Acquisitions.

Weekend read.

From a month ago.

Sky right now.

Week’s reads.

The issue this time isn’t only an economic crisis that’ll be far greater than the 2008 crash but the amalgamation of several crises to come together and tensions already being high across the globe. We have: 1. A supercharged El Niño: Some regions will experience heavy rainfall and others will face severe droughts. Both of these are responsible for destroying crop yields, although it should be mentioned that there are regions that will face beneficial levels of rainfall as well. (Account as well for the fact that 2027 is projected to be the hottest weather on record.) 2. The LNG export disruption: 48% of the world’s population is sustained by food produced from synthetic fertilizers. These fertilizers, in turn, are made from natural gas. Qatar was the largest exporter of LNG before the war, but its exports now have been reduced by 96%. They initiated talks with America to buy LNG from the latter (another primary exporter along with Australia). Here, things become even more important. American and Australian plants are already running at high capacity to fulfill global demands. If anything goes wrong in either country’s manufacturing facilities or tensions rise in the Strait of Malacca that requires rerouting, there will be another crisis in the supply chain. 3. The energy crisis: This requires little elaboration. Bab el-Mandab and Hormuz are global chokepoints and vital to trade. Diesel is already a dwindling resource in the US, and Saudi has recently canceled exports promised to Europe. These disruptions will only increase further and the circumstances will worsen. 4. The job market: The employment situation has been poor for some time, but now more than ever companies have an incentive to initiate further and further layoffs. The situation will only be exacerbated by the incoming economic crash (only inevitable; Bessent’s bond buybacks are atrocious for the long term). 5. Housing market crisis: Affordability is at an all-time low. 6. The literacy crisis and the coming of a post-literate generation: Many of our generation are functionally illiterate. The next will be entirely illiterate, or post-literate, rather, outsourcing their thoughts and thought processes to LLMs. They are not raised in any way so as to be able to counter these issues—they’re rendered vegetables since some time after birth as they grow addicted to TikTok reels or YT shorts and destroy their attention spans. 7. Prospect of nuclear attacks: This is a real possibility. Trump, recognizing that conventional military tactics have not worked, may well resort to these methods against Iran. We’ll be witnessing a different world soon. 8. NATO: There are already reductions in place for bombers, weapons, submarines, and general funding. The risk of a wider confrontation is present if Russia eyes the Baltics to test NATO. 9. Israel escalating with Turkey. The seeds are in place and rhetoric is already being manufactured to paint Turkey as a direct enemy. War is inevitable on this front, and Syria will be dragged in. We are walking into a world entirely different from what we’ve grown up in.

This week’s reads.

Good experimental step. An early realization of the fact that for a city to be good, cars must not only be unnecessary, but be a «liability» when a public transportation system and walkability are present.

Cape Flattery, Washington. Going home now.

Leavenworth, Washington. Gorgeous place.

And pleased to say that the book has arrived. Gonna dig into it ASAP.

Not surprising if you know that Alex Karp and co. have made their intentions clear in The Technological Republic—Silicon Valley being inextricably tied with the government to shape the population to their will, since the masses are averse to “voracious pragmatism.”