Author Archives: Yves Smith

Links 3/22/2024

Texas Law Forces Pension Funds and Municipalities to Drop Use of Financial Firms that Support Net Zero

Texas is counter-sanctioning Big Finance firms over Net Zero initiatives designed to choke money flows to fossil fuel businesses.

“The Censorship Trap”

Rajiv Sethi joins the pushback against censorship, using Google’s bogus attack on one of his posts on this site as a point of departure.

Google Censorship: AI Run Amok Threatens Demonetization Over a Navigation Page with No Ads, An Article on a Foreign Policy Best-Seller Deemed Anti-Vaxx, and More Flagrant Errors

Google tries to censor this site based on a systematically flawed AI review. How many others will be victims of bad algos?

What Is Necessary for the Ukrainian “Sanitary Zone” to Be Sanitary?

Putin mentioned a sanitary zone as a possible solution to Russian security needs once the Ukraine war ends. What would that mean in practice?

Why Artificial Intelligence Must Be Stopped Now

The promise of artificial intelligence is eclipsed by its perils, which include our own annihilation.

What’s the Solution to Humanity’s Growing Ills?

Are space aliens the only creatures that might have a solution for the mess we are in? Any other deux ex machina candidates?

Industrial Policy, East or West, for Development or War?

The West has gone from disdaining industrial policy to becoming a true believer.

Links 3/20/2024

Private Equity Buying Up Accounting Practices. What Could Go Wrong? The Health Industry Gives Some Ideas

Private equity is setting out to hoover up accounting practices. The sorry experience in health care says there is cause for pause.

Health Workers Fear It’s Profits Before Protection as CDC Revisits Airborne Transmission

Health industry employee objections have forced the CDC to rethink its weak guidance on aerosol transmission, but experts are not optimistic.

When It Comes to Fighting Russian Diamonds, the Jewish Diamond Trade and De Beers Are a Busted Flush

Efforts to crush the Russian diamond trade come when the industry is under duress. Why might the comparatively small Russian exports survive?

Links 3/19/2024

Wealth of US Billionaires Hits $5.5 Trillion—Up 88% Since Pandemic Hit

Even though the rich are predictably getting richer even in the Covid era, the picture is worse when you look at billionaires.