Charity Has Declined Measurably

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

We tend to overestimate the impact of technology in the short term and underestimate the effect in the long run.
– Amara’s Law

A BIG THINK

Some of you have seen the following from me before. But it’s been a few years. The data has been updated, but the conclusion remains the same.

For 2022, US GDP was $25.46T. Seventy percent of GDP was generated from services and totaled $17.82T, and 30% was generated from goods production and totaled $7.64T.

According to annualized BLS data, there were 131.4MM service industry jobs and 21.2MM goods producing jobs in 2022. This means each service providing job contributes $135 of GDP, while each goods producing job represents $361 of GDP. 

Analysis of BLS data tells us that, in 1990, we had 3.62 service providing jobs for every one goods producing job. But in 2022, we had 6.2 service providing jobs for every one goods producing job.

Over the last 32 years, we’ve obviously added a ton more service providing jobs than goods producing jobs. Yet the economic value of a goods producing job today is 2.66 times that of a service providing job.

So what should our economic policy be?

THE ECONOMIC VIEW

Powell says rates are going higher
Come on now, really?

Who actually pays income taxes?
Nice little graph that tells us

FedEx sales down 10%
Products are in a recession.

THE INFLATION BOGEYMAN

Global inflation is high and sticky
UK inflation stays high
How will this influence US inflation?

Orange juice prices up
Probably going to be higher for longer.

Federal funds interest rate chart
From 1955 to present.

THE LABOR VIEW

Lots of hiring.
But not so much working

Bosses are fed up with remote work.
Mostly for these four reasons

America’s quitting boom
Is officially over

Oil shale worker pay is over $43 an hour
Solar installer pay is closer to $20 an hour
Which jobs create more prosperity?

MEANWHILE IN EUROPE

Europe’s got the fastest-warming climate
Too much jet travel to Brussels?

The new right is on a roll in Europe
Can the Brussels bureaucrats hold out?

Swiss voters pass green law
Isn’t it a white-collar country?
As EU states debate carbon policy

GLOBAL

The world’s most expensive cities
Why would you want to live in any of them?
How about the world’s most livable cities?

Africa’s richest city
Crumbles under chaos and corruption

Hundreds of World Bank climate projects
Have nothing to do with climate

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Russia wants to brainwash children
Ukraine disappearing from school curricula.

Lockheed ready to train Ukrainian pilots
If we give them F-16s.

Russia claims ownership
Of coastal Ukrainian area it occupies
And is ready nationalize Western assets

THE NEW COLD WAR

Russia’s economy growing faster than expected
New friends replace old friends.
While EU tries to tighten sanctions

China’s influence deepens in Saudi Arabia
They understand each other’s needs.

Germany resumes Iranian oil imports
US policy be damned!

FINANCE

Hedging interest rates was too expensive
Now PE investors are in a tight spot.

Shadow banks’ debt is huge
Could this become a problem?

Japan is THE new hot market.
We know ‘cause Buffett is all in

Four-week-old AI startup nabs $113MM
VCs are flooding into AI investing
Is FOMO creating a feeding frenzy?

REAL ESTATE

Housing starts surge
What if mortgage rates go up?
Home prices up 44% from pre pandemic

Homeless rates are rising
Real estate is too expensive.

50% of multinational companies
Are ready to cut office space needs
Silicon Valley needs less, too
Empty office buildings, a debt time bomb

TECHNOLOGY

Intel to invest $25B in Israel
And another $33B in Germany
Yet more friendshoring.
Thank goodness for billions in subsidies

5.18 billion people use the internet
Up 147MM from just a month ago.
English is the dominant online language

China tries to steal US chip tech
Says Applied Materials.

THE CHAT ON AI

The six ways we can regulate AI
The easy peasy stuff.

Is industrial automation at a tipping point?
What will this mean for jobs?

What’s AI’s environmental impact?
Tech companies are tight lipped.

THE NEXT NORMAL

Charity has declined measurably
2021 saw a giant drop.

A national police academy
Could be a good idea.

Americans are tipping less often
Tired of that automatic 18% in your face?

THE NEW ENERGY TRANSITION

The new energy land grab
Is for carbon capture rights

We’re going to have to get dirty
Before we can get green.

The gas stove hoax
Lying for the climate crusade.

THE EV DREAM

Are e-bike fires
A harbinger of what’s to come with EV trash?

China is the EV behemoth
But Chinese consumers aren’t so interested.

Ford chairman fesses up.
They can’t compete with Chinese EVs
Time to cut more jobs

THE CHINA SYNDROME

China’s small businesses are struggling
Even with easier credit.

China’s a global economic threat
Says a new report from Germany.

China wants more oil & gas
In search of self-sufficiency.

THE WASHING-TONE

Blinken visits China
And opens the door to more talks
As China paints the US as the global bad guy
Then Biden makes a faux pas

India’s Modi visits the US
Is India ready to be a world leader?

The IRA bill was so “good”
Canadian companies are relocating to the US

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Want to lose weight?
Then eat like a pig

Falling asleep in under two minutes.
Here’s the trick

The noise bottleneck
When more information is harmful.

HOW ABOUT A BREAK

Do you want to live undisturbed?
Ireland will pay you to move there

The highest grossing film directors of all time
You can probably guess #1.

New cave discovery in South Africa
Is changing our perspectives on human nature.

IT’S VACATION TIME

Jack Johnson’s Oahu
Get the local perspective.

The world’s most expensive Airbnbs
Got $88K to burn for a one-night stay?

12 best things to do
At national parks after dark.

SONG OF THE WEEK

“Texas Sun”
Funky Houston band, Khruangbin, with Leon Bridges.
Lyrics are poetry, ya know.
Want more?
Khruangbin does Tiny Desk

CASTING AROUND THE PODS

Banks, AI and the next big bet
Housing bust winner Steve Eisman opines.

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

The Bear season 2 trailer.
Good food, good music, good acting.

The cellist and the sewer tunnel
Better than an opera house?

Greetings from Green Bank
A WV town where electronics are banned.

FROM THE HEADHUNTER’S KITCHEN

Strawberry summer cake
Yummy yum yum.

The salad of summer
Dare you to try it.

The history of soup
From cave to can.

THE RANDOMS

Ford is getting a $9.2B government loan to build three EV battery factories. If not enough people buy EVs, do you think the government will mandate that we do? 

Globalization has been the driving economic force in recent decades. Looks like building self-sustaining national economies may be the driving economic force for the next few decades.

In 12 years, climate change will put 25% of humanity at risk. Yep, that’s a recent news headline. You think it’s going to happen?

How long will it take for us to get comfortable with and not care that a voice we are hearing is AI or an image we are seeing is AI generated? How will this change us? 

An AI-programmed teddy bear may soon tell your children bedtime stories. No need for moms and dads anymore.

Most Americans in their mid 30s and younger don’t know what a recession is. Almost all Americans have no idea what a depression is. Let’s hope for a soft landing.

Don’t look now, but it appears the federal government will be on the hook for 1.3T of underfunded pensions. You think that number is going to get smaller or bigger?

Charlatans must have great communication skills to pull the wool over people’s eyes. But aren’t today’s politicians also supposed to have great communication skills?

Who is going to pay to rebuild Ukraine?

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Top 13 AI Innovators
June 16, 2023

Why AI Will Save the World
June 9, 2023