AI is now central to the macro story: markets are booming on data-center spending. But a warehouse of servers is mostly capital, not workers. Great for stock prices, not so great for broad job growth—unless AI eventually raises productivity in other sectors too.

"The overwhelming sense I got from watching the president was just trying to count the number of lies, and I ran out of fingers and toes. He lied and said that prices are coming down. He lied when he said prices were at an all-time high under President Biden. They're at an all-time high right now."

It hasn't been a great year for jobs.

Peeps, follow Justin Wolfers, and help propagate understanding.

“The Epstein case is fascinating precisely because it collapses those distinctions… an actual elite network, operating through personal relationships and mutual protection, flying on private jets and meeting on an exclusive tropical island — more or less what the paranoid style typically imagines.”

Dinosaur Photo of the Day 🦕

Something I haven't seen discussed much - Trump wants 🇺🇦 capitulation to 🇷🇺 because he wants capitulation to power to become normalized. He's as much as stated he plans on doing the same thing to other nations. Trust me, I'm watching this closely from 🇨🇦 🫩

Starmer, Macron, Merz and Zelenskyy will hold a call about the bungled US-Russia “peace deal” today. (Bloomberg) Grown-ups trying to sort it out.

A Depression-era comic costing 10 cents is $2.34 in today's money.

"Look, the Fed can do a lot of things, but what it can't do is lower the price of imports. It can't make it so there are more workers for California farmers to help pick the crops." These are self-inflicted supply shocks, and the Fed can't magically undo them. (The White House can.)

The conversation unfolding under this post is fun. It’s amazing how people can hear a song like that from an artist like Leonard Cohen and come away from the experience thinking the song is *only* a metaphor for sex, though.

It’s the same people spreading conspiracy theories about how he “stole the election” 🗳️ 🇺🇸 because Starlink. It’s not that he wouldn’t if he could, but he doesn’t need to; it’s enough to disrupt the opposition by laying paranoia traps.

Did you notice the DOGE billionaire attended the White House dinner for Mohammed Bone Saw bin Salman Al Saud? When last seen, he had threatened to expose the Epstein files, saying that Mango Mussolini was hiding them to protect himself. Here’s a refresher on DOGE. 👇🏼

Thread of the Day 🥇

Big Oil is using native advertising to "disguise their ads in news outlets" and promote "controversial technologies like carbon capture as climate solutions, portray fossil fuel companies as climate-friendly, or misrepresent their role in the energy transition" finds author @commscholar.bsky.social.

Lest we forget: Here Are All Of Marjorie Taylor Greene's January 6 Text Messages With Mark Meadows hunterwalker.substack.com/p/here-are-a...

Greene spewed the worst vile poison at the left for years. After two weeks of being on the receiving end of that right wing vitriol, she's throwing in the towel. Lame. Lame and weak.

Lawyers learning history

This young man has it exactly right.

Mississippi River Boulevard Saint Paul Minnesota

Interesting discussion about access journalism. youtu.be/dKe9fAfX3uw

Solar capacity is expected to triple based on new projects in the pipeline. Total global solar capacity, including all projects in construction and planned, is expected to reach almost 3 terawatts, with 80% concentrated in just 15 countries. Data @globalenergymon.bsky.social

Because he always has. (1989)

NYT isn’t worth reading because they are in the bag for Trump

I am boring for always reposting this but I will never stop.

The New York Times' story about Trump calling for the execution of members of Congress ran on Page 16 today, with an itty-bitty promo on the front about halfway down the page. No wonder Trump thinks he can get away with anything.

Me with our family car, Whalley Range, Manchester, 1959-60.

while I’m being cranky, access journalism needs to go. When the president does his “I’m alpha because I insulted you” thing somebody needs to fall on his sword and say “what the fuck is wrong with you, old man?” on a hot mic. the hero of the wizard of Oz is Toto.

The consumer base for luxury goods is shrinking—but the ultrawealthy are still spending.

I like this new phage paper by Ghatbale et al. It appears that host range and killing power of phages targeting antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains can increase in lab evolution. The narrow host range of phages is a serious issue in using them clinically against resistant infections. 🧪 1/3

Feels like every time you report on the feds announcing these kinds of charges you must immediately list all the similar ones they just drop after lying about defendants for months

Perhaps rather than demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars, the senators could simply apologize to the nation for violating their oaths of office and lending rhetorical support to criminal conspiracies to overturn a free and fair election. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

The administration that uncancelled swastikas yesterday wants us to believe that it is blackmailing universities because it is so sincerely against antisemitism?

"The United States faces the greatest crisis to our culture, society, and institutions, to our democracy, since at least 1861… even during our Civil War the government, its norms and ideals, were largely supported… now those are being rejected…" — Glenn Carle youtu.be/PMLuuJR-DSU

Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy A collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the nonprofit Dust-to-Digital Foundation laist.com/news/arts-an...

If I recall correctly, under previous administrations both Democratic and Republican and spanning decades, local and state police forces were infamously protective of local authority, many going so far as to ignore federal reporting requirements about police involved shootings.

🎵 why would Lockheed Martin build a ballroom..... 🎶 This is TikTok Premium ☺️

News Flash: Soldiers from the United States 🇺🇸 accidentally invaded Mexico 🇲🇽 storming a beach and (presumably) planting a flag… …because nobody understands magnets. 🧲 🧭

Wasn’t this sort of the plot of “Stripes?”

It's always hard to pick a worst day politically, but today the president called for the death of members of the opposition party, and the administration decided that people were being too hard on the swastika

As if we needed more proof that Republicans are insane everywhere… A staffer for NJ Rep Jeff Van Drew paid someone to slash her, wrote “Trumps Whore” on her body, had a friend zip tie her, leave her in the woods & then call 911! Only the best & brightest. newjerseyglobe.com/congress/van...

they're expanding a probe to include the Holocaust denial www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/ar...

Full translation in the alt text.

I haven’t seen this get covered in English yet so let me translate. Grok is saying that the crematories at Auschwitz’s were conceived as disinfectant chambers, not mass execution and that the law has made it taboo to acknowledge that this is what they were X is a Nazi site. Get off the Nazi site.

Mark Kelly: "He's talked about sending troops into more cities, he's talked about invoking the Insurrection Act. You don't have to go too far back to his 1st administration when he went to his Sec Def & said, 'Can't we just shoot these protesters in the legs.' That is an example of an illegal order"

It will never sit right with me the sheer amount of people who have chosen to live in an alternate reality where their lives are measurably worst, rather than admit that they were lied to by the GOP.

Updated US Lexicon: Violently attacking Congress to stop election certification then getting convicted of seditious conspiracy by a jury with full due process = not sedition Saying US troops made an oath to the Constitution and should ask a lawyer if they think an order may be illegal = sedition

When the top JAG at Southern Command told the Pentagon that their plans to blow up fishing boats based on suspicions that they might have drugs in the cargo hold was certainly illegal, Hegseth simply ignored him, while others told him his career was over. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Sarah Cooper — The History of Wealth Throughout History youtu.be/9cJ1IZsp750