2024 Week 12
Notes, thoughts and observations - Compiled weekly
I’m not sure why I note this every week, but the projected Fed rate cuts aren’t coming. By the Feds on definition, we have neither seen a decline in employment nor a decline in inflation. The latest PPI numbers support this. Yet somehow Wall Street is betting on rate cuts. At this point I’m just speculating on what type of tantrum the market will throw when reality is accepted.
Environmental concerns continue to top business headlines and new Federal emission regulations have everyone banking on a future sales benefit from more strict emission requirements. But sales data shows that consumers don’t want EVs. EV manufacturer Fisker is halting production and could be on the verge of bankruptcy. Meanwhile climate alarmism is once again pointing to ‘chartbusting’ extremes due to a 1.5-degree Celsius temperature increase. Bottom line is that climate alarmism didn’t work, and future efforts need to focus on mitigation strategies.
The world of semiconductors and machine learning continues to move at a brisk pace. Further investment in domestic semiconductors by the US will probably fuel an expansion and speculation similar to the solar industry under a similar Obama program. The trend around AI mergers and acquisitions continues with Apple acquiring DarwinAI and Microsoft scooping up Inflection AI. The overall trend is that Big Tech will be the big winners of AI.
TOPICS
- Inflation
- Labor Market
- Environment
- Climate Change
- Domestic Semiconductor
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Cybersecurity
- AI and ML
- EV Battery Technology
Automotive - It's Electric
Once-dominant Big Three are now facing fierce competition
A stark reminder of where the “big three” auto makers rank by market cap. If the future of automotive is electric, Tesla obviously has an early advantage. Toyota takes a slightly different track with hybrids. Maybe you’ve never heard of BYD, but the Chinese manufacturer has already seen success with exporting vehicles.
Continue Reading…Dot-Com Bubble 2.0 - Tech Worker Impact
A brief summary of Dot-Com Bubble 2.0: How Did We Get Here? by Prithvi Raj Chauhan posted on Hacker Noon
Overview
The bubble repeated, for different underlying speculative reasons but effectively the same boom-bust cycle. What happens next to employment and the broad economy is likely a replay of the early 2000s.
@Prcwrites does a great job covering the technical aspects, I’d like to add some perspective from the employment.
Continue Reading…Media Guide - Daily Drivers
Below is a list of tools and sites I use for my daily media consumption. This list is not exhaustive and represents the top-tier level of information I consume.
Newsletters
Curated SubStack and equivalents. Most are free but I have upgraded to pay for several very valuable authors. Delivered daily, topics range from tech, economy to local (Charlotte, NC) news
Hey is a great email tool from 37Signals that makes sorting, categorizing, tracking email a breeze. All the newsletters go to “the feed” which is an auto-expiring list of emails that reads more like an endless scrolling timeline or blog. Love this product.
RSS / Newsfeed
I use RSS to track various news sources including tech, business, security, national defense and local sources. Most major publications maintain active RSS feed, though sometimes you need to search for them. Inoreader is my new favorite RSS aggregation tool.
I was a long time user of Feedly but more frequently found features behind the paywall. I also experienced several feeds not updating even though the origin site was posting content. Not sure what is going on there, but either way I need to see the latest content everywhere.
Continue Reading…