AI and the Electric Grid

Why the Price of Electricity Is Spiking Around the U.S.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/climate/electricity-prices.html
Not all states have gotten hit equally hard. The reasons are complex.
 
Inside the Data Centers That Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/03/inside-the-data-centers-that-train-ai-and-drain-the-electrical-grid
A data center, which can use as much electricity as Philadelphia, is the new American factory, creating the future and propping up the economy. How long can this last? 

Does AI Make Us More or Less Productive?

Are LLMs making us less productive?
https://www.ft.com/content/24802151-1cd9-4a4b-b0b1-aa937a6a6606
When it comes to assessing our own work performance we are not always reliable witnesses. 

US State Capacity

The U.S. Government’s Repair Bills Are Coming Due
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/29/trump-outsourcing-austerity-shutdown-united-states-government/
Decades of accumulated technical debt have hollowed out state capacity. 

The Trouble with Abundance

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/democrats-cannot-build-a-political-strategy-on-abundance-by-jeffrey-frankel-2025-10

In a book released earlier this year, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue essentially for “competent capacity”: a US that can effectively plan, approve, and execute projects. That is a worthy goal, but “abundance” is probably not the clearest way to convey it, let alone the most effective means of achieving it.

EM Resilience

Asia’s Economic Growth Is Weathering Tariffs and Uncertainty
https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2025/10/16/asias-economic-growth-is-weathering-tariffs-and-uncertainty
 
Emerging Market Resilience: Good Luck or Good Policies?
https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/WEO/2025/October/English/ch2.ashx 

The Art of the Deal - China Style

The Art of Letting Trump Claim a Win, While Walking Away Stronger
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/world/asia/china-trump-xi-trade.html
By withholding soybean purchases and rare-earth exports, China extracted relief from U.S. tariffs and delayed export controls, without conceding much in return. 

Trump's Communication Style

Trump and the Presidency That Wouldn’t Shut Up
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/03/how-the-president-talks-to-the-people
His posts and rants are omnipresent, ugly, and unhinged. Don’t look to history to make it make sense. 

Tackling Global Development Challenges

The Global Polytunity
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/polycrisis-is-actually-opportunity-to-transform-global-development-paradigm-by-yuen-yuen-ang-2025-10
Western leaders favor the language of “polycrisis” because it obscures the root cause of our current predicament: the industrial-colonial paradigm. Instead of focusing on fear, the world must study and tackle development challenges with a purposeful realism that draws on the creativity of a genuinely global community.