Nobel laureate sees tough social consequences of Trump 2.0 economics. The only safe place to be in the AI race in intelligence is ahead. Why has the Israel-Hamas truce deal happened now? The true price of a $12 Shein dress. Better health and wellbeing could be only 35 steps away.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Simon Johnson, The Economic Consequences of Trump 2.0
(Project Syndicate, 3 January 2025)
An op-ed to be revisited in 6-12 months from now. The Nobel laureate in economics and a former IMF chief economist takes a contrarian view (the US markets and most business leaders are bullish on Trump 2.0). He argues that the US President policies will do almost nothing positive for less educated Americans or significantly improve the lives of most others. In his opinion, “the rich will get richer, the richest will get a lot richer, and everyone else will contend with higher inflation, cuts to public services, and the effects of runaway deregulation” (metered paywall that may require prior registration, 6-7 min).
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Anne Neuberger, Spy vs. AI
(Foreign Affairs, 15 January 2025)
The senior NSA official explains how AI is remaking espionage. Its integration, particularly through large language and multimodal models (which integrate text, images, and audio) “offers groundbreaking opportunities to improve intelligence operations and analysis”, but it comes with significant downsides, as adversaries exploit similar advancements to uncover and counter US intelligence operations. All this means is that what matters is to be first in the AI race (metered paywall that may require prior registration, reads in 10-13 min).
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Daniel Byman, One Question Looming Over Israel-Hamas Truce Deal—Why Now?
(Foreign Policy, 15 January 2025)
Biden has been pushing for an agreement for more than a year, so what allowed it to succeed now? According to Israeli news reports, Trump put significant pressure on Netanyahu who needs to gain the goodwill of the new administration to accept a deal. Trump can now proclaim “that he instantly achieved what Biden could not in over a year.” For Palestinians living in Gaza, a cease-fire is still good news, but their conditions will remain grim for many years to come (metered paywall, 4-5 min).
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Laura Bicker, The truth behind your $12 dress: Inside the Chinese factories fuelling Shein’s success
(BBC, 13 January 2025)
A description of what life is like in Panyu, a neighbourhood of Guangzhou known as the “Shein village”, with thousands of factories that power the world’s largest fast fashion retailer. It’s all about volume and endless hours for workers (most have only one day off a month). A special report that will add to a growing list of questions about Shein, a little-known Chinese-founded company 5 years ago that has become a global behemoth (free article, reads in 6-8 min).
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Amanda Schupak, 35 Simple Health Tips Experts Swear By
(The New York Times, 12 January 2025)
Rich but crisp and succinct. 35 prominent scientists and experts offer some very short and simple tips on how to improve our health and wellbeing. Advice ranges from drinking one more cup of coffee (“helps the brain, liver and microbiota”) to using the 10-10-10 rule (“helps reduce eye strain from screen time, but the brief mental break can help boost your focus and refresh your cognitive clarity”). Easy to read, easy to absorb (gifted article, reads in 5-6 min).
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