Source: Reason
by Jeff Luse
“A New Mexico geothermal project used AI to reduce surface infrastructure costs by 75 percent and speed up drilling by 35 percent.” (for publication 11/26)
https://reason.com/2026/10/29/ai-is-unlocking-abundant-energy/
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“[E]ven as Washington seeks to navigate its fraught but improving relationship with Beijing, these meetings represent a strengthening of its network of partnerships intended to counter Chinese influence. While the Quad and Squad are two distinct components of that effort, there is little doubt that Washington’s expanding regional security commitments will do nothing to make Americans safer and will rather serve only to draw them further into a potentially catastrophic great-power confrontation.” (10/29/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-quad-and-the-squad-washingtons-anti-china-coalitions/
Source: Asia Times
by Bertil Lintner
“Designed to dwarf even the Marshall Plan, the American program to rebuild Europe after World War II, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was first unveiled by President Xi Jinping in a 2013 speech at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. Beijing later pledged to invest US$1 trillion, and by some estimates as much as $8 trillion, in roads, railways, bridges, ports and other infrastructure projects around the world, with an emphasis on sparking economic development in the underfinanced Global South. Originally called One Belt, One Road, the BRI was meant to usher in what Xi described in his speech as a more just world order. But on many counts, the program has not measured up to its original, world-changing ambition.” (10/29/26)
https://asiatimes.com/2026/10/chinas-belt-and-road-hasnt-lived-up-to-xis-promise/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Itxu Diaz
“Macabre Halloween celebrations risk trivializing man’s ultimate fate.” (10/29/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Zachary Groz
“Earlier this month, former Republican congressman and Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers appeared on the campaign trail with his wife Kristi, handing out $10 gift cards at a Detroit gas station. ‘We’re all struggling with incredibly high gas prices’, Ms. Rogers said in a video taken from the scene. ‘And Mike knows this[‘. What voters would not have known from that video is that Ms. Rogers runs a Beltway trade group representing energy traders, mining companies, and manufacturers in their efforts to influence federal officials and federal policy. According to ethics watchdogs, Ms. Rogers’s position, which has not been previously reported, raises the potential for serious conflicts of interest should her husband win his hotly contested Senate race against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.” (10/29/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/10/29/mike-rogerss-wife-runs-a-consultancy-that-sells-government-access/
Source: The Daily Economy
by John Phelan
“Friedman challenged the idea that governments could spend their way to prosperity. Fifty years after receiving the Nobel Prize, his most enduring lessons remain crucial — and largely ignored.” (10/29/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/fifty-years-ago-milton-friedman-upended-economic-expertise/
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie
“The recent rioting in France, and in the past in the UK, set me wondering ifrioting and looting are more likely to be done by groups that feel themselves to be marginalized. There is an important qualification. Feeling marginalized raises the odds of joining a riot. It does not explain who loots, or when. The current European wave makes the point. On October 17th some 550,000 people marched in France against the cost of living by the Interior Ministry’s count, and the processions were mostly calm. The violence and looting broke out on the margins, in cities from Limoges and Lyon to Marseille and Paris.” (10/29/26)
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-marginalized-and-the-rioters
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman
“The boom in AI-related spending is already enormous relative to the size of the U.S. economy and is widely expected to grow even bigger. Indeed, a widely cited projection by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of the Columbia Business School concludes, based on announced plans by major players in the industry, that this will be the biggest investment boom in U.S. history, measured as a percentage of GDP …. Well, I’m going to make a prediction: This will not happen. Instead, the splurge on AI will run into two walls that will force either postponement or cancellation of many of those announced projects.” (10/29/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/will-the-ai-investment-splurge-last
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver
“It’s becoming an annual event that I write something about Halloween. I discussed Spirit Halloween Stores in 2024, and the economics of the holiday in 2025. This year, there have been controversies about candy. What it’s made of, how much it costs, and didn’t it used to be better? One debate started when the heir to the candymaking Reese family accused current brand owner Hershey’s of besmirching his family’s legacy by (he claims) using cheaper ingredients for the peanut butter cups. In an open letter on LinkedIn, he claimed that the product was so bad that he ‘had to spit it out.'” (10/29/26)
Source: Noahpinion
by Noah Smith
“AI can do things humans researchers can’t, even in groups.” (10/28/26)
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/a-golden-age-of-science-is-coming