| Today, we remember Jonathan Clements, one of our favorite finance writers and bloggers.
“Jonathan Clements, 62 years old, died in Philadelphia on Sunday, about a year-and-a-half after being diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer. Between 1994 and 2008, he wrote 1,009 columns on investing, financial planning, money, and life for the Journal.” Read his obituary in the Wall Street Journal. After his cancer diagnosis, Jonathan knew this day would come to pass, and wrote a farewell note for his readers on Humble Dollar: “I faced the final months not with sorrow, but with great gratitude. I had spent almost my entire adult life doing what I love and surrounded by those that I love. Who could ask for more?” We'll miss you, Jonathan. |
We've reached the mutually assured destruction phase of the AI bubble, where the tech giants have decided they're all in this together. If one is going to take the risk on massive capital expenditures, then they're all going to take the risk.
However, some say that the comparisons between the peak of “irrational exuberance” in the late 1990s and the current AI boom are misguided. Here are five reasons why the dot-com bubble was bigger and badder than the current AI boom, and why we're not in a mania phase… at least not yet.
As ChatGPT nears its third birthday, at least one in 10 retail investors is using a chatbot to pick stocks, fuelling a boom in the robo-advisory market, but even fans say it is a high-risk strategy that cannot replace traditional advisors just yet.
The US government is busy trying to deport illegal immigrants living in the US. NBC News reports that the current run-rate is about 15,000 deportations a month and that somewhere around 60,000 people are currently held in detention centres. These are tiny numbers relative to the estimated 8 million illegal immigrants living in the US.
But what are the economic consequences of these deportations?
Many of us have a childhood memory of a grandparent lamenting, “Time seems to go by faster every year.” As you've gotten olde, you perhaps catch yourself saying the same thing. But hold on a minute (pardon the pun). No matter our age, the second hand on a clock always tick-tick-ticks with unwavering regularity.
How are different perceptions of time even possible?
Speaking of time, there's something to be said about sustained attention, children, and reading.
Reading isn't natural or organic like speaking but a complex neural symphony involving visual processing, language comprehension, memory systems, and abstract thinkin,g all in milliseconds — and strong readers develop deep reading circuits involving these processes through hours of sustained effort and attention.
And it is still very much possible to raise a reader in the age of digital distraction.
The National Literacy Trust reports “shocking and dispiriting” falls in children's reading, which is now at its lowest level on record. The publishing industry is in crisis: as the author Alexander Larman writes, “books that once would have sold in the tens, even hundreds, of thousands are now lucky to sell in the mid-four figures.”
As we come to the end of 2025, here are the 25 most interesting ideas Derek Thompson found in 2025 — across culture, poolitics, AI, economics, health, science, and the long story of progress.
Here's another interesting chart for you:
You won't find Citizen Kane or Casablanca on Netflix. The sad reality is that the entire work of great filmmakers and movie stars has disappeared from the dominant platform. The same can be said of books, music, and art.
| ❓ Reader Questions:
What's the most interesting idea you've come across this year? What black and white movie would you want to see on popular streaming platforms like Netflix? |
A little more on health today:
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is, by far, the most common cause of dementia and ranks among the most deadly diseases in the modern world. Recently, researchers at Harvard Medical School generated substantial hype that such a silver bullet might in fact come in the form of a different metal — lithium.
Cheap supplies of a groundbreaking twice-yearly HIV prevention jab will be available in many poorer countries within two years, funders have promised. Lenacapavir will cost $40 (£30) a patient a year in 120 low- and middle-income countries from 2027, under two agreements with generic drug manufacturers announced this week.
