Street Fights, Being a Pop Star
A few years ago, my son and I watched as some inebriated patrons of one our favorite Bay Area restaurants came to blows in the parking lot. One of the guys who worked at the restaurant explained that these kinds of tensions were becoming more prevalent as lifelong residents of the community became increasingly frustrated that the increased cost of living was pricing them out of their own hometown. This story is nothing new in my neck of the woods where tech booms from PCs to the internet to AI have repeatedly drawn people to the region of the original gold rush for even more profitable digital versions. Because of rising local prices, especially in housing, the boom and bust cycles often emerge simultaneously. That’s why headlines about the breathtaking levels of wealth being created by the AI explosion can be coupled with stories like this from WaPo (Gift Article): Poverty spikes in the land of the tech billionaires. “For the first time in more than a decade, the Bay Area’s poverty rate is rising significantly, jumping by more than 4 percent in less than a year, according to an analysis released Wednesday by Tipping Point Community, a San Francisco-based anti-poverty nonprofit organization.” This divide between Wall Street and Main Street, playing out in a parking lot near you, is a story as old as the market. But today, there’s another divide. Think of this divide as Wall Street vs the Rest of Wall Street. It’s between a handful of trillion dollar companies that are gaining value hand over fist and the rest of the market, where there’s a better and better understanding of the frustration that can lead to parking lot fisticuffs. “A group of trillion-dollar brands known as the ‘Magnificent Seven’ — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — has been at the forefront of those gains, thanks in large part to corporate spending and intense interest in artificial intelligence. But economists and investors are raising concerns about the companies that aren’t part of the AI investment boom — in other words, most businesses in the United States. An index that leaves out the seven high-flying tech firms — call it the S&P 493 — reveals a far weaker picture, as smaller and lower-tech companies report lackluster sales and declining investment.” WaPo (Gift Article): What the S&P 500 is hiding about the economy.
+ Much of the market, and much of the economy, is currently being driven by AI-focused companies that are in a weight class all their own and are raising an unprecedented amount of investment dollars and debt. So we all depend on their accounting. In the WSJ, Jonathan Weil, highlights a few concerns (with a red pen) in the ol’ Excel spreadsheet. “It seems like a marvel of financial engineering: Meta Platforms META 3.34%increase; green up pointing triangle is building a $27 billion data center in Louisiana, financed with debt, and neither the data center nor the debt will be on its own balance sheet. That outcome looks too good to be true, and it probably is.” AI Meets Aggressive Accounting at Meta’s Gigantic New Data Center. It’s worth noting that Jonathan Weil is most famous for a September of 2000 article titled Energy Traders Cite Gains, But Some Math Is Missing, in which he was the first reporter to challenge Enron’s accounting. No, I’m not suggesting that the AI revolution is anything like the Enron scandal. I’m just thinking it might be worth keeping your guard up.
I Wouldn’t Wish This Wishlist on Anyone
“Ukraine has significantly amended the US “peace plan” to end the conflict, removing some of Russia’s maximalist demands, people familiar with the negotiations said, as European leaders warned on Monday that no deal could be reached quickly.” The Guardian chose to put the phrase “peace plan” in quotes because, by many accounts, it seemed to be more of a Russian wishlist than a negotiated deal. (Which sort of makes sense since Trump’s entire presidency has been a Russian wishlist.)
+ “The plan was negotiated by Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer with no historical, geographical, or cultural knowledge of Russia or Ukraine, and Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and spends most of his time making business deals. The revelation of their plan this week shocked European leaders, who are now paying almost all of the military costs of the war, as well as the Ukrainians, who were not sure whether to take this latest plan seriously until they were told to agree to it by Thanksgiving or lose all further U.S. support. Even if the plan falls apart, this arrogant and confusing ultimatum, coming only days after the State Department authorized the sale of anti-missile technology to Ukraine, will do permanent damage to America’s reputation as a reliable ally, not only in Europe but around the world.” Anne Applebaum: The Murky Plan That Ensures a Future War.
+ “It looks a lot like that Russians are seeking to bribe Americans to allow Russia to win a war it would otherwise lose. Having allowed Russians in this instance to design our policy, we then rely on our European and Ukrainian allies to serve as a check on us. We (or rather some powerful Americans) scold them for doing what they have to do.” Timothy Snyder: Russian Unreality and American Weakness.
+ Thomas Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): “Finally, finally, President Trump just might get a peace prize that would secure his place in history. Unfortunately, though, it is not that Nobel peace prize he so covets. It is the ‘Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize‘ … This prize richly deserves to be shared by Trump’s many ‘secretaries of state’ — Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Dan Driscoll — who together negotiated the surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin’s demands without consulting Ukraine or our European allies in advance — and then told Ukraine it had to accept the plan by Thanksgiving.” (It’s looking less and less like the original plan will be forced on Ukraine and Europe, but it’s impossible to undo the fact that America is negotiating against its allies.)
Prosecute Overload
“The rulings from U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie halt at least for now a pair of prosecutions that had hastened concerns that the Justice Department was being weaponized to pursue the president’s political adversaries and amount to a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration’s legal maneuvering to install a loyal, and inexperienced, prosecutor willing to file the cases.” Judge dismisses Comey, James indictments after finding that prosecutor was illegally appointed.
+ Well, this ruling should provide a respite from weaponized, personal, and absurd prosecutions from the DOJ. Which gives us time to focus on weaponized, personal, and absurd prosecutions from the Pentagon. Pentagon says it’s investigating Sen. Mark Kelly over video urging troops to defy ‘illegal orders.’ (Editor’s note: You’re supposed to defy illegal orders.)
+ “One of the great moral values of congressional declarations of war is that they provide soldiers with the assurance that the conflict has been debated and that their deployment is a matter of national will. When the decision rests with the president alone, it puts members of the military in the position of trusting the judgment of a person who may not deserve that trust.” David French (former JAG) in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump Has Put the Military in an Impossible Situation.
So You Wanna Be a Rock ‘n Roll Star
“One of the main realities of being a pop star is that at a certain level, it’s really f-cking fun. You get to go to great parties in a black SUV and you can smoke cigarettes in the car and scream out of the sunroof and all that cliche shit … You get good free shit like phones and laptops and vinyl and trips and shroom gummies and headphones and clothes and sometimes even an electric bike that will sit in your garage untouched for the best part of 5 years. You get to enter restaurants through the back entrance and give a half smile to the head chef (who probably hates you) and the waiters (who probably hate you too) as they sweat away doing an actual real service industry job while you strut through the kitchen with your 4 best friends who are tagging along for the ride. You get to feel special, but you also have to at points feel embarrassed by how stupid the whole thing is.” Charli XCX on some of the realities of being a pop star. (It’s basically like being a newsletter writer, but without all the typing…)
Extra, Extra
No Place Like Home: “The Trump Administration is deporting people to countries they have no ties to, where many are being detained indefinitely or forcibly returned to the places they fled.” The New Yorker: Disappeared to a Foreign Prison.
+ Ven Diagram: NYT: “The nation’s top military officer on Monday will visit Puerto Rico and one of the several Navy warships dispatched to the Caribbean Sea to combat drug trafficking as the Trump administration weighs the possibility of a broader military campaign against Venezuela.”
+ Gov at First Sight: “It was a break-the-internet moment if there ever was one. Unpredictable, at times perplexing and rich, with the kinds of surreal moments social media feeds on.” Mamdani’s Meeting With Trump Scrambled the MAGA-Sphere. (It’s what happens when you tell a bully to, “Say it to my face.”) So in MAGA World, MTG is out and Mamdani is in. Shit’s so weird, you can’t even predict things after the fact.
+ Didn’t Account For This: “A rational response to all of this would be for people to log off.” Charlie Warzel on what a new location feature on X told us about a whole lot of supposedly patriotic, American accounts. Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors.
+ Six Figure: A headline for the time capsule: Pardoned Capitol rioter tried to bribe child sex victim with promise of Jan. 6 payout.
+ The Harder They Fall: “Mr. Cliff won two Grammy Awards over his decades-long career: best reggae recording in 1986 for ‘Cliff Hanger’ and best reggae album in 2013 for ‘Rebirth.’ But his breakthrough in the United States came when he starred as an actor in ‘The Harder They Come,’ a 1972 movie about a struggling Jamaican musician who turns to crime.” Jimmy Cliff, Singer Who Helped Bring Reggae to Global Audience, Dies at 81.
+ More Cheddar for Cheese: “The Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium has revealed that United Talent Agency has signed the governing body for ‘the king of cheeses’ to get the supermarket staple placement in films, TV shows and streaming projects around the globe.” (Maybe they can re-use the old Have You Had Your Sprinkle Today slogan?)
Bottom of the News
“Pairat Soodthoop, the temple’s general and financial affairs manager, told The Associated Press on Monday that the 65-year-old woman’s brother drove her from the province of Phitsanulok to be cremated. He said they heard a faint knock coming from the coffin.” (In fairness, though, it was really faint.) Thai woman found alive in coffin after being brought in for cremation.
