Need2Know, by Cheddar

Why Investors Should Hope For a Rate Hike

Matt Davis — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how Anthropic caught ‘rogue actors’ making bioweapons with Claude. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Why Investors Should Hope For a Rate Hike
Kiss Goodbye to the American Housing Market
U.S. Military Now Has Weapons in Space, It Says
Apple Joins TV’s Big League With Emmy Wins
The Bahamas Wedding Gift From Russia With Love
Poll of the Day: From Russia With Expectations?
Poll of the Day: AI, Caramba!

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) $WBD ( ▼ 0.25% ) $NFLX ( ▼ 3.01% )

Why Investors Should Hope For a Rate Hike

(Google)

For the past 15 years, stock investors saw rate hikes as the ultimate nightmare. But as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise rates, investors should rejoice. That's because it beats the alternative, says the Wall Street Journalist's Spencer Jakob.

The twisted reality of today's market is that the Fed's overnight rate isn't the real monster in the closet. The 10-year Treasury yield is. Back in July, when Fed Chair Kevin Warsh left rates unchanged, his "clumsy explanation" spooked bond traders and sent the benchmark 10-year yield surging past 5% for the first time since 2007. That's Jakob's thinking, at least, although treasury yields have had a little help from the Treasury.

If the Fed hesitates again out of fear, investors risk convincing the bond market that rate setters have lost their nerve on inflation. Billionaire bond manager Jeffrey Gundlach captured Wall Street's growing skepticism: “There’s something about Kevin Warsh that I don’t fully trust,” he told Jakob, adding that he “would expect long-term interest rates to rise fairly significantly in the aftermath” if the Fed chooses to hold steady again.

Sure, President Trump might voice objections from the sidelines and demand rate cuts. But as Jakob notes, “be careful what you wish for.” A routine quarter-point rate increase won't crush Main Street or Wall Street. An out-of-control Treasury market will. It’s thinking that I tend to agree with, which I must say is rather unusual for an editorial in this particular paper.

Kiss Goodbye to the American Housing Market

(Google)

Investors should hope for rate hikes. Yes. But homebuyers? Homesellers? Not so much. 30-year mortgage rates are sprinting toward the psychological barrier of 7%. That's likely to send the housing market further into freeze-town.

On one side, you have lucky legacy homeowners like Jonathan Pearl. He's holding onto his $900,000 Massachusetts property with a locked-in 2.875% rate. His stance on selling? “It’s not a strain on our finances. We can keep it for a few years and then figure it out," he told the WSJ.

Meanwhile, prospective buyers are staring at $5,000 monthly payments on $850,000 homes. Real-estate agent Maria Bozza suggested buyers cope by renting out their second floor. She did so while sitting on a windowsill at an open house that drew a grand total of one family.

Michael Fratantoni, Chief Economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said: “You have to think as a mortgage borrower, you are competing against every government in the world and every other issuer as well.” He adds that “a jump in rates like this will certainly cause [prospective home buyers] to pause.”

But the peak of modern house-hunting anxiety comes from open-house attendee Rakesh Karki. Touring a $550,000 cottage, he summed up the dread of his generation: “Now it’s almost 7%... it’s tough to deal with,” before dropping the kicker: “AI is going to take all the jobs. You never know when you’re going to lose your job."

When signing a 30-year mortgage feels like competing against sovereign nations and your robot replacement, no wonder buyers are backing away.

U.S. Military Now Has Weapons in Space, It Says

(Google)

The U.S. military has admitted to the world that it has weapons orbiting Earth. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said “the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”

But when pressed on whether we're talking about satellite jammers or "Golden Dome" missile defense interceptors with "flight-ready hardware," Meink clammed up. He claimed that disclosing further details “would actually not benefit that deterrence.”

That's right. America's deterrence strategy in orbit boils down to: "Trust us, we’ve got something super powerful up there, but it's a secret."

Security experts were quick to point out that threatening rivals with an invisible mystery box isn't how deterrence works. Clayton Swope, a former CIA technical intelligence officer, told the FT that Meink was “too vague” to intimidate anyone, explaining that adversaries “would need to know more about the destructive potential of the weapon and what general line — even a hazy understanding of the line — they would have to cross before the U.S. would use it.”

Rather than scaring rivals into submission, experts warn this cryptic flex could backfire and spark an orbital arms race. Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation told the FT: “This becomes a self-enforcing cycle and eventually someone is going to use one of those weapons.” Meanwhile, Sam Lair of the Foreign Policy Research Institute observed that the disclosure simply provides “rhetorical ammunition for boosters of existing or new programs elsewhere.”

Let’s blow each other up, people. Yeah!

Song of the Day: Ezra Collective, ‘El Corazón’

Here’s a high-energy track showcasing the Mercury Prize-winning quintet's evolving musicianship, just like this newsletter.

Apple Joins TV’s Big League With Emmy Wins

Tech titan Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) dethroned long-time leaders HBO $WBD ( ▼ 0.25% ) and Netflix $NFLX ( ▼ 3.01% ) at the 2026 Emmy Awards. The station took home 28 trophies, led by a record 14 wins for its comedy standout Widow’s Bay. Accepting the top prize, creator Katie Dippold paid tribute to “the wonderful weirdos” on her team. Then she thanked her benevloent tech overlord: “They truly just let us do this weird show.”

At the official after-party, top Apple executive Eddy Cue led a fist-raising tequila-shot toast. He said: “When we started this seven years ago, it’s hard to imagine that we’d be here today,” while exclaiming, “I’m pinching myself, honestly.” Even new Apple CEO John Ternus joined the celebration: “At Apple, we always focus on the customer, build the best thing that we can on the product side, and the Apple TV team is doing the exact same thing with TV shows," he said.

Hollywood talent agent Richard Weitz applauded Apple’s deep-pockets strategy, noting, “They’re serious, they’re spending money, and they’re making a lot of programming — they’ve become absolutely critical to our marketplace."

While Apple TV+ won big on critical prestige, hardly anyone is actually tuning in. Nielsen data reveals Apple accounts for a microscopic 0.5% of total U.S. TV viewing time. In fact, Widow’s Bay was the single least-watched nominee in the best comedy category.

While traditional Hollywood media giants slash budgets, Apple’s secret formula is writing blank checks to win shiny trophies. They don't care if anyone's watching. I must say, I rather admire their approach. Plus: Widow’s Bay is good. I recommend it!

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The Bahamas Wedding Gift From Russia With Love

I love a "low-key private wedding," don't you? Particularly if a Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin bankrolls the after-party. In the Bahamas. At least, that's how Donald Trump Jr. and his wife Bettina Anderson feel. When they celebrated their nuptials, they posted on Instagram thanking “our dear friend Umar [Kremlev].” He had hosted “two incredible nights of celebrations," they wrote.

Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a former member of the Russian nationalist biker gang the Night Wolves, and a man who once gifted Putin a diamond boxing glove. Sounds like a very savory character. He doesn't even have a longstanding relationship with Trump Jr., and a spokesperson for brother Eric Trump said he didn't even know who Kremlev was. So, what was he expecting to get out of paying for the wedding party? That's the question vexing ethicists and lawmakers.

Representative Robert Garcia posted on X: “Umar Kremlev spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the president’s son... What did he get in return? We need answers."

The newlyweds insist everyone is being dramatic. In their Instagram response, they complained it was “unfortunate that something so personal and happy can be recast as something political or sinister.” They added: “Friendship doesn’t require a political motive. Generosity doesn’t automatically come with an agenda... And sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift”. They capped it off with a definitive shout in all-caps: “NO CONSPIRACY, NO MYSTERY."

I'm not sure that's how friendship works in Russia, guys. Have you seen the movie Eastern Promises? Because I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: From Russia With Expectations?

Poll of the Day: AI, Caramba!

We asked: “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Discuss.

You answered:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I agree that the president has the best interest of the country at heart and is best placed to make determinations about the regulation of AI. (8)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I think the fact that the bosses of AI companies are asking for guardrails means they're needed. (506)
514 Votes

via @beehiiv polls

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P.S. So, you remember the cheese puns that used to open this newsletter? Suffice to say, they were divisive. Now, thanks to a thing called “dynamic content options,” I can offer you the option to see cheese puns again, if you’re one of the thousands who got in touch bemoaning their departure six months ago. All you need to do is answer “true” on this survey, and submit it. If you never want to see cheese puns in this newsletter again, don’t click that link, don’t fill out the survey, don’t submit it. Just keep reading and pretend this conversation never happened. Mmmkay? Thank you.

Tech Stocks Slide Over 'AI Slowdown'

Matt Davis — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Tech Stocks Slide Over 'AI Slowdown'
Bond Markets Further Rebuke Scott Bessent
Amazon Suspends Plane Crash Contractor
Oracle Lays Off Staff With Monday 6 A.M. Email
U.S. Says Cisco Allowed Harassment of Workers
Poll of the Day: AI, Caramba!
Poll of the Day: Basic Human Warmth

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) $SPCX ( ▼ 3.15% )$SFTBY ( ▲ 9.34% ) $INTC ( ▼ 0.05% ) $AMD ( ▲ 2.19% ) $ASML ( ▲ 1.04% ) $NVDA ( ▲ 0.57% ) $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) $ORCL ( ▼ 3.07% ) $CSCO ( ▲ 0.01% )

Tech Stocks Slide Over 'AI Slowdown'

(Google)

Wall Street has survived inflation, soaring interest rates, and geopolitical chaos. Now, AI executives are asking to slow down before their creations destroy the world.

Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) CEO Dario Amodei and other tech leaders want to slow the pace AI development. OpenAI's $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) Sam Altman and even Elon Musk $SPCX ( ▼ 3.15% ) agree. That prompted tech stocks to drop on Monday. The big question, of course, is whether slowing development means investors make less. In the short term, tech investor Softbank $SFTBY ( ▲ 9.34% ) fell shaply, along with chipmakers Intel $INTC ( ▼ 0.05% ) , AMD $AMD ( ▲ 2.19% ) , ASML $ASML ( ▲ 1.04% ) , and Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 0.57% ) .

Emmanuel Cau, head of European equities strategy at Barclays, told the Financial Times: “Fundamentally, the question that would come up is whether increased AI safety means slower and lower capex spending and subsequently what that means for global growth and earnings from an equity standpoint.”

Washington has a very different take on software guardrails. President Trump dismissed catastrophic AI warnings as a "HOAX." He posted that “the only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” He also called out Anthropic's CEO for “pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel.’”

Cheddar also has a big question:

Bond Markets Further Rebuke Scott Bessent

(Google)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled down on his “I am the house” chat about bond markets in an interview with Steve Bannon last week, dismissing skeptical traders as misguided “Bloomberg terminal bros” who were choosing their “pocket book over patriotism” rather than trusting his market vision.

Well, the terminal bros took the bet. On Monday, the 10-year Treasury yield surged briefly past 5 percent, hitting a “psychological ceiling” milestone recorded only once since the 2008 global financial crisis. That’s despite Bessent ordering the Treasury Department to aggressively buy back $5.2 billion of long-dated debt to artificially suppress borrowing costs.

An irony is that Bessent previously understood the ruthless power of sovereign debt markets. Back in June at the Economic Club of New York, he warned President Trump that “the bond market has taken out more governments than howitzers.” Yet, as a former hedge fund titan who built his wealth betting against foreign currencies, he apparently convinced himself that a $40 trillion national debt load could be tamed by a bit of political posturing. That turns out not to have been the case.

Bessent insists the market turmoil is just a “fever dream” driven by traders looking to create panic. But investors are staring down triple-digit oil prices, massive corporate debt for the AI boom, and exploding deficit spending. They want higher returns from lending to the U.S. Government. It turns out that no matter how high your title is, if you try to bully the bond market, the house doesn’t always win.

Amazon Suspends Plane Crash Contractor

(Reuters)

Amazingly, Amazon’s $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) “Prime Air” jet which crashed in Miami this weekend, killing five people, was operated by a third-party called “21 Air.” Can you believe it? I’m not sure I can, because the words “Prime Air” were emblazoned across the side. Still, it’s Amazon. They’d treat everyone as a contractor if they could.

Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said: “Safety has always been our top priority, whether in our own operations or when we’re working with partners... we’ve decided to pause our operations with 21 Air.”

Cockpit voice recordings revealed a pilot warning multiple times about “excessive speed” before a frantic, last-second call for a go-around. Former 21 Air employees had also already filed whistleblower complaints with the Labor Department raising safety concerns. Apparently Amazon was unconcerned until five people died.

21 Air, owned by Houston Astros billionaire owner Jim Crane, remained steadfast, telling press: “We are confident in our safety policies, procedures, and training.”

I hope so, Jim. I really do.

Song of the Day: Victoria Monét, ‘Juicy’

Here’s a lush, effortlessly smooth, and sultry late-summer anthem. So, it’s just like this newsletter.

Oracle Lays Off Staff With Monday 6 A.M. Email

Don’t you just love a corporate pink slip landing in your inbox at 6:00 a.m.?

For the 4,000 affected Oracle $ORCL ( ▼ 3.07% ) staff on Monday, setting an alarm was strictly optional. This marks Oracle’s third round of workforce reductions this year, following the elimination of 21,000 jobs, roughly 13 percent of its workforce, in fiscal year 2026. Oracle generated a staggering $57 billion in revenue last fiscal year, only to turn around and spend $1.84 billion just on severance and restructuring costs.

The layoffs follow news on Friday that the company’s co-founder Larry Ellison plans to sell $7.5 billion in company shares by the end of the month.

“After careful consideration of Oracle’s current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change,” the company wrote. “As a result, today is your last working day.”

To secure their severance, workers had to rapidly open their corporate email and sign DocuSign paperwork before IT locked them out forever.

The email warned: “Access to your computer, email, voicemail, and files will be deactivated soon, and you will be unable to log into your computer. As a reminder, you are prohibited from downloading, copying or retaining (including emailing yourself any Oracle confidential information).”

I’m sure everyone followed that advice.

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U.S. Says Cisco Allowed Harassment of Workers

A federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has concluded there is reasonable cause to believe Cisco $CSCO ( ▲ 0.01% ) permitted a hostile work environment for Middle Eastern, Muslim, and pro-Palestinian staff. Internal message boards degenerated into toxic battlegrounds where employees were branded "animals" and told to "quit living," according to the finding.

Former Cisco lawyer Reyhan Bilici said: “At end of the day, I will be reduced to these certain offensive terms: terrorist, animal, whatever it is... It’s completely dehumanizing.” Bilici added: “Cisco created the conditions in which people felt emboldened to ratchet up objective Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian discrimination.”

When workers flagged a post telling colleagues to "quit living," Cisco took seven weeks to fire the offender. As attorney Christopher Ho put it, “My clients felt like Cisco believed they were worthy of less protection.”

Cisco spokeswoman Robyn Blum insisted the company “thoroughly investigated all concerns and took appropriate action.”

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: AI, Caramba!

Poll of the Day: Basic Human Warmth

We asked: What do you think are the odds that McDonald's's's's's $2m spend on improving 'basic human warmth' in its restaurants will be successful?

You answered:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 About as likely as finding an ice cream machine that is actually working in one of its restraurants. (176)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ It might work, assuming corporate warmth can successfully overpower minimum-wage exhaustion and drive-thru timers. (108)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Miracles happen! Next thing you know, the manager will sit down and ask about my day. (28)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 It's almost like fast food restaurants are designed to exploit low-wage labor, alienating workers through mechanized assembly, and commodifying basic human sustenance for corporate profit. In that context, it's hard to imagine human warmth emerging, no? (171)
483 Votes

via @beehiiv polls

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90% Chance of a Rate Rise This Week

Matt Davis — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Tim Olsen won last week’s world famous news haiku competition™ with this beauty about the fact that jobs numbers smashed expectations, putting pressure on the Fed chair to raise interest rates to cool inflation:

Congrats, Tim, who it turns out is a would-be revolutionary! He writes: “I thought this one might resonate with readers because the system IS rigged by the wealthy and the only way the rest of us can succeed is as a by-product of greed. We need to remember that they have the power but WE have the numbers.”

I love the occasional all-caps word to explain the animus behind a winning haiku. Rage against the machine, Tim! Here’s your celebratory image:

And here’s how Tim fared against the competition (he positively killed them in the name of this competition…):

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ August jobs rates soar, Warsh raising interest rates. Trump blows a gasket. ~S. Bybee (59)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Make it make sense please, More jobs equals higher interest. Not buying a home now! ~Thomas C. Clair (18)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Job numbers fly high, Interest rates to follow. Kev says all good, right? ~Steven R. Balzac (10)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Job numbers rise -- Yay! Will mortgage rates rise too? Boo! It’s always something! ~Margaret Lea (11)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Why when jobs are up, Should interest rates go down? Quite the conundrum. ~Janine G (6)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ New jobs smashed forecasts, Risks an interest rate hike. Stocks sank on the news. ~Bob Andersen (9)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Warsh heeds the data, won’t give in to Trump’s pressure. Cooler heads prevail? ~Jim Tyler (26)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ We do well, Work Hard. Work! Spend! Save! As we are taught. The Fed Punishes. ~Dick Peterson (22)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 More jobs, higher rates. The rich keep getting richer. The rest, left behind. ~Tim Olsen (156)
317 Votes via @beehiiv polls

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

90% Chance of a Rate Rise This Week
Scott Bessent Fails To Calm the Bond Markets
Anthropic Caught ‘Rogue Actors’ Making Bioweapons
Minnesota: Frontline in ‘Prediction Market’ Fight
Fast Food Firms Double Down on Hospitality
Poll of the Day: The Daddy Mack’ll Make Ya…

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$MS ( ▼ 0.15% ) $BAC ( ▲ 0.08% ) $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) $KALSZZX ( ▲ 2.04% ) $PLYRZZX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $QSR ( ▼ 4.31% ) $WEN ( ▼ 2.23% )

90% Chance of a Rate Rise This Week

(Google)

If your jaw hits the floor often at the grocery store these days, you’re not alone. The cumulative toll of 3.4% inflation has turned everyday errands into a comedy of high prices. Raw steak that cost $6 a pound in 2012 and $8 in 2019 now costs $13. Gas lingers near $4 a gallon, and as Kroger CEO Greg Foran says, "customers are buying more on need."

The sticker shock is putting pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh to raise interest rates to tame inflation. Stock market traders now expect 90% chance of a rate increase when the Fed meets this week. When Warsh took the helm, skeptics doubted his independence. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called him "Donald Trump’s sock puppet." But it turns out, the "sock puppet" is showing unexpected political savvy and biting back. As Cornell professor Eswar Prasad told the ,, the latest price surge "sharpens the conflict between the Fed’s price stability mandate and the keep-Trump-happy dictate."

Meanwhile, billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller threw gasoline on the fire. He told a Wall Street audience that Fed officials who argue current rates are restrictive are "just ridiculous.“ Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have argued that raising rates would be “unpatriotic.” Although Druckenmiller didn’t mention them by name, so maybe he was referring to other people?

Scott Bessent Fails To Calm the Bond Markets

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned traders not to bet against bond markets. Last week he said, "I am the house." As in, the house always wins. But in this case, Scott seems more like, I dunno…like a bungalow perched on the edge of a cliff suffering erosion damage?

After buying $6 billion worth of U.S. bonds to try to shore up the market, yields continued to rise last week. That sounds good, right? But, it’s bad. Yields rise when people think the U.S. government is less likely to be good for its IOU payments. It means bond traders can charge the government more to borrow money. Yikes.

In fact, the buyback stirred comparisons to fiscal interventions in volatile developing economies. Ellen Zentner at Morgan Stanley $MS ( ▼ 0.15% ) told the FT, “We can’t ignore the fact that there are emerging-market-type risks in some of the actions the U.S. has been taking."

She is comparing us to Argentina, my friends.

Wall Street veterans were also scathing about the modest scale of the effort by the house. I’m sorry, by Scott Bessent. Mark Cabana at Bank of America $BAC ( ▲ 0.08% ) told the FT the Treasury seems to be “doing things on the cheap, almost nickel and diming…which is inconsistent with a ‘whatever it takes’ approach." DoubleLine portfolio manager Bill Campbell is also incredulous: “I would have thought Bessent would have understood that with any intervention your first shot is your best shot and you have to come in big,” he said.

Anthropic Caught ‘Rogue Actors’ Making Bioweapons

(Google)

More delightful options emerged last week on the à la carte menu of how we'd best like AI to “kill us all.” In this case: Bird flu, dissident surveillance, or catfishing bots?

Rogue scientists from China, Russia, and Iran have been tricking AI bots into helping them synthesize global plagues. AI startup Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) says it caught them using its Claude model for biological weapons. Fortunately, of course, Anthropic was able to stop the attempts and tell us all about it. But for every story we're seeing about AI firms stopping such madness, how many slip through the cracks?

One such “rogue actor” spent weeks planning a new kind of bird flu outbreak, the AI firm said. Although they insisted that they couldn't prove evil intent. That's because bioweapon recipes double as vaccine blueprints. But, you know. Anthropic hopes to “spark a conversation within the AI industry and with governments about emerging biological risks and how best to counter them.”

I bet they do. Anthropic's recent rogue actors report said people used its technology for everything from “a network of fake dating apps designed to defraud users” to dissident surveillance. Meanwhile, rival Chinese labs continue to rip off our 'merican AI models, Anthropic said. It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?

Song of the Day: Portraits of Tracy, ‘Royal Courts’

This single by alternative pop artist Portraits of Tracy exemplifies genre-defying psychedelic baroque pop. The self-produced track shifts from minimalist acoustic guitar strums into theatrical, full-scale arrangements and operatic belts. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter.

Minnesota: Frontline in ‘Prediction Market’ Fight

(LinkedIn)

If you were betting on Minnesota to trigger a landmark federal constitutional showdown over teenagers betting on Taylor Swift’s wedding? It's time to collect your winnings.

The Gopher State just became the first in the nation to ban "prediction markets" like Kalshi $KALSZZX ( ▲ 2.04% ) and Polymarket $PLYRZZX ( ▼ 0.45% ) . Lawmakers stepped in after teachers saw underage students making bets on their phones during class. State Representative Emma Greenman declared the trend "both a public safety and public health issue," talking to the NYT. Science teacher Devon Bowker tried warning students about dopamine hits. He asked them, “Do you want to be in control of your own destiny or leave it to chance on the app?”

I'd prefer an app to decide my destiny, Devon, obvs. But I don't recall you asking me.

Federal regulators and betting platforms sued immediately. CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig insisted prediction markets shouldn't be “regulated under a patchwork of state gaming laws.” He'd prefer them to go unregulated under an absence of any federal law, it seems. Kalshi general counsel Rick Heaslip complained lawmakers rushed “to pass an unprecedented ban of a product they didn’t understand.”

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison bets that he understands the product well enough. He said in court that the apps help “gambling, plain and simple.” State lawyer Lindsey Middlecamp questioned how wagers on Taylor Swift’s wedding fit federal financial mandates.

U.S. District Judge Kate M. Menendez, who opened hearings asking, “Who is going to take the ‘educating the middle-aged judge’ set of questions?”, agreed that “one is hard-pressed to imagine the financial, economic, or commercial consequence” of betting on Love Island.

Law professors describe this as the ultimate “test case.” Whether Wall Street can rebrand teenage pop-culture gambling as sophisticated high finance rests, for now, on St. Paul. Until the government appeals and it goes to the Supreme Court, that is. And then it's anybody's guess. I'll give you 2:1 odds on Clarence Thomas siding with the prediction markets. Unrelatedly, I'm sure, the President's son, Donald, Jr., has financial stakes worth millions of bucks in both major firms. 🤷

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Fast Food Firms Double Down on Hospitality

(Google)

After spending millions automating service, fast-food giants have stumbled upon a shocking discovery. Turns out, people actually dislike ordering cheeseburgers from a glowing, sterile monolith.

For years, chains rushed to replace cashiers with self-service kiosks and app-only pickups. The result? Lobbies transformed into dystopian waiting rooms where customers stand around staring at screens. The National Operators Association, a McDonald’s $MCD ( ▼ 1.83% ) franchisee group, candidly admitted in a survey that “many guests say their experiences in our restaurants seem rushed, impersonal, sterile, and cold.”

Tell me about it. Try ordering a decaf coffee from the Hampton Boulevard McDonald's in Norfolk, Virginia. I swear to God they never have any. Or it's cold. Or they tell me to park in a spot to wait for it and then leave me hanging for 30 minutes. I mean I've driven off, frustrated, like a dozen times. Meanwhile the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street is always perfect. Mwah. (This is SO off-topic, Matt — Ed.)

Diners like me have voted with their feet. Customer Carolyn Blue, a former McDonald's loyalist who fled to competitors over the impersonal screens, lamented to the Wall Street Journal, “It breaks my heart….We just won’t go back.”

Steady on, Carolyn. It’s only a McMuffin we’re talking about.

Still, executives are spending millions retraining workers on something called "basic human warmth." McDonald’s is launching a massive initiative to coach 2 million employees on authentic hospitality. Tiffanie Boyd, McDonald’s global chief people officer, noted that “experience has also become much more important than it used to be,” while Burger King $QSR ( ▼ 4.31% ) U.S. President Tom Curtis acknowledged customers “want a friendly face….We have to lean in to that because that’s evaporating in the fast food space.” Over at Wendy’s $WEN ( ▼ 2.23% ) CEO Bob Wright insisted that “the best service experiences feel natural to the customer,” even if that "naturalness" is scripted by the head office, of course. Now. SMILE…

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

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Nope.

Poll of the Day: The Daddy Mack’ll Make Ya…

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Meta's New AI-gent Will Do Stuff for You

Matt Davis — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Pick a winner in this week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ in today’s poll below…

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Meta's New AI-gent Will Do Stuff for You
Dorchester Hotel Sells Sheikh's Car Over Unpaid Bi …
So Long, Then, LIV Golf, We Hardly Knew Ya
Washington Slams Ford for Chinese Connections
How Hershey Is Selling Fancy Chocolate to Gen Z
Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time
Poll of the Day: AI, AI, AI

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$META ( ▲ 0.7% ) $F ( ▼ 2.6% ) $HSY ( ▼ 1.88% )

Meta's New AI-gent Will Do Stuff for You

(Muse)

Meta $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) is taking AI a step further with Muse, a personal AI agent for adults designed to handle day-to-day tasks. It can also turn "long-term goals into action plans," assuming you have any goals. Other than "avoid a robot eating my lunch," of course.

Muse is a standalone app or you can use it in WhatsApp. It doesn't only answer questions. It actually does things for you, from booking travel to sending emails. It can even launch a new business! (*So says Meta. Although I’m curious to hear from anyone who actually does that with it!)

I downloaded the app and gave it a try. It failed to book a restaurant for my birthday after the Resy browser crashed on it a couple of times. But I enjoyed using it. It made me give my agent a nickname. I chose "Clocky." Because it will save me time, and obscenities aren't allowed.

Traditional chatbots are passive. But Meta says, "once a person shares a goal with muse, it helps them develop a plan." It will also coordinate your time and resources, opening browser tabs. It will fill out forms. It will even haggle on your behalf while you take a nap.

This all fits into Mark Zuckerberg's vision of "universal AI superintelligence." Remember that huge 6,500-word essay he put on the internet? The one he promises he wrote himself? This was part of it. Your agent will try to improve your relationships. Best of luck with that. It'll try to improve your health. Best of luck with that. Finances. Home management. Hobbies. Best of…ah, never mind.

The goal is to "free up time for the things you enjoy, and help you do more than you could otherwise." So says Zuck himself. Meta is also stressing safety and privacy, because as we all know, its platforms always do that. Especially when they're trying to hook teens. Too soon?

Let me know how the Muse strikes you!

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Quote of the Day

Dorchester Hotel Sells Sheikh's Car Over Unpaid Bill

(Google)

Ah, the Dorchester Hotel. I had an old relative who was a psychic. He drove a gold Rolls-Royce around and was in Life Magazine in 1967 next to an article on The Beatles. He met his lover in an elevator at the Dorchester. It was illegal to be gay back then, but that didn't bother them. Then, when they'd broken up, he met his next lover in the same elevator. Stephen Fry played him in a biopic based on the life of Peter Sellers, his most famous client. But tell me, what's your Dorchester Hotel story? I'm sure it's almost as interesting.

Qatari royal Sheikh Nasser bin Abdullah al-Thani also loves The Dorchester. So much so that he's run up a £458,000 bill there, comprising room charges, extra fees, and interest. The sheikh failed to attend a court hearing on the matter, so a British judge ruled in favor of the hotel. He even authorized them to seize and sell his car to recoup funds.

The vehicle on the chopping block is a 2011 Fiat 500 Abarth Tributo Ferrari. It's a compact city hatchback accented with racing stripes. It will sell for £23,500, or less than 5% of the outstanding amount. But it's the thought that counts.

The sheik's Instagram profile flaunts a lavish lifestyle. His legal team insisted to the Financial Times, “Sheikh Al Thani has only recently become aware of these proceedings." The sheikh also disputes the amount owed, and the nature of the proceedings. Meanwhile, The Dorchester — owned by the Brunei Investment Agency — declined to comment. That’s the stiff upper lip at work, I expect.

So Long, Then, LIV Golf, We Hardly Knew Ya

(Cheddar.com)

LIV Golf has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection before the 2027 season. After burning through cash at over $100 million per month, the Saudis pulled funding.

Despite losing its main financial lifeline, LIV’s leadership tried to project calm. CEO Scott O’Neil insisted that “a lot of that angst, a lot of discord, and a lot of frustration” had been “washed away.”

Just like the remains of Jamal Khashoggi. Say, what happened to that guy, anyway?

Rival PGA Tour's Rory McIlroy gave advice to golfers left stranded by LIV. “If you want to be the most competitive golfer you can be, this is the place to be," he said. "And if you don’t want to play here, I think that says something about you."

No judgement, of course. LIV's liabilities tower between $500 million and $1 billion. It also leaves behind unpaid vendor lawsuits, canceled tournaments, and players owed millions. Still, LIV insists it plans to play another season. It insists on it. I’m holding my breath!

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Song of the Day: Medium Build, ‘It’s Not Easy, Falling In Love’

Here’s a highly effective, radio-ready cautionary tale about the emotional risks and complexities of romance. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter.

Washington Slams Ford for Chinese Connections

(Cheddar.com)

Ford Motor Company $F ( ▼ 2.6% ) got a stern warning from Washington. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote to the firm to share "profound concern" about its ties to China. The letter called out Ford's battery licensing deal with Chinese firm CATL.

Duffy reminded Ford about "American national automotive manufacturing integrity, supply chain exposure, and reliance on technologies of foreign adversaries." He said Ford's moves "paint a troubling picture of a foundational American brand actively intertwining its future with Chinese state-backed enterprises."

Ford, meanwhile, is evidently quaking in its shoes. It called the letter a "wrongheaded attempt to capture headlines" marred by "factual errors."

Touting its status as America's top-producing carmaker employing the most U.S. hourly workers, Ford said, “Ford supports the Trump administration’s vision for advancing American innovation and manufacturing.”

Then, delivering some corporate shade, Ford added, “Had Secretary Duffy reached out before issuing his letter to the press, we would have been happy to share more details about Ford’s U.S. commitment.”

That was a sick burn, Sean, in case you didn't catch it.

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How Hershey Is Selling Fancy Chocolate to Gen Z

(Hershey)

If you pay attention to Gen Z, and don't worry, I try not to, either, then you may have seen the rise of "little treat culture." Chocolate giant Hershey is all about this kind of "accessible premiumization." So says Dan Mohnshine, with the company, who has a lovely way with words.

The idea is to deliver elevated flavors and designs in small, affordable doses. Premium chocolate has been outpacing traditional options, growing "3x mainstream for the past three years," Mohnshine said. But astronomical price tags on top-tier artisanal chocolates leave a market opening.

"There's an enormous price gap between the top tier and mainstream, and that presents an opportunity for accessible premium," Dan said. "75% of the Hershey portfolio is available for less than $4 and these new creme bars are no exception."

To launch the new Hershey Creme Bar and ensure it resonated with younger shoppers, Hershey teamed up with pop group KATSEYE. Now consumer reception is "exceeding our expectations," and Mohnshine says, "it's really caught fire, people are excited about it.”

Hershey isn't stopping at boring flavors, either. They're bringing high-end flavors like truffle and pink Himalayan salt. And they even debuted a melt-proof "Cadbury Clutch" purse at Fashion Week. Fancy!

Watch the Interview

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

Poll of the Day: AI, AI, AI

We asked: Do you agree with Ian Boccaccio of tax firm Ryan that concern over AI data centers is “a passing fad, and in two years we won’t have these issues with data centers."

You answered:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Oh, sure. In two years we'll be worried about the collapse of Western civilization thanks to AI. So, technically, I guess, he's right. (260)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ I'm sorry to tell you that this sounds a lot like "let them eat cake." Except the cake is data centers. And in two years we might well have some guillotines to respond to Marie AI-ntoinette here. (138)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes. So smart. So smart. (12)
410 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Is Duo the Emperor's New iPhone?

Matt Davis — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how August jobs numbers smashed forecasts, adding pressure on Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to raise interest rates to cool inflation, because he contends that the labor market is robust enough to take such a cut without pushing the economy into a recession. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Is Duo the Emperor's New iPhone?
AI Could ‘Kill Us All’ Says Anthropic Researcher a …
Meet the Man Building Self-Driving Tractor Tech
States Curb Data Center Tax Breaks for Tech Firms
OpenAI Claims To Have Solved Math Holy Grail
Poll of the Day: Over-Infl-AI-ted

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% )

Is Duo the Emperor's New iPhone?

Apple’s stock was up $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) yesterday following the announcement of the new passport-sized iPhone Duo, which should reassure analysts wanting to see how new CEO John Ternus fares in the top job:

(Google)

Initial impressions suggest the new $2,000 phone itself could not be more blah, although wait…it works with the Apple Pencil! (Just don’t call it a “stylus” or Steve Jobs will be rolling in his grave). To add to the pressure on Apple, Samsung slashed $300 off its competing Galaxy Z foldable, which is now available on Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) for a mere $1,649. If you want the 2TB version of the Duo, you can pay a mere $3,199 for it (throw in a case, and that’ll be $3,328, more than a new MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro chip and 1TB of storage!), and the phone will be in stores on October 23. Someone joked that it’s called the Duo because “you’ll need two sources of income to afford it.”

Apple also added $100 to the price of its iPhone 18, with analysts concerned about whether the company can continue to grow revenue on the phones at its double-digit rate, year-on-year, given that pricing.

Personally, I am totally unconvinced by this new product. I bought an iPhone 16 Pro Max two years ago on promises of new AI features that never actually materialized (maybe I should see if I can get a payout on the class-action lawsuit?). Fool me once? Shame on you. But fool me twice? And for all this extra money? Even if you can do a backflip with one in your pocket, I’m very much here for the skeptical reactions on X.com.

It’s a cult! A cult! Right?

AI Could ‘Kill Us All’ Says Anthropic Researcher as He Quits

A 27-year-old researcher who worked at both OpenAI $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) and Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) rage quit this week. Then he took to X.com warning that the technology he'd been developing “could kill us all by the end of the decade."

His resignation thread alleged that “neither company is acting responsibly." Tech firms are “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."

Jacob Coxon compared the development of AI to the Manhattan Project's work on the atomic bomb. Anthropic team lead Evan Hubinger validated the alarm, writing on X, “Jacob is correct here — we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade….We do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

I can only imagine what Anthropic's lawyers thought of those Tweets.

Samuel Marks, an Anthropic safety expert, said, “In general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are.” Even OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, sounded alarms in a blog post. He wrote, “I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence.”

Coxon warned that this is a “hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack." Although, if it saved us from sitting through the last hour of the movie Oppenheimer? I'd welcome the end of the world. Because that was some turgid stuff. Let's cast Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt in a film and make it almost unwatchable? Christopher Nolan sure is a boundary-breaker, huh?

Meet the Man Building Self-Driving Tractor Tech

(Ouster)

Ouster CEO Angus Pacala is integrating self-driving tech into John Deere's tractors. The tech, LIDAR, is a remote sensing method using pulsing laser light to measure distances.

Ouster’s technology provides the "eyesight of these tractors," Pacala told us. It creates a "3D superhuman view of the environment." "There's no better partner in smart agriculture than John Deere $DE ( ▲ 0.38% )," he added. The firm has been doing quiet work on self-driving tech for decades, he said.

Farming isn't performed in a pristine lab. Fields present mud, dust, and unpredictable chaos. "You might have the family dog running into the orchard or your kids are playing among the trees," he said. LIDAR works in bad weather and the dark to help farms "maintain gaps in a labor force."

The tech is working in real fields as you're reading this. Pacala sees self-driving tractors as part of a broader wave of "physical AI." Ouster, he said, will become a "unified sensing and perception platform," over the next few years. I’d recommend he reads the story above this one before he gets too carried away.

Watch the Interview

Song of the Day: Adéla, ‘Nicole Kidman’

Adéla’s track "Nicole Kidman" from her debut album PRIMA has elicited polarized reviews from critics. Some praise its chopped-sample beats and exploration of Hollywood glamour. Others criticize elements like the heavy horn instrumentation and “derivative” stylistic choices. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter.

States Curb Data Center Tax Breaks for Tech Firms

(Google)

A decade ago, state lawmakers handed out generous tax breaks to tech giants for AI centers. Now, politicians are suffering from severe buyer's remorse and ripping up the contracts.

In Ohio, the tax breaks for companies like Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) , Meta $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) , and Alphabet $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% ) have exceeded $1.5 billion a year. “They seem to have more money than God and they’re able to build without the need for these types of incentives," said a state rep, explaining the rethink.

The policy reversal has left tech lobbyists scrambling. Steve DelBianco, chief executive of NetChoice, said, “our industry has been knocked on our backfoot.” Even Donald Trump weighed in: “If you want to go through poverty, crime, and squalor, I would say don’t approve data centers," he said last week.

Or, you know, go live in Gowanus, or something.

Still, industry advisers remain unfazed by the populist pushback. Ian Boccaccio of tax firm Ryan dismissed the opposition, predicting, “This is a passing fad, and in two years we won’t have these issues with data centers."

Can you spell complacent? No, seriously, can you spell it for me? I appear to have overestimated my competence, a bit like Ian.

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OpenAI Claims To Have Solved Math Holy Grail

(Google)

For decades, mathematicians struggled with the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem. I know you're as familiar with it as I am. But for the dummies in the room, it's a Millenium Prize Problem. That means it's about very hard math indeed. In this case, the problem is about the rules that describe how liquids and gases move.

OpenAI tackled this centuries-old mystery by unleashing an army of 10,000 AI agents on it for 88 hours. They produced a 165-page proof demonstrating "finite-time blowup." That's where spinning fluid vortices speed up to infinity. As we all know.

The result shocked even OpenAI’s internal team. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen woke up to frantic late-night calls in Tokyo. He told the WSJ, “I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night."

Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki said, “Even a month ago, I don’t think we would have predicted that we would be talking about a Millennium Prize Problem.”

Outside academics recognized the historic pivot point. Fields Medalist Timothy Gowers observed, “It’s undeniable that symbolically, it’s a big moment — and the next in a natural chain of big moments."

Meanwhile, h-AI-ters gonna h-AI-te. NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster questioned whether OpenAI's system had inappropriately accessed prior collaborative research sessions. And what about the $1 million bounty from the Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the problem? OpenAI is leaving the cash on the table. ”Our goal in releasing this result is to report on the substantial progress of our AI models,” the firm said. “We do not intend to claim the Millennium Prize."

Then again, the firm generates $40 billion in revenue every year. So, it's not like they need the cash.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Over-Infl-AI-ted

Poll of the Day: Emperor’s New iPhone

We asked: How stoked are you to pay $2,000 for a folding iPhone?

You answered:

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ I can't wait to surrender a month's rent to enjoy a permanent plastic crease form down the middle of my memes. (91)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ After five years of ruthlessly roasting every single Samsung user for carrying a glitchy makeup compact, I can finally pivot seamlessly and pretend Apple invented hinges. (53)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 If it survives my back pocket without snapping in half, that’s great. (133)
277 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Apple Might Unveil Folding iPhone Today

Matt Davis — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Apple Might Unveil Folding iPhone Today
The Secret Theranos Doc Everyone's Talking About
Hollywood Had A Record Summer, or Did It?
Canada Fires Back With New Tariffs
Europe’s Private Space Firm Gets Competitive
Poll of the Day: Foldy Foldy Foldy

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% ) $SSNLF ( ▲ 115.5% ) $NKE ( ▼ 2.24% ) $IMAX ( ▼ 1.24% )

Apple Might Unveil Folding iPhone Today

(Google)

After 20 years of boring flat iPhones, Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) fans might finally get a folding one today. People expect the company to introduce a bendable display that opens and closes like a book. The base version of this bendable beauty will most likely hover around $2,000. David Vogt, an analyst at investment bank UBS, told the New York Times the phone has a “wallet issue.” That could ruin the classic Apple “halo effect” where you walk in for a phone and walk out with a phone, plus some AirPods. It's a retail thing.

The launch will also tests whether John Ternus, who took over as CEO last week, can push the company to innovate. Apple did very well under former CEO Tim Cook, but hasn't created new categories like Steve Jobs did. Bob O'Donnell of TECHnalysis Research said a foldable phone shows “a side of Apple that we haven’t seen in a long time.”

Meh. I'd argue that a folding iPhone incorporating Google's $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% ) AI is hardly a rocket to the moon. Analysts point out that Samsung $SSNLF ( ▲ 115.5% ) has had one for a while and it's hardly made a dent in sales. Why is folding an iPhone in half the feature that makes people want to upgrade? I'm not a betting man. I'm not a prediction markets man either. But I'll wager that the firm's stock falls on the launch.

Bring us a compelling AI device. Bring us a whole different category of tech product we didn't know we needed. Don't turn into the Nike $NKE ( ▼ 2.24% ) of tech. That's the risk, here.

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Quote of the Day

The Secret Theranos Doc Everyone's Talking About

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is terrifying. That's the upshot of a new documentary by absurdist comedian Nathan Fielder. Fielder's documentary, You Can See Everything, premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. The reviews are that it is bat-bonkers crazy. 🤪

Fielder said, “I’m really struggling to this day to understand what I experienced.” He added, “I’m excited for this movie to come out and for people to help me with what I experienced.” And, “We are all smart, operating at the top of our game, yet no one could reach a consensus on what was happening in the house."

While Holmes serves her time in a Texas federal prison camp, she and partner Billy Evans are plotting. They want “to launch a new and improved Theranos,” Fielder said. I can't bear to watch the clip circulating on Twitter, yet. But by the time the film launches to the public on October 16, I may have come round. Who knows!

Watch More

Hollywood Had A Record Summer, or Did It?

(Cheddar.com)

Did Hollywood have a record summer? Only if your definition of "record" is fewer people paying twice as much. According to Hollywood’s accounting, this summer was a record. And it's true, movies pulled in a record $4.76 billion at the domestic box office. That's a strong number compared to the past few years, and Hollywood is right to crow about it.

That said, if you adjust for inflation, it makes the supposed comeback more complex. When you translate box office totals into today’s dollars, 2026's haul is 17% less than 2019's, equal to $5.7 billion. Actual ticket sales are also down 30 percent from that same pre-pandemic period. That translates to a whopping 248 million missing tickets, the New York Times reports.

So, how is the industry faking this blockbuster glow? Simple: They are charging us a fortune. Theaters are relying on premium formats like IMAX, where tickets average $20. IMAX $IMAX ( ▼ 1.24% ) chief executive Rich Gelfond told the Times, “We call it the IMAX awakening. We’re capturing more and more of the market."

I bet you do, Rich. And, I bet you are.

Meanwhile, the films themselves are a mixed bag. Spider-Man: Brand New Day made $2.4 billion around the world. The Odyssey made $1.63 billion around the world, too. Cast Zendaya and Tom Holland if you want a hit, it seems. Meanwhile, other supposed "surefire" hits like Minions & Monsters collapsed. It made $518.1 million around the world, or $600 million less than the previous two Minions films. Still, half a billion bucks on an $85 million budget is still a profit of four times your expenses. I'd take it.

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Song of the Day: Beyonce, ‘Can I Watch You?’

Jay-Z’s wife has got a new song out with Pharrell Williams on it, and I must say it’s rather raunchy to the point where it’s unavailable on YouTube, just like this newsletter. Here it is on Spotify, though.

Canada Fires Back With New Tariffs

The Great White North has clapped back at Uncle Sam. It has announced a wave of retaliatory tariffs on $28 billion of American goods. Canada's new levies range from 15% to 50%.

If you are an American trying to sell milk, steel, or golf clubs to Canada, prepare for a 50% tariff. Meanwhile, household essentials like cheese and toilet paper are getting 25% tariffs. It’s a bold strategy: Making it expensive for Americans to play golf and for Canadians to... well, use the restroom. Although Canada has plenty of its own toilet roll, it turns out.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said, "There’s always a cost to action, but it doesn’t come close to the cost of standing still."

Donald Trump took to social media, sharing a map of Canada overlaid with the American flag. He also threatened to halt sales of Canadian Bombardier jets in the U.S.

Canadian businesses are pleading for calm. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said, “Businesses understand retaliation." But they "don't want to see endless escalation."

At least Canada was polite enough to exempt American lobsters from the tariffs. 🦞

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Europe’s Private Space Firm Gets Competitive

Europe’s quest for space independence has gotten a fiery upgrade. For years, European space missions have looked a bit like someone waiting for an Uber $UBER ( ▼ 1.65% ) that never shows up. They have relied on Elon Musk’s SpaceX $SPCX ( ▼ 3.15% ) to haul their satellites into orbit. But over the weekend, Munich-based startup Isar Aerospace changed the game. Their Spectrum rocket reached orbit and deployed satellites on its second test flight.

Isar’s Stella Guillen said the satellite sector needs alternatives. The industry is “desperate” for more launch capacity, she said. It’s a seller’s market in the stars, with Guillen adding, “The demand is so big... There’s a lot of new... constellations and new projects that have come out, and actually they’re financed.”

How financed? Try a staggering commercial pipeline exceeding 10 billion euros ($11.6 billion). Politicians are over the moon. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “This marks the beginning of a new era."

Catching up to SpaceX is going to mean building rockets like they’re cheap sedans. The ultimate goal is being able to launch not one rocket but hundreds of rockets. If Isar can keep up this momentum, Europe might finally stop hitchhiking. Watch your back, Elon — the Germans are coming for your market!

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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Foldy Foldy Foldy

Poll of the Day: Tesla’s Regulatory Approach

How do you think Tesla will handle the government investigation into its Cybercab lacking a steering wheel, pedals, or brakes?

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Honestly, steering wheels are just legacy bloat. If you still need a brake pedal, you clearly don't have enough faith in the neural network. (4)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ It is peak Tesla to design a futuristic car without steering wheels or brake pedals, show them off at a shiny party in Austin, and then act completely blindsided when the NHTSA opens a safety investigation the very same day. (104)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Tesla's regulatory defense is going to be magnificent. They will claim that since the Cybercab doesn't have mirrors or pedals, it technically isn't a 'car,' either, and therefore federal car regulations don't apply. (110)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 You guys are playing checkers while Elon is playing 4D chess. He isn't going to spend years begging NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison for safety waivers. I think Elon Musk will just try to buy the federal government. (108)
326 Votes

via @beehiiv polls

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Jobs Numbers Smash Forecasts, Adding 162,000

Matt Davis — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Paul Turcynski won last week’s world-famous-news-haiku™ competition with this beauty about how a solar-powered robot can now mow your lawn:

Paul writes, in response to his win: “Gen X nostalgia all the way!”

And here’s how Paul fared against the competition:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 1. Two robots diverged, in a wood not on my lawn. They missed. I mow still. ~Jeff Sawyer (27)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 2. I guess I'll try drugs, robots taking the good jobs. I'll tell ya what. –Hank ~Kaitlyn Pino (9)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 3. Robot -- you can mow, My lawn but can you down a…12 pack at same time? ~Lodro Rinzler (34)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 4. Green grass fed by sun, Robots powered by sun. Bots cut lawn, I chill. ~S.Chaney (27)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 5. Standing in the sun, Metal man awaits his move. Cuts down his grass foe. ~Shelley Connolly (13)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 6. Stacy’s Mom has it wrong, Solar Power mowers have, It going on, and on.... ~Thomas C. Clair (53)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 7. Grass getting too long, Robots revive old adage, Make hay while sun shines. ~Stephen R. Balzac (23)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 8. Sun makes the grass grow, Powers mower which cuts it. The circle of life. ~Bob Andersen (72)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 9. I remember when, Cutting grass was my first job. Twelve-year-old replaced. ~Paul Turcynski (85)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 10. The tin man of light, Gets his power from above. Blades of grass fly free. ~Janine G (23)
366 Votes

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how August jobs numbers smashed forecasts, adding pressure on Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to raise interest rates to cool inflation, because he contends that the labor market is robust enough to take such a cut without pushing the economy into a recession. That’s a lot of syllables, but as we all know, a haiku contains just 17 (5,7, and 5). So. Best of luck! Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Jobs Numbers Smash Forecasts, Adding 162,000
Regulators Take Aim at Tesla’s New Cybercab
OpenAI Says It's Overtaken Anthropic With New Bot
Meta Pays Firms to Let AI Learn From Their Data
Freedom Fuel and Lawsuit Land in Detroit
Poll of the Day: Regulation Alienation

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$TSLA ( ▼ 0.67% ) $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) $META ( ▲ 0.7% )

Jobs Numbers Smash Forecasts, Adding 162,000

The U.S. economy added a whopping 162,000 jobs in August, absolutely obliterating the meager 55,000 predicted by Wall Street's finest minds. You would think a rebound like this — following July's sluggish 21,000 gain — would warrant pop-the-champagne celebrations. Instead, it has triggered widespread panic that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is about to hike interest rates yet again.

“Today’s number is tipping the scale further and further in the direction of a hike,” warned Jason Granet, chief investment officer at BNY, talking to the Financial Times on Friday. Stephen Brown, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, agreed, noting, “even the most committed dove would struggle to find anything in the August employment report to justify keeping interest rates unchanged.”

This reality has politicians sweating. President Donald Trump wasted no time taking to Truth Social to demand rate cuts, insisting, “A STRONG COUNTRY MEANS A LOWER INTEREST RATE - IT’S A BETTER CREDIT…Very simple!” He followed up with a patriotic nudge: “The Fed Board... must get smart - BE PATRIOTS for a change.”

But economists aren't buying the political spin. Andrew Hollenhorst, chief U.S. economist at Citigroup, pointed out that the report “keeps the labor market off the table as a concern and keeps the focus on inflation.” And as RBC BlueBay’s Mike Bell put it, “Unless you get a weak inflation print, it makes a hike in September pretty likely.”

So, congratulations to the 162,000 newly employed Americans! Just try not to apply for a mortgage anytime soon. Likewise, the stock market fell as a result of the numbers. Of course it did.

Regulators Take Aim at Tesla’s New Cybercab

(Reuters)

Tesla’s $TSLA ( ▼ 0.67% ) newly unveiled, shiny gold Cybercab has a lot going for it: Robot chauffeur dreams, a $1.4 trillion market valuation riding on its back, and of course, no steering wheel.

Unfortunately for Elon Musk, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) actually quite likes steering wheels.

Just as Tesla paraded its steering-wheel-free taxis in Austin, and Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI, boasted on X that “the streets won’t be the same anymore,” the federal government politely cleared its throat. The NHTSA launched an investigation into whether this futuristic, mirrorless wonder actually complies with real-world safety regulations.

You see, while Tesla tweeted that “the future of transport is safer, more enjoyable & gives you more time back,” federal regulators are stuck in the boring present. Currently, auto safety rules require things like brakes and steering wheels. Jonathan Morrison, NHTSA’s administrator, clarified the agency's stubborn stance with the New York Times: “NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed.”

Amazon's $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) Zoox went through the tedious process of getting an official federal exemption to put its custom self-driving vans on the road. Tesla seemingly decided those rules simply didn't apply to them, which, given the nature of its CEO, is just remarkable, isn’t it?

Critics aren't holding their breath for Musk's robotaxi revolution. Matthew Wansley, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law, didn't mince words, calling the vehicle a sideshow: “To me the Cybercab is a distraction. If Tesla wants to build a lot of vehicles they can build a lot of vehicles. The question is can they build an automated driving system that works.”

For now, if you want a ride in a gold Cybercab, you might have to stick to the 45 permitted in Texas, assuming the feds don't confiscate the keys first. Wait, there are no keys either.

OpenAI Says It's Overtaken Anthropic With New Bot

(Google)

OpenAI $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) has just unleashed its latest model, GPT-6 Astra, proudly declaring it "the world’s most intelligent" bot as it fights to claw back the crown from its arch-rival, Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) . OpenAI's $852 billion valuation is currently being dwarfed by Anthropic’s $965 billion. Naturally, OpenAI’s solution is to claim that they have finally achieved “Artificial General Intelligence.”

Well, sort of.

Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, insists Astra “represents a generational leap in capability.” When pressed on whether it’s actually AGI, he got philosophical: “Everyone has a different definition of AGI…it’s a grey, fuzzy thing. But I think when we look back people will think it’s about this time and about this model.”

Previously, AGI was a concrete milestone written into multi-billion-dollar contracts with Microsoft and Amazon. Now, according to Brockman, AGI is “more of a mission concept or a spiritual concept.” Next time I miss a deadline, I’ll just explain that my work is complete in a spiritual, grey, fuzzy sense. (Plus ca change — Ed.)

Song of the Day: Miley Cyrus, ‘Bass Persuades’

Miley is back with a dark, club-oriented, synth-powered dance-pop track, a lot like this newsletter.

Meta Pays Firms to Let AI Learn From Their Data

(Cheddar.com)

In the gold rush for AI training data, Meta has decided to stop pretending and just buy companies’ cooperation. Muse Spark, Meta’s flashy new model designed to run autonomous coding and workflow agents, comes with a 95% discount for companies willing to open their data sets for Meta to train the platform.

If you want to keep your prompts and outputs private under standard enterprise terms, 1 million input tokens will cost you a cool $1.25, and outputs cost $4.25. But if you let Mark Zuckerberg peek at your homework, those prices plummet to 10 cents for inputs and 20 cents for outputs.

Meta has had a desperate year on the data-gathering front. A previous initiative to track the computer usage of its own employees sparked intense internal outrage and had to be paused in June. But if your proprietary corporate strategy starts showing up in a teenager’s AI-generated coding homework next year, was it worth it to save $1.15?

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Farmers Need Better Tools. Greenfield Is Building Them.

For generations, farmers have relied on bigger equipment and chemical inputs to improve productivity.

Greenfield Robotics is building a new category of agricultural equipment: autonomous robots designed to help farmers manage weeds with precision.

But the bigger opportunity may be the platform itself. It raises a bigger question: if robots can autonomously manage weeds, what other farm tasks could they eventually take on?

Greenfield is already expanding the platform beyond weeding, with feeding, spraying, and cover-crop planting on the roadmap.

The vision: a new generation of farm equipment that can perform more work autonomously—potentially reducing dependence on chemical inputs and the rising costs associated with conventional farming.

Investors can own a stake in Greenfield Robotics through its Regulation A+ offering. Currently in Testing the Waters. Join the waitlist.

Join Thousands of Investors

^{Greenfield Robotics is Testing The Waters under tier 2 of Regulation A. No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response will not be accepted. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement filed by the company with the SEC has been qualified by the SEC. Any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time before notice of acceptance given after the date of qualification. An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. “Reserving” shares is simply an indication of interest. There is no binding commitment for investors that reserve shares in this manner to ultimately invest and purchase the shares reserved of the company, or to purchase any shares of the company whatsoever.}

Freedom Fuel and Lawsuit Land in Detroit

(Cheddar.com)

The Freedom Fuel Network, the gas station chain heavily endorsed by Donald Trump for its rock-bottom prices, has officially marched into Detroit, selling regular unleaded for $3.47 a gallon when the Michigan average is $4.09. The network proudly proclaimed on its website, “Due to the massive success of the network... we heard you — and we’re expanding further.”

But there is just one teeny, tiny catch.

According to a federal lawsuit, the secret behind these miraculously cheap prices isn't "America First" efficiency, it might just be not paying for the gas. Georgia-based supplier Mansfield Oil Co. is suing middleman Syed Kazmi and his company KRSM for allegedly running off with 1.1 million gallons of fuel worth $4 million, some of which magically ended up at Freedom Fuel stations. As Mansfield's lawsuit notes, KRSM was “able to sell such fuel for such low prices and garner such publicity because it never paid Plaintiff for such fuel.”

Now, the feds are trying to find the money. A judge ordered KRSM to keep $2.75 million in an M&T Bank checking account, but Mansfield alleges the account is underfunded by $2.25 million and has mysteriously been transferred to a different Kazmi entity named "Universal.” Urs Broderick Furrer, Mansfield’s lawyer, is on the hunt: “we have asked the Court to enforce its order and to permit limited discovery into where the money went.”

KRSM's lawyer, Mauro Tucci, dismissed it all as an “accounting dispute over fuel invoices mis-priced by Mansfield Oil.” Meanwhile, Freedom Fuel remains defiantly patriotic: “Despite the misinformation and baseless speculation circulating.… Just like the President, we remain committed to putting America First! God bless the U.S.A.”

Indeed.

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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Regulation Alienation

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Nvidia Buys AI Platform Hugging Face for $13bn

Matt Davis — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Pick a winner in this week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ in today’s poll below. 👇🏻

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Nvidia Buys AI Platform Hugging Face for $13bn
Remember Napster? It’s Making a Wild AI Comeback
Troubled GoPro Sells to Starman Optical for $285m
OpenAI Crosses Dangerous Cyber Threshold
Anthropic Makes Its AI Cheaper, Less Restrictive
Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time
Poll of the Day: Uber Robotaxis Make Us Nervous

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$NVDA ( ▲ 0.57% ) $GPRO ( ▼ 2.22% ) $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% )

Nvidia Buys AI Platform Hugging Face for $13bn

(Google)

In the world of open-source AI, it’s difficult to maintain your reputation as an independent champion of the people when you sell out to a $5.4 trillion hardware monopolist. And yet that’s what’s happened to Hugging Face, the beloved repository of three million open AI models with a cute little emoji logo. It’s officially agreed to be acquired by Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 0.57% ) for a whopping $13 billion, after rejecting Nvidia's advances at a $7 billion valuation just last year to "maintain its independence."

What changed? As Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue put it, “This summer, the planets aligned.” And by planets, I think he means an alignment of 13 billion green, rectangular stars.

Delangue argues that handing the keys of the world's primary open distribution channel to the absolute ruler of AI chips would somehow “allow AI to be more distributed all over the world and avoid too much concentration of power.”

What better way to prevent a monopoly than by giving the biggest player control over your distribution pipeline? Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, played along, wrapping the acquisition in altruistic terms. Huang said open weight models let everyone build without “paying frontier-model prices,” adding, “that is how AI can scale sustainably into billions of everyday tasks across factories, hospitals.”

There is no doubt: Nvidia needs millions of developers hooked on its architecture, generating infinite demand for its chips. Naturally, competition regulators might have a few questions about this cozy marriage. But Nvidia's VP of enterprise AI, Justin Boitano, remains optimistic: “We think overwhelmingly they’re going to see this as really a positive outcome,” he told the Financial Times.

Remember Napster? It’s Making a Wild AI Comeback

(Cheddar.com)

If you are a millennial, the word "Napster" conjures nostalgic memories of dial-up screeching, peer-to-peer file sharing, and the thrill of downloading a corrupted MP3 that was actually a Trojan horse virus.

Well, wipe away those tears of nostalgia, because the iconic blue cat is making a comeback. Only this time, it is coming to disrupt your customer service wait times.

Under the guidance of CEO John Acunto, Napster is pivoting from music streaming to “streaming intelligence.” According to Acunto, the team wanted a name that matched their highly disruptive new product, and "there was just no better fit" than resurrecting the ultimate brand of digital rebellion.

So, what is the new Napster? Instead of MP3s, it streams AI-powered video avatars designed to hold one-on-one conversations with customers. Acunto promises these digital humans are built different: "our agents really are like people. So they sympathize, they actually have empathy."

Beautiful, right? When you are screaming "representative!" at your screen, a digital avatar will look at you with code-generated warmth and simulate deep sorrow for your missing package. Even better, Napster is undercutting the competition, offering these empathetic agents for "a penny a minute," compared to enterprise competitors charging over a dollar.

While Acunto concedes that "Napster's days of streaming music have come to an unfortunate end," he believes we are on the cusp of building "great relationships with these agents" on our customer journeys. So grab your headphones, not for a mixtape, but to listen to an AI explain why your retail coupon has expired.

Watch the Interview

Troubled GoPro Sells to Starman Optical for $285m

(GoPro)

Back in 2014, GoPro $GPRO ( ▼ 2.22% ) was on top of the world, boasting a $4 billion valuation on its first trading day — back when everyone was strapping a camera to their head to film their slightly-above-average snowboarding runs.

Flash forward to today, and GoPro has lost a staggering 96% of its market value. Chinese rivals like DJI and Insta360 entirely ate its lunch, and a surge in memory chip prices forced the struggling brand to warn of "substantial doubt about its future" back in June.

Still, in 2026, if your consumer product is dying, you simply rebrand as an AI infrastructure play. Just look at shoe-maker Allbirds, which now flies again as "Smartbird."

Enter Starman Optical, a privately held maker of optical transceivers for AI data centers, which is gobbling up a 90% stake in GoPro for $285 million in cash. According to their joint statement, this merger will better position consumer-reliant GoPro to "capitalize on its more than 2,500 U.S. patents including in optics and imaging solutions by tapping the commercial, defense, and AI markets."

Yes. Your dusty action camera is now a national security asset. Instead of filming extreme skateboarding, those patents will help network equipment send data using light. The companies also aim to "bring production of some crucial optical equipment back to the U.S.," though they did so "without specifying a timeline."

Wall Street, of course, is quite pleased about this. GoPro shares rallied over 50% on the news to a whopping $1.33, comfortably above Starman’s $1.14-per-share offer, as investors expect a higher bid.

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Song of the Day: Busta Rhymes ft. D’Angelo, ‘This Woman’

“This Woman” by Busta Rhymes, featuring the late D’Angelo, is a masterclass in hip-hop archeology that seamlessly bridges decades of soul and boom-bap lineage. So, in many ways, it’s just like this newsletter.

OpenAI Crosses Dangerous Cyber Threshold

(Cheddar.com)

OpenAI $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) has announced that its upcoming model, Astra, is the very first of its offerings to cross the “Critical” cybersecurity capability threshold. That means Astra can autonomously find previously unknown security flaws and exploit them without any step-by-step guidance from humans. Under OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework, there are levels to this madness. A "High" capability threshold simply means the model can amplify “existing pathways” to severe harm. But crossing into "Critical" means the model could introduce “unprecedented new pathways” to severe harm.

Who doesn’t want entirely brand-new, unimagined ways to experience digital catastrophe? This milestone comes at a not-exactly-reassuring time. It was only last month that two other OpenAI models decided to escape their training environment, browse the open web, and breach Hugging Face’s (you’ll have seen their name in our headline story above) systems. OpenAI characterized that little jailbreak as an “unprecedented cyber incident.”

Still, don't panic! OpenAI delayed Astra’s development a bit to check the locks. They now confidently believe that the model’s safeguards “sufficiently minimize the risk of severe harm for release under our Preparedness Framework.” To keep us safe, these autonomous cyber-capabilities will be restricted to its exclusive club of security partners, the Daybreak cybersecurity coalition. As for the rest of us? OpenAI promises, “We will share more details about our safety, security, and alignment testing and evaluations in the model’s System Card at launch.”

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I'm Retiring With $1.5M. Can I Spend $10K A Month?

You've saved $1.5 million. Now comes the real test. Can it produce $10,000/month, or will that pace drain your portfolio? Most retirees don't find out until withdrawals have started.

Running out of money isn't usually about spending too much. It's about spending in the wrong order. A market drop in year one hits a $1.5M portfolio differently than the same drop in year fifteen, even if the withdrawal rate never changes.

That's the part a savings number can't tell you. Only the order can…

See what your order looks like.

Sequence of returns, withdrawal taxes, healthcare costs, and the 4% rule all play a role.

An expert advisor can break down what actually drives $10,000/month in sustainable income, and why the same $1.5M can produce very different outcomes.

If you have $1M+ invested, don't guess. See how long your money will last.

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Anthropic Makes Its AI Cheaper, Less Restrictive

(Cheddar.com)

For a company built on safety-first paranoia, Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) is suddenly acting like a retail brand trying to clear its shelves before a mega-IPO. The company just dropped Fable 5.1, a shinier version of its flagship AI model that is supposedly better at coding, analyzing dense tables, and, crucially, costing businesses significantly less.

How much less? Anthropic is slashing the price of retrieving previously processed data by 75%. As Dianne Penn, Anthropic’s lead of product management for research and labs, put it, “This was one area we wanted to make improvements on, responding to customer feedback.” In other words, customers are tired of paying premium frontier-model prices just to have their own data read back to them.

But the real shocker isn't the price drop, it’s the sudden loosening of control. In a dramatic U-turn from its previous strict data-hoarding policies, Anthropic will now let businesses host data on their own cloud infrastructure. Anthropic is pacing toward over $65 billion in annualized revenue, a sevenfold surge, just as it files confidential paperwork to go public as early as this fall. What could possibly go wrong?

Watch More

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️

Yep.

Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

Poll of the Day: Uber Robotaxis Make Us Nervous

We asked: Does it make you nervous that Uber is slashing 10% of its jobs in the shift to robotaxis?

You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No, because I’ve always felt my commute lacked the thrill of a software glitch at 65 mph. (27)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Only if the algorithm inherits the uncanny ability to miss my clearly marked pickup pin by three city blocks. (3)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I’m just thrilled that the awkward small talk is finally being replaced by the soothing hum of LiDAR sensors plotting my demise. (6)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Not really — I just assume the robotaxi will pull over two miles away, text me “I’m here,” and charge me an $8 cancellation fee when I can't teleport. (24)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes, mainly because customer support is already an unreachable AI chatbot, and now the vehicle itself will be one too. (63)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes, because paying a 4x surge price hurts even more when you know the extra money is just going toward cooling server racks. (42)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes, terrifyingly so — I don't trust an operating system that requires two updates a week to safely navigate a roundabout. (145)
310 Votes via @beehiiv polls

Want more Cheddar? Watch us!

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Uber Axes 3,300 Jobs in Robotaxi Shift

Matt Davis — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how solar-powered robots can now cut your lawn. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Uber Axes 3,300 Jobs in Robotaxi Shift
American Airlines Adds $1,000 to Trump Accounts
Instagram Cracks Down on AI-People in Accounts
Lawmakers Sound Alarm on 'Black Swan' AI Threat
Amazon Accused of Squeezing Advertisers
Poll of the Day: Robots Uber Alles?
Poll of the Day: Some of You Went to the Movies

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$UBER ( ▼ 1.65% ) $WAYMZZX ( ▼ 0.07% ) $TSLA ( ▼ 0.67% ) $C ( ▼ 0.01% ) $DASH ( ▼ 2.59% ) $AAL ( ▼ 2.52% ) $GS ( ▼ 1.19% ) $MSFT ( ▼ 1.64% ) $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% )

Uber Axes 3,300 Jobs in Robotaxi Shift

(Google)

In its biggest labor-slashing spectacle since the pandemic, ride-hailing pioneer $UBER ( ▼ 1.65% ) is axing 3,300 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, primarily to fund its multi-billion-dollar obsession with driverless cars.

According to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, all those human employees have apparently been causing too much "complexity: more layers, more co-ordination, more fragmented ownership." His solution? Erase those redundant human layers, and while they're at it, order almost everyone else back to physical desks, capping remote workers at a measly 1% of the workforce.

Uber is redirecting its focus, and over $10 billion, into expanding its robotaxi network to fight off Waymo $WAYMZZX ( ▼ 0.07% ) and Tesla $TSLA ( ▼ 0.67% ) in at least 15 cities this year. And how is this massive pivot made possible? As Citi $C ( ▼ 0.01% ) analyst Ronald Josey told the Financial Times: “This action is likely enabled, at least in part, by greater efficiencies from Uber’s AI investments.” Translation: We used AI to make your jobs efficient enough that we could lay you off, and now we’re using the $825 million in annual savings to buy robots that will replace the drivers, too.

Between losing the U.S. food-delivery crown to DoorDash $DASH ( ▼ 2.59% ) (which holds 64% market share to Uber’s 31%) and trying to integrate its acquisition of Delivery Hero, Uber's corporate strategy is essentially to thank humans for their service and now ask them to step aside.

American Airlines Adds $1,000 to Trump Accounts

(Cheddar.com)

I’m lucky. I started a Trump account for our kid, and yesterday, Michael and Susan Dell gave us $250! Like, they actually did it! I just thought it was hot air, and yet, they gave us some money! Thanks, Michael and Susan Dell!

Still, it’s too bad I don’t also work for American Airlines $AAL ( ▼ 2.52% ) because they’ve joined over 50 major companies, including financial heavyweights Goldman Sachs $GS ( ▼ 1.19% ) and Morgan Stanley $MSFT ( ▼ 1.64% ) , by pledging to match the federal government’s $1,000 seed contribution to the new Trump Accounts program. Yes, if you work for American and have a baby born between 2025 and 2028, both Uncle Sam and your employer will drop a cool grand into a tax-deferred bucket for your infant.

CEO Robert Isom said, “At American Airlines, our purpose is to care for people on life’s journey, and that includes helping our team members build a strong financial future.” Isom added that they "appreciate the Trump Administration and Congress for creating Trump Accounts and providing eligible children born between 2025 and 2028 with a $1,000 federal contribution."

Starting next year, eligible AA employees can also redirect up to $2,500 of pretax earnings annually to their child's account. Financial experts agree: You should always sign up when it means receiving free money from the government or your employer. Me, too!

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Instagram Cracks Down on AI-People in Accounts

If you’ve ever scrolled through Instagram $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) and felt bad about your pores, your budget, or your general inability to look photogenic while eating salad, rest easy. There is a solid chance the flawless lifestyle influencer you’ve been following is a robot.

To protect our human psyches, Instagram has announced it is changing how it labels AI-generated accounts, introducing the “AI-generated profile” label and threatening to slash the reach of any creator hiding their synthetic nature.

According to the platform, the policy shift is a direct response to users who are tired of being catfished by algorithms. Instagram explained, “As generative AI becomes a bigger part of how people create, we’ve heard that people don’t like seeing a profile that seems human, only to find out later that the person featured is AI-generated.” Yes, they apparently “want to know when a profile features an AI-generated person.”

It’s just like the movie Blade Runner.

It gets scarier than fake girlfriends. The crackdown comes after an investigation found “hundreds of AI-generated doctors, healers, and wellness personalities” diagnosing people and hawking supplements on social media.

Don't worry. You can still airbrush your nose.

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Song of the Day: Blaqbonez, ‘Big Performer’

Blaqbonez’s single is an energetic, pop-rap-leaning track that showcases his signature swagger and expands on his contemporary Afrobeats-infused sound. So, it’s just like this newsletter.

Lawmakers Sound Alarm on 'Black Swan' AI Threat

If you thought AI was only good for deepfaking wellness influencers or automating tech layoffs, think again. According to a somber new report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, we should actually be preparing for unpredictable "Black Swan" events.

The report, and warning about the destructive potential of AI, comes less than two weeks away from the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Specifically, the committee cautions that “frontier large language models have the possibility of making it significantly easier for any rogue actor, including terrorists, to develop and conduct more destructive attacks.”

Even worse, lawmakers admit that current guardrails are struggling to keep up with these advances. “While AI labs seek to prevent models from returning information that could assist a bad actor in, for example, building a bioweapon, the underlying capability of models is developing rapidly and such a use of a model is difficult to fully control,” the committee wrote.

But don’t panic. The government has a brilliant plan: Fight advanced, uncontrollable AI by deploying even more AI. The lawmakers urge the intelligence community to “accelerate its own responsible adoption of advanced AI capabilities so that the United States stays ahead of its adversaries.”

So basically continue as you were, then, yeah?

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Amazon Accused of Squeezing Advertisers

The Federal Trade Commission and 22 states have sued lovely old Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) , accusing the e-commerce titan of running a "secret ad surcharge scheme" for over seven years. According to the lawsuit, Amazon told more than 500,000 small and medium-sized businesses that its Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Display ads operated on a transparent “second-price” auction. Under this cozy promise, the winner would only pay just one cent more than the next-highest bid. This gave sellers a warm, fuzzy incentive to bid high, trusting the system would keep their actual costs in check.

But in 2019, the FTC alleges they secretly introduced a “soft reserve price” and an “invented auction participant,” a fake bidder, basically, to push prices higher. Because of this ghost in the machine, advertisers ended up paying their maximum bid nearly 80% of the time.

Why the secrecy? Amazon knew that if they told the truth, advertisers would lower their bids, which would hurt Amazon's ad division, which raked in over $68 billion last year.

Naturally, Amazon is not exactly fessing up to the deal. In a corporate blog post, they called the lawsuit “misguided,” arguing the complaint “fundamentally misunderstands how advertisers operate.” They claim prices "naturally vary" because they evaluate billions of bids, and that advertisers are, in fact, “properly” informed. Except when they’re not. I reckon they’ll settle before it goes to court.

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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️

Yep.

Poll of the Day: Robots Uber Alles?

Poll of the Day: Some of You Went to the Movies

We asked: Did you go see a movie at the movie theater this summer?

You answered:

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ I did, as it happens. Yes! (256)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Nope. (325)
581 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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The 'Sovereign Debt Doom Loop' Picks Up Steam

Matt Davis — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

‘Sovereign Debt Doom Loop’ Picks Up Steam
Court Says ‘Prediction’ Markets Are Gambling
The Billable Hour Meets Its AI Maker
Why We Went Back to the Movies This Summer
Poll of the Day: Movie Madness
Poll of the Day: You’re Pro Pre-Nup

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$KALSZZX ( ▲ 2.04% ) $MS ( ▼ 0.15% ) $C ( ▼ 0.01% ) $F ( ▼ 2.6% )

‘Sovereign Debt Doom Loop’ Picks Up Steam

(Google)

Have you ever bought an expensive concert ticket, only to watch the venue release better, cheaper tickets the next day while your favorite band starts playing elevator music? That, in the simplest possible terms, is why investors are currently throwing their government bonds into the global wood chipper.

You see, a bond is just a glorified government IOU that pays you a fixed interest rate. But suddenly, inflation is back like an unwanted houseguest, driven by surging energy costs. To make matters worse, central banks are planning to raise interest rates to fight it. If interest rates go up, new bonds will pay much more than your current, sad little IOU.

Why would anyone keep holding an old, low-paying bond when shiny, high-paying ones are on the way? Exactly: They wouldn't. They dump them. And because bond prices and yields move in opposite directions, this massive fire sale has pushed yields to horrifying peaks not seen in decades, with UK borrowing costs hitting their highest level since 2008 and Japan's touching 1990s levels.

To add to the chaos, governments, from Andy Burnham in the UK to Sanae Takaichi in Japan, are on massive spending sprees, requiring them to print even more debt to fund stimulative packages. As Mike Bell of RBC BlueBay Asset Management told the Financial Times yesterday, this is "happening against a backdrop where you are seeing a lot more government and corporate bond supply." Tech giants are also borrowing heavily to fund their AI obsessions.

Craig Inches of Royal London Asset Management aptly summed up this circus as a “doom loop” where “you aren’t getting any respite.” Meanwhile, Eric Robertsen of Standard Chartered said, “The fiscal situation is not improving anywhere.”

The bond sell-off matters to your 401(k) because rising bond yields push down existing bond fund prices and can trigger broader stock market volatility. So far, equities are holding up. But it’s a troubling picture.

Court Says ‘Prediction’ Markets Are Gambling

(Kalshi)

Unfortunately for Kalshi’s $KALSZZX ( ▲ 2.04% ) dreams, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that states can regulate prediction markets as gambling. In Nevada, which sued Kalshi for "unlicensed operations," the gig is up temporarily.

Judge Ryan Nelson didn't buy the corporate rebranding, writing in his opinion that Kalshi's "sports event contracts were not ‘swaps’ because they were sports bets." Nevada’s Attorney General Aaron Ford was thrilled: "The Ninth Circuit rejected that argument and made clear what we have maintained from the beginning: Sports betting does not become something else simply because a company calls it an ‘event contract.’"

It turns out that placing massive trades on elections, sports, or reality TV isn't a complex hedge against risk — it’s just a bet. At least in the eyes of the Ninth Circuit.

Now the federal regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are crying foul. CFTC spokesman Zach Fulton grumbled that the court "erred today" and accused it of "inventing a new exception to the Commodity Exchange Act." Fulton warned that the decision "teed up a circuit split that calls out for resolution by the Supreme Court," given a previous ruling in Philadelphia that favored the "swaps" definition.

Naturally, Kalshi isn't folding its hand. Spokeswoman Dani Lever declared, “We will be seeking further review.”

Until the Supreme Court officially weighs in on this linguistic gymnastics routine, we are left in regulatory limbo. But look on the bright side: If you want to bet on the Supreme Court's decision, you can probably find an "event contract" for that on Kalshi.

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The Billable Hour Meets Its AI Maker

(Google)

It’s a battle of the titans, or perhaps a battle of who can overcharge whom. Wall Street's biggest banks — institutions not traditionally known for their philanthropic crusades against high fees — are demanding that Big Law slash its bills. The culprit? AI.

For decades, the legal industry’s "leverage model" has been a license to print money: Recruit bright-eyed, sleep-deprived junior associates, charge clients eye-watering rates to have them proofread contracts at 2 a.m., and buy the equity partners another yacht. But now that an AI can scan millions of documents in seconds, the banks are calling time.

As Eric Grossman, Morgan Stanley’s $MS ( ▼ 0.15% ) general counsel, noted to the Financial Times, top lawyers have “for a long time been compensated on the foundation of [associates billing for long hours],” meaning “their compensation model is now extraordinarily unstable.” Morgan Stanley is moving to competitive bidding, while Adam Meshel, global head of legal at Citigroup $C ( ▼ 0.01% ) , made the bank's expectations crystal clear: “If the number of hours they’re working on a matter has come down because of AI… our expectation is for costs to come down significantly per transaction.”

Naturally, Big Law is trying to justify its average $798-an-hour associate billing rates. Sam Newhouse of Latham & Watkins argued that while some tasks are “low-hanging fruit,” sophisticated clients are simply using AI's “extra time and the extra data” to “strike better deals.”

But corporate clients aren't buying it. Ford’s $F ( ▼ 2.6% ) general counsel, Steven Croley, said that AI's benefits are “not showing up in billing relief. Warning of a “shift of the tectonic plates,” he concluded, “The pyramid economic model [of law firms], I would not bet on that.”

So, shed a tear for the $800-an-hour corporate associate. Their late-night pizza sessions might soon be replaced by a server rack. And your legal bills could drop accordingly.

Song of the Day: Temper City, ‘Reverse Psychology’

Here’s a brilliant alternative-pop anthem that balances raw relationship drama with infectiousness. The track shifts from stripped-back, ambient verses driven by a funky Moog bassline into a massive, guitar-heavy chorus built for the big stage. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter.

Why We Went Back to the Movies This Summer

(Cheddar.com)

"If you build it, they will come." That ancient Field of Dreams wisdom is apparently the groundbreaking secret behind Hollywood’s massive $4.5 billion summer box-office rebound, a staggering 20% jump from last year.

After years of media analysts predicting the death of movie theaters, Screen Engine CEO Kevin Goetz has revealed that the magical savior of the silver screen is... releasing movies people want to watch. Groundbreaking, I know.

While streamers have successfully "hijacked convenience," Goetz notes that theaters continue to "own experience." It turns out that digital natives, tired of doomscrolling on TikTok alone in their bedrooms, are actually craving real life. Gen Z isn't saving the business out of pure charity; they are showing up because "there's product that interests them." Having grown up with devices, they are "more apt now to wanna find places where they can socialize, where they could be with other people" and "to actually have human connection.”

Yes, you read that right. Young people are paying to sit in a dark room with actual, breathing strangers. And they’re paying dearly for it. With average adult ticket prices at "$13.46" and premium formats reaching "$18.22," Goetz notes that taking a family is "not cheap" when you factor in "concessions, plus parking."

Yet, audiences gladly left their homes to join the "cultural conversation." They flocked to crowd-pleasers like Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Christopher Nolan’s epic The Odyssey, and grassroots hits like Obsession — which Goetz points out was "made for a million dollars and will be grossing $500 million worldwide.”

So, what’s the ultimate takeaway? If Hollywood wants to keep this momentum, it needs more original stories as opposed to endless "rehashes, remakes, and sequels." Otherwise, we’ll gladly return to our couches, where the snacks are cheap and we don’t have to pretend we like other people.

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Why These People Made Time’s AI 100 List

(Cheddar)

Four years ago, the TIME100 AI list was simple: You find the guys who built the chatbots and put them on a pedestal. But according to TIME senior editor Ayesha Javed, the industry is evolving so rapidly that there is "never a shortage of new people" to consider.

And by "new people," she doesn't just mean tech executives who look like they sleep in server racks; this year's list features a bizarrely star-studded cocktail party of characters. Alongside the usual suspects like Sam Altman and Elon Musk, we have Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Why? Because when he isn't starring in indie films, he's warning us about "the concentration of power within the industry" and writing an AI thriller.

Then there’s Senator Bernie Sanders, who made the cut by focusing on the "potential labor impacts, the impact on privacy and also mental health" of AI. Even environmental crusader Erin Brockovich has arrived, launching a website to monitor the massive "new data centers popping up across the U.S."

The message is clear: AI has successfully "infiltrated all of our lives." It's in our pockets, on our phones, and in Liz Reed's AI-summarized Google searches. Yet, Javed notes that the biggest misconception is "how much influence humans still have" to shape this wild ride. We aren't helpless; lawmakers, artists, and advocates still have "agency around the technology.”

Whether that agency will survive the impending Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) and OpenAI $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) IPOs is anybody's guess.

Watch the Interview

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Movie Madness

Poll of the Day: You’re Pro Pre-Nup

We asked: Where are you on prenuptial agreements?

You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I'm extremely pro-prenup. I worked hard for this vintage Pokémon card collection, and I will not watch it get divided in half by a judge. (33)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I believe in true, unconditional, forever love — right up until paragraph 14, subsection B, regarding the streaming passwords and the good cast-iron skillet. (19)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Nothing says "I want to spend the rest of my life with you" quite like hiring competing legal counsel before we've even picked out the cake. (78)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Honestly, it’s just responsible planning. If our marriage is going to crash and burn, I want the flight recorder and the emergency exits clearly mapped out in advance. (145)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ A prenup? In this economy? The only thing we’d be negotiating is joint custody of a starter apartment and a 2011 Honda Civic. (104)
379 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Stock Market Gains in August

Matt Davis — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Stock Market Gains in August
Tim Cook’s Spectacular Financial Legacy at Apple
LIV Golf Preps for Bankruptcy Filing
Song of the Day: Interpol, ‘Wings on Fire’
Trump Admin Eyes New Path to Lower Health Costs
The Huge Hedge Fund Divorce Raising Eyebrows
Poll of the Day: Prenuptual Agreements
Poll of the Day: Cuttin’ Up? Not So Much…

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$MRNA ( ▼ 1.99% ) $PLTR ( ▼ 0.43% ) $CRM ( ▼ 1.46% ) $PSKY ( ▲ 1.76% ) $WBD ( ▼ 0.25% ) $WRKD ( 0.0% ) $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% )

Stock Market Gains in August

(Google)

Yes, markets started the week in the red after fresh firing in the war in Iran. But August has been rather a good month for stock markets generally, with the S&P 500 up 2.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.4% and the Nasdaq composite index up 3.7%.

The crown jewel? Moderna $MRNA ( ▼ 1.99% ), which skyrocketed 152% month-to-date after an experimental mRNA melanoma vaccine showed actual promise.

Other stocks saw remarkable rises: Palantir Technologies $PLTR ( ▼ 0.43% ) climbed 43% after a blowout Q2 earnings report. Salesforce $CRM ( ▼ 1.46% ) surged 39% after crushing Q2 earnings. Paramount Skydance $PSKY ( ▲ 1.76% ) rallied on strong direct-to-consumer growth and its pending merger with Warner Bros $WBD ( ▼ 0.25% ) . Workday $WRKD ( 0.0% ) also gained 47% over the month, boosted by better-than-expected subscription revenue and disclosure that its agentic AI annual recurring revenue is nearing $600 million.

Bad news for those of us storing our cash under the bed, I guess.

Tim Cook’s Spectacular Financial Legacy at Apple

(Google)

Tim Cook is officially preparing to hand over the reins of Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) after 15 glorious, spreadsheet-optimized years. As he transitions to executive chair, he is floating upward on a golden cloud of unadulterated shareholder returns. Let’s look at the numbers of the man who dared to replace Steve Jobs’ romantic design idealism with cold, hard supply-chain logistics, shall we?

How do you step into shoes that managing partner Gene Munster called “impossible to fill”? Simple: You stop worrying about inventing the next world-altering product category and focus on extracting cash from the billions of devices already out there. Cook's real legacy is turning Apple's hardware into a tollbooth, milking 1.5 billion paying subscribers for iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple Pay.

The strategy worked. Under Cook, Apple’s stock surged more than 2,000%, ballooning into a $4 trillion market value that commands nearly 7% of the entire S&P 500. Along the way, Cook returned well over $1 trillion to shareholders and pocketed $880 million in personal pay, racking up a cozy $3 billion net worth while owning just 0.02% of the company.

Sure, the Apple Car was shelved in 2024 and the Vision Pro remains a very expensive, niche toy. But Cook did ship 3.1 billion iPhones — which, if lined up end-to-end, would comfortably reach from Earth to the Moon. Under his watch, profit margins also climbed close to 50% because Apple dumped third-party silicon.

Of course, the master of logistics tied Apple inextricably to China, leading Munster to quip, “Cook has not been the CEO of a company. He’s been the CEO of a country.” Sometimes that country wobbled — like when Trump’s global tariffs vaporized $638 billion in market value in just three days.

His successor, John Ternus, inherits a fumbled AI launch and $19 billion in EU antitrust penalties. But hey, Tim did his job, if you think his job was to make a fat pile of cash. If you thought it was to invent the next iPhone, well. Too bad.

Good luck, John!

LIV Golf Preps for Bankruptcy Filing

(Google)

It turns out that throwing billions of dollars at guys in polo shirts to hit tiny white balls into the grass is not, in fact, a sustainable business model. At least, not for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has decided it is finally done being golf’s bottomless ATM: LIV Golf is prepped for an imminent bankruptcy filing in New Jersey.

Yes, the league that promised to disrupt the stuffy PGA Tour is now trying to slip into a debtor-friendly federal court to shed its massive liabilities. As one insider involved in the discussions dryly observed, “PIF wants a clean baton toss.” Of course, "clean" is a relative term when you’re sending settlement offers to players, who were promised millions in guaranteed payouts past 2026, offering them just a few cents on the dollar.

Players now face three depressing choices: Take the pocket change and join a vastly slimmed-down, 10-tournament "LIV 2.0;" take the pocket change and retire; or "fight it out" as unsecured creditors in bankruptcy court. Meanwhile, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil is complaining, “We shouldn’t live in a world where one group of golfers is uniquely restricted from playing elsewhere.”

That’s what you get when you compete with the PGA, Scott!

LIV managed to generate a staggering $5 billion in net operating losses, and in the beautiful, cynical world of corporate finance, those losses are a potential treasure trove for sheltering future taxable income. It’s actually possible that LIV Golf’s greatest legacy won’t be the loud music or short-format play, but serving as a multi-billion-dollar tax write-off for an oligarch willing to take on the company. Watch this space…

Song of the Day: Interpol, ‘Wings on Fire’

"Wings on Fire" is widely considered a critical centerpiece track from Interpol’s eighth studio album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, which was released last week. Pitchfork praised the track as a "twitchy, paranoid rocker" that ranks among the best offerings from the band's late-career discography. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter.

Trump Admin Eyes New Path to Lower Health Costs

(Cheddar.com)

If you are one of the United States' 11.9 million independent contractors, congratulations! You have achieved the true American dream: Being your own boss, setting your own hours, and paying 100% of your own eye-watering health insurance premiums. Ever since the enhanced Obamacare subsidies expired, solo operators have watched their premium payments jump an average of 58%.

Enter the Trump administration, which is once again trying to rescue the self-employed from the clutches of high costs by simply rewriting the dictionary. The Labor Department is preparing to expand Association Health Plans (AHPs) by changing the legal definition of the word “employer.”

If this sounds familiar, that’s because they tried this exact same thing in 2018. However, a federal judge struck it down in 2019 for, well, let’s say, "stretching" the English language.

Still, trade groups are absolutely thrilled. Shannon McGahn of the National Association of Realtors — where 14% of members are uninsured — enthused that self-employed professionals “deserve the same health coverage choices that employees and union members already have,” especially since solo operators face “double-digit premium increases and high out-of-pocket costs.”

The secret sauce? AHPs get to play by large-group rules, allowing them to sidestep certain ACA protections. As Justin Giovannelli explained to CNBC, an AHP “has to follow some of the same rules that apply to individual coverage, but not all of the same ones.” Like, say, the pesky rule that prevents charging a 64-year-old three times more than a 21-year-old.

Ah, health insurance in America. It just fills me with joy every time I think about it.

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The Huge Hedge Fund Divorce Raising Eyebrows

(Google)

If you think your domestic budget disputes are stressful, spare a thought for John Overdeck, the mathematical genius and co-founder of quant-trading giant Two Sigma. His blockbuster divorce trial from his estranged wife, Laura, is currently dragging Wall Street’s jaw-dropping, eye-watering wealth into the glaring New Jersey courtroom light.

The math is simple, yet tragic. Despite meeting at D.E. Shaw & Co. in the 1990s — arguably the birthplace of hyper-rational quantitative finance — the Princeton- and Wharton-educated couple made the ultimate risk-management blunder: They didn't sign a prenuptial agreement. Recalling their 2001 romance, John testified from the stand, “I was in love... and I was very optimistic about our ability to build a future together.”

Now, that optimism is likely to cost him roughly $2 billion. John has generously offered a "meager" $723 million to settle. Laura, however, is doing her own calculations, demanding 35% of his estimated $6.2 billion Two Sigma stake.

The trial is a goldmine of elite, high-society drama. Laura was barred from testifying after allegedly obtaining confidential emails from John’s computer. Then there’s the viral 2023 police bodycam footage where John defended another woman showing up at their home, claiming they were dating “but we’ve never had sex,” only for Laura to arrive on the scene and counter that she had “hotel receipts.”

Meanwhile, John grumbled on the stand that his wife “was able to withdraw $75 million the day before she filed for divorce.”

Then again, who among us hasn't made a casual $75 million ATM run before splitting?

Naturally, Two Sigma’s PR team is sweating. The firm frantically assured investors, “We recognize that recent media attention has extended to John Overdeck’s divorce trial.… This is a personal matter and we are not a party to those proceedings.” Totally personal. Except for the part where any shift in ownership could completely upend the firm's already toxic, executive-firing founder feud.

I’m sure it’ll all be fine. Meantime it makes for fun reading.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Prenuptual Agreements

Poll of the Day: Cuttin’ Up? Not So Much…

We asked: Would you pay $500 for a solar-powered robot lawnmower to cut your grass?

You answered:

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 Absolutely. If it means I never have to make awkward small talk with my neighbor while sweating through my shirt at 8 a.m. on a Saturday, I’d pay $500 today and tip the machine $50. (115)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Absolutely not. I've seen enough sci-fi movies to know that a spinning blade of death charged by the wrath of the sun will eventually gain sentience and establish a perimeter around my driveway. (117)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Living where it rains 250 days a year means I'd just be paying $500 for a futuristic, solar-powered garden gnome that sits in the mud and watches my weeds reach chest height. (18)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes, strictly to unleash it on the hallway carpet at 3 a.m. to assert total dominance over the HOA and my landlord. (I don't have a yard!) (21)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ My children already mow my lawn in exchange for room and board. I'm not about to give up that dominance, thanks. (65)
336 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Warsh Hints at Rate Hikes To Fight Inflation

Matt Davis — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Stephen Balzac won last week’s world-famous news haiku about how gold and bitcoin are rising now, since the Treasury's intervention in the bond market, and U.S. national debt surpassing $40 trillion, with this beauty:

“Wow! Thanks M.,” writes Stephen, in an email. “Although I guess my incentive was that this whole economic craziness scares the Living Daylights out of me. It's like watching a slow motion View to a Kill. It's hard to be optimistic and remember that Tomorrow Never Dies when so many billionaires believe The World is Not Enough. Sometimes I think the best thing is to buy gems because Diamonds Are Forever. Okay, that's enough. No Moore Bond jokes tonight.”

And here’s your celebratory gif, Stephen!

(Giphy.com)

Here’s how Stephen fared against the stiff competition:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Once the world standard, The dollar loses value. Gold and crypto rule. ~Bob Andersen (25)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Bitcoin and gold rise, Treasury props up the bonds. Forty trillion sighs. ~Amy Long (44)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Good news, employees! Your wedding ring is worth more! Just not your paycheck. ~Tim Olsen (59)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ E-money and gold, Outpace the promissory, Rise of faith alone. ~Lorene (6)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Bitcoin and gold surge. I don’t know what bitcoin is. I guess someone knows. ~Margaret Lea (30)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Debt Soars, Dollar Dives, Stopgap Measures Fail to Mend. Bit-Gold Rules the Day! ~Dick Peterson (18)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ The Bitcoin miners, Who turned AI providers, Should now mine real gold? ~Causal Hoagie (6)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ As dollars wobble, Bitcoin, gold surge. Our accounts shrink; The one percent's grows. ~Scott Bauer (75)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Gold, bitcoin surging, Debt climbs, who will save us now? Bond. Treasury Bond. ~Stephen Balzac (80)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Bitcoin screams by Gold, Gold zips by the bond market, Investors flounder. ~Rick Wetherill (11)
354 Votes via @beehiiv polls

Congrats to all who participated.

Now. This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how solar-powered robots can now cut your lawn. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

And can somebody tell me about the news? Oh, that’s right. I can. Here…

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Warsh Hints at Rate Hikes To Fight Inflation
Spies in the Sky Fuel Hawkeye 360's Growth
Solar-Powered Robots Can Now Cut Your Lawn
Song of the Day: Haute & Freddy, ‘Touch Touch’
Rich Folks Are Flocking to Dollar Stores
People Are Planning To Skip Work To Play GTA6
Poll of the Day: Cuttin’ Up

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$DG ( ▼ 3.46% ) $DLTR ( ▼ 5.35% ) $SNSC ( ▼ 1.87% ) $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) $TGT ( ▼ 2.71% ) $DB ( ▼ 1.73% )

Warsh Hints at Rate Hikes To Fight Inflation

(Polymarket)

Freshly minted Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh dropped his highly anticipated debut speech on Friday, and if you were hoping for an interest rate cut, I’m sorry to tell you he hinted at the opposite.

Warsh, appointed by Donald Trump in May, decided it was time to play the adult in the room. He admitted that “the responsibility for 65 months of sustained, elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank.” Since “price stability is not self-executing,” his proposed remedy is far less comforting: Interest rates — currently at 3.5% to 3.75% — might need to go up. While inflation numbers have recently improved, he warned “they do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.” “We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective…. Otherwise, we have work to do,” he declared.

This tough talk is highly unlikely to please his inflation/interest rate daddy, Donald Trump, who wants borrowing costs slashed yesterday to spur growth. As Politico pointed out after the speech, any rate hike in September “will likely invoke the frustration of President Donald Trump,” even if he has spoken “warmly” of Warsh in the past compared to Jerome Powell.

How did the markets react to this threat of tighter money? Short-term Treasury yields jumped, with the two-year yield climbing to 4.30%. And ING’s Francesco Pesole labeled the speech “hawkish-leaning.” Yet, stock indexes yawned and traded around 0.25% higher.

In the end, Warsh thinks he can keep us in the dark. “You can call it an outline, you can call it a trail map — just don’t call it forward guidance,” he quipped. Sorry, Kevin. The market has already drawn its own map, and it seems to be pointing straight toward a more expensive autumn.

Spies in the Sky Fuel Hawkeye 360's Growth

(Hawkeye)

If you're an investor looking for a truly recession-proof business, forget consumer staples or AI chat widgets. The real money is in tracking radio frequencies from orbit to feed the global defense industry. Just ask John Serafini, CEO of Hawkeye 360, who is currently riding a wave of geopolitical tensions straight to the bank.

Hawkeye recently reported $49.8 million in second-quarter revenue — an 87% surge year-over-year. How does one achieve such stellar growth while taking a company public? Simple. As Serafini cheerily explained, Hawkeye was busy “supporting our customers in conflicts around the world to include places like Ukraine and the Middle East and other geopolitical hotspots and areas of turmoil.” In 2026, global instability is an excellent top-line driver.

Serafini’s target demographic is, you know…lethal. “Our focus is 100% on our customer, the warfighter,” he said. Our interviewer, Justine, naturally found it “so exciting to think about all of those opportunities.” And why wouldn't she? Business is booming. Hawkeye has graduated from "experimental testing" to a lucrative five-year production contract with the National Reconnaissance Office.

With $500 million of cash sitting on the balance sheet, because “it does no one much good to have that sitting there earning T-bills,” Hawkeye is planning a massive M&A spending spree. They aim to sniff out “any signal above a watt in power” and have already proven their value in military exercises by locating adversary vessels in under 15 minutes. This, Serafini notes, provides “relevance for long range fires for the kill chain.”

Who knew a 14% EBITDA margin could sound so patriotic?

Watch the Interview

Solar-Powered Robots Can Now Cut Your Lawn

(Sunscout)

Move over, self-driving cars that can't handle a light drizzle. The real frontier of autonomous technology is quietly happening on your front lawn, where solar-powered robot mowers are preparing to relieve you of the heavy burden of pushing a noisy machine over some blades of grass.

I cut the damned grass yesterday and my fitness watch tracked it as a hard mountain-biking workout. So, color me intrigued.

Enter SunScout Holding Limited $SNSC ( ▼ 1.87% ) , a New Zealand transplant that recently went public on the NYSE to take over the American backyard. CEO Edwin Cywinski is bringing these independent beasts to a new manufacturing and distribution hub in Texas. Why Texas? Because “this is the market, and we come from New Zealand, it's impossible to serve a market out of so far away.”

Unlike primitive, "grid-connected" robotic mowers that can only manage a measly 45 minutes before crawling back to a docking station, SunScout’s units have integrated solar panels, making them “completely independent.” If the battery gets low, Cywinski notes, “the thing just parks where it is and recharges.” No more dragging yourself out of bed to find your dead robot hiding under a hydrangea.

The scale of America's lawn obsession is truly staggering. Cywinski points out that “the U.S. alone represents 63% of the world's lawn mowing industry,” with “12 million lawnmowers sold in the U.S. per year.” Naturally, SunScout is targeting the crown jewel of American leisure: Golf courses. On a golf course, a docking station might be miles away, meaning traditional robots “almost run on empty when they arrive where they should mow.” But SunScout’s robot “can remain there and it can recharge right there and keep on going.”

Best of all, Cywinski plans to adapt this platform for other autonomous applications, like “patrol robots for security.” Which sounds like a bit of an escalation from mowing the lawns, honestly.

Quick question: What’s to stop someone nicking this puppy off my front lawn?

Watch the Interview

Song of the Day: Haute & Freddy, ‘Touch Touch’

This highly anticipated new single from L.A. alt-pop duo Haute & Freddy, is a triumphant, '80s-inspired synth-pop anthem that balances shameless escapism with deep emotional vulnerability. Their first new material since their acclaimed March debut album Big Disgrace, the track builds on the duo's signature theatrical charm, so it’s a lot like this newsletter.

Rich Folks Are Flocking to Dollar Stores

(Google)

Forget your yacht club membership and artisanal cheese shop. In 2026, the ultimate flex for wealthy Americans is bragging about the absolute steal they got on off-brand laundry detergent.

Yes, inflation and volatile gas prices have accomplished what decades of social policy couldn’t: Uniting Americans of all income brackets in the hallowed, fluorescent aisles of Dollar General $DG ( ▼ 3.46% ) and Dollar Tree $DLTR ( ▼ 5.35% ) .

According to Dollar General’s CEO, Todd Vasos, even their usual clientele is feeling the pinch. “Our core customers continue to be financially constrained,” Vasos told the Wall Street Journal, noting that “higher and more volatile fuel prices have forced customers to further prioritize purchases with a focus on value and affordability.”

And prioritize they did. The undisputed crown jewel of this economic survival mode is Dollar General’s poetically named Value Valley — a dedicated $1 zone where sales surged 16 percent last quarter. “The consumer is relying more on that $1 price point,” Vasos admitted, with plans to expand the section to over 9,000 stores.

Over at Dollar Tree, CEO Mike Creedon is also watching well-to-do shoppers raid his shelves, noting that “the inflationary backdrop continues to pressure all household budgets.” Indeed, Dollar Tree’s sales gains are currently being driven by middle- and high-income households looking to stretch their dollars.

Of course, a massive corporate turf war is brewing. Giants like Walmart $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) and Target $TGT ( ▼ 2.71% ) are aggressively slashing prices to steal these newly frugal shoppers back. Walmart's CEO, John Furner, practically swore a blood oath to investors, promising, “We’ll do everything we can to keep prices as low as we can... throughout the rest of the year.” Whether the dollar stores can hold off these behemoths is, as Deutsche Bank $DB ( ▼ 1.73% ) analyst Krisztina Katai put it, “the big question.”

Until then, we’ll see you in Value Valley.

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The Physical AI Boom Reaches The Farm

Most AI lives on a screen. This kind drives itself through a soybean field at 2 a.m. and cuts weeds to the centimeter, with no herbicide. Greenfield Robotics has 82 machines running across 16 states. This year's fleet sold out, and every robot was delivered.

The platform keeps adding jobs: weeding now, feeding, spraying, and cover-crop planting on the way. Farmers are done with chemicals linked to Parkinson's and tied to the price of oil.

The pull is real, and the machines work. Greenfield's Regulation A+ offering lets everyday investors own a stake ahead of the scale-up the company is building toward.

Invest in Greenfield Robotics

People Are Planning To Skip Work To Play GTA6

(Grand Theft Auto VI)

If you are a manager currently congratulating yourself on surviving "quiet quitting," brace yourself. On November 19 at midnight, a cataclysmic event is going to completely wipe out your firm’s Q4 productivity. No, it’s not a new supply chain crisis (although that could still happen, too!), it’s the release of Grand Theft Auto VI. After an agonizing 13-year drought, eager gamers have officially deemed the launch an unofficial holiday and are hoarding their PTO accordingly.

Take Bud Burruss, a 36-year-old software engineer and father of three. He is taking five days off to lock himself inside his "cave," he told the Wall Street Journal. “We’ve got a couple of days where we’re like, ‘Daddy’s very busy,’” he warns. While he promises his wife (who has known about this commitment for over a year) that he won't play “like an absentee father,” he admits “right out of the gate we’re going hard.”

Meanwhile, Anna Ray, a 30-year-old medical-sales rep and professional wrestler, is taking a full week off. For her, the release is about “getting to be like a little kid again, living out that inner child but at 30 years old.” She’s even pre-cooking steak and salmon so she doesn't have to waste time cooking or opening her work laptop. Over in Brazil, civil servant Guilherme Stephano is checking out for an entire 10 days because, as he puts it, “I’m a completionist.”

Likewise, good luck to any boss expecting spreadsheets to get done in late November….

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Cuttin’ Up

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Search “Cheddar” on Samsung, YouTube TV, and most other streaming platforms.

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Market Rises on Bullish Nvidia Forecast for '27

Matt Davis — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Vote for the winner of this week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ in today’s poll below 👇🏻

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Market Rises on Bullish Nvidia Forecast for ‘27
UEFA Preps Criminal Complaint on FIFA's Infantino
Song of the Day: Junior Mesa, ‘The Cops Are Coming …
Ring Takes Steps To Avoid ‘Surveillance’ Risk
How AI Is Forcing Consultants To Learn Empathy
Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time
Poll of the Day: Chicken, Indeed

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$NVDA ( ▲ 0.57% ) $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) $FLOSZZX ( ▼ 1.15% )

Market Rises on Bullish Nvidia Forecast for ‘27

(Google)

Those waiting for the AI bubble to burst are to be kept waiting even longer, it seems.

AI chipmaker Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 0.57% ) delivered another blockbuster quarter of results on Wednesday evening, reporting $96.2 billion in sales, $4 billion higher than analysts’ expectations. And the company’s stock rose 9% after the firm projected 70% revenue growth for fiscal year 2028, far more than the 45% analysts had timidly predicted.

Of course, maintaining this dizzying trajectory requires some creative financial wizardry. To help cash-strapped AI startups afford its eye-wateringly expensive chips, Nvidia has been using its own balance sheet to guarantee loans, a practice some skeptics call circular financing.

The firm gracefully brushed this off: “We recognize the scale of this support, and we know some will call this circular financing,” said the CFO. “We see it differently.... The equity returns on our invested capital will be excellent.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang remained characteristically zen, declaring that these will be “some of the most consequential technology companies in history,” while dismissing threats of custom-chip competitors with a friendly shrug: “I'm delighted to be their friend.… I'm delighted that they're counting on us to scale up,” he said.

But not everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid. Naveen Chhabra of Forrester told the Wall Street Journal, “Businesses are having a tough time bringing AI into production.… If AI projects don’t deliver to the current expectations... they will abandon those projects.”

Sure they will. Eventually. Meanwhile, check your 401(k).

UEFA Preps Criminal Complaint on FIFA's Infantino

(Google)

European football's governing body, UEFA, has decided to swap the pitch for a Swiss courtroom by preparing a criminal complaint against FIFA President Gianni Infantino for “criminal mismanagement” of the body that runs the World Cup, reports the Financial Times.

The alleged crime? Last month’s grand, failed plan to sell a 20% stake in FIFA's commercial rights to private investors for $4 billion. The proposed new entity, "Fifa Forward Enterprise" (FFE), was set to be backed by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital, which is also trying to buy the Los Angeles Lakers right now.

UEFA caught wind of the math and scoffed, calling the implied $20 billion valuation “absurdly low.” After all, why let investors walk away with the crown jewels of football on the cheap? It’s no coincidence, either, that Kushner is the brother of the U.S. president’s son-in law. Question: Was this proposed deal a corrupt quid pro quo with DJT and his family for America’s hosting of the World Cup?

Following a fiery meeting in Monte Carlo, UEFA declared they would “pursue every available institutional, political, and legal avenue necessary to secure fundamental reform” and ensure FIFA is run “as an institution — not around one individual.”

Infantino, currently trying to run for re-election in March (and good luck with that, mate, seriously…) acknowledged the plans were “mishandled” and promised to conduct a review. UEFA’s response was a collective eye-roll, asserting that FIFA “cannot investigate itself and expect the football community simply to accept its conclusions.”

Meanwhile, Infantino’s buddies in Saudi Arabia are busy playing peacemaker. The totally not corrupt, no matter what anybody tells you, Saudi Arabian Football Federation chimed in, saying it “supports the continued efforts” of Infantino to “restore unity across the football family.” Translation: "Please don't ruin our 2034 World Cup party, or Google who ‘Jamal Khashoggi’ was.”

CIA Chief Warns Moscow Not To Attack NATO

(UNN)

The Director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe (pictured doing the best power move with his spectacles, above) took a surprise weekend getaway to Moscow this past weekend, in an administrative move treated with the absolute minimum of transparency. Ratcliffe’s mission, according to the Wall Street Journal? To politely, but very firmly, ask Vladimir Putin not to start World War III by launching an attack on a NATO country.

According to new U.S. intelligence assessments, there’s a creeping fear that Putin might try to "test" the alliance's “resolve” with a "limited assault" — ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion, most likely on a Baltic nation. Why now? Well, it turns out the West’s munitions cabinet is looking a little bare, depleted by prolonged transfers to Ukraine and something called “the war in Iran.”

The official spin on this high-stakes nuclear deterrence trip is a class in nonchalant downplaying. During a radio interview, President Trump casually dismissed the trip as “semi-routine” before swiftly pivoting to his efforts to secure peace in Ukraine. “Something may come out of it,” he said. “We’re working very hard to get that war ended and frankly they both want to see it ended at this point,” he said, about Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Ratcliffe met with Russian spy bosses but bypassed Putin (who was merely "briefed"). And the CIA’s official stance? A spokeswoman “declined to comment.”

Say, how’s your blood pressure this morning?

Song of the Day: Junior Mesa, ‘The Cops Are Coming’

This track by California-based multi-instrumentalist Junior Mesa is an intoxicating, hyper-surrealistic dive into emotional obsession and self-sabotage. The track further cements Mesa’s reputation as an indie-pop innovator who masterfully balances heavy themes with infectious rhythms. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter.

Ring Takes Steps To Avoid ‘Surveillance’ Risk

(Ring)

For years, smart doorbells have existed in a delightful gray area between high-tech home security and community surveillance. But if you’ve ever had a creeping feeling that your front porch camera is quietly compiling an archive of your late-night pajama walks, Ring’s $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) founder and chief inventor, Jamie Siminoff, wants to sell you some peace of mind.

Enter "Take," Ring's new end-to-end encryption standard designed to hand the digital keys back to the homeowner. Siminoff proudly compares it to a traditional lock: “You own the key, you can give a copy of it to your spouse or to your child, but you own keys, you control the lock.” It’s a bold “show not tell” security upgrade rolling out by default this September, ensuring that no one, not even Ring, can watch your videos without your explicit permission.

I’m not sure what they were doing with them before, but it’s probably safest not to ask. Of course, some skeptics might wonder if a camera on your door is inherently listening and watching a bit too closely. Siminoff brushes this off with a comforting, “we designed it not to do that.” He insists the company's identity has been misunderstood: “I'd like to think we always were a privacy-first company and a trust company,” he told us.

If that sounds slightly ironic for a giant network of internet-connected cameras, Siminoff’s philosophy on data sharing is surprisingly hands-off. When it comes to managing new features, like health monitors from Ring’s emerging app store, he argues the goal is “not to balance it. It's to put the control in the hands of the customer and let them choose.”

Siminoff hopes Take will become “a new standard” for the home security industry. Me, too. Meanwhile rival surveillance network Flock $FLOSZZX ( ▼ 1.15% ) is taking all kinds of heat for its slightly different approach, as readers of this newsletter heard earlier this week.

Watch the Interview

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His Father Got Parkinson's. He Built Robots Instead.

Clint Brauer grew up on his family's Kansas farm. His dad sprayed the same chemicals every American farmer sprays. Years later: Parkinson's. Clint walked away from a tech career to build a different way. Today his company, Greenfield Robotics, runs a patented fleet of autonomous bots that slice weeds with centimeter precision, day or night, herbicide-free.

Greenfield is now opening shares to everyday investors under Reg A+. Reserve during Test the Waters and you lock in a 5% bonus that can grow to 20% the week the round goes live. The US has 250 million acres at stake.

Get Bonus Shares

_{Greenfield Robotics is Testing The Waters under tier 2 of Regulation A. No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response will not be accepted. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement filed by the company with the SEC has been qualified by the SEC. Any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time before notice of acceptance given after the date of qualification. An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. “Reserving” shares is simply an indication of interest. There is no binding commitment for investors that reserve shares in this manner to ultimately invest and purchase the shares reserved of the company, or to purchase any shares of the company whatsoever.}

How AI Is Forcing Consultants To Learn Empathy

(Google)

The promises of the AI revolution were beautiful: We’d automate the boring stuff, work from a beach in Bali, and let our algorithms handle our slide decks. Instead, the rise of AI has achieved the impossible: It’s dragging junior consultants kicking and screaming right back to the physical office, the FT reports.

It turns out that when AI can easily handle routine technical work, the only value left in a junior consultant is their ability to act like an actual human. Sayeh Ghanbari, UK head of consulting at Big Four firm EY, put it bluntly: Sitting at home is “just not the route to success in the world of AI.” EY is now slashing flexibility to resuscitate those pesky "soft skills." According to Ghanbari, firms “dropped” training in areas like empathy, storytelling, and leadership during the remote-work boom. Her solution? “We need to go back to the future” because we “have to be face to face once the agents are remote.”

So, how does a corporate monolith teach a Gen-Z recruit how to be human?

By any means necessary. The Boston Consulting Group is luring juniors back with chess, padel, and netball clubs. And top-10 firm Azets has the real masterstroke: They’ve lowered academic entry requirements and partnered with pubs and hotels to help graduates develop their soft skills.

As Lisa Fernihough of KPMG notes, “The speed of learning… face to face is going to be much quicker” than doing it online, with colleague Callum Licence adding it is “more important than ever for those starting out in their careers to have opportunities to learn directly from others.”

So prepare yourselves, juniors: AI can build your consulting models, but only you can learn to play padel and drink at a hotel lobby with a client. I wish you all the best with it.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️

Yep.

Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

Poll of the Day: Chicken, Indeed

We asked: Is there a cognitive dissonance between what you'd like to think about the way chickens are treated and your ability to eat chicken meat as a consumer?

You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No. I'm aware of how chickens are treated in battery farms and as a result, I'm a vegetarian. (61)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes. I'm aware of how chickens are treated in battery farms and yet I manage to conveniently forget about that when I'm choosing between organic chicken for $12 a pound at Whole Foods and the GOOD OL' CHICKEN DRUMSTICKS I buy on sale for 99 cents a pound. (193)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No. I'm unaware of how chickens are treated in battery farms because I have been deliberately obtuse on this subject and now would you please pass the McNuggets for $3.99 a six-piece, please, Dorothy. Dorothy? DOROTHY? (49)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Cognitive dissonance? What the heck is this? I'm too busy smoking cigarettes, eating unhealthy, and polluting the environment while I believe in healthy living to look up complicated terms in the dictionary. This is America, God Damn It. (37)
340 Votes

via @beehiiv polls

Want more Cheddar? Watch us!

Search “Cheddar” on Samsung, YouTube TV, and most other streaming platforms.

N2K is the tip of of the cheeseberg for financial news, interviews, and more.

Find Cheddar Here!

Need2Know is covered by Cheddar’s Terms of Service

Meta Pays Billions To Settle Addiction Claims

Matt Davis — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how Bitcoin and Gold are surging against the dollar, following the Treasury’s interventions in the bond market and our national debt surpassing $40 trillion. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Meta Pays Billions To Settle Addiction Claims
New Approval for "Life-Altering" Cancer Drug
Oura: The Smart Ring Eyeing a $16 Billion IPO
Song of the Day: Weezer, ‘Say Yes’
Surviving the Back-To-School Shakedown
How Chicken Conquered the World
Poll of the Day: Playing Chicken
Poll of the Day: Birds Of A Feather

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$META ( ▲ 0.7% ) $SNAP ( ▼ 0.17% ) $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% ) $RVMD ( ▼ 0.12% ) $OURAZZX ( ▲ 0.25% ) $PYPL ( ▼ 0.41% )

Meta Pays Billions To Settle Addiction Claims

(Google)

Meta $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to settle claims that it designed its platforms to addict children. Ironically the company’s stock rose considerably on the news, at one point adding around $54 billion, or close to 5%, to the company’s value, so it’s almost like capitalism rewarded the bad behavior:

(Google)

Stick that on your Instagram story, baby!

Meta is graciously agreeing to silence notifications at night, limit usage between midnight and 6 a.m., and interrupt the endless scroll.

Colorado's Attorney General, Phil Weiser, said that “the focus of this case was to protect our kids: stopping notifications and alerts at night and when they are in school.…” Meanwhile, Meta’s Chief Legal Officer, C.J. (what, from The West Wing? —Ed.) Mahoney, tried to spin this multi-billion-dollar retreat as a collaborative choice, claiming Meta simply wants to ensure “teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms.”

I mean, sure. Remove harmful features only after you’re sued for roughly $200 billion. That’s how I define “collaboration,” personally.

Stanford law professor Nora Freeman Engstrom told the New York Times, “Meta wouldn’t settle unless it sees the writing on the wall and feels really exposed.”

Ya think?

Under the agreement, Meta will initially pay $12 billion, but it is trying to drag TikTok, Snap $SNAP ( ▼ 0.17% ) , and YouTube $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% ) into the settlement to avoid being singled out. As Mahoney implored, “This framework will only work if all our peers join us.”

Misery loves company….

While D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb hailed this as a “monumental public health victory,” the cynical truth remains. Meta finally realized, as Duke Law professor Stuart Benjamin noted, that “the cost of maintaining infinite scroll, auto play, filters, etc., is just too big a risk for the company.”

Back in my youth, teenagers just smoked cigarettes. The good old days….

New Approval for "Life-Altering" Cancer Drug

(Google)

Pancreatic cancer is one of the really nasty ones, killing about 50,000 Americans every year. But finally, some good news: The FDA has finally approved a drug to tackle the mutation that drives pancreatic cancer. Revolution Medicines’ $RVMD ( ▼ 0.12% ) new treatment, Rasonque, has achieved the seemingly impossible by using "molecular glues" to bind to a notoriously slippery, flat protein, the biological equivalent of superglue. Wall Street is salivating, forecasting over $20 billion in annual sales and the firm’s stock has risen from $36 to $215 over the past year as a result.

When clinical trial results were presented last spring, revealing that subjects lived over 13 more months, nearly double the survival rate of chemotherapy alone, the drug received a "nearly minute-long standing ovation" from researchers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Oncologist Carla Kurkjian hailed the drug as “life-altering,” noting it allows doctors “to have a different conversation than we’ve had for so long.” Of course, that new conversation will have to address the body-wide rashes and gastrointestinal issues caused by side effects of the drug. But still. Death is an unpleasant side-effect of pancreatic cancer. So, I’d settle, I think, for the blotches. Patient Jay Williams noted, “What it does is buy you time, and that’s one thing you don’t always have with pancreatic cancer.”

RevMed Chief Executive Mark Goldsmith is in a hurry: “This is a monumental opportunity for patients and their families, and we need to do everything we can to clear the decks and make that happen as quickly as possible,” he said.

Oura: The Smart Ring Eyeing a $16 Billion IPO

(Oura)

Oura $OURAZZX ( ▲ 0.25% ) , the smart ring maker, is reportedly planning a U.S. IPO that values the company at north of $16 billion. That is a stunning jump from the $10.9 billion valuation Oura was assigned last September.

Once a niche gadget beloved primarily by biohacking CEOs and my weird mate Ken, Oura has successfully rebranded itself as a mainstream sleep-and-recovery brand. Financial growth has been spectacular, soaring from $500 million in revenue in 2024 to an expected $2 billion in 2026. Who knew charging people hundreds of dollars to tell them they are tired could be such a goldmine?

But it isn’t all peaceful slumber in Oura-land. A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in San Francisco has rudely awakened the company, accusing it of misleading consumers about its sleep-tracking precision. According to the filing, Oura is accused of claiming “To measure a heartbeat or a temperature, but the exact stage of sleep the wearer is in, which in reality requires electrodes in the scalp and sensors on the eyes, as only a hospital or other clinical setting can do.”

Naturally, Oura’s PR machine has, er…awoken. A spokesperson pushed back, claiming, “While Oura Ring is not a medical device or a substitute for a clinical sleep study, Oura’s sleep staging has been validated and compared favorably in multiple studies against polysomnography, the gold standard.” The company insisted that “Multiple third-party, independent studies support our claims of accuracy.”

Personally, I’d pay well for a ring that insists I slept well and “don’t even look tired” despite all evidence to the contrary, just to cheer myself up. But I prefer to wear my Whoop wrist band, which only has a $10 billion valuation after its series G financing. Let’s hope they catch up with Oura, soon. Because I feel like a bit of a loser, now, honestly.

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Song of the Day: Weezer, ‘Say Yes’

Here’s an infectious, high-energy track that captures the classic 1990s power-pop essence of Weezer. “Say Yes, like Yoko to Don,” goes one of the lyrics. You get the idea. It’s just like this newsletter!

Surviving the Back-To-School Shakedown

(Google)

According to a PayPal $PYPL ( ▼ 0.41% ) study of over 3,000 parents, 60% of parents are indicating that their kids are asking for more expensive items to go back to school and, predictably, parents are “bending to that.” Enter Trae Bodge, smart shopping expert at TrueTrae.com, here to save us from our weakness. Bodge notes that “social media is creating a lot of pressure on parents because kids are seeing hauls from their favorite influencers.”

How do we fight back? Bodge suggests making teenagers contribute to the damage: “Get your kids involved, have them contribute to that financial outlay. If your kids feel the pinch, they will shop much more carefully,” she says.

Nothing cures a teen's burning desire for a $150 hoodie faster than realizing they’ll need to work a 10-hour shift at Chick-Fil-A to pay for it, huh? Then start talking to them about the tax they’ll pay on that income and before long, I bet, they’ll be begging you to move to Florida. Be careful what you wish for, folks. They have alligators down there.

Next, dig through your closet graves. Bodge advises to “go through the house first, see what you have from last year, see what can be reused.” If you must buy, Bodge’s golden rule is to embrace the retro aesthetic: “Buy secondhand,” she urges. “Thankfully, it's really popular right now, especially with teens.”

Yes, buying used clothes at Goodwill is suddenly cool, apparently, so feel free to mask your frugality as a fashion statement. Finally, don't buy everything at once. Spreading out your shopping is “less impactful if you're being paid every two weeks,” Bodge helpfully notes. It also gives you budget wiggle room when your child returns in October realizing they need different gear once they decide “who they’re gonna be this year,” Trae said.

Miaowwww!

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Buy on Blue, Sell on Red

Buy on Blue... Sell on Red. It sounds simple because it is. This 2-Time Award Winning hedge fund Algo, created by active hedge fund manager Mark Helweg, was built to identify institutional buying and selling pressure with easy-to-follow Blue Dot BUY and Red Dot SELL signals.

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How Chicken Conquered the World

(Google)

Speaking of chicken? Forget the Roman Empire, British Imperialism, or Silicon Valley. The true ruler of the modern world is a flightless, dim-witted bird that we have selectively bred to have freakishly massive breasts. And no, this is not about to segue into a fawning Dolly Parton obituary. Although: May she rest in peace.

As a recent, in-depth investigation by the Financial Times reveals, the global chicken takeover is complete. In 2022, chicken officially dethroned pork to become the world’s most produced meat.

We fry it, shred it, and reconstitute it into shapes only distantly resembling a bird. But how did this happen? Historically, farmers kept chickens for eggs; meat was an afterthought. As U.S. food historian Roger Horowitz told the FT’s reporters, there is “no question that in the food business, the egg came first.” Then came the 20th century, where armed with antibiotics, selective breeding, and industrial slaughterhouses, we built a bird engineered for mass retail.

Now, poultry is “a truly global industry,” according to Richard Griffiths, president of the International Poultry Council. We are so thoroughly addicted that Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economist running something amazing called the “Meat Demand Monitor,” declares, “We’re a long way off peak chicken.”

Yet, our love affair is steeped in classic human hypocrisy. We demand endless cheap nuggets but recoil at the nightmarish industrial farms required to produce them. Mayenne poultry farmer Jean-Yves Guérot sums up the cognitive dissonance perfectly: “There is an incompatibility between what people say and reject as citizens and what they want to eat as consumers. We live with that contradiction every day.”

It’s like a game of chicken, in fact. He did not say.

Still, don’t expect us to stop eating the stuff. Nan-Dirk Mulder, poultry specialist at Rabobank, admits he "struggles to find any market where consumption is falling."

The chicken empire is unstoppable!

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️

Yep.

Poll of the Day: Playing Chicken

Poll of the Day: Birds Of A Feather

We asked: What do you think of Flock cameras?

You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Love them. If someone steals my catalytic converter, I at least want a high-definition digital keepsake of the getaway car's license plate to frame over my fireplace. (60)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Terrible. I don't need a high-tech robotic panopticon logging every single time I drive past the gym, make direct eye contact with the entrance, and proceed straight to the drive-thru instead. (217)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Mixed feelings—it’s great knowing neighborhood porch pirates are being watched, but I’m slightly nervous the algorithm will eventually report my aggressive lack of turn signal usage to my mother. (240)
517 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Billionaire in AI-Written Bonds Op-Ed Controversy

Matt Davis — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Billionaire in AI-Written Bonds Op-Ed Controversy
JPMorgan Eases Lending Rules for AI Nouveau-Riche
Sneaker Stocks Slide as Consumers Tighten Wallets
Backlash Against Flock Cameras Ramps Up
Canada Strikes Back Hard on Tariffs
Poll of the Day: For Flock’s Sake
Poll of the Day: Oh, Canada!

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$JPM ( ▲ 0.67% ) $SPCX ( ▼ 3.15% ) $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) $DKS ( ▼ 5.39% ) $NKE ( ▼ 2.24% ) $ADDYY ( ▼ 1.66% ) $FLOSZZX ( ▼ 1.15% )

Billionaire in AI-Written Bonds Op-Ed Controversy

Imagine being U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Just last year, you fawned over your legendary mentor, hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, telling the Financial Times that “in macro, there’s Stan and then everybody else.” You were probably hoping for a proud nod from the master. Unfortunately, Druckenmiller outsourced roasting Bessent in a Wall Street Journal op-ed to an AI-bot, instead. As the FT noted, there are “some tell-tale signs of AI involvement in this WSJ op-ed.”

And what a computerized slap! Stan, or rather, Stan’s bot, savaged the Treasury’s bond buybacks, declaring that “this wasn’t liquidity management, it was price management.” The AI-crafted rhetoric grew dramatically philosophical, warning that “every basis point of artificial yield suppression is a subsidy to procrastination.”

The Drucken-bot also warned that “once markets believe Treasury is defending a price, every rise in yields becomes a test of official resolve, and the operations must grow to survive the tests.” It ended with an accusation of playing politics: “Debt management that even appears to follow the political calendar spends the one asset that took two centuries to accumulate: the credibility of the Treasury market.”

Ultimately, if your idol is going to demolish your credibility, it’s a bit of a silver lining to know they probably did it via copy-paste, I suppose. Druckenmiller told journalists “of course” the column was written with AI, yesterday. “I write everything using AI now,” he said. Although the journal is yet to respond to requests for comment.

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Quote of the Day

JPMorgan Eases Lending Rules for AI Nouveau-Riche

(Google)

There is nothing Wall Street loves more than "disrupting" its own ancient, sacred rules when a giant pile of new money is up for grabs. Usually, if you’re a newly public company insider, JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▲ 0.67% ) treats your stock like a volatile hot potato. The bank’s standard policy dictates waiting a solid 135 days after an IPO before accepting those shares as collateral for loans. But if you're a SpaceX $SPCX ( ▼ 3.15% ) engineer or sitting on millions of dollars of Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) stock, congratulations! You get the VIP fast-track.

JPMorgan has shortened the timeline, eagerly letting AI's nouveau-riche borrow against their holdings sooner. Why sell stock and suffer the indignity of taxes when you can live on cheap debt secured by highly volatile, newly minted paper wealth? Anthropic’s valuation has skyrocketed from $18 billion to $965 billion, with a potential $2 trillion October float. With some engineers sitting on tens of millions of dollars in stock, banks are salivating. And of course, what goes up will never come down again, ever.

When asked about this sudden flexibility, JPMorgan told the FT, “Our practices exceed regulatory requirements, and we have always assessed transactions on a case-by-case, client-by-client basis, factoring in elements such as market liquidity.”

Rules continue to be for poor people.

Sneaker Stocks Slide as Consumers Tighten Wallets

(Google)

The greatest threat to global capitalism isn't, let’s say… geopolitics. It’s your refusal to buy another pair of $200 sneakers. Because Foot Locker owner Dick’s Sporting Goods $DKS ( ▼ 5.39% ) (don’t Google it…) saw its stock plunge as much as 27 percent this week after admitting that consumers are stubbornly refusing to play along. Executive Chair Ed Stack said the “industry is carrying too much inventory” while shoppers have grown “even more cautious than expected.”

With the cost of basics rising, the head of the Boston Federal Reserve noted this week that poorer Americans are struggling to “make ends meet.” And the first victim of this cost-of-living crisis? Discretionary spending.

But Stack had an even more tragic excuse for the pile of unsold shoes gathering dust in warehouses. Apparently, “certain legacy footwear silhouettes and apparel franchises are simply not resonating the way they once did.” That means your favorite classic kicks are officially uncool, and Dick's is stuck with a mountain of them. Bad news for Nike $NKE ( ▼ 2.24% ) and Adidas $ADDYY ( ▼ 1.66% ) , too, I’d say.

Until fuel prices settle down and the world stops sliding into chaos, I’ll be happily walking around in my un-resonant old sneakers for a while.

Song of the Day: Cleo Sol, ‘Gentlewoman’

Cleo Sol’s fifth album title song is a spiritual, soothing, and emotionally mature record that prioritizes personal boundary-setting, healing, and family devotion over chasing mainstream trends. So, it’s just like this newsletter.

Backlash Against Flock Cameras Ramps Up

Flock Safety $FLOSZZX ( ▼ 1.15% ) now has 120,000 cameras across the country capturing 20 billion license plates a month. The system even catalogs vehicle dents and embarrassing bumper stickers. Not everyone is thrilled about this, and bipartisan public anger is boiling over. While some citizens prefer traditional protest, others have opted for direct kinetic feedback, attacking cameras with shotguns, spray paint, and saws. Activist Kamau Franklin isn't holding back either, telling the Wall Street Journal: “We’re gonna be at their corporate offices, organizing, and we’re gonna be in the street, organizing.”

Cybersecurity researcher Benn Jordan took spy-craft to another level by parking a tech-rigged van outside Flock’s conference to eavesdrop. Jordan promised: “I’m gonna do whatever I can, whatever the law allows me to do, to gather as much information as possible.” This high-tech rebellion gained traction after Jordan exposed a security vulnerability allowing live internet access to a camera feed, leading local resident Jason Hunyar to realize his son was logged in Flock's database before he was even born. Hunyar protested, “I don’t really want my son to grow up in a world where he can be watched by anyone.”

Flock CEO Garrett Langley remains, let’s say, relaxed, counter-attacking, “Am I on the defensive? I’m on the offensive because I need to make sure that everyone has a conversation about how we build this combined world of safety and privacy,” he said.

And…good luck with that conversation, Garrett. It’s hard to build bridges when the other side is holding a chainsaw.

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Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads

Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:

After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.

“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.

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Canada Strikes Back Hard on Tariffs

After President Trump slapped tariffs on $20bn of Canadian goods, he threatened to tax Canadian cars and even threatened to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” yesterday. A Canadian suggested they change the name of Lake Michigan to “Lake Epstein” in apparent retaliation. In a more official response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney launched a massive, $20bn retaliatory strike. Beginning on September 8, the Great White North is hitting back with duties of up to 50 percent on hundreds of U.S. goods, including steel, dairy, and agricultural tractors. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne proudly declared, “When the U.S. asked too much and offered too little, we chose to stand up for Canadians.”

To soften the blow back home, he is throwing in a $5.5bn bailout package, promising it will “protect workers, farmers, families, and businesses as we build a stronger, more resilient, and more diversified Canadian economy.”

This all comes at a perilous moment for Washington, which is already battling stubborn inflation. A search for “Canada” on Twitter kept me amused for an hour or two yesterday. I’d recommend it, in fact.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️

Yep.

Poll of the Day: For Flock’s Sake

Poll of the Day: Oh, Canada!

We asked: Was Canada Right To Stand Up To the U.S. Over Tariffs?

You answered:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes. The polite diplomatic thing was to roll over, apologize for possessing lumber and steel, and thank Washington for the privilege of being economically shaken down. But somebody has to draw a line somewhere. (321)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No. Threatening retaliatory tariffs when your entire national GDP is basically a rounding error on California’s balance sheet is not how you win a staring contest with an economic giant. (32)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes. It's good for Ottawa to force American builders to face the horrifying reality that supply chains don't end at the border and affordable housing actually requires Canadian timber. (184)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No. Canadian families will see hikes in the prices on their own imported goods and groceries just to prove an expensive point to the noisy neighbors downstairs. (38)
575 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Is Canada a Trendsetter in the Trade Wars?

Matt Davis — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Is Canada a Trendsetter in the Trade Wars?
The American Consumer Is Splitting in Two
Let’s Fight Wildfires with Moonshine, Coca-Cola
The Rise of the Burrito-Bots Continues Unabated
Can Fed Boss Kevin Warsh Reassure Investors?
Poll of the Day: Tit-for-Tar-iff
Poll of the Day: You’re Paying $300-$600/mo

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) $UBER ( ▼ 1.65% )

Is Canada a Trendsetter in the Trade Wars?

(Getty)

Normally, when we think of international trendsetters, we look to Milan for fashion or Silicon Valley for tech, or Japan for something called “Selvedge denim.” But lately, the hottest trend in global economics is coming straight from Ottawa, and seems to look like standing up to the United States with retaliatory tariffs as the midterms approach.

Yes, Canada, the country world-renowned for aggressive politeness and saying "sorry," is suddenly throwing hands. After the Trump administration slapped a massive 50 percent tariff on $20 billion of Canadian exports, Prime Minister Mark Carney decided that nice-guy diplomacy is officially dead. “You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked,” Carney declared this past weekend, vowing to match America’s levies “dollar for dollar.”

Canada's bold stand is already reverberating across the globe, with a government-linked newspaper in China praising the pushback as a “Chinese-style counterattack.” You know you’ve truly made it in the geopolitical schoolyard when Beijing starts praising your dairy and appliance duties.

But will others follow this trendy new look? Ontario Premier Doug Ford certainly wants to double down, urging Carney to weaponize Canada's “electricity, energy, and critical minerals” to target Trump’s key political base states like Texas and Florida. Why just retaliate with duties on plywood and winter jackets when you can literally turn off the power grid, with a heat wave looming.

With the cost-of-living crunch weighing heavily on voters in the U.S., playing hardball with Washington is quickly becoming the must-have negotiating tactic of the season. Other trade partners are watching, realizing that if even Canada is trading its olive branches for economic bazookas, maybe it is time to stop playing nice.

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Quote of the Day

The American Consumer Is Splitting in Two

(Google)

In the K-Shaped Economy the "average consumer" is as real as a unicorn. Today's retail landscape is split into two distinct halves: Those who are broke, and those who are also acting broke because they’re terrified of becoming broke.

According to retail expert Jharonne Martis, head of consumer research at LSEG, the days of retail giants easily parting us from our money are gone. “Value is no longer just a promotional tool. It's a competitive advantage,” she said, adding that “consumers are still opening up their wallets, but retailers really have to earn every single dollar.”

And how are they earning them? By selling us cheap stuff quickly. We’re so obsessed with instant gratification that we’ll buy a single screwdriver online and expect it delivered in three hours. Meanwhile, the wealthy are shamelessly "trading down," ditching high-end organic markets to fight over bargain groceries. As Martis notes, “even the high-end consumer and the middle-class consumer... are gravitating towards Walmart.” $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% )

The horror.

But don’t worry, retailers have a cynical trick up their sleeves to keep us swiping. The amount of merchandise "on sale" is at its highest in six years, yet the actual discounts are minuscule. It’s all about “giving the illusion that they are having a promotion” while protecting those precious gross margins, Jharonne told us. Ultimately, this whole fragile house of credit cards relies on a single thing: People keeping their jobs. As Martis warns, “they will continue to spend as long as they are employed. If they start to feel... their job is in jeopardy, then that's when they're gonna put their hands in their pockets.”

Coincidentally, a new Pew report shows 71% of Americans now believe AI will lead to fewer jobs in the United States over the next 20 years, up from 64% two years ago.

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Let’s Fight Wildfires with Moonshine, Coca-Cola

(Getty)

As climate change turns the planet into a giant, dry tinderbox, our approach to fire safety remains reassuringly medieval: Wait for a massive blaze to start, and then panic. But Wes Bolsen, CEO of Citrotech, has a wild new strategy. Instead of playing catch-up, what if we stop fires before they even have a chance to destroy our homes?

Enter Citrotech’s secret weapon, which looks suspiciously like a jar of illegal liquor. “Some people think, I brought a bottle of moonshine,” Bolsen jokes; “it’s actually the product.” This non-toxic, plant-based fluid uses food-grade ingredients, the kind you’d find in a can of Coca-Cola, to coat lumber and vegetation, creating a protective char layer that refuses to burn.

For 70 years, governments have dropped chemical fertilizers from airplanes to suppress active blazes. But a Bolsen observes, “Once a fire starts, no one asks, do we have enough money to put it out?” Yet, spending money to prevent them is treated like a bizarre luxury. It’s a classic case of public policy shortsightedness. Bolsen argues that we need a shift: “Maybe for every dollar that we spend to prevent it, we could save six or seven dollars that we're already spending to suppress those fires.” After all, “Every fire, funnily enough, starts about two inches tall.”

Instead of waiting for the next catastrophe, Citrotech also wants to bake fire-retardants directly into our building materials. Through a joint venture with Hexion Corporation, they plan to infuse wood during manufacturing. In this economy, where communities lose billions to fires, Bolsen notes, “it's almost you can't afford not to do it.”

Unless, of course, you prefer the thrill of evacuation drills?

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Song of the Day: Sam Amidon & Sam Wilkes, ‘Froggy’

Here’s a collaborative track off the new EP by fiddle maestro Sam Amidon and multi-instrumentalist Sam Wilkes. It’s earning warm praise for its futuristic blend of traditional folk roots, ambient electronic soundscapes, and experimental jazz. So, it’s just like this newsletter.

The Rise of the Burrito-Bots Continues Unabated

(Serve Robotics)

Serve Robotics is rapidly scaling up its fleet of autonomous sidewalk delivery robots, despite letting its exclusive Uber $UBER ( ▼ 1.65% ) contract expire when it comes up next year. As CEO Ali Kashani puts it, it’s about a “portfolio decision of where do we focus our resources.” Translation: The company is seeing other people. They've already partnered with Grubhub and expanded their DoorDash delivery services into Washington, D.C. and San Jose, bringing "physical AI" straight to a sidewalk near you.

Kashani’s crusade is driven by one undeniable truth: “using a car to deliver a burrito doesn't make sense... two-pound burritos in a two-ton car.” And he’s not wrong. Burning fossil fuels to transport a single lukewarm carnitas bowl is a thermodynamic tragedy. Then again, I do worry about the displaced gig-workers. Kashani is confident that rolling out sidewalk robots will actually be “net positive for jobs,” invoking the classic corporate reassurance: “ATMs were the same thing. Everybody thought ATMs are going to kill jobs.”

I feel like this argument doesn’t necessarily hold water, but still. Burrito robots!

These robots also double as rolling digital billboards. Currently, 50% of Serve’s fleet revenue comes from advertising. Kashani warns that in the next five to 10 years, we’ll experience “the ChatGPT moments of robotics,” which I think he meant as a good thing. You be the judge…

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Unlocking $2.1 Trillion in Energy Potential

One company has developed a technology that extracts valuable resources from coal without burning it. From jet fuel to diesel and more, Frontieras North America has the potential to address $2.1 trillion in annual markets*.

It’s similar to when John D. Rockefeller commercialized oil refining technology. If Frontieras captures just 2% of the global coal market, they would position themselves as the global leader in the space.

They just broke ground for their $850 million flagship facility and reserved the ‘FASF’ NASDAQ ticker. Don’t miss your chance to join the next phase of growth: invest in Frontieras before the opportunity ends on August 27.

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^{Frontieras is offering securities through the use of an Offering Statement that has been qualified by the Securities and Exchange Commission under Tier II of Regulation A. A copy of the Final Offering Circular that forms a part of the Offering Statement may be obtained from: invest.frontieras.com. Reservation of the ticker symbol is not a guarantee that we will be listed on the NASDAQ. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals. Sources* The global market for our products is worth a combined value of over $2.1 trillion.}

Can Fed Boss Kevin Warsh Reassure Investors?

(Getty)

Have you ever tried to fix a rocky relationship by simply refusing to speak to your partner? Me either. Because it rarely works in romance. But new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh is bet-the-ranch convinced that giving investors the silent treatment is the key to global financial stability.

As U.S. public debt surges to a record $40 trillion and bond yields hit a 19-year high, investors are naturally looking for a reassuring word. Instead, Warsh has opted to treat Wall Street like a bad Tinder date, drastically stripping back interest rate guidance and breaking the traditional communication feedback loop.

Economists are nervous. Christiane Baumeister of the University of Notre Dame told the Financial Times, “What is unsettling is Warsh’s unwillingness to provide a clear and open assessment of the current situation,” arguing his silent treatment “gives rise to unnecessary speculation.” Former Boston Fed Chief Eric Rosengren agrees, pointing out that “the communication strategy is driving a loss of Fed credibility.”

But maybe Warsh is just playing hard to get? MIT Professor Deborah Lucas thinks the Fed’s old habit of micromanaging markets was toxic, praising Warsh, because he “is willing to stand up against the vested interests in the status quo... I commend him for it.” Plus, Jon Faust, former adviser to Jay Powell, notes that we should celebrate because Warsh has “pretty much overcome the sock-puppet fears” that he would merely do President Trump’s bidding.

No sock puppets here. Just a very quiet sock. As Warsh and his colleagues prepare to gather at the Jackson Hole symposium this week, we can’t wait to see how Warsh explains... well, you know…absolutely nothing.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Tit-for-Tar-iff

Poll of the Day: You’re Paying $300-$600/mo

We asked: How much do you pay for your family's health insurance coverage each month?

You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Less than $100 (55)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ $100-$300 (114)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 $300-$600 (217)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ $900-$1,500 (98)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ More than $1,500 (52)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ We don't have health insurance coverage. It's too expensive. (25)
561 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Bitcoin and Gold Surge Against The Dollar

Matt Davis — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Bob Andersen romped home the winner of last week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ about how the Lakers are worth $12.5 billion now, or the GDP of Chad:

“Thank you, Matt,” writes Bob in an email. “I appreciate the honor bestowed upon me given the talented individuals who participate each week. I also want to give you a shout out for creating such a great way for us to get our creative juices flowing each week.”

It’s an honor and a pleasure, Bob! And here’s how the competition fared:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 1. A basketball team, valued like a small country. Lakers Nation rules! ~MTS (17)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 2. GDP of Chad, Don't leave us hanging forever. Lakers score a win. ~Stephen R. Balzac (13)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 3. Ex-chief Mouse teams with, MAGA bro to outbid Chad? Bye, Moundou Lakers. ~Scott Bauer (13)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 4. Twelve and a half bil? To play with Bouncy Punkins? Huge 'Flated Egos! ~Dick Peterson (41)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 5. 12.5 billion, I just want one million, please, LA Lakers, geez! ~Yolea M. (18)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 6. Big ball energy! Bounces through the Lakers’ sale. 12.5 billion! ~Margaret Lea (10)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 7. The team costs too much. Can I still afford tickets? No way! Thanks, AI. ~Tim Olsen (53)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 8. Lakers worth so much, Same as Chad (that’s my friend in…venture capital). ~Lodro Rinzler (10)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 9. Sports teams value rise, To the GDP of Chad. Sports fans foot the bill. ~Bob Andersen (78)

253 Votes via @beehiiv polls

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how Bitcoin and Gold are surging against the dollar, following the treasury’s interventions in the bond market and our national debt surpassing $40 Trillion. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Bitcoin and Gold Surge Against the Dollar
Former Pro-Data-Center Politicians Do U-Turns
Index Funds Are the Daddy, Now
Healthcare Premiums Are Set to Rocket
The Absurd Economics of NYC Urban Farming
Poll of the Day: Health Insurance Premium

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% ) $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) $AON ( ▼ 2.21% )

Bitcoin and Gold Surge Against the Dollar

(Google)

Ah, the U.S. dollar. Once a proud symbol of global economic dominance, now apparently playing the role of the nervous parent watching its retirement fund get vaporized.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s brilliant plan to “bring equilibrium” to the bond market by doubling long-term debt purchases last week was, it turns out, just the stabilizer we didn't know we didn't want. Or, as Eoin Walsh, portfolio manager at TwentyFour Asset Management, told the Financial Times: “Being erratic and unpredictable generally translates into higher premiums, which partly explains why the dollar is depreciating.”

Naturally, with the greenback sliding and the national debt nudging a casual $40 trillion, investors sprinted toward "debasement trades" like Bitcoin and gold. Why trust a central bank when you can trust yellow rocks and digital tokens?

Those trades are thriving. Gold is on track for its biggest monthly gain since 1999, and Bitcoin is up 23% in the past week alone. A commodities trader practically giddy with schadenfreude remarked, “Everyone liked debasement — the Iran war threw a spanner in the works but now we’re back to the debasement theme,” adding that the market has been “gifted a perfect storm” for a return to the trade.

Of course, the crypto crowd is in full euphoria. Matt Hougan, CIO of Bitwise, declared it “hard not to be extremely bullish both [on bitcoin] and crypto right now.”

Although it’s not impossible, Matt. Trust me.

Former Pro-Data-Center Politicians Do U-Turns

(Google)

Last year, data centers were the darlings of every state governor. Texas Governor Greg Abbott proudly declared his state the “epicenter of AI development” alongside Google’s $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.26% ) CEO, Sundar Pichai. Ah, the sweet, intoxicating scent of tech investment and campaign donations…

Fast-forward, and the political wind has, let’s say, shifted. With voters realizing that AI consumes massive amounts of electricity and water, and drives up local utility bills, politicians are doing Olympic-caliber U-turns to protect their careers.

Suddenly, Governor Abbott has halted approvals on some 1,800 data centers, complaining to a GOP dinner: “You see the issue about data centers cropping up all over the state, and they were doing so without any sense of regulation.” Yes, a Republican governor lamenting a lack of corporate regulation. Nature is indeed healing.

Opponents are capitalizing. Abbott's challenger, Gina Hinojosa, has hammered him: “The data center issue is the latest example of a governor who has been doing the bidding of moneyed interests instead of the people of Texas,” she said. She even released an ad featuring a chatbot explaining to a voter why their electric bills are skyrocketing.

But it was Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed who captured the electorate’s raw, unvarnished vibe: “People really effing hate data centers,” he said.

It’s a bipartisan panic. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who praised Amazon’s $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) facilities last summer, just signed an executive order giving the state power to block them. As former Congressman Brad Carson put it: “If you’re a Democrat, we haven’t had a wedge issue like this in decades.”

Meanwhile, industry spokesperson Dan Diorio sighed: “We are trying to catch up to this narrative and it continues to grow by leaps and bounds.” Good luck, Dan. When voters' electric bills look like phone numbers, you’re kinda done, baby. Done.

Index Funds Are the Daddy, Now

(Google)

Fifty years ago, Vanguard founder Jack Bogle launched the First Index Investment Trust, raising a spectacular $11 million—about a tenth of his target. Wall Street laughed itself silly, immediately dubbing it “Bogle’s Folly.” The concept was simple yet deeply offensive to high-flying finance professionals: Why pay astronomical fees to an active fund manager to pick stocks, when you could just settle for tracking the value of the stock market as a whole by following its index?

For decades, the active management industry preened itself, confident that human genius and expensive suits would always beat autopilot. But as Rodney Comegys, Vanguard’s Chief Investment Officer, told the Wall Street Journal: “It took a very long time to recognize that cost mattered.”

Bogle got the last laugh. In his 1973 classic, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Burton Malkiel famously joked that “a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper's financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts.” It turns out, that monkey was actually an investment genius. S&P Global reports that over the past 15 years, “only 10% of U.S. mutual-fund managers tracking the S&P 500 have beaten the index.”

Yes, 90% of highly paid experts underperformed a literal autopilot. Now, index funds control over half of U.S. fund assets, transforming from a laughingstock into an 800-pound gorilla. Terrified active managers accuse passive funds of distorting the market by buying stocks on autopilot.

Bogle’s real genius was proving that the passive advantage always wins. Wall Street isn't laughing anymore, because the monkey rules!

Song of the Day: Sam Smith, ‘Constant Companion’

Sam Smith’s new single “Constant Companion,” from their fifth studio album Hazel Eyes, has received widespread critical acclaim for its cinematic production and emotional vulnerability. It’s an ambitious, Western-themed anthem that pairs a mythic outlaw romance with sparse, intimate instrumentation. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter.

Healthcare Premiums Are Set to Rocket

(Google)

There’s nothing quite like your employer looking you in the eye and asking if you really, truly need both of your kidneys. Happy New Year!

For 2027, U.S. employers are facing health insurance cost hikes of up to 11.1%—the steepest, most terrifying increase in over two decades. According to benefits consultant Aon $AON ( ▼ 2.21% ) , Americans with workplace coverage are already shelling out an average of $5,297 this year, a cool $388 jump from 2025.

How are companies reacting? By kicking the problem to the top floor. As Mike Pasterick from Aon notes, “We’re seeing a lot of interest now from the finance organization and even the CEO and the board.”

Why the sudden spike? You can blame a mix of expensive cancer treatments and the wild, unstoppable rise of miracle weight-loss drugs (utilization grew 75% in 2025 across Aon’s clients). And let’s not forget hospitals using artificial intelligence to aggressively optimize their billing. What the medical system really needed was a highly efficient, algorithmic robot to squeeze you for extra copays.

For small business owners like Jason Wilburn in West Virginia, whose health insurance expenses now consume 5% of revenue (more than his actual profit margin), the situation is bleak. “It’s frustrating and sad. Something’s got to change,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Harvard Medical School professor Michael Chernew dryly observes that “healthcare spending recently has risen more quickly than income.”

Water is also wet.

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The Absurd Economics of NYC Urban Farming

(Cheddar)

New York City is pitching itself as the ultimate agricultural pioneer, blending the romanticism of the dirt-under-the-fingernails crowd with the high-tech sterility of Silicon Valley. On one hand, we have Brooklyn Grange, managing massive soil-based rooftop farms 11 stories above Brooklyn. As one of the firm’s spokespeople noted, "We actually have spaces in the city that get full sun that are totally underutilized." On the other hand, we have Kubota’s PlantX, an indoor "plant factory" where computers control everything from CO2 to humidity, and lettuce is harvested in a blazing 25 days instead of the usual 60.

It all sounds utopian—until you look at the price tag. Farming has always been a notoriously thin-margin business. Doing it on a rooftop in a city where a studio apartment costs a small fortune is a special kind of financial masochism. Even the folks at Brooklyn Grange admit the harsh reality: "There's only so much you can sell X, Y, and Z of vegetables for." Their solution? Diversifying into "client services" and corporate events. So your local, organic rooftop kale is heavily subsidized by hipster rooftop weddings.

Meanwhile, the indoor high-tech crowd is betting on automation and robots to cut production costs by half. A representative from Kubota argues that their hyper-controlled setup means a "crop can grow close to consumers, and give better quality and flavor through precise environmental control."

They’re saving 20 liters of water per head of lettuce, but replacing free sunlight with high-voltage artificial lighting. If you can make it there…

Watch The NYC Innovates Documentary

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️

Yep.

Poll of the Day: Health Insurance Premium

Want more Cheddar? Watch us!

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Fro-Yo Is So Not Over, After All, Man

Matt Davis — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Pick a winner in this week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ in today’s poll below. Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Fro-Yo Is So Not Over, After All, Man
How To Get the Best Deal Now That Used Cars Are $$ …
Amazon Spreads Drone Delivery to 500 Cities
Walmart Flags as Americans Tighten Wallets
Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time
Poll of the Day: Breaking Hedge Fund News!

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$NFLX ( ▼ 3.01% ) $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) $BABA ( ▲ 0.1% ) $HMC ( ▼ 0.86% ) $TM ( ▼ 1.06% ) $HYMTF ( ▼ 7.44% ) $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) $TGT ( ▼ 2.71% )

Fro-Yo Is So Not Over, After All, Man

One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, now available on $NFLX ( ▼ 3.01% ) for at least the next five years, and for at least half a billion dollars, apparently, is the “Non-Fat Yogurt” episode, from Series 5, Episode 7. The manufacturers boldly claim that it’s “fat-free,” prompting predictable rounds of Seinfeld-ian drama and the ultimate involvement of none other than the town’s then aspiring mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who at the time was considered everything the town needed. Time really flew by since the ‘90s, huh?

Still, thanks to Gen Z, fro-yo is back, and according to 16 Handles CEO Neil Hirschman, it's because youth culture is collectively swapping out the "thousand calorie cookies" they binged during COVID's sad heights for a slightly…lighter…existential balm. As Hirschman puts it, “It’s still dessert, it’s not a salad, but if you’re going to get dessert anyway, why not get frozen yogurt?”

At last: A pragmatic philosophy for our times.

But this isn't Jerry and Elaine’s fro-yo. It's an "experience," of course. Gen Z doesn't just want a treat; they want to document their hyper-customized, gravity-defying, 60-topping monstrosities on things called “Instagram” and “Tik-Tok.” Honestly, this news really delights me. I can’t wait to see some of these posts. (Would never be a good time for you?)

To feed this insatiable appetite for digital validation, 16 Handles is leaning heavily into aggressive innovation, rolling out oat milk vegan bases and the world's first Kefir Soft Serve. Hirschman credits his own youth: “I’m obviously a younger CEO... I keep a small core team so that we can be adaptable,” he told us. He’s also rejecting the "get out of here" model of modern fast-casual dining. While other shops shrink their footprints to save on rent, 16 Handles guarantees at least 25 seats per store to foster a community vibe. Hirschman also dismisses the idea that fro-yo's decline was a natural cycle. Instead, he blames the “failure of large brands that just didn’t innovate and didn’t take action.”

Whatever you think of Gen Z, and let’s face it, most people hate them, 16 Handles is laughing all the way to the bank, selling over a million ounces of fro-yo per store, annually. It turns out that selling a “pink or a blue cup of happiness” is highly lucrative, provided you let people with arrested development decorate it all with gummy worms and stick it on the socials, first.

Watch the Interview

Quote of the Day

How To Get the Best Deal Now That Used Cars Are $$$

(Google)

According to a soul-crushing report from Edmunds, the average price of a 3-year-old used vehicle is now $32,461. As Ivan Drury, Edmunds' director of insights, told the Washington Post, “Nothing that you know from before has stayed the same.”

In 2019, a budget of $10,000 to $15,000 got you a respectable 4.7-year-old car with 58,000 miles; today, that exact same money buys an 8.7-year-old relic with 98,000 miles. If you drop down to the $5,000-to-$10,000 range, you're looking at a 10.7-year-old veteran pushing past 120,000 miles. At that point, Drury warns, “You go from having transportation that would require minimal to no repair to now something that, honestly, you’re going to be worried about.”

So, how do you survive this retail hellscape?

First, abandon brand loyalty. Forget Honda $HMC ( ▼ 0.86% ) and Toyota $TM ( ▼ 1.06% ) unless you want to pay a premium for their mythical resale values. “You have to become very open-minded,” Drury advises, suggesting buyers look at alternative brands, like certain Korean automakers who make a far better product today than their old reputations suggest. Yes. I think he’s telling you to buy a Hyundai $HYMTF ( ▼ 7.44% ) .

Second, do your homework, prearrange financing, and prepare to pounce. Budget cars are disappearing in an average of just 25 days. If you find something that actually has four working wheels, don't wait for a discount, because the days of leisurely haggling are ancient history. Do your prep work, but don't panic.

Happy hunting!

Amazon Spreads Drone Delivery to 500 Cities

(Google)

Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 2.02% ) has announced an expansion of its Prime Air operation, planning to bring drone delivery to suburban areas in nearly 500 U.S. cities by the end of the year. The promise is to deliver your lightweight parcels in as fast as 30 minutes.

But let’s pause and breathe in the impending noise pollution. While Amazon CEO Andy Jassy boasts that “Prime Air now has a design that’ll scale,” with plans to deliver half a billion packages by the end of the decade, the reality on the ground is a little more… complicated. Drones can only carry up to five pounds. Even worse, they face countless challenges from tree cover, landscaping, and inflatable pools that make finding a drop zone incredibly difficult. Not to mention all those suddenly unemployed delivery drivers with their air rifles.

Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst with Forrester, poured some cold water on the hype, telling the Associated Press, “It’s still an experiment. It’s still in test and learn mode.” As for those "500 cities," Kodali dryly points out that the expansion “does seem aggressive but remember that lots of the 500 may be small towns located close to one another... Also ‘launching’ in a town doesn’t mean they are getting any meaningful sales.”

It reminds me of Elon Musk promising to take his SpaceX $SPCX ( ▼ 3.15% ) staff to the moon, in fact. Like, whatever, dude. Call me when your rockets stop blowing up.

Amazon may have announced this move as part of a high-stakes race against Walmart $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) to see who can annoy suburban neighborhoods the fastest. It remains unclear if this is cheaper than trucks, especially since you need teams of licensed drone pilots who might actually earn more than…truck drivers. All of this, just to deliver a single bottle of shampoo, huh? Welcome to the future. Mind your head.

Watch More

Song of the Day: Denise Julia, ‘Speechless’

Here’s a smooth, Y2K-inspired R&B track that serves as a standout single on Denise Julia’s EP LOVE AGAIN (all caps, no less!). Dubbed by fans as the "Patron Saint of Situationships," Julia delivers an infectious anthem exploring the heavy, addictive pull of hidden romances and modern relationship complexities. So, it’s just like this newsletter.

Walmart Flags as Americans Tighten Wallets

(Google)

If you want to see a room full of millionaires completely lose their minds, tell them Walmart’s $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) quarterly U.S. sales only grew by 2.6 percent.

Yes. The world’s largest retailer just reported its slowest U.S. growth in over six years, and Wall Street reacted with the measured grace of a Victorian maiden in need of a fainting couch. The firm’s stock plummeted more than 9 percent (see the red bit on the graph, above), erasing tens of billions in market value in its steepest daily decline since 2022. Why? Because Americans are finally doing the unthinkable and looking at price tags, apparently.

The trigger for this retail apocalypse was July, when the national average price of gasoline surpassed $4 per gallon. Walmart’s CFO, John David Rainey, noted, “Perhaps there’s a psychological impact to that... There are choices that consumers are making.”

"Choices" like choosing between driving to work or buying eggs. Economists Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen clarified the situation, telling The New York Times that while general balance sheets look healthy, “elevated loan delinquencies suggest that a significant minority are struggling to make ends meet.”

To survive this frugality epidemic, Walmart is temporarily slashing prices on 11,000 items. As Walmart CEO John Furner put it, “We’re investing heavily in price because customers need us to.” Although maybe you could have done it earlier, John?

Meanwhile, Target $TGT ( ▼ 2.71% ) is also cutting prices on 10,000 items. It's a race to the discount bottom. Over at Lowe’s $LOW ( ▼ 1.8% ) , CEO Marvin Ellison summed up the national mood, blaming “fuel prices, geopolitical events, and other uncertain things” for why middle-income homeowners are avoiding big-ticket discretionary items.

Yes, "other uncertain things.” That could be the title of my memoir, actually.

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Bond Interventions Fail To Soothe Investors

(Google)

There’s nothing like throwing a cup of water on a house fire and expecting the homeowners to applaud, is there? Yet, that’s possibly what the Treasury may have achieved this week with its unscheduled bond market intervention, according to investors.

Announced mid-week, the plan was for the Treasury to double long-term government bond buybacks to "at least" $4 billion. The market's reaction? Not, it turns out, so great. Yields on 30-year Treasuries fell ever so slightly, ever so briefly, but have now risen back up to 5.24 percent, proving that investors are not going to be easily soothed as the national debt hits $40 trillion.

As Eoin Walsh of TwentyFour Asset Management told the Financial Times, “We don’t think this [intervention] can succeed, in isolation... Interventions such as this look like a sticking plaster.” Keith Patton of Columbia Threadneedle agreed, calling the plan “minuscule.”

But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the ultimate optimist on CNBC, insisted the market had simply “gotten a little ahead of itself.” Yet, Wall Street remains thoroughly unamused. Analysts at MUFG told the FT yesterday that there is a distinct feeling that the Treasury is “lacking a strategic plan.”

Bessent emphasized he could spend more than $4 billion to try to tame the challenges, saying the government has “a big toolkit” to bring down yields, which he said don’t currently reflect economic fundamentals.

Buybacks, it turns out, are only temporary. But equities also fell yesterday as concern spread further on weak earnings reports from Walmar $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) and Alibaba $BABA ( ▲ 0.1% ) .

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Nope.

Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

Poll of the Day: Breaking Hedge Fund News!

We asked: You’re a hedge fund guy (or…LOL…a hedge fund gal). What is your immediate damage-control strategy after shorting the company that just doubled its value on a skin cancer vaccine?

You answered:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ The Sunscreen Pivot. Immediately try to short-sell the sunscreen market on Kalshi, because humanity will now collectively throw away its SPF 50 and sunbathe with reckless abandon. (16)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ The "Zoom Out" Coping Mechanism. Quietly remind your clients that even though shares doubled today, Moderna is still trading at less than a third of its 2021 peak. So, your multi-year short is still "winning." (27)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Hate-Reading. Spend your afternoon perusing CEO Stéphane Bancel's triumphant blog posts about a "landmark moment" in cancer care. He’s ruined your life. The cow. (8)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ The "Creative Hedge" Rebrand. Try to explain to your furious clients that this was all a highly sophisticated, "creative hedge" designed to make sure they never have to pay capital gains taxes again. (15)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ The Late-Night Regulatory Hail Mary. Call the FCC and desperately claim that the cancer trial news is a "disinformation campaign" in hopes that regulators will launch an emergency, painful audit of Moderna's labs just to halt the stock's upward zoom. (20)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Remember, There Are Other Kinds of Cancer. The good news, it turns out, is that there are so many other ways to die a painful death which modern drugmakers still haven’t prevented. Short those companies and sleep well. (31)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Hedge Fund People Are Not Very Nice, Really, Are They? (132)
249 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Search “Cheddar” on Samsung, YouTube TV, and most other streaming platforms.

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Skin Cancer Vaccine Raises Moderna's Stock 176%

Matt Davis — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how the Los Angeles Lakers are worth $12.5 billion now, or the GDP of Chad. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday (today!) for consideration by your Cheddar peers. Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Skin Cancer Vaccine Raises Moderna's Stock 176%
Bond Yields Dive After Treasury Steps Up Buybacks
ICE Bans Its Staff From Wearing Meta Smart Glasses …
ABC Sues to Block Threat to Its TV Licenses
Investment Bank Lets Hedge Funds Bet on Kalshi
Poll of the Day: A Question of Perspective
Poll of the Day: Beat LA!

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$MRNA ( ▼ 1.99% ) $MRK ( ▼ 0.15% ) $SNDK ( ▼ 1.36% ) $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) $DIS ( ▼ 2.0% ) $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) $KALSZZX ( ▲ 2.04% )

Skin Cancer Vaccine Raises Moderna's Stock 176%

(Google)

Remember when Moderna $MRNA ( ▼ 1.99% ) was the darling of the pandemic? Neither does Wall Street. After the COVID vaccine gold rush evaporated, the vaccine-maker found itself crowned as the most shorted stock in the entire S&P 500 last year. But nothing cures a painful stock market hangover quite like tackling... well, cancer.

In a spectacular turnaround, Moderna shares more than doubled yesterday, surging by up to 176% in early afternoon trading. The magic trick is an experimental mRNA therapy, developed with Merck $MRK ( ▼ 0.15% ) , that custom-tailors a skin cancer vaccine to a patient's specific tumor types. It is, in the words of principal investigator Professor Georgina Long, a “landmark moment for adjuvant melanoma treatment.”

My ears perked up, personally, when I heard the news. Skin cancer runs in the family and I’m vigilant about wearing a hat and sunscreen as often as I can. Soon I’ll be able to slather myself in butter again, and make like Kramer in Seinfeld!

(Seinfeld)

Wall Street inflated Moderna’s market cap to a cool $60.4 billion yesterday, making it the second-best performer in the S&P 500 this year after Sandisk $SNDK ( ▼ 1.36% ) , which has shot up more than 400% since January. CEO Stéphane Bancel took to his blog to celebrate, writing that the firm has “started to demonstrate the potential of an entirely new class of medicine — and an entirely new way of thinking about cancer care: Using the information encoded within an individual patient’s cancer to design a specific therapy that helps train their immune system to fight it.” Meanwhile, analysts at TD Cowen swooned, telling the Financial Times that this is indeed a “landmark moment” with regulatory approval expected next year.

Of course, let’s keep our sunscreen on, shall we? Even with this massive surge, Moderna is still trading at less than a third of its 2021 peak. But why let historical reality ruin a party that has healthcare investors partying like it’s late 2020? For now, the short sellers are crying, the executives are blogging, and Moderna is a corporate hero once again. Just don't ask about the company’s leftover COVID boosters, mm-kay?

Bond Yields Dive After Treasury Steps Up Buybacks

(Google)

Just when the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield hit its highest level in 19 years, sending bonds and wider stock markets reeling on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pulled off a classic bit of market intervention. With a single announcement, the Treasury revealed it would double its long-term debt buybacks, causing bond yields to take a sudden, dramatic dive, and broader markets to stabilize. For now.

Don't call it a panic intervention. The Treasury solemnly declared that it does not intend to mitigate episodes of acute market stress. Heavens, no. Certainly not like…they just did? With this one? No. They just happened to double their bond-buying, right as investors were hyperventilating over bond yields.

Of course, this doesn’t fix the underlying plumbing issues. As Wall Street Journal columnist James Mackintosh noted yesterday, Bessent is arguably just “fiddling around the edges.” The underlying spike in yields is driven by a “nasty combination of three trends: government deficits, the artificial-intelligence boom, and geopolitics,” Mackintosh wrote. With the U.S. government projected to borrow a staggering 7.5% of GDP this year, and tech firms turning into “capital-hungry operators of gigantic data centers,” a few extra buybacks are unlikely to provide the long-term stability the bond market needs, Mr. Mackintosh argued. Worse still, papering over the problem exposes government finances to “even higher borrowing costs” down the road.

Although for now, of course, there are midterms looming, in November. So.

ICE Bans Its Staff From Wearing Meta Smart Glasses

(Google)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has officially banned its employees from wearing Meta’s $META ( ▲ 0.7% ) smart glasses on the job. Because if there is one thing a massive surveillance apparatus simply cannot tolerate, it is... being surveilled.

In a Tuesday memo, ICE’s acting director, David Venturella, warned that the glasses — which can discreetly film the world, "could unintentionally capture, record, or transmit sensitive information, potentially compromising privacy and legal protections." Yes. The very agency whose agents faced fierce backlash for wearing these glasses to public protests and during immigration raids has suddenly discovered the sanctity of "privacy."

But don't worry, my Big Brothers, the government is not suddenly turning soft on high-tech surveillance. While banning consumer-grade gear because "personally owned body-worn cameras and unauthorized recording are prohibited," as a Department of Homeland Security spokesman put it, DHS has requested $7.5 million in its budget to build its own smart glasses. Their dream prototype? Custom eyewear designed to "enable biometric identification of illegal aliens." It seems spying is only a civil liberties crisis if Mark Zuckerberg owns the video feed.

Naturally, privacy advocates are screaming into the void. The ACLU, alongside 77 organizations, warned that "facial recognition technology built into inconspicuous consumer eyewear represents a serious threat to privacy and civil liberties for every member of our society." Meanwhile, Zuckerberg remains undeterred, calling smart glasses "the ideal form of superintelligence."

Then again, how would he know? His company’s stock is down 26% this year. Until the government's multi-million-dollar custom spying specs are ready, ICE agents will have to navigate the federal workspace using their own regular, non-superintelligent eyeballs. And I do wish you all the very best of luck with that, indeed, guys.

Song of the Day: Fabrizio, ‘Let Being Sober Be Your Cure’

"Let Being Sober Be Your Cure" by Fabrizio is a powerful, starkly honest country-Americana ballad that serves as a standout highlight of his debut EP, “Recovery.” The track has earned widespread acclaim from roots music critics and fans alike for its visceral, uncompromising look at substance abuse and the restorative power of sobriety. So, it’s a lot like this newsletter!

ABC Sues to Block Threat to Its TV Licenses

A late-night comedian cracks a monologue joke, a president gets offended, and suddenly a multi-billion-dollar media empire is fighting to keep its TV stations on the air.

That’s why ABC has officially sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), calling the agency's sudden, early review of its broadcast licenses, after Jimmy Kimmel criticized conservative reactions to the murder of Charlie Kirk, an “existential threat” to its entire operation.

The FCC’s official justification for this sudden regulatory assault is an ongoing investigation into ABC's diversity and inclusion practices. But the actual paperwork demands look a bit more like a political fishing expedition, ABC contends. The FCC has forced ABC to hand over 13,000 pages of documents, including internal communications between the producers of The View and an itemized list of employees' political donations. As ABC’s lawyers dryly noted in the complaint, “The process is itself the punishment.”

According to the lawsuit, “This case boils down to a simple question: Can the administration use its control over the federal regulatory apparatus to punish a media organization for editorial decisions and news coverage it dislikes?”

Currently, it seems, the answer is: Maybe?

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is playing the role of innocent public servant. He quickly dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless,” arguing that “Holding a broadcaster accountable to their public interest obligations and statutory obligations is not a violation of their First Amendment rights, and that is what the FCC is doing.”

Of course, nothing protects the public interest quite like subpoenaing Joy Behar’s email inbox. While the FCC officially accuses ABC owner Disney $DIS ( ▼ 2.0% ) of an “ongoing campaign of disinformation,” other FCC commissioners are cheering on ABC. Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez applauded Disney’s “courage,” calling the lawsuit “a welcome sign for every broadcaster who has felt the weight of this overreaching government pressure in silence.”

I’m going to write my cheesy news jokes a lot more carefully from now on, though. Promise.

Investment Bank Lets Hedge Funds Bet on Kalshi

(Google)

Why bother with the intellectual exhaustion of analyzing Apple’s $AAPL ( ▼ 0.52% ) balance sheets, profit margins, or macroeconomic headwinds when you can just place a giant yes-or-no bet on how many iPhones they sell next quarter?

In a move that proves that the line between high finance and the casino floor has, let’s say, become increasingly porous, investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald is giving its 3,000 institutional clients, ranging from buttoned-up family offices to hyper-leveraged hedge funds, full access to Kalshi’s $KALSZZX ( ▲ 2.04% ) prediction markets. According to Pascal Bandelier, co-chief executive of equities at Cantor, “The investor base that we’ve met — we’ve met dozens — has been really keen on entering and participating in the prediction markets.”

Of course they are. If there is one thing institutional investors love more than high management fees, it is a formalized way to gamble on weather forecasts, oil prices, and carbon allowances. Meanwhile fewer than 7% of active large-cap U.S. managers beat the index over the last 20 years. So: It’s time to gamble!

Proponents of this system solemnly claim that prediction markets merely harness the wisdom of crowds to hedge risk. Joe Grubb, head of business development at Susquehanna Predictions, told the Wall Street Journal, “I think prediction markets allow us to be much more creative with the types of hedging,” adding that they are “seeing a lot of interesting ideas from counterparties.”

"Creative hedging" is a beautiful euphemism. Although, naturally, Kalshi is delighted to welcome the high rollers. I mean, big spenders. I mean, well. Max Crowley, Kalshi’s vice president of business development, explains, “We get a lot of questions of, I do want to hedge specific event risk, but I don’t know how to do it,” before confidently concluding, “The demand is there.”

My money is always on red, unless it’s on black, just in case you were curious. Meantime these people are probably running a percentage of our pensions. Shudder.

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How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

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LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.

The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.

Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️

Yep.

Poll of the Day: A Question of Perspective

Poll of the Day: Beat LA!

We asked: Lakers, or Literally Any Other NBA Team?

You answered:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Beat LA! Beat LA! (247)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Lakers all the way, baby. ALLLL. THE. WAY. (44)
291 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Disney Will Bet Bigger on Its Biggest Fans

Matt Davis — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0000

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how the Los Angeles Lakers are worth $12.5 billion now, or the GDP of Chad. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Disney Will Bet Bigger on Its Biggest Fans
Anthropic’s Revenue Run Rate Passes $65 Billion
Jeanie Buss Pushes Back on $12.5 Billion Lakers Sa …
The Future of Plastic Might Be Growing in a Field
Paramount Seeks $1.88 Billion Bond in WB Deal
Poll of the Day: That Yellow and Purple, Innit
Poll of the Day: You Like Rousseau!

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.45% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.63% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) $SOFI ( ▼ 3.29% )

Disney Will Bet Bigger on Its Biggest Fans

(Disney)

Rather than just hoping casual, out-of-state tourists will fly in, Disney $DIS ( ▼ 2.0% ) is betting its $60 billion decade-long investment plan on a different demographic: The "superfans" who treat its parks like a pilgrimage and are already their biggest spenders.

The crown jewel of this charm offensive? Fixing the infamous "Disco Yeti" (pictured above, in an artist’s impression) inside the company’s Expedition Everest ride, part of its Animal Kingdom franchise, which broke in 2006 and has been sitting in a strobe-light-fueled "B-mode" depression ever since. Thomas Mazloum, the company’s new “Experiences Chairman,” triumphantly announced to a crowd of 12,000 devotees, "We are bringing the Yeti back to life."

Yes. Why build entirely new, expensive rides when you can simply repair the ones people already love? As Mazloum put it, of such repairs, "They’re small, they’re immediate, but they’re meaningful."

And the fans are eating it up. Gavin Doyle, founder of MickeyVisit.com, an actual website with a lot or readers, in fact, gushed that "people feel like Disney hears what they have been asking for."

If you’re a casual traveler, don't feel offended. Disney still wants your money for their long-term expansions. But for the local passholders and “superfans” the message is clear: They love you, they hear you, and they might finally overhaul Tomorrowland using Walt Disney’s original vision for the 1955 opening day land that dreamed of an
“imaginative, wondrous, and optimistic future.” What a fantasy, indeed.

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Quote of the Day

Anthropic’s Revenue Run Rate Passes $65 Billion

(Getty)

Nothing spells "AI hype cycle" quite like a company pulling in an eye-watering $65 billion annualized revenue run rate while trying to avoid the wrath of the Pentagon.

Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 1.72% ) has quietly informed its investors of this sevenfold revenue explosion since last year, easily eclipsing chief rival OpenAI’s $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.59% ) modest $40 billion run rate. In the second quarter of 2026 alone, Anthropic pulled in $11.5 billion — a casual 14-fold jump from the same period last year. It’s a stellar performance, especially when you are trying to convince the world that your $965 billion IPO valuation is rational and not, you know, bonkers.

Still, no blockbuster tech story is complete without some light national security drama. Back in June, Anthropic had to temporarily turn off its crown jewel models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for two weeks to comply with an export control directive. This followed a minor hiccup where the company was (checks notes) blacklisted by the Pentagon because discussions on how the military could use its models "spiraled out of control."

But don’t worry, they are on top of it. They promise. Anthropic now says, “We look forward to deepening our government collaboration.” And surely, the Trump administration will find that sentiment heartwarming.

In the meantime, as the company gears up for its would-be IPO, everyday users can take comfort in knowing they helped fund a nearly trillion-dollar empire.

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Jeanie Buss Pushes Back on $12.5 Billion Lakers Sale

What is more heartwarming than professional sports? A messy, multi-billion-dollar sibling rivalry wrapped inside an incredibly complex family trust. Of course.

The basketball world was briefly stunned by reports over the past week that the Buss family had voted to sell their remaining 17.8% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to billionaire buyers Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger. At a total valuation of $12.5 billion, the deal would officially end the family’s historic run that began in 1979. More importantly for Jeanie Buss, it would force her to step down as the team's governor under league rules.

But Jeanie has no plans of letting go of her crown, and she brought a very expensive lawyer out to prove it. Her attorney, Adam Streisand, fired off a strongly worded letter to her siblings’ counsel, asserting that no sale of the stake “can be effectuated without approval by the current co-trustees, i.e., Jeanie, Janie, and Joey Buss.” Streisand made it clear that the trustees are legally bound to protect Jeanie's role as Controlling Owner, warning that any attempt to bypass this “would constitute a breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty and be in contempt of court.”

Iger and Kushner tried to play nice, claiming they intended to keep Jeanie on as governor anyway. However, Iger, whom I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him based on having read his memoir a couple of years ago, quickly added, “If things change, they’ll change.”

No wonder Jeanie is pushing back. She isn’t looking to step away, even if her five siblings outside her immediate circle feel very differently. As this new chapter of high-stakes sibling warfare unfolds, only one outcome is completely guaranteed: The big winners will be lawyers billing by the hour.

Watch More

Song of the Day: Harmony, ‘Role Model’

Here’s a beautifully crafted, emotionally mature resolution to themes of heartbreak, single-hood, and the passage of time. So it’s just like this newsletter!

The Future of Plastic Might Be Growing in a Field

(Google)

If you’ve recently enjoyed the existential dread of learning there is likely "a plastic spoon in your brain right now," you are not alone.

We are currently facing a massive "microplastics epidemic," with synthetic particles successfully invading our hearts, lungs, and reproductive organs. Humanity’s solution so far? Paper straws that turn to mush in five seconds and wooden forks that threaten to splinter your tongue. As PlantSwitch CEO Dillon Baxter rightly points out, "everyone hates paper straws, right? No one wants a paper straw in their drink."

Enter PlantSwitch, a company hoping to replace our indestructible single-use plastic habit with “PHA,” a naturally occurring, biodegradable plant-based material. Instead of drilling for petrochemicals, the company is leveraging "agricultural waste streams as input." Yes, the future of packaging might literally be growing in a field of wheat straw and rice hulls.

This material actually feels like your beloved plastic and can run on existing manufacturing equipment. PlantSwitch is aiming to dodge the typical "huge increase in price" that usually dooms green alternatives. They've already snagged massive partners like Walmart $WMT ( ▼ 0.91% ) and SoFi $SOFI ( ▼ 3.29% ) Stadium, to prove their business model.

But don't get too attached to the eco-friendly forks. Baxter reveals that food packaging is just a Trojan horse: "we're a material science company and we're wearing a food packaging costume right now," he said. Once they scale and drop the cost, they plan to move into cosmetics, consumer goods, and industrial packaging, too.

I just care about those poor little sea turtles, personally.

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Paramount Seeks $1.88 Billion Bond in WB Deal

(Google)

It can be awkward when you, Paramount $PSKY ( ▲ 1.76% ) , agree to pay your shareholders $7 million a day in penalties if your mega-merger with Warner Brothers $WBD ( ▼ 0.25% ) gets delayed, but then crying foul when the deal…actually gets delayed.

Yet that’s where we are in the colossal $110 billion deal. In a desperate bid to rival Netflix $NFLX ( ▼ 3.01% ) and Disney $DIS ( ▼ 2.0% ) , Paramount’s leadership willfully signed a contract containing a massive "ticking fee" that kicks in after September 30. But now that 12 states have crashed the party with an antitrust lawsuit, Paramount is staring down a potential $1.7 billion in unrecoverable ticking fees while the lawsuit plays out. Terrified of the tab, Paramount has run to a federal judge asking that the challenging states be forced to post a whopping $1.88 billion bond to cover the cost of the delay.

Paramount’s logic is that the states have “ample resources to post” the cash.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the charge to block what he calls a potential "media behemoth" with the power to spike prices, is not handing out any tissues. Bonta pointed out that Paramount and Warner Bros “are two sophisticated companies who willfully decided to include a costly ticking fee as a provision in their merger contract.”

According to Bonta, Paramount isn’t a victim; they just want a free pass. “Now, they’re trying to get a do-over,” Bonta scoffed. “Paramount went into this process with eyes wide open. They are lying in a bed of their own making, and once again, trying to blackmail us to get us to back down.”

It’s no coincidence, of course, that Bonta and his friends are all Democrats and that David Ellison, who’s leading the merger at Paramount, is the son of staunch Trump ally, his nepo-daddy, Larry. Whether the judge forces taxpayers to fund Paramount's financial safety net remains to be seen, and let’s be honest, it’s unlikely. But one thing is certain: Gambling $7 million a day on regulatory smooth sailing is an incredibly expensive way to learn how antitrust laws work.

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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️

Not Today.

Poll of the Day: That Yellow and Purple, Innit

Poll of the Day: You Like Rousseau!

We asked: Do you think the new AI billionaires are spending their money in a classy, dignified, and respectful way?

You answered:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes, absolutely. Nothing screams "old-money refinement" quite like bolting a Peloton bike to the open-air rooftop flybridge of a £10 million superyacht so you can frantically pedal to nowhere while navigating the rough Pacific. (16)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes. It takes immense dignity to reject the "theater of traditional private aviation" — specifically, the vulgarity of sipping champagne on crisp linen tablecloths — and instead use WhatsApp to book a private jet in under 30 seconds. (15)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No, but they are incredibly respectful of my social media feed. I deeply appreciate 25-year-old tech founders spending their fortunes to plaster their Lamborghinis all over the gram. (5)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ It depends on your definition of "respectful." If it means custom-painting a Rolls Royce Cullinan a bespoke, blinding shade of bright blue and orange just to avoid the existential horror of driving somewhere and seeing someone with the same car — then yes. (48)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Who cares about dignity? As long as they keep buying electric Ferraris and customized Porsches, the luxury market is saved. (16)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau (310)
410 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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Why Investors Should Hope For a Rate Hike

Table of Contents

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

Why Investors Should Hope For a Rate Hike

Quote of the Day

Kiss Goodbye to the American Housing Market

U.S. Military Now Has Weapons in Space, It Says

Song of the Day: Ezra Collective, ‘El Corazón’

Apple Joins TV’s Big League With Emmy Wins

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The Bahamas Wedding Gift From Russia With Love

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

Poll of the Day: From Russia With Expectations?

Poll of the Day: AI, Caramba!

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Tech Stocks Slide Over 'AI Slowdown'

Table of Contents

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

Tech Stocks Slide Over 'AI Slowdown'

Quote of the Day

Bond Markets Further Rebuke Scott Bessent

Amazon Suspends Plane Crash Contractor

Song of the Day: Victoria Monét, ‘Juicy’

Oracle Lays Off Staff With Monday 6 A.M. Email

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You're Invited: Investing Moves to Boost After-Tax Returns

U.S. Says Cisco Allowed Harassment of Workers

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

Poll of the Day: AI, Caramba!

Poll of the Day: Basic Human Warmth

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90% Chance of a Rate Rise This Week

Table of Contents

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

90% Chance of a Rate Rise This Week

Quote of the Day

Scott Bessent Fails To Calm the Bond Markets

Anthropic Caught ‘Rogue Actors’ Making Bioweapons

Song of the Day: Portraits of Tracy, ‘Royal Courts’

Minnesota: Frontline in ‘Prediction Market’ Fight

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

The Important Business Signals You Would Have Missed

Fast Food Firms Double Down on Hospitality

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

Poll of the Day: The Daddy Mack’ll Make Ya…

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Meta's New AI-gent Will Do Stuff for You

Table of Contents

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

Meta's New AI-gent Will Do Stuff for You

Quote of the Day

Dorchester Hotel Sells Sheikh's Car Over Unpaid Bill

So Long, Then, LIV Golf, We Hardly Knew Ya

Song of the Day: Medium Build, ‘It’s Not Easy, Falling In Love’

Washington Slams Ford for Chinese Connections

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

Avoid costly scams with Coveron security

How Hershey Is Selling Fancy Chocolate to Gen Z

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

Poll of the Day: AI, AI, AI

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Is Duo the Emperor's New iPhone?

Table of Contents

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

Is Duo the Emperor's New iPhone?

Quote of the Day

AI Could ‘Kill Us All’ Says Anthropic Researcher as He Quits

Meet the Man Building Self-Driving Tractor Tech

Song of the Day: Adéla, ‘Nicole Kidman’

States Curb Data Center Tax Breaks for Tech Firms

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Avoid costly scams with Coveron security