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Category: Economics/Business

In the data-center age, the business of Silicon Valley is more like oil-refining than coding

In the data-center age, the business of Silicon Valley is more like oil-refining than coding

Matteo Wong writes: The AI boom has showered some of the nation’s most prominent companies in market value. OpenAI and Anthropic are now the two most valuable private companies in the world. Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia have become larger than ever. But among the biggest winners has been Caterpillar, a purveyor of yellow trucks and cranes. Caterpillar’s stock has more than doubled in value over the past year, making the company worth six times as much as Nike. Its ascent…

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Democrats see an opening in rural states for the first time in decades. In Iowa, it’s about water

Democrats see an opening in rural states for the first time in decades. In Iowa, it’s about water

Tom Philpott and Nina B. Elkadi write: Chris Jones, the 65-year-old Democratic nominee for Iowa secretary of agriculture, stands at the edge of a pond on a 72-acre farm in eastern Iowa. “What you see here is how fertile Iowa is,” he says, looking intently into the water. Massive bluegills dart about in the clear depths. “When we go up to a corn or soy field, we don’t see this anymore.” Jones isn’t just talking about the fish. He means…

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‘Climate free fall’: Why the biggest risk to our economies is yet to be recognized

‘Climate free fall’: Why the biggest risk to our economies is yet to be recognized

Anders Levermann writes: I have studied climate tipping points for more than 20 years, and I’m increasingly concerned that scientists have overlooked the most dangerous aspect of these for societies. The potential collapse of major parts of the Earth system — from ice sheets to ocean circulations — will profoundly alter the warming planet and tip it irreversibly into a different state. But the greatest risks might not lie at that endpoint. How we get there — how the tipping…

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Trump blatantly tries to manipulate markets by selling fast access Truth Social to Wall Street firms

Trump blatantly tries to manipulate markets by selling fast access Truth Social to Wall Street firms

The New Republic reports: The thin veil that has historically clouded government corruption is in the trash—under the current Trump administration, blatant ethical misconduct is in. Truth Social executives announced Thursday that the company would sell Wall Street firms premier access to Donald Trump’s market-rattling online posts, granting traders an advantage over the general public with regard to anticipating stock market fluctuations due to the president’s social media habits. The product, marketed as “Truth API,” apparently aims to make fast…

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A forever war in the making

A forever war in the making

Ali Vaez writes: The memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran halted their war and provided a framework for talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Less than a month after it was signed, it has failed, and a document intended to halt a war has instead become a reason for resuming it. The immediate dispute concerns who controls the Strait of Hormuz, but more is at stake. The collapse of even this minimal understanding could remove the last barrier…

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Generative AI is a shockingly inefficient trillion-dollar project

Generative AI is a shockingly inefficient trillion-dollar project

Alex Reisner writes: As they scramble to keep their systems online, AI companies are making things expensive for the rest of us. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude are so resource-hungry that tech companies may be purchasing 70 percent of the world’s supply of high-end computer memory, causing a shortage. As a result, the prices of computer memory and storage are skyrocketing: Hard drives that I bought for my reporting two years ago for $350 each were $800…

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Landmaxxing: The latest need for misanthropic billionaires who can’t get enough

Landmaxxing: The latest need for misanthropic billionaires who can’t get enough

The Real Deal reports: Buying mansions here and there is not enough for the uber-rich. “Landmaxxing,” or buying up adjacent properties to assemble sprawling private compounds, has been a major part of the ultra-luxury market this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Compounds are increasingly in demand, and some of the business world’s biggest names are leading the trend. In South Florida, Citadel billionaire Ken Griffin dropped more than $450 million to piece together a 27-acre Palm Beach compound. Griffin…

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U.S. to take over Strait of Hormuz, charge 20 percent fee for cargo shipped through, Trump imagines

U.S. to take over Strait of Hormuz, charge 20 percent fee for cargo shipped through, Trump imagines

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will take over the Strait of Hormuz — and will be reimbursed “at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped” for overseeing one of the world’s most critical oil passageways that has been at the center of the U.S.’s re-escalating war with Iran. “We will become guardians of the strait,” Trump said during an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “We’re going to hit [Iran] very hard…

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U.S. Treasury borrowed $155 billion every month this fiscal year. Now paying $24 billion a week interest

U.S. Treasury borrowed $155 billion every month this fiscal year. Now paying $24 billion a week interest

Fortune reports: Despite concerns from debt hawks, the U.S. government is continuing to borrow at pace: For the fiscal year of 2026 so far, the federal deficit has totaled just under $1.4 trillion. The first nine months of this fiscal year (beginning in October) have now surpassed the borrowing levels of 2025, when deficits totaled just over $1.3 trillion for the same period. At the time of writing, the total U.S. national debt sits at $39.4 trillion, accumulated under administrations…

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Fed chief picks techno-fascist, Marc Andreessen, to advise on how AI reshapes work

Fed chief picks techno-fascist, Marc Andreessen, to advise on how AI reshapes work

“We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives,” declares Marc Andreessen in his über-bombastic Techno-Optimist Manifesto. The Washington Post reports: Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has enlisted Marc Andreessen — the venture capitalist, adviser to President Donald Trump and one of Silicon Valley’s most aggressive promoters of artificial intelligence — to help shape how the central bank thinks about the technology’s economic impact. Andreessen will co-lead a task force on productivity and jobs, one of five advisory panels the…

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Global economy, hit by Iran war and inflation, faces sharp slowdown

Global economy, hit by Iran war and inflation, faces sharp slowdown

The New York Times reports: The global economy is set to slow sharply in 2026 after the war with Iran disrupted energy supply chains and triggered a fresh bout of inflation, the International Monetary Fund warned on Wednesday. The forecasts reflect the damaging toll from the decision by the United States and Israel to attack Iran this year. Those attacks spurred Iranian retaliation on energy infrastructure in the region, destabilizing a world economy that had already been rocked by the…

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Trump lashes out at Spain: ‘Cut off all trade.’ Here’s why that’s unlikely to happen

Trump lashes out at Spain: ‘Cut off all trade.’ Here’s why that’s unlikely to happen

The New York Times reports: President Trump, venting his longstanding animus toward Europe at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, singled out Spain with particular spleen on Wednesday. “I don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he said of the European Union’s fourth-largest economy. “Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits.” “They’re hopeless, bad people,” he added. Whether Mr. Trump has the desire or the power to follow through on his threat to treat a European ally as…

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History will end up laughing at SpaceX, the ‘craziest IPO in the history of man,’ says famed investor

History will end up laughing at SpaceX, the ‘craziest IPO in the history of man,’ says famed investor

Fortune reports: With Elon Musk’s SpaceX now embedded in the Nasdaq 100, the prospects of the rocket company have–directly or indirectly–now slipped into the stock portfolios of millions of people around the globe. But joining the Nasdaq index has done little to convince critics, who are dubious about the lofty aims of the company. In the prospectus ahead of its offering, SpaceX said its goal is “to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the…

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U.S. strikes Iran and reimposes sanctions in retaliation for tanker attacks

U.S. strikes Iran and reimposes sanctions in retaliation for tanker attacks

The New York Times reports: The United States carried out airstrikes against several targets in Iran on Tuesday, hours after revoking a waiver allowing the sale of Iranian oil around the world, in a dual response to what the Pentagon said were Iranian attacks on three commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The military’s Central Command said on social media that U.S. forces “have begun launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting…

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The divestment drive that could shake Israel’s economic foundations

The divestment drive that could shake Israel’s economic foundations

Aharon Porath writes: In late May, the European Union announced a slew of new sanctions on Israeli settler organizations as well as individuals known for violently attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. This was swiftly followed by six European governments, including Britain and France, imposing additional sanctions targeting “networks of financing and support for settler attacks.” France further announced that it was banning Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering its borders due to his promotion of settlements and…

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Nearly a million investors lost a total of $3.8 billion on Trump’s crappy crypto coin

Nearly a million investors lost a total of $3.8 billion on Trump’s crappy crypto coin

The New York Times reports: An up-to-date tally of Trump followers turned crypto investors is in. And for them, the overall results are remarkably bad. Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion. The analytics firm’s assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a…

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