**** denotes well-worth reading in full at source (even if excerpted extensively here)
Economic and Market Fare:
It's time to clean house at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but not because of a poor jobs report that Trump says was "rigged"
Manulife to make huge push into private markets with US$18B platform
Canadian insurer's shares plummet with profit warning
Shares in Sun Life Financial Inc. tumbled as much as 8.5 per cent on Friday ...........
Shares in Sun Life Financial Inc. tumbled as much as 8.5 per cent on Friday ...........
Bubble Fare:
AI Is A Money Trap
In the last week, we’ve had no less than three different pieces asking whether the massive proliferation of data centers is a massive bubble, and though they, at times, seem to take the default position of AI’s inevitable value, they’ve begun to sour on the idea that it’s going to happen soon.
Meanwhile, quirked-up threehundricorn OpenAI has either raised or is about to raise another $8.3 billion in cash, less than two months since it raised $10 billion from SoftBank and a selection of venture capital firms.
I hate to be too crude, but where the fuck is this money going? Is OpenAI just incinerating capital? Is it compute? Is it salaries? Is it compute? Is it to build data centers, because SoftBank isn’t actually building anything for Stargate?
The Information suggested OpenAI is using the money to build data centers — possibly the only worse investment it can make other than generative AI, and it’s one that it can’t avoid because OpenAI also is somehow running out of compute. And now they're in "early-stage discussions" about an employee share sale that would value the company at $500 billion, a ludicrous number that shows we're leaving the realm of reality. .........................
NPR recently reported that US house sales are down, while at the same time, prices are at their highest level ever.
And indeed they are. Bank of International Settlements data shows that US house prices are more than 2.5 times higher, in real terms, than they were when the first Baby Boomers became home owners in the 1970s. The Baby Boomers really did have it easier.
So, why are US home prices at all-time highs when almost no one can afford to buy? Who is rigging the game—and how does the system keep it this way?
The answer is simple: the banks did it.
The main factor making housing unaffordable in the USA–and most of the rest of the world–is too much mortgage lending by banks. This is not just a US phenomenon. It is common to every country that has deregulated its financial sector.
Gen Xers and Millennials can’t afford housing, not because supply is inadequate–which is the excuse used by conventional economists and politicians–but because banks have been allowed to lend too much money for housing.
Therefore, if average-income Gen Xers and Millenials and Alphas are ever going to be able to afford housing, bank lending must be controlled. .....................
Though USA real house prices are two and a half times as expensive as they were in 1970, this only puts the USA in the middle of the pack. UK house prices are five times as high as they were in 1970; Australian house prices are 4.2 times higher. Across the world, Gen Xers and Millenials are being screwed by the banks. It’s time to fight back. ............
Charts:
1:
(not just) for the ESG crowd:
Hansen: Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Our two recent papers (Global warming in the pipeline and Global warming has accelerated) [hereafter Paper 1 and Paper 2] were long – due to our research approach and our intent to raise numerous issues. Thus, we summarize the most important conclusions here.
Principal objectives of research in climate change are to evaluate climate sensitivity and the forcings that are driving climate change. Our analysis approach places comparable emphasis on each of three sources of information: (1) paleoclimate data, i.e., the long history of climate change, (2) modern observations of ongoing climate change, and (3) global climate modeling. Full exploitation of all three research tools allows conclusions to be reached with a higher degree of confidence than otherwise would be possible.
We summarize these three analyses, each in a page or at maximum two pages. These summaries are intended for people with some scientific bent. If we do not get such people to appreciate the science, the clique (see below) will continue to obfuscate reality. However, these summaries still make for a long document. Here we skip to the Summary. ...................
..................... The most obvious way to start assessing the progress of the required energy transition is to look at what has been accomplished during the past generation when the concerns about global decarbonization assumed a new urgency and prominence. Contrary to common impressions, there has been no absolute worldwide decarbonization. In fact, the very opposite is the case. The world has become much more reliant on fossil carbon (even as its relative share has declined a bit). We are now halfway between 1997 (27 years ago) when delegates of nearly 200 nations met in Kyoto to agree on commitments to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases, and 2050; the world has 27 years left to achieve the goal of decarbonizing the global energy system,
All we have managed to do halfway through the intended grand global energy transition is a small relative decline in the share of fossil fuel in the world’s primary energy consumption—from nearly 86% in 1997 to about 82% in 2022. But this marginal relative retreat has been accompanied by a massive absolute increase in fossil fuel combustion: in 2022 the world consumed nearly 55% more energy locked in fossil carbon than it did in 1997
By 2023 the absolute reliance on fossil carbon rose by 54% worldwide since the Kyoto commitment. In that quarter century, the world has substantially increased its dependence on fossil carbon.
Despite international agreements, government spending and regulations, and technological advancements, global fossil fuel consumption surged by 55% between 1997 and 2023. .........................................................
Exclusive finding by DeSmog shows high-level industry awareness that recycling plastic ‘not feasible’ as companies face lawsuits over alleged public deception campaign.
Sci Fare:
Geopolitical Fare:
Welsh: Autarky Sure Looks Good
.............. At this point all smart nations and blocs should be doing their best to reduce vulnerability to the US, to route around it and to move towards as much autarky as possible.
It’s notable that while China remains a huge trading power, the #1 economic priority over the last eight years has been making all major industrial stacks domestic: ending their need for industrial goods from other countries and reducing their need for imports of resources. Where that’s not possible, they have shifted to reliable partners like Russia and Iran and various other nations in Asia, Africa and South America.
John Maynard Keynes was of the opinion that anything a country needed, it should make or grow at home if at all feasible. Price arguments are largely ludicrous, because if you don’t have vast exposure to trade or need to buy important goods overseas and you don’t allow significant currency movements outside your border, prices are largely a domestic matter. That is to say, they are a matter of policy. Government actions largely determine the price of goods and services produced in the country IF the country is capable of producing those goods and services itself.
Or, again, as Keynes said, “anything we can do, we can afford.” (The corollary is that anything you can’t do, you can’t afford.)
Trade dependency is foolish. It may be necessary in some cases, and certain policy choices require it, like export driven industrialization. But once you’ve got an industrial base, it becomes a choice. .................
As the US flails about trying to maintain a dominance that’s already gone, it’s often difficult to analyze or predict US actions because they usually appear on their face so irrational. ...
The takeaway: building is hard. Destruction is easy. And in the case of the US it’s the destruction of economies, societies, and the planet through mafia logic. The first goal is to profit through extortion and rent-seeking. Everywhere. When that fails, Washington quickly pivots to its backup plan: regime change. But even that strategy is running out of steam these days.
There is little to no chance of forcing Russia and China to bend the knee, and Washington has few options aside from mutually assured destruction—either economic with Beijing or the good ol’ fashioned variety with Moscow. The attacks (and years of economic warfare) have thus far failed to bring about regime change in Tehran, and next time Iran, the thinking goes, will be more prepared—perhaps with China and Russia at its side. The bleed over from the thrashing about in impotent rage against Russia now has the US once again doing its best to push India off the fence and into the embrace of China and Russia.
There are still fever dreams in Washington of using ethnic divisions and proxy forces to take down Tehran, of destabilization in Moscow once Putin eventually dies, of economic or demographic forces weakening China, etc., but these are all based on wishful thinking rather than any realistic plan. In its place we’re seeing more lashing out, more sanctions, weaponized tariffs, and more bombings with Trump on a record airstrike pace. It’s not working. .................
........................ As the US descends deeper into Dr. Strangelove territory and violence, decay, and lawlessness reigns supreme, the great question is where and how does this madness end?
Here are two options. The crazy elites in the US need to be stopped or they’re going to kill us all—either slowly through a mixture of climate catastrophe, breakdown capitalism, and genocide or there’s always the nuclear option. ...............
What can the other powers like Russia and China do? They could start by locking down Eurasia. ............
.......... Israeli propagandists are now deploying this argument to justify the tragedy unfolding in Gaza. They no longer deny the brutal reality of starvation—though some still try—because the evidence is overwhelming and the cause so clear that their lies are exposed. What they attempt now is to deflect blame—either to Hamas, the UN, or any organization trying to help the Palestinians—or, in the face of undeniable deaths, to a preexisting medical condition. .............
The reality of the situation—the man-made, Western-enabled famine—is obvious to all of us. That is why Western governments are rushing to show the most irrelevant signs of support for the Palestinians who are dying: they want an excuse in case they are asked tomorrow. But it is too late. The stain of this genocide will haunt us all because we have entered uncharted ethical territory. ................
The possibility of something like this occurring while Israel maintains near-impunity poses many serious questions about international institutions, international law, and human rights. But one goes to the core of the social order under Western states: under which ethical framework—religious, secular, atheist, or otherwise—do Western governments operate if they do not uphold the first principle of ethics? It is an important question to ask because much of their legitimacy—and our safety—depends on it. .......
The dead of Gaza lie beneath the rubble of what was once a civilization. Half a million Palestinians—men, women, children, infants—have been exterminated in a genocide so brazen, so documented, so livestreamed in high definition that future historians will marvel not at the brutality itself, but at the world's obscene indifference to it. This is the first genocide in human history broadcast in real time, and most of the world has chosen to look away. .....................
But this is not merely a story of Israeli barbarism. This is the story of a world that has traded its soul for profit margins and geopolitical advantage. This is the story of how every major power on Earth—from Washington to Amsterdam, from Moscow to Riyadh—has revealed itself to be morally bankrupt when measured against the screams of burning children.
The Global South Had its Moment
The Global South had its moment. After five centuries of Western colonialism, after generations of suffering under the boot of Empire, the non-aligned world finally possessed the economic leverage to say "no more." China, with its vast trade networks, could have strangled Israel's economy overnight. Russia, despite being attacked by NATO with the help of Israel, maintains cozy relations with the architects of this genocide. Brazil, India, South Africa—all have chosen the path of what they euphemistically call "pragmatism," which is simply moral cowardice dressed up in diplomatic language. .......................
The West is Morally Dead
And what is the West's response to this deliberately engineered famine? More theater. More empty promises. More calls for a "two-state solution" that has been dead since before most of us were born. The same politicians who spent two years enabling this slaughter now pose as humanitarian saviors, offering crumbs of aid while the arms shipments continue unabated. They speak of Israel's "right to defend itself" against starving refugees while sending the bombs that turn children into dust.
The depravity is not limited to those directly complicit. It extends to every corporation that continues to trade with Israel, every university that maintains research partnerships, every pension fund that invests in the machinery of occupation. ......................
The Palestinians will not be saved by the international community, because there is no international community. There are only competing mafias dressed up in flags and anthems, each calculating how best to profit from the blood of the innocent. The resistance will continue, because it must. The rest of us will have to live with the knowledge that when history called, we were found wanting. When the test came, we failed. And the cries of the dead will follow us to our graves.
Other Fare:
As companies like Amazon and Microsoft lay off workers and embrace A.I. coding tools, computer science graduates say they’re struggling to land tech jobs.
As judges scout new restaurants to evaluate in U.S. cities, an anthropologist investigates the elite, Eurocentric history of the Michelin Red Guide and how it became the ultimate arbiter of culinary excellence
QOTW:
Stivers: “There was delicious irony in being lectured about freedom of the press by people being deranged by fake news.”
Fun Fare:
The birds don’t take him seriously yet 😢 pic.twitter.com/iJUj8YOdGr
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) August 10, 2025
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