NYTimes: “Consuming too much sugar may cause more than just cavities and weight gain. Sugar has long provided essential fuel for our bodies. But now that food manufacturers have infused it into so many foods and drinks, we’re getting more than we evolved to handle. The health consequences can extend beyond weight gain and dental cavities, including by affecting your gut, brain, liver, heart, joints and more…Uncommon grains like teff, millet and amaranth offer a boost of fiber, protein and antioxidants. Most people in the United States don’t consume enough whole grains — and when they do, they tend to eat familiar standbys like brown rice and oats. In 2025, consider trying a new grain, like buckwheat, millet, amaranth, sorghum or teff. Each has a unique texture and flavor, and is packed with nutrients like fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.”
Rama Bijapurkar: “Switch discussion focus from consumption outcomes to consumption driver — household income — and its driver, the vibrancy of economic activity and investment. The corollary to this is to avoid asking the favourite question: Economic activity is slowing, but will consumption save the day? And if we must ask, and the answer is “yes,” do not stop. Ask,“What is fuelling consumption growth that is higher than income growth?” and decide if that is good news or bad. Agreed, we do not have comprehensive and continuous data on household earnings, but we have enough data points to deduce what is going on — occupations and sectors that households are dependent on, the intensity of recent economic activity by these sectors, or employment data.”
The Daily Economy: “Early on in my introductory economics course I warn my students always to beware of various logical fallacies, none of which is more prone to sow confusion than the fallacy of composition. This fallacy is committed whenever someone concludes that that which is true for a part of the group is necessarily true for all of the group. The classic example is standing up in a stadium to get a better view of the game. If one or a small number of people stand up, these folks do indeed enjoy a better view. But obviously it’s mistaken to conclude that “therefore, if everyone stands up, everyone will get a better view.” Protectionists commit the fallacy of composition whenever they point – as they incessantly do – to particular firms that get more sales, and to workers who keep particular jobs, as a result of tariffs and other trade restrictions. No serious student of trade has ever denied that protectionism can protect particular firms and workers who are awarded protection. But nor has any serious student of trade failed to see that the protection enjoyed by the few comes at the larger expense of the many.”
NYTimes: “For nearly 250 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a bookshelf-busting series of gilt-lettered tomes, often purchased to show that its owners cared about knowledge. It was the sort of physical media expected to die in the internet era, and indeed, the encyclopedia’s publisher announced that it was ending the print edition in 2012. Skeptics wondered how Britannica the company could survive in the age of Wikipedia.The answer was to adapt to the times. Britannica Group, as the company is now known, runs websites, including Britannica.com and the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, and sells educational software to schools and libraries. It also sells artificial intelligence agent software that underpins applications like customer service chatbots and data retrieval. Britannica has figured out not only how to survive, but also how to do well financially. Jorge Cauz, its chief executive, said in an interview that the publisher enjoyed pro forma profit margins of about 45 percent.”
Dwarkesh Patel: “What’s lacking in life is not time. It’s focus. If you’re working on what matters, you can advance leaps and bounds in 8 hours. And if you’re just clearing the slog, you can spend a lifetime staying in the same place.”
