The U.S. military over the last six weeks has intensified its bombing campaign in Yemen—striking over 800 targets and forcing the group’s leadership to take cover in underground tunnels—but Washington has been sparse on its goals and runs the risk of engaging in a drawn-out conflict with no endgame.
ECONOMIC UPDATE—MARKET OVERVIEW
Once again, another day of Donald Trump in the White House, and another day of him playing The Trump Card. And with each play of the Trump Card, it is another day of the world wondering what will be the next Wild Card that will be dealt.
AT BEST, WE HAVE 32 YEARS LEFT—HERE IS THE PROOF
Even under current conditions, the dollar is mathematically on track to hit zero within 32 years (by ~2057)… And that’s assuming the devaluation rate stays at 9.5 percent per year. But it won’t.
SPECIAL REPORT: TRUMP’S TARIFFS, THE UPS AND DOWNS, FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE
The U.S. has temporarily reduced its tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30 percent and China has slashed its import fees on U.S. goods from 125 percent to 10 percent.
AS FORECAST: GENERATION AI BEING RAVAGED BY AI DEPENDENCE
Reliance on AI is destroying the abilities of college students to conduct research, write papers and otherwise perform high level intellectual work.
FORMER ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS ISRAEL COMMITTING WAR CRIMES
Moshe Ya’alon, the former Israeli defense minister who accused the IDF of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, said last week that the plans in motion to expel the 2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza is a “war crime.”
AS FORECAST: POPULIST PARTIES SURGE
Countries across Europe have seen a seismic shift in support from establishment conservative parties to an upstart populist movement that is focused on fixing economic and societal issues at home while tapping into a festering anger toward the establishment.
Global Economy
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
3G Capital, a low-key private equity firm best known for helping Warren Buffet merge food giants Kraft and Heinz, is taking shoe company Skechers private for $9.4 billion in cash.
SPOTLIGHT: DEATH OF THE DOLLAR
Asset managers are converting more of their dollar-based assets into investments in Europe, the Financial Times reported.
CHINA TECH GIANT IS BUILDING END-TO-END SUPPLY CHAIN FOR ADVANCED CHIPS
Huawei, China’s leading maker of computer chips, and two of its affiliated companies are nearing completion of three factories in Huawei’s home city of Shenzhen that will further break the country’s dependence on foreign technologies, the Financial Times was first to report.
The Israel War
GAZA DEATH TOLL
The death toll in Gaza reached 52,862 and 119,648 people have been wounded. There are at least 11,000 people missing.
YEMEN DEATH TOLL
The U.S. and Houthis announced a truce last week that did not involve Israel after a weekslong air campaign by Washington to “annihilate” the Houthis who have enforced a blockade in the Red Sea over Israel’s brutal genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
FORMER ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS ISRAEL COMMITTING WAR CRIMES
Moshe Ya’alon, the former Israeli defense minister who accused the IDF of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, said last week that the plans in motion to expel the 2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza is a “war crime.”
Trends in AI
AI CAN MAKE IRRATIONAL DECISIONS JUST LIKE PEOPLE DO, STUDY FINDS
OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 large language models, recent AIs that run on the company’s Chat-GPT platform, are “impressively consistent” in their ability to reason, according to a study by researchers in Australia and Canada.
U.S. AIR FORCE RECRUITS AI TO POWER MINI-DRONES
The U.S. space program in the last half of the 20th century gave us advances ranging from artificial limbs to Tang orange drink mix.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SCRAPS BAN ON EXPORTING AI CHIPS
The Trump administration has abolished a rule, slated to take effect 15 May, that banned exporting AI chips.
Hi-Tech Science
ANOTHER CHINESE BREAKTHROUGH IN EV BATTERIES
CATL, the Chinese company that makes a third of the world’s batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), has announced a collection of breakthroughs that could resolve most of the concerns that keep potential car buyers from switching to electric mobility.
SIMPLE FUEL SWITCH SUPERCHARGES STEM CELLS
Embryos initially are made up of stem cells that can become any kind of specialized cells, from hair to heart, depending on biochemical signals and instructions from DNA.
SCIENTISTS TAME ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE IN MICE
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute say they’ve found a way to break up clots of amyloid peptides in the brain that are a signature of Alzheimer’s Disease.
