10 Thursday AM Reads

My morning reads: • Here’s Who Trump Should Blame for the Rate Hike He’s Raging About:He promised lower prices and lower interest rates. His policies delivered renewed inflation and a rate hike. (The Bulwark) • Gas Prices Could Cost Republicans the Midterms: Gas is up 37 percent in a year, home-heating oil 52 percent, diesel a staggering 69 percent — and none of it improves while the Iran war drags on. Many voters understand that the president isn’t directly responsible for the price of oil. Except this time, he is. (The Atlantic) • More Money Than They Ever Imagined — and No Clue How to Spend It: Bay Area AI workers are too busy to embrace the fruits of the boom — maybe a custom bike trip through Italy, if they can spare the time off. Share sales at OpenAI and Anthropic minted hundreds of millionaires. They’re splurging on computer hardware and espresso machines. (Wall Street Journal) • Hollywood fears an AI future. China is already living it: China’s film and video industry is in the midst of an AI revolution, and at ground zero are the micro dramas that play out on millions of smartphones. The AI trends upending China’s entertainment industry may be a harbinger for what’s to come in Hollywood. Actor Chen Yilong signed a contract in August licensing his face to a production studio — his role now is to sit before a camera making expressions on command. A neutral stare. An angry glare. (Los Angeles Times) • It’s Time to Raise the Rates (No, Not Those Ones). Reaganism broke U.S. tax brackets. It’s time to fix them. I’ve always been struck by the fact that the income floor for the top tax rate in America is $640,600. Why should someone making $700,000 pay the same rate as someone making $70 million? In a new report, the Roosevelt Institute policy fellow Samarth Gupta argues that this is actually a historical anomaly. From 1916 to 1986, the tax code had, on average, more than 27 different federal income brackets each year; today, it has just seven. Fixing that, he argues, wouldn’t just make the tax system fairer; it could also help us pay down the national debt. (The Bully Pulpit with Bharat Ramamurti) • A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics. We are witnessing a general threat to intellectual work, with misalignment between the outcome of the use of AI and its initial purpose. In many fields and activities, years of training have traditionally served not only to produce a final answer or product, but also to develop understanding and the ability to formulate new questions and ideas. Terence Tao on the threat to intellectual work — years of training were never just about producing the final answer, but about developing the ability to formulate new questions. (Terry Tao) • Pennsylvania’s Measles Outbreak Is Enormous: The two latest deaths suggest that the true number of infections is much larger than reported. Four deaths in the state since mid-August have made America’s measles crisis undeniable — and harder for anti-vaccine activists to explain away. (The Atlantic) • Kennedy Center Leaders Warn It’ll Collapse Without Trump’s Name: Hafiz Rashid on the president’s allies claiming the historic theater could close immediately unless the renaming sticks. (New Republic) • Shot Into the Sky at 700 MPH: Inside the Secret Fraternity of Ejection Survivors: Ron Bath hit a bird at nearly 700 mph in his RF-4 Phantom — the WSJ on the tie club whose membership requirement is pulling the handle. People who live through the harrowing experience join a little-known fraternity where members get silk ties and $5,000 watches (Wall Street Journal) • ‘It’s the Bayeux tapestry of TV!’ After six decades, the seminal series bows out with 70 Up. The ‘hugely important artefact’ that’s followed 14 children since they were seven is set to air its final instalment. The now-septuagenarians and director Asif Kapadia talk about breaking new ground for 63 years – and changing TV for ever. The Up series — checking in on the same Britons every seven years since 1964 — comes to its close. (The Guardian) Video of the day: The Professor Who Taught People How To Think Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Glen Kacher, founder and CIO of Light Street Capital. He launched the firm in Palo Alto after stints working with Julian Roberts at Tiger and Roger McNamee at Integral. His Mercury funds returned 45.7% in 2023, 59.4% in 2024, and 37.3% in 2025 — the best three-year stretch of any of the “Tiger Cubs.” He describes the firm as “the Silicon Valley Home Team, 100% focused on tech opportunities.” Four Stages of YTD Global Equity Returns Source: Fisher Investments Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.