Weekend reading links

1. Are people overreacting to small struggles?

When asked if they would consider someone experiencing typical fluctuations in mood (described as broad happiness but occasional moments of worry, frustration or loss of confidence) as having a mental illness, more than half of young Americans say yes, up from just a fifth 15 years ago.

2. A picture of state finances.

3. The promise of quantum computing.

Quantum computers can transcend the limitations of the traditional binary computer bit, which can exist in two states, denoted by zero and one. By contrast, quantum bits, or “qubits”, can exist in both those states at once. This allows quantum machines to survey multiple potential solutions simultaneously, rather than dealing with them one by one like a conventional computer. One analogy is a maze. Where a quantum computer can examine the whole map to find a way through, a traditional machine will keep exploring dead ends until it finds the route. Quantum computers’ superior processing power should make them better able to generalise from small amounts of data and sift through multiple complex patterns...

But many companies are already experimenting with the technology because of its promised leap in capability, predicting early uses for the machines in areas such as chemistry and materials science. The idea is that because of their own workings and structure the computers will be better able to analyse and predict chemical behaviour determined by atomic and subatomic interactions governed by quantum rules. In a sense, they will be speaking the same language rather than translating an analysis into a string of ones and zeros as a traditional computer does. As a result, a sufficiently powerful quantum machine should in theory be adept at predicting the interactions between drugs and living cells that determine whether a new pharmaceutical will work. Such possibilities have already led tech companies to pair up with industrial groups.

4. India's trade account in a nutshell.

In 2025-26, its exports of services, at $421.3 billion, was close to the export of goods worth $446.1 billion. On the other hand, imports of goods ($783.4 billion) were way above the imports of services ($204.7 billion). Thus, while India recorded a merchandise trade deficit of $337.3 billion, it had a surplus of $216.6 billion on the services account.

5. Brilliant article by Simon Kuper on how football came to be dominated by Western Europe.

Western Europeans didn’t start by asking, “How can we win the World Cup?” Instead, they pursued a different goal: making amateur football cheap and widely available. The intended outputs were happiness, community and public health. Winning World Cups was a byproduct... I began playing football aged six, in 1976, after moving from London to Leiden in the Netherlands. Most Dutch boys I met belonged to a football club... The little Leiden region had dozens of football clubs. Some fielded 20 senior teams, seven teams of under-eights and so on. Many people built their identity and social life on being the right-back or linesman of the 14th team. The Netherlands in the 1970s reached two World Cup finals. Everyone played and understood how to play. Football is geometry — about creating space when you have the ball, and shrinking it when you don’t. That knowledge is all around you in western Europe, unlike in Asia, Africa, the US or Brazil... In 2017, the average Dutch person lived 1.6km from a football field. Neighbouring Germany’s football federation is the world’s largest sports association, with more than 7.7mn members...

As a father, I raised three footballers in Paris, now the game’s deepest talent pool. Almost all Parisian suburbs, or banlieues, have well-kept sports complexes, with artificial fields, used nonstop: at half-time of any amateur game, children storm on to the field for a kickaround. So structured is the system that my son had to earn a coaching diploma to train his little club’s under-eights. His own beloved coach, Mustapha Sangaré, who only joined a football club aged 15, now plays for Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia and Mali. He is far from an anomaly: almost 100 players across all squads in the current World Cup were born in France and just under 70 in the Netherlands.

In another article Tej Parikh looks at why China and India does so badly in football.

This is a striking statistic, pointing how globalised football has become and how the leading European clubs have become the feeding grounds for national teams. 

At this World Cup, more than 72 per cent of players appear for a club outside the country of their national team, and almost one in four are foreign born. (More than half of Cape Verde’s squad was born outside the nation and ply their trade in various European leagues.)

6. In what will prove to be a dramatic decision, DP World, which operates the Jebel Ali port that has been paralysed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is reportedly planning to build a new port and a container terminal on the UAE's eastern coastal area of Fujairah. 

Shifting some of the port’s capacity outside Dubai marks a seismic change for the emirate, which has established itself as a global trade and finance hub partly off the back of Jebel Ali’s growth... But DP World’s plans align with a broader UAE government initiative to attempt to bulletproof its economy against future hostilities with Iran by reducing its dependence on the strait, where shipping has been disrupted by Iranian drones and missile strikes since the US-Israeli attack. The new project would deepen DP World’s presence on the Gulf of Oman, allowing containers to enter and leave the country without having to pass through the strait, before moving them on trucks overland to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and neighbouring Gulf countries. Since the war began at the end of February, Iran has fired nearly 3,000 drones or missiles at the UAE — more than any other country... DP World’s plans underline how the Iran war has forced governments and companies in the region to reconsider infrastructure and economic corridors developed on the premise that there would be uninterrupted passage through the strait.

7. Rote memorisation in schools is celebrated in China.

The guidelines to the gaokao, an exam for 18-year-olds and the world’s largest standardised test, describe memorisation as “the most basic level of ability”, placing it first among six traits that include comprehension, analysis and synthesis, appreciation and evaluation, expression and application, and inquiry. At the simplest level, the Chinese script itself, which operates at the level of the syllable and involves thousands of individually meaningful characters, requires years of memorisation... It is hard not to draw a contrast with the English-language west, where rote memorisation has taken on a faintly pejorative meaning. More than a century and a half ago, at the height of Britain’s industrial age, Charles Dickens was skewering the “facts alone are wanted in life” approach of fictional educator Gradgrind in the novel Hard Times.

8. Trump's makeover of the US State Department. 

Abandoning the precedent of the past 60 years, Trump has brushed aside the foreign service officers who have typically run at least two-thirds of embassies. Of the 101 nominations for ambassadorships in his second term, just nine were career diplomats. All this is against the backdrop of swingeing cuts to the department, whose workforce has shrunk by more than 3,000, over 20 per cent, since Trump resumed office.

9. China's remarkable success in reducing air pollution by 60% since 2013. 

10. Interesting that the IT sector explains half the difference in productivity growth between the US and EU.

Strikingly, even though the tech sector was only 9.2 per cent of US GDP, against 5.4 per cent of the EU’s, almost half of the difference in productivity growth between the two economies was explained by differences in the relative size of this one sector. Moreover, productivity growth in the EU’s (relatively small) tech sector was also measured as being lower than in the US one. So, overall, the tech sector alone accounts for well over half of the overall difference in growth of GDP per head.

This is important

Life expectancy for US men was 76.5 in 2024, against an average of 80.5 in comparable high-income countries. For women, it was 81.4 against 84.8. That is despite spending a far higher proportion of its GDP on health. The US homicide rate was 5.9 per 100,000 in 2023, against 1.3 in France and 0.9 in Germany. Its prison population was 542 per 100,000 in 2023, against 130 in France and 69 in Germany. Thus, if one takes a wider view of human welfare, the US is very far from superior.

11. China reports the lowest quarterly growth rate in decades at 4.3% for the second quarter of 2026. Industrial production and exports are propping up growth, even as consumption declines.

Retail sales added just 1 per cent in June from a year earlier, while fixed-asset investment was down 5.7 per cent year on year for the first half of the year, compared to 4.1 per cent in the first five months. Industrial production, one sign of strength, grew 5.3 per cent last month on a year earlier... Separate data on Tuesday showed exports soared 27 per cent year on year in June, adding to signs of reliance on trade to support economic activity... Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics, noted that the GDP data brought it “closer in line” with the consultancy’s alternative measure, which has been around 3 per cent.

Underlining the importance of exports, there was a surge in China's EV exports in June.

China’s monthly car exports rose to a record 1mn cars in June as part of an overall surge in trade that will heighten tensions with partners such as the EU. Shipments of cars rose 71.2 per cent from a year earlier to 1.06mn, putting the country on track to export more than 10mn cars this year, up from 7.1mn last year and more than double the 4.9mn in 2023. The surge in exports comes as domestic sales slow sharply following the phaseout of EV subsidies and a decline in demand for fuel-powered cars... The wave of Chinese exports has been driven by lower-cost cars boasting superior software, further threatening carmakers from Japan, South Korea, Europe and the US... China’s exports of rare earths in June fell 34 per cent year on year and 6.4 per cent in the first half, following tight export controls on the minerals, which are essential for high-technology products... The NBS’s Wang said China’s exports of green energy-related products such as lithium batteries and wind turbines increased 37.6 per cent and 35.6 per cent, respectively, during the first half.

And this highlights how production and exports have sustained growth.

Industrial production rose by 5.4 percent in the first six months of the year, versus the same period last year. High-tech manufacturing rose by more than 13 percent over that period. But fixed asset investment — which includes infrastructure, property construction and manufacturing — fell by 5.7 percent. Real estate development dropped 18 percent. The value of China’s exports surged by more than 20 percent in the first half. But consumer spending, which a Moody’s Analytics report said “remains the economy’s weakest link,” faltered. Retail sales of consumer goods increased by 1.3 percent over the first half of the year.

12. Ruchir Sharma holds that peak China was reached in 2021, and since then it has been a story of decline, papered over by exports and AI.

Since then, China’s share of global GDP has fallen in nominal terms from 18 to 16.5 per cent, while the US share has risen to 26 per cent. China’s growth rate has dropped below the rest of the world, including the US. In real terms, independent estimates now put China’s growth in real terms closer to zero than to the official target of 4.5 to 5 per cent... China’s population also peaked in 2021. Last year, births hit a record low, and deaths hit a record high. The working-age population is on pace to shrink by 75mn every decade this century... After adding little in the 2010s, net exports now account for about a third of the country’s growth, driven mainly by AI-related goods... And though every country now hopes for an AI-driven productivity miracle, the expected boost in China is about a third of a percentage point by 2030, hardly enough to halt its decline.

13. India agriculture statistics

If one looks at the growth areas in agriculture in the 12 years between 2011-12 and 2023-24, production of paddy and wheat rose by just 27 per cent. Fruit and vegetable production rose by 52 per cent, and milk production by 85 per cent, even though they did not receive any substantial support by way of subsidies or minimum support price procurement by the government. The true growth areas in agriculture are out of direct central government support and depend largely on producer enterprise... In 2023-24, the value of output of cereals (mainly paddy and wheat) was ₹8.5 trillion, while the value of the largely cooperative-controlled milk sector was ₹12.2 trillion.

14. Outbound corporate investments from India on the rise.

Indian companies have announced overseas equity investments worth more than $14bn in the first four months of the fiscal year that began on April 1, compared with $18.7bn in the previous 12 months. The outflows come as foreign investors flee India’s markets at the fastest pace ever this year, pulling out more than $23bn as of the end of June over a lack of AI champions.

15. Simon Kuper on Lionel Messi.

On the field, Messi sees everything. All his career, he ignored the ball for the first five minutes and instead walked around, memorising the position of each opponent and the spaces between them. But now he spends almost the entire game walking and scanning. When he breaks into a run, his teammates know he has seen an opening. They play to serve him. When he moved to the right wing against Egypt, seeing space there, the team remade itself around him. Argentina, two goals down after 78 minutes, won 3-2. Scaloni said afterwards: “We were not the ones who told him to go out to the right.” Messi moved right again against England and again Argentina came back to win.

16. The AI-boom is spilling over to energy sector.  

Initial public offerings for energy firms raised $12.6bn in the first half of this year, according to data firm Dealogic. That marks the highest half-year level since the peak of the dotcom bubble in late 1999 and the highest first-half figure on record. It is well above 2025’s full-year total of $4.3bn. The surge in fundraising comes as access to the vast amounts of energy needed to run data centres emerges as a bottleneck in a multi-trillion-dollar AI investment boom... US electricity demand is projected to increase 39 per cent between 2026 and 2035, according to consultancy ICF, in large part due to ballooning demand from data centres...

Companies that have been able to raise money on public markets include those involved in complex, capital-heavy projects such as nuclear and geothermal power plants, while investors have also been willing to back businesses trying to develop new technologies... “This is a moment in which speculative projects are being funded and underwritten,” said Julien Dumoulin-Smith, a Jefferies research analyst covering power, utilities and clean energy. “They’re not just limited to venture capital or private equity.”... Nearly two-thirds of the energy companies that floated this year and last are now trading below their offer price, according to Dealogic. That compares with less than 40 per cent of IPOs across all sectors that are underwater.

And Wall Street Banks are already AI trades. 

Four of the five big Wall Street banks reported yesterday: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs (Morgan Stanley chimes in today). The numbers were outstanding, as one would expect in a quarter when markets whipped around and big deals were done. In aggregate, equity and debt trading revenue at the four hit $38bn, up more than a third from a year ago and 60 per cent higher than two years ago. Investment banking fees, at $10bn on the quarter, have grown almost as much... It is AI that has markets churning and drives capital-raising. The banks are another example of the false “broadening” of the stock market that has also driven up industrial and utility stocks in the past few years. All these sectors have lived, and could die, with AI.

And their profits are not confined to the US, with even Asia becoming a major source.

Equities trading in Asia is helping power a record-breaking run from Wall Street’s banks, with the region on course to surpass Europe as the industry’s second-largest source of revenue behind the US. In the past 12 months, clients of large investment banks have ploughed into companies in Asia that provide critical infrastructure to the AI semiconductor industry, including South Korean SK Hynix, Taiwan’s TSMC and China’s Cambricon Technologies... In the most recent quarter, the largest investment banks collectively reported an unprecedented $25.7bn in earnings from equities trading and called out Asia as a crucial factor in the growth.

17. Even by the low standards of Trump 2.0, this is surely an outrageous example of private profiteering from public office. 

Donald Trump’s social media company has discussed charging traders and investors as much as $100,000 a month for faster access to the US president’s posts on his Truth Social platform. Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) has quoted the six-figure monthly sum in talks with prospective buyers of the “Truth API” data service, according to people familiar with the matter. Proprietary trading firms and hedge funds pay huge sums for ultrafast data feeds because every millisecond counts when reacting to market-moving news. Trump often makes major announcements on Truth Social that trigger huge fluctuations across global markets... TMTG, which is majority owned by the Trump family, controls Truth Social...

A pitch sheet circulated by TMTG to promote Truth API, seen by the FT, lists 10 “documented market-moving posts” from the president’s Truth Social account. On April 9 2025, for example, the document says Trump’s “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” post “restored” $4tn to the market capitalisation of the S&P 500. Trump’s post in early June that the US would hit Iran “very hard tonight” caused a 6 per cent intraday jump in oil prices, the document says. “When @realDonaldTrump Truths, the world reacts,” the document continues. “No comparable signal exists. No official API has ever been offered. Until now.” Trump has also touted specific stocks, complimenting companies such as Nvidia and Apple and fuelling rallies in their share prices. More recently after the outbreak of the war with Iran, Trump posted on March 23 that there had been “very good and productive conversations with Iran”, sending oil prices falling sharply.

Weekend reading links

1. Indian universities have come to dominate the global rankings for research paper retractions, following complaints of plagiarism, fake peer reviews, and other misdemeanours. According to the Retraction Watch database, India recorded 887 research paper retractions in 2025, form 21% of all retractions (second to China with 41%) despite contributing just 5% of all publications, and occupying six of the world's top 10 universities for retractions. 

2. Stunning statistic about the Algerian demographic dominance of the Les Blues, the French national soccer team.

Only two of France’s 26 players are of non-immigrant ancestry — 22 of them have African roots. Some, such as Mbappé, are deeply connected to their country of origin.

And this dynamic of reverse migration and migrant domination elsewhere.

Of England’s 26 players, eight have Caribbean forebears, 10 African, and 20 who were eligible to represent at least one other country because of their family heritage or birthplace. Belgium has players who trace their lineage to its former colonies — Congo, Burundi and Mali. The Portugal team has those of Cape Verdean, Angolan, and Guinean lineage. Those surplus to their requirements — players of African descent born and raised in Europe — in turn, populate most of the African teams. Ten of the 11 Senegalese players in the starting lineup against France in the opening game were born in France... Six of the players in the US national team are of Afro-Caribbean heritage... There are those from Nigeria, Ghana, and Jamaica. Three are from Hispanic backgrounds — Christian Roldan (Guatemala), Ricardo Pepi (Mexican-American) and Jesús Ferreira (Colombian-American). As many are from Europe, and three others have dual nationalities... For Australia's Socceroos, four players were born in refugee camps. The players represent 15 ethnic backgrounds and include a Malaysian with Sri Lankan roots. Eighteen other players have direct immigrant or refugee heritage. To contextualise, only one Black player (Sam Morris) and another of Caribbean descent (Andrew Symonds) have represented Australia in cricket.

This is a brilliant article by Sandip G about the magnificent quartet in the French team - Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Michael Olise and Desire Doue. 

3. The US military learns from Iran.

The US has, similarly, begun to build its production of drones. It used the Lucas, a one-way attack drone reverse-engineered by start-up SpektreWorks from an Iranian Shahed-136, for the first time in combat in February. The Pentagon is looking to begin mass-producing them, and has requested to triple its spending on drones and related technologies to over $74bn next year.

4. Shenzhen, with 400,000 taxi drivers licensed to provide services in 26 platforms, will permit robotaxis from July 1. The new rules will allow the Shenzhen government to promote the “orderly development” of robotaxi tests, demonstrations and commercial pilots either in select zones or citywide. 

5. Friedrich Merz's landmark pension reforms

Under proposals agreed by a bipartisan commission, a compulsory initial contribution of 0.5 per cent of employees’ pre-tax income, rising to 2 per cent by 2031, will go into a Swedish-style public pension fund managed centrally and invested in capital markets. Contributions are split 50/50 between employees and employers. The statutory minimum retirement age of 67 is set to rise in line with life expectancy; rights to early retirement for people with 45 years of contributions will be restricted.

Such measures have become vital to reduce the deficits of Germany’s unsustainable pay-as-you-go system. Some 16.5mn baby boomers will retire by 2036 with only 12.5mn new workers joining the workforce, according to some estimates. The government spent about a quarter of the total federal budget on plugging gaps in the system in 2024; economists say that could double to 50 per cent in two decades.

Linking the retirement age to life expectancy is projected to mean only a gradual increase — to 67.5 by 2041 and 70 by 2091. But economists say this is the only sound way to stabilise the system without spiralling payroll taxes or huge federal subsidies. Narrowing early retirement rights will address a drain of experienced workers amid acute skills shortages.

6. Important graphic that highlights the extent of renminbi depreciation since the beginning of 2022 and the surge in surplus.

7. China expands export restrictions on dual-use items against Japanese companies in the latest instance of weaponisation of its manufacturing dominance. 

The companies added to the export control list include subsidiaries of Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The restrictions will also apply to several Japanese government research organisations including the National Institute for Defense Studies. Chinese exporters are banned from selling to the entities on the restricted list, and foreign organisations or individuals are also prohibited from selling dual-use items that were built or originated in China. China last expanded the list to 40 companies in February. In parallel with the expanded export control list, China’s commerce ministry on Monday put 20 Japanese companies and organisations on its watchlist, meaning they will get closer scrutiny in any matters relating to potential dual-use technologies. The list includes subsidiaries of Fujitsu, Mitsui E&S, Hitachi, Komatsu and Terra Drone. Beijing’s targeting of Japanese companies is the latest example of China’s weaponisation of trade in recent years. The EU Chamber of Commerce in China in April has found that Beijing has nearly tripled its use of export controls in the past five years. While some instances have been in response to western measures, the researchers noted that Beijing’s controls have also frequently targeted trade chokepoints.

8. GST balance sheet.

Though average GST collections in absolute terms are almost 90 per cent higher than those in the pre-GST period, other parameters tell the real story. The average growth rate in tax collections and the tax-GDP ratio are lower under the GST regime compared to the pre-GST era. Collections were further marred by GST cuts starting September 22, 2025.

9. India's labour market challenge.

With high-skilled IT services under pressure, a financial sector with limited capacity to create low and medium skilled jobs and manufacturing struggling to gain traction, the one area where jobs are being created is low-end services. Delivery riders for Zepto, which has just filed its papers for an IPO, have gone up from 49,278 in 2024 to 2.21 lakh in 2026 — more than a four-fold increase. Zomato and Blinkit have almost doubled to 10 lakh riders in two years. Swiggy now has 6.1 lakh riders, while Uber, at 14 lakh active drivers, outstrips Indian Railways. The gig economy is emerging as an urban employment sink.

10. The Uniqlo-Toray partnership that underpins Fast Retailing's spectacular growth. 

In April 2000, Uniqlo founder Yanai paid a visit to the offices of Toray, a Tokyo-based chemicals and materials conglomerate he had read about in a magazine. It marked the start of a strategic collaboration that provided Uniqlo with arguably its most important advantage over rivals: access to high-tech, specialised fabrics. After testing 10,000 prototypes, Toray invented a material combining four types of synthetic yarn that absorbs moisture from the body and converts it to heat. Uniqlo branded it Heattech, and since 2003 has sold 1.5bn garments made from or containing it. Toray also helped develop the fabrics behind AIRism, used as a breathable base layer, and the Ultra Light Down ranges of packable jackets insulated with bird plumage... control over fibre shape and fineness, dubbed nanodesign, has helped to make highly water-repellent and durable $50 lightweight parkas, creating a far cheaper alternative to specialist outdoor brands such as Patagonia. The two sides are entering a fifth phase of collaboration that aims to combine synthetic fabrics with natural ones, such as introducing cashmere into Heattech products to make them softer. Okawa believes few other retailers have such deep relationships with their key suppliers.

11. Good FT long read about the Jamie Dimon succession struggle at JPMorgan. The things that stand out are the following: 

One, the appointment of someone to the top position in any organisation, public or private, is bound to be opaque and involve considerable discretion. The only disqualification would be the egregiously ineligible. For any others, there will always be ways to spin it as a fair process. This holds with greater effect as the stakes go up. 

Two, in the succession struggle, dominated as they are by a multiplicity of considerations, among those eligible or qualified, it is rare that the most professionally competent will emerge as the successor. 

Three strong leaders will always delay succession, and even when they choose to retire, will seek to retain enough levers to influence the decisions of their successors. Most often, it is about decisions involving the promotion of the interests of those in the organisation closest to them, their pet projects or initiatives, broader organisational strategic shifts, etc.

Weekend reading links

1. German bread facts of the week.

Germany has what may be the most diverse bread culture in the world. The official bread registry overseen by Germany’s national bread institute (yes, really) lists more than 3,000 types. Specialities include pumpernickel, Dreikornbrot (three-grain bread) and Kürbiskernbrot (pumpkin-seed bread). There are specific regional iterations of rolls: Brötchen in the north, Semmeln in the south. In German the word “bread” is partially interchangeable with “meal”—a working lunch is Pausenbrot (break-time bread), dinner is Abendbrot (evening bread). Bavarians, who always do things differently, add Brotzeit (bread time).

2. The number of Indians studying abroad has tripled in five years to 1.8 million in 2025.

3. Visakhapatnam's data centre ambitions are staggering in scale.

Andhra Pradesh has promised Google, Meta, Reliance, Tata Consultancy Services, and half a dozen others a combined 5 GW of data-centre capacity in Vizag alone. That is more than three times everything India has built in 30 years, in a city that had near-zero data-centre infrastructure six months ago... (the government) has committed to 6 GW across Andhra Pradesh in five years, a cable network twice the size of Mumbai’s, and three undersea cable-landing stations—essentially building a digital future on the eastern coast... The state’s own electricity planning documents project Vizag’s peak district demand at 2.2 GW by 2029. Google alone has applied for 2.1 GW from the local distribution company... 

Google is building a 1 GW campus across three sites: Tarluvada, Adavivaram, and the Rambilli-Atchutapuram cluster. Meta and information-and-communications-technology company Sify are reportedly building a 500 MW facility at Paradesipalem, a village 25km from the city. Reliance and alternative asset manager Brookfield’s joint venture has signed a $11 billion MoU for another GW. TCS, Adaniconnex and real-estate developer Anant Raj round out the cluster. Even if the announced 5 GW materialises, Vizag would rank among the largest data-centre clusters in the world. Northern Virginia, the global leader, sits at 6.6 GW. Beijing, London, Tokyo, Singapore—all around 2 GW each. Mumbai, India’s current data-centre capital, has around 600 MW of operational capacity.

The emerging constraint to these ambitions is power supply.

Deloitte has warned that data centres in Andhra Pradesh alone could add 2–3 GW of peak electricity demand by 2030—up to 20% of the state’s entire current peak load—risking grid instability if transmission infrastructure doesn’t keep up... The Andhra government’s Data Centre Policy 4.0 (the “4.0” a chosen suffix for most of the current TDP government’s industrial policies) offers electricity duty waivers for five years and a Re 1 per unit discount on industrial electricity tariffs for 15 years... state has committed over Rs 22,000 crore in incentives to Google alone... Vizag’s data-centre sites are on the eastern coast, far from the state’s renewable-energy generation zones in the south and west. “You would need entirely new, dedicated high-voltage transmission infrastructure. Not an upgrade to existing lines, but new corridors built from scratch,” said a former APIIC official. “In India, this typically takes years to tender and build. And I don’t see them speeding up the process for these mega projects.”

And the solution is to outsource electricity generation or sourcing to the data centre developers themselves. 

In a first for the state, it has granted a private entity, Google, a distribution company licence, allowing it to bypass the standard grid entirely and procure power directly from generators. Reliance is going further still, building its own 6 GW solar project to supply its data-centre operations... when Google contracts directly with generators at premium rates, those generators have less power to sell to the state discom at regulated prices. The discom, which still has the same demand to meet, has to make up the shortfall by either paying more on the open market (which it then recovers through higher tariffs) or simply cutting supply to consumers who have no alternative. If enough large consumers exit the grid, the discom’s revenue base shrinks while its fixed costs stay the same. Eventually, the grid gets more expensive for everyone who remains on it... The data centres planned in Vizag will operate on a hybrid model—hyperscalers will anchor the demand, local operators will build and run the physical infrastructure. Google is the end user. Adaniconnex builds the campus and co-invests in the power infrastructure. Airtel builds the cable-landing station and fibre backhaul.

4. The rise and rise of Chinese cars.

The market share of foreign firms in China has almost halved in five years, to around 30% in 2025. Moreover, in 2023 China passed Japan to become the world’s largest exporter of cars. In 2025 over 8m of its vehicles went abroad, nearly a third more than the year before. In Europe over the past five years, Chinese brands have gone from almost nowhere to nearly 9% of all sales, estimates Schmidt Automotive Research, a consultancy. Incumbents are also under siege in markets from Mexico and Brazil to Indonesia and Malaysia.

5. China promulgates its version of US CFIUS.

In recent weeks the State Council, or China’s cabinet, has issued two menacing decrees. One threatens trade curbs in response to actions that undermine Chinese supply chains (potentially including shifting orders to foreign factories). The other vows countermeasures against firms that apply foreign sanctions against Chinese companies, which in effect criminalises compliance with American law.

6. If the US sanctions individuals, they will be denied access to the services offered by among others, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Apple, Slack, WhatsApp, Zoom, YouTube, Uber, Instagram, UPS, Fedex, Booking.com, and Expedia. FT writes about the scenario of US extending sanctions to services. 

Weaponising services would mark a clear escalation from trade disputes over goods and have huge repercussions for both sides. For decades, Europe’s economic relationship with the US has been defined by deep integration: goods flowing westward across the Atlantic, services coming back the other way. The EU’s surplus for goods in 2023 was €156.6bn; the EU’s deficit for services that same year was €108.6bn. As geopolitical tensions rise, that interdependence is seen by many EU capitals as a weakness that needs to be fortified as fast as possible.

7. A New York Fed study finds that around 90% of the Trump tariffs have been borne by US consumers and companies. 

Further, the complexity of the tariff regimes and its multitude of carve-outs means that the effective rate is lower than the headline tariff.

8. Global economic imbalances are back. Two graphics capture them starkly. The first is how China and the US represent the two sides of the problem. 

Global public sector indebtedness is at historic highs. 

This is a good description of the way out, though it is unlikely to happen on its own. 

As a first-best response, the Centre for Economic Policy Research’s fourth Paris Report recommends fiscal consolidation in the US, boosting household consumption in China and an increase in productive investment — modelled on former Italian premier Mario Draghi’s report — in Europe. These measures would encourage more balanced patterns of global saving and investment.

9. A ten-fold increase in export restrictions since the pandemic.

According to Global Trade Alert, the number of distortive export restrictions and bans has increased dramatically since the pandemic. Before Covid, an average of 22 export restrictions were being introduced a year. Since 2020, that average has shot up to 228.

Weekend reading links

1. The world's food supply chain is deeply enmeshed in fossil fuels from the Gulf.

In 2024, for instance, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar together supplied more than three-quarters of India’s ammonia imports and 30 per cent of Morocco’s. As a result, food production in south Asia and north Africa has become deeply dependent on Gulf nitrogen flows... About 70 per cent of the world’s ammonia is used in fertiliser production, and just under30 per cent of global ammonia exports originate in the Middle East... Roughly half of the world’s global seaborne sulphur passes through the Strait of Hormuz, with most of this produced by the Gulf’s state-owned energy companies — above all Adnoc, QatarEnergy, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Saudi Aramco... Gulf countries account for 35 per cent of global urea trade; Saudi Arabia was the world’s largest urea exporter in 2024, while Oman ranked third. Monoammonium phosphate (MAP) and diammonium phosphate (DAP), two of the principal fertilisers used to supply crops with phosphorus, are also closely tied to Gulf production and export routes. In 2024, countries upstream of Hormuz accounted for 18 per cent of global MAP and DAP trade.

As Leiden University’s Christian Henderson has recently shown, Gulf countries have also become deeply enmeshed in cross-border control of large agribusiness companies throughout the Middle East as a whole. Egypt, the world’s second-largest urea exporter, offers a clear example of what this means for the production of fertiliser. A substantial share of Egypt’s export-oriented nitrogen capacity is controlled by Fertiglobe, a company in which the UAE’s Adnoc now holds a controlling stake and that claims to be the world’s largest seaborne exporter of urea and ammonia, according to its 2024 financial results. Fertiglobe’s Egyptian assets include the Egyptian Fertilizers Company, with an annual capacity of 1.7mn tonnes of urea and 0.9mn tonnes of ammonia, alongside Egypt Basic Industries Corporation, which adds another 0.7mn tonnes of ammonia. For comparison, Misr Fertilizers Production Company (MOPCO), which operates Egypt’s largest nitrogen fertiliser plant, reported 1.7mn tonnes of urea and 1.1mn tonnes of ammonia in 2024. About 44 per cent of MOPCO is owned by Saudi and UAE investment funds.

This level of dependence on the Middle East makes claims of food security ring hollow in countries like India. These countries can exercise chokeholds that can expose countries to deep vulnerabilities in their food security system. It is an area that needs to be kept in mind and diversification strategies should be pursued.

2. European luxury houses are struggling.

So far this year, nine leading European luxury stocks have lost at least a collective €140bn in market capitalisation, a bitter blow for an industry that was riding high during the first half of this decade, when LVMH was the continent’s most valuable company... The luxury sector, which supersized between 2019 and 2023, was already grappling with some hard truths before the conflict began. Middle-class shoppers who previously spent tens of billions of dollars on luxury items pulled back once their Covid-era savings and furlough payments ran out and the cost of living rose. Some 50mn luxury consumers exited the market between 2022 and 2024, according to a report by Bain, most of them aspirational shoppers who felt left behind by skyrocketing prices... the Chinese market, the motor of growth until 2023, has been hit by relatively weak consumption in the pandemic’s aftermath.   

And the problems in the Middle East will worsen matters, given that the UAE is an important market. 

3. India's contract manufacturers command much higher PE valuations than their much bigger global counterparts.

Take Dixon Technologies. Over five years, its revenue has grown nearly fivefold to about Rs 18,000 crore, helped along by the PLI scheme and by assembling for companies like Xiaomi and Google... And yet, for all that scale, the economics remain surprisingly thin. Profit margins hover around 2%. A meaningful chunk of profits comes from government incentives. More tellingly, even at this scale, Dixon still depends on imported components, external designs, and global clients. India may now assemble a significant share of the world’s smartphones, but much of the value still sits outside the factory.

What happens when PLI gets phased out?

4. Sobering statistics about higher education in general and specialised fields like Agriculture. 

A 2020 survey at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University found that less than 12% of students thought of farming as a future career. Nearly 60% of students wanted to be government employees, and more than a quarter of them wanted to get into business and entrepreneurship. Only 3% said they wanted to work for private companies. And it’s not just about the students. Their goals come from practical considerations. Take the case of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. Just a little over 16% of its total 882 students of agriculture got placed in 2023–24. It only gets slightly better in the postgraduate courses, where only 37% out of the 287 students were placed. The story is similar in other universities as well.

What does it tell us about the career prospects in specialised fields like agriculture when nearly 60% of students want to be government employees?

5. Some stock market facts on the Adani Group.

Adani Green is trading at a trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 1,109X, compared to peer Tata Power’s 47X, according to data from market information provider Screener.in. And Adani Total Gas’s trailing P/E multiple is 473X, compared to Indraprastha Gas’ 18X... the shareholding patterns in Adani group companies... several of them shared common foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). And strangely, several of them had negligible investments in non-Adani companies. As a result, the percentage of shares effectively available for trading by the public was just about 5% in Adani Total Gas and 11% in Adani Green. The comparable figure for Indraprastha Gas is 55%, and for Tata Power, 53%... only one FPI owns more than 1% of Adani Green now, compared to 10 in December 2020. But that FPI—Asia Investment Corporation (Mauritius)—is still heavily invested in the Adani Group, with 93% of its holdings in Adani companies... LIC’s stake in multiple Adani Group companies has gone up over the last few quarters.

See also this and this on the conglomerates in the Indian economy.

6. The New Yorker essay raises the question of whether Sam Altman can be trusted.

Altman has a relentless will to power that, even among industrialists who put their names on spaceships, sets him apart. “He’s unconstrained by truth,” the board member told us. “He has two traits that are almost never seen in the same person. The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.” The board member was not the only person who, unprompted, used the word “sociopathic.” One of Altman’s batch mates in the first Y Combinator cohort was Aaron Swartz, a brilliant but troubled coder who died by suicide in 2013 and is now remembered in many tech circles as something of a sage. Not long before his death, Swartz expressed concerns about Altman to several friends. “You need to understand that Sam can never be trusted,” he told one. “He is a sociopath. He would do anything.”

This is a good portrait.

Altman is not a technical savant—according to many in his orbit, he lacks extensive expertise in coding or machine learning. Multiple engineers recalled him misusing or confusing basic technical terms. He built OpenAI, in large part, by harnessing other people’s money and technical talent. This doesn’t make him unique. It makes him a businessman. More remarkable is his ability to convince skittish engineers, investors, and a tech-skeptical public that their priorities, even when mutually exclusive, are also his priorities. When such people have tried to hinder his next move, he has often found the words to neutralize them, at least temporarily; usually, by the time they lose patience with him, he’s got what he needs. “He sets up structures that, on paper, constrain him in the future,” Wainwright, the former OpenAI researcher, said. “But then, when the future comes and it comes time to be constrained, he does away with whatever the structure was.” “He’s unbelievably persuasive. Like, Jedi mind tricks,” a tech executive who has worked with Altman said.

7. Guyana's dramatic oil-led economic transformation.

Guyana, a former British colony on the north-eastern flank of South America with a population of about 800,000, is undergoing rapid change following ExxonMobil’s 2015 discovery of about 11bn barrels of oil, one of the largest finds in decades. Crude production has since risen to more than 900,000 barrels per day, with consultancy Wood Mackenzie projecting that the government’s share of oil profits will total $41bn over the next five years. Between 2019 and 2024, Guyana’s GDP almost quintupled to $25bn.

8. India's trade balance sheet.

The cumulative exports (merchandise and services) during FY26 (April-March) are expected to be $860.09 billion, as compared to $825.26 billion in FY25 (April-March), an estimated growth of 4.22 per cent. A closer look reveals stagnation in merchandise exports over the last four years, with a negative CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 0.42 per cent, while total export figures have been lifted by services exports, which grew at a CAGR of about 8.9 per cent over the same period... in April 2015, the government said that the objective of the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20 was to double India’s share in global merchandise exports in five years. The reality is that since 2014, India’s merchandise exports have grown from $314 billion to $441 billion, a CAGR of 2.9 per cent, and India’s share in global merchandise exports has remained stuck at about 1.8 percent.

9. Ruchir Sharma points to the spectacular boom in South Korean and Taiwanese equity markets led by three semiconductor stocks - TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix.

Over the past year, these two nations accounted for 75 per cent of emerging market returns, and most of those gains came from just three stocks — all big makers of semiconductors... Together their profits are on track to top those of Apple, Amazon and Alphabet combined. Samsung is expected to increase operating profit more than sixfold this year to around $185bn, surpassing every member of the “Mag Seven” American companies other than Nvidia... TSMC is the most widely held stock, owned by 92 per cent of global equity funds. In comparison, Microsoft, the most widely owned US stock, is held by 84 per cent of those funds... Today, by some measures, emerging markets have grown even more concentrated than the US, with the leading five stocks accounting for a greater share of the index. While the top US stock (Nvidia) represents 8 per cent of the US index, the top EM stock (TSMC) accounts for a record 13 per cent of the EM index. In fact, based on MSCI methodology, TSMC now constitutes a larger share of the MSCI EM index than all the stocks in India put together.

10. China could boost consumption by cutting its high payroll taxes.

China levies European-level payroll taxes, creating a large wedge between the cost of employing a worker and their after-tax income — around 38 per cent. These taxes are also highly regressive, applied to income below a ceiling of three times the average wage. Payroll taxes raised 6.5 per cent of GDP in 2024, against just 1.1 per cent for personal income taxes. A dramatic, permanent payroll tax cut would therefore significantly boost consumption. It would put more money in workers’ pockets, especially lower-income workers with the highest propensity to spend. It would raise employment by lowering labour costs. And it would reduce informal labour by giving workers stronger incentives to participate in the social security system.

11. Striking facts about India's gold ownership.

Between 2011 and 2025, India imported approximately 12,670 tonnes of gold at a cumulative cost of roughly $609 billion. At the current spot price of $4,677 per ounce (as of 4 April 2026), that gold is now worth approximately $1.905 trillion. The $1.3 trillion appreciation alone exceeds India’s entire stock of foreign exchange reserves. No other asset class, government scheme, or financial product has generated comparable wealth for Indian households over this period. Data shows there is not a single year between 2011 and 2025 in which holdings have not at least doubled in value... Gold imported in 2015 for $35 billion is now worth $157 billion—a 350% gain... Even the pandemic year of 2020, when India imported just 430 tonnes at $22 billion, has returned $65 billion at today’s prices... Estimates from the World Gold Council suggest Indian households hold between 25,000 and 34,600 tonnes of gold. At today’s prices, that equates to a holding worth between $3.8 trillion and $5.2 trillion—roughly equivalent to India’s entire GDP.

12. Norway's brand equity of democracy and humanitarianism comes up against allegations of being a war profiteer due to rising oil prices, as it adds billions to its $2.2 trillion sovereign wealth fund. 

The country has earned about $140bn more in 2022 and 2023 from petroleum following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine than it did in 2021. Now, Nordea credit investment director Robert Næss has forecast Norway has earned at least an additional $8bn from the conflict in Iran, which shows no immediate signs of ending...

Norway was something of a regional laggard in terms of support to Kyiv in the early days of the Ukraine conflict, behind the Baltic states and on some metrics neighbouring Sweden and Denmark relative to the sizes of their economies. It has since somewhat caught up but its support as a percentage of GDP is still behind Estonia and Lithuania, according to the Kiel Institut’s Ukraine Support Tracker.

13. AI bests humans in table tennis.

An AI-powered robot has beaten expert table tennis players in a landmark machine-over-human triumph in a major competitive sport. The mechanical maestro, known as Ace, uses a network of cameras and AI to achieve the rapid planning and reaction times needed to compete. The invention made by Japanese tech group Sony highlights how researchers are using AI to improve robots’ ability to adapt to physical tasks they have struggled with, particularly those involving people... Ace beat three out of five elite table tennis players who had more than ten years of training, and scored 48 points versus 70 in two defeats to professionals, according to a paper published in Nature on Wednesday. The robot had improved further, Sony said: since the paper’s submission, it had played four further matches against humans, beating two elite players and winning one out of two matches against professionals. The robot handled spin and unexpected changes in trajectory caused by the ball clipping the net on its way over, the researchers said. It outscored the elite players in aces — points won directly from serve — by 16 to eight.

14. EVs make up half of car sales in China. Of the 27.8 m cars sold in China in 2025, 13.9 m were EVs accounted for 13.9 m, a steep increases from just 1.3 m five years back.

The government aims to have 28mn public charging facilities installed by the end of next year, up from 21mn at the beginning of this year. This would be enough to power about 80mn EVs (there are already more than 50mn on China’s roads). The plan targets underserved areas such as rural communities, as well as expressway service stations and public parking lots. State media estimated the three-year investment period would drive about $28bn in spending on equipment and construction. Chinese companies are also pouring billions of dollars into research aimed at improving EV range and charging speed. CATL, the world’s biggest battery maker, on Tuesday unveiled cells that power a car for 1,500km on a single charge. As battery technology and access to charging infrastructure improves, analysts expect consumers in lower-tier cities — who number in the hundreds of millions — will favour EVs.

15. India rural-urban income facts of the week.

According to the Institute for Competitiveness’ 2025 report on Income Inequality and Labour Markets in India, in 2023-24, the top 10 per cent urban income threshold of ₹44,000 was more than double the rural equivalent of ₹21,500. The top 1 per cent urban threshold of ₹90,000 was 80 per cent higher than its rural counterpart, up from 68 per cent in 2017-18. At the bottom, the urban floor of ₹6,000 was double the rural equivalent of ₹3,000, a figure that has remained flat in nominal terms over seven years.

16. Some striking graphics from a16z. The combined market cap for the 10 largest companies in the S&P is about six times larger than it was in 2015. 

Since 2023, Tech has been responsible for more than 60% of earnings growth.

While tech is big today, it’s still not nearly as big (relatively) as Transport (or Real Estate and Finance) ever were at their peaks in the 19th Century.

Finally, about 70% of today's market is in industries that were tiny or non-existent in 1900. While in 1900, the economy was basically textiles, iron, coal, steel, and tobacco, the rails to transport them, and the banks to finance them, today those sectors are a tiny fraction of the overall pie.

Weekend reading links

 1. Net FDI from India has been negative for several months now.

2. WSJ graphics on US health care system. Cost of inpatient procedures are much higher than elsewhere.

Cost of pharmaceuticals too are much higher.

3. The rise and rise of iPhone manufacturing in India. 

The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India in 2025, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly.

4. For those advocating currency depreciation as the response to a sharp increase in oil prices, Sachidanand Shukla has a cautionary note pointing to the importance of stability and credibility of the rupee.  

The allure of a depreciating exchange rate lies in its simplicity: It makes ones’ goods cheaper for foreigners. However, this is often a Faustian bargain. For many emerging and developed markets alike, the reality of a currency in freefall is not a boom in exports, but often a harsh blow to purchasing power and investor confidence. Imagine yourself in the shoes of a big global financial investor. How confident will you be in investing a billion dollars if you lose 9-10 per cent in a year due to depreciation?

On a related note, as the RBI deploys an expansive toolkit to stabilise the rupee, Rajeswari Sengupta writes that RBI has engaged strongly in the forex markets, selling over $30 bn in the spot markets in March. Its other actions were intriguing. 

It imposed regulatory restrictions —barring banks from taking positions in the offshore non-deliverable forward (NDF) market and capping their daily onshore FX exposure to $100 million each... The RBI did not merely restrict new positions; it required banks to unwind existing ones, reportedly at a cost of ₹4,000–5,000 crore. In effect, banks were penalised for actions that were fully legitimate at the time. Such retrospective costs risk undermining confidence and making banks more cautious in FX markets. Lower participation could reduce liquidity. And when liquidity dries up, currencies tend to become more volatile, not less.

5. The human cost of Israel's bombings of Lebanon.

On the day the cease-fire came into shaky effect — and most civilians across the region began to breathe a sigh of relief — Israel proceeded to launch one of the deadliest strikes on Lebanon ever, including in the heart of densely populated Beirut, without any warning. The operation, which the Israel Defense Forces sayattacked Hezbollah command centers, hit 100 targets in 10 minutes, killed over 350 people and wounded well over 1,000, many of them civilians... over the past six weeks, Israeli strikes in Lebanon continue, and have forced more than a million people from their homes and have left over 2,000 people dead and multiple villages in ruins.

6. The rise of China's export control measures.

China announced restrictions on exports 30 times between 2021 and 2025, the report by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China found, up from just 11 in the previous five years. Since 2020, Beijing had turned to “geoeconomic” controls — measures aimed at achieving geopolitical goals, it said. These include 10 that made use of global chokepoints in supply chains, such as China’s rare-earths exports, and 10 others aimed at coercing other countries using economic measures.

China has also announced sweeping new regulations to punish foreign companies that are trying to decouple their supply chains from China by increasing reliance on non-Chinese suppliers. These measures are part of the government's efforts to counter rising protectionism and decoupling from China. 

The 18-point regulations, described in state media as an effort to “prevent security risks in industrial and supply chains,” supplement the already formidable authority afforded to Chinese regulators to investigate multinational corporations for moving supply chains out of China. Under the new rules, regulators can question employees and examine corporate records during investigations. The regulations also allow authorities to bar companies and individuals from leaving China if they are suspected of moving supply chains elsewhere under foreign pressure... The State Council, China’s cabinet, justified the measures as necessary to protect the country’s economic stability and national security — a rationale it has previously used to expand its ability to pressure companies. China has also adopted sweeping state secrets laws to prevent information from leaving the country.

7. Iran has been adapting to US sanctions.

During the pandemic, Beijing vowed to invest $400 billion in the country in the coming decades in exchange for a steady supply of oil. In 2024, it purchased 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports, according to the International Energy Agency. China also accounted for roughly a quarter of Iran’s non-oil exports from 2019 to 2024, according to data compiled by Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, purchasing billions of dollars of Iranian chemicals and metals.

Payments are made in renminbi, China’s currency, avoiding the use of dollars and the need to involve American banks, which are often the primary entities used to help enforce sanctions violations. China, in return, appears to provide nearly 30 percent of the commodities that Iran imports, selling everything from furniture to sunflower seeds. There is another crucial layer of trade between the nations not recorded in official statistics. Both countries have engaged in a complicated barter system that involves secret financing channels. Iran ships oil to China and in return, Chinese state-backed construction companies have built airports and other infrastructure.

8. The new fragile European countries - Britain, Italy, and France (or Bifs).

9. The remarkable resilience of the European Union.

Europeans still trust the EU over their national political systems, and the margin is wider than it has been since the noughties. (More on this later.) Support for the euro, which was as low as 51 per cent in 2013, has grown to a record high of 74 per cent in the EU, and 82 per cent in the Eurozone. To repeat, that is a near-consensus in favour of the single currency at a time of economic malaise in much of the continent. As for the country-by-country findings, 21 per cent of Austrians think membership is a bad thing. That makes them the most Euro-sceptical people in the union.

10. India reached peak college education premium in 2011?

11. Jason Bordoff makes the important point that, unlike earlier, the risk of oil shocks is a less restraining factor on US supplies.

In 2012, the US was far less equipped to absorb even a small disruption. US crude production averaged just 5mn barrels a day in 2009; last year it approached 14mn. Two decades ago, the US imported about 60 per cent of its oil consumption. Today it is a net exporter and the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

12. The data centre construction boom in the US is being held back by construction and other delays, with almost 40% of those due this year at risk of falling behind schedule. 

13. Finally, excellent description of the regressive nature of income taxation especially for the richest Americans.

In 2021, ProPublica published an investigation built on a bunch of leaked tax documents revealing what the richest Americans really pay — or don’t. Warren Buffett had a true tax rate of 0.1 percent; Jeff Bezos had 0.98 percent; Michael Bloomberg had 1.3 percent... Let’s focus on Jeff Bezos because he’s much more of a classic case. Jeff Bezos started his own business. He owns a dominant amount of the stock. And over the course of the years, he has taken a salary that is no higher than $82,000. It’s been more than 20 years now, and his salary is always capped at $82,000.

You might say: Well, why would it be? He started the company — he’s the man. Why isn’t he taking a huge salary to reflect all that he put into the company? The reason is: Salaries are for suckers. When people take a salary, they’re subject to high income taxes and payroll taxes, and Jeff Bezos and a lot of our other multibillionaires have no interest in paying those taxes.

So instead, they take their benefits through the growing value of their stock — and their stock has grown enormously. And that massive growth of stock happens entirely tax free — with no time frame under our current system in which that stock will ever be subject to tax. That is because we only impose a tax if the stock is sold, and Bezos never has to sell the stock because he can simply borrow against the stock and use that money to support his lifestyle and to pay any interest that’s due on the loan... you’re just taking out one loan after another, sometimes paying one loan back with another, and you’re just doing this again and again.

The interview also makes a reference to Andrew Mellon's views on capital gains (or investment returns) taxation.

The fairness of taxing more lightly incomes from wages, salaries and professional services than the incomes from business or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it, and old age diminishes it. In the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man’s life, and it descends to his heirs.