What I Wrote Last Week
Business
ICE Took Half Their Work Force. What Do They Do Now? Some businesses like Glenn Valley Foods are in a bind. They can’t find US citizens who want to work in their factories. They are happy with immigrant workers who pose no trouble despite dodgy immigration records. Now, the Trump administration pulled the rug out from under the company by taking those immigrant workers away. I get that there needs to be law and order, and it’s against the law to be here illegally. But practically, is there a major difference between someone born in the US and someone who came here 20 years ago, bought a house, built a life, worked hard and birthed several US citizens?
Companies Are Pouring Billions Into A.I. It Has Yet to Pay Off. I am cautiously optimistic about the impact of AI. It will change the way we work, but it remains to be seen to what extent. I think it will definitely be a value add, but there is a lot of noise and hype around AI that makes it challenging to get a sense of where we are.
Big Tech’s A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone. What an interesting dilemma! Tech companies argue that since they bring jobs to local areas, they should receive discounted rates on electricity or at least the same rate as other heavy users do. Energy companies counter that because the demand for power to run data centers is so high that they have to invest a lot upfront, tech companies should pitch in more. Plus, there is history of promises not being kept by data centers. And honestly, nobody knows if tech executives are overestimating the demand for AI. Sure, it’s a hot trend right now and all of them swear up and down that electricity is the only bottleneck. But what if they are wrong?
Why AI has not lived up to the hype, and probably never will. It is possible that we are living in a bubble and AI is hyped up to be more than what it really is.
Citi exec: Retail simplification is paying off. “Unlike other big banks, Citi isn’t looking to expand its branch network across the country, keeping its physical presence focused on Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Citi has opened 13 new branches and relocated five others since November, a bank spokesperson said. “While we’ve only got 650 branches, our six core markets have a third of the high-net-worth households in the States”. Citi has also seen strong customer response to its move to streamline the path to a no-fee checking account, expanding the definition of direct deposit to include funds coming through peer-to-peer payment platforms such as Zelle or Venmo. Simplifying products – along with less foot traffic in branches – has freed up Citi bankers’ time to make outbound inquiries, or hold home-buying or financial literacy seminars, she said. During the first half of this year, client interactions increased by 300,000 compared with the same six months in 2024, a spokesperson said.”
Other Stuff I Find Interesting
He Turned Around Detroit as a Democratic Mayor. Now He’s Ditching the Party. We need more examples of this. A lot of voters are tired of the partisanship and extremism of either party. It’s time for common sense. It’s time for collaborative compromise. It’s time for courageous politics.
How Europe is vying for rare earth independence from China. The only way Europe can manage risks in the future is to build unique capabilities and increase bargaining power. Have something that the US, China and Russia want to trade for. Own more technologies that cannot be replicated anywhere in the world (like ASML). Travel destinations are not enough.
Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates. “In this era of uncertainty, perhaps ownership is no longer all it’s cracked up to be. Some people may be better off without a mortgage that anchors them in one place and limits mobility. Not plunking down for a house lets people do things they might care more about; 83% of Generation Z renters say they’d rather invest in experiences such as travel and career growth than save for a home, according to a survey by Entrata, a property management software provider. Buyers with a disproportionate share of their assets in a home are also the most vulnerable to volatility in the housing market“
Unmasking the Sea Star Killer. “Sea stars’ ecological importance supersedes their capacity to delight. They’re so essential that the term “keystone species” was first coined about them; research shows that removing sea stars from intertidal food webs lets other invertebrates take over, which often mow down kelp forests or driving out species such as chitons, limpets, anemones, and barnacles. Sea stars generate such outsized influence, in other words, that their collapse is reshaping coastal waters in severe and disturbing ways. Nowhere has the human and ecological toll of all this death been clearer than in Northern California. Without their many-armed predators, purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus)—one of sunflower stars’ key foods—have taken over the ocean bottom along the coast. Their population jumped 60-fold in a single year, so displacing the red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) prized by sushi eaters that a commercial fishery for red urchin was declared a federal disaster in 2019. Livelihoods were shattered.”
Stats
Six out of ten Americans said Trump had had a negative impact on grocery prices
54% of Americans reported that they drank alcohol, a record low
Minh Quang Duong 
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