onfocus

Costco, which defied demands from the Trump administration for private companies to spike their DEI programs, notched its 15th straight week of foot-traffic gains, although this week just by the skin of its teeth, with a gain of 0.3%.

Good. We should continue to only do business with companies that want a functioning society.

Other data have also sounded alarms on the economy. Jobless claims were up last week as cuts by DOGE rippled through the labor market, pending home sales hit a record low, and consumer confidence indicators sank on rising fears of tariff-fueled inflation.

From a strong, growing economy to a garbage economy in one month. Please remember who caused this when you vote.

A lot of us know by now that Substack has a Nazi problem. It not only profits from fascist voices, it actively promotes their work and recruits them. And it's funded by Silicon Valley anti-democracy billionaires like Marc Andreesen — the same type of people who are, right now, raiding the US government to basically cut funding for social services and scientific research, and to steal money for themselves.

Every day I see more and more people starting their indie left-leaning journalism venture on Substack. Cut that out! They're taking your money and paying fascists to post. The slight boost you might see in list-building is not worth the trade-off of supporting their ideological project that is at odds with your values.

Four out of 10 Americans have shifted their spending over the last few months to align with their moral views, according to the Harris poll.

I am one of those four. I haven’t made any Amazon purchases in 2025 and canceled Prime.

I can’t tell you what the market is going to say, because I don’t know how quickly it’s able to assimilate reality. What I can tell you is this: If we’re at scenarios #1 or #2, it means that the world does not understand political reality in America yet.

The self-proclaimed king of business is about to destroy a good number of businesses so his business will be the only business in town.

The United States imports a wide variety of items that cannot be produced in large enough quantities to satiate domestic demand. Basic foodstuffs such as coffee, bananas, avocados, cocoa and much more do not grow in U.S. climates. And there are no domestic replacements for wild-caught Chilean sea bass or yellowfin tuna.

Countering MAGA beliefs with logic isn't going to move any numbers, but it is good to make the rational case that Trump's economic plan would tank the economy. He's not good at business or economics. That’s a mythology that was created to sell garbage. Plus he's surrounded people who are out to prove the government doesn't work.

To create A.I. businesses, experts predicted, $1 trillion would be spent on data centers, utilities and applications. Mr. Covello thought those costs made it impossible for the industry to inexpensively solve real-world problems, which is what internet companies did decades ago.

As a member of Goldman’s working group on A.I., he reviewed a service that used generative A.I. to automatically update analysts’ spreadsheets with companies’ financial results. He said it saved his analysts about 20 minutes of time per company but cost six times as much money.

I think this is exactly it. AI is too expensive in terms of energy use and is highly subsidized by venture capital at the moment. The minute that money dries up there won't be enough of a payoff to justify the expense.

“What’s good for workers is good for business, and as California’s fast food industry continues booming every single month our workers are finally getting the pay they deserve,” Newsom said in a written statement. “Despite those who pedaled lies about how this would doom the industry, California’s economy and workers are again proving them wrong.”

Interesting, restaurants didn't go out of business after minimum wage went from $15.50 to $20.

But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.

Huge if true.

I'm joking. Wealth inequality makes this so obviously true it doesn't need to be said.

Harris said he pleaded with the company for several years to address the flaw in the product, a ProPublica investigation has found. But at every turn, Microsoft dismissed his warnings, telling him they would work on a long-term alternative — leaving cloud services around the globe vulnerable to attack in the meantime.

Public corporations that value shareholders more than customers were a mistake and definitely shouldn’t be handling national security. This whole series of events is frustrating because it was preventable.

Ben continues in his thread, "[The moderator crackdown is] just a reminder that anything you post on any of these platforms can and will be used for profit. It's just a matter of time until all your messages on Discord, Twitter etc. are scraped, fed into a model and sold back to you."

These user conflicts highlight the way site owners extract monetary value from the community in ways that aren’t shared back. Now some 3rd party will be making money from their time and energy. So disappointing to see companies being bad stewards of good impulses like the desire to pitch in and help share knowledge.

“It’s been an amazing year for the world’s richest people, with more billionaires around the world than ever before,” said Chase Peterson-Withorn, Forbes’ wealth editor. “A record-breaking 14 centibillionaires [$100bn] have 12-figure fortunes. Even during times of financial uncertainty for many, the super-rich continue to thrive.”

slow clap.