Taxes and US Budget Deficits

U.S. Budget Deficit Nears $2 Trillion, a Reality Check for Trump’s Cost Cutting
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/business/us-budget-deficit.html
Higher interest rates are inflating borrowing costs as the Trump administration spends on the Iran war and tariff refunds.
 
Corporate Tax Revenue Falls Even as Profits Soar Under Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/17/business/trump-corporate-tax-revenue.html
The annual decline was about $70 billion. Companies are writing off billions in A.I. investments, taking advantage of tax cuts that President Trump signed into law. 
 
How much of your earnings are subject to Social Security tax in 2027?
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/article/how-much-of-your-earnings-are-subject-to-social-security-tax-in-2027-193352950.html 

The Lifestyle of Dividend Nomads

The 'Dividend Nomads' Investing Their Way Out of the 9-To-5
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/the--dividend-nomads--investing-their-way-out-of-the-9-to-5-88844.html
Jang is part of a nascent community of self-styled “dividend nomads” who fund a life of itinerant travel through a combination of investments in exchange-traded funds and cheap living abroad. It’s a new twist on Financial Independence, Retire Early, or FIRE, a movement that encourages people to exit the workforce early. Rather than focusing on extreme saving to build a retirement-size nest egg in their 30s or 40s as FIRE practitioners do, dividend nomads prioritize ETF investments that use options and other derivatives contracts to provide monthly income. 

Economic Growth and Social Progress

Asia's giants turned growth into social progress, Japan kept progressing with an economy that barely moved, and the US went the other way.
https://movingfrontiers.substack.com/p/social-progress-index 

Indonesia's Economic Woes

Indonesian Stocks Plunge on Threat to Drop Market from Major Indexes 
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/business/indonesia-stocks-economy.html
The potential downgrade by MSCI, an influential index provider, adds to a deepening crisis of investor confidence in the economic policies of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. 

AI and Scientific Research

What if the machines take over science?
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/10/15/what-if-the-machines-take-over-science
Artificial intelligence will require scholars to reinvent their disciplines.
 
AI companies want to become frontier scientific researchers
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/10/14/ai-companies-want-to-become-frontier-scientific-researchers
 
AI’s transformation of mathematics is a turning point for science
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/10/12/ais-transformation-of-mathematics-is-a-turning-point-for-science 

The Indian Diaspora

The limits of India’s diaspora power
https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/10/11/the-limits-of-indias-diaspora-power 

Circular Financing and the AI Boom

Wall Street is 'tiring of the Bank of Nvidia, the Bank of AMD and the Bank of Broadcom': Baird's Mortonson
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/wall-street-is-tiring-of-the-bank-of-nvidia-the-bank-of-amd-and-the-bank-of-broadcom-bairds-mortonson-121235021.html 

The Riskiest Corner of the AI Trade Is Crashing into Higher Rates
https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-riskiest-corner-of-the-ai-trade-is-crashing-into-higher-rates-fcdaad37
The CoreWeave selloff shows a pressure point from climbing borrowing costs.

Related:

What Are Data Centers Doing? A Mind-Boggling Amount of Math.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/10/15/upshot/ai-data-center-math.html
The calculations needed to train A.I. are nearly impossible to visualize — but we tried anyway.