🚀 🚀 Here's the week that was at ... FASTER, PLEASE!, my pro-abundance/growth/progress newsletter (from a center-right perspective). Please check it out! fasterplease.substack.com

The conservative case for embracing “Abundance” via @jamespethokoukis.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Folks on the right should find that red line to be deeply, deeply embarrassing

"The Trump administration has terminated a US-funded initiative that documents alleged Russian war crimes, including a sensitive database detailing the mass deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, according to US officials familiar with the directive and documents" @washingtonpost.com

Is it more in the US strategic interest to prevent Russia from rolling over Ukraine and then beyond OR making sure Ukraine's president meets a continuing high level of public and performative deference to the US president?

American Business Leaders are Turning on Trump — Fast @semafor "CEO optimism is fading as Trump pushes ahead with trade restrictions, while business-friendly deregulation has yet to materialize. Consumer confidence in January recorded its biggest decline since November 2023."

What are we doing here? "Only a handful of people have finished rebuilding, and many others aren’t sure if they can as they navigate a dizzying maze of zoning and construction rules. Housing costs are skyrocketing." @WashPost

Is everyone in Gaza about to get a “Fork in the Road” email?

OUT: US nation building IN: US casino building "Trump proposes U.S. control of Gaza, permanent displacement of residents" @WashPost

"Corporate America also needs to wake up and stop the sycophantic prating about the return of 'animal spirits' to the US economy. What Trump is essentially offering is economic autarky and the destruction of the western alliance ... economic and strategic disaster" www.ft.com/content/ba1c...

JPMORGAN: "Is this a business friendly administration?"

🌍 My chat (+transcript) with researcher Toby Ord on existential risk fasterplease.substack.com/p/my-chat-tr...

"The U.S. economy’s performance is about as good as it gets." - Mark Zandi, economist at Moody's

GOLDMAN SACHS: "On Inauguration Day 2025, the US economy is in the sweet spot of healthy growth and gradual disinflation."

"The IMF is doubling down on its forecast that that the US economy will outpace other big Western countries this year, [raising] its estimate for full-year growth in 2025 to 2.7%, up from 2.2%. ... Expectations for big European economies were all downgraded, as was Canada’s." t.co/8B47ygftrM

💥 "Many of the world’s richest economies will need to at least double productivity growth to maintain historical improvements in living standards amid sharp falls in their birth rates." Falling Birth Rates Raise Prospect of Sharp Decline in Living Standards www.ft.com/content/19ce...

JPMORGAN: American Exceptionalism: US economy outpaces world post-pandemic, exceeding pre-COVID potential by +4% while other nations lag -1%. China shows biggest slowdown. US-RoW growth gap widened further in 2024. 🗽

my latest: fasterplease.substack.com/p/pro-growth...

COOK: “.. California and New York continue to hemorrhage residents .. That could close key Democratic pathways to an Electoral College majority, essentially forcing the party to win in large Sun Belt states in addition to sweeping the industrial Midwest ..” www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/nat...

And here we go ... "The fight over robots threatening American jobs" @FT

Why has Blue Origin lagged SpaceX? "Can Jeff Bezos match Elon Musk in space?" www.economist.com/science-and-...

💥 JPMORGAN on Age of AI: "Seminal moment in tech, more so than the Internet or iPhone ... GenAI is doing things today that most viewed as physically impossible a couple years ago ... It will Evolve at Light Speed; model capabilities are different today than 3 weeks ago"

C'mon, man! "For transmission projects, the average time to get a permit is 6.5 years—and often can take over 10 years."

You can listen to @doynefarmer.bsky.social discussing the interconnected economy and how to approach economic growth with @jamespethokoukis.bsky.social for the Faster, Please! podcast #Complexity #ComplexityEconomics fasterplease.substack.com/p/my-chat-tr...

Surveys of more than 220 economists in the US, UK and Eurozone on the economic impact of Trump’s return to the White House ... @data.ft.com

Me at work: "Anyway, once the fusion-powered electrical grid in the US Martian colonies is fully operational… Me at home: "Wait, you can buy pre-peeled hard-boiled eggs? Am I dreaming? Wowzers!"

Econ 101 for communists: unintended consequences

Ronald Reagan in 1979 giving the crux of his argument against the Carter presidency. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Busy week at my pro-progress newsletter, FASTER, PLEASE!

You love to see it. "Israel has dealt hammer blows in recent months to two of Iran’s main regional proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon." - TheEconomist

"After the most dramatic comeback in modern US history, the president-elect promises a new era of sweeping deregulation and a profound shift to the cultural right." - FT

Love it, love it, love it. Faster, please! (via politico)

So the INTERSTELLAR backlash has begun ... but in this house we believe love is an artefact of a higher dimension. Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it!

The week that was at my pro-growth, pro-progress, Up Wing newsletter, Faster, Please! fasterplease.substack.com/p/the-techno...

GOLDMAN SACHS: The data center boom's power surge is still coming. While US electricity demand has grown even slower vs GDP recently (2% gap vs historical 1.7%), GS expect data centers to reverse this trend later this decade, finally pushing power demand growth above GDP growth.

"Since 2014, workers in the U.S. have boosted their productivity by 17%. By contrast, gains in the eurozone and the UK have been limited to 5% and 6%, respectively, while Canada’s productivity has stagnated."

"There is no AI boom in Europe, Canada, Australia, or Japan. This is a very unique tailwind to the US economic outlook. The US is spending a lot on AI, on data centers, and on energy transition (to help power this revolution)." - Torsten Sløk Apollo Chief Economist

🤖🚘 Even as GM retreats, self-driving cars continue to advance The technology’s uneven progress is a lesson for AI super-optimists fasterplease.substack.com/p/even-as-gm...

Pretty good 🚀 - SpaceX & investors agree to $1.25B insider share purchase at $350B valuation - Share price jumps to $185, up from $112 in previous round 3 months ago - Deal makes SpaceX the world's most valuable private startup www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

GOLDMAN SACHS: "Companies plan to use three strategies to mitigate the impact of potential tariffs."

The UHC killer is going to plead insanity, yes?

What makes this chart delicious is that the oil upturn happened at the exact moment the doomer "peak oil" people said modern civilization would collapse and we would all be send to the fields to work the good earth.

"From Apple to Starbucks, Western firms’ China dreams are dying" www.economist.com/business/202...

Why would we ever look to Europe for ideas on tech regulation?

"Fearful of crime, the tech elite transform their homes into military bunkers" - The Washington Post

Do Import Tariffs Protect U.S. Firms? libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/12/do-i...

"He Was Going to Save Intel. He Destroyed $150 Billion of Value Instead." - WSJ

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act harmed US workers and economy. By blocking Chinese immigration for 80+ years, it reduced native workers' wages, slowed manufacturing, and stunted US West economic growth through 1940. Effects lasted far longer than expected. cepr.org/voxeu/column...

"The US is exceptionally rich and becoming more so" - Financial Times