🇺🇸 Discussion: The Second Gilded Age

[MagnarTheGreat]

Mark Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey end their beef and partner to build extended reality tech for the US military

The Meta-Anduril alliance will build next-gen military wearables, reflecting Big Tech's growing role in defense tech.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Herofan]

It seems to go up consistently regardless of who's in charge, only very slightly more steeply when it is Republicans.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Meta created its own super PAC to politically kneecap its AI rivals

Mark Zuckerberg, via Meta, can now essentially spend unlimited money in California elections.

www.theverge.com

 

[blueharvest]

 

[blueharvest]

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Financial Times - America is now one big bet on AI

AI companies have accounted for 80 per cent of the gains in US stocks so far in 2025. That is helping to fund and drive US growth, as the AI-driven stock market draws in money from all over the world, and feeds a boom in consumer spending by the rich.

Since the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population own 85 per cent of US stocks, they enjoy the largest wealth effect when they go up. Little wonder then that the latest data shows America's consumer economy rests largely on spending by the wealthy. The top 10 per cent of earners account for half of consumer spending, the highest share on record since the data begins.

In a way, then, America has become one big bet on AI. Outside of the AI plays, even European stock markets have been outperforming the US this decade, and now that gap is starting to spread. So far in 2025, every major sector from utilities and industrials to healthcare and banks has fared better in the rest of the world than in the US.

What that suggests is that AI better deliver for the US, or its economy and markets will lose the one leg they are now standing on.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck soars

Rising expenses and competing financial priorities have left millions of Americans struggling to save up for a secure retirement.

www.newsweek.com

Inflation and a "vortex" of competing financial priorities have reduced Americans' ability to save for retirement and left a growing number barely able to meet their monthly expenses, according to a recent study by Goldman Sachs.

In its 2025 Retirement Survey & Insights Report—entitled New Economics of Retirement—the investment bank said about 40% of Americans now reported having no spare savings and living paycheck to paycheck, up from 31% in 1997. Of this group, about 74% said other, more pressing costs were limiting their ability to save for retirement.

Goldman Sachs projected that the share of those struggling to make ends meet would rise to 55% by 2033 and 65% by 2043.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Pope Leo XIV denounces wealthy elite’s ‘bubble of comfort,’ reaffirms Church’s mission to the poor

Pope Leo XIV, in his first teaching document, condemns elite wealth luxury and reaffirms the Church’s duty to prioritize the poor.

www.scrippsnews.com

 

[blueharvest]

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

He's the World's Biggest YouTube Star. Is His Next Move to Start a Bank?

The most subscribed YouTuber of all time might be moving into the world of finance, according to a legal application he filed this week.

www.rollingstone.com

According to Business Insider, Donaldson’s company Beast Industries pitched investors the idea of credit cards, loans, and cryptocurrency alongside a creator-focused platform to help others achieve his YouTube success.