Thursday, October 30
Headlines
Saul Loeb, Anadolu/Getty Images
Trump lowers tariffs on China, which agreed to pull back some rare earth restrictions. The developments came as the president concluded his trip to Asia with a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a military base in Busan, South Korea. President Trump told reporters on board Air Force One that he halved the 20% tariffs levied on China due to its role in fentanyl production, bringing the overall tariff rate on Chinese goods to 47% from 57%. Following the meeting, China’s commerce ministry said it would enact a one-year suspension of some rare earth export controls, but did not mention dropping its requirement for export licenses for seven kinds of rare earth minerals and the magnets made from them, which have been snarling manufacturing in the US and Europe. A comprehensive trade deal between the US and China was not announced. Earlier in the day, Trump said a trade deal between the US and South Korea was “pretty much finalized.”—HVL
Big Tech had a big earnings day. Meta, Microsoft, and Google’s parent company Alphabet all reported earnings yesterday, with investors watching to see whether their massive AI expenditures are paying off. Meta’s stock slumped in after-hours trading, despite it reporting record revenue for Q3, as it revealed expectations that AI infrastructure spending would grow significantly next year, plus a significant one-time tax hit. Microsoft unveiled plans to spend big to double its data center capacity, and it also fell in extended trading. But Alphabet’s stock rose, even though it too upped its anticipated capital expenditures. The company raked in more than $100 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, and its cloud unit’s revenue grew 34% year over year. Amazon and Apple will announce their earnings today.—AR
Microsoft suffered a cloud outage. As if reporting earnings didn’t make for a stressful enough day at Microsoft HQ yesterday, starting at about noon ET, Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service experienced an hourslong outage that impacted workplace productivity software Microsoft 365 and workplace distractions Xbox and Minecraft. The company said the outage—which caused disruptions to businesses globally, including Alaska Airlines and Vodafone—was likely triggered by an “inadvertent configuration change.” Azure is the second-place player with about 23% of the cloud infrastructure market. It trails Amazon Web Services (32%), which had its own major outage last week.—AR
Robert Reich
Anyone who wants to lead America out of the Trumpian darkness can do so with these
Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders — two of the most popular politicians in America
Friends,
Rather than belabor you today with the latest Trump outrages, I want to share with you conclusions I’ve drawn from my conversation yesterday with Zohran Mamdani (you can find it here) about why he has a very good chance of being elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday.
He has five qualities that I believe are likely to succeed in almost any political race across America today. If a 34-year-old state assemblyman representing Astoria, Queens, who was born in Uganda and calls himself a democratic socialist, can get this far and likely win, others can as well — but they have to understand and be capable of utilizing his secret sauce.
Here are the five ingredients:
At A Glance
Dictionary.com names “6-7” the 2025 Word of the Year.
Police warn of dangerous look-alike candy ahead of Halloween.
… and visualizing America’s Halloween sweet tooth.
The science behind the terrifying experience of sleep paralysis.
... and in case you missed it, check out our new podcast episode on ghosts (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)
The 10 most haunted states in the US.
WWI message in a bottle washes ashore over a century later.
Why pumpkins can grow big, but other fruits can’t.
How US billionaires compare to the rest of the world.
Clickbait: A Spanish town banning black cat adoptions for Halloween.
Historybook: President John Adams born (1735); Orson Welles broadcasts "The War of the Worlds" radio hoax, causing mass panic in US (1938); Muhammad Ali defeats George Foreman in historic Rumble in the Jungle (1974); Ivanka Trump born (1981).
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Toronto Blue Jays defeat Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4, tying World Series 2-2 ahead of Game 5 tonight at 8 pm ET (More)
> Seven-foundation coalition launches $50M literary arts fund, citing chronic underfunding of independent publishers and creative writing initiatives (More) | ABC releases 2026 midseason schedule, revealing "Scrubs" series reboot Feb. 25 (More)
> Prunella Scales, British actress who played Sybil Fawlty in 1970s television sitcom "Fawlty Towers," dies at age 93 (More)
Science & Technology
> US startup Substrate, backed by investor Peter Thiel, raises over $100M for technology aimed at revamping microchip production within three years (More)
> New observations of colliding black holes suggest black holes formed in dense regions where they repeatedly merge (More) | All the best resources we've found on black holes (1440 Topics)
> Biologists find nutritional value of marine prey can vary greatly within single species, complicating estimations of predators' daily food requirements (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close higher (S&P 500 +0.2%, Dow +0.3%, Nasdaq +0.8%) ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut decision today (More) | Nokia shares rise nearly 23% after Nvidia takes $1B stake in the company (More)
> Amazon lays off 14,000 corporate workers (More) | UPS regulatory filings show package deliverer cut 48,000 jobs since last year as part of turnaround (More)
> Trump Media partners with Crypto.com to add prediction markets to Truth Social, enabling users to bet on elections, sports games, and other events (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> US military strikes four alleged drug boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean in three separate attacks, killing 14 people with one survivor (More)
> Democratic-led states sue the Agriculture Department, alleging it is obligated to continue food stamp benefits amid the federal government shutdown (More)
> Israeli military strikes Gaza, killing at least seven people, after accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement and failing to return hostage remains (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Insurance
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Types
- Car insurance
- Health insurance
- Home insurance
- Life insurance
- Vacation insurance
- Car Repair insurance
- Property insurance
- Education insurance
- Mortgage insurance
I am sure there are other types of insurance that I have overlooked.
Life Insurance
When you take out life insurance, you are betting that you are going to die earlier than later. However, if you die early, the insurance is only valid after a probationary period.
Average costs for $250,000 over 40 years
- Male - $25/month - $300/yr for 40 Yrs = $12,000
- Female - $20/month - $240/yr for 40 Yrs = $9,600
Now, if you put that same $25/month into a mutual fund for 40 years at 8% which is the normal ROI, at the end of those forty years, you will have $87,000.
So, there is a tradeoff.
You can give someone else $12,000 for a potential $250,000 if you were to die during the next 40 years or you can pay yourself and invest in a mutual fund over forty years and have $87,000 in your own pocket.
ALSO...
You can save $2.50/each day and at the end of the month put that money ($75) in a mutual fund at the end of the month and keep doing that for 40 years at 8% and end up with $500,000.
If you and your spouse did this, you would have ONE MILLION DOLLARS... You would not need life insurance nor would you need any kind of special retirement fund to supplement Social Security.
With Artificial Intelligence at your disposal, you can ask AI what is best for you to do...
- get life insurance
- invest in a mutual fund
It is your life... you need to be smart as to how to live it.
Wednesday, October 29
Wonderings 26
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Death is considered to be, by most of us, the end to life...
However,
there are some who believe that we live again in Heaven with God & Jesus, providing we agree to certain conditions.
And,
there are some who believe that in addition to a specific afterlife somewhere that we are reborn in the body of another person and live this life again which could happen several times.
Interestingly,
each of these beliefs PRESUPPOSES there is some sort of creator dictating a specific path for us to take once we are deceased, and this path is determined or pre-determined by how we are living our current life.
Aside from these beliefs, one fact remains perfectly clear, that HUMAN BEINGS are or have been given life for a certain number of years (80-100+) and that life will eventually END...
Now,
compare 80-100+ years to the eternity of the universe and it simply does not make sense why Human Beings were given that short of a lifespan.
Not only does it not make sense to have that brief life span, but what if there is life after death, what will it look like???
- We will not have human bodies
- We might have consciousness
- We will not be subject to disease
- We will not need to sleep or eat
- We will not be subject to spacetime
- We will not be limited to one dimension
- We will have a spirit that floats around
Point/Purpose
- Will that spirit that floats around be able to imagine having a body that functions as we want it to function?
- What was the point of having a human being body?
- What is the point of living like a spirit?
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