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Tech companies are on a binge. But is it good for Society and the Nation? There are many warning signs.
Grouped Articles
What we know about energy use at U.S. data centers amid the AI boom
Pew Research Center 11/16/2025
Grouped Articles
The shutdown is over, but the nation’s aviation problems are not.
The Washington Post 11/16/2025
This Is How the AI Bubble Bursts
Yale Insights 11/15/2025
Simple maths says the AI investment boom ends badly
Firstlinks 11/15/2025
What Are the Implications if the AI Boom Turns to Bust? | TechPolicy.Press
Tech Policy Press 11/15/2025
Opinion | You May Already Be Bailing Out the AI Business
The Wall Street Journal 11/12/2025
Who Will Pay for the AI Revolution? Retirees
The Wall Street Journal 11/14/2025
Used car prices are up 45% since 2019 putting used cars at average price $28000. It is not a discretionary cost, one needs a car to get to work in the US. There are cases of young people not able to pay soaring repair costs quitting work without transport. This is why there was so much discontent in 2024 after supply shocks and price gouging pushed up prices in 2024. Another factor evident in airline ticket pricing was demand and the excess income of the top 20 percent. In housing and apartment rentals supply shortages pushed up prices, demand and excess income of the top 20-30 percent pushed up prices beyond the reach of the rest, higher interest rates made it unaffordable to buy a home for most Americans.
Grouped Articles
Why There Is No Relief Ahead for High Used-Car Prices
WSJ 02/15/2025
The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People
WSJ 02/24/2025
Efforts to end the use of single use plastics that are a threat to health and the environment, land, rivers and oceans. The use of plastic water bottles has worsened the crisis. Supermarkets are slow in the US to ban plastic bags showing need for prudent regulation. Talks in Busan, South Korea, in Nov 2024 to find a solution to the plastics proliferation crisis. The plastics industry including plastics makers and recycling companies say things are under control with recycling goals, yet reports show only 30% of plastics is being recycled each year in 2024, and going back to the beginning of plastics 2 decades back only about 10% has been recycled.
Grouped Articles
Inside the Plastic Industry’s Battle to Win Over Hearts and Minds
NYTimes.com 11/27/2024
Washington Post 06/10/2024
China Tries to Stem the Flow of Its Plastic Waste
WSJ 01/20/2020
Plastic Water Bottles, Which Enabled a Drinks Boom, Now Threaten a Crisis
WSJ 12/12/2018
New York Businesses Anticipate Plastic-Bag Ban
WSJ 02/27/2020
Supermarkets in France forced to ditch plastic and set up ‘refill stations’ selling unpackaged goods
The Times 04/01/2021
A high level of dissatisfaction in the American workplace is seen in 2023 Gallup Workplace Report and other surveys.
Grouped Articles
It’s 5:01 and I’m Done: No One Wants to Schmooze After Work
WSJ 09/13/2023
FDIC Chair, Known for Temper, Ignored Bad Behavior in Workplace
WSJ 11/16/2023
Five New Benefits and Perks Employers Will Tailor to Your Needs
WSJ 03/06/2023
What CEOs Are Getting Wrong About the Future of Work—and How to Make It Right
WSJ 02/17/2023
Is workplace stigma around mental health struggles changing?
BBC News 08/24/2022
If Your Co-Workers Are ‘Quiet Quitting,’ Here’s What That Means
WSJ 08/18/2022
Decades of growth at 12-14% have left China and the World worse off. As Greg Ip pointed out in WSJ America could not cope with this hyper growth in a country many times the size of Japan after absorbing the growth of Japan in the sixties. The result was the closing down of factories and ever increasing imports from China until America had transferred its manufacturing prowess to China. This led to the societal breakdown in the US with communities dependent on factories across the US feeling the brunt. The other effects were an unprecedented in scale use of coal and fossil fuels to fuel hyper growth rates in China that created the problems of World Climate Change by 2023 and contamination of water, land and air inside China. By 2030 China will be aging rapidly similar to Japan today and the slowing economy in 2024 onwards could mean China will be stuck in the Middle Income category. All this poses lessons for America, for Europe, India and the World on what kind of growth is healthy and what kind is not, what is sustainable growth and what is not,what works well for the planet and what does not.
Grouped Articles
China Bet It All on Real Estate. Now Its Economy Is Paying the Price.
NYTimes.com 10/16/2023
An Even Bigger Housing Crisis Threatens China’s Economy
WSJ 09/18/2023
Is China’s Economic Predicament as Bad as Japan’s? It Could Be Worse
WSJ 09/19/2023
China’s Economy Remains Shaky After Challenging Summer
WSJ 10/13/2023
The wild swings and temperamental nature of such leadership. The lack of worklife balance, health and mental wellbeing consciousness which are the true drivers for productivity. A comparison between the old Italian driven Sergio Marchionne and new worklife balance respecting Portuguese CEO's of carmaker Stellantis Carlos Tavares Dias shows the opposite role models. The old CEO of Fiat Chrysler Marchionne and Musk have similarities. Marchionne was a heavy smoker who worked very long hours and neglected healthy living and worklife balance leading to having to resign because of ill health. It shows that lack of attention to healthy lifestyle and worklife balance has consequences. Tavares Dias has learned a lot from this and respects worklife balance and healthy living.
Grouped Articles
Essay | The Real Story of Musk’s Twitter Takeover
WSJ 08/31/2023
The scores on National Assessment of Education Progress NAEP show two thirds of students failing reading proficiency, similar math scores, and over 75% failing civics and history. This has a serious effect on everything in society- the ability to get good jobs, to increase incomes, to teach their own children to create a better future, for the overwhelming majority of Americans. This has not changed for about two decades and is only getting worse. Nothing that Silicon Valley or capital markets have done, or successive governments have done so far for 2 decades is changing this situation. What Biden calls the struggle for the Soul of the Nation has this as the probable cause because lack of reading comprehension affects everything and leads to serious deterioration and breakdown in society. What is sometimes called technology is not really technology, computers yes, but not social media which damages the capacity for clear thinking and in the young of mental health also or what passes for technology that takes everything to the lowest common denominator including Google Search as shown in Lyrarc's Movement for Global Literacy.
Grouped Articles
History and civics scores drop for U.S. eighth-graders on national test
NPR 05/03/2023
National math and reading scores remain constant, but disparities emerge
Washington Post 04/11/2018
U.S. student performance slips on national test - The Washington Post
Washington Post 10/28/2015
Eighth-Graders’ History, Civics Test Scores Hit Record Low
WSJ 05/03/2023
Test Scores Show Students Made Little Progress in National Exam
WSJ 04/10/2018
The Great Stagnation in American Education
New York Times 09/07/2013
Calls for a pause in AI and the regulatory push for AI in Europe. The Biden administration's views on regulation of AI.
Grouped Articles
Opinion | This Is Too Important to Leave to Microsoft, Google and Facebook
NYTimes.com 04/16/2023
Elon Musk, Other AI Experts Call for Pause in Technology’s Development
WSJ 03/29/2023
Opinion | A Six-Month AI Pause? No, Longer Is Needed
WSJ 03/30/2023
Germany warns: AI arms race already underway | DW | 07.06.2021
DW.COM 06/07/2021
White House Announces $1 Billion Plan to Create AI, Quantum Institutes
WSJ 08/26/2020
Tech Giants Hunt for AI Startups—and the Brains Behind Them
WSJ 12/26/2019
Pension protests in France with 75% of women opposed to the pension changes. A sense that the timing was wrong because of the cost of living crisis following a pandemic. And the nature of pensions requiring efforts to change culture of age discrimination at work in France that has a serious impact on pensions, pension age and fairness of the system. About two thirds of French people oppose the pension changes put through by presidential executive action without parliament approving it.
Grouped Articles
What Is the Ideal Retirement Age for Your Health?
NYTimes.com 04/08/2023
France’s Macron Seeks Bigger Military, Leaner Pension System
WSJ 01/20/2023
‘Not just about pensions’: French protesters see threat to social justice in Macron’s reform
France 24 02/05/2023
Hundreds of thousands protest across France against pension reform, unions vow to ramp up strikes
France 24 02/12/2023
Fight Over Retirement in France Is a Question of Identity
NYTimes.com 03/08/2023
‘We can defeat Macron’: Why women’s anger is fuelling French pension protests
France 24 03/08/2023
Grouped Articles
‘Wrong about Putin’: Did Germany and France turn a blind eye to the threat from Russia?
France 24 04/10/2022
Opinion | Barack Obama Rewrites His Russia History
WSJ 04/08/2022
Opinion | How Germany Became Putin’s Enabler
NYTimes.com 04/08/2022
Merkel 'stands by' past Ukraine NATO decision after Zelenskyy criticism | DW | 04.04.2022
DW.COM 04/04/2022
Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It
WSJ 04/01/2022
Opinion: Ukraine will survive — but the West should be ashamed | DW | 25.02.2022
DW.COM 02/25/2022
The Guardian looks at Tory leaders Rishi Sunak- the smooth veneer, the tech-bro polished image after the Stanford days, and Jacob Rees-Mogg - the bewildering mix of social classes in the neighborhood of St Pancras where he grew up, to see if this is what will deliver for Britain's future after the pandemic.
Grouped Articles
Rishi Sunak: the polished ‘tech bro’ with low-tax dreams
The Guardian 01/21/2022
Rees-Mogg’s roots tell a true Conservative tale – just not the one he wants us to hear | Ian Jack
The Guardian 01/22/2022
Grouped Articles
One in six children aged 5-16 in England 'likely to have a mental disorder'
The Guardian 10/22/2020
Revealed: anti-vaccine TikTok videos being viewed by children as young as nine
The Guardian 10/08/2021
How Other Nations Pay for Child Care. The U.S. Is an Outlier.
NYTimes.com 10/26/2021
Foundational learning took a hit amid Covid, only 19% schools have access to internet: UNESCO report
The Indian Express 10/05/2021
Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show
WSJ 09/14/2021
Web giants ‘fuel child mental health crisis’
06/14/2018
Uncertainty over returns, with revenue stream hazy and massive overspending is seen as a danger signal by a wide range of public opinion and experts shown here in Lyrarc.com in November 2025. All other priorities of the Nation are getting crowded out as 5 Tech companies engage in reckless competition at the expense of everybody else.
Grouped Articles
The shutdown is over, but the nation’s aviation problems are not.
The Washington Post 11/16/25
This Is How the AI Bubble Bursts
Yale Insights 11/15/25
What Are the Implications if the AI Boom Turns to Bust? | TechPolicy.Press
Tech Policy Press 11/15/25
Opinion | You May Already Be Bailing Out the AI Business
The Wall Street Journal 11/12/25
Who Will Pay for the AI Revolution? Retirees
The Wall Street Journal 11/14/25
When AI Hype Meets AI Reality: A Reckoning in 6 Charts
The Wall Street Journal 11/14/25
Cost of Living Crisis and huge gaps in income and wealth between the top 20 percent and the bottom 80 percent aggravate standards of living in America in a way not seen since the Second World War. About 45% increase in prices on cars, used cars, car repairs, housing rentals and groceries, in many household expenses, since 2019. Incomes of workers not having kept up with this kind of spiralling inflation. This is upending the social compact and leading to loss of faith in governments in the US and Europe. Change in governments in UK, France, Germany, and the US and a sense of unease among people.
Grouped Articles
Even Disney Is Worried About the High Cost of a Disney Vacation
WSJ 02/09/25
Top 20 percent in the US have $1.2 trillion in excess income savings and increased Net Worth to $35 trillion from 2019 to 2025. Bottom 80 percent have about $300 billion in excess income savings and increased Net Worth to $14 trillion in that period.
Grouped Articles
The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People
WSJ 02/24/25
Senator Larson says it is a fatal mistake as lost revenue is not made up leading to a Medicare insolvency in 2031, and Social Security insolvency in 2033. Social security benefits will then by law will be cut in 2033 by 25%, a dangerous step tragic for many on Social Security who are pushed into poverty.
Grouped Articles
CNBC 08/17/24
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget 08/17/24
Trump wants to cut income taxes on Social Security. Here's how that would impact your benefits.
CBS News 08/17/24
No one talks of climate change risks being tackled by a few technology specialists. AI is too big and the risks so great for humanity to be placed on the shoulders of a few computer specialists. Watching Joanna Stern of WSJ interview Sam Altman and Murali Murthi gives the impression that Altman was moving too quickly and Murthi was saying the right things but lacked the experience and capacity to tackle AI's vast responsibilities. This also stems from the fact that what young Stanford and other tech graduates in their early thirties have done in the last 2 decades ends a chapter in America's tech history. AI is an entirely different technology which requires the involvement of major parts of America's whole technological and scientific community and its society, not just a few individuals. This is also the lesson from the pandemic for virus research where not just the Cambridge, Massachusetts community, a government agency and Chinese researchers needed to be involved, but vast parts of America'a health and medicine scientific community and the American public. A million lives were lost in the pandemic in the US alone, and millions all over the world. It is a lesson that should never be forgotten- that technology can get out of control.
Grouped Articles
Sam Altman Is Out at OpenAI After Board Skirmish
WSJ 11/18/23
Many Details of Sam Altman’s Ouster Are Murky. But Some Things Are Clear.
NYTimes.com 11/18/23
Meet Mira Murati, the Engineer Now Leading OpenAI
NYTimes.com 11/18/23
Sam Altman Is Out at OpenAI; Mira Murati Will Be Interim CEO
WSJ 11/17/23
Entry level tier wages for auto workers at $17 an hour in 2022 as the UAW union goes on strike in 2023. At $34,000 a year entry level young auto workers make less than the $35,000- 40,000 a year for families set as the Federal Poverty Level by the Department of HHS. Lincoln and TR-FDR would see this as outrageous as American workers built American factories and America since the Industrial Revolution. America has forgotten its workers and worker's families, worker's children. Two thirds of children with the vast majority from the workers families not able to pass ACT reading comprehension at the 4th grade, and 50 % of retired people having zero savings. Not the America of Lincoln or TR-FDR.
Grouped Articles
Trump’s pitch for autoworker votes in car heartland is short on autoworkers
The Guardian 09/28/23
Biden Joins Autoworkers on Picket Line in Michigan
NYTimes.com 09/27/23
Biden Joins UAW Picket Line Ahead of Trump Visit, Opening 2024 Election Fight
WSJ 09/26/23
Five Clues to Where the UAW Strike Is Headed Next
WSJ 09/23/23
Battle Over Electric Vehicles Is Central to Auto Strike
NYTimes.com 09/17/23
Whatever the UAW Strike Outcome, Elon Musk Has Already Won
WSJ 09/16/23
As energy prices recede somewhat food prices remain very high in Europe increasing the impact on middle and lower income households. Food retailers are seen as increasing profit margins at a bad time for households. It has become that bad that households are cutting purchases by 10%.
Grouped Articles
The Guardian 05/26/23
German economy enters recession, shrinks 0.3% in 1st quarter – DW – 05/25/2023
dw.com 05/25/23
It Just Had an Energy Crisis, Now Europe Faces a Food Shock
WSJ 05/24/23
Japan Core Inflation Hits 4% for First Time in Four Decades
WSJ 01/20/23
UK inflation falls to 8.7% but food price rises remain close to 45-year high
The Guardian 05/24/23
Spain announces €10bn help to fight rising prices
BBC News 02/02/23
PISA scores in Europe, NAEP in US, and similar test in Japan, S. Korea, can with proficiency in reading of over 50-60%, same in math, give the country an additional 2% in GDP. This is shown in the experience of Asian countries in the 2005-2015 period, and acted as a drag in the progress of the US for 2005 -2023. It is still acting as a drag in US progress not just in GDP, but also in culture as it increase social divisions, increases risks to democracy with widening gaps in performance between higher and lower income groups, between rural and urban/suburban groups, between people in professions and less educated in construction or low wage hospitality food industries. This also adds to the burden on democracies when demagogic politicians and parties use it in ways that are indifferent to social divisions or social mobility for their own purposes. This has happened in the US and Europe exacerbating the situation, and why Biden is calling this the Struggle for the Soul of the Nation. It is truly a Struggle for the Soul of America and can be seen as a parallel to the situation Abraham Lincoln faced in 1858 as he debated against Stephen Douglas.
Grouped Articles
Peterson and Hanushek: The Vital Link of Education and Prosperity
Wall Street Journal 09/11/13
National math and reading scores remain constant, but disparities emerge
Washington Post 04/11/18
The Great Stagnation in American Education
New York Times 09/07/13
Paul Krugman Reviews ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth’ by Robert J. Gordon
New York Times 01/25/16
Geoffrey Hinton resigns from Google saying: "It is hard to see how bad actors would not misuse AI for bad things." A call for a pause in development of Ai is ignored as profit seeking behaviour and competition leads to an acceleration of AI development without the ground rules being set and the regulatory agencies powered by law, and without the necessary government action. The tendency of business profit seeking behaviour to lobby legislatures that set the rules has led to lack of regulation for pharma, banks and tech, leading to social breakdown in society with higher health costs, lost decades through unemployment and loss of savings for families. AI takes the problem to another dimension with an effort to replace human thinking behind behaviour. With AI laissez faire ceases to exist as a viable option for free people, only with strict regulation can banks, tech and AI operate to perform useful functions in society. For this to happen schools, media have a role to perform well their role to educate people.
Grouped Articles
'Godfather of AI' quits Google to warn of the tech's dangers
France 24 05/02/23
Opinion | AI can’t teach children to learn. What’s missing?
Washington Post 04/23/23
Opinion | This Is Too Important to Leave to Microsoft, Google and Facebook
NYTimes.com 04/16/23
Microsoft Puts Caps on New Bing Usage After AI Chatbot Offered Unhinged Responses
WSJ 02/18/23
ChatGPT isn’t a great leap forward, it’s an expensive deal with the devil | John Naughton
The Guardian 02/04/23
Essay | Without Consciousness, AIs Will Be Sociopaths
WSJ 01/13/23
China's overdependence on the property sector and foreign investment in offshoring factories from home countries to China had unintended effects. The property sector led growth has led to sudden collapse with local governments finances strained by $900 billion according to WSJ and loss of buyer confidence. The effects on communities in the US and EU of shifting local factories to China is well known having alienated the US and EU public, and permanently damaging friendly relations leading to its reversal and shift back to home countries. Years of unbridled hyper growth has not done well for China with the consequences seen today. At the start of this experiment China embarked on in 1990 China had little experience with market economy. The self interested advice of American investment banks and business and the zeal of local government officials led to hyper growth. The US and EU countries could not cope with the scale of China's hyper growth and shift of factories overseas as they had done with Japan in the sixties and seventies because of the sheer scale and compression in a short period for China. The result is sharply slowing growth in China and loss of faith on both sides. It did not have to happen this way and shows the unintended consequences of letting capitalism go its own way with interested parties acting excessively and governments not acting where prudence is needed. The burning of coal in unlimited quantities created the problems of climate change the world faces today- a double blow for the world and for China with lessons for today and how we think about his in future.
Grouped Articles
China’s Manufacturing Sector Unexpectedly Contracts Amid Weak Demand, Covid Lockdowns
WSJ 07/31/22
China’s Economy Tested by Strained City Finances
WSJ 07/31/22
China Home Sales Plunge in July, as Mortgage Revolt Deters Buyers
WSJ 07/31/22
China property sales could plunge by one-third, analysts say, as crisis deepens
The Guardian 07/26/22
China Bet It All on Real Estate. Now Its Economy Is Paying the Price.
NYTimes.com 10/16/23
The WSJ report on the miscalculations going back 20 years by all sides looks at key events since 2002. An interview by Timakova and Kolesnikov of the Russian president provides more insights into his mindset and thinking.
Grouped Articles
An Astonishing Self-Portrait by Russia's President
NYTimes.com 04/02/22
Opinion | What’s on Vladimir Putin’s Reading List?
WSJ 04/01/22
Russian Strategy in Ukraine Shifts After Setbacks, and a Lengthy War Looms
WSJ 04/01/22
Russia Set for Steep Slump and Long Stagnation in Wake of Ukraine War
WSJ 03/31/22
Putin advisers ‘afraid to tell him truth’ about Ukraine error, says GCHQ head
The Guardian 03/30/22
Biden says Putin ‘badly miscalculated’ in invading Ukraine.
NYTimes.com 03/02/22
If and how it is possible to escape the algorithm based social media platforms TikTok, Facebook and others, harmful for girls and the young, and to mental health, diversity, and education that leads to upward mobility, is the subject of a WSJ series in 2021.
Grouped Articles
The TikTok Spiral, Part 1: Descent - Tech News Briefing - WSJ Podcasts
WSJ 12/27/21
The TikTok Spiral, Part 3: Escape the Algorithm - Tech News Briefing - WSJ Podcasts
WSJ 12/29/21
‘The Corpse Bride Diet’: How TikTok Inundates Teens With Eating-Disorder Videos
WSJ 12/17/21
Teens Are Developing Tics. Doctors Say TikTok May Be A Factor. - The Journal. - WSJ Podcasts
WSJ 11/08/21
Facebook Faces Official Questions in India Over Policing of Hate Speech
WSJ 10/28/21
Facebook Whistleblower’s Testimony Builds Momentum for Tougher Tech Laws
WSJ 10/05/21
We took a different way to help millions around the world build educated informed mindsets that affects and shapes their lives. For a future that is open, global and digital, with everyone having access to high quality information. We believe in the renewal of America, renewal of Europe, the renewal of India, the rest of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The renewal of our supply chains, health, education, infrastructure, as we rebuild our countries after the pandemic. Literacy and knowledge we believe cannot thrive and grow in a world of web bots, web crawlers, or AI. This requires human curiosity, human learning, and human imagination. We take as inspiration the saying- “One has to be free, and as broad as sky. One has to have a mind that is crystal clear, only then can truth shine in it.” Every contribution whether big or small is precious- in this crisis and ahead.
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