The unexpectedly rapid release of more than $100 billion in tariff refunds is likely amplifying an already sharp increase in U.S. imports, contributing to a much wider trade deficit reported today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the international trade deficit jumped 42.2% to $77.6 billion […]
Category Archives: Finance
“The Waterfall House”: Passive Solar-Driven Heat Rejection Using Phase-Change Energy Transfer
DIY Cooling via Evaporative Roof Water Preface — Business and Environmental Ethics This is a “secret” invention Sidd and I developed some time ago. I call it secret not because it is proprietary in the usual sense, but because we tend to apply a fairly strict internal filter before releasing anything into the wild. Whenever […]
PJM Electricity 900% Price Spike: Capacity Market Shock and Heat-Driven Grid Stress
The current heatwave across the PJM region is unfolding within the broader context of ongoing global warming, where rising average temperatures are increasing both the frequency and severity of extreme heat events. As the climate warms, baseline temperatures shift upward, making extreme heat more likely and more persistent. This results in higher daytime temperatures, reduced […]
Labor Force Participation Declines Mask Modest Job Growth in Latest BLS Report
Labor Exit Distorts Picture of Employment Gains The U.S. labor force participation rate now stands at 61.5%, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) June 2026 report. This metric measures the share of the civilian population aged 16 and older that is either employed or actively seeking work, and it declined from 61.8% […]
Robinhood Earn (7% APY): How It Works and the Key Risks Investors Should Understand
How It Works Robinhood Earn is a decentralized crypto lending product offering eligible U.S. users a reported 7% APY by lending out dollar-backed stablecoins, specifically USDG, through a self-custody wallet. The underlying lending infrastructure is powered by the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Morpho, and the product is marketed with additional protections including cyberattack and smart-contract […]
New Data Center Designs and the Evolving Environmental Footprint of AI Infrastructure
by Daniel Brouse New data center designs are dramatically reducing—or in some cases eliminating—direct freshwater consumption by replacing traditional, water-intensive cooling towers with advanced thermal management technologies. Major technology companies and hardware manufacturers are rapidly deploying infrastructure designed to minimize strain on local water supplies while supporting rapidly growing computational demand. One of the most […]
Climate Responsibility and Accountability
Addendum to: Solutions to the Fossil Fuel Economy and the Myths Accelerating Climate and Economic Collapse http://membrane.com/global_warming/Basic-Economics.html Climate Responsibility and Accountability Introduction The original purpose of Solutions to the Fossil Fuel Economy and the Myths Accelerating Climate and Economic Collapse was to focus on practical solutions rather than assigning blame. Since its publication, however, many […]
The Evolution of Climate Change: From Linear Warming to Nonlinear Earth-System Acceleration
By Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee During the 1980s, I worked primarily as an economist specializing in risk management. By the early 1990s, however, it had become clear that the greatest systemic risk facing civilization was not financial—it was climate change. Working with physicist Sidd Mukherjee, we began developing what we called the Nonlinear Acceleration […]
The Full Economic Burden of Climate Change in the United States
Beyond Point Estimates: An Ensemble-Based Probabilistic Framework for Estimating the Full Economic Burden of Climate Change in the United States Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee Abstract Traditional estimates of climate damages generally report single-value estimates or narrow ranges that fail to capture the cascading uncertainty inherent in coupled human-natural systems. Climate change is not a […]
Addendum: Distinguishing the Benefits of Energy from the Costs of Fossil Fuel Combustion
A common criticism of climate damage accounting is that it focuses on the costs of fossil fuels without acknowledging the benefits they have provided to modern civilization. This criticism conflates two distinct concepts: the benefits of energy and the benefits of burning fossil fuels. This paper does not argue that reliable energy, transportation, heating, cooling, […]