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Category: Economics/Business

Trump declares war on Canada because he’s a peevish, perverse, enraged child

Trump declares war on Canada because he’s a peevish, perverse, enraged child

Robert Reich writes: Not exactly a war, but a trade war — which will impose huge costs on both American consumers and on Canada. As I said, Trump is now completely and utterly out of his mind. The very idea of a trade war with Canada — our neighbor, our ally, our closest friend, a nation that’s peaceful and whose people have a reputation for kindness — is absurd. But Trump is doing it anyway. He’s imposing a 50 percent…

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The rise of the Nerd Reich

The rise of the Nerd Reich

  In part one of a series on the rise and power of the tech oligarchs, Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz speak up with Gil Duran, author of “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy,” on the origins of techno-authoritarianism, its hallucinatory fascist theorists, the central role of Peter Thiel and his PayPal Mafia, and how they merge with Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.

The Nerd Reich in power

The Nerd Reich in power

  In part two of a series on the rise and power of the tech oligarchs, Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz interview Gil Duran, author of “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy,” on how Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the tech oligarchs came to power under Donald Trump, how they control key parts of his administration, and how they created JD Vance, made him vice president and plan to make him president.

By purchasing Israeli weapons, foreign states sustain the infrastructure it needs to wage its next war

By purchasing Israeli weapons, foreign states sustain the infrastructure it needs to wage its next war

+972 reports: In recent years, more and more governments have begun to recognize that words alone will not hold Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinians. One of the clearest responses to this realization has been a growing push to restrict military trade with Israel — a demand that has also been a central slogan of pro-Palestine protests around the world. Images of bombs bearing U.S. serial numbers, German-made tank engines, and European-manufactured components recovered from the sites of massacres…

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Record corporate spending on the 2026 midterms driven by crypto, AI and betting firms

Record corporate spending on the 2026 midterms driven by crypto, AI and betting firms

Reuters reports: A handful of billionaires and companies are driving corporate spending in U.S. midterm elections this year, and they aren’t the usual power brokers who have sat atop the political food chain in Washington in previous decades. Crypto companies, artificial intelligence firms and online betting have emerged as the biggest industries shaping the 2026 midterm races, driving a record amount of business spending on congressional contests, according to campaign finance watchdogs and interviews with more than a dozen political…

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‘There is no breaking point’: The problem with Trump’s plan to economically strangle Iran

‘There is no breaking point’: The problem with Trump’s plan to economically strangle Iran

Politico reports: President Donald Trump is waiting for Iran to cave to his economic pressure. Tehran may be willing to wait even longer. Even as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promises a level of economic isolation “never seen before,” former Trump administration officials, U.S. ambassadors and other Middle East experts are skeptical that tightening the economic vise will force Iran to relinquish its desire to toll ships passing through the State of Hormuz and make the other concessions Trump is demanding…

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Russians pull billions from banks, amid fears the Kremlin will seize deposits for war in Ukraine

Russians pull billions from banks, amid fears the Kremlin will seize deposits for war in Ukraine

The Washington Post reports: Russians are pulling billions from the country’s banking system ― a record cash outflow amid intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks and rising fear that the Kremlin could start seizing deposits to finance its war. Nearly $3.4 billion (286.4 billion rubles) was withdrawn in the first two weeks of August, on top of the $7.3 billion withdrawn in July and more than $4.5 billion in June, according to Russian Central Bank data. Total withdrawals this year could nearly…

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‘Godfather of AI,’ Geoffrey Hinton, predicts mass unemployment is on its way

‘Godfather of AI,’ Geoffrey Hinton, predicts mass unemployment is on its way

Fortune reports: The long-term impact of AI is one of the most hotly debated topics in Silicon Valley. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang predicts every job will be transformed—and likely lead to a four-day workweek. Other tech titans go even further: Bill Gates says humans may soon not be needed “for most things,” and Elon Musk believes most humans won’t have to work at all in “less than 20 years.” While those predictions might sound extreme, they’re not just plausible, they’re…

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Ukraine disables 7 of 10 of Russia’s largest logistics centers for Wildberries online retailer

Ukraine disables 7 of 10 of Russia’s largest logistics centers for Wildberries online retailer

🔥 The largest Wildberries logistics hub in all of Russia has been finally destroyed.Koledino, Moscow. Wildberries appears to have made a conscious choice not to empty this warehouse despite knowing Ukraine will destroy it like all others.Expect $1.5+ billion in damages. pic.twitter.com/SISsou9uU2 — Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) August 16, 2026 Kyiv Post reports: The Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday, Aug. 16, that recent operations have disabled seven of the ten largest logistics centers belonging to the Russian e-commerce company Wildberries….

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Trump-appointed regulator OKs banking license for Trump-linked crypto firm

Trump-appointed regulator OKs banking license for Trump-linked crypto firm

Politico reports: The Trump administration has granted preliminary approval for a cryptocurrency venture backed by President Donald Trump’s family to operate a federally chartered trust bank, over the protests of Democrats who decried the decision as riddled with conflicts of interest. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the bank regulatory arm of the Treasury Department, said in a letter on Friday that it was conditionally approving World Liberty Trust Co.’s application for a trust bank charter. The company…

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The data center industry’s PR blitz is backfiring

The data center industry’s PR blitz is backfiring

By Lisa Sorg August 14, 2026 This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. HENDERSON, N.C.—On a recent summer evening Mitzi Parrott, who lives in Vance County, saw a television commercial on the evening news that gave her pause. Kathie Hamm and Bobbie Lequire, also of Vance County, saw it, too, streaming on Sling and posted on Nextdoor. The ad extolled the…

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Potatoes ‘boil’ in the ground as record heatwave sweeps across swathes of Asia

Potatoes ‘boil’ in the ground as record heatwave sweeps across swathes of Asia

The Guardian reports: In a potato field in Yanggu county, 80 miles (130km) north-east of Seoul, Lee Sang-hyuk dug into the soil and found nothing worth saving. A week earlier the crop, located in Gangwon province, had looked fine. Now the potatoes came up soft and collapsing, “like boiled potatoes”, spoiled by heat that had turned the ground into something closer to an oven. “It’s not just one or two fields like this. How can I even put it into…

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Russian strikes on dozens of grain ships threaten global food supplies

Russian strikes on dozens of grain ships threaten global food supplies

Marc Santora reports: As families strolled along a promenade in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa recently, a lone cargo ship sailed in the distance. Suddenly, a drone dropped out of the clear blue sky and slammed into the vessel, sending smoke billowing across the horizon. The attack, which I witnessed in late July, was part of a Russian campaign targeting cargo vessels that has halted nearly all shipping in and out of Odesa, Ukraine’s most crucial link to the…

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‘Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman sees an Achilles’ heel in the AI boom

‘Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman sees an Achilles’ heel in the AI boom

CNBC reports: Steve Eisman is warning that the artificial intelligence boom has become increasingly dependent on the fortunes of just two companies: OpenAI and Anthropic. The investor, best known for his bet against the housing market ahead of the global financial crisis, said the two AI startups account for roughly 70% of AI-related revenue at Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet’s Google and Oracle — and as much as 25% to 35% of their cloud revenue. “The futures of these massive companies, in…

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Money laundering gets easier: Treasury scales back scrutiny of U.S. shell companies

Money laundering gets easier: Treasury scales back scrutiny of U.S. shell companies

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is moving forward with a plan to scale back scrutiny of the shadowy shell companies that criminals use to launder money and traffic drugs. The initiative follows a yearslong campaign by lobbying groups, which contended that new financial reporting requirements were too onerous for businesses. The Treasury Department said late on Tuesday that it was permanently halting the collection of data about the ownership of private American companies that was required as…

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SpaceX’s earnings show Elon wiped out two-thirds of Twitter’s ad business

SpaceX’s earnings show Elon wiped out two-thirds of Twitter’s ad business

Mike Masnick writes: When SpaceX filed for its IPO, we went through the S-1 to point out just how far off the mark Elon Musk’s predictions about his Twitter takeover turned out to be. Indeed, the failure of Twitter as a business was so catastrophic, Musk had to hide it by merging all his Xs together: he had xAI buy X (formerly Twitter), and then had SpaceX buy xAI. But when Musk was buying Twitter and needed investors, he made…

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