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AI boom through 2050 hinges on power supply, politics, PwC says
PwC expects global data center capex will hit $31.6 trillion by 2050 in a base case scenario, with spe | AI may unleash a $31.6 trillion data center buildout by 2050, but PwC says the real race isn’t just for capital — it’s for power, chips and political advantages.
AI boom through 2050 hinges on power supply, politics, PwC says
PwC expects global data center capex will hit $31.6 trillion by 2050 in a base case scenario, with spe | AI may unleash a $31.6 trillion data center buildout by 2050, but PwC says the real race isn’t just for capital — it’s for power, chips and political advantages.
Exclusive: Fanatics combines betting apps
The all-in-one app comes as competition heats up amid the prediction markets boom.
Jared Freid finds his comedy calling in new Netflix hour 'The Family Plan'
Jared Freid’s new Netflix hour, “The Family Plan,” turns a beach blowup with his dad into a sharply observed, big-hearted look at boomer-millennial family warfare and reconciliation.
Delta Fest returns to Jackson with focus on Deep South’s $270 billion boom
Delta Fest returns to Downtown Jackson for three days of discussions, networking and performances focused on economic growth across the Deep South.
Ernst Names Small Business of the Week, The Bread Board
Read the release on Sen. Ernst's website HERE. Throughout this Congress, Chair Ernst plans to recognize a small business in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties. RED OAK, Iowa – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, today announced her Small Business of the Week: The Bread Board of Marion County. Throughout the 119th Congress, Chair Ernst plans to recognize a small business in each of Iowa's 99 counties. “The Bread Board has risen to the occasion, growing from Heidi’s passion for baking into a thriving Pella bakery that brings people together,” said Chair Ernst. “From serving fresh sourdough and homemade meals to supporting local businesses, schools, and community events, Heidi and her team have proven they have the perfect recipe for success.” Heidi Rozenboom grew up baking fresh bread alongside her grandmother, always using the same bread board that would eventually inspire her business’ name. Years later, Heidi started selling fresh bread to local coffee shops and cafes. As demand grew, she opened her storefront in downtown Pella in 2021 and named her bakery the Bread Board. Today, the Bread Board serves fresh sourdough bread, pastries, homemade meals, and other baked goods. Stay tuned as Chair Ernst continues to recognize outstanding Iowa small businesses with her Small Business of the Week award. ###
New business creation surges in Tennessee
A small-business boom is underway as more Tennesseans strike out on their own.
Boom Ball bringing baseball entertainment tour, 2027 tryouts to NWA
A touring baseball entertainment show is coming to Northwest Arkansas, and local players have a chance to audition for the 2027 roster.
Insight: Booming weight-loss drug demand in Brazil fuels thriving black market and health fears
When Brazilian customs agents opened jars of dulce de leche aboard a tourist bus arriving from Paraguay in April, they discovered hundreds of vials of tirzepatide, the active ingredient in the popular weight-loss drug Mounjaro, mixed inside the sweet spread.
Booming Weight-Loss Drug Demand in Brazil Fuels Thriving Black Market and Health Fears
By Luciana Magalhaes SAO PAULO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - When Brazilian customs agents opened jars of dulce de leche aboard a tourist bus arriving from Paraguay in April, they discovered hundreds of vials of tirzepatide, the active ingredient in the popular weight-loss drug Mounjaro, mixed inside the ...
Is PENN (PENN) Using Its New Orleans Rebrand To Quietly Redraw Its Capital Allocation Map?
PENN Entertainment recently announced it will invest about US$195 million to relocate its Boomtown Casino & Hotel New Orleans riverboat operations to an adjacent landside site and rebrand the property as Hollywood Casino New Orleans, pending regulatory approval, with plans including 140,000 square feet of new development, roughly 875 slot machines, 45 table games, a retail sportsbook, and multiple dining options. This move, which continues PENN’s pattern of shifting riverboat assets ashore...
Texas Business
Texas is one of the top states for businesses to thrive and grow. This week, we’ll explore our state's booming business sector with the help of non-profits, business advisors and advocates.
The Political Divide Isn’t Between Boomers and Gen Z
Rep. Maxwell Frost went on Jubilee’s 'Surrounded' for a debate about the generational gap. It’s smaller than most Americans realize.
Apple Caught Off Guard by AI Demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio
Apple's unusually timed announcement of new Mac mini and Mac Studio models this week was driven by unexpectedly strong enterprise appetite for AI hardware, according to The Information. Apple normally releases new Mac models in the autumn, closer to October or November, making this week's announcement unusually early, falling just before the anticipated arrival of new iPhone models. The Information says that the AI-driven boom in Mac Studio and Mac mini sales is behind the early launch.
This baby boomer vs. Gen X Senate race emerges as key test of generational change in U.S. politics and what age is too old for Congress
Sen. Ed Markey is 80, while his rival, Rep. Seth Moulton, is 47.
Data center backlash scrambles US midterm politics
The data centers powering America's artificial intelligence boom have become an unlikely target in November's midterm elections, as anger over rising electricity bills and noise turns Democrats -- and…
College students’ return brings business boom to Valley restaurants
College students are back in Harrisonburg, bringing increased business to local restaurants.
College students’ return brings business boom to Valley restaurants
College students are back in Harrisonburg, bringing increased business to local restaurants.
Purdue expands degree offerings that target Indianapolis’ workforce needs
Purdue marks the start of its third year in Indianapolis with new programs in construction management, athletic training, and hospitality — aligning academics with the city’s booming job market.
Join us Sept. 9 in Austin and online for a discussion on the politics of data centers in Texas
Data centers are reshaping Texas communities, and the politics around them don’t break along familiar lines. Join The Texas Tribune at 9 a.m. Wednesday Sept. 9 in Austin or online for a conversation that goes beyond the headlines to examine where Texans actually stand on the data center boom, how opinions are shifting and what […]
Should You Use AI for Mental Health? | WSJ Wellness for Aug. 28
A producer for our new audio series, ‘The AI Therapist,’ shares what to know about the rise of mental-health AI services. Plus, boomers are smoking more pot and vacation can improve your health.
Emerging leagues find winning formula in media deals and partnerships
The live sports boom is boosting leagues beyond the Big Four, as upstarts sign major commercial partners, media rights deals and star athletes.
Boom meets backlash: How data center politics in Silicon Valley have changed
States are passing bans. Republicans and Democrats are campaigning on the issue for the midterms. The birthplace of AI has its own set of realities.
AI’s rally is disguising a massive slump in tech stocks
Big Tech, once the market leader, is being overshadowed by gains from the new stars of the artificial intelligence boom: semiconductor chipmakers.
Small Business 401(k) Adoption Is Surging—Here’s What’s Driving the Boom
New data shows retirement plan creation among smaller employers is outstripping big corporations, driven by a massive spike in hourly worker access.
PENN Entertainment (PENN) Invests $195 Million In New Orleans As Undervalued View Faces A Fresh Test
PENN Entertainment (PENN) is committing about $195 million to shift its Boomtown Casino & Hotel New Orleans riverboat operations onto adjacent land, rebranding the complex as Hollywood Casino New Orleans, pending regulatory approval. For context, PENN Entertainment’s share price has pulled back in the short term, with a 30 day share price return of down 15.72% and a 90 day share price return of down 8.18%. The year to date share price return of 20.20% contrasts with a 1 year total shareholder...
US futures mostly higher as the artificial intelligence business booms
US futures are mostly higher as demand for artificial intelligence technology leads to a surge in business for Nvidia and other tech companies with heavy exposure to AI. S&P 500 futures gained …
New resources available for a growing number of veteran-owned businesses in Texas
Veteran-owned businesses are booming in Texas, according to the Texas Veterans Commission.
3 key takeaways from Bill Gates' stark warning about AI and jobs
Bill Gates warned that a coming robotics boom could reshape construction, hospitality, and the social contract.
Why Supersized Entertainment Is Booming
Read this article to understand why supersized entertainment, including premium screen formats, blockbuster concert tours, and the Las Vegas Sphere, are booming.
Okay, Boomer: Preparing for the generational ownership transfer
The Colorado Succession Through Apprenticeship Program would turn two problems into one solution: a state-coordinated pipeline that trains graduates to evaluate and operate existing businesses, then connects them to owners ready to show them the ropes and eventually hand over the keys.
Fishy business: who really profits when sardines go viral?
Once a cheap store-cupboard staple, sardines are fast becoming a luxury food item. Last year, #SardineGirlSummer saw influencers promoting the health benefits of sardinemaxxing, while sardinecore became the must-have fashion trend. Now, demand is accelerating just as Morocco’s sardine stock has collapsed, causing shortages on supermarket shelves. The Guardian travels to Matosinhos in Portugal, the cultural home of the sardine industry, to investigate who is profiting from the boom, how it has affected local fishermen, and what sustainability looks like in an era of global heating
Stuck Weather? Scientists Reveal Shocking Reason Behind Weather Blocking Events - Futura-Sciences
How Climate Science Turned a Corner Over the last quarter-century, the world of climate science has made leaps and bounds. Tools like advanced weather stations, the boom in aviation, and especially earth-watching satellites have totally changed how we understand what’s happening in the sky. Since the early 2000s, countries like...
Hugging Face could be acquired for $13 billion amid AI boom
Hugging Face, an AI developer platform, has been exploring a potential $13 billion sale, highlighting its key role in the AI ecosystem.
Fancy new business class suites cause headache for aviation industry
Airlines are competing for the fanciest business class following the boom in premium travel, but new suites require rigorous certification testing.
Boom Ball entertainment baseball comes to Equity Bank Park
A baseball experience called Boom Ball is taking place at Equity Bank Park this weekend.
Healthcare startup Devoted Health could be valued at $25 billion
Devoted Health, co-founded by Ed and Todd Park, is raising a round that might value it at $25B, spotlighting the booming Medicare Advantage sector.
Healthcare startup Devoted Health could be valued at $25 billion
Devoted Health, co-founded by Ed and Todd Park, is raising a round that might value it at $25B, spotlighting the booming Medicare Advantage sector.
Texas' business court boom: New venue outpaces expectations
Two years in, Texas Business Courts have met or exceeded many expectations and judges have moved their growing dockets quickly and efficiently. Yet some see specific areas in need of improvement.
Why have private equity firms taken an interest in buying professional sports teams?
The booming business of sports has attracted a flood of private equity investment and even the most notable franchises require the influx of cash to keep up in the arms race.
Why do private equity firms take interest in buying pro sports teams?
The booming business of sports has attracted a flood of private equity investment and even the most notable franchises require the influx of cash to keep up in the arms race.
Tricolor Fallout Fuels Boom in Business for Collateral Checkers
The fallout from last year’s collapse of subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings has spurred a boom for businesses that verify whether collateral exists and try to make sure it’s not double pledged.
College sports advocates press philanthropy to buffer NIL's commercial pressure on women's sports
NEW YORK (AP) — While interest in women's sports is booming and Olympic sports organizers lock in preparations for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, advocates worry that the college athletic programs that feed both those systems may be strained further by increased demands from bigger sports.
TikTok’s International Revenues Boom To $9.1 Billion Despite Looming Europe Fines
TikTok made $9.1 billion and its first profit in Europe and Latin America but faces a wave of lawsuits and investigations from European regulators.
This fertility benefit business is set to boom. Buy its stock now, Wells Fargo says
Progyny is set to benefit from several structural tailwinds, including catalysts that should help it court more clients, according to Wells Fargo.
Radial Acquires Mindful Health Solutions, Eyes Pending Boom in ‘Brain Medicine’
New York City-based startup Radial acquired the much larger and older outpatient mental health operator Mindful Health Solutions. The
Rolex's Certified Pre-Owned Business Is Booming
Rolex's certified pre-owned business notched a 101 percent growth in sales for the first half of 2026, says EveryWatch's Secondary Market Report.
Is PENN Entertainment (PENN) A Bargain Following Its $195 Million New Orleans Casino Move?
PENN Entertainment (PENN) has announced plans to invest about US$195 million to shift its Boomtown Casino & Hotel New Orleans operations to a new landside site and rebrand the venue as Hollywood Casino New Orleans. See our latest analysis for PENN Entertainment. The New Orleans project comes after a busy period for PENN Entertainment, with the stock showing an 11.14% 90 day share price return and a 24.98% year to date share price return, although the 1 year total shareholder return is...
‘Kaboomistry’ and More! Michigan Science Center brings hands-on science directly to kids
PENN Entertainment announces plans for Boomtown Casino New Orleans property
The Berks firm plans to relocate and rebrand the casino operations.
Charlotte business group’s new growth push looks to leverage ties to the Pearl
Charlotte wants a slice of the action that has been booming in other areas.
How the Wisconsin governor’s race became a data center hate-off
Both candidates are trying to surf the anti-tech wave — without fully betraying the AI boom’s beneficiaries.
KKR to buy stake in India's BookMyShow amid live entertainment boom
Global investment firm KKR will buy a minority stake in Indian ticketing and entertainment platform BookMyShow, the companies said on Wednesday, betting on a surge in demand for concerts and live events in the world's most populous nation.
Waveland experiencing major business boom, waterfront pier reconstruction progress
Waveland is seeing signs of growth, from a new dual-brand hotel to new businesses moving into a familiar spot along Highway 90. And after years of waiting, a damaged city landmark is closer than ever to welcoming the public back.
Brown: There’s a Gen X-sized hole in our economy, politics and culture
"We followed a Baby Boom generation that was much larger, and therefore intractable from leadership roles. We even had the most lead exposure of any recent generation, which can’t be good," columnist Aaron Brown writes.
Penn Entertainment Plans $195M Land-Based Casino for New Orleans
Penn Entertainment wants to replace its Boomtown riverboat with a $195M land-based casino in New Orleans, pending state approval.
PENN Entertainment invests $195 million in New Orleans casino relocation
PENN Entertainment announced plans Monday to invest approximately $195 million to relocate its Boomtown Casino and Hotel New Orleans riverboat operations to a n
Michigan’s health care boom is reshaping its economy — and its skyline
For seven decades, the massive, neoclassical General Motors Building served as the headquarters of what at one time was the world’s largest industrial corporation.
Business Monday: Hilo baker nears goal of making 12,000 macarons for Made in Hawaiʻi Festival
For her third showing at the Made in Hawaiʻi Festival, Nikki Kawahine and her team at Cupcakes, BOOM! are on the brink of baking 12,000 handcrafted macarons for the event.
CUNY’s Computer Science Growing Pains
After a decade-long enrollment boom, CUNY faces faculty shortages and pressure to prepare students in the field for an AI-driven job market.
Pacers Sports and Entertainment, Indianapolis Colts donate $250,000 to flood relief effort in central Indiana
INDIANPOLIS — The Indianapolis Colts, Indiana Pacers, Noblesville Boom and Indiana Fever are teaming up with the American Red Cross to help support those impacted by historic flooding seen in the H…
Big Manufacturers Find New Demand in Equipping AI Data Centers
Companies such as Caterpillar and Cummins are pivoting to feed a booming market for once-prosaic machinery.
New restaurants, boutiques, gyms, and a whiskey distillery: Bryan-College Station’s business boom breakdown
A wave of new openings this month is highlighting a business boom in Bryan-College Station.
People are injecting fat from dead bodies. It’s called ‘zombie filler’
People are injecting fat from corpses and calling it "zombie filler." Doctors say the GLP-1 boom is driving the trend.
AI boom or bubble? Timing is everything
Artificial intelligence is a game-changing technology that’s already transforming how the world lives and works.
Japan business mood rises as semiconductor boom lifts manufacturers: Reuters poll
Japanese business confidence improved in August as manufacturers benefited from robust semiconductor demand while non-manufacturers were supported by strong domestic consumption, the latest Reuters Tankan survey showed.
NASA X-59 Explainer: Science of Sonic Booms
The most common misconception about sonic booms is that they’re just the sound created at the
Are Madison's vintage shops Gen Z's new small-business boom?
These entrepreneurs in their 20s are selling old-school threads in physical stores, proving that online isn't the only way.
Trump’s foreign licensing business booms to $59.5 million as Gulf developers pay
Nearly two-thirds of Trump’s foreign licensing fees came from two Gulf developers, in the UAE and Qatar, including one pursuing a $20 billion U.S. expansion.
Private Equity Is Stuck With 33,575 Unsold Businesses
Even amid a booming deal-making environment, private equity firms are unable to exit a growing number of investments at values their investors require.
At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science
Hiring for entry-level software developers has slowed, and college enrollment in computer science is declining. However, interest in artificial intelligence is growing among students from non-tech majors. Schools like VCU
As some struggle, business and development thrives in downtown Burbank
Your morning catch-up: Downtown Burbank business is booming, Lineage must remove foul odors from its warehouse and more big stories.
AI is booming on the West Coast. So why is unemployment so high there?
A resume with AI skills and over a decade of tech management experience doesn’t mean there’s a position available for many job hunters on the West Coast.
Full body MOTs - the future of healthcare or a headache for the NHS?
The private body scan industry is booming, but is it doing more harm than good?
All candidates for Ohio governor have this in common
Each of the candidates for Ohio governor now wants to restrict the data center boom, all proposing some form of moratorium unless certain guidelines are met.
China’s Export Boom Rolls On Despite Trade Backlash
China’s factories are finding eager buyers abroad even as weak consumer spending and a prolonged property slump weigh on growth at home.
Entrepreneurship is booming in the U.S. Gen Zers are leading the way.
Young Americans, tired of working for others and boosted by AI, are driving a surge in new businesses.
Data centers shaping Mississippi's politics and workforce
The Mississippi Marketplace: The state's data centers boom is no longer just a business story. It has also crept into politics and education.
Nintendo beats earnings thanks to US tariff refunds it won’t share with gamers
Game sales are also booming.
Six Businesses You Can Start From Home For Under $500
The side hustle and gig economy are booming, with lots of options for entrepreneurs, from dog walking to renting baby cribs.
Lima, Boston, Athens and Dubai. Grad goes global for business training
Global business education prepared this Northeastern University graduate for a career spanning Peru, Greece, and Dubai's booming economy.
Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.
There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. 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Asian shares jump on AI trade revival despite SpaceX, AMD setbacks, as oil prices dip
Technology stocks booming again while Brent crude trades below $80 a barrel amid hopes for a Middle East interim deal
MrBeast Sales Slow, Angel Stock Falls, MUBI and Neon Look for Hits, and Will an NBA Franchise Set a Sales Record?
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) You probably remember egg prices spiking a few years ago. This led to a lot of debate between the pro-market/pro-competition/antitrust/Neo-Brandesian crowd and the center/center-right/center-left/abundance/libertarian crowd over the cause, whether it was the avian flu outbreak or whether industry consolidation led to price fixing, using avian flu as a convenient cover. Basel Musharbash wrote a whole investigation at BIG looking at it. Well, two years later, we have our answer: it was price fixing. The Justice Department found proof, via emails, of price fixing. Indeed, just the threat of an investigation brought prices down two years ago: I bring this up because at least half a dozen of my favorite political writers and pundits, who were skeptical about price fixing at the time, haven’t written any mea culpas on this issue. It’s really dispiriting and makes it much, much harder to trust their work on other issues. If you take a hard stand on an issue, then you get it wrong, you need to explain how and why you got it wrong. Or update your priors. This is how epistemological bubbles are formed! All of which is to say, it’s time for another installment of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. Last issue, I mostly focused on the “wrong” side of the equation, so today’s is a bit more balanced, but with one big mea culpa (though I still stand by my original concerns). Let’s dive right in! Subscribe CORRECTION: UFC Didn’t Release Subscriber Data (But Seems to Have Bragged About It Internally) In my analysis of the viewership of UFC Freedom 250, I wrote... “Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers.” Well, that datecdote did not come from a PR rep, but from great reporting from James Faris at Business Insider. The actual quote was this: “Paramount’s flagship streaming service generated about a million new subscribers on the day of its first-ever UFC event, Paramount product chief Dane Glasgow told employees in a town hall on Tuesday morning, three staffers who attended the meeting told Business Insider.“ This wasn’t the biggest goof in the world; even Faris emphasized to me that this is more a “clarification” than a correction. Still, it sounds like, internally, the folks at Paramount were very happy about this result—and I’m guessing they were happy with this news getting out—even though the gains didn’t last through the quarter, dropping to 700K adds. RIGHT: MrBeast’s Struggles Continue... I’m very skeptical about MrBeast’s burgeoning media “empire” and, in particular, its $5 billion valuation, as I wrote earlier this year and last year. Sure enough, according to Business Insider, regarding its “booming” consumer products division_:_ “US sales volume grew 13% year-over-year in 2025, following a 33% leap the previous year, according to a presentation deck dated May 2026....A February 2025 investor deck viewed by Business Insider showed Feastables’ net revenue more than doubled in 2024 from 2023, to $215 million, and was forecast to grow 74% in 2025, to $375 million.” [Emphasis mine.] If you told investors that you projected 74% growth but delivered 13%,1 that’s not ideal. But it’s not just MrBeast. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime had sales drop in half for their energy drinks. It’s one thing to build a successful entertainment company and an entirely different thing to succeed in the heavily-consolidated-but-also-very-competitive consumer packaged goods space! CPGs are dominated by a few firms with very wide moats compared to YouTube, which has few barriers to entry. These businesses require different skill sets and have completely different business environments. WRONG: Does the NBA Have an $8 Billion Bidder? Almost as soon as I published my article about the NBA’s finances, casting skepticism on NBA expansion, I saw this Front Office Sports headline: One group “claims to have already raised $8 billion” for the Vegas expansion team. I mean, wow. That’s just $2 billion less than what the Los Angeles Lakers were valued at when they were sold just last year. And they’re arguably the most popular team in the NBA. (Side note: the new owner is now under an investigation for fraud in how he went about financing the Lakers and the Dodgers purchases.) So much for the “dried up” language I used in that article. (This is why I usually stick to my “Entertainment Nuance Guy” tone in articles...) I went off old information—from April, when I read/heard about the NBA downplaying expansion efforts—instead of doing a quick double-check for new news. That said...if you read the article, the market for Seattle is “slow”, with just one reported bidder. So I wasn’t entirely off. This goof has annoyed me since I first published it, mainly because it undercut that article’s real point, which I stand by: NBA franchises are really overvalued right now. Now, I get why NBA teams are overvalued. When it comes to owning sports teams, it’s basically never wrong to assume that some rich person somewhere will care more about owning a team (or just being part of a group since they’re so expensive) than the actual financials. There are only so many teams to own, and opportunities to buy in preferred markets don’t come along very often. This explains why the teams sell for such high multiples (usually above a 10 to 12.5 revenue multiple, which is very high). You only need one person to overpay! Beyond the ultra-wealthy luxury good explanation, I worry NBA teams are becoming speculative assets. More and more private equity investors are buying into NBA teams. But the value, in owning a team, comes from selling it later, not any meaningful relationship to revenue or profit growth. In other words, the newer NBA owners are increasingly expecting someone later to buy their inflated asset. That’s not sound economics; that’s the “greater fool” theory at work.2 At some point, actually making money has to matter. Especially since revenue growth is now below the growth of the stock market. (And this matters because the NBA doesn’t have easy levers to pull to drastically lower their costs—half of their revenue has to go to players and then you actually have to run a team, including coaching, training, travel, media expenses, and more—or raise revenues aside from one-off expansions in America and overseas.) I just don’t see how investors make their money back buying NBA teams, except for selling at a higher price later on down the line. But if revenue/profit growth continues to slow, at some point, someone will be left holding the bag. RIGHT: Baseball and Basketball are about equally popular. Related to the above, I wanted to cite two quick pieces of evidence for one of my other theories: that the NBA and MLB are about as popular as each other, but the NBA gets much, much better media coverage. One YouGov survey has that fans prefer basketball to baseball by 52% to 48%, which I’m guessing is within the margin of error for that poll. That’s virtually even, meaning they’re about the same popularity. Over on NBC, a recent Red Sox-Yankees game averaged 4 million viewers, higher than Sunday Night Basketball’s average of 3.4 million on the same network. A Yankees-Dodgers game averaged 3.9 million two weeks ago. Not every game averages this much, but it shows you that baseball isn’t far off from basketball, depending on the matchup. Altogether, the NBA is just slightly more popular than baseball, but NBC is paying MLB a fraction of what they pay the NBA, a point I’ve made before. RIGHT: Angel, MUBI and Neon Updates... I’ve long been skeptical about many of Hollywood’s buzziest startups/smaller indie studios. It’s not that they don’t make great movies—films like Anora and Everything Everywhere All at Once are amazing—or that they’re not (rightfully) pushing the majors to make better films, but...they get a ton of hype, and that hype often doesn’t live up to the reality or difficulty in scaling up. Starting with MUBI, well, The Wall Street Journal wrote a feature on MUBI’s struggles last April, best summarized by the subheader “After Sequoia valued Mubi at $1 billion, a left-wing revolt sent the indie film company into a tailspin”. MUBI lost $7.3 million on $200 million in revenue in Q4 2025, but reportedly hit a record 1.7 million subscribers at the end of Q1. As for Neon, Department M purchased a “significant stake” in the company earlier this year. How much is that “stake” worth? According to Deadline, “No financial figures for the Neon-Department M deal were disclosed.” So...that’s not great! If it was a big valuation, we’d hear about. Also, I found this curious: “Both Neon and Department M already have separate partnerships with Qatar. The Qatar Film Committee has a slate deal in place with the former, and a biopic production pact with the latter.” Color me skeptical about much Middle Eastern investment dollars. See: LIV Golf. Finally, as for Angel (formerly Angel Studios), their stock very, very slightly popped last month after Young Washington ($20 million budget) which made $45 million in the US, but their stock is still way down from its opening. Smaller Updates RIGHT: The WGA should focus on antitrust concerns! I’ve been on this for years. Post-WGA/AMTPT deal in 2023, I wrote an article for the Ankler calling on the WGA to focus and organize against industry consolidation. Sure enough, the WGA filed a lawsuit against the Paramount-WBD merger, and people are organizing around this issue now. I wish this energy had coalesced earlier (specifically to lobby Washington much earlier), but better late than never! WRONG: Actually, the chip shortage might be due to market manipulation. In my last “Long Reads for the Long Summer” article, I shared an article about how LLMs are causing memory chip prices to spike, which will make all electronics more expensive. Well, turns out, three RAM manufacturers control 90% of the market, and now a private lawsuit accuses them of price-fixing. So yeah. WRONG/UPDATE: The Odyssey will hold! Two weeks ago, I wrote, “As of this moment, we haven’t had a super-blockbuster, though The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday could all cross the $500 million mark. (At this point, The Odyssey would need a very strong hold to get there.)” Well, it’s safe to say it’s going to have that hold! It only dropped 30% in weekend two and IMAX screenings are sold out all month. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also off to a great start. RIGHT: People are rushing to get shows out yearly. I’ve long been bullish on yearly, weekly-released shows, and Leslie Goldberg at The Ankler wrote about how many people in town are now listening. WRONG: Mark Carney reverses Canada’s stance on homegrown production. After writing about Canada installing domestic production quotas, Canada has backed off. WRONG: I don’t trust Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s online “views”. When I originally wrote about the latest Spider-Man film’s record-breaking trailer, I thought this was just YouTube views, but after watching this Corridor Crew video and doing more research, well, it’s all social views of the trailer globally. Really? That stat includes TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts views. Basically, I don’t trust it anymore. (This film will probably set record, but I trust the pre-sales data more.) RIGHT: Celebrity Production companies are still struggling. I’ve written about this for years, but the company that I didn’t track was Kevin Hart’s HartBeat, which was valued at $650 million but is struggling now and might just end soon, especially after Kevin Hart pulled his endorsement deals. And Bad Robot is moving to NYC. CORRECTION: SpongeBob is a “second run” title. In my 2025 recap article, I had _SpongeBob SquarePants_labelled as a “library” title, when it is still a “second run” show, with new episodes still coming out on Nickelodeon. CORRECTION: In my last “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong” update, I offered a correction from Doug Creutz and misspelled TD Cowen. Thanks, Grammarly! 1 Though he could have increased prices to make up for the gap, he couldn’t have increased them that much. 2 There’s a theory, which I think that Daryl Morey created and Bill Simmons popularized, that, to be successful building your team, you only need a handful of bad GMs in the league to take advantage of. To be clear, Daryl Morey’s theory was also for signing bad contracts, that you could always get out of bad contracts. Basically, there’s always someone who will make a bad trade. It’s not the same exact thing, but similar enough to the Greater Fool Theory that I really like it.
At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science
As enrollment in traditional computer science programs declines, universities across the United States are rapidly expanding artificial intelligence education to include students from diverse majors like music and psychology.
The longevity gold rush: Inside Utah's booming business of living better, longer
The business of living longer is booming in Utah. Here's what's driving it.
The longevity gold rush: Inside Utah's booming business of living better, longer
The business of living longer is booming in Utah. Here's what's driving it.
AI data center boom drives $3.2 billion Chicago-area deal
Atkore, an electrical-products manufacturer based in Harvey, has decided to sell the company for $3.2 billion to Prysmian, a top maker of cables used in data centers.
At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science
WCHS ABC 8 provides local news, weather forecasts, traffic updates, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Charleston and nearby towns and communities in the Tri-State area, including Huntington, Dunbar, Marmet, Montgomery, Nitro, South Charleston, St. Albans, Cedar Grove, Chesapeake, Clendenin, East Bank, Glasgow, Pratt, Cross Lanes, Elkview, Pinch, Sissonville, Big Chimney, Cabin Creek, Chelyan, Davis Creek, Institute, Jefferson, Loudendale, Mink Shoals, Pocatalico, Quick, Quincy, Rand, Buffalo, Eleanor, Hurricane, Nitro, Poca, Winfield, Culloden, Fraziers Bottom, Hometown, Red House, Scott Depot, Teays Valley, Danville, Madison, Hamlin, Logan, Chapmanville, Man, Delbarton, Kermit, Gilbert, Matewan, Williamson, Summersville, Richwood, Flatwoods, Gassaway, Sutton, Spencer, Ravenswood, Ripley, Mason, Point Pleasant, Ashland, Pikeville, Ironton, Portsmouth, Gallipolis, and Athens.
Chair File: Better Healthcare and Better Health for Older Adults
Since 2017, the AHA has partnered with The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement on the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative.
At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science
Colleges are expanding AI education beyond computer science as students across majors seek skills to stay competitive in an AI-driven job market.
Palantir stock jumps as US commercial business booms
Palantir stock jumped after the company smashed earnings estimates.
At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science
With no background in coding, Faith Maeba, a psychology major, was reluctant when her mother first suggested she enroll in classes on artificial intelligence. But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth…
At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science
Hiring for entry-level software developers has slowed, and college enrollment in computer science is declining.
Daiwa Profit Beats Estimates as Equities Business Surges
Daiwa Securities Group Inc.’s quarterly profit rose more than analysts expected to the highest in 13 years, as Japan’s second-largest brokerage benefited from the global stock trading boom.
I'm a baby boomer who has kept up with technology for my career
Throughout my career, I've embraced all technological advancements. As a 76-year-old baby boomer, I'm still exploring new opportunities.
Eating less protein could slow aging, major review finds
A sweeping review of more than 350 studies suggests that the protein boom may be overselling what many people actually need. Eating less protein appears to improve metabolism, reduce inflammation and cellular damage, and activate pathways linked to healthier aging and longer life.
Eating less protein could slow aging, major review finds
A sweeping review of more than 350 studies suggests that the protein boom may be overselling what many people actually need. Eating less protein appears to improve metabolism, reduce inflammation and cellular damage, and activate pathways linked to healthier aging and longer life.