News round-up, June 5, 2023
Many thanks to Le Monde Diplomatique...
In light of the current tumultuous global news cycle, a unique opportunity exists for a comprehensive analysis of the global geopolitical and energy landscape. This analysis can be a valuable source of inspiration for academics and policymakers. The blog post on the publication of "Pursuing Self-Interest in a Multipolar World" in Le Monde Diplomatique on 1 April received recognition from the famed, century-old editorial magazine through a like and retweet.
The world is constantly changing, and important news is emerging every day. Here is a compilation of some of the latest global developments from Saturday and today.
"Tuesday's Chaos Reflections" editorial note was published on May 30, 2023, in this blog. Is the current war out of control? The prolonged conflict between superpowers has been unsuccessful. The principle of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" dates to ancient times as a well-known concept of justice. Proportionality dictates that punishment should match the harm caused by wrongdoing. Recent military actions by both superpowers, including Russia's missile strikes on Kiev and Ukraine's use of drones to target Moscow, suggest their prolonged conflict has not achieved the desired attrition outcome. The fundamental principle of checks and balances has been eroded, resulting in a feeling of hopelessness and an illogical approach to justice, whereby each action is met with an equivalent and opposing reaction. We must address these concerns and restore balance and fairness in our political systems.
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "Biden Demonstrates Increasing Willingness to Challenge Putin's Boundaries," suggesting the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the conflict may be in doubt. President Biden has expressed his willingness to address the limitations of Russian President Putin. Despite the potential for global conflict, this action is generating apprehension. Concurrently, the former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, cautioned that the establishment of a balance of power may potentially result in armed conflict. The implementation of well-defined principles for managing conflicts is crucial, and it evokes memories of the pre-World War I era. Is it possible for China and the United States to coexist peacefully without resorting to military conflict? Mr. Kissinger proposes the promotion of competition and dialogue between Beijing and Washington in strategic domains. The frequency of drone attacks targeting Russian infrastructure and military has been on the rise. The attacks have exceeded the boundaries of the front line. It is possible for military operations to occur prior to Kyiv's counteroffensive. The recent fire at the Afipsky refinery, which may have been caused by a drone, has the potential to test the boundaries of President Putin's leadership.
To further complicate the understanding of the crisis, the week concluded with the publication of an article and eight digital columns on Saturday, June 3rd on Washington Post. The utilization of NATO weaponry in an attack against Russia has raised concerns regarding the level of control exercised by Kyiv.L ast week, a group of Russian fighters, who are opposed to Moscow, conducted a cross-border raid from Ukraine into the Belgorod region of Russia. According to U.S. officials, these fighters used at least four tactical vehicles that were originally provided to Ukraine by the United States and Poland. This raises concerns about the unintended use of NATO-provided equipment and Ukraine's responsibility to safeguard the material supplied by its allies. Is the Telegram application being utilized by you? Please consider subscribing to our channel to stay informed on the most recent developments regarding the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. According to sources familiar with U.S. intelligence findings, it has been discovered that the fighters who took MRAPs (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) into Russia were in possession of three vehicles provided by the United States and one vehicle provided by Poland. This information has not been previously reported. The individuals in question communicated under the condition of anonymity in order to address the delicate matters. and Western officials have emphasized the importance of Ukraine's meticulous monitoring of the substantial influx of weaponry, valued in billions of dollars, into the country. The supporters of Kyiv have significantly restricted the utilization of Western armaments and machinery by Ukrainian forces in their offensive operations on Russian territory. However, the recent incursion into Russia highlights the potential for equipment to be transferred unexpectedly, resulting in oversight difficulties that are not being acknowledged by many in Washington and Kyiv. The examination of imagery by The Post suggests that Russian forces may have captured at least two MRAPs after the operation.
On June 5th, the crisis may have been further intensified by the publication of an article by POLITICO EU. The article focuses on the Dutch Minister's reaction to Beijing's stance on Ukraine at a high-level security forum. The Minister refuted the viewpoint, deeming it as "very, very false. “The Dutch Minister of Defense has refuted the Chinese assertion that Russia's military intervention in Ukraine is a result of a flawed security framework in Europe. On Saturday, China tested the diplomatic patience of European nations by attributing Russia's military intervention in Ukraine to a flawed security architecture in Europe, as articulated by a seasoned Chinese diplomat. It was incumbent upon the Dutch Minister of Defense, Kajsa Ollongren, to challenge During to former ambassador Cui Tiankai during a panel discussion. The statement is unequivocally untrue. Cui, a former envoy to the U.S. and an unofficial delegation, asserted Europe has had limited success in guaranteeing security of the continent. He recommended other nations at the forum should learn from China and Asia's approach to security. In the past, Europe was often regarded as a valuable source of knowledge and expertise in the field of During the gathering, Cui suggested that contemporary times, Europeans potentially seek inspiration from us. “We do not enforce our methods upon you; however, it is possible that may gain valuable insights stated. Our region can a valuable lesson. During the panel discussion, Cui expressed his reluctance to employ term 'failure' and instead opted for the phrase 'lack “. As stated by Cui, the Asian methods of security management and issue resolution persist. “The proposal for an Asian NATO is deemed unnecessary. "We do not wish to witness the expansion of NATO's role in our region."
Finally, in view of the persistent conflict between Russia and Ukraine, there is a mounting apprehension about the effectiveness of the political and military approaches adopted by both sides, particularly as the situation continues to intensify. The extant evidence suggests that the present circumstances are a matter of significant concern. Unfortunately, the prevailing approach employed in this conflict is that of retributive justice, wherein both factions’ endeavor to obtain proportional retaliation for the damage caused by the opposing party. The erosion of checks and balances within democratic institutions is a significant concern, and this trend is indicative of a global pattern. President Biden's resolute position regarding Putin's territorial ambitions exemplifies his robust leadership qualities, which are further strengthened by his age and lack of personal stakes in the matter. The individual in question desires to be remembered for his contributions towards promoting equality from a historical standpoint. Mr. Kissinger's proposition to improve communication between Beijing and Washington has not garnered extensive backing. The present crisis has been exacerbated by recent developments, such as NATO's deployment of armaments against Russia and China's claim that Russia's intervention in Ukraine was a consequence of a flawed security framework in Europe. The utilization of the —law of club— as a means of maintaining order in modern society is a topic of concern and is widely regarded as outdated.
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When New York City Mourned R.F.K.
At Robert Kennedy’s wake, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New Yorkers began lining up before dawn to pay their respects.
The New Yorker By Paul Brodeur and James Stevenson, today, June 7, 1968Commodities Slide as Investors Bet on Economic Slowdown
Industrial malaise, particularly in China, is draining demand for energy and metals
WSJ By Yusuf Khan, and Joe Wallace, June 5, 2023 The tech industry was deflating. Then came ChatGPT
Last year, Silicon Valley was drowning in layoffs and dour predictions. Artificial intelligence made the gloom go away.
TWP By Gerrit De Vynck, June 4, 2023 Inside the Complicated Reality of Being America’s Oldest President
President Biden is asking voters to keep him in the White House until age 86, renewing attention to an issue that polls show troubles most Americans.
NYT By Peter Baker, Michael D. Shear, Katie Rogers and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, The reporters cover the White House for The Times. June 4, 2023Kremlin: OPEC+ important to global energy market stability
MOSCOW, June 5 (Reuters) - OPEC+, the group of leading oil-producing countries, is important for providing stability on global energy markets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, a day after the group met.
Reuters, June 5, 2023Very, very false’: Dutch minister quashes Beijing view on Ukraine at top security forum
Dutch defense chief pushes back at Chinese argument that Russia’s war on Ukraine is due to a failed security architecture in Europe.
POLITICO EU BY STUART LAU, JUNE 3, 2023 
The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…
Image: Germán & CoCooperate with objective and ethical thinking…
Image by Germán & CoWhen New York City Mourned R.F.K.
At Robert Kennedy’s wake, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New Yorkers began lining up before dawn to pay their respects.
The New Yorker By Paul Brodeur and James Stevenson, today, June 7, 1968Shortly before five o’clock Friday morning, a gray light slipped into the city. The air was warm, the sky was hazy, and everything beneath seemed still. Two flags flanking the Fifth Avenue entrance to St. Patrick’s Cathedral hung motionless at half-staff. On the south side of Fifty-first Street, a long line of people who had gathered during the dark of night emerged in ghostly fashion from the gloom of the cathedral’s granite facade. Fatigue and sorrow could be seen on the faces. The line stretched back along Fifty-first Street to Park Avenue, and with the first glimmer of sunrise reflecting pink against the eastern sky it began to build, as, from all directions, and with almost no other sound than that of footsteps scraping softly upon pavement, the people of New York arrived to mourn the death of Robert Kennedy. Within a few minutes, the line doubled and redoubled itself until it reached Park Avenue, turned south, and began to fill up six-deep behind police barricades that had been set out on the sidewalks. Then, at five-thirty, the line began to move slowly toward the side entrance to the cathedral on Fifty-first Street near Fifth Avenue. People whose heads had been nodding in sleep awakened, straightened, and took stiff, mechanical steps ahead. An elderly Negro woman who had been sitting in a folding chair got heavily to her feet and, assisted by a young man with shoulder-length hair, started forward with a halting gait. Behind her, a man in a wheelchair propelled himself as far as the steps to the entranceway, where two policemen came to his aid and lifted him inside. On the other side of the street, a busboy in a white mess jacket sat on an ashcan before a restaurant and watched the mourners with tears streaming down his cheeks. Inside the cathedral, the line moved through the gloomy nave, down the long center aisle toward a maroon-draped catafalque that stood before the altar. The catafalque bore a plain mahogany casket that was flanked by six tall candelabras with amber tapers, and by six men who had been close to Robert Kennedy, who formed an honor guard. During the night, television crewmen had erected several large scaffolds for their equipment, and a battery of powerful floodlights illuminated the bier with a harsh and unreal glare. The mourners approached the catafalque two by two and then separated to pass it on either side. Some people crossed themselves as they went by the coffin; others reached out and touched its lid; a few bent down to brush it with their lips. At six o’clock, a priest in red vestments began to intone the words of the Mass, and many of the mourners took seats in the pews and stayed on to listen and to pray. Very few appeared to notice that Edward Kennedy, who had stayed near the bier of his brother throughout the night, was sitting on the aisle in the eleventh row, looking straight ahead. Half blinded as they emerged from the darkness of the nave and into the merciless brilliance of the television lights, the mourners seemed to pass numbly through a corridor of total exposure. They included—white and black—nuns, girls in slacks and miniskirts, workmen in shirtsleeves, matrons and children, and businessmen wearing three-button suits and carrying briefcases. The words of the priest continued to echo through the vast cathedral: “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy...” At quarter to seven, Edward Kennedy stood, drew himself erect, and, as if relinquishing himself to a river, joined the line of mourners, walking slowly into the searing light, looking at the casket containing the body of his brother. Then, following the others, he walked through the south transept of the cathedral and out onto Fiftieth Street, where, in the rising sun, the tall buildings, trees, awnings, and other gnomons of this perpendicular city were beginning to cast the shadows that would mark the passage of the day.
It was seven years ago this month that we first saw Robert Kennedy close up, to talk to, and travel with around New York. In the last few years, and especially in recent months, he often moved in a hostile landscape; Bobby, he was called by those who didn’t know him, and some of them said it with contempt. We occasionally experienced a shock when we encountered the man himself. Lindsay always turned out to be Lindsay, Rockefeller turned out to be Rockefeller, McCarthy turned out to be McCarthy, but Kennedy bore little resemblance to most of what we read or heard about him. He was not “Bobby.” We used to see him from time to time, and then, in March, we began to follow him quite closely—to California, to Washington, to Indiana, back to New York. He was, of course, an extraordinary man, a complex one; each time we saw him there was more to see. He could never be accurately measured, especially in terms of the past; he was always in the process of becoming. He was responsive to change, and changed himself. These changes were always attributed to his driving desire to win—except by those who knew him, who were aware of his great capacity for growth, his dedication, the widening of his concern. The people around him, we found, adored him—there is no other word. They would do anything for him, go any distance—and part of it was because they were convinced he would do the same for them. We, too, grew very fond of him. Beyond his associates and friends, however, was the public, part of which mistrusted him; he could not make a move without having his motives questioned. Some weeks ago, Joseph Alsop, an old friend of his, said to us, “So many people have him absolutely wrong. They think he is cold, calculating, ruthless. Actually, he is hot-blooded, romantic, compassionate.” He was at once aggressive and reserved—a combination that was bound to lead to misunderstanding. And in Kennedy there was another rare juxtaposition of qualities: sensitivity and imagination together with a strong drive to accomplish things. He was both the reflective, perceptive man and the doer.
While we were on a ride with Robert Kennedy a couple of months ago, we made some notes. The night before, President Johnson had announced he would not run. There was a press conference in the morning, a lunch with a newspaper publisher, and then Kennedy got into his car to go to the Granada Hotel in downtown Brooklyn, where a hundred-million-dollar mortgage pool was to be announced for residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant. (He had worked hard on Bedford-Stuyvesant; one of his major projects had been to change that community, to save it.) Our notes read:
“On leaving the restaurant, Kennedy had a cigar in his hand. He still has it, but as he goes across town he rarely puffs it; it’s just there. Kennedy scans the front sections of several magazines and the New York Post, turns and exchanges a few remarks, laughs, turns back, and then stares ahead, silent. When a traffic light changes to green, Kennedy’s fingers twitch an instant before Frank Bilotti can accelerate the car. Bill Barry’s eyes close; he is exhausted. He dozes. Kennedy was up until three o’clock. Carter Burden asks, ‘Are you tired?’ Kennedy shakes his head, murmurs no, no—brushing it off as if the question is not worth consideration. On the East River Drive, a taxi-driver recognizes Kennedy and yells, ‘Give it to ’em, Bobby!’ Kennedy waves, then stares ahead again. He is deeply preoccupied now, at his most private. (When Barry wakes and offers everyone chewing gum, Kennedy does not hear him.) He abandons, piece by piece, the outside world—he puts away the magazines, the cigar is forgotten, the offer of gum is unheard, and he is utterly alone. His silence is not passive; it is intense. His face, close up, is structurally hard: there is no waste, nothing left over and not put to use; everything has been enlisted in the cause, whatever it may be. His features look dug out, jammed together, scraped away. There is an impression of almost too much going on in too many directions in too little space: the nose hooks outward, the teeth protrude, the lower lip sticks forward, the hair hangs down, the ears go up and out, the chin juts, the eyelids push down, slanting toward the cheekbones, almost covering the eyes (a surprising blue). His expression is tough, but the toughness seems largely directed toward himself, inward—a contempt for self-indulgence, for weakness. The sadness in his face, by the same token, is not sentimental sadness, which would imply self-pity, but rather, at some level, a resident, melancholy bleakness. For a public figure, Kennedy is a remarkably contained and solitary person, somewhat hesitant with intruders and, according to those who feel they know him well, shy. Silence appears to be his natural habitat. But he will suddenly break out of himself, and then he is very responsive—quick to laugh; funny in a spontaneous, understated way; generous to people who don’t ‘matter;’ considerate, sensitive to others, and direct. He is unusually direct, in both good ways and bad—directness can be a major defect for a politician. Artificial situations make him uncomfortable; he is poor at masking his reactions. He does not indulge in much public self-analysis or explanation; he is inclined to keep quiet until he has made up his mind. This makes him appear cautious, or even devious and makes his actions, when he does move, seem at times abrupt, ‘political,’ or contradictory. Missing from his makeup is the bland protective coloration of a popular politician; when Kennedy feels something, he is apt to speak out—or to remain totally silent, looking sombre or glum—rather than to display indifference or gloss it over with pleasing chatter. There is not much change in the way he talks to one person or to a thousand, except for the formality. When he speaks of right and wrong, in either setting, he does not shift gears.”
We watched him campaign. His energy was limitless. A day of relentless travel by car and plane, speeches, rallies, interviews might end toward midnight, when he and Mrs. Kennedy would stand on a high-school auditorium stage and shake hands with three or four thousand people.
(Mrs. Kennedy’s stamina, cheerfulness, and quiet patience, under difficult circumstances, were extraordinary.) Then, the next day, more of the same. He was, after each primary, exhausted—but he barely paused. Time was always against him. We saw him at his apartment the day he returned from Indiana:
“Kennedy spoke to his prospective New York State delegates in a restaurant early in the afternoon, giving an informal account of what he felt had been accomplished in Indiana and promising an intensive campaign in New York prior to the June 18th primary. Then he met with New York political leaders and others in his apartment. The apartment is still full of people: Ted Sorensen is writing in a back bedroom; another bedroom holds a small gathering; others are in the living room, others in the kitchen. Kennedy moves from one room to another, then sits for a moment in the hall as people stream back and forth past him. He is deeply worn, but nearly a month of intensive campaigning still lies ahead—Nebraska next week, then Oregon, then South Dakota and California. He rubs his face. He has pushed himself to the limit, but he does not mention his weariness. His face is gaunt, weathered; his eyes are sunken and red. He rubs his hand over his face again, as if to tear away the exhaustion. It is not something he has sympathy with, his hand is not consoling as it drags across his face—he is simply trying to get rid of an encumbrance. He responds to questions from a reporter slowly, haltingly, trying to think; the questions seem to goad him painfully to one more effort. In the wake of his success, he admits there are great areas of loss—primarily for his family, and in his privacy. ‘I think... I think… I would make this one effort... and if it fails I would go back to my children.... If you bring children into the world, you should stay with them, see them through....’ He had once thought of teaching, or of starting a new kind of project in the Mississippi Delta, or of working with the Indians, but now he doesn’t know. ‘I think about it,’ he says slowly. ‘I think about it.... I’m not sure.’ The hand drags across the face again, his eyes closed. He mentions privacy. ‘It would be nice taking a walk sometime without someone taking a picture of you taking a walk....’ More people come through the door. Kennedy looks up, gets quickly to his feet, and greets them, alert again, moving.”
We remember an April afternoon at Hickory Hill, in McLean, Virginia, just before Indiana. He had come home for a few hours with his family. He sat in the dining room, eating a sandwich and discussing the farm problems of Indiana with an agricultural expert. A small child sat at the table with him, gazing silently at his father as the talk revolved around hog prices. Other children flowed through the dining room, and each time one came past he would reach out—still listening, not taking his eyes from the expert—and hold, for a moment, his or her hand. After lunch, he played with each child. There was a gentleness in him, a capacity for love, that was not ordinarily revealed in print or in the pictures people saw of him. “Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago,” he told a group of Negroes in a parking lot in Indianapolis on the cold, bitter night Martin Luther King was slain. “To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world.”
The world he lived in was changing fast; the past was less than useless as a guide—it was an obstacle. A man was needed who instinctively responded to what was real—a truly compassionate man with a sympathy for people and for people’s need for change. As he walked, his head was always bent forward; everything for him was ahead. Now he is dead, and we see the films, over and over: he lies on the floor, his head cupped in the hands of others. He will no longer bring to bear on those forces he took such care to understand—the angry, divisive forces of our time—his vitality, his sympathy, his warm concern. His death is, in a word he used so often, unacceptable.
Image by Germán & CoCommodities Slide as Investors Bet on Economic Slowdown
Industrial malaise, particularly in China, is draining demand for energy and metals
WSJ By Yusuf Khan, and Joe Wallace, June 5, 2023 Commodity prices are in retreat, signaling a slowdown in the world economy but lending central banks a hand in their fight against inflation.
The S&P GSCI commodities index has fallen about 11% so far this year through Friday, as prices for energy, metals, grains and other raw materials have retreated. Crude oil is close to its lowest levels since just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—even after Saudi Arabia’s weekend decision to cut output boosted prices early Monday.
Wheat hasn’t been this cheap since 2020 and natural gas has taken a tumble in Europe. Almost every commodity besides weather-affected sugar, cocoa and coffee has pulled back. Niche materials such as glass have fallen. Copper, a bellwether for the global economy because of its use in everything from buildings to cars, has slipped 1.3% this year.
A big driver is sluggish activity in manufacturing, particularly in China, the world’s biggest consumer of metals and second-biggest user of oil.
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Traders’ hopes for a postpandemic surge in Chinese demand for industrial materials and energy proved wide of the mark. That is partly because China’s recovery has been led by services, rather than the resource-intensive manufacturing and construction sectors that powered previous upswings.
“Industrial activity is subdued,” said Caroline Bain, chief commodities economist at Capital Economics. Chinese imports of semirefined copper dropped 13% year-over-year in the first four months of 2023, she said.
In the U.S. and Europe, too, manufacturers are in a funk, even as economies grow overall thanks to a stronger services sector. The rise of hybrid working has made economies less oil-dependent, some economists say.
The commodity declines mark a reversal from a year ago, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent prices for energy and grains soaring. That surge stoked inflation in the West, encouraging the Federal Reserve and its peers to jack up interest rates, and led to fuel and food shortages in parts of Africa and Asia.
The selloffs largely take prices back down to more typical levels, rather than depressed ones indicative of serious oversupply or an economic shock. For instance, early on Monday, Brent crude oil was trading at close to $78 a barrel, which would be near the high end of the range in which the benchmark traded between 2015 and early 2022.
The drops nonetheless point to slowing growth, if not an outright recession in which economic activity contracts.
“In a recession, demand for commodities lowers,” said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at StoneX Group, a brokerage. “We’re finally getting to data showing decreased demand for commodities.”
A silver lining for consumers and financial markets is that cheaper energy has started to feed into slower inflation. That could eventually help the Fed, and other monetary authorities such as the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, to lower rates. For now, though, other drivers of inflation are sufficiently strong that investors expect further rate rises.
Higher rates are likely to curb demand for commodities even more, said Darwei Kung, who runs commodities investments at DWS Group—one reason why he is betting on lower energy and industrial-metal prices.
Losers from the decline include commodity companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron. The energy sector is the worst performer in the S&P 500 so far this year, having been the best in 2022.
Some states that depend on oil-and-gas sales to sustain their budgets, notably Russia and Gulf oil producers, have experienced difficulties. Saudi Arabia said Sunday that it would cut a million barrels from its daily oil output in an effort to raise prices, after a contentious meeting at which other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel and its allies, known as OPEC+, agreed to extend existing curbs.
Consumers will enjoy the benefits of lower wholesale prices at varying speeds. In the U.S., for instance, lower crude prices quickly feed through to the pump. Average gas prices stand at $3.55 a gallon, according to AAA, down from about $4.82 a year ago.
In Europe, households and businesses won’t feel the drop in wholesale gas and power prices so fast, in part because governments put in policies to ease the pain on the way up.
And food prices are still galloping higher, even though wholesale wheat is down 22% this year, aided by bumper harvests in Russia and Australia, and exports from Ukraine under the Black Sea grain deal.
Many food producers locked in prices near the peak of the market because they feared losing access to ingredients. “It’s a long supply chain for a lot of these supermarkets,” said Dave Whitcomb, founder of Peak Trading Research.
Some analysts see commodity prices leveling off rather than falling further. They expect OPEC+ cuts to drain oil supplies in the second half of the year. Metals could get a boost from a splurge in spending on the electricity grid in China, and in the longer term from demand for materials needed for the energy transition.
For now, though, many say high interest rates and industrial malaise could bring more pressure. “Central banks in developed nations are pushing on the brakes pretty hard,” said Nitesh Shah, head of commodities research at exchange-traded-fund provider WisdomTree.
Illustration by Elena Lacey/The Washington PostThe tech industry was deflating. Then came ChatGPT
Last year, Silicon Valley was drowning in layoffs and dour predictions. Artificial intelligence made the gloom go away.
TWP By Gerrit De Vynck, June 4, 2023 SAN FRANCISCO — A year ago, the mood in Silicon Valley was dour. Big Tech stocks were falling, the cryptocurrency bubble had popped, and a wave of layoffs was beginning to sweep through the industry.
Since then, venture capitalists have been throwing money at AI start-ups, investing over $11 billion in May alone, according to data firm PitchBook, an increase of 86 percent over the same month last year. Companies from Moderna to Heinz have mentioned AI initiatives on recent earnings calls. And last week, AI chipmaker Nvidia became one of only a handful of companies in the world to hit $1 trillion in value.
In San Francisco, it’s suddenly impossible to escape the AI hysteria. In bars and restaurants, people are conversing about using ChatGPT and whether AI will take their jobs — or take over the world. AI is one of the only fields here still hiring, and firms are paying huge salaries for the expertise. Workers here are retraining to specialize in the field.
The new AI gold rush — sparked in large part by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November — is thanks to generative AI, which uses complex algorithms trained on trillions of words and images from the open internet to produce text, images and audio.
“The improvement in quality was much greater than expected,” Dan Wang, a business professor at Columbia University who studies the tech industry, said of the emergence of generative AI. “That took folks by surprise and also released the imaginations of both existing entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs.”
Following OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT, Microsoft and Google joined the arms race. While they had previously showed relative caution about launching experimental AI tools to real people, both companies suddenly raced to compete by throwing text generators into their core products, including Microsoft Word and Google Search.
“We are at an exciting inflection point,” Pichai said at the conference. “We are reimagining all our core products.”
Facebook and Amazon have also been trumpeting their own AI work, and Apple is expected to spotlight AI research during its big product launch event this week.
Companies are also putting money where their mouths are, and one of the biggest beneficiaries so far is Nvidia.
The company’s video game computer chips have been used by researchers and companies for several years to help them run the massive and complicated algorithms needed to train cutting-edge AI programs. The company began making specialized products and software for AI and had already seen its stock price quadruple from the end of 2019 until the beginning of 2023.
But last week, it announced that it expected to sell $11 billion of new chips in the second quarter of this year, a full $4 billion more than Wall Street analysts had expected. The stock rocketed up 24 percent. It closed with a market valuation of $971.4 billion on Friday.
That’s within spitting range of Amazon, which is worth $1.26 trillion. Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress called ChatGPT’s launch a new “iPhone moment” — comparing it to when the world realized mobile phones would completely change how people use computers.
“What can we say other than just ‘Wow!’” C.J. Muse, an analyst with Evercore said in a client note. “We’ve simply never seen a beat like this … ever.” Big companies and start-ups alike are “clamoring” to buy Nvidia’s products, Muse said.
Tech stocks have rallied across the board, a whiplash return to growth after analysts declared the 10-year bull market was finally over. In 2022, the Nasdaq 100, a stock market index dominated by the biggest tech companies, lost an entire third of its value, falling 33 percent in a massive erasure of wealth that had been built up over the past decade. So far in 2023, the Nasdaq 100 is already up 31 percent.
Even Meta, which changed its name from Facebook to signal its commitment to the metaverse, or virtual reality tech, has been pushing AI among its workers to the extent that some of them asked at a company meeting whether the metaverse was still a priority. Amazon executives have assured their own employees the company is working on major AI initiatives, too.
The start-up ecosystem is rebounding back to optimism as well, at least for those focused on AI.
“VC firms compete for access to hot AI deals while eschewing unprofitable conventional software companies,” said Brendan Burke, an analyst with PitchBook. “AI start-ups experience founder-friendly conditions not extended to the rest of the tech ecosystem.”
Around $12.5 billion in investments have gone into generative AI start-ups this year so far, compared with only $4.5 billion invested in the field in all of 2022, Burke said.
Suvrat Bhooshan, a former AI researcher at Meta and founder and CEO of Gan.ai, a start-up that lets people automatically create customized videos of themselves, just raised $5.25 million from investors including Sequoia Capital and Emergent Ventures. The deal came together fast, with some investors giving him full-fledged term sheets just a week after initial introductions, Bhooshan said.
He isn’t the only former Big Tech AI worker who left to begin their own company, Bhooshan said. In the past two years, three or four of the seven people on his team at Meta have left to do their own thing, he said. The same is happening across the industry, showing the desire among AI workers to take advantage of the boom in venture investment to start their own companies.
“The entire transformers team from Google left to start their own company,” Bhooshan said, referring to the Google researchers who wrote the paper on “transformers,” a key aspect of the current crop of generative AI.
The optimism in the AI sector contrasts with the massive layoffs that have been rocking the industry for months. Thousands of tech workers are still out of a job after the massive wave of layoffs that rolled through dozens of start-ups, as well as Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Google over the past year. Higher interest rates, which triggered the shakiness for tech companies used to borrowing huge sums to fund their ever-increasing growth, aren’t going away.
And things outside AI can continue to be glum. The number of deals and the valuations start-ups were scoring outside of AI continued to drop through the beginning of the year, with the median late-stage start-up valuation dropping 40 percent from the same time last year, according to PitchBook.
Employees at Google and elsewhere are worrying about more layoffs. Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse spooked tech investors and made it harder for start-ups to get the debt they need to get their businesses off the ground.
House prices are slowly sinking in San Francisco, and the commercial rental market is in crisis, showing the overall impact on the economy.
AI won’t change that overnight, said Wang, the Columbia business professor.
“It’s really exciting,” he said. “But its really hard to say that it’s the kind of thing that will lead the charge back into a bull market.”
Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…
…“More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.
President Biden just embarked on a campaign asking voters to keep him in the White House four years longer.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times/Editing by Germán & CoInside the Complicated Reality of Being America’s Oldest President
President Biden is asking voters to keep him in the White House until age 86, renewing attention to an issue that polls show troubles most Americans.
NYT By Peter Baker, Michael D. Shear, Katie Rogers and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, The reporters cover the White House for The Times. June 4, 2023There was the time last winter when President Biden was awakened at 3 a.m. while on a trip to Asia and told that a missile had struck Poland, touching off a panic that Russia might have expanded the war in Ukraine to a NATO ally. Within hours in the middle of the night, Mr. Biden consulted his top advisers, called the president of Poland and the NATO secretary general, and gathered fellow world leaders to deal with the crisis.
And then there was the time a few weeks ago when the president was hosting children for Take Your Child to Work Day and became mixed up as he tried to list his grandchildren. “So, let me see. I got one in New York, two in Philadelphia — or is it three? No, three, because I got one granddaughter who is — I don’t know. You’re confusing me.” He also drew a blank when asked the last country he had visited and the name of a favorite movie.
The two Joe Bidens coexist in the same octogenarian president: Sharp and wise at critical moments, the product of decades of seasoning, able to rise to the occasion even in the dead of night to confront a dangerous world. Yet a little slower, a little softer, a little harder of hearing, a little more tentative in his walk, a little more prone to occasional lapses of memory in ways that feel familiar to anyone who has reached their ninth decade or has a parent who has.
The complicated reality of America’s oldest president was encapsulated on Thursday as Congress approved a bipartisan deal he brokered to avoid a national default. Even Speaker Kevin McCarthy testified that Mr. Biden had been “very professional, very smart, very tough” during their talks. Yet just before the voting got underway, Mr. Biden tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy commencement, plunging to the ground. The video went viral, his supporters cringed and his critics pounced.
Anyone can trip at any age, but for an 80-year-old president, it inevitably raises unwelcome questions. If it were anyone else, the signs of age might not be notable. But Mr. Biden is the chief executive of the world’s most powerful nation and has just embarked on a campaign asking voters to keep him in the White House until age 86, drawing more attention to an issue that polls show troubles most Americans and is the source of enormous anxiety among party leaders.
“You say I’m ancient?” Mr. Biden said at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April. “I say I’m wise.”Credit...Yuri Gripas for The New York Times
The portrait that emerges from months of interviews with dozens of current and former officials and others who have spent time with him lies somewhere between the partisan cartoon of an addled and easily manipulated fogy promoted by Republicans and the image spread by his staff of a president in aviator shades commanding the world stage and governing with vigor.
It is one of a man who has slowed with age in ways that are more pronounced than just the graying hair common to most recent presidents during their time in office. Mr. Biden sometimes mangles his words and looks older than he used to because of his stiff gait and thinning voice.
Yet people who deal with him regularly, including some of his adversaries, say he remains sharp and commanding in private meetings. Diplomats share stories of trips to places like Ukraine, Japan, Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia in which he often outlasts younger colleagues. Democratic lawmakers point to a long list of accomplishments as proof that he still gets the job done.
His verbal miscues are nothing new, friends note; he has struggled throughout his life with a stutter and was a “gaffe machine,” to use his own term, long before he entered Social Security years. Advisers said his judgment is as good as ever. So many of them use the phrase “sharp as a tack” to describe him that it has become something of a mantra.
Mr. Biden says age is a legitimate issue but maintains that his longevity is an asset, not a liability. “You say I’m ancient?” he said at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April. “I say I’m wise.”
Still, few people fail to notice the changes in one of the nation’s most public people. As vice president a dozen years ago, Mr. Biden engaged in energetic squirt gun battles each summer with the children of aides and reporters. More than a decade later, he shuffled stiffly across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Polls indicate the president’s age is a top concern of Americans, including Democrats. During a recent New York Times focus group, several voters who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 expressed worry, with one saying: “I’ve just seen the blank stare at times, when he’s either giving a speech or addressing a crowd. It seems like he loses his train of thought.”
Unease about Mr. Biden’s age suffuses Democratic circles. One prominent Wall Street Democrat, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending the White House, noted that among party donors it was all anyone was talking about. At a small dinner earlier this year of former Democratic senators and governors, all of them in Mr. Biden’s generation, everyone at the table agreed he was too old to run again. Local leaders often call the White House to inquire about his health.
In private, some officials acknowledge that they make what they consider reasonable accommodations not to physically tax an aging president. His staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and 4 p.m. and leaves him alone on weekends as much as possible. Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s deputy White House chief of staff, though, insisted his age has not forced changes to his schedule. “Nothing beyond what is done for any president regardless of their age,” she said.
A study of Mr. Biden’s schedule based on data compiled by Axios and expanded by The New York Times found that Mr. Biden has a similar morning cadence as the president he served, Barack Obama. Neither had many public events before 10 a.m., just 4 percent in Mr. Obama’s last year in office and 5 percent in Mr. Biden’s first two and a half years. But the real difference came in the evening. Mr. Obama was twice as likely to do public events after 6 p.m. compared with Mr. Biden, 17 percent to 9 percent.
Aides limit exposing the president to news media interviews when he could make a politically damaging mistake. He has given just a fourth of the interviews Donald J. Trump did in the same time period and a fifth of Mr. Obama’s interviews — and none at all to reporters from a major newspaper. Mr. Biden has not given an interview to the news department of The Times, unlike every president since at least Franklin D. Roosevelt other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. And in the past 100 years, only Ronald Reagan and Richard M. Nixon have subjected themselves to as few news conferences.
White House officials have not made Mr. Biden’s doctor available for questioning, as previous presidents have. In February, Kevin C. O’Connor, the White House physician, issued a five-page letter stating that Mr. Biden is “fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”
But he also wrote that the president’s tendency to walk stiffly is “in fact a result of degenerative (‘wear and tear’)” changes in his spine, and partly the result of “tighter hamstrings and calves.” The letter said there were “no findings which would be consistent with” a neurological disorder like stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. He takes medicine for atrial fibrillation, cholesterol, heartburn, asthma and allergies.
Like many his age, Mr. Biden repeats phrases and retells the same hoary, often fact-challenged stories again and again. He can be quirky; when children visit, he may randomly pull a book of William Butler Yeats off his desk and start reading Irish poetry to them.
At the same time, he is trim and fit, exercises five days a week and does not drink. He has at times exhibited striking stamina, such as when he flew to Poland then boarded a nine-hour train ride to make a secret visit to Kyiv, spent hours on the ground, then endured another nine-hour train ride and a flight to Warsaw. A study of his schedule by Mr. Biden’s aides shows that he has traveled slightly more in the first few months of his third year in office than Mr. Obama did in his.
“Does he ramble? Yes, he does,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat who categorically rejects the idea that Mr. Biden is too old to be president. “Has he always rambled? Yes, he has. Public and private. He’s the same guy. He’s literally — I’m not saying this lightly. I don’t know anyone else in my life who is so much the same guy privately as he is publicly.”
Some friends bristle at the attention to his age. “I think the reason this is an issue is primarily because of the media talking about it constantly,” said former Senator Ted Kaufman, a longtime adviser to Mr. Biden from Delaware. “I do not see anything in my dealings with him that age is a problem. He’s done more than any president has been able to do in my lifetime.”
Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, noted that Republican hard-liners were grousing that Mr. Biden had gotten the better of Mr. McCarthy in the fiscal deal. “It’s telling that the same extreme MAGA members of Congress who’ve been talking about his age complained this week that he outsmarted them on the budget agreement,” Mr. Bates said.
The question of Mr. Biden’s age does not come in isolation, of course. Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican challenger, is just four years younger and was the oldest president in history until Mr. Biden succeeded him. If Mr. Trump were to win next year, he would be 82 at the end of his term, older than Mr. Biden will be at the end of this one.
While in office, Mr. Trump generated concerns about his mental acuity and physical condition. He did not exercise, his diet leaned heavily on cheeseburgers and steak and he officially tipped the scales at 244 pounds, a weight formally deemed obese for his height.
After complaining that he was overscheduled with morning meetings, Mr. Trump stopped showing up at the Oval Office until 11 or 11:30 a.m. each day, staying in the residence to watch television, make phone calls or send out incendiary tweets. During an appearance at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he had trouble lifting a glass of water and seemed to have trouble making his way down a modest ramp.
Most striking was Mr. Trump’s cognitive performance. He was erratic and tended to ramble; experts found that he had grown less articulate and that his vocabulary had shrunk since his younger days. Aides said privately that Mr. Trump had trouble processing information and distinguishing fact from fiction. His second chief of staff, John F. Kelly, bought a book analyzing Mr. Trump’s psychological health to understand him better, and several cabinet secretaries concerned that he might be mentally unfit discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him.
But perhaps because his bombastic volume conveys energy, Mr. Trump’s issues are not associated with age in the public mind as much as Mr. Biden’s are. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 73 percent said Mr. Biden is too old to be in office, compared with 51 percent who said the same of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Biden manages his day with more discipline than his predecessor. Jill Biden, who teaches at Northern Virginia Community College, gets up around 6 a.m. while the president wakes an hour later, according to accounts he has given. Mr. Biden has told aides that their cat sometimes wakes him in the middle of the night by walking across his face.
By 7:20 a.m., the first lady leaves for work. Mr. Biden works out at 8 a.m.; he has a Peloton bicycle in the residence and is known to watch shows like “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. He arrives at the Oval Office by 9 a.m. for a morning usually filled with meetings. For lunch, there is a rotation of salad, soup and sandwiches.
Following afternoon events, the president returns to the residence around 6:45 p.m. For dinner, pasta is a favorite. In fact, one former official said, whenever he travels, aides make sure there is always red sauce on hand for pasta to finish his day — even as he balks at the salmon that his wife urges on him.
From 8 p.m., the Bidens often read their briefing books together in the living room of the residence. The first lady typically turns in at 10:30 p.m. and the president follows a half-hour later.
Aides say it is clear he actually reads the briefing books because of the questions that follow. “There’s no one who is better at asking questions to get to the bottom of an issue, calling your bluff, asking the tough questions,” said Stefanie Feldman, the White House staff secretary. “He asks just as tough questions today as he did 10 years ago.”
Some who accompany him overseas express astonishment at his ability to keep up. When Italy’s new leader pushed for a meeting while the president was in Poland, he readily agreed to add it to the already packed schedule. During a trip to Ireland, people with him said he was energized and wanted to talk at length on Air Force One rather than rest.
Still, after fatiguing days on the road, he skipped dinner with world leaders in Indonesia last year and again in Japan in May. Others who have known him for years said privately that they have noticed small changes. When he sits down, one former official said, he usually places a hand on his desk to hold his weight and rarely springs back up with his old energy.
He speaks so softly that he can be hard to hear. For speeches, aides give him a hand-held microphone to hold close to his mouth to amplify his voice even when standing at a lectern with mounted microphones.
Yet aides said that while he can momentarily forget a name or fact, he retains a formidable memory for detail. Preparing to travel to Shanksville, Pa., on the 20th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he became frustrated that officials had given him the wrong plan for his movements. He had been to the memorial before and knew the plan made no sense because he remembered the layout of the grounds.
White House officials voice aggravation that concern about age is inflated by pictures on the internet that are sometimes faked or highly distorted. Every week, strategists conduct a word cloud analysis with a panel of voters asking what they had heard about the president, good or bad. After Mr. Biden’s foot got caught in the toe cage of his bicycle and he tumbled over last year, the two words in the bad-word cloud for weeks were “bike fell” — all the more frustrating for aides who noted that Mr. Trump hardly seemed capable of even riding a bike.
Mr. Biden lately has turned to self-deprecating humor to defuse the issue, taking a cue from Mr. Reagan, who won re-election in 1984 at age 73 in part with a well-timed debate quip about not exploiting “my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Some who accompany Mr. Biden overseas express astonishment at his ability to keep up. Still, after fatiguing days on the road, he skipped dinner with world leaders in Indonesia last year and again in Japan in May.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
At the correspondents’ dinner, Mr. Biden assured the audience that he supported the First Amendment, and “not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it.” During the Take Your Child to Work Day event, he looked back on “when I was younger, 120 years ago.”
And at the Air Force Academy a few days ago, Mr. Biden joked that “when I was graduating from high school 300 years ago, I applied to the Naval Academy.” After tripping on the sandbag, he sought to laugh that off too. “I got sandbagged,” he said.
Image by Germán & CoKremlin: OPEC+ important to global energy market stability
Reuters, June 5, 2023MOSCOW, June 5 (Reuters) - OPEC+, the group of leading oil-producing countries, is important for providing stability on global energy markets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, a day after the group met.
OPEC+ pumps around 40% of the world's crude and has put in place cuts of 3.66 million barrels per day, amounting to 3.6% of global demand.
"The Russian Federation is a member of the joint (OPEC+) understanding. The OPEC+ format continues its work, there are common agreements that, of course, everyone will follow," Peskov told a daily conference call with reporters.
"Of course, this format retains its importance and its significance for ensuring stability in international energy markets."
OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, decided on Sunday after seven hours of talks to reduce overall production targets from 2024 by a further 1.4 million bpd in total.
Saudi Arabia will make a deep cut to its output in July on top of a broader OPEC+ deal to limit supply into 2024 as the group seeks to boost flagging oil prices.
Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren challenged the Chinese interpretation of the war in Ukraine | Thomas Niedermueller/Editing by Germán & Co‘Very, very false’: Dutch minister quashes Beijing view on Ukraine at top security forum
Dutch defense chief pushes back at Chinese argument that Russia’s war on Ukraine is due to a failed security architecture in Europe.
POLITICO EU BY STUART LAU, JUNE 3, 2023 SINGAPORE — China put European patience to the test on Saturday, with a seasoned Chinese diplomat attributing Russia’s war on Ukraine to a failed security architecture in Europe.
It fell to Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren to challenge that very Chinese interpretation.
“I was actually a little bit surprised to hear it,” Ollongren told POLITICO in an interview moments after she made an impromptu rebuttal of ex-ambassador Cui Tiankai on a panel at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “It’s very, very false.”
Cui, a former envoy to the U.S. and unofficially an adviser to the Chinese delegation at this top Asian security forum, told the event on Saturday that Europe had showed little success in ensuring the Continent’s security, and suggested that the other nations at the forum should take a lesson from China and Asia instead.
“We used to look to Europe, for their experience in regional integration. But nowadays, maybe people in Europe instead could look to us,” Cui told the gathering. “We don’t impose our ways on you, but maybe you can learn something useful from our experience, from our success,” he said.
“And our region also should learn something very important — from your lack of success. I don’t want to use the word ‘failure,’ [so] a lack of success,” said Cui, who sat next to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on the panel.
“We will continue with our Asian ways of managing our security situation and managing all the issues,” Cui said. “We don’t need an Asian NATO. We’ll don’t want to see expansion of NATO’s role in our region.”
While the Ukrainian minister steered clear of criticizing Beijing — saying only that Ukraine needed to win the war, not negotiate — Ollongren hit back at Cui’s assertion.
“There was a suggestion by the ambassador that Europe has not succeeded in managing its security very well, because of the war in Ukraine. Of course, I understand there’s a war in Ukraine — but I think it’s not the result of mismanaging our security situation in Europe. It’s the result of not respecting the way we want to manage security in Europe,” the Dutch minister said.
“I think also, there is no lack of respect for China or lack of respect to the culture of China in Europe; we have very high respect for that,” she said.
Ollongren, whose country has taken an increasingly critical stance on China over ties with Russia and tech advancement in military fields, added after the panel that what Cui had presented was a “false perception of the situation.”
“You cannot blame Europe or European countries for Russia’s illegally invading Ukraine,” she said.
Ollongren added that since Cui is no longer an ambassador, she would wait for Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu to spell out the official position in his keynote address on Sunday.