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The AI mania could wane and drag down the economies of the two superpowers, but the rest of the world is well positioned to pick up the slack
Last year began with a near universal consensus that the only nation worth investing in was the US. It ended with rival markets outrunning the US by wide margins, generating returns twice as high and making America look much less exceptional.The US did not collapse, of course, because its economy and markets were held up by money rushing into artificial intelligence. The question now is how and when does AI mania end, and what will that mean for the world? Here are my top 10 trends for 2026:
Or our refineries are specially built to process it and we don't actually process light sweet as efficiently as other countries do?
Long before the U.S. shale boom, when global production of light sweet crude oil was declining, we made significant investments in our refineries to process heavier, high-sulfur crude oils that were more widely available in the global market. These investments were made to ensure U.S. refineries would have access to the feedstocks needed to produce gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Heavier crude is now an essential feedstock for many U.S. refineries. Substituting it for U.S. light sweet crude oil would make these facilities less efficient and competitive, leading to a decline in fuel production and higher costs for consumers.
Heavy sour crude is more expensive to refine. The article doesn't go into it at all except to mention that the stuff is so thick they need tankers of naphtha to thin it out enough to make it transportable. And once it's refined, they'll have a lot of asphalts and sulfur and other byproducts.
maybe the reason the article is saying American refineries are chronically short of heavy sour is because we use more asphalts than other countries? Or our refineries are specially built to process it and we don't actually process light sweet as efficiently as other countries do?
It's enough to know that this is about the oil. They don't need to make it seem like Venezuela's oil is some magically superior product.
This is somewhere between fantasy and delusion....
The price of everything is going up. Energy prices were a huge issue in the NJ election...and not because they're going down.
Prices were going down under Biden...and then Trump deployed the tariffs.
Trump is a babbling fool when talking about economic policy, and nobody in his party dares to engage. They are going to get hammered next November... because 2026 is going to be painful.
Looking deeper...this mostly reflects AMZN's 3rd party sellers - small retailers who sell on Amzn. Obviously they are the most to be impacted by tariffs, rising costs. Interesting though most of the AMZN increase was before the tariffs went into place. Regardless, the days of Amzn being a price leader are long gone...they are all about convenience.
per that article, it is trending up a bit to about 43% but down from 65% in the 90s
I had recently read somewhere about how there are fewer municipalities which have efficient recycling programs in place than there were 20-30 years ago. Apparently costs for recycling have dramatically increased in some areas and some municipalities can't afford it as part of their infrastructure or just decide to cut it out for other reasons. Not just for aluminum, but for paper, glass, and plastics as well. Though I don't think very much plastic gets recycled, domestically or shipped off elsewhere.
right, even though burned off, those labels can contaminate the aluminum and apparently could even confuse the recycling facility into thinking the can is plastic.
possible win/win to have the brewery use labels that are easily removed and returnable...or switch to paper labels, which are less of a problem.
This is a problem the can companies will fix if it's worth doing.
When COVID hit, they changed their pricing/ordering to require much larger custom orders. From memory, it went from 10,000 cans to 100,000 cans if you wanted "printed cans". That drove all of the mid-sized brewers to the stickers that only micros used.
Given that only a tiny percentage of cans are recycled now...it's sort of a "who cares" issue. If can producers star looking for advantage in recycling... they'd find a solution.
Most micro beer cans these days have thick plasticky or mylar labels glued on, which in some cases causes problems. So anyway you can peel those off and should, probably.
right, even though burned off, those labels can contaminate the aluminum and apparently could even confuse the recycling facility into thinking the can is plastic.
possible win/win to have the brewery use labels that are easily removed and returnable...or switch to paper labels, which are less of a problem.
Obviously not chubby's intent, but perhaps something good can come out of the tariff nonsense.
America Doesnât Have an Aluminum Shortage. Itâs Just Sitting in Your Garbage.
The impact of President Trumpâs 50% tariff on imported aluminum can be reduced by increased recycling, according to executives and analysts.
U.S. aluminum prices have hit a record relative to global prices, affecting beverage and auto companies, like Molson Coors and Ford.
To reduce reliance on imports, the U.S. could improve recycling habits and build more recycling plants.
CASSOPOLIS, Mich.âThe way around President Trumpâs 50% tariff on imported aluminum might be sitting in your garbage.
But Americans will have to do a lot more recycling, metals executives and analysts say, for the U.S. to break its reliance on imported aluminum. Even with such a high trade barrier, they give long odds to a domestic smelting revival.
Most micro beer cans these days have thick plasticky or mylar labels glued on, which in some cases causes problems. So anyway you can peel those off and should, probably.
