10 Monday AM Reads

My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:
• War Leaves Economy With More Stubborn Inflation, In latest Journal survey, economists have lowered the probability of recession but see inflation staying higher longer. The Iran conflict is embedding higher costs into the economy in ways that won’t reverse when the fighting stops. Economists are raising their inflation forecasts for 2027 and beyond. (Wall Street Journal)
• Oh, the Stories the Dow Can Tell. Lessons From the Index’s Past 50 Years. Only two names from the Dow Jones Industrial Average of July 1976 remain today. Many of today’s tech Blue Chips didn’t even exist then. (Barron’s)
• All you never wanted to know about corporate bond market issuance: How the debt capital markets sausage gets made. FT Alphaville’s deep dive into the plumbing of corporate bond markets—the mechanics, the distortions, and the risks hiding in plain sight. (FT)
• The Economics of Friendship: Why does loneliness seem to be on the rise? In part because we’ve made life frictionless and efficient. The Wall Street Journal opinion page goes long on something economists rarely study — the measurable economic value of having close friends. Social capital isn’t a metaphor; it shows up in earnings, health outcomes, and longevity data. (Wall Street Journal)
• Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search: After years of giving away content for free traffic, major publishers are seriously considering pulling the plug on Google indexing entirely. The economics of search have finally broken. (Adweek)
• The first American autonomous ground vehicles are fighting in Ukraine: Forterra, a U.S. builder of autonomous vehicles, revealed today that more than 100 of its self-driving ATVs have been deployed in conflict zones in Ukraine for the past nine months, in what the company believes is the largest deployment of autonomous ground vehicles in combat by any U.S. defense tech company. (Techcrunch) see also Ukraine’s Killer Robots Show How War Is Changing: Autonomous weapons are no longer theoretical. Ukraine’s battlefield is the live proving ground for AI-driven combat systems that will define the next generation of warfare. (The Conversation)
• China, Russia and Others Seek to Inflame Debate Over A.I. Data Centers: State actors in China, Russia and Iran have sought to exploit the U.S. public debate over the effects of the technology. We have seen bad overseas actors use social media to influence elections, debate of Israel, Ukraine, and now AI. America needs to wake up and recognize this credible security threat to our sovereignty and democracy. Foreign adversaries are exploiting local opposition to AI data center construction — amplifying environmental and energy concerns to slow down America’s AI infrastructure buildout. (New York Times)
• How Physicists Track and Trap the Elusive Neutrino: The hunt for these ghostly particles has required some of the most audacious experimental setups ever built. In the 1960s, Raymond Davis Jr. and colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory placed a tank 1.5 kilometers underground in the Homestake mine in South Dakota and filled it with nearly 400,000 liters of a chlorine-based cleaning fluid called perchloroethylene. On the rare occasion that a passing neutrino struck a chlorine nucleus, it would be transformed into a radioactive form of argon that could be detected and counted. The experiment, which would run for 25 years, found just one-third the number of neutrinos coming from the sun that had been predicted in theoretical models. (Quanta Magazine)
• The U.S. men played ‘scared.’ Fox’s Carli Lloyd was fearless in her candor.: The USMNT’s World Cup performance was underwhelming: “I felt like they lost the game before they even stepped out on the pitch,” said Lloyd, the Fox Sports analyst on the post-match show. “And I’m not sure why, and I don’t know the reasons. But just from the beginning: chasing. Tentative. Scared. Just not confident on the ball.” (The Athletic)
• Robert De Niro Only Wants to Shoot in New York: The actor and his partners recently opened Wildflower Studios, a 775,000-square-foot production facility in Queens. The NYT real estate section catches up with De Niro’s long love affair with the city and his insistence on keeping production local. A profile that’s half cinema, half urbanism. (New York Times)
Video of the day: How America Turned The Dollar Into A Weapon
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with McKeel Hagerty, CEO and Chairman of Hagerty. We discuss how he transformed the family boat insurance business into a “sexy” driver-forward business. We also discuss our love of collectable cars and his love of his first car, a Porsche, that he bought at the age of 13.
America’s missing middle: The shrinking 45-64 population
Source: Axios
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Facts Only

* Economists have lowered the probability of recession but see inflation staying higher longer.
* The Iran conflict is embedding higher costs into the economy that will not reverse when fighting stops.
* Inflation forecasts for 2027 and beyond are being raised by economists.
* Only two names from the Dow Jones Industrial Average of July 1976 remain today.
* Major publishers are considering pulling the plug on Google indexing.
* More than 100 autonomous ground vehicles have been deployed in Ukraine for the past nine months by Forterra.
* State actors in China, Russia, and Iran have sought to exploit public debate over AI data centers.
* The hunt for neutrinos involved an experiment that found one-third the number of predicted neutrinos from the sun.
* A Fox Sports analyst noted that the U.S. men's national team felt "scared" during their World Cup performance, describing it as chasing and tentative.

Executive Summary

Economists are raising inflation forecasts for 2027 and beyond, with the Iran conflict embedding higher costs that are not expected to reverse when fighting stops. Insights from the Dow Jones Industrial Average show that only two names from the index of July 1976 remain today, as many current technology blue chips did not exist then. There is emerging interest in corporate bond market issuance, detailing the mechanics and risks within debt capital markets. Furthermore, social capital is being recognized as having measurable economic value, showing up in earnings, health outcomes, and longevity data. Major publishers are considering opting out of Google Search indexing due to the economics of search, and there is evidence that state actors in China, Russia, and Iran seek to influence public debate regarding AI data centers by exploiting environmental and energy concerns. In the context of conflict, autonomous ground vehicles have been deployed in Ukraine, and AI-driven combat systems are proving to be a reality on the battlefield.

Full Take

The juxtaposition of macroeconomic uncertainty, geopolitical conflict costs, and technological shifts reveals a complex negotiation between perceived stability and underlying systemic volatility. The narrative surrounding inflation and the lingering effects of geopolitical events suggests that economic forecasting is being complicated by externalities—such as ongoing conflicts—that defy simple linear correction models. This aligns with the pattern of how systemic risks are often masked or postponed until tangible, visible disruptions occur. Simultaneously, the discussion on social capital introduces a counter-narrative: efficiencies and frictionless living may inadvertently erode non-economic forms of value, suggesting that measuring prosperity requires integrating previously ignored human elements. The AI and sovereign data center debates highlight an asymmetric information dynamic where state interests attempt to weaponize public discourse around technological infrastructure, reflecting a struggle over cognitive sovereignty. Furthermore, the historical context regarding innovation (the aging Dow) contrasted with contemporary technological acceleration underscores a tension between established economic structures and disruptive realities. The pursuit of knowledge, exemplified by neutrino detection, reveals that fundamental truths are often obscured by complex experimental setups, mirroring how current economic and geopolitical narratives obscure the true linkages between events and outcomes. What assumptions about linear causality—that resolving one crisis resolves others—are being tested when examining inflation, conflict costs, and technological control? What is the cost to individual agency when value shifts from tangible assets to intangible social constructs?