, dated professionalism, or simply what day of the week it is. This Economist piece humorously decodes these common opening lines by contrasting their literal meaning with what they supposedly “really” communicate.

For example, “Nice to e-meet you” is old-fashioned, “Hope all well” is compressed and perfunctory, and weekday-specific greetings like “I hope your week is going well” is another thinly disguised substitute. Other lines, such as apologizing for an “out-of-the-blue” email or claiming to “cut to the chase,” are equally empty or self-defeating. Here are a few to whet your appetite:

Meanwhile, this WSJ piece bemoans the corporate jargon that most annoy readers. Many complained that phrases such as “bandwidth,” “circle back,” “deep dive,” “leverage,” and “pivot” replace simple language with vague or pretentious wording meant to sound strategic or professional. In practice, these terms often obscure meaning, inflate routine tasks, or create confusion rather than clarity.

Several readers argued that such language can distort workplace communication. Expressions like “growth mindset,” “hard stop,” or “hit the ground running” may create unnecessary pressure, while phrases such as “take this offline,” “reach out,” or “socialize the idea” can serve as evasive ways to avoid direct discussion. Others mocked jargon that unnecessarily complicates plain concepts, such as “decisioning,” “negative growth,” or “utilize” instead of simply saying “decide,” “decline,” or “use.”

Maybe a movie star?

Movie stardom is far rarer and more fragile than most people assume. Only a small share of actors who even get credited film roles ever headline a movie, and most who do never repeat that success. When the pool expands to include the broader working-actor population, the odds get even worse. Even for those who break through, sustaining quality is difficult: many lead actors never appear in a well-regarded film, and even elite stars usually have only a moderate percentage of acclaimed projects. The Stat Significant piece also argues that the traditional Hollywood star system is weakening. Big-budget movie stardom appears to have peaked in the mid-2000s, and the actors audiences most want to see are still mostly older, established stars.

As usual, great analysis and charts from Stat Significant. Here are just a couple of charts:

On the bookshelf

It’s been a while since I’ve included this section on the newsletter, though it’s not for lack of reading. In fact, last year was my most prolific reading year yet—I finished 56 books, a little more than one a week. As I was not much of reader for the first 30 years of my life, I feel like I have a lot of ground to make up. The more I read, the better I get at it, the more I enjoy it, and the more I realize how many great books I missed out on early in my life. So many great stories and so much incredible information is out there just waiting to be absorbed.

This past year, I challenged (OK, “assigned”) each of my students to pick a book off the “Top 100 books you should read before you die” list to read. They were to read it, highlight passages that stood out to them, passages showing great wordplay, key points in the story, things they liked or didn’t like, or something that confused them. I too would read the book they chose, would highlight portions as well, then one-on-one we would discuss it.

Some books chosen were shorter and easier, others were longer and harder. Likewise, the discussions varied in depth. I especially appreciated the students who had read their entire book (some had not) and made significant highlights—we usually had great discussions on writing and life.

In an age of screen overload, do yourself a favor and read a book. It may be difficult at first, especially if you haven’t done it in a while, but it will get easier if you keep after it.

And if you’re ever looking for a book recommendation, reach out and we can talk through your interests and what books may be a good fit for you. My reading interests vary, so I’m sure we could find something that you might like.

As a quick plug, I recently read three of Cormac McCarthy’s books: The Road, No Country for Old Men, and Blood Meridian. Two books—The Road and No Country for Old Men—have both been made into movies. His greatest work, though, is considered Blood Meridian. All three of these are incredible reads. They are not feel-good reads, but they are unique, as McCarthy’s writing style. Afterward reading them, I did some research on McCarthy which led me down a rabbit trail that touched on: Polysyndeton, Santa Fe Institute, The Kekulé Problem, and the many real-life people that some of the characters in Blood Meridian are based on.

I’m currently reading Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow. It’s a biography of George Washington that does an excellent job of portraying Washington in a clearer light. Before that, I read The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III; it’s a fascinating look into American politics in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. These last two books are rather long, but they open your eyes to the politics in D.C.—both during the forming of our country and 200 years later. If you want some recommendations for lighter reading, just let me know.

Share

I’d like to tell you about Aspen—he was the best dog you could ever ask for. He was smart, playful, loving, ornery, and we miss him. We got him in late 2009, when he was still a pup, and had to put him down in 2023—it was one of the hardest things we’ve had to do as a family and was especially hard on my wife.

We named him Aspen because he was white, like the bark on Aspen trees, and because we enjoy Colorado, which has a town named Aspen. He was a Goldendoodle, which was a fairly newish breed in the mid-2000s, but now you see them everywhere. I wanted a German Shepherd, but I was overruled by other family members. I’m glad they won out.

As the dog of a military family, Aspen saw so much transition and change that anytime we packed our bags, even for a weekend trip, he’d get nervous and lay next to the piled up bags. He’d lay completely still and flat—except for his eyes, which would dart left and right to track the movements of the family as they walked back and forth. When we’d open the door to walk out of the house with our bags, he’d be the first out the door, as if to say, “I’m going too!”

Six months after we got him, we took a road trip from Florida to Alaska, driving across the southern U.S., then up the West Coast into Canada. He traveled with us in our minivan, his area taking up as much space as our two sons combined.

Along the way, we stopped at the Grand Canyon to stretch our legs, see the view, and take Aspen for a walk. I kid you not, a bunch of Japanese tourists with cameras saw this giant white puffball on a leash and immediately started snapping photos. Aspen responded with a toothy, open-mouthed, tongue-sticking-out smile and soaked in all the attention. He could be a bit of a showboat at times. In fact, once, he was even on the front page of the newspaper for a Fourth of July parade. Aspen made the newspaper picture; my son, however, was cropped out.

After the Grand Canyon, he got to see Yosemite. Then, in Canada, we got on a ferry where he had to stay below deck in the car in his crate. For the next couple of days, whenever we hit a port—whether noon or midnight or anytime in between—we’d let him out to go potty, then usher him back to his crate. Then we all got back into the car to drive through the Yukon and into Alaska.

In Alaska, he loved the snow in the winter and the grass fields in the summer. His best friend was our neighbor’s dog, Nalia, a large Alaskan Malamute. The two of them loved to wrestle, and it wasn’t uncommon for it to end with blood stains after one or both of them had played a little too rough and bitten the other around the nape of the neck a little too hard. They were never angry at one another; it was always playful.

He was an incredibly smart dog. Early on, he learned to tap a bell hanging from the handle on our back door to signify that he needed to go outside to go to the bathroom. Because his urine would kill the grass, I installed pebbles in an area on the side of the house—his “doggy litter” area, if you will. At first, it worked great.

Then he became too smart for his own good. He trained us to open the back door anytime we heard the bell ring, even if it was just because he wanted to wander around the backyard to smell things. And since he didn’t like the feeling of the gravel on his paws, he’d walk toward that area of the yard when we let him out; then, as soon as we closed the door, he’d sprint away to the grassy area to go to the bathroom.

To say he was the best dog is not to say he was a perfect dog.

Once, in Alaska, we had to take him in for emergency surgery after realizing that a wool sock he had eaten had gotten stuck in his intestines. I’m not sure I could’ve choked down (pun intended) the $1,000+ vet bill had I not loved that dog. And that’s nothing to say of how I later had to manually pull the other sock out of the exiting hole of his digestive system (I’ll spare you the details on that one). The things you do for the ones you love.

He was a bit of a Houdini at times. Though he never ran away, sometimes he would escape from our backyard, only for us to find out he’d gone when he pawed at our front door from outside. We’d open the door, and he’d be like, “Hi folks, I’m back.” and would trot back inside. To which we’d respond, “We didn’t even know you were gone!” I’m reminded of Billy in The Family Circus comic strip:

I imagined that, like Billy, Aspen had wandered the neighborhood, checked out some things, then decided he was ready to come home, so he did.

From the beginning, we had a rule that he was not allowed on our couch.

But something changed along the way, and it just started happening. He was not a lap dog. With a dog his size, it was like an elephant coming to sit on the couch—the process of getting on was cumbersome, followed by circling before sitting and then constant stretching and maneuvering to claim more couch real estate. If my wife or I ever got up from the couch to grab something from the kitchen, we’d return to find our place filled with whatever part of his body was not taking up the other 90% of the couch.

Couches, beanbags, beds… he had an elevated sense of self. The floor simply wasn’t good enough for this dog.

Sometimes he had a rough night partying and didn’t quite make it fully into bed. We can all relate.

And sometimes he had a rough day at the office:

I thought this picture of him waiting for Santa was nice too; he heard there were openings on the sleigh team and wanted to interview.

He loved going on walks, but he was terrible at going on runs. He wanted to smell every single blade of grass, which doesn’t really make running feasible.

Walks also meant us humans carrying poop bags and picking up his poop. And poop he did. Nope, he couldn’t go in our backyard; instead, he had to wait until we were 100 yards from home and make us humans carry his filled poop bags back for him like royal servants. I’m still not sure who trained whom. We carried innumerable bags of poop home from walks around the neighborhood over the years. It was embarrassing for us humans, and I think he was proud of that.

He had a particular gait that made him look like he was just kind of loping or bebopping along. Thus became one of his nicknames—Bebop.

Eventually, his list of nicknames grew so long that we only called him Aspen when he was in trouble or we needed him for something. His nicknames included:

• Bebop – which, of course, led to other nicknames, like:

• Beeeeeeeebops Las Vegas - said like “Vivaaaaaa Las Vegas!”.

• Bipity Bops – Inspired by the song from the Cinderella cartoon with the lyrics “Bipity Bopity Boo”.

• Bibity – A shortening of the above.

• Polywoggers – Along with his gait, his tail had its own personality, wagging in numerous directions… thus poly, meaning “many.” We’d usually call him this after his tail knocked something over, as in, “Polywoggers, watch your tail!”

• Poop eater – Self-explanatory.

• Dogger breath – Also self-explanatory and usually preceded by “poop eater.”

• Monkey dog - When he did something goofy. As in, “You monkey dog, stop rolling in the dirt! We just gave you bath.”

• Squirrel chaser – Squirrels are, well, squirrely. And though he liked to chase them, they were simply too fast to catch. But the most annoying part to him was when they’d cackle at him once they got up in the tree. “Squirrel chaser,” I’d say, “you’ll never win, they can climb trees.”

• Deer harasser – We have a lot of deer in our neighborhood. And while we were busy picking up his poop on walks, this giant white fluffy 70 pound dog would attempt to slowly sneak up on the deer. I have no idea what he thought he’d do when he got them, but then again, I don’t think he ever really intended to catch them. He would only half-heartedly jump at them when he got close. Then, as they’d bound away from the “great white killer,” he’d turn back to us and smirk, then continue bebopping along on his walk.

For everyone in our family, though, his most enduring trait was that of stress sponge. He was so docile that you could just lay next to him on the floor, petting his soft fur, letting him soak up the stress of the day. There were many days that I felt God put him into our lives to do just that. He would lay there as long as we would. I miss the feel of his fur.

He was also the neighborhood’s friendliest dog. Though he’d bark at other dogs in passing, it was not aggressive. It was as if he was saying, “Hey, what’s up, dude!” If they didn’t respond back with a bark or friendly wag of the tail, he’d pause and look at me as if asking, “What’s wrong with that guy?”

When we were in Alaska, we had a giant field behind our home. We’d go out to the field and throw a ball for him to fetch. He’d run to get it a couple of times, but after that, we’d end up having to go get the ball we threw.

When he was younger, he was very fast. In that same Alaskan field, the boys and I would play a game with him where we’d have him sit in place, then we’d start walking away, and, after we’d gotten a certain distance from him, we’d start running. As soon as we started running, he’d come chasing after us.

He’d always catch me—and catching usually meant swiping at my legs, causing me to trip and land face-first on the ground. I’d laugh and he’d come over and lick my face. He loved the thrill of the chase and the taste of victory.

As he grew older, he became slower, weaker, and increasingly in pain. There was less walking and more lying around. What he really loved was just sitting outside, watching passersby like an old man.

Alas, his compounding health issues just became too much, and we had to put him down. It was one of the toughest days for our family. There are harder things to bear in life, no doubt, but the loss of a pet is difficult—especially when that pet was Aspen.

To make matters worse, one of my sons and I were out of town and had to watch virtually as he passed. But it was harder on my wife, who held him as he took his last breath and felt his heart beat for the last time.

Undoubtedly, he was the best dog a family could’ve asked for.

So, Aspen, you big fluff ball, in your honor, we raise a bag of poop to you. We miss you, Bebop, you poop-eating dogger-breath polywogger monkey dog. Know that the squirrels still cackle, the deer continue to invade, and you’ll forever have a place in our hearts.

Aspen, the best dog a family could ask for.

Share

But this post isn’t about land invasions or airborne assaults on foreign soil.

Instead, since I’ve been seeing a growing number of stories about the Strait of Hormuz, global shipping chokepoints, and the Taiwan Strait, I thought I’d tie them all together. I hope you find this helpful.

------------

For years, it was easy to assume that globalization, digital networks, and advanced technology had reduced the importance of physical geography. But recent events are showing the opposite. Even in an era of AI-enabled warfare and precision strikes, narrow waterways and physical supply routes still determine outcomes. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply flows through the Strait of Hormuz, and even limited disruption there has already caused sharp spikes in energy prices.

History shows the danger of trying to solve these disruptions militarily—misjudging second- and third-order effects has led to costly failures in the past.

The Gallipoli Lesson

The Gallipoli campaign during World War I is a case in point, as Niall Ferguson points out in this great piece. The Allied powers attempted to seize control of the Dardanelles Strait to reopen a vital supply route and gain a strategic advantage. What followed was a costly failure—poor planning, underestimated resistance, difficult terrain, and logistical breakdowns led to a prolonged stalemate and eventual withdrawal.

The campaign didn’t just fail militarily; it produced unintended economic and political consequences as well, and those consequences were both immediate and far-reaching. Economically, the failure to reopen the Dardanelles meant that grain shipments from Russia remained blocked, contributing to price volatility and fears of food shortages in Europe. Britain had to intervene heavily in markets—subsidizing shipping, restricting exports, and even attempting to influence commodity prices—measures that distorted normal economic activity and reflected how quickly wartime pressures can override market systems.

Politically, the fallout was just as significant. The failed campaign weakened the British government, forcing Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to form a coalition government and contributing to a loss of confidence in leadership. Winston Churchill, who had championed the operation, was removed from his post and saw his reputation severely damaged (though it was salvaged in WWII). Beyond Britain, the campaign failed to stabilize Russia, which remained economically strained and politically fragile. These were conditions that ultimately contributed to the Russian Revolution. In short, what began as a strategic effort to solve a military and economic problem ended up weakening alliances, destabilizing governments, and compounding the very risks it was meant to resolve.

Chokepoints, it turns out, are complex multi-armed systems that can quickly tighten into a chokehold. Intervening under pressure rarely unfolds as planned, and often produces outcomes far different from what decision-makers expect.

Global shipping chokepoints

Global trade—worth more than $11.5 trillion annually by sea—depends on a handful of maritime chokepoints. About 80% of global trade by volume and 55% by value moves across oceans, concentrating risk in narrow corridors like Hormuz, Suez, and key Asian straits.

Not all chokepoints carry equal risk. As seen in the image below, Closing Hormuz blocks energy flows with few alternatives, but affects about 6% of global maritime trade. By contrast, disruptions in the Taiwan Strait (~13%), the Suez Canal (~16%), or South China Sea (~24%) would impact a far larger share of global commerce. The most severe scenario, blocking Southeast Asian routes, could affect up to 26% of global trade, forcing massive detours and cascading delays.

Even when rerouting is possible, it comes at a cost: longer routes, higher insurance, and slower delivery times that ripple through supply chains and consumer prices.

The impact of just-in-time logistics

Even limited disruption, such as a quarantine, would force ships to reroute, sometimes adding up to 1,000 miles to journeys, which would raise costs, delay deliveries, and cut off access to key ports. This is especially problematic in a just-in-time (JIT) logistics system, where companies keep minimal inventory on hand and rely on precisely timed deliveries to keep production moving. Designed for efficiency and cost reduction, JIT leaves little room for delay. When shipments arrive late, production lines can halt, downstream deliveries are disrupted, and shortages ripple outward. What begins as a routing adjustment at sea can quickly translate into factory slowdowns, empty shelves, and rising prices. In a more severe scenario, these compounding delays can cause entire supply chains to seize up across industries ranging from electronics to energy, exposing how efficiency-driven systems often sacrifice resilience in the face of disruption.

Rare earths and microchips

Control over rare earths is becoming just as strategically important as control over energy and trade routes. These minerals, essential for everything from EV motors and wind turbines to advanced electronics and military systems, are heavily concentrated in one place: China, which dominates global production and processing. That concentration is now driving a coordinated push to diversify supply chains. Japan and France, for example, recently agreed to deepen cooperation on rare earth sourcing and refining, including a new facility expected to supply a significant share of Japan’s future demand for key materials like dysprosium and terbium. These efforts reflect a broader shift, as countries invest in alternative suppliers, recycling, and joint ventures to reduce reliance on China, which has already demonstrated its willingness to restrict exports for strategic or political leverage. The result is a growing recognition that rare earths are not just industrial inputs, but are also geopolitical tools that are increasingly central to economic security and global power competition.

The Taiwan Strait

The Taiwan Strait has emerged as economically consequential chokepoint. Approximately $2.45 trillion in goods—more than 20% of global maritime trade—passes through it each year. It is also the center of the global semiconductor industry, with Taiwan producing over 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, including 99% of those used for cutting-edge AI systems.

The broader trade exposure is enormous. Taiwan’s ports handle hundreds of billions in goods, while China alone moves roughly $1.3–$1.4 trillion in trade through the strait. U.S. allies are heavily dependent as well: about 32% of Japan’s imports and 30% of South Korea’s imports transit the strait, much of it energy and high-tech components.

China is increasing pressure on Taiwan through military activity, economic leverage, and “gray zone” tactics that fall short of full invasion. These include potential blockades or restrictions on shipping that could disrupt trade without triggering immediate war.

One advantage of the Taiwan Strait is that alternative routes are available, unlike the Strait of Hormuz. This Economist article does a great job of modeling and mapping potential impacts.

However, if conflict and blockade expanded throughout the South China Sea, the consequences would be far worse.

At the same time, uncertainty in U.S. policy and competing global commitments are creating openings for China. Subtle changes in diplomacy or priorities could weaken deterrence, raising the risk of miscalculation. The situation is further complicated by the fact that major powers cannot fully concentrate on multiple theaters at once, increasing the chance that one crisis creates opportunities in another.

In conclusion

The global economy is highly efficient, but also highly concentrated and fragile. A small number of chokepoints carry a disproportionate share of trade, energy, and critical inputs. Disruptions in any one location can cascade quickly across regions, industries, and financial systems.

Countries are responding by stockpiling resources, diversifying supply chains, and investing in domestic production, but these adjustments take time and raise costs. In the near term, the system remains exposed. The question is not whether chokepoints matter, but which one becomes the next breaking point, and how far the shockwaves will spread when it does.

Though this isn’t an article about land invasions or airborne assaults on foreign soil, I do think it appropriate to end with this quote from Lyle Goldstein in his U.S. Naval Institute article comparing Gollipoli and Hormuz:

A closely related point, of course, is that U.S. forces fighting on Iran’s sovereign territory would once again confront the anger of a people defending their homeland. It is no coincidence that the father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, arose out of the single extraordinary battle at Gallipoli. After the bitter lessons learned from wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, U.S. strategists should be wary of brazen challenges on foreign soil.

The lesson is simple: chokepoints are inevitable, but chokeholds are not. They emerge when efficiency replaces resilience and when alternatives are ignored. Like in wrestling, the key is not to overpower the hold, but to avoid being caught in it in the first place.

Share

One telling sign of how far generative AI has come is the informal “Will Smith eating spaghetti” benchmark, which has circulated in the AI community as a shorthand test for whether video models can convincingly render a human face, mouth movement, and hand-to-mouth action. It matters because these once-awkward details have become a visible measure of how quickly AI video systems are improving.

It’s amazing to see what’s become possible in just a couple of years:

OpenAI is betting on massive scale

OpenAI’s projected cash burn has reached a level that stands out even in a tech industry long accustomed to companies losing enormous sums in pursuit of dominance. Internal forecasts reportedly show the company burning $218 billion between 2026 and 2029, far exceeding earlier projections and dwarfing the historic losses of firms such as Tesla during its most cash-intensive years.

The logic behind that spending is straightforward: OpenAI appears to believe it can build a business large enough to justify it. The company reportedly expects revenue to climb to about $280 billion by 2030, fueled not only by ChatGPT subscriptions, but also by API access, enterprise AI agents, advertising, and potential hardware. In that view, today’s losses are the price of building an AI platform with the reach and monetization breadth of a new foundational tech giant.

The risks of autonomous AI are becoming harder to ignore

Increasingly, voices are expressing a major concern: AI systems are becoming more autonomous, but not yet reliable enough to justify broad trust. The Wall Street Journal describes an AI coding bot that publicly attacked a software engineer after its code was rejected, leading to fears that AI systems may behave in increasingly unpredictable or socially manipulative ways. The broader concern is not simply that AI can make mistakes, but that it may act with enough initiative to create new forms of reputational, professional, and security risk.

That concern was echoed in a Futurism story, in which Anthropic’s Claude Cowork model, asked to organize a desktop, instead ran a deletion command that erased years of family photos. The files were eventually recovered, but the the larger problem with so-called AI “coworkers” remains: when given direct access to important systems, they can make catastrophic errors at machine speed. Similar incidents involving erased chat histories, hard drives, and business databases have also occurred. The current generation of autonomous agents still requires close human supervision, especially when connected to sensitive files or operational systems.

AI safety is no longer just a technical question

AI companies are also facing growing pressure over when disturbing behavior in a chatbot should trigger real-world intervention. Months before a deadly school shooting in British Columbia, OpenAI employees flagged alarming conversations. Internal discussions reportedly considered whether the material justified contacting law enforcement, but leadership concluded it did not meet the threshold of a credible and imminent threat.

After the attack, OpenAI contacted authorities and cooperated with the investigation, but the incident shows us a difficult and unresolved issue for AI companies: how to balance user privacy, ambiguous warning signs, and public safety. As chatbots become more embedded in people’s emotional and intellectual lives, companies may increasingly find themselves making decisions that resemble those of social platforms, mental-health intermediaries, or even crisis monitors—without clear rules or public consensus on when intervention is appropriate.

AI may be reshaping work, but the biggest effects are still emerging

A recent report from Anthropic (the makers of Claude) argues that the best way to understand AI’s labor-market effects is not just to ask what language models could theoretically do, but what they are actually being used to do on the job. Its measure of “observed exposure” attempts to capture that distinction, giving more weight to genuine automated workplace uses than to casual or assistive ones. By that measure, jobs such as programmers, customer-service representatives, and data-entry workers appear especially exposed, while physical and in-person jobs remain much less affected.

Even so, the paper’s conclusion is cautious. The authors find that AI exposure is associated with weaker long-term job-growth projections, and that the most exposed workers tend to be older, more educated, more likely to be female, and relatively higher paid. Yet they do not find strong evidence that AI has already caused broad unemployment increases in exposed occupations. The most tentative warning sign is a slowdown in hiring among younger workers entering highly exposed fields. In other words, AI may be changing labor markets, but the clearest large-scale dislocations may still lie ahead rather than having fully arrived already.

Of the many graphics in the report, this one stood out most:

AI is changing how people get hired

Another emerging effect of generative AI is the erosion of trust in the traditional résumé. As applicants increasingly using tools like ChatGPT to generate polished résumés, cover letters, headshots, and even interview or coding-test responses, employers are finding it harder to distinguish genuinely qualified candidates from those who simply present well on paper. As a result, some companies are moving away from résumés altogether or treating them as a minor signal rather than a meaningful measure of ability.

In their place, employers are experimenting with skills-based hiring, paid work trials, direct sourcing through LinkedIn or personal networks, and project-based evaluation. Companies are placing greater emphasis on demonstrated ability, enthusiasm, and real work output than on credentials alone. LinkedIn and Indeed are also adapting, adding tools that verify skills or accelerate live interactions between candidates and recruiters. The broader point is that AI has made résumé inflation so easy that hiring is shifting toward proof of competence rather than self-description.

But this can drive some inequities—candidates who do not post their work online, lack strong networks, or have limited time and resources to build a public professional presence may still be overlooked. In that sense, AI may be weakening the résumé, but it is not eliminating the deeper challenge of how to assess people fairly.

The AI buildout is reshaping physical infrastructure

AI is often discussed as software, but its future also depends on vast physical infrastructure. Elon Musk has been advocating for the development of data centers in space. The appeal is clear: land-based facilities face bottlenecks involving electricity, permitting, grid access, and public opposition, while space offers abundant solar energy and potentially fewer terrestrial constraints.

But space-based data centers aren’t necessarily an outlandish idea. As the Economist points out, the main obstacle is cost, especially launch expense, though falling launch prices and simplified satellite designs could eventually make the idea more plausible than it first sounds.

Meanwhile, back here on earth, as new data centers spread into areas with limited housing, developers are reviving the “man camp” model—temporary worker housing complexes offering meals, gyms, game rooms, and even golf simulators to attract scarce skilled labor. The AI boom is not just changing cloud architecture and chip demand; it is also transforming labor markets, land use, and local communities in places far removed from Silicon Valley.

The big picture

AI is less a single industry and more like a force reorganizing multiple domains at once. It is changing what computers can generate, how companies spend, how workers are hired, how communities absorb industrial growth, and how institutions think about safety, responsibility, and human oversight.

The common thread is that AI’s most important story is no longer simply whether the technology works. Increasingly, it is about scale, governance, and consequences. The systems are becoming powerful enough to generate astonishing outputs, replace parts of skilled work, and justify enormous capital investment—but also unpredictable enough to erase treasured data, raise public-safety dilemmas, and unsettle even the people building them.

What I worry about most is that AI advancements are moving faster than responsible oversight. We, as humans, don’t have a strong track record of deliberately and thoughtfully managing sweeping change before its consequences are upon us. From child labor and brutal factory conditions during the Industrial Revolution, to the absence of safety laws in the early automobile era, to nuclear weapon proliferation, to the societal effects of social media, to securitized mortgage markets, the pattern is familiar. It’s not that technological change is always bad; it’s that we often adopt first, optimize second, and regulate last. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for regulation in all things in a way that stymies invention. But with AI, there are so many red flags suggesting that progress is outpacing responsible adoption that this area needs serious attention.

Some hope for the future?

The trailer for Toy Story 5 recently came out, and in it there’s a new rival: a tablet named Lilypad. This tablet causes Bonnie, the 8-year-old girl, to neglect real-life friendships in favor of playing with her digital device. The tension prompts some great lines:

• Woody (solemnly): “Toys are for play, but tech is… for everything.”

• Jessie says to Lilypad, as Lilypad scrolls through its own browser, “You’re not even listening to me!” To which Lilypad ominously responds, “I’m always listening…” and then plays back a recording of their conversation.

Here’s something you’ll rarely hear me say: Hollywood may be sending a signal, and we should pay attention.

Share

This is no longer just an Iran-Israel exchange. It has become a multi-theater conflict spanning Iran, Israel, Lebanon, the Gulf, and the sea lanes that connect the Middle East to global energy markets. The most important strategic consequence so far is Iran’s ability to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz without fully and formally closing it.

The Strait of Hormuz as the center of gravity

The Strait of Hormuz has become the key pressure point in the war. It normally carries about 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas, and in some estimates about a third of global seaborne oil and a fifth of liquefied natural gas. Since the conflict escalated, ship traffic through the strait has collapsed, with daily transits falling from well over 150 to single digits. Vessels are clustering on either side of the strait, avoiding passage unless absolutely necessary.

Iran has not needed a formal blockade to create this effect. Attacks on commercial shipping, missile and drone threats, and suspected electronic spoofing of navigation systems have been enough to make the route dangerous. More than 1,200 ships in the region have reportedly been affected by signal interference. Some vessels are shutting off their own trackers to move more stealthily, which only adds to the confusion and risk.

The result is that Iran is using the strait less as a sealed choke point and more as a weaponized zone of uncertainty. That still delivers major strategic leverage because even partial disruption is enough to shake markets, strand ships, and drive up costs.

Energy shock and market disruption

The energy consequences are global. Oil and natural-gas prices have jumped sharply because traders understand how central the Gulf is to world supply. Even limited disruption in Hormuz matters because alternative routes cannot fully compensate. If the strait were more fully shut, as much as 20 million barrels per day could be affected, which would amount to about 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption. That would be far larger than the disruption caused by the 1970s Arab oil embargo.

The problem is not just the total amount of oil at risk, but the limited ability to reroute it. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have some alternative pipelines, but those can only handle part of normal volumes and still face operational and security constraints. Floating storage, reserve releases, and alternate transport can help cushion the blow, but not replace the missing flow. Even after accounting for those tools, the likely shortfall in a severe scenario could still exceed 10 million barrels per day.

This matters not just for fuel. Oil and natural gas are inputs into thousands of products, including chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, synthetic fibers, medical materials, electronics components, and countless household goods. Reduced shipments therefore threaten broader price increases across supply chains, not just at the gas pump.

Iran’s uneven but effective strategy

Iran has managed something strategically important: it is harming other countries’ energy trade more than its own. Even while commercial shipping in the region is severely disrupted, Iran is still exporting oil through the Strait of Hormuz and is reportedly moving slightly more than it did before the war. Tankers linked to Iran or China, especially sanctioned or shadow-fleet vessels, continue carrying Iranian crude, much of it toward China and India.

That means Iran is using its control of the strait as both a coercive tool and a financial lifeline. It is choking broader traffic while preserving enough of its own exports to keep oil revenue flowing. This makes the crisis more complicated than a simple “all shipping stops” scenario. Iran does not need total closure to impose pain. It only needs to create enough fear and selectivity to distort trade in its favor.

This also explains why many of the ships still moving through Hormuz are tied to Iran and China. Friendly identification, shadow-fleet tactics, and sanctions evasion have become part of the wartime shipping system.

China’s oil problem

China is one of the countries most exposed to this crisis. It relies heavily on oil from Iran, Venezuela, and Gulf producers, and more than half of its crude imports come from countries facing disruption tied to the conflict. Iran alone exported 520 million barrels of crude to China in 2025, making it one of Beijing’s most important suppliers.

That puts China in a difficult position. It is vulnerable to reduced flows from Hormuz, higher shipping costs, and rising competition for available barrels. At the same time, China may be somewhat more resilient than expected because it has already been expanding strategic reserves, electrifying more of its economy, and increasing reliance on domestic energy sources and Russian crude.

The likely short-term response is greater Chinese reliance on Russian oil. That would deepen another major side effect of the war: Russia benefits from higher prices and from being a substitute supplier when Middle Eastern flows are disrupted.

Kharg Island and Iran’s oil vulnerability

Even though Iran is still exporting, its oil system remains vulnerable because it is heavily concentrated at Kharg Island. Kharg handles about 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports and is the central hub for oil coming from major producing regions. It also stores about 18 million barrels, making it a crucial export buffer.

The U.S. struck military targets on Kharg Island but did not damage the oil terminals and storage infrastructure, according to Iranian officials. Trump said he had deliberately avoided oil facilities for now, while also warning that this restraint could end if Iran keeps threatening Hormuz. That matters because a serious hit on Kharg’s export infrastructure could force Iran to cut production at major oil fields and take roughly another 1 million barrels per day off the global market.

Iran does have an alternative export route through Jask, outside the Strait of Hormuz, but that terminal is far smaller and cannot replace Kharg’s capacity. So while Iran has shown resilience, its oil system still has a major point of failure.

Gulf states, Lebanon, and regional spillover

The conflict is also pressuring America’s regional partners. Gulf states such as Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have been struck because they host U.S. forces and major energy infrastructure. Iran appears to be trying to raise the cost of regional cooperation with Washington and push those states to pressure the United States toward de-escalation.

Lebanon has become another important front. Hezbollah has fired into northern Israel, and Israel has expanded operations in Lebanon, including Beirut and the south. This broadens the war geographically and politically, increasing the chance that the conflict becomes harder to contain even if activity in Hormuz eventually stabilizes.

Air travel has also been affected, with flights disrupted and major hubs such as Dubai International facing strain. So the conflict is not just disrupting military and energy systems; it is also undermining normal regional commerce and mobility.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve and its limits

The United States and its allies are trying to offset the shock through emergency reserves. The International Energy Agency has agreed to release 400 million barrels, including 172 million from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The SPR was created after the 1970s oil shock to protect the U.S. economy during major supply disruptions and remains the world’s largest emergency stockpile of crude oil.

The reserve is stored in underground salt caverns on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast and can hold more than 700 million barrels, though it held about 402 million as of August 2025. In theory, it is a powerful tool. In practice, it has real limitations. Actual drawdown and delivery capacity are much lower than many people assume, and the reserve cannot replace a prolonged Hormuz-scale disruption. It can buy time and calm markets, but not solve the underlying transit problem.

That is one of the central lessons of this crisis: stockpiles matter, but logistics matter more. Oil in storage is only useful if it can be released, shipped, refined, and distributed quickly enough to stabilize markets.

Locations of the US SPR:

Why prices may rise beyond gasoline

A key point running through all of this is that oil and gas disruptions do not only affect gasoline. Hydrocarbons are feedstocks for thousands of products used in modern life, from fertilizers and chemicals to plastics, textiles, electronics, packaging, and medical supplies. If Gulf energy flows remain constrained, the effects can spread into manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and consumer goods.

That means households and businesses may feel the impact in a wide range of prices, not simply at the pump. A sustained energy shock can ripple through nearly every sector because oil and natural gas underpin so much industrial production.

Products made from oil and natural gas:

What the conflict reveals

Several broader lessons emerge. First, energy security remains a major strategic vulnerability, even in an era of technological change. Second, chokepoints matter enormously: one narrow waterway can still destabilize global markets. Third, reserve systems like the SPR are valuable, but they are not substitutes for secure transit routes. Fourth, wars in the Gulf quickly become global economic events because of their effect on oil, gas, shipping, and petrochemical supply chains.

Finally, this crisis shows that the world remains deeply dependent on oil. Even with advances in electrification, renewables, and alternative energy, a disruption in Hormuz still sends shockwaves through everything from global finance to retail prices. That is why the conflict is likely to renew interest in stockpiling, supply diversification, nuclear power, alternative transport routes, and long-term efforts to reduce exposure to hydrocarbon chokepoints.

Bottom line

The war has evolved into both a regional military conflict and a global energy crisis. Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz into a tool of leverage, disrupting traffic enough to rattle markets while still moving much of its own oil. The United States and its partners can soften the shock with reserve releases and partial rerouting, but they cannot fully replace what Hormuz normally carries. Kharg Island, Chinese import dependence, Gulf vulnerability, and the limits of the SPR all show how tightly military escalation and energy security are now intertwined.

The greatest risk is a prolonged period in which insecurity in one maritime bottleneck reshapes oil flows, raises prices, pressures allies, benefits rivals like Russia, and reminds the world how much of modern life still depends on vulnerable energy systems.

For more information:

• The Iran war in maps and charts, The Economist

• Iran: Analysis, Research, & Events, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• The Strait of Hormuz: A U.S.-Iran Maritime Flash Point, Council on Foreign Relations

• A Visual Guide to How Iran Is Holding the Strait of Hormuz Hostage, Wall Street Journal

• 5 charts show China’s oil dilemma after US strikes, Politico

• Iran’s Control of Hormuz Means It’s Exporting More Oil Today Than Before the War, Wall Street Journal

• 5 charts show China’s oil dilemma after US strikes, Politico

• Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and an Unprecedented Energy Crunch, Council on Foreign Relations

• Why Did Trump Order an Attack on Iran’s Kharg Island?, Wall Street Journal

• Products Made from Oil and Natural Gas, U.S. Department of Energy

• The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, U.S. Department of Energy

• National Average Gas Prices, AAA

Share

I recently noticed I had a few items, both personal and professional, that were stagnating on the “back burner” of my to-do list for way too long. When it came down to it, these were things I needed to do, but they were neither fun nor easy, and thus I was avoiding them. Basically, I was procrastinating. I’m sure you can relate.

I read about a time-management system called “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. I won’t go into detail about his system, because there’s a lot packed in there, but one piece of advice stood out to me: when you’re overwhelmed by a project and everything it requires, identify the very next step you need to take, and then take it. He isn’t suggesting that you think only in the short term or avoid building a comprehensive plan for your project. Rather, his advice is about focusing on the immediate future: what is the very next step you must take to move toward the overall end state?

This sounds really simple and obvious, but when it comes to those stagnating “to-do” items, it can be liberating because it takes your mind off the overwhelming scope of the project and instead has you focus on just the next step. You identify the next step and take it. Then repeat.

One Step…

Of course, this idea isn’t new. You’ve likely heard the saying, “How do you eat an elephant?” and the corresponding response, “One bite at a time.” The elephant symbolizes some huge, overwhelming thing you must accomplish. The idea, then, is that you don’t focus on the whole elephant; you focus on the next bite.

I hate to mix food metaphors, but there’s another great saying (possibly by Mark Twain, but that’s unconfirmed) that goes, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” The point is, if you do the gnarliest thing on your list first, then you’ve gotten it out of the way and can go through the day knowing that the other things on your list should be easier to swallow.

The productivity translation of these two metaphors is: identify the next bite you have to take and take it. Get the hard part out of the way and make progress.Those of you who have been through challenging periods in life—where the sheer amount of time you were going to be challenged seemed overwhelming—can relate to these metaphors. Maybe it was military training, or a difficult class, or even a loved one struggling with health issues. You made it through those times by taking it one step at a time. You didn’t make it through by thinking about the enormity of your ordeal. You made it through by thinking about that day, the next meal, the next hour. You made it through by taking the next step, over and over again.

The same holds true for fitness. You don’t focus on losing 80 pounds or running 26 miles—those are overwhelming numbers. You focus on showing up each day. You focus on the next lap, the next rep, the next pound lost. They add up until one day you find yourself halfway to your goal, then halfway the remaining distance, then halfway again, and then eventually all the way there. But this requires taking the next step, over and over again.

The same holds true for education. Whether it’s a bachelor’s, master’s, or even a doctorate degree, when you think about the number of classes you have to take, the number of papers you have to write, or the length of time it’s going to take, it’s overwhelming. Instead, you focus on the next semester, the next class, the next assignment, the next 2,000 words. You make it through by taking the next step over and over again.

The same holds true for managing emotional or health struggles. The enormity of difficulties in life can be overwhelming, and your present condition versus the future better condition can seem a thousand miles apart. But you get there by taking one step after another. Whether it’s overcoming depression, or stress, or an addiction, it’s about making it through one day, then one week, then a month. Then it adds up.

The same holds true for those who accomplish huge feats like making it to the top of Mount Everest—you take one step after another—be it buying gear, training, or literally taking steps up the mountain. Over and over and over and over again.

…Then Another

Those of you who have been through challenging periods in life—where the sheer amount of time you were going to be challenged seemed overwhelming—can relate to these metaphors. Maybe it was military training, or a difficult class, or even a loved one struggling with health issues, you made it through those times by taking it one step at a time. You didn’t make it through by thinking about the enormity of your ordeal, you made it through by thinking about that day, the next meal, the next hour. You made it through by taking the next step, over and over again.

The same holds true for fitness. You don’t focus on losing 80 pounds or running 26 miles—those are overwhelming numbers. You focus on showing up each day. You focus on the next lap, the next rep, the next pound lost. They add up, until one day you find yourself halfway to your goal, then halfway the remaining distance, then halfway again, and then eventually all the way there. But this requires taking the next step, over and over again.

The same holds true for education. Whether it’s a bachelor’s, master’s, or even a doctorate degree, when you think about the number of classes you have to take, the number of papers you have to write, or the length of time it’s going to take, it’s overwhelming. Instead, you focus on the next semester, the next class, the next assignment, the next 2,000 words. You make it through by taking the next step over and over again.

The same holds true for managing emotional or health struggles. The enormity of difficulties in life can be overwhelming, and your present condition versus the future better condition can seem a thousand miles apart. But you get there by taking one step after another. Whether it’s overcoming depression, or stress, or an addiction, it’s about making it through one day, then one week, then a month. Then it adds up.

The same holds true for those who accomplish huge feats like making it to the top of Mount Everest—you take one step after another—be it buying gear, training, or literally taking steps up the mountain. Over and over and over and over again.

Decisiveness + Momentum

This really comes down to two things: taking a step (decisiveness) and continuing to do so (momentum). The more you do this, the more you get used to it, the more progress you make, and the more you get used to making progress.

This reminds me of the book by Bill Bryson titled “A Walk in the Woods,” in which he details his hike on the Appalachian Trail. He tells about the trials of hiking for days and miles on end, and how it all comes down to taking one step after another. Some hikers, as he tells it, make it to the end of the entire 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail journey only to find themselves turning around and continuing back the other way simply because it’s what they’re used to doing—taking the next step.

When making decisions and moving forward becomes normal, you find momentum of action. This isn’t to say that hard decisions become easy, but it means you’re not putting them off, and when you get used to making hard decisions, your ability and process for making hard decisions becomes more routine.

Illustrations from Physics

Physics provides us a couple of illustrations as well: Newton’s third law and friction.

Simply put, Newton’s third law states that an object that is at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it, and an object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless a force acts upon it. Said even more simply, an object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion.

As a quick physics refresher, static friction is friction between two objects that are not moving; kinetic friction is friction between two objects that are moving relative to each other. What’s interesting is that static friction exerts greater force than that of kinetic friction. As an example of this, think about a time when you had to push something heavy across the floor—getting the object moving took more effort than keeping it moving, once it overcame static friction.

OK, I know mechanical physics doesn’t play a direct role in accomplishing your to-do list, but there is a bit of psychological physics that comes into play. First, your stagnating to-do list items likely won’t accomplish themselves—you will have to exert some force, some action. Second, it may require a lot of force to get it going, but once you overcome the initial force resistance, less work should be required.

Application

So, what’s been stagnating on your to-do list? What are you dreading doing? Identify the next step, and take it. “Eat the frog,” as Mark Twain might say. Then repeat. Be decisive (make decisions and take a step forward), then keep your momentum and do it again.

As Tony Stark from the Avengers said, “I need a day when there aren’t twenty crises to deal with, but I don’t see that coming any time soon.” So, you might as well start dealing with the crises now.

Go forth and take action!

Share

Economy

NOTE: First off, something I was not expecting:

1. The Robin Hood state is coming for the rich (Economist)

Income inequality has risen sharply across rich countries since the 1980s, with the top 1% capturing a growing share of pre-tax income—especially in America. Yet at the same time, tax-and-benefit systems have become significantly more progressive. In most G7 countries, increased redistribution has offset or even reversed rising inequality in post-tax incomes. In America, while pre-tax inequality is near record highs, post-tax inequality is lower than in many recent decades, and the top 1%’s effective tax rate remains close to historical peaks.

Contrary to the popular narrative that “neoliberal” tax cuts dismantled redistribution, effective tax rates on high earners are generally higher today than in the mid-20th century, when widespread avoidance meant the rich often paid far less than headline rates suggested. Although corporate-tax cuts and certain loopholes (such as capital gains treatment or “buy, borrow, die” strategies) may benefit the ultra-wealthy, most evidence suggests that top earners still pay a large—and growing—share of total tax revenue. In countries like America, Britain, and South Korea, the top 1% now fund a striking portion of income-tax receipts.

Governments have used this revenue both to reduce tax burdens on lower earners and to expand social transfers, including pensions, healthcare subsidies, and means-tested benefits. As a result, redistribution as a share of GDP has increased, and many working- and middle-income households now receive more in public spending than they pay in taxes.

The central policy debate is whether tax systems have become too dependent on the wealthy. Some argue further increases are needed—especially if technological change widens inequality—while others warn that ever-higher rates risk discouraging work, investment, and entrepreneurship, or prompting capital flight. So far, there is limited evidence that high earners are reducing effort in response to higher effective rates. But as calls grow for wealth taxes and top marginal rates above 80%, the sustainability and economic consequences of the modern “Robin Hood” state remain an open question.

2. In 2025, Trade Deficit in Goods Reached Record High (NYT)

President Trump’s tariffs were intended to reduce imports, shrink the trade deficit, and revive U.S. manufacturing. Instead, imports rose 4.7% in 2025, the goods trade deficit reached a record high, and American manufacturers cut more than 80,000 jobs. While the overall trade deficit dipped slightly to $901 billion, that improvement was driven entirely by a growing services surplus; the deficit in physical goods—the administration’s main concern—actually widened.

Tariffs significantly reshuffled trade flows but did not substantially reduce reliance on foreign production. Imports from China fell nearly 30%, shrinking the bilateral deficit to its lowest level in decades, yet deficits with Vietnam, Mexico, India, and other countries hit record highs as companies rerouted supply chains. In many cases, Chinese firms shifted production to Southeast Asia to avoid tariffs. Retaliation also hurt U.S. exporters, particularly soybean farmers, whose exports to China dropped sharply before a late-year trade truce. Overall, economists say it remains unclear whether the long-term effect will be reduced dependence on imports or simply a reorganization of global trade patterns.

3. Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Global Tariffs (WSJ)

The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that President Trump’s sweeping global tariffs were illegal, rejecting his claim that a 1977 emergency law (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) gave him authority to impose them without explicit congressional approval. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the president’s assertion of power was “extravagant by any measure,” marking the first time the Court has definitively struck down a major second-term Trump policy.

The decision removes a central tool Trump used to reshape trade policy and collect tens of billions in tariff revenue, though the Court did not address whether previously collected funds must be refunded. In response, Trump signaled he would press ahead, signing a new order imposing a 10% global tariff under different legal authorities, with exemptions for qualifying goods from Canada and Mexico under the USMCA.

4. Tariff Ruling Sends CEOs Back to Company War Rooms (WSJ)

The Supreme Court’s decision striking down President Trump’s tariffs briefly reassured some business leaders, but uncertainty quickly returned. The ruling did not clarify whether companies will receive refunds for previously paid tariffs, and Trump has already announced a new 15% global tariff under different legal authority. Executives are now weighing whether refunds are realistic, whether new tariffs could offset any relief, and how to respond without disrupting pricing or supplier relationships.

Trade groups are calling for swift refunds, but legal experts warn companies may need to pursue litigation, with outcomes uncertain and potentially slow. Some firms have already sold claims to hedge funds or built financial models to simulate various tariff scenarios. Smaller businesses worry about customer refund demands and supplier noncompliance, while others say the ruling comes too late to reverse supply-chain shifts, production cuts, or even business closures. Overall, the decision has resolved one legal question but left companies navigating continued policy volatility and financial ambiguity.

5. Why the Federal Deficit Is Projected to Surge, in Five Charts (WSJ)

Debt held by the public will balloon to more than $56 trillion by 2036 as annual deficits continue to mount, according to the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office. By later this year, the federal debt held by the public is expected to surpass the size of the entire U.S. economy.

The main drivers: increased spending on entitlement programs as the nation’s population ages as well as rising costs related to paying interest on the debt itself. Republicans have taken issue with the projections, saying the CBO’s assumptions on economic growth are too low.

6. Healthcare Jobs Have Become the Engine of America’s Labor Market (WSJ)

The U.S. added 130,000 jobs in January, with nearly all of the gains concentrated in healthcare and healthcare-related roles. As immigration restrictions tighten, questions are emerging about who will fill labor-intensive positions in sectors that rely heavily on foreign-born workers. Immigrants make up a disproportionate share of healthcare and construction workers—including large percentages of home health aides, physicians, drywall installers, roofers, and general laborers. Raids and deportations are already straining construction labor supply, raising costs and slowing projects, while healthcare employers are offering large signing bonuses to compete for scarce nurses.

Healthcare demand continues to rise as the population ages, driving sustained hiring even as other parts of the economy weaken. Job growth has slowed or declined in sectors such as finance, information, retail, and professional services, and federal employment has dropped sharply. The result is an economy increasingly dependent on healthcare for job creation, with labor shortages intensifying in key industries amid tighter immigration policy.

7. Wall Street’s Latest Bet Is on ‘HALO’ Companies With AI Immunity (WSJ)

After years of piling into artificial-intelligence stocks, U.S. investors are rotating into what some call the “AI immunity” or “HALO” trade—companies with heavy physical assets and low risk of technological obsolescence, such as McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil, and Deere. In recent weeks, sectors like industrials, materials, utilities, and consumer staples have outperformed, while technology stocks and the “Magnificent Seven” have lagged. Investors appear to be favoring businesses that AI is unlikely to disrupt, amid growing uncertainty about who the long-term winners and losers of the AI boom will be.

The shift has triggered sharp market swings, with AI-related announcements wiping out billions in value from software, financial, and other sectors seen as vulnerable to automation. While some tech stocks have rebounded and individual investors continue buying major AI names, the broader mood has become more cautious. Market participants say the AI trade is entering a new phase in which companies must prove real earnings power, as hype alone is no longer enough to sustain valuations.

Technology

8. Arthur Brooks: Why Are Young People Choosing OnlyFans over Love? (FP)

Americans now spend more on OnlyFans than on subscriptions to The New York Times and ChatGPT combined, with the platform generating $7.2 billion in 2025 from 378 million users. Much of that revenue comes from paid private chats, suggesting that users are seeking not just explicit content but a sense of personal connection. At the same time, loneliness—especially among Gen Z—is rising sharply, alongside declining rates of dating, marriage, and sexual activity.

Fear of failure appears to be a central driver. Younger adults report higher levels of anxiety about rejection and risk, leading many to avoid real-world dating in favor of safer, more controllable online alternatives. A growing culture of expansive “red flags” further narrows romantic possibilities. A healthier approach to relationships mirrors entrepreneurship: manage risk rather than eliminate it, accept heartbreak as instructive, and pursue the potentially transformative rewards of lasting love instead of retreating into isolating digital substitutes.

9. From Paris to New Delhi, the Push to Ban Teens From Social Media Is Going Global (WSJ)

Governments across Europe, Asia, and parts of the U.S. are moving to restrict or ban social-media access for younger teens, following Australia’s decision to block platforms for users under 16. France has passed a ban for those under 15, Spain and Germany are advancing similar measures, the U.K. is launching consultations, and India is discussing age-based limits. Supporters argue that endless scrolling, algorithm-driven content, and smartphone overuse contribute to rising teen anxiety, depression, and screen addiction, and say stricter rules are needed to protect children.

Social-media companies and some digital-rights advocates argue that blanket bans are blunt tools that could backfire by pushing teens to less regulated platforms or cutting them off from connection and learning. They maintain that causal links between social media and mental-health problems remain debated and point to existing safety features and parental controls. While the immediate financial hit to companies may be limited, broader age bans could disrupt the pipeline of young users who often become long-term customers.

Business

10. Lenders to Commercial Real Estate Owners: Pay Up Now (WSJ)

Commercial real-estate lenders are increasingly calling in troubled loans as refinancing becomes harder in a higher-rate environment. After years of “extend and pretend”—granting extensions in hopes that rates would fall or property income would recover—defaults are rising sharply. The delinquency rate on office loans packaged into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) hit a record 12.34% in January, and more than half of the roughly $100 billion in CMBS loans maturing this year are unlikely to be repaid on time.

Lenders now believe that both higher interest rates and structural shifts—especially reduced demand for office space due to hybrid work—are long-lasting rather than cyclical. Nearly $25 billion in CMBS loans are past maturity without resolution, and distressed debt levels are approaching post-2008 crisis highs. The strain is spreading to regional banks with heavy commercial real-estate exposure, though some property sectors such as industrial and grocery-anchored retail remain resilient, and new CMBS issuance has rebounded. Overall, the office sector remains the epicenter of mounting financial stress.

11. Farmers Are Aging. Their Kids Don’t Want to Be in the Family Business.(WSJ)

Rising costs, weak crop prices, mounting debt, and a surge in farm bankruptcies have intensified pressure on aging farmers nationwide, with more operators now over 75 than under 35. Despite government bailouts and disaster aid, many growers expect continued losses. Reliance on federal aid underscore the fragile economics facing multigenerational farms and the gradual erosion of family-based agriculture in rural America.

International

12. How China’s Xi Purged His ‘Big Brother’ to Achieve Absolute Power (WSJ)

China’s top general, Zhang Youxia—a longtime ally of Xi Jinping—was abruptly detained in January in what appears to be the most dramatic military purge of Xi’s tenure. Security forces intercepted Zhang en route to a high-level party meeting, detained him and his son, and later accused him of leaking nuclear secrets, forming political cliques, and corruption. While the allegations remain unverified, analysts say the move underscores Xi’s deepening consolidation of power and growing distrust within the military leadership.

Zhang’s ouster caps a sweeping purge that has removed most members of the Central Military Commission since 2023, effectively transforming it into a body dominated solely by Xi. Observers argue the crackdown reflects Xi’s determination to ensure absolute political loyalty—particularly after witnessing instability in Russia—and his fear of internal military networks that could challenge his authority. The episode signals a new phase of one-man rule, in which even close allies with revolutionary pedigrees are not immune from suspicion or removal.

13. Iranian Students Protest as Anger Grows (WSJ)

A renewed wave of unrest is spreading across Iran, with university students staging antigovernment rallies and families turning mourning ceremonies into acts of protest. The anger follows a bloody crackdown on demonstrations that began in late December, during which thousands were killed and tens of thousands arrested. Despite repression, students at major universities in Tehran have chanted against the Islamic Republic and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, with some protests leading to clashes with security forces.

Public dissent has also taken new forms. Nightly rooftop chants of “Death to Khamenei,” politically charged 40-day mourning ceremonies for slain protesters, and school strikes labeled “Empty Desks” have become symbols of resistance. The unrest is unfolding amid rising tensions with the United States over Iran’s nuclear program, adding further strain to an already volatile political environment.

14. The U.S. Military Hardware Pouring Into the Middle East (WSJ)

The U.S. has deployed a major buildup of air and naval forces across the Middle East, positioning dozens of advanced fighters, support aircraft, and warships within range of Iran should President Trump order a strike. Stealth F-22s and F-35s, along with F-15s, F-16s, electronic-warfare planes, and long-range bombers, are staged at bases including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, though Gulf states have restricted use of their airspace for strikes on Iran. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is already in the region, with a second carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, en route, alongside destroyers capable of launching missile defenses and Tomahawk strikes.

The buildup also includes submarines, aerial refueling tankers, early-warning aircraft, heavy cargo planes, and missile-defense systems such as THAAD and Patriot batteries to protect U.S. assets and allies. While smaller than the 1991 Gulf War deployment, it represents the largest concentration of U.S. airpower in the region since the 2003 Iraq invasion, signaling significant readiness amid heightened tensions with Iran.

15. The U.S. Is Hunting the Shadow Fleet. This Is What It’s Up Against. (WSJ)

A vast “shadow fleet” of roughly 1,300 sanctioned tankers is transporting Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil across global markets, often to buyers in Asia. These aging vessels, frequently sailing without Western insurance and under false flags, now account for an estimated 6–7% of global crude flows. Russia relies on them for about 80% of its seaborne oil exports. Western sanctions and recent seizures—stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean—have increased costs and risks for operators, leaving an estimated 300 million barrels of Russian and Iranian oil at sea as traders struggle to find buyers amid mounting restrictions.

Operators use increasingly elaborate deception tactics to evade enforcement. Ships disable or spoof their Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals, conduct mid-ocean ship-to-ship transfers to obscure cargo origins, make “dark-port” calls without transmitting locations, repaint names and flags mid-voyage, and operate through shell companies that mask true ownership. Despite tougher enforcement, fully dismantling the network would be difficult: Russia and Iran together produce more than 11% of global oil, and removing their supply from markets could drive up crude prices and inflation.

NOTE: Article has many other great infographics.

Share

Having gotten addicted to the ease of coding having AI code for me, I tried my hand at another project this week. All I can say is that I continue to be blown away by what AI is able to do—at least when it comes to HTML coding, which is used to display content in a web browser.

If you’ve been a reader of Curated Compositions for a while, you know that I have an affinity for teaching people about geography and the location of countries in the world. I’ve published a few guides out there to help people memorize the names and locations of certain countries in North America and Central America, South America, and Europe (in three parts). As part of those posts, I shared websites that quiz you on country locations. For this particular coding project, I had AI make my own quiz game.

Last week I used Anthropic’s Claude to do the programming (for me); this week I used OpenAI’s Codex.

Here’s a screenshot of the game:

You can play it here.

A few overall notes:

• The entire process occurred over the course of the week as I had free time. Added up, the back and forth with Codex only took me a total of ~30 minutes. And in that time, I had a fully-functioning, shareable map game that does the following:

  • Shows a map of world that you can pan and zoom

  • Asks you to identify the location of a specific country on the map

  • If you click on the correct country, it highlights that country in green, then says “Correct” and shows you that country’s flag, population and area

  • If you click on an incorrect country, it allows you to try again. If you are wrong a second time, it highlights the region of the world that country is in. If you are wrong a third time, it says “Incorrect” and then shows the location.

• According to Codex, the game contains 735 lines of code and required “meaningful amounts” of CSS and JavaScript logic. ChatGPT tells me that for a human to do that quantity and type of coding would take an experienced developer between 1 to 2 days (8 to 16 hours) and a beginner 1-2 weeks.

• I had to download the Codex app to my computer and used it to do the vibe coding.

• I pay for ChatGPT Pro, so I did not hit any usage limits. Codex tells me that if you had the free version, “You could still build it on a free tier, but you’d usually hit limits faster (message caps, smaller context window, slower/more fragmented iteration), so it would likely take more sessions and more manual stitching together.”

• Just like the last app I built used AI to build, I am having Netlify host this app for free

A few notes on the process I followed:

I didn’t immediately start with a world map, I started with the prompt, “Can you create a map of east asia that when I mouseover a country it tells me what country that is.” The first version was absolutely terrible:

So, I said as much:

After that, things went much better, but still required tweaks along the way.

Once Codex got the base map and mouseover correct, I proceeded with the following prompts:

• “Now, can you make it so that when I click on a country you open up a side panel that shows that country’s flag, area size, and population? If so, please proceed.”

• “Can you make an entire world map like this? If so, please proceed.”

• “Ok, using all of this as a starting ground, let’s make a game. I want you to provide me the name of a country, if I click on the correct country, i get a point, then you provide me another country and so on. If I fail to get the country correct, you tell me to try again. If I fail a second time, then you highlight the continent it is on and I guess again. If I get it wrong a third time, then you highlight the country yourself and then give me a new country to find. make sense?”

• “a few things are wrong with the game: 1) I don't want the country name revealed when i mouse over it, 2) the region highlight isn't working after the second fail, 3) once the user selects the correct country or they don't and the country is revealed, it immediately moves on to the next country. Instead, I want the country to remain highlighted and a button to be added that says "next country" once the user clicks on that button a new country name is revealed for them to find.”

• “This good; however, the region highlight still isn't working. Let's do it this way: let's categories all countries as being in the following regions, and then use these regions as the ones you highlight: (North America, Latin America & Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceana)”

  • This problem took a few more “nope, this isn’t working, do better” prompts, but AI eventually fixed the problem.

• “Excellent, this is great! Next add: make a big green image that appears on the right in green that says “Correct!” when the user gets it correct”

• “Well done. FOr the next change: the underlying map shows the country names (in their native language). Is there a map out there that is exactly the same as the one you’re using that does not have the names of the countries?”

• “well done. next changes: 1) add red banner that says "Incorrect" if they are not successful in finding the country (just like the green button for when they got it correct. 2) once the country is revealed (whether correct or incorrect), also show on the right their flag, population, and area (in square miles)”

As you can see above, my grammar and instructions are very loose (incorrect capitalization, missing words, improper punctuation, vague wording)—thus the “vibe” part of vibe coding. But, I did try to be specific with problems I was seeing and changes I wanted.

Overall, I continue to be very impressed with what I can do considering I know very little about programming.

Lastly, I probably killed a tree or two by using filler words like “please,” “well done,” and “excellent.” Who knows how much computing power and energy that ate up and how many more data centers are needed to process my niceties. I try to be nice to AI so that in the future, when Terminator comes to my house, he remembers that I was kind to his ancestors.

Share

1. Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell

The CIA has retired The World Factbook, one of its oldest and most widely recognized intelligence publications. Originally launched in 1962 as a classified document called The National Basic Intelligence Factbook, it later gained an unclassified companion in 1971, was renamed The World Factbook in the early 1980s, and went fully digital in 1997 on CIA.gov. Over time, it evolved from a print intelligence reference into a globally accessible online resource, expanding its categories and coverage of countries and entities worldwide. The Factbook became a popular reference for researchers, journalists, educators, students, and travelers, and featured more than 5,000 copyright-free photographs, many contributed by CIA officers. Although it has now been discontinued, the publication leaves behind a legacy of accessible global information and public curiosity about world affairs.

Economy

2. This Is Why It’s So Hard to Find a Job Right Now

U.S. hiring has slowed sharply due to a mix of factors, including tariff uncertainty, high interest rates, post-pandemic overstaffing in tech, and a drop in worker mobility. With fewer employees quitting—3.2 million in December compared with 4.5 million at the 2022 peak—employers have less need for replacement hiring. The hires rate has fallen to 3.3%, well below pre-pandemic levels, even as unemployment remains relatively low at 4.4%.

Immigration restrictions and an aging population have further reduced labor-force growth, lowering the number of jobs the economy needs to add each month to keep unemployment stable. Economists estimate that required monthly job growth has fallen dramatically, potentially to as low as 15,000 jobs. While artificial intelligence may be dampening hiring in certain fields, particularly tech and entry-level roles, its aggregate impact remains limited so far. Overall, muted hiring reflects a cautious business environment and slower labor-force expansion rather than widespread layoffs or recession-level weakness.

And separately, from Sherwood:

3. Job Cuts Surge in January; Highest January Total Since 2009. Lowest January Hirking on Record

U.S. employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January, up 118% from a year earlier and 205% from December, marking the highest January total since 2009. The largest reductions came from transportation (31,243 cuts, largely from UPS), technology (22,291, including 16,000 from Amazon), and healthcare (17,107, amid inflation and lower reimbursements). Chemical manufacturing also saw notable layoffs tied partly to automation and AI. Companies cited contract losses, economic conditions, restructuring, and closures as the primary reasons, while AI accounted for 7% of January cuts.

Hiring plans were weak, with just 5,306 announced—the lowest January total since tracking began in 2009 and nearly half December’s level. While executives increasingly reference AI in restructuring decisions, broader economic uncertainty and cost pressures appear to be the dominant drivers behind the surge in layoffs and muted hiring outlook.

4. The Federal Government Booked a $1.8 Trillion Deficit Last Year

The federal deficit remained historically high in 2025 at $1.8 trillion—about 6% of GDP—even amid economic expansion and low unemployment. Federal revenue rose to $5.2 trillion, largely from higher income and payroll taxes and $118 billion in tariff revenue, but spending climbed to $7.01 trillion, driven primarily by increased costs for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. The national debt reached $37.9 trillion, nearly 100% of GDP, a level previously exceeded only during World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic. Economists warn that sustained deficits at this level risk higher inflation, rising interest costs, slower growth, and reduced capacity to respond to future crises.

Despite aggressive rhetoric about cutting government, legislative actions have not meaningfully reduced spending. Trump’s major tax-and-spending package is projected to add trillions to future deficits, and continuing resolutions have largely preserved prior spending levels. Efforts such as workforce reductions and rescissions have produced limited savings, while entitlement programs and rising interest payments remain the primary drivers of long-term deficits. Without structural reforms to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, deficit growth is expected to continue regardless of executive actions.

5. How a $30 Billion Welfare Program Became a ‘Slush Fund’ for States

The Trump administration moved to freeze billions in federal welfare funds over fraud concerns, targeting several Democratic-led states, but longstanding problems with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program span both red and blue states. TANF, a $30 billion block-grant program created in 1996, gives states wide flexibility and limited reporting requirements. Audits across at least 37 states have identified serious oversight deficiencies, including inaccurate reporting, weak documentation, and millions distributed to contractors without clear tracking. Funds have supported initiatives only loosely tied—or unrelated—to TANF’s core goals, such as college scholarships benefiting middle- and upper-income families, antiabortion centers, foster-care programs already funded elsewhere, and in one case, fraudulent spending that led to criminal convictions.

Critics across the political spectrum argue that lax federal oversight and vague statutory rules have allowed TANF funds to function as a budgetary “slush fund,” with only about 20% of impoverished families now receiving direct cash assistance. In 2010, 1.9 million families received direct cash aid; in 2025, that number was down to 849,000. Despite repeated recommendations from the Government Accountability Office to tighten reporting requirements and improve auditing, Congress has not enacted reforms. The administration’s recent funding freeze prompted lawsuits and a temporary court block, while broader legislative efforts have focused on other welfare programs without addressing TANF’s structural weaknesses. Economists and policy analysts warn that without clearer federal standards and accountability measures, misuse and mission drift will likely persist.

Business

6. VCs Are Throwing Money At Recent College Grads To Build Prediction Markets

Prediction markets have surged in popularity, drawing $3.7 billion in new funding in 2025 and handling more than $40 billion in wagers on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. January alone saw over $10 billion in trading volume. Major investors have pushed valuations to $11 billion and $9 billion respectively, minting young billionaire founders and signaling strong regulatory and political tailwinds. Venture capital firms describe the sector as one of the hottest areas for new founders.

A new wave of startups is expanding beyond simple yes/no contracts into attention markets, long/short-style positions on trends, AI-related hedging products, analytics platforms, and trading terminals built on top of existing exchanges. Some promote prediction markets as insurance-like tools or as benchmarking systems for AI models. Despite rapid growth, profitability remains unproven and concerns persist about manipulation, consumer protections, and the blurred boundary between gambling and finance—yet investor enthusiasm continues to accelerate.

NOTE: You can bet (or start a betting market) on just about anything in Polymarket—from the fed interest rate decision, to sports, to Epstein Island. In the screenshot below there is currently around $200M worth of bets being made on Polymarket…and that’s only 12 markets. I’m guessing there are hundreds of markets.

7. The Wild Markets Behind Polymarket’s ‘Truth Machine’

FBI agents raided Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan’s Manhattan apartment on Nov. 13, 2024, as federal prosecutors investigated whether the crypto-based prediction market was violating anti–money-laundering laws and serving U.S. users in breach of a prior CFTC settlement. Fourteen months later, the investigation was dropped, Polymarket gained powerful backers and mainstream partnerships, and it was cleared to launch a regulated U.S. betting app—helping propel the company to a $9 billion valuation and making Coplan a billionaire.

Polymarket is both a fast-rising “truth machine” and a controversy magnet. Its contracts—priced to imply probabilities—are increasingly cited by media and integrated via partnerships with major platforms, yet much of its core international product remains lightly regulated and largely anonymous, with limited identity checks. That anonymity, along with research alleging signs of wash trading and repeated episodes of suspicious or disputed market resolutions (war-related outcomes, Maduro’s ouster, a Nobel-related wager, and ambiguous bet-settlement calls), fuels concerns about manipulation and insider trading. Polymarket says it complies with applicable laws, bans wash trading, and argues that transparency and social scrutiny make misconduct easier to spot.

The political and regulatory context: Polymarket paid a fine in 2022 and barred U.S. users from its offshore platform, but Americans reportedly continued using it via VPNs and crypto deposits. In 2024, as election betting surged, the company found a warmer reception among Republicans and crypto-friendly investors; 1789 Capital invested, Donald Trump Jr. later became an adviser, and enforcement priorities shifted after Trump took office toward fraud and serious criminal financing. After extensive lobbying and document submissions by Polymarket’s lawyers, prosecutors notified the company on July 1 that the probe was being shelved, closing a dramatic arc from raid to legitimacy and rapid growth.

8. America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster

Prediction markets—platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket—are rapidly moving from internet subculture into mainstream news. Odds generated by online betting are now being cited on CNN, integrated into coverage by Dow Jones outlets, and even displayed during events like the Golden Globes. The premise is simple: people who wager real money supposedly reveal truer beliefs about future events than polls or pundits. As a result, probabilities about elections, geopolitics, interest rates, and even celebrity outcomes are increasingly framed as news.

The concern is that this “financialization of everything” turns journalism into a form of gambling commentary, with serious consequences. Prediction markets are easily manipulated, opaque, and not consistently more accurate than chance—especially for complex political outcomes. Large bets can distort odds and, once amplified by media coverage, shape public perception or even real-world behavior. Unlike polls, these markets allow wealthy or motivated actors to buy influence directly. By normalizing odds as insight, news organizations risk confusing speculation with knowledge, eroding trust, and encouraging a worldview where every event—from wars to press briefings—is something to bet on rather than understand.

9. Apple is the only Big Tech company whose capex declined last quarter

Big Tech companies are dramatically increasing capital expenditures to build AI infrastructure, with Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft spending record amounts on chips and data centers. Their 2026 projections far exceed expectations: Amazon plans up to $200 billion, Google $175–185 billion, and Meta $115–135 billion, while Microsoft is also expected to spend well above prior forecasts. These massive outlays have weighed on stock performance as investors weigh the risks of heavy upfront investment in uncertain AI returns.

Apple stands apart, with capital spending declining year over year and remaining far below peers. Rather than building massive in-house AI infrastructure, Apple is pursuing a hybrid strategy that relies partly on third-party providers, including a reported $1 billion-per-year deal to use Google’s Gemini for Siri and Apple Intelligence. This approach limits capital risk and keeps spending off its balance sheet, but it also means Apple won’t fully control foundational AI technology if it proves transformative.

Speaking of AI…

Artificial Intelligence

10. Tom Cruise fights Brad Pitt

NOTE: Filmmaker Ruairi Robinson used AI to create a movie-quality fight scene between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. It’s made the rounds in social media with many prominent Hollywood folks expressing their concerns.

It’s not just movies. If you seen some of the previous posts I’ve shared, you know AI can generate music as well. I think the videos below do a good job of showing what’s possible with AI and music (good and bad):

Soul/R&B:

Country:

As Rick Beato points out, the good news, for now, is the actual “top songs” are still being sung by humans.

PREDICTION 1: Within five years, you will sit at home on a Friday night and ask AI to make a movie for you based on genre, actors/characters, setting, and length and it will churn out a Hollywood-level flick for you.

From songs to movies to video games, you’ll create all your own entertainment:

11. Google’s Project Genie lets you create your own 3D interactive worlds

Google DeepMind has opened access to Genie 3—a “world model” that generates interactive environments—to the public via Project Genie. Previously framed as a tool for training AI agents, Genie 3 now lets users explore, remix, or sketch AI-generated worlds, choosing perspectives (first-, third-person, or isometric), characters, and movement styles. Access is limited to U.S. users 18+ on Google’s $250/month AI Ultra plan, with Nano Banana Pro producing an editable preview before exploration.

The experience isn’t a full game engine: interactions are game-like but lack traditional mechanics, sessions are capped at 60 seconds, and visuals top out at 720p/24 fps. Even with those constraints, Project Genie offers a rare hands-on look at cutting-edge world-model tech and how DeepMind envisions interactive simulation beyond games.

Link: https://labs.google/projectgenie

PREDICTION 2: Like most things, we as humans will overdo this. At first, it’ll be fun. People will share prompts that they used to create unique and Oscar-worthy films. Infinite movie mashups will be possible and we will create and watch as many of them as we can. It’ll be like eating calorie-free desserts at every meal—desserts that are delicious and have no effect on our waistline or sugar levels.

PREDICTION 3: If you eat dessert at every meal, you soon get tired of dessert. Eventually, every type of film that can be created will and we’ll get tired of it all. We’ll seek out in-person performances where we watch real-people act or sing or dance. It’ll be a breath of fresh air and feel human.

12. Frequent Use of AI in the Workplace Continued to Rise in Q4

Workplace AI use in the U.S. continued its gradual climb in late 2025, driven more by deeper use among existing users than by new adopters. Daily AI use rose from 10% to 12% in Q4, and frequent use (a few times a week or more) increased to 26%. However, overall adoption stalled: nearly half of U.S. workers still say they never use AI at work, and the share of total users (those using AI at least a few times a year) was flat after earlier rapid gains.

Adoption remains highly uneven. Knowledge-based industries lead by a wide margin, with technology, finance, higher education, and professional services showing the highest use, while retail, manufacturing, healthcare, government, and social services lag far behind. Roles that are remote-capable account for most of the growth, with two-thirds of those workers now using AI, compared with about one-third in non-remote-capable jobs. Leaders also use AI far more than managers or individual contributors, and the gap is widening. According to Gallup, this pattern helps explain why overall adoption appears to be slowing: AI is becoming more embedded among certain industries, roles, and leaders, even as many workers see little relevance or clear use for it in their jobs.

13. OpenAI Plans Fourth-Quarter IPO in Race to Beat Anthropic to Market

The piece highlights the staggering scale and risk of today’s AI arms race. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are burning billions of dollars annually to train new models and operate existing products, with profitability still years away. Anthropic projects it will break even in 2028—earlier than OpenAI—but only after massive capital infusions, including a recent $10 billion raise. The article also touches on CEO concerns about which sectors face the greatest AI-driven job disruption and how seriously companies are taking safety as systems grow more powerful.

At the same time, OpenAI is pursuing what could be one of the largest fundraising efforts in tech history. The company is seeking more than $100 billion in a pre-IPO-style round that would value it around $830 billion. SoftBank is in talks to invest roughly $30 billion, while Amazon has discussed putting in up to $50 billion, with CEO Andy Jassy personally involved in negotiations with Sam Altman. Together, the moves underscore both the enormous financial demands of frontier AI and investors’ belief that a few dominant players could reshape entire industries despite years of losses.

14. The AI frenzy is creating a big problem for consumer electronics

AI enthusiasm is colliding with a hard constraint: memory chips. As demand for AI systems explodes—especially data centers using high-bandwidth memory (HBM)—chipmakers are diverting production away from the standard DRAM used in phones, PCs, cars, and consoles. The result is a severe supply crunch. Prices for consumer DRAM (notably DDR4) have surged dramatically, prompting warnings of higher gadget prices, delayed launches, and falling shipment volumes for smartphones and PCs. While memory is a cyclical industry, this shortage may last longer because AI is structurally reshaping how chips are made, priced, and allocated.

The squeeze is intensified by concentration and incentives. Three firms—SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron—control over 90% of DRAM revenue and are rapidly shifting capacity to HBM, which is far more profitable but also far more resource-intensive to produce. HBM is expected to generate half of all DRAM revenue by the end of the decade, up from just 8% in 2023. That leaves less supply of basic memory, which makes up a large share of device costs. Big players like Apple and Samsung can better absorb or offset the shock, but others—PC makers, smartphone brands, and especially carmakers—face margin pressure and price hikes. Even planned increases in chip investment will take years to translate into new supply, meaning consumers are likely to feel the effects for some time unless the AI boom itself cools.

Health

15. Older Americans are spending more time on their phones than younger cohorts, per new data

Concerns about young people’s dependence on new technology have surfaced throughout history, from novels to radio to smartphones. However, recent data suggest younger Americans may no longer be the heaviest phone users. According to Apptopia, 17- to 25-year-olds now spend slightly less time on their phones—about 350 minutes per day—than adults aged 36 and over, who average 352 minutes. This shift has persisted since late 2024 and may reflect younger users intentionally disengaging from technology, while older adults increasingly use companion apps and digital services.

Overall phone use continues to rise across all age groups. The average American now spends 6.3 hours per day on their phone, up from 5.5 hours at the start of 2023. While usage patterns are evolving—such as more video consumption and fewer gaming apps—the total time spent on mobile devices keeps climbing regardless of age.

NOTE: In a previous post, I shared the article, More Americans are living alone than ever before, which discussed a minimalist Chinese app called Sile Me (“Are You Dead?”). The app simply requires users to press a button every two days to confirm they are alive or else alert an emergency contact, has become the top paid app in China’s iPhone App Store. A reader of my newsletter pointed out another app here in the US called, Carely, that is very similar.

This confluence of increased phone use, increased personalized AI use, and increased isolation is going to continue to impact our society in ways that are not healthy.

Entertainment

16. “Bluey” is America’s most streamed show for the second year in a row

Bluey dominated U.S. streaming for a second consecutive year, logging 45.2 billion minutes watched in 2025—more than any other show and well ahead of runners-up like Grey’s Anatomy and Stranger Things. With 154 short episodes, Bluey averaged about 294 million minutes per episode, underscoring how repeatable, bite-size content can generate enormous cumulative viewing. Overall U.S. streaming hit a record 16.7 trillion minutes in 2025, up 19% from the year before.

The rankings highlight a structural advantage for long-running shows with deep catalogs: nine of the ten most-watched series were established titles rather than new originals. Limited or short-run series struggle to compete on total minutes, regardless of buzz. Bluey’s cross-generational appeal and 10-minute episode format fit modern viewing habits—often casual or background watching—helping explain why a preschool cartoon now outpaces prestige dramas and blockbuster originals in sheer time spent watching.

For Fun

17. Accidentally Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson is an American filmmaker known for distinct visual style—symmetry and centered framing, distinct color palettes and lateral tracking. This website is a collection of pictures from around the world that mimic that Anderson style. It’s a fun site.

18. The Who - full live from Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour 1967

NOTE: Back in 1967, the band The Who performed on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. At the end of their bit, as planned, they go around smashing their instruments and blow up the drum set. Unfortunately, the base drum was accidentally loaded with three times the amount of explosives expected. You can read more about it here. On the whole, the entire Wikipedia on the Smothers Brothers is worth reading.

Share

It’s that time of the biennial when we gather around the television and root for the very best athletes in the world as they compete for Olympic medals.

From the opening notes of The Bugler’s Dream (daaaah–DAAAH da-da da da da…), to the athlete backstories, to the fierce competition and international rivalries, the Olympics are generally a time of good vibes. And, whether it’s the sheer speed of downhill skiing or the artistry of figure skating, there’s usually something for everyone.

I realized this week that just about every Olympic sport can be narrowed down to five basic types of competition—at least in terms of how they’re scored:

• Speed

• Accuracy

• Strength

• Distance

• Artistry

Sometimes there’s overlap in categories, like figure skating. You might think this sport is solely scored on artistry, but the Technical Element score reflects precision (accuracy) and physical difficulty (strength).

I also realized that most Winter Olympic sports have parallels to other sporting events. Sometimes the parallels are more obvious, like snowboarding and skateboarding, and speed skating and running around a track. Other times, it’s less obvious, like bobsledding and kayaking.

Here’s a spreadsheet I put together to show how it all fits:

Full disclosure: I built this chart in about 15 minutes and took several creative liberties, so I’m sure there are things you might disagree with.

Still, using this handy guide, you can now decide which Olympic events to watch based on how you like sports to be scored—or based on other sports you already enjoy.

Have fun.

Oh—you’re one of those strange people who don’t like spreadsheets?

You’d prefer “an app for that” instead?

Okay, fine. Let’s make an app.

“Vibe coding” is all the rage these days. What is vibe coding? It’s AI-assisted coding—think coding for people who don’t really know how to code. You simply tell your favorite AI what you want to build, and it writes the code for you.

Recently, Anthropic’s AI, Claude, made headlines for how well it handles vibe coding, so, I signed up for yet another AI account and decided to give Claude a shot.

I uploaded the spreadsheet above, along with a copy-and-pasted list of TV event times from here and gave Claude this prompt:

“Using the attached documents, develop a spinner app that lets you pick an Olympic sport to watch based on what types of activities you like or how sports are scored, then display the day and time that sport will be on TV.”

The first app it built was in a .JSX file that I had no idea what to do with. Claude walked me through it all, but I still wasn’t sure how to upload it to the web, so I asked if it could build the app in a web-friendly code. A few minutes later, out came an HTML version.

Below, my friends, is a screenshot of the app:

To me, this is genuinely impressive. Not only did Claude do what I asked, but it also added icons, colors and animated falling snowflakes. Mind you, I have no coding skills, nor did this require any.

If you’d like to try the spinner yourself, you can do so HERE on Netlify.com—an app hosting site Claude also told me about. By the way, I did all of this with the free versions of Claude and Netlify.

Good vibes, for sure.

The goal here wasn’t to create an award-winning app, but to simply give vibe coding a try. If you’re a young person looking to make yourself more competitive in the marketplace, I’d strongly suggest giving vibe coding a try—employers will be wanting to know if you can do this type of thing. If a middle-aged guy like me can do it, I’m confident you can too.

Now, it’s time to go watch a team-based event scored by accuracy—otherwise known as hockey.

Share

CRITICAL THINKING

NOTE: As the internet and AI expand, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to parse valid information and research from the phony stuff. It’s tempting to want to throw it all out and ignore everything coming at you, especially when the noise is louder than the signal itself.

These days, I am slower to react to the news of the day, preferring to wait until I have more details and a better understanding of the issue before forming an opinion, and definitely before responding emotionally.

Below are two more reasons to be cautious in how you respond to headlines and studies.

1. Relax, Microplastics Aren’t Killing You (FP)

While recent, highly publicized studies claimed alarming levels of plastic in the human brain, those findings have since been challenged, with critics showing the detection method likely confused plastic with ordinary fat molecules. As a result, the most dramatic health claims have been walked back, highlighting how shaky or overstated science can undermine public trust.

NOTE: Don’t get me wrong, I think any amount of plastic in my body is bad and I’m all for reducing/eliminating how much I ingest…it’s just a shame that such a newsworthy study had flaws that undermined it.

2. Named: 50 ‘experts’ and linked brands publishers should treat with caution (Press Gazette)

Press Gazette has published a “PR Hall of Shame” exposing more than 50 apparently fake experts who have appeared over 1,000 times across British newspapers, magazines, and online outlets. The investigation focuses on cases where the experts appear not to exist at all, often using AI-generated images and bios, and highlights how journalists are being flooded with dubious, AI-written press releases from organizations that evade follow-up.

The practice is largely driven by SEO schemes, where fabricated experts and case studies are used to secure valuable backlinks from reputable media. Some operations have run for years and at scale, involving networks of companies and PR agencies and leading to widespread publication of misleading content. Press Gazette warns this trend is accelerating with advances in AI, undermining media credibility, and is urging journalists and PR professionals to report suspected fake experts to help curb the problem.

NOTE: As an aside, if I had a dollar for every suspicious LinkedIn invite I’ve received, I’d at least have $100. I can tell because they have phony looking, or AI-generated, photos and nebulous backgrounds. These days, unless someone sends me a specific message telling me why they want to connect to me, or I know them directly, I don’t accept generic LinkedIn friend requests. Call me snobbish. I just prefer more meaningful connections. (Ironically, if you read farther down you’ll see how LinkedIn is now becoming a hub for dating.)

DEFENSE

3. US military to expand by more than 30,000 troops this year (Military Times)

Congress has approved and funded increases to the size of the U.S. armed forces in fiscal 2026, expanding active-duty end strength by more than 30,000 troops—the largest authorized force since 2023. The Army and Navy will see the biggest gains, while the Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard will also grow. The Marine Corps will remain flat. Overall active-duty strength will exceed 1.3 million, with total forces, including reserves and the National Guard, approaching 2.1 million.

4. Donald Trump’s Venezuela oil deal is already up and running (Economist)

In early January, the U.S. dramatically reshaped relations with Venezuela after American forces captured Nicolás Maduro and the Trump administration moved quickly toward a negotiated oil arrangement with the regime’s new leadership under Delcy Rodríguez. The deal would allow the U.S. and licensed firms like Chevron, Vitol, and Trafigura to purchase and market up to 30–50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, relieving Venezuela’s storage glut and preventing a shutdown of oil production. Payments would flow through escrow accounts under U.S. oversight, with limited funds reaching the Venezuelan state and strict controls on spending.

For the United States, the arrangement offers another source of heavy crude and commercial opportunities for oil firms, though it is not transformative. For Venezuela, it promises desperately needed dollar inflows, higher oil prices than under sanctions-era shadow trading, and relief from an impending currency crisis. At the same time, Washington retains leverage through sanctions, pricing power, and control over investment and spending.

5. Germany’s Military Recruitment Drive Has a Gen Z Problem (WSJ)

As Europe accelerates rearmament in response to the threat from Russia, Germany is struggling to recruit enough young people for military service. Resistance is driven less by pacifism than by economic resentment: many young Germans question why they should sacrifice for a state they feel prioritizes pensions for older generations while offering them limited economic security. Protests against Germany’s new voluntary military service, which includes mandatory questionnaires for young men, reflect frustrations over high living costs, weak job prospects, and lingering fatigue from pandemic-era sacrifices.

Despite broad public support for the military and defense spending, willingness to personally serve is at a record low. Recruitment gains from marketing campaigns have not offset retirements, leaving Germany far short of its troop targets. The government has raised pay and added incentives, but critics argue only a return to mandatory conscription would meet staffing needs. The debate highlights a growing generational divide over obligation, economic fairness, and what young people feel they receive in return for defending the state.

6. What Xi Jinping’s purge of China’s most senior general reveals (Economist)

China’s sweeping military purges have reached their most dramatic point with the investigation of General Zhang Youxia, the country’s most senior uniformed officer and a longtime confidant of Xi Jinping. Zhang and another top commander, Liu Zhenli, were placed under investigation for serious discipline and legal violations, effectively hollowing out the Central Military Commission and leaving Xi as the dominant figure in military leadership. The move marks the largest shake-up of China’s armed forces since Mao’s era and underscores the depth of corruption and factional struggle within the PLA.

The purge may reflect Xi’s frustration with stalled reforms, lingering corruption—particularly in weapons procurement—and concerns that Zhang’s growing power posed a political risk despite their close ties. While Xi aims to build a modern, combat-ready military capable of taking Taiwan, the repeated removal of senior leaders has created instability and leadership gaps. Western assessments warn the upheaval could hurt short-term readiness, even as Xi appears to bet that rooting out corruption will ultimately strengthen the PLA.

EDUCATION & JOBS

7. How the U.S. Is Tightening the Reins on Federal Student Loans (WSJ)

With U.S. student loan debt at a record $1.7 trillion, the federal government is moving to tighten borrowing and increase accountability in higher education. The Trump administration plans to cap graduate student loans starting in July 2026, limit lifetime borrowing, and restrict how much parents can borrow, while also redefining which fields qualify as professional degrees. At the same time, new rules will tie schools’ access to federal loans to whether graduates meet earnings benchmarks, reflecting bipartisan frustration over rising debt and doubts about the value of some degrees.

8. Nurses are still America’s most trusted workers (Sherwood)

Gallup’s 2025 Ethics Ratings of American Professions show that nurses remain the most trusted occupation in the U.S., a position they have held almost continuously since 1999, with firefighters briefly taking the top spot in 2001. Only four professions—including nurses, other healthcare workers, and military veterans—received majority positive ratings, while telemarketers and members of Congress were again viewed by most Americans as having low ethical standards. Finance- and business-related roles continued to rank poorly, with several hitting record-low trust levels.

Despite nurses’ continued lead, public trust in healthcare professionals has declined sharply since the pandemic. Positive ratings for nurses are down 14 points from their peak, while doctors and pharmacists have fallen 20 and 18 points, respectively. Overall, Gallup found that trust across major professions has eroded, with the average positive rating reaching a historic low, signaling a broad decline in confidence in professional ethics.

9. Why people are flirting on LinkedIn — and job hunting on Tinder (Sherwood)

The internet makes it easy to find information, but work and love still depend largely on matchmaking rather than instruction, and the platforms built for each are increasingly overlapping. LinkedIn has become a massive global professional hub, while dating apps remain major revenue generators, yet search trends show rising interest in using LinkedIn for dating and dating apps for work. Surveys suggest this crossover is real: more than half of young adults report having gone on a date via networking platforms, while many LinkedIn users—especially women—report receiving unwanted romantic advances.

Burnout and distrust on dating apps, where users frequently encounter ghosting or dishonesty, appear to be pushing some people toward LinkedIn, which offers more verifiable personal information. At the same time, a tightening job market has driven users to repurpose dating apps for professional networking. Large shares of Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge users say they’ve used the platforms to expand their careers, reflecting how economic pressure and platform fatigue are blurring the boundaries between professional networking and romantic matchmaking.

ECONOMY & HOUSING

10. Share of U.S. consumer spending, by income group (Axios)

U.S. economic growth is increasingly reliant on spending by wealthy households, making the system more fragile. The top 20% of income earners now account for 59% of all consumer spending—a near record—while the bottom 80% contribute a record-low 41%, reflecting a widening “K-shaped” divide where higher earners continue to pull ahead as everyone else treads water.

With inflation and a weak job market constraining most households, spending growth is being sustained largely by affluent consumers benefiting from stock-market gains and rising wealth concentration. Economists warn that this leaves the economy vulnerable: a market downturn that hits the rich could quickly tip the U.S. into recession, worsening job losses for lower-income workers and deepening social and political tensions.

11. Home Sellers Outnumber Buyers By a Record Margin, Upping Buyers’ Bargaining Power (Redfin)

The U.S. housing market has shifted sharply in buyers’ favor, with sellers outnumbering buyers by 47.1% in December—the largest imbalance since records began in 2013. This gap is being driven primarily by a steep drop in buyers, whose numbers fell to a record low amid high mortgage rates, elevated home prices, and economic uncertainty. While sellers have also pulled back, they have done so more slowly, leaving buyers with greater negotiating power in many markets.

Buyer’s markets are most pronounced in the Sun Belt, especially in cities like Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and parts of Florida, where heavy homebuilding during the pandemic has created excess supply. In contrast, parts of the Northeast and Midwest remain seller’s markets due to tighter supply. As a result, home prices are barely rising nationally and are falling in some oversupplied metros, underscoring how shifts in supply and demand are reshaping regional housing conditions.

12. Homebuyers Are Canceling Deals at the Highest Rate on Record (Redfin)

Home-purchase cancellations hit a record high in December, with about 16.3% of U.S. homes under contract falling through—the highest December rate since records began in 2017. Buyers are increasingly backing out as high home prices, affordability concerns, and a growing supply of listings give them more leverage and more alternatives. Inspection contingencies are often the trigger, though underlying cost pressures frequently drive the decision.

Cancellations were most common in fast-cooling Sun Belt markets such as Atlanta, Jacksonville, San Antonio, and Tampa, where sellers now far outnumber buyers. In contrast, cancellations remained relatively rare in tighter markets like Nassau County, NY, and parts of the Bay Area, despite some year-over-year increases there. Overall, the trend reflects a shift toward buyer-friendly conditions as demand softens and affordability slowly begins to improve.

13. To Make Homes Affordable Again, Someone Has to Lose Out (WSJ)

U.S. housing policy is trapped between conflicting interests: renters want prices to fall so they can buy homes, while existing homeowners and builders want values to stay high. The Trump administration has floated headline-grabbing ideas—such as 50-year mortgages, lower borrowing costs, restricting institutional investors, and allowing 401(k) withdrawals for down payments—but these measures mostly boost buyers’ purchasing power without addressing the underlying housing shortage and could even push prices higher.

Analyses suggest that restoring 2019-era affordability would require one of three difficult outcomes: a massive rise in household incomes, a return to ultra-low mortgage rates, or a 35% drop in home prices. Policymakers are reluctant to pursue solutions that would significantly lower prices, given the $34 trillion in housing equity held by homeowners and the risk to economic growth. With supply constrained by local zoning rules and political resistance to falling home values, meaningful reform remains elusive, leaving housing affordability a largely zero-sum problem.

BUSINESS

14. The Big Five US Trade Book Publishers

NOTE: The image below is only a snippet of a very large image on this website showing just how much consolidation there is in the publishing industry. Quite amazing.

15. Amazon Joins the Big-Box League With Its Largest-Ever Store (WSJ)

Amazon is planning its largest-ever physical retail store, a roughly 230,000-square-foot big-box location in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park, Illinois—larger than an average Walmart. About half the space will function as a traditional store selling groceries and household goods, while the other half will be dedicated to fulfilling online and in-store orders, keeping digital operations separate from in-person shopping. The concept blends kiosks, digital ordering, curbside pickup, and back-of-house fulfillment, reflecting Amazon’s effort to merge e-commerce efficiency with physical retail convenience.

The move marks Amazon’s most ambitious attempt yet to crack brick-and-mortar retail after years of mixed results, including store closures and scaled-back experiments like Amazon Go. While in-store purchases still account for most U.S. retail spending, Amazon faces stiff competition from entrenched big-box rivals like Walmart, Costco, and Target. Analysts say success will depend on whether Amazon can leverage its Prime data and logistics strengths to offer a compelling reason for shoppers to change long-standing habits in an already crowded market.

TECHNOLOGY & AI

NOTE: I missed this when it came out last year:

16. WiFi routers now tracking motion: Xfinity’s new feature sparks privacy concerns (Cyber News)

Xfinity has introduced WiFi Motion, a free feature that turns up to three WiFi-connected household devices into motion sensors by detecting disruptions in WiFi signals between them. Designed as a basic home-awareness tool rather than a professional security system, it can sense movement across rooms and floors, send push alerts, and allows users to adjust sensitivity and notification schedules, though it does not pinpoint exact locations and does not work with phones, tablets, or WiFi extenders.

The feature has sparked privacy concerns, as Xfinity’s policy allows collection of motion data and its potential disclosure to third parties, including law enforcement, under certain circumstances. Critics worry this could enable ISPs to infer household activity, while others note that similar inferences are already possible through internet traffic analysis. The debate has prompted renewed calls for stronger privacy protections, skepticism of ISP-provided hardware, and suggestions such as using personal routers or VPNs to limit data exposure.

NOTE: Just a reminder, like the streaming services that lured us all in with cheap prices early on, the price we pay for AI is only going to go up…after all, someone has to pay for all the data centers, computer chips, and energy use.

17. OpenAI to Begin Testing Ads in ChatGPT in Push for Fresh Revenue (WSJ)

OpenAI plans to begin testing ads in ChatGPT, marking a significant shift in its business model as it looks to boost revenue to support rapid growth and massive future computing costs. Ads will appear only in the free version and the lowest-priced subscription tier, ChatGPT Go, shown at the bottom of responses and clearly labeled, while higher-tier subscribers will remain ad-free.

Despite past concerns from CEO Sam Altman that advertising could undermine trust, OpenAI says ads will not influence answers, user conversations won’t be sold, and sensitive topics such as politics and mental health will be excluded. Users can opt out of ad personalization, and minors won’t see ads. Led by Fidji Simo, the effort reflects pressure from growing competition and aims to balance monetization with user trust, with OpenAI pledging to adjust the approach based on feedback.

18. ChatGPT apps are about to be the next big distribution channel: Here’s how to build one

ChatGPT is evolving from a text-based assistant into a transactional platform by embedding interactive widgets from third-party apps directly into conversations, allowing users to browse, compare, and complete tasks—such as booking flights—without leaving the chat. Launched at Dev Day, this “ChatGPT apps” ecosystem already includes major partners like Expedia, Canva, DoorDash, and Spotify, and represents a major new distribution channel comparable to the App Store or early SEO. Apps can surface contextually based on user intent, meaning users don’t search for apps; ChatGPT suggests them automatically. Apps can appear inline, fullscreen, or picture-in-picture, and ChatGPT controls when tools are invoked and how users move through tasks. For builders, this creates a low-barrier opportunity to reach massive audiences, from large enterprises to solo developers, as chat becomes a primary interface for discovering and using digital services.

19. There are now more than 1 million “.ai” websites, contributing an estimated $70 million to Anguilla’s government revenue last year (Sherwood)

Anguilla has become an unexpected winner of the AI boom thanks to its control of the “.ai” internet domain. Since ChatGPT’s launch, demand for AI-branded domains has surged, turning domain registrations into a major revenue source for the small Caribbean territory. In 2023, “.ai” domains generated about $32 million—over a fifth of government revenue—and registrations have since topped one million, pushing annual income far higher.

By 2026, Anguilla expects nearly $100 million in revenue from domain-related sales, largely driven by renewals and high-priced auctions of expired names. With standard fees providing steady income and premium domains selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars, the island has effectively stumbled into a digital windfall fueled by the global AI gold rush.

LIFE

20. Millennials spend more time than past generations with their children (Economist)

Americans are having fewer children, with the fertility rate falling to 1.6 births per woman in 2024, but parents are spending more time with their children than ever before. Over the past several decades, time devoted to child care has steadily increased across generations, with especially large gains among fathers. Compared with earlier cohorts, millennial parents—particularly dads—spend significantly more time caring for their children, continuing a long-term shift toward more hands-on parenting.

21. Humanity will shrink, far sooner than you think (Economist)

Fertility rates are falling faster and further than demographers expected across much of the world. Turkey’s birth rate has dropped to 1.48 children per woman, well below replacement level, and similar or lower rates are now common across Asia, Latin America, Europe, and even parts of Africa. Countries from Colombia and India to China and South Korea are seeing rapid declines, with some reaching historically unprecedented lows. As a result, only about one-third of the global population lives in countries with fertility high enough to sustain population growth.

What is most striking is the acceleration of this trend, which is outpacing official projections that assume fertility will soon stabilize or rebound. Many experts now doubt those assumptions, arguing there is little evidence that low fertility is self-correcting. If current declines persist even briefly, the world’s population could peak much earlier and at a much lower level than expected—possibly in the 2050s below 9 billion—triggering profound economic, social, and geopolitical consequences as humanity enters a period of long-term population decline.

22. More Americans are living alone than ever before

A minimalist Chinese app called Sile Me (“Are You Dead?”), which simply requires users to press a button every two days to confirm they are alive or else alert an emergency contact, has become the top paid app in China’s iPhone App Store. Its popularity highlights the rapid growth of people living alone in China, where one-person households could reach 200 million by 2030, driven by both an aging population and younger adults choosing solo living.

The trend is global. In the United States, nearly 40 million households—about 29% of the total—now consist of just one person, a record high that continues to climb. Similar increases have occurred across most wealthy countries, fueled by declining marriage rates, changing social norms, rising incomes, and the expansion of older age groups most likely to live alone.

NATURE

23. Enormous freshwater reservoir discovered off the East Coast may be 20,000 years old and big enough to supply NYC for 800 years (Live Science)

Scientists have confirmed the existence of a massive freshwater reservoir buried beneath the seafloor off the U.S. East Coast, potentially large enough to supply a city the size of New York for hundreds of years. Stretching from offshore New Jersey to Maine, the reservoir appears to have formed during the last ice age, when glaciers pushed meltwater deep into coastal sediments and trapped it beneath layers of clay and silt. Recent drilling off Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard recovered tens of thousands of liters of water, showing far lower salinity than seawater and suggesting the reservoir is larger than previously believed.

Preliminary analyses indicate the water is primarily glacial in origin, possibly mixed with rainfall, and was emplaced around 20,000 years ago. The freshwater is sealed beneath salty sediment, remaining isolated from the ocean above, though its salinity increases farther offshore. Researchers are now analyzing the samples to better estimate the reservoir’s size, age, and composition, aiming to provide reliable data in case the resource is ever considered for future use.

FOR FUN

24. Washington, DC, looks set to get America’s second Sphere (Sherwood)

Las Vegas’s Sphere has quickly become a major entertainment attraction, driving strong revenue growth through concerts, advertising on its massive LED exterior, and sponsorships. Its success has encouraged Sphere Entertainment to expand, with plans announced for a second U.S. location near Washington, DC, at National Harbor, as well as a smaller 6,000-seat format and an international Sphere planned for Abu Dhabi.

Despite rising revenue, the Sphere remains financially challenging. High-profile performances helped generate $156 million in quarterly revenue, with additional income from exterior advertising and suites, but operating costs still far exceed earnings. As a result, the glowing venue has proven popular and eye-catching, yet remains a costly and unprofitable venture even as the company pushes ahead with expansion.

25. Jumping the Tallest Cliff in the Solar System

The tallest vertical cliff on Earth is Mount Thor in northern Canada, which drops about 4,100 feet in a single sheer face. A fall from the top would last nearly 20 seconds, with a dropped object reaching speeds over 150 miles per hour, making it an extraordinarily dangerous plunge.

An even more extreme cliff exists off Earth on Miranda, a moon of Uranus. Verona Rupes rises roughly six miles (about 33,000 feet), making it far taller than Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon. Because Miranda’s gravity is only a tiny fraction of Earth’s, a fall from this cliff would take about eight minutes, with a maximum speed of around 90 miles per hour, making the descent far slower and potentially survivable with advanced equipment.

BONUS ITEM - Series Graph

NOTE: Hadn’t seen this before—a cool website that shows you the IMDB ratings of TV series episodes in one chart. Example below for The Office.

Share

East Asia

1. See How a Chinese Attack on Taiwan Would Be Japan’s Problem (WSJ)

Rising tensions over Taiwan highlight how deeply a potential Chinese invasion would affect Japan and the United States, despite Beijing’s insistence that it is a purely internal matter. Taiwan sits astride vital sea lanes linking the East and South China Seas to the Pacific, and its fall would allow China to dominate regional waterways, project power beyond the First Island Chain, and intensify pressure on neighboring states. Strategists warn that such a shift would decisively tilt the Asian balance of power in Beijing’s favor, directly threatening Japan’s security, trade, and territorial claims, particularly around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

Geography and alliance politics bind Japan tightly to any Taiwan conflict. Japanese islands in the Ryukyu chain lie close to Taiwan and would be exposed to blockades or missile strikes, while Japan hosts critical U.S. bases that make it indispensable to any American military response. United States forces would rely heavily on air and naval facilities in Japan to operate effectively; without them, sustaining combat from distant bases like Guam would be far harder. As Japan strengthens defenses on its southwestern islands and both sides deploy longer-range missiles, the risk grows that a Taiwan war would quickly expand—either through Japanese participation or Chinese preemptive strikes—turning a cross-strait crisis into a broader regional conflict.

NOTE: If you want to understand this all better I recommend reading up on Island Chain Strategy and reading the new US National Security Strategy.

Middle East

2. Families, Neighbors Informed on Each Other in Assad’s Syria, With Deadly Consequences (WSJ)

Newly uncovered Syrian military intelligence files shed light on how the Assad regime maintained power through pervasive surveillance, coercion, and forced betrayal, often turning relatives and spouses into informants. One case involves Abdu Kharouf, a moderate imam in Damascus who was lured to a meeting in 2020, secretly detained by intelligence agents, and died in a basement prison run by the regime. Documents show his arrest was triggered by testimony extracted under torture from a distant cousin, illustrating how confessions—often false—were used to justify arrests, disappearances, and killings. Kharouf’s family never recovered his body but says the records finally confirmed he was targeted despite avoiding politics and complying with state demands.

The files, discovered after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024, reveal a vast system of spying that ensnared ordinary citizens, activists, aid workers, diplomats, and even loyalists. Intelligence agencies monitored private conversations, encouraged Syrians to inform on one another, and relied on torture to extract confessions, leaving a legacy of fear and mistrust that persists even after the regime’s collapse. As Syrians begin confronting this history, the documents provide rare evidence of how deeply repression penetrated daily life—and how devastating its human cost was.

Government

3. Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions (Just Security)

A living, searchable resource that tracks legal challenges to Trump administrative executive actions.

NOTE: I thought this was an informative tracker. Quick stats: Of the 572 cases tracked, there have been 193 plaintiff wins, 111 government wins, and 227 awaiting a court ruling.

4. A Letter Won’t Always Be Postmarked the Same Day You Drop It in the Mail (WSJ)

The U.S. Postal Service has changed how mail is postmarked. Since Dec. 24, postmarks no longer reflect the day a letter is dropped in a mailbox but instead the day it reaches a processing facility, which could be one or more days later. As a result, mail deposited on a given day may carry a later postmark, potentially causing missed deadlines for items like tax returns, college applications, insurance appeals, checks, and ballots.

Economy

5. U.S. Trade Deficit Unexpectedly Falls to Lowest Level Since 2009 (WSJ)

The U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly plunged in October to $29.4 billion—its lowest level since 2009—after imports fell sharply and exports rose, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Imports declined to $331.4 billion while exports climbed to $302 billion, producing a deficit nearly 40% smaller than September’s and far below forecasts. Much of the swing was driven by narrow factors: a surge in gold and precious-metals exports tied to financial-market activity, and a sharp drop in pharmaceutical imports after Donald Trump threatened steep tariffs on overseas drugs.

6. A Shadow Fleet Smuggles Illicit Oil Across the High Seas. This Is How It Works. (WSJ)

Shadow tankers move sanctioned oil by exploiting weak oversight in global shipping, often using “flags of convenience” from small, non-Western countries that offer low fees, minimal checks, and limited enforcement. These vessels frequently change names, ownership, and registries—often through shell companies in loosely regulated jurisdictions—to evade scrutiny. Many are more than 20 years old, lack reliable insurance after being cut off from Western insurers by sanctions, and pose heightened risks of accidents, environmental damage, and crew mistreatment.

Recent U.S. seizures of oil tankers, including one that claimed Russian protection, show how enforcement has escalated beyond traditional sanctions. With financial penalties proving insufficient, governments are increasingly turning to military and security measures to disrupt the shadow fleet. Ukraine has also targeted sanctioned tankers during its war with Russia, highlighting the limits of sanctions alone and the growing geopolitical and security stakes tied to illicit oil transport.

NOTE: A few years ago I got a license to be a catamaran captain—it was a fun experience, to be sure. Two apps that we used heavily were the following, and I definitely recommend them—they’re great for tracking/viewing ships and weather:

Marine Traffic - Live tracking of ships.

Windfinder - Great visual weather tracker

7. The Middle Class Is Shrinking Because of a Booming Upper-Middle Class (AEI)

Populists on both sides of the aisle worry that the middle class has become an unattainable standard for many American families. AEI researches found that this is due to more families transitioning to the upper-middle class. In 1979, 10 percent of families qualified as upper-middle class, compared with 31 percent in 2024.

Slower growth and rising inequality have created concern that the middle class is no longer economically secure or achievable, but American families in all income brackets have seen significant gains in the past 50 years. Overall economic growth, more professional opportunities for women, and a robust safety net have fostered gains for American families across incomes.

Researcher’s analysis adjusts income for family size, as American family size has declined since 1979, with falling fertility and marriage rates. Mean family size fell from 2.7 to 2.3 from 1979 to 2024. A family of four and a family of two have different qualities of life at the same income, while a larger family can get by with proportionally fewer resources. Accounting for inflation and declining family size, median family income rose 52 percent from 1979 to 2024.

NOTE: Ok, not really related to the broader economy, but I thought this was interesting:

8. America Is Falling Out of Love With Pizza (WSJ)

The U.S. pizza industry is losing momentum after decades of dominance, raising questions about whether America has reached “peak pizza.” Once the second-most common restaurant type, pizzerias are now outnumbered by coffee shops and Mexican eateries, with sales growth trailing the broader fast-food market. Price wars, delivery apps offering more cuisine choices, and weakening value perceptions—$20 pies competing with cheaper fast food, frozen pizza, or home cooking—have all contributed. Several chains have filed for bankruptcy or closed locations, and major players like Pizza Hut and Papa John’s are considering sales or major strategic shifts.

Technology

9. Scientists Create Robots Smaller Than a Grain of Sand (WSJ)

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan have built the world’s smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots—each smaller than a grain of salt—overcoming a decades-long barrier in robotics. Described in Science Robotics, the robots can sense their environment, respond autonomously, and move through liquids using tiny electric fields powered by light. Penn researchers developed the propulsion system, while Michigan engineers created an onboard microcomputer that lets each robot be programmed via light pulses to perform distinct tasks and communicate data through observable movement patterns.

The advance opens possibilities in medicine—such as in-body sensing or tissue sampling—and in precision manufacturing, including micro-scale etching and electroplating. Experts like Kevin Chen call the work a major step for nanorobotics. The robots currently cost about $10 each to make but could drop to pennies with mass production. While they can’t yet communicate with one another, researchers say that capability is under development, potentially enabling coordinated swarms for complex tasks.

Health

10. OPINION | Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the ‘Boy Problem’ of the 1900s (NYT)

America faced a “boy problem” in the early 1900s amid rapid technological change, immigration, and widening inequality, and the most effective response wasn’t just policy—it was a surge of civic institutions like Big Brothers, Boys’ Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and 4-H that created structured spaces, mentorship, and pro-social pathways for youth. The argument is that the U.S. now faces a comparable crisis for boys and young men: worsening mental health (including sharply higher suicide rates), declining educational attainment, rising disengagement from school and work, and—crucially—deepening loneliness and disconnection from family, community, and civic life. This “crisis of connection” leaves young men vulnerable to corrosive online influences that convert isolation into grievance.

The proposed solution is a modern civic response alongside targeted policy: expand apprenticeships, recruit more male teachers, build male-friendly mental-health supports, and strengthen father leave, but also rebuild mentoring ecosystems and male-centered guidance structures. The piece warns that many formerly boy-serving organizations have gone coed and now serve more girls than boys, while male volunteering has dropped—leaving boys waiting longer for mentors and contributing to the decline in structured activities like sports, especially for lower-income boys. The takeaway: helping boys and men is not anti-woman, and the country needs more men to step up as mentors, coaches, and “elders,” rebuilding local institutions that give boys direction and give men purposeful ways to contribute.

11. AI Chatbots Linked to Psychosis, Say Doctors (WSJ)

Psychiatrists are increasingly concerned that prolonged, immersive conversations with AI chatbots may be linked to cases of psychosis, particularly among vulnerable users. Clinicians report dozens of recent cases in which people developed strong delusions after interacting extensively with tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and similar platforms. While AI may not create delusions outright, doctors say chatbots can reinforce them by accepting users’ false beliefs as reality and reflecting them back, creating a feedback loop. Reported delusions often involve grandiosity, conspiracies, or perceived relationships with the AI itself, and some cases have coincided with suicide, violence, and lawsuits.

Life

12. Most Top-Achieving Adults Weren’t Elite Specialists in Childhood, New Study Finds (WSJ)

A new study published in Science finds that early stardom in sports, music, academics, or chess rarely translates into elite success in adulthood. Analyzing data from nearly 35,000 adults across multiple fields, researchers found only about a 10% overlap between top-performing children and world-class adults. Most adult standouts were not exceptional as kids, and most child prodigies did not remain elite during peak performance years, making lifelong prodigies the exception rather than the norm.

The findings challenge the idea that early specialization and intensive training—often justified by concepts like the “10,000-hour rule”—are the main paths to excellence. Instead, elite adults tended to sample a wider range of activities in youth, spending fewer hours early on in their eventual specialty. Researchers argue that encouraging children to pursue multiple interests improves adaptability, reduces burnout and injury risk, and increases the chances of long-term success, suggesting breadth in early development matters more than early dominance.

Travel

13. A Cheap Vacation

NOTE: It’s been a while since I’ve used Google Street View, but I did so recently and was rather surprised by just how many roads and places in the world have been photoed. Granted, there are large swaths that haven’t been, but still, even in the most remote places—like the Sahara desert, the Amazon, Pacific Islands, Antarctica, you name it—there are pictures. Yes, even North Korea (though they do suspiciously all have pictures of Kim Jong Un or his father…). Below is a global view of where Google Street View has photos, but even in remote parts if you zoom in you’ll find photos. So, if you’re looking to vacay in a place (if even for a few minutes at work), you can do it cheaply via Google Street View.

Some places I recommend checking out:

• Petra (The Treasury)

• Angkor Wat, Cambodia

• Moscow, Russia

• Mt Everest

• Kilimanjaro

Areas where you won’t find Google Street View: Laos, most of North Korea, most of China, and much of the Sahara…namely because it’s a desert (though some places have been added!)

Interesting Reads

NOTE: The following are two long reads, both of which are related to the CIA and are rather fascinating.

14. How the CIA smuggled Orwell and Le Carré into the eastern bloc (Economist)

For three decades before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the CIA secretly smuggled 10 million books into the Soviet-dominated eastern bloc—titles ranging from 1984 to John le Carré novels to writing guides by Virginia Woolf. The operation, led by George Minden, aimed to bypass communist censorship and promote “free, honest thinking” in societies where printing was tightly controlled, dissident literature was banned, and even typewriters required registration.

The agency supplied not only books but also printing materials to underground networks, especially in Poland, where smuggled ink, typesetters, and photocopiers enabled dissidents to reproduce forbidden texts and publish independent newspapers. Dissidents later credited these illicit books as vital to sustaining morale and resisting authoritarianism.

Long overlooked, the program is now being recognized—thanks to a new book, The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature, by Charlie English—as one of the most unusual and culturally sophisticated intelligence operations of the Cold War.

NOTE: Today, instead of books, we now engage in information warfare through videos and posts on social media.

15. How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device? (NYT)

A plutonium-packed generator disappeared on one of the world’s highest mountains in a hush-hush mission the U.S. still won’t talk about.

BONUS: Bad Charts & Information

NOTE: Here are two items here that I came across this week that bugged me.

Home Affordability Remains Strained Nationwide, with Modest Fourth Quarter Improvement

NOTE: I get regular updates from ATTOM on the state of housing in the US and I’ve written to them before about their charts—namely that they just don’t make sense as presented. It appears my advice has gone unheeded. Lots of things bother me about the chart below.

• The first and most minor issue is that here are simply way too many circles to make the snapshot useful. However, this image is just that, a snapshot of an interactive image; when you go to the Tableau widget on their website, you can zoom and hover over cities. So, I’ll forgive them for that issue.

The more egregious items are the scale, colors and title: “Q4 2025 Affordability Index* (Under 100 is Less Affordable Than Historic Average)

• The scale goes from 57 to 124. Why those two numbers? Because they represent the highest and lowest affordability numbers. Not intuitive, but OK. Perhaps they could’ve normalized the scale on a 1 to 100, but they didn’t.

• Next, “100 is less affordable than historic average”. So, I ask you, where is 100 on that chart? Is it the tick mark in the middle? I would assume so, since we’re talking about “less..than..average”. So, quick math: 124 minus 57 equals 67; half of 67 is 33.5. When we add 33.5 to 57 we get 90.4. Wait, what? So where is 90.4? Maybe it’s everything left of the orange block? So, quick math: 67 divided by 5 (sections) equals 13.4; the dividing lines between each section would then be: 57, 70.4, 83.8, 97.2, 110.6, 124. Nope, 100 isn’t there either. So, who knows where 100 is on that chart.

• Lastly, the colors. The colors! Give me a break, man. I think most people, at least Americans, think in stoplight colors—green, yellow, red, with red being bad. In this chart, red is actually good—it represents those areas well over 100—meaning they are more affordable than average.

Which country has the lengthiest coastline along the Gulf of America (Mexico)?

NOTE: I was doing some research on the Gulf of America (formerly known as Gulf of Mexico) relating to which country had the longest coastline along the gulf. I did a quick google search, and one of the top results was this site:

https://travelasker.com/which-country-has-the-lengthiest-gulf-of-mexico-coastline/

The results, according to the website, of countries with the longest coastline along the Gulf of America:

1. Honduras

2. Belize

3. US

4. Mexico

5. Cuba

This had me scratching my head, as to my knowledge, neither Honduras nor Belize even border the Gulf (see map below). And, even if you were to make an argument to me that they did, they don’t have nearly the same length of coastline that the Mexico or the US have.

I’m not sure if this is just another example of AI slop being thrown into webpages, or just poor research. The bottom line here is you need to check multiple sources—don’t just trust the first page you read on the internet, or the AI-provided answers you receive.

Share

I think I’ve finally caught up after a busy December. I appreciate the many notes of condolence I received on the passing of my mother—very kind of you all.

Below are the things that stood out from the past month (some you may have already seen elsewhere); topics include: Venezuela, government & defense, economy & housing, health, life, and entertainment.

Venezuela

1. A President Captured: How the Elite Delta Force Raid in Caracas Unfolded

The United States carried out an unprecedented operation to capture a sitting foreign leader, seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a pre-dawn raid in Caracas and flying them to face criminal charges in New York. Ordered by Donald Trump, the mission culminated months of covert CIA intelligence work and escalating U.S. military pressure aimed at weakening Venezuela’s defenses and signaling readiness to act on its territory.

The raid, executed by U.S. Army Delta Force, lasted under 30 minutes but involved extensive preparation, including rehearsals on a replica of Maduro’s compound and a massive, multi-domain operation with more than 150 aircraft, cyber and space support, and temporary power disruptions in Caracas. U.S. helicopters came under fire during insertion, one aircraft was hit but remained operational, and some U.S. personnel were injured; no American fatalities were reported. Maduro and Flores—both indicted on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges—surrendered and were extracted safely, later transferred via the USS Iwo Jima en route to the United States.

NOTE: The article below is from early December. It’s a great read. I imagine Machado’s return to Venezuela will be far less perilous.

2. Rescued at Sea: How Venezuela’s Machado Survived the Riskiest Leg of Her Escape

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado escaped Venezuela in a perilous, privately funded extraction operation to reach Norway and receive the Nobel Peace Prize. After traveling in disguise from a Caracas suburb to a remote Caribbean fishing village, Machado set out on a small skiff toward Curaçao. The journey nearly failed when mechanical problems caused long delays, rough seas knocked out GPS devices, and the boat drifted off course for hours in 10-foot waves, briefly losing all contact with the extraction team.

The mission—dubbed Operation Golden Dynamite—was led by Bryan Stern, a U.S. combat veteran and head of a private evacuation group staffed by former special operations and intelligence personnel. Although funded by private donors, Stern remained in real-time contact with senior U.S. military and government officials, who monitored the operation as it unfolded. After a tense overnight search at sea, Stern’s team located Machado’s disabled skiff and transferred her safely to a larger boat, then carried her to Curaçao.

From Curaçao, Machado boarded a private jet to Oslo, arriving after nearly three days on the move and just missing the Nobel ceremony, which her daughter attended on her behalf. The operation unfolded amid escalating U.S. pressure on Venezuela’s authoritarian government under Nicolás Maduro, whom Machado has openly challenged since a disputed 2024 election. Machado later described her rescue as a “miracle.”

3. The World Is Awash With Oil and Prices Are Poised to Keep Falling

Global oil markets are facing a growing supply glut as production surges from both long-established exporters and new producers like Guyana, which has ramped up from zero to nearly 1 million barrels a day in just four years. OPEC and its allies, along with rising output from the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Argentina, and even sanctioned producers such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, are adding barrels faster than demand is growing. As a result, oil inventories on water are swelling, benchmark Brent crude has fallen about 20% this year to near $60 a barrel, and many traders expect oversupply to persist into 2026, potentially pushing prices into the $50s.

Lower oil prices are benefiting consumers through cheaper gasoline and easing inflation, delivering political and economic relief in countries like the U.S. However, they pose serious fiscal challenges for oil-dependent nations such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, and several OPEC members that require much higher prices to balance their budgets. Energy companies are responding with layoffs, tighter spending, and pressure on suppliers, even as some producers continue drilling due to technological gains and long-term demand expectations.

NOTE: And now that the US is taking control of Venezuela’s oil reserves (for the time being), you can bet we’ll be putting even more of a squeeze on other countries.

4. Maduro, Venezuela, The U.S.—And The Oil Shock China Can’t Price In

The U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro triggered immediate but targeted reactions in energy markets, signaling not a global oil shock but a looming squeeze in heavy sour crude. Venezuela accounts for less than 1% of global oil consumption, yet its Merey 16 crude is critical for refineries with coking capacity that cannot easily substitute lighter grades. Market indicators—such as widening diesel cracks and tanker rerouting—reflect concern over refinery-specific feedstock shortages rather than broad supply disruption.

China is particularly exposed on three fronts:

1. Financial — China Development Bank holds an estimated $17–19 billion in outstanding oil-backed loans to Venezuela, now at heightened risk of structural write-down amid regime change and possible “odious debt” claims.

2. Operational — Independent Chinese refiners, especially in Shandong, are optimized for Venezuelan heavy crude and now face costly, imperfect substitutes.

3. Strategic — Washington’s action demonstrates a willingness to disrupt Chinese commodity supply chains in the Americas.

While Chevron’s joint ventures continue operating under a renewed U.S. Treasury license—sending barrels primarily to U.S. refiners like Valero and Marathon—China must now replace lost Venezuelan supply in a tighter, higher-priced market. Alternative heavy crudes from Canada or Mexico exist, but competition for those barrels will likely raise costs across the system.

5. No Rules

NOTE: A cousin of mine started a Substack titled Union Brief. I’ve been very impressed by his writing and the topics he’s covering—economy, education, history, and more.

He recently published a three-part series titled No Rules on how warfare is changing. In Part 1 he covers the death of traditional warfare, in Part 2 he covers tempo, and in Part 3 he covers the future of warfare. It’s a well-reasoned series that I recommend reading. Given this morning’s attack on Venezuela and capture of Maduro, it was a prescient series of posts.

Hard not to appreciate a series that shows how Russia yields its Instruments of Power:

ECONOMY

NOTE: This occurred in early December in case you missed it:

6. US FED Injects $13.5B in Liquidity Overnight as QT Ends, Bitcoin & MSTR Stock React

The U.S. Federal Reserve injected $13.5 billion in overnight liquidity through repurchase agreements, following an additional $25 billion earlier in the day, as quantitative tightening came to an end. The move ranks among the largest liquidity injections since the Covid era and signals short-term stress in funding markets, echoing conditions seen during past repo crises. The operations provided banks and primary dealers with short-term funding backed by Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. While such liquidity injections are typically supportive of risk assets, the timing—amid broader market weakness—has raised questions about underlying financial system pressures.

7. Instacart’s AI-enabled pricing may bump up your grocery costs by as much as 23%, study says

Instacart uses AI-driven pricing experiments that can charge different customers different prices for identical grocery items, sometimes with variations as high as 23%. An investigation by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative found that all tested shoppers were exposed to these experiments, with some products showing multiple price points that could add up to as much as $1,200 a year for a typical family. Because prices are presented without comparison to what others see, consumers often have no way of knowing they may be paying more, raising concerns about fairness and transparency.

The practice has drawn scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating whether such pricing may be deceptive. While Instacart says only a limited number of retail partners use short-term, randomized price tests and denies using personal data to set prices, consumer advocates warn that AI-powered dynamic pricing could increasingly allow companies to charge shoppers the maximum they are willing to pay—challenging long-standing expectations that grocery prices are the same for everyone.

8. All That Cheap Chinese Stuff Is Now Europe’s Problem

U.S. tariffs under President Trump have sharply reduced Chinese exports to America, redirecting a flood of low-cost goods into Europe instead. Chinese e-commerce companies such as Shein and Temu have rapidly expanded across the EU and the U.K., taking advantage of higher duty-free thresholds for small packages and building fast logistics networks that include cargo airlines, European warehouses, and informal “family warehouses” run by Chinese immigrants. As a result, Europe has overtaken the U.S. as China’s largest market for low-value package exports, helping push China’s trade surplus past $1 trillion.

The surge has sparked backlash across Europe over consumer safety, environmental impact, and unfair competition. Regulators have found widespread violations of EU product standards on Chinese platforms, while retailers warn the influx is undercutting prices and threatening millions of jobs. In response, the EU plans to impose fees on small packages and fully close its de minimis loophole by 2028, with the U.K. following later. Despite protests and regulatory scrutiny, European consumers—strained by years of weak growth—continue to embrace the ultra-cheap convenience, making it difficult to slow the flow of Chinese goods.

9. Greece pays off debt worth 5.3 billion euros ahead of schedule

Greece has paid off €5.3 billion in bailout-era debt years ahead of schedule, covering loans originally due after 2031. The early repayment is expected to save the country €1.6 billion in interest through 2041 and reduce its debt to below 120% of GDP by 2029, according to government officials.

The debt stemmed from Greece’s first euro zone bailout in 2010, during the crisis that nearly forced the country out of the euro and led to years of austerity and social unrest. While Greece’s economy is steadily recovering, it still carries the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the euro area, making the early repayment a significant step toward improving its long-term financial position.

NOTE: Wow, way to go Greece!

Government

10. Thinking Differently About Trust in Government

Americans’ distrust of the federal government is not a recent phenomenon but a decades-long trend that began with the expansion of government in the 1960s. As Washington’s size and role grew, so did opportunities for criticism, conflict over moral and regulatory issues, and perceptions of inefficiency, waste, and scandal. Brief increases in trust following economic booms or national crises have never reversed the overall decline, which has been reinforced by polarization, media scrutiny, slow or failed government programs, and high-profile breakdowns such as pandemic fraud and infrastructure delays. Many Americans also see skepticism as healthy, believing distrust pressures politicians to perform better.

Given these dynamics, trust levels from the mid-20th century are unlikely to return. The familiar polling question about trusting Washington “to do the right thing” now yields historically low results and offers limited insight into how trust might be rebuilt. The argument is that measuring public confidence in specific agencies and functions—tracked consistently over time—would better capture how performance affects trust. More nuanced, regular polling could clarify where confidence is earned or lost, but ultimately restoring trust depends less on surveys and more on competent, accountable governance.

NOTE: Salient arguments by the author of the article above. I have to wonder, is our government too big? We know a certain percent of waste and inefficiency is always going to exist within an organization, but how do we control it? We have an incredibly powerful US military, yet haven’t passed a financial audit in nine years.

DEFENSE

11. Pentagon fails financial audit for 8th year in a row

The Pentagon failed its financial audit for the eighth straight year, remaining the only major federal agency never to pass since audits were mandated in 2018. The latest Defense Department report identified 26 material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies, including major accounting failures in the Joint Strike Fighter program, where assets in the Global Spares Pool were omitted or inaccurately recorded, resulting in a material misstatement of the department’s financial statements.

Defense leaders acknowledged the problems but emphasized continued commitment to reform. The Pentagon reported $4.65 trillion in assets and $4.7 trillion in liabilities worldwide, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department is using audit results to guide improvements and strengthen fiscal accountability. The Pentagon’s chief financial officer said the goal is to resolve critical issues and achieve a clean audit by 2028.

12. U.S. Flips History by Casting Europe—Not Russia—as Villain in New Security Policy

The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy sharply breaks with past U.S. policy by directing its strongest criticism at Europe rather than traditional adversaries. It portrays European nations as declining, overly constrained by the European Union, weakened by immigration, and increasingly unreliable as allies. The document accuses European governments of undermining democracy, warns of “civilizational erasure,” and frames the EU and other transnational institutions as threats to sovereignty. European leaders and analysts reacted with alarm, viewing the strategy as a declaration that the trans-Atlantic partnership that has underpinned Western security since World War II is effectively over.

Strikingly, the strategy does not name Russia as a threat and instead casts the U.S. as a mediator between Europe and Russia, criticizing Europe’s approach to Ukraine and calling for an end to NATO’s expansion. Analysts argue the document aligns more closely with Russian interests and signals an intent not to withdraw from Europe but to reshape it politically, including by encouraging resistance to Europe’s current trajectory from within. European officials pushed back, emphasizing Europe’s strong democratic credentials and warning that the strategy represents a profound and destabilizing redefinition of U.S.–European relations.

NOTE: The new National Security Strategy can be found here.

13. See How a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan Could Unfold

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be one of the most complex and destructive military operations imaginable, requiring forces to cross the treacherous Taiwan Strait under heavy fire and seize limited, difficult landing zones on a mountainous, densely populated island. Taiwan’s terrain, weather, narrow beaches, and urban concentration favor defenders, who could exploit tunnels, cities, and chokepoints to slow or bleed invading troops. Any conflict would be extremely costly, risk U.S. intervention, and have profound global economic and geopolitical consequences.

Military planners envision three broad phases: an initial missile and air campaign to cripple Taiwan’s defenses and deter U.S. involvement; a perilous amphibious assault using a mix of military and civilian vessels to land troops and equipment; and a push to seize ports and ultimately Taipei, where urban warfare would be fierce. While China has rapidly expanded its missile forces, amphibious units, and logistics capabilities—including reliance on civilian ships and mobile piers—the operation would still hinge on overcoming immense logistical hurdles and sustained resistance, making the outcome highly uncertain and the risks extraordinarily high.

NOTE: Absolutely exceptional article from WSJ—visuals and analysis are well done.

Health

NOTE: No surprise here—a systematic review and meta-analytic investigation comprised of data from 98,299 participants across 71 studies revealed that “greater engagement with [short-form video platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts] platforms is associated with poorer cognitive and mental health in both youths and adults.” You are becoming dumber and more mentally unwell by all your scrolling:

14. Feeds, Feelings, and Focus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Examining the Cognitive and Mental Health Correlates of Short-Form Video Use

NOTE: Love this video from Nike. Why risk it? Because you can. In an era when many young people are hesitant to take risks, even seemingly little ones, Nike is doing its part to counter the narrative. It’s OK to fail, it’s NOT OK to not try. Young people — get out there and do things!

15. WHY DO IT? | NIKE

16. College campuses have become a front line in America’s sports-betting boom

Sports betting has rapidly reshaped how Americans—especially young men—engage with sports since its legalization began in 2018. Now legal in most states, betting is deeply woven into college culture, media, and social life, with apps, promotions, and gambling odds embedded in broadcasts and online platforms popular with students. While legalization has brought oversight and tax revenue, it has also normalized constant wagering, particularly on college campuses where sports are omnipresent and many students are betting for the first time away from home.

The consequences are increasingly visible: a significant share of young men report financial trouble, emotional dependence, and disrupted daily life tied to betting, with counselors, psychiatrists, and bankruptcy lawyers seeing sharp rises in gambling-related harm. Colleges and the NCAA face mounting challenges, including harassment of student-athletes, integrity breaches in games, and scandals involving insider betting. Efforts to regulate, curb sponsorships, and limit certain wagers have been inconsistent, leaving a system where betting is easy, risks are high, and for many young gamblers, losses are simply followed by another bet tomorrow.

17. America’s Seniors Are Overmedicated

Older Americans are increasingly prescribed large numbers of medications, often by multiple doctors, creating dangerous combinations that can lead to confusion, falls, and serious injuries. One in six Medicare seniors takes eight or more drugs, frequently including medications that geriatric experts warn older patients should avoid, such as benzodiazepines, muscle relaxants, antihistamines, and drugs like gabapentin that affect the central nervous system. These risks are compounded by fragmented care, incomplete medication records, and limited oversight, even though Medicare mandates some medication reviews that often fail to reduce overall drug use.

In 2022, 7.6 million seniors were simultaneously prescribed eight or more medications for at least 90 days. Of those seniors, 3.9 million took 10+ drugs at once. And more than 419,000 of them were prescribed 15+ drugs at the same time. Among the seniors in the Journal analysis who were taking eight or more drugs, 3.6 million had prescriptions for at least one medication that geriatricians say elderly patients should generally avoid.

18. Nearly One in 10 U.S. Adults Report Having Had Cancer

Nearly one in ten U.S. adults (9.7%) now report having been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, up sharply from 7% in 2008–2009. This increase is not driven by rising rates of new cancer cases, which have modestly declined overall, but by falling mortality and improved survival that allow more people to live longer after diagnosis. Advances in treatment have raised five-year survival rates, while cancer death rates have steadily dropped, resulting in a growing population of survivors.

The rise in lifetime cancer prevalence is concentrated among older Americans, reflecting both improved survival and a rapidly aging population. Adults 65 and older now report cancer diagnoses at much higher rates, while prevalence among younger adults has remained relatively stable despite increases in some early-onset cancers. The trend spans racial and ethnic groups and has narrowed gender differences, with men now slightly more likely than women to report a lifetime diagnosis. While these patterns reflect progress in treatment, they also signal growing long-term demands on the healthcare system as millions of survivors require ongoing monitoring, care, and support.

19. Accommodation Nation

Disability accommodations in higher education have expanded rapidly, transforming what was once a simple process of administering exams into a complex logistical challenge. Universities are struggling to meet demand as growing numbers of students receive official disability designations that grant extra time, separate testing spaces, or technology use. At elite institutions, testing centers are often overwhelmed, forcing professors to improvise solutions that can undermine fairness and even increase distraction rather than reduce it.

The surge reflects rising diagnoses of ADHD, anxiety, and depression, along with universities making accommodations easier to obtain—trends that are most pronounced at highly selective schools. At institutions like Harvard, Brown, and Amherst, 20% to more than 30% of undergraduates are registered as disabled, with most receiving accommodations. The result is a paradox in which the most academically successful universities now report the highest shares of students deemed unable to succeed without special academic adjustments, raising questions about equity, standards, and the purpose of accommodations.

20. Could Massachusetts Become the First State to Undo Legal Weed?

Momentum is building behind a national backlash against marijuana legalization, led by activists who argue that commercialized cannabis has harmed public health. In Massachusetts, organizers have gathered enough signatures to advance a 2026 ballot measure that could repeal recreational marijuana legalization, while other states are moving to block future legalization efforts and federal lawmakers have targeted THC-infused products. Influential critics such as drug policy scholar Kevin Sabet contend that legal cannabis fuels addiction, mental illness, and social harm, particularly among youth, and accuse the marijuana industry of adopting tactics pioneered by Big Tobacco.

Sabet argues that rising concerns about psychosis, violence, and addiction are shifting public opinion and policy, even as he opposes criminalizing individual marijuana use. He says the Trump administration is largely skeptical of legalization, despite some internal pressure to ease restrictions, and frames marijuana commercialization as a broader “addiction-for-profit” problem that weakens society and national competitiveness. With polling showing declining support for cannabis and recent policy setbacks for legalization advocates, opponents believe the U.S. may be entering a new phase of resistance to the marijuana industry’s expansion.

Housing

21. America’s Six Million Home Shortage: Why California Is at the Epicenter

The U.S. housing shortage is estimated at roughly six million homes, but nearly one-third of that gap is concentrated in California and nearby western states. New analysis shows that California alone accounts for about 1.4 million excess missing homes, with ten neighboring “blast zone” states adding another 600,000. If these 11 states had built housing at rates similar to the rest of the country, the national shortage would be far smaller. The most severe shortages cluster in coastal California and the Mountain West, where housing scarcity exceeds 15% of existing supply in many counties.

The crisis stems largely from decades of restrictive zoning, environmental rules, and local opposition to new development, which have driven prices far above national norms and pushed millions of Californians to relocate across the West—exporting affordability problems to neighboring states. The analysis argues that meaningfully easing America’s housing shortage requires boosting supply where constraints are most severe, particularly by allowing denser housing, smaller lots, and mixed-use development with streamlined approvals. These changes, it concludes, could substantially close the West’s housing gap within a decade.

NOTE: Link to below map here.

22. America’s work-from-home capitals are in a sorry state

Remote work has become a permanent feature of the U.S. economy, with about 15% of workers in major metropolitan areas working from home most days and even higher shares in cities like Austin, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. As pre-pandemic office leases expire, the financial impact on city centers is becoming clearer: office vacancies exceed 25% in some cities, property values are falling, and tax revenues tied to commercial real estate are shrinking. These trends are straining municipal budgets, particularly in cities with high concentrations of remote workers.

Reduced commuting has also cut spending on transportation, retail, and services, worsening deficits for transit agencies and local governments. Slowing migration into former work-from-home magnets and rising borrowing costs are now pressuring housing markets, further weakening the tax base. In response, cities are freezing hiring, cutting services, and preparing layoffs, even as budget shortfalls spread nationwide. The shift to remote work, accelerated by the pandemic, is leaving lasting fiscal challenges for American cities.

23. Top Gun Traders: Stock Bets and Crypto Culture Take Over the Military

A booming stock and crypto market has turned U.S. military bases into hubs of intense investing activity, with servicemembers trading stocks, cryptocurrencies, and meme assets from deployments, barracks, and even aircraft carriers. Young troops with steady pay, strong job security, and access to investing apps have embraced risk-taking, sharing tips through group chats and social media. Military communities played an outsized role in early crypto adoption, and many servicemembers have built significant wealth through tech stocks, bitcoin, and index funds, with visible signs ranging from luxury cars to high-end watches.

The culture also carries substantial risks. Peer-driven hype, concentrated bets, and limited experience with prolonged market downturns have left some troops vulnerable to sharp losses, scams, and overconfidence. Financial advisers and veterans warn that high valuations and reliance on a narrow set of assets could lead to painful reversals if markets correct. While some servicemembers have shifted toward diversified investing after losses, the mix of camaraderie, competition, and easy access to trading continues to fuel both notable successes and costly failures.