Economics/Business Archives - Attention to the Unseen

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

From elsewhere — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 01:32:13 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 01:30:30 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:10:11 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:16:52 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 01:29:21 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 01:28:11 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 01:27:39 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:24:01 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 02:07:09 +0000

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

From elsewhere — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 01:37:50 +0000

“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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