AI and the Developing World

Developing countries have ‘less to fear’ from AI than rich nations
https://www.ft.com/content/33c20c4e-6a25-42da-9f1e-6664c8388957
“As a rule, developing economies today have more to gain — and less to fear — from AI than richer ones ... less than a tenth of their jobs are susceptible to AI automation, compared with more than a third in high-income economies,” said Indermit Gill, the bank’s chief economist. 

World Development Report 2026: THE PROMISE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstreams/4df724a5-2e0d-4e66-bcb8-1d3bf4e22390/download

Equity Bubbles

Dalio On AI Bubble Nearing 1929, 2000 Levels: ‘Wealth Is not the Same as Money'
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/dalio-on-ai-bubble-nearing-1929--2000-levels---wealth-is-not-the-same-as-money-87991.html
Acadian Asset Management’s Owen Lamont has framed the clearest test of whether markets are truly in bubble territory around four conditions he calls the “Four Horsemen of the Bubble Apocalypse“: extreme overvaluation, widespread “bubble beliefs” (investors who admit prices are too high but expect them to rise anyway), a surge in equity issuance, and a flood of new market participants. Dalio’s comments map almost precisely onto the third horseman.
“There’s almost nothing that’s easier to produce than stock,” he said, describing how a company can raise $50 million, get valued at a billion, and mint a paper billionaire without a billion dollars ever changing hands. He’s identified surging stock issuance as one of the two primary forces that “prick” a bubble, alongside rising interest rates.

America Is Great at Creating Stock Market Bubbles—and Shrugging Them Off
https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/stock-market-bubbles-recovery-029d21d0
One day the bust will be the big one. But for now the pullback in AI-related stocks has been almost completely offset by gains elsewhere.
 
Big Tech Earnings Are Sending Valuations in Wildly Different Directions
https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/tech-company-earnings-stock-market-5c4179d8
Reports from tech giants drove big gains and losses, while the Fed-fueled bond selloff adds to market pressures. 

The AI bubble could be worse than the dot-com bust by Vivekanand Jayakumar, The Hill - 06/16/26
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5925202-tech-bubble-ai-driven-growth/

Boomerang Generation

Moving Back Home After College? All Your Friends Are Doing It.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/business/college-graduates-living-at-home.html
More young adults are living with their parents. The development suggests that they face a weak job market, but also that fewer face stigma in returning to the roost.

Moving Back Home Used to Be a Sign of Failure. Now It Shows Financial Savvy.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/living-with-parents-finances-0c35530c
Nearly half of American adults under 30, pinched by the cost of housing, are living with a parent. It can be an adjustment for both. 

Related:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/the-kids-are-kind-of-all-right

Situational Awareness - Rise and Fall

Inside the Meltdown of a Wunderkind’s A.I. Hedge Fund

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/business/situational-awareness-leopold-aschenbrenner.html

Situational Awareness, led by a 24-year-old, exploded onto the artificial intelligence scene — and then nose-dived.

 

How the ‘Nostradamus of AI’ failed to spot a market crash

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/08/01/how-the-nostradamus-of-ai-failed-to-spot-a-market-crash/

Jolt in global stock prices forces fire sale of highly leveraged fund’s assets.

Related:
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/leopold-aschenbrenner-just-learned-wall-streets-oldest-lesson-chart-of-the-day-120146045.html

Trust AI?

What If We Can Never Trust A.I.?
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/what-if-we-can-never-trust-ai
Like humans, the technology will never be perfect. The question is what imperfections we’re willing to tolerate. 

Spain's Migrant Crisis

When Following the Rules Leads to Disaster
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/ceuta-morocco-crisis-immigration/688149/
A supreme-court decision helped cause the Ceuta disaster.
 
Schengen’s Greatest Failure
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/07/migration-splitting-europe-apart/688137/
The Ceuta crisis is undermining an agreement designed to foster “solidarity.” 

Investors Get a Dose of Reality

Humbling times for markets
https://www.ft.com/content/e41dadef-c473-48ff-9fa5-30b56d40af34
Investors finally show signs of growing weary of the painfully obvious nonsense.
 
How A.I. Mania Turned This Stock Market Into a ‘Version of Squid Game’
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/business/korea-stocks-chips-kospi.html
South Korea’s KOSPI index has swung wildly because of both the enthusiasm and anxiety related to investing in the global artificial intelligence boom.  

There’s no escape from the AI whipsaw
https://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/theres-no-escape-ai-whipsaw-2026-07-31/