Good morning. Futures point to a timid opening this morning as the war/skirmish/conflict (pick one) with Iran is about to close out its second month, quite a bit longer than original projections. Meanwhile, at least one other battle might be resolved, as the Justice Department dropped the criminal probe of Jay Powell … clearing the way for Kevin Warsh to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve. But this does not mean things will be calm by any means … as the White House has not been shy about its call for a rate cut, which it would certainly like to see (inflation be damned) before the mid-term elections … though the new chairman claims complete independency without any influence at all from the man who hired him for the post. Right. As far as present economic views are concerned consumers, so far, don’t seem to be buying any of the White House talk that all is going well … as a University of Michigan recent survey shows sentiment to be at its lowest since Truman was president. By the way … that’s a long time. Stories surrounding “AI Data Centers” are becoming more commonplace as communities nationwide struggle with the Centers introduction into their communities. It seems (from my limited understanding) that these would be great for employment … while they are being built … but beyond that, each offers limited ongoing need for a lot of employees, while negatively affecting local water supply, air quality and land (both heating up the ground and taking up lots of space). In fact, a report out this morning in The Washington Post claims 14 percent of the land in the town of Archibald, Pennsylvania (just outside of Scranton) would be taken up by so many planned data centers that it is “the equivalent of 51 Walmart” stores.” There is little doubt that AI is being used more each day … though it is rather difficult to know which one is best to use under each scenario … ChatGPT … Gemini … Claude … heck, I even use one called Grok for which the NY Times has an article telling how one person replaced use of music and podcasts to keep him occupied while he drives and, instead, has “conversations” with his new Grok friend. I would say this is scary, but I find myself doing the same thing at times. But some feel this technology needs to slow down a bit and some areas of Scandinavia are taking action. Feeling the need that kids just must get back to the days when they could be inventive and thoughtful … without leaning on the crutch of machines doing their thinking for them … schools are tossing aside the machines and using something quite ancient to fertilize the imagination of its students. Books … good old books. Could this happen here? Can we help our kids by having them put aside the AI for a while and have them digest and consider, discuss and absorb the actual written words of Twain, Shakespeare and others? Should the U.S. insist on only using books once students enter the classroom? It would be a novel idea Have a great day, Joseph G. Witthohn, CFA Have any questions? Please contact info@teamemerald.com
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