u/truthandfreedom3

Financial Times: Peña Merino said his team had looked at two of the world’s most successful examples, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Pix. In both, cash use fell precipitously and was replaced with free account-to-account payments, cutting out card fees.

Sheinbaum’s plan has several components including simplifying and promoting Codi, and encouraging informal businesses to open a new kind of online bank account that is not linked to a tax ID. She has pushed and will mandate digital payments at petrol stations and toll road booths.

My Opinion: Mexico, despite being closer culturally and geographically to USA, is learning from the Indian UPI payment systems. Which is ahead of anything the Americans have. Zero cost transactions with access for anyone with a smartphone. While American payment solutions are more fragmented and expensive, with cards and payment apps.

I hope that the Mexicans implement an inclusive payment solution. With personal privacy, and without government surveillance. At the same time experiment with digital currencies.

Reference: Can Mexicans be weaned off an addiction to cash / Financial Times

The Guardian: Government borrowing costs in several advanced economies hit their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis, or even earlier, on Monday as investors feared the Middle East crisis would keep inflation persistently high.

Concerns over rising prices and government spending pushed up the cost of debt issued by Paris, Berlin, Washington DC, Tokyo and London as investors fretted that rising prices would push up interest rates.

My Opinion: Governments have kept borrowing and spending more, since the pandemic. The US is not implementing counter cyclical fiscal policy. As even though the economy is expected to grow by about 2%, the forecast fiscal deficit is about 7%. I don't think that the rising borrowing costs is going to deter the government from continuing to borrow. Even as they plan to raise defense spending by about 50%. If the president keeps threatening other countries, and keeps going to war, they are going to need the money.

So the government debt is going to keep rising, inflation will remain elevated, and the country will keep making war with foreign nations and immigrants. So the president has failed to keep at least two of his promises: to control inflation, and to avoid foreign entanglements.

Reuters: Members of Pax Silica have access to shared investment opportunities in AI-related projects while those who sign the AI Opportunity Statement have symbolically agreed on a "common purpose" and "shared vision" with the U.S., according to ⁠the statement posted ​on the State Department's website.

U.S. officials drafted the letter to make clear that "you can't have it both ​ways," the U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity given ongoing internal discussions on the issue.

"It's difficult to see how a country can credibly position themselves as trusted partners in one technology ecosystem ​while simultaneously signing up for an initiative designed by China to advance a competing vision for AI," the official said.

My Opinion: USA is making countries choose between them and China, for the AI ecosystem. Currently US ecosystem is stronger with the AI models and chips, but the US doesn't have a supply of critical minerals. While China has cheaper and open source AI models, and is in the process of developing chips.

Kazakhstan is working both with China and USA. If forced to choose, don't know how they would choose. But developing countries in Asia, which are poorer, may be more likely to go with China. While richer countries might be more aligned with USA, especially those who are already part of the American AI ecosystem.

China's competing vision is for open source AI. So I think that it is also a good vision. Many richer countries so far have businesses deploying both American closed AI models, and Chinese open AI models. With public resistance to AI and data centers in USA, China might catch up within a year. With cheap open source AI models. There is room for both. Even as regions like the EU try to build their own AI models, to reduce dependency on US and China.

Reference: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-tell-partners-they-must-pick-sides-ai-race-with-china-2026-08-14/

The Guardian: Lost jobs. Lost wages. Widening inequality. Datacenters using up water and electricity and polluting the climate. Vastly more money polluting our politics. Models escaping their cages and hacking into everything, possibly threatening human life on this planet..

...Well, then, why can’t we stop the whole thing? Why can’t we decide that, to the vast majority of us, the incalculable costs and risks of AI aren’t worth the potential benefits?

My Opinion: America is a free country in ideology, where businesses and individuals are free to accept or reject AI. Policy experts or the government doesn't get to decide on which products or services should be available. Many workers and consumers are rejecting data centers and AI, and it is their personal choice to not accept the costs and benefits. And growth of business adoption of AI may slow down, with higher costs and worker resistance. So, the future is not written in stone.

I think that the tech oligarchs will have to modify their marketing of AI and the narrative. That AI is not the replacement for human workers, but there to augment human work and intelligence. And we are still looking at a shortage in supply of data center compute capacity, so the demand for AI is expected to greater than supply over the next few years. So build data centers with solar or wind farms, and recycling of water.

The genie is out of the bottle. If you block AI, you may cripple the economy.

The Guardian: Trump last year raked in at least $1.4bn from his crypto ventures according to financial disclosure forms he filed in June. Simultaneously, about one million investors in a Trump crypto scheme suffered almost $3.8bn in losses as their volatile crypto holdings tanked in value.

Monetizing his presidency further this summer, Trump’s Truth Social media business is pushing a new scheme that offers wealthy buyers special early access to his posts for a fee of $100,000 a month, which top Democrats and public interest groups say pose serious conflict of interest and corruption issues.

My Opinion: The president is laughing all the way to the bank. As he makes money, and leaves his customers with the bill. The only ones making money from his crypto ventures, are the insiders, like the president and his family and friends. He is monetizing the office of the president, by offering early insider access to his policy and decision making, to those rich willing to pay.

Financial Times: The national debt — and the cost of borrowing — have roughly doubled over the past decade, fuelled by vast spending during the coronavirus pandemic. The government now spends more on servicing its debt than it does on national defence.

My Opinion: The auction of 30 year bonds had yields as high as 5.22%, the highest since 2001. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you should buy them. As inflation remains elevated, the Fed may raise interest rates. But it also depends on the long term outlook for inflation. With high inflation and high interest rates expected in the future, bond yields could go up, and bond prices come down.

Don't feed the beast. If you keep lending to the government, the debt and size of the government will only keep growing. Only lend to them if they are investing for the long term, like in education, climate, research, and infrastructure. But we don't want to fund massive growth in defence spending.

Reference: US sells 30 year bonds at highest borrowing costs since 2001 / Financial Times

Financial Times: While other asset classes generated positive flows, T Rowe’s equity net outflows totalled $13.5bn in the second quarter alone. Just 33 per cent of T Rowe’s equity assets under management had outperformed the Morningstar median over the past 12 months, down from 48 per cent over three years.

My Opinion: Active fund managers market share continues to deteriorate. As they lag behind index funds in performance. And investors redeem active mutual funds, to invest in passive ETFs.

In USA passive and active funds have similar market share. While passive ETFs are about 30% of the market. Though in developing markets like India, active funds have a larger market share, and can outperform passive funds.

Reuters: U.S. military operations in 2025 killed 153 civilians and wounded 243, a U.S. official said on ​Tuesday, citing Pentagon assessments.

This compares with a Pentagon assessment that ‌two civilians were killed and two were injured by U.S. military operations in 2024.

My Opinion: US becoming more aggressive in enforcing its power and rules over other countries. Under the current administration, they have increased killing of civilians by two orders of magnitude, to hundreds. It continues to kill to enforce its rules. Like by striking ships that violate American rules. These are civilian vessels, not military. They even killed many Indian civilians. This in breach of international law.

Unfortunately countries and people are afraid of USA, and the Americans are getting away with murder. Somebody has to stand up and say that is enough. And punish those responsible.

Reference: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-operations-killed-153-civilians-2025-official-says-citing-pentagon-2026-08-12/

The Guardian: “This is because a model outage at one major provider could potentially spread quickly across customers and sectors. As AI adoption deepens, regulators may increase their focus on operational resilience and third-party concentration in the AI model stack.”

The AI race also risked creating “vendor dependence risk”, Moody’s said, meaning that “a set of dominant AI model and infrastructure providers could, over time, exert control over the price of AI services”. That issue is likely to emerge as the bosses of loss-making generative AI companies, including the ChatGPT creator OpenAI and the Claude owner Anthropic, come under pressure to deliver profits for investors.

“While this could pose credit risks to financial firms, they would nevertheless retain control over key assets, including proprietary data,” Moody’s said. Many big banks and insurers also have longstanding experience negotiating down tech contracts, and may be using open-source AI models, and striking key partnerships, to try to offset “dependency

My Opinion: While this article is interesting, it doesn't focus on the benefits of AI to customers of financial institutions. Like real time fraud detection, which protects customers from financial losses. AI credit scoring, which provides fast credit approval, and can give better credit terms especially to those with no credit records. Better customer service 24/7 through AI agents.

From the perspective of financial institutions, they should not just use services from the biggest tech companies and AI startups from USA. They should also host Chinese AI models, to develop banking solutions. And those European financial institutions, should provide long term contracts to EU AI and cloud companies, to provide them funding to grow and compete with USA and Chinese tech firms.

Financial Times: The boom in refinery margins prompted an angry response from Trump, who said this week that Chevron and Exxon had made “too much money” and should “give some of that back to the public”.

Rising petrol and diesel prices are piling political pressure on the president ahead of November’s midterm elections as voters grow increasingly frustrated with high energy costs.

My Opinion: With soaring petrol and diesel prices, consumers are spending more. The effect is regressive, as the poor spend a higher percentage of their income on fuel. Can the pro business pro rich impose a windfall tax, or force fossil fuel companies to reduce their prices? That would be against conservative free market policy. The president is also making too much money by taking advantage of his office, perhaps he should lead the way, and give some of that back to the public.

Reference: Refining crunch keeps fuel prices high as crude retreats / Financial Times

The American economy is built on exploiting people. Like in the 19th century, slaves and immigrants. Even after legal slavery ended, USA continued exploiting immigrants. Including legal and illegal immigrants. Now with the reduction of legal and illegal immigrants, the rich will have to exploit the domestic deplorables. Or face a slowdown in the growth of their wealth. So even as immigration collapses, so will the lower class. As they are exploited by the rich, and they barely earn enough to stay alive.

Financial Times: A group of US states has accused the Trump administration of mounting a “sham” investigation into the country’s trading partners in the latest lawsuit against the president’s most recent round of tariffs.

More than 20 Democratic attorneys-general have challenged Donald Trump’s recent tariffs over alleged forced labour violations, arguing that the administration used the probe “as a pretext to continue its illegal tariff scheme”...

... California’s attorney-general Rob Bonta said these duties were “President Trump’s third attempt to illegally impose tariffs that would make life more expensive for American families and small businesses”.

My Opinion: These tariffs are an illegal tax on Americans. Whatever new tariifs the government imposes, in the end the judiciary finds them illegal. But it takes time and money. The law moves too slowly and uses too many resources. As a consumer, I know tariffs are bad for consumers. Because it increases prices and reduces choice.

Reference: Financial Times

Slowly the authorities are reducing and taking away our rights. It is like boiling a frog. If you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. But if you put a frog in lukewarm water, and slowly raise the temperature to boiling, it will get boiled alive. I don't know if this is true or myth. But it reveals two things. People will allow things to slowly deteriorate, without taking defensive action. And humans are cruel enough to experiment on frogs by boiling them.

You only have those rights that you defend. If you do nothing, while they take away your privacy and freedom, they will continue to take them away, until we are living in a totalitarian surveillance state. So exercise your freedom, your freedom to express your opinion, your freedom to protest. As many of you as possible, they can't put all of you in prison.

Financial Times: Developing countries also need to think about how they can bargain more strategically. If rich countries want access to critical minerals, strategic ports or consumer markets, poorer countries should use that leverage to seek more than just tariff preferences. They should negotiate for investment in manufacturing capacity, connectivity infrastructure, technology partnerships, joint ventures and technical assistance.

My Opinion: Developed countries like USA don't hold all the cards, in trade negotiations and economic relationships. Developing countries can follow China's example, and deny access to resources or markets, when faced with trade barriers. They should work together to defend their economies. Form groups, or leverage existing formal or informal groups, to negotiate better economic terms for themselves.

Reference: The pathway to prosperity is getting harder for developing countries / Financial Times

The Guardian: Last week, federal officials appeared to concede that the decision had been purely informed by politics. “With one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators (“Blue State” grants),” the court filing says.

Meanwhile, the energy department left in place hundreds of other energy grants in state represented by Republicans and that had voted for Trump in 2024 – despite the department having also recommended that they too be scrapped.

My Opinion: The current administration is not only against clean energy, but even more against Democrats. As the administration has cancelled clean energy grants for democrat states, while leaving in place grants for Republican states. The president is therefore not the leader of USA. Only the leader of his supporters, which are a declining minority.

Financial Times: “The Trump administration may have undermined this progress and, by extension, paved the groundwork for the surge in consumer electronics pricing we are experiencing,” Khanna wrote. “Recent reporting suggests the commerce department may have interfered in existing Chips and Science Act funding promised to Samsung and SK Hynix.”

Khanna also asked the Trump administration to clarify whether it would let US companies procure memory chips from Chinese chipmakers, including the blacklisted supplier CXMT, and how it would mitigate any economic and security risks.

My Opinion: Decisions by the current administration are helping raise the price of semiconductors and consumer electronics, now and in the future. Like decisions to block subsidies already granted to Korean memory chipmakers. And decisions to disallow companies like Apple from procuring chips from Chinese chipmakers. Already we are going to have rising energy and transportation prices, because of restrictions on renewable energy and Chinese clean tech, and restrictions on Chinese EVs.

While businesses profit from less competition, customers are left holding increasing bills.

Financial Times: “The typical attitude of tech executives has been to say that AI allows us to gain efficiency rather than admit that they overhired,” said Enrico Moretti, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley. “It’s an easy way out.”...

... Despite the rise in tech lay-offs, AI-focused start-ups such as Anthropic and OpenAI are rapidly adding to their workforces, helping soften the impact of cuts across the wider tech industry.

“Employment in AI is growing at a rapid pace,” said UC Berkeley’s Moretti. “What tech companies are trimming is everything else.”

My Opinion: If you want job security, become an expert in AI. You will also get higher pay. Unless you are convinced that there is an AI bubble, and there is going to be a crash. Tech companies have been cutting jobs. Some people blame AI. Others blame tech companies over hiring with the pandemic. It is probably a combination of these factors.

Financial Times: Countries including Italy, the UK and Canada are expected to spend about 8 per cent of government revenues this year on debt interest, and the US almost 12 per cent, according to a Fitch Ratings report this week. It warned that the war would “have an adverse impact on [developed markets’] public finances this year through weaker GDP growth, higher interest costs and, in some cases, moderate energy subsidies”...

... Bets on higher rates have also been encouraged by stronger US economic data and a hawkish shift at the Fed. New Fed chair Kevin Warsh, at his first policy meeting last month, indicated he was prepared to raise interest rates if necessary and signalled his independence from US President Donald Trump, who has long pressured the central bank to cut interest rates.

My Opinion: As inflation remains elevated with risk of further increase, due to the Iran war, American citizens can not only look forward to rising fuel and food prices, but also higher borrowing costs. The president's plans for a dovish Fed, will fail, as they will have no choice but to raise interest rates. And he will also hand the Democrats the midterm elections. But it all under the presidents controls. He would rather make war, than control inflation. It is on the American people - they knew that he was a criminal, when they elected him.

Don't answer. There are no good choices, or right answers. I am not free. Free to talk to anyone, and say what's on my mind. Or maybe some people are free. But those people who's words have influence, are under surveillance, prevented from learning the truth, and prevented from communicating. So maybe some people can live free. But people like me can't.

Therefore I propose information war. Where we learn the truth about the ruling elite, and how they are controlling the world. Where we learn the truth about the community leaders, and how they are controlling the local communities. Using human surveillance, digital surveillance, including surveillance devices and hacking into phones and computers. This is ethical. As information is not property, and the more people know, the better decisions they can make.

Financial Times: MofCom talked to AI companies including Alibaba, ByteDance and Zhipu on limiting the transfer of key data for the training of their models overseas, as well as allowing their model weights to be downloaded by foreign users, the people said. China would still let overseas customers access the models and services, however...

... MofCom has also sought views on possible restrictions that would prevent overseas chipmakers including Qualcomm and TSMC from producing advanced semiconductors based on designs developed by Chinese companies such as Huawei, Alibaba and ByteDance, according to the people.

My Opinion: I don't think that the Chinese should follow the American playbook, in restricting access to their latest technology, like AI models and chips. Information should flow as freely as possible. To maximize global economic growth and security. To reduce inequality between nations. China has a chance to become the world leader in AI models and chips - if it has no or minimal export restrictions.