Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• It’s Only a Matter of Time Until Americans Pay for Trump’s Tariffs: Whether they come in the form of higher prices, lower quality or fewer options, tariffs can’t hide forever. (BW) see also See where Trump’s tariffs are driving up prices on household items (for now): Tariffs range from 10 percent to 50 percent on America’s top importers. (Washington Post)
• The Long, Painful Downfall of Intel: The Silicon Valley chipmaker’s journey from icon to a government project, with the sale of a 10 percent stake to the Trump administration, underlines how even the mightiest in tech can fall. (New York Times)
• US Manufacturing Shrinks for Sixth Straight Month: It’s only the third day of a much-feared month of September and sobering US economic news is already piling up. Yesterday it was six straight months of shrinking manufacturing. Today it’s job openings falling in July to the lowest in 10 months, adding to other employment data (including a report last month that caused Donald Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics) showing America’s once-robust post-pandemic jobs landscape continues to darken. (Bloomberg)
• The Vibes are Broken. You have to watch what people do not what they say. People say a lot of stuff on the internet that doesn’t match reality. (AWOCS) see also PWC: Americans plan to spend 5% less this holiday season compared to last year, the first pullback since 2020: According to PwC’s 2025 Holiday Outlook survey, consumers expect their seasonal spending to decline on average by 5% from 2024 (PWC)
• American Unexceptionalism. Investors today take for granted that the S&P 500 is an inherently superior group of stocks to those outside of the U.S. This belief stems not merely from better returns from the S&P 500 over the past 15 years, but also from superior fundamental growth for the S&P 500 relative to other stock indices. Investors consequently pay significantly higher multiples for U.S. large caps than they do for other stocks. (GMO) see also Apologies: You Have Reached the End of Your Free-Trial Period of America! Want rule of law? That’s premium. (The Atlantic)
• Covid’s Corporate Welfare Kings: Funneling taxpayer money to Uber’s bottom line. (The Baffler)
• The defense against slop and brainrot: What I am doing to prevent myself from stagnating and rotting. (Kimchi & Gabagool) see also Making cash off ‘AI slop’: The surreal video business taking over the web: A mad rush of creators is using AI video tools to flood the internet — and turn a profit — with videos that can seem remarkably real. (Washington Post)
• Blue whales are going eerily silent—and scientists say it’s a warning sign: A six-year study off California’s coast shows how marine heat waves and noise pollution are silencing the ocean’s largest singers. Does saving the ocean start with hearing it? (National Geographic)
• Trump’s Space Research Cuts Are a Gift to China: American astronomers say that without more funding to support telescope construction and research operations, the US risks ceding the field. (Businessweek) see also This tracking protects a $600 billion economy. Cutting it is foolish. Cutting space-tracking efforts risks collisions — and U.S. leadership in commercializing outer space. Earth’s upper atmosphere is getting crowded, with about 13,000 satellites orbiting Earth. Private companies are launching new ones at unprecedented rates. Elon Musk’s Starlink alone has more than 8,000 in orbit. There are about 29,000 pieces of orbital debris that can obliterate a satellite upon impact, and more than 1 million that we’re not tracking but that can cause serious damage. (Washington Post)
• Silent Coup: How Trump’s Allies Are Gaming Algorithms To Seize Your Feed. New research unravels the secret tactics behind Stop the Steal and other right-wing disinformation campaigns. (Weaponized)
Be sure to check out our special edition of Masters in Business interview, with Neal Katyal, Milbank LLP partner and former acting Solicitor General of the US. We sat down in the studio on Wednesday, August 27th, just two days before the D.C. Court of Appeals issued its decision in VOS Selection vs Trump on Friday, August 29th, finding the Tariffs unlawful. We also spoke after the decision, and he laidf out the path forward to the Supreme Court.
Punta Gorda has passed Austin as the worst performing city. Note that 4 of the 5 cities with the largest price declines are in Florida. And 11 of the 30 cities are in Florida. More cities (9) in California are now on the list.
Source: Calculated Risk
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