๐จBREAKING: Two researchers from UPenn and Boston University just published a paper that should be uncomfortable reading for every CEO automating their workforce right now.
The argument is straightforward. Every company replacing workers with AI is also eliminating its own future customers. Laid off workers stop spending. Enough of them stop spending and nobody can afford to buy anything. The companies that fired everyone end up selling into an economy with no purchasing power left.
Every executive can see this. The math is not complicated. But here is why nobody stops.
If you do not automate, your competitor does. They cut costs, lower prices, take your market share, and you collapse anyway. So every company automates knowing it is collectively destructive because the alternative is dying alone while everyone else survives. The researchers proved this is a Prisoner's Dilemma playing out in real time.
The numbers are already moving. Block cut nearly half its 10,000 employees this year. Jack Dorsey said AI made those roles unnecessary and that within the next year the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion. Salesforce replaced 4,000 customer support agents with AI. Goldman Sachs deployed a coding tool that lets one engineer do the work of five. Over 100,000 tech workers were laid off in 2025 and AI was cited as the primary driver in more than half those cases. 80% of US workers hold jobs with tasks susceptible to AI automation.
The researchers tested every proposed solution. Universal basic income does not change a single company's incentive to automate. Capital income taxes adjust profit levels but not the per-task decision to replace a human. Collective bargaining cannot hold because automating is always the dominant strategy.
They also identified what they call a Red Queen effect. Better AI does not solve the problem, it accelerates it. Every company chases faster automation to gain market share over rivals but at the end everyone has automated equally, the gains cancel out, and the only thing left is more destroyed demand.
The one thing the math says could work is a Pigouvian automation tax. A per-task charge that forces companies to account for the demand they destroy each time they replace a worker.
The conclusion is that this is not a transfer of wealth from workers to owners. Both sides lose. Workers lose income. Companies lose customers. It is a deadweight loss with no market mechanism to stop it on its own.
(Link in the comment)
Only 2 possibilities seem open:
1. The US is buying time for mega IPOs, the midterms, and military replenishment.
2. The US is effectively over, with a major collapse or reckoning due within a few years.
I genuinely struggle to see a 3rd explanation for the current situation.
UK intercepts India-bound shadow fleet oil tanker 'Smyrtosโ
โThe unflagged Aframax tanker, carrying 101,400 tonnes of Ural crude from Russia's Ust-Luga Port to India's Sikka Port, was intercepted in English waters..โ theweek.in/news/defence/2026โฆ
China is watching today's events closely, and they now know that if they so much as lift a finger toward Taiwan, Trump is going to respond harshly by signing a deal and giving them Thailand and Vietnam along with full sovereignty over the South China Sea.
They better be careful.
This is a self-pacifying narrative. In my own family's business we've taken 6/7 major turns over the decades, often ending up in businesses very different from where we began. A business is supposed to adapt to markets, technology & future opportunities, not say "we weren't built for this." That's not vision, it's an excuse for complacency.
Iran deal:
$300 billion for damages
Hormuz remains Iran control
released frozen assets
US leaves Middle east
US deal:
Give up nuclear aim
Give up Hormuz
Give up missile program for X years
No funds of any sorts
This has been clear since day 1.. still made up games will go on as Trump & Iran play the world markets & crude..
Good long interview.. 2 very good points:
Security point: Chinaโs advanced/quantum computers can break Indiaโs encryption and security. India is highly vulnerable because almost all critical hardware (CCTVs, chips, devices) is Chinese, allowing potential data leaks back to China.
Startups point: Government gives no support through purchase orders or preference to Indian startups/hardware companies. This kills local ecosystem building, unlike China which creates demand for its own firms.
youtu.be/BSZijeXwayw?si=5OgAโฆ
Fake GDP, fake nationalism, fake industrialists, fake journalists, fake media, fake experts, fake ideas, fake narrative, fake celebrities are all being exposed as the Dollar takes rupee to 100 and beyond!
The world isn't in a bull market.
It's in a money-printing market.
Asset prices rise, govts call it growth, central banks call it stability & investors call it a bull run.
Uthel party UK example: M2 money supply went from ~ยฃ350B to ยฃ3.2T since 1988. The FTSE followed.
Inflation pretending to be prosperity is not the same thing as wealth creation.
๐จ๐ณChinaโs total non-financial sector debt has surged to โโ287% of GDP โ far higher than the US (249%), EU (243%), or India (176%). Since 2008, Beijing has added more debt than any other major economy, fueling an investment-led growth model that now faces diminishing returns, property sector stress, and rising servicing costs. While Western economies stabilized their debt ratios post-GFC, Chinaโs trajectory signals increasing financial vulnerability and limits on future stimulus firepower. The worldโs second-largest economy is carrying unprecedented leverage. #ChinaEconomy#DebtSustainability
India has always been a land of gatekeepers... Yesterday it was kings, zamindars & license raj bureaucrats.
Today it's oligopolies, regulatory capture & political connections... Innovation struggles when access matters more than invention.
Indian billionaires are excellent at rent seeking, gate keeping, regulatory capture, labor arbitrage, mercantile trading and motivational speeches. Innovation etc. are out of syllabus.
1st signs of sell on rise appearing with last week being a bearish eng.. need to watch ahead.. if unable to take out top then ST/MT downside can open #NDX
A possible blowout on in #NDX , for 2 years people have been trained in btfd.. lets see how far can push up.. 07 swing was 24%.. current move so far 17%..