Andy Kessler

WSJ: Why Is Anxiety Rising?

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-anxiety-rising-covid-climate-social-politics-mental-health-5f033f53

“Olivia expressed despair due to climate change.” “Badge is anxious when he thinks about the future.” In August, a Montana court ruled that these and other youth plaintiffs “have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate.”

Anxiety is on the rise and, rightly or wrongly, is blamed for everything. A recent federal survey reports 27% of respondents had symptoms of an anxiety disorder, up from 8% in 2019. That’s scary. Youth emergency-room visits for mental health have gone up significantly.

Do you suffer from anxiety? The Mayo Clinic’s list of signs and symptoms includes feeling nervous, feeling a sense of impending danger or panic, increased heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating and trouble concentrating. Apart from those with nerves of steel, I’ll bet we’ve all had at least one of these symptoms. A survey by KFF suggests that half of 18- to 24-year-olds report anxiety or depression symptoms. Not everyone can deal with them.

Gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka have withdrawn from competitions because of anxiety. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan took a leave of absence for anxiety right after the merger announcement with Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

This is mostly a U.S. problem—affluenza?—which I’ve seen blamed on social media, poor sleep and previous underreporting. Yes, Instagram-inflamed narcissism is a problem, but I think the rise of anxiety is about more than that. So what is it?

• Extinction anxiety. Daily news reports question the ability of humans to survive in the near future. AI experts warn about human extinction.

 

Read the rest here.

WSJ: Schumer Wants a Cut of AI

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schumer-wants-a-cut-of-ai-musk-chaptgpt-economic-growth-regulation-4d8c73f5

Sen. Chuck Schumer, who’s never seen a camera he didn’t want to jump in front of, held a closed-door meeting last week on artificial intelligence. What? Closed? To me, it suggests an agenda beyond paving the path to a fantastic future. At the meeting, Elon Musk warned that AI is a “civilization risk.” Mr. Schumer declared, “We can’t be like ostriches and put our heads in the sand.” They sound more like dodo birds.

One clue to the hidden agenda: Besides Mr. Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s CEO and other techies, the attendees included union leaders such as Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, Liz Shuler of the AFL-CIO, Meredith Stiehm of the Writers Guild and two tech critics with “Humane” in their company names. Ugh. It looked like the ghosts of economics past had come to spook the spirit of economics future.

So of course it was held behind closed doors. It was as if the nascent AI companies were called into a meeting with a tough guy named Spike who listens and then says, “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your nice companies there, would you?” Or as if the union representatives of the horse-drawn-trolley conductors, rail-gauge manufacturers and manure sweepers were sitting in car-design meetings, demanding full employment for their guilds.

Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Politicians might have demanded to tax horses based on speed. Back then, no one appreciated the potential for those rickety automobiles to transform the economy. We’re at the same juncture with AI today.

When politicians get involved, their agenda for any business is to slow it, tax it, regulate it, harness it, redistribute it or just plain kill it. Mr. Schumer clearly forgets, if he ever even knew, what drives economic growth.

Unions control the Biden agenda. See auto strike. It is always status quo over progress.

Read the rest here.

WSJ: Makers vs. Taylor Swift Shakers

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/makers-vs-taylor-swift-shakers-economy-tesla-abundance-bce0bbd8

“I think Taylor Swift is great for the soft landing,” Columbia Business School economist Brett House declared in the New York Times. Not wanting a recession, I almost rushed out and bought $1,000 tickets and $25.99 friendship bracelets, but then I remembered that isn’t how the economy works. There are two sides of the economy: the productive side and the spend side. You can create wealth by learning or you can spend it. We have makers and, appropriate to Swifties, shakers.

In April, Bernard Arnault, chairman of luxury goods maker LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, briefly became the world’s richest man as Tesla’s stock was temporarily in the dumpster. Now Elon Musk is back. Bloomberg tracks the wealthiest daily. After Messrs. Musk and Arnault are Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Françoise Bettencourt Meyers of cosmetics company L’Oréal, at No. 13, is the world’s richest woman. The list intertwines tech, luxury, energy and retail.

Most of those near the top of the list are makers. They do more with less, while the spending side, such as Mr. Arnault’s brands, sells less for more. This is the difference between mass production and custom products. Let’s face it, a $4,650 Louis Vuitton “khaki and beige empreinte calfskin leather with polished brass” tote has the same utility as a paper bag from Safeway. That isn’t productivity. On the flip side, Amazon can deliver you a handbag tomorrow. Manufacturing and retail logistics run cheaper every year because of Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle data centers. This is how wealth is created now. Louis Vuitton is how it’s spent. See the difference?

Tesla straddles both sides. Investors are betting, heck, praying, that Teslas, basically low-margin cars, become productive autonomous machines, and they might if their Full Self-Driving mode stops running stop signs.

The economy needs both sides. But here’s something to think about: Both bring joy, but only one drives progress. We all consume, but progress happens when we postpone consumption and invest. Produce first; spend later. Consumption informs the supply side, which is where learning and societal wealth creation take place. Concert tickets and fashion reduce savings and investment. Production learns; consumption burns.

Yes, we need basic essentials. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Read the rest here.

WSJ: The Climate-Change ‘Emergency’ Is Coming for You

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/real-climate-change-catastrophism-hasnt-been-tried-biden-emergency-global-warming-environment-b485421a

Two years ago during Covid lockdowns, I wrote about climate control freaks, facetiously anticipating a future headline: “Bad CO2 Day, Lockdowns Enforced.” A joke that would never happen, right? Well . . .

Last month President Biden was asked on the Weather Channel if he was ready to declare a national climate emergency and responded, “We’ve already done that.” Asked again if he declared a climate emergency, he said, “Practically speaking, yes.” There is no official emergency, but the president certainly thinks we need one.

The fawning press gave him a break—he didn’t really mean that, did he? But the notion of a national emergency today isn’t farfetched. The United Nations website blares: “What you need to know about the Climate Emergency.” The European Parliament has declared one. So have hundreds of jurisdictions in at least 39 countries, including the U.K., Canada, Japan and Bangladesh. Climate-activist teenager Greta Thunberg gave away the game in 2019 when she said, “I want you to panic,” and, “I want you to act as if you would in a crisis.” Emergencies are an excuse to do whatever you want.

U.S. presidents can declare national emergencies, as spelled out in the 1976 National Emergencies Act, but they must be explicit: “When the President declares a national emergency, no powers or authorities made available by statute for use in the event of an emergency shall be exercised unless and until the President specifies the provisions of law under which he proposes that he, or other officers will act.” I’ve searched far and wide for such provisions and can’t find them.

No matter, we’re living as if we’re already under emergency conditions. As of Aug. 1, the Biden administration has halted the sale of lightbulbs with less than 45 lumens of brightness per watt. Incandescent bulbs don’t make the cut and are now banned. Thomas Alva Edison is rolling over in his grave. Will electricity be rationed next?

Oops, too late.

Read the rest here.