onfocus

Most of the Americans surveyed believe that datacenters are bad for the environment, home energy costs, and the quality of life of people living nearby and the numbers aren’t close. Only four percent of people thought datacenters were good for the environment, six percent good for jobs, and six percent good for people’s quality of life.

Oh, here’s another thing Americans can agree on.

More and more Americans are voicing unhappiness with billionaires’ enormous power. According to the Harris Poll’s annual Americans and Billionaires Survey, conducted last November, 53% of Americans believe billionaires threaten our democracy. What’s more, 71% of Americans, including 64% of Republicans, say there should be a wealth tax on top earners, and 53% (up from 46% in 2024) say there should be limits on wealth accumulation.

Turns out Americans can all agree on something.

As Doctorow observes, these products and apps are often created with good intentions—or, at the least, designed to deliver something of value both to users and to business customers (advertisers, for example). But as the impulse to boost the bottom line becomes irresistible, the companies slowly, and then with alacrity, implement strategies to increase profits. This invariably worsens the users’ experience while benefiting business customers. And then, once all avenues for wresting value from users have been exhausted, the company proceeds to, put frankly, screw their business customers. Eventually, the platform becomes little more than a money-extraction machine—a hellscape for users and a barely profitable but inescapable black hole for business customers. In short: a “giant pile of shit” for everyone involved.

The Aristocrats!

The German lender is looking at options including shorting a basket of AI-related stocks that would help mitigate downside risk by betting against companies in the sector.

That’s probably ok when your backers start mitigating their upcoming losses. I think they teach that’s a healthy economy signal in business school.

Federal Reserve quietly pumped $125 billion into the U.S. banking system over five days, marking its largest short-term liquidity move since the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. On October 31 alone, the Fed injected $29.4 billion through overnight repurchase agreements (repos), allowing banks to trade U.S. Treasuries for cash to ease funding stress.

That's probably fine. This is the only reporting I've seen on this beyond folks chatting on social media. Nothing to worry about I suppose.

“As I devote myself to Scripture, to my family, and to walking in the light of the Lord, I find that this process of renewal continues to unfold, deepening day by day, step by step,” she wrote. “I no longer desire to 'Burn the Man;' I now burn with zeal in the Spirit.”

Cringing at billionaires entering their youth pastor phase. Hopefully they'll get to the love thy neighbor parts.

Now, amid high interest rates and economic uncertainty, job openings have fallen and employers are hiring at their slowest pace in more than a decade.

Economy warning light flashing.

On Saturday, postal services around Europe announced that they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid confusion over new import duties. Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow on Monday.

It's like the US imposed sanctions on itself. Elections have consequences.

A new study from MIT found that 95 percent of enterprise organizations report zero measurable gains from the adoption of AI tools.

Those billions spent on no gains are going to be a problem.

A lot of us know by now that Substack has a Nazi problem. It not only profits from fascist voices, it actively promotes their work and recruits them. And it's funded by Silicon Valley anti-democracy billionaires like Marc Andreesen — the same type of people who are, right now, raiding the US government to basically cut funding for social services and scientific research, and to steal money for themselves.

Every day I see more and more people starting their indie left-leaning journalism venture on Substack. Cut that out! They're taking your money and paying fascists to post. The slight boost you might see in list-building is not worth the trade-off of supporting their ideological project that is at odds with your values.

Four out of 10 Americans have shifted their spending over the last few months to align with their moral views, according to the Harris poll.

I am one of those four. I haven’t made any Amazon purchases in 2025 and canceled Prime.

I can’t tell you what the market is going to say, because I don’t know how quickly it’s able to assimilate reality. What I can tell you is this: If we’re at scenarios #1 or #2, it means that the world does not understand political reality in America yet.

The self-proclaimed king of business is about to destroy a good number of businesses so his business will be the only business in town.