Doug Brignole's Iron Man Archive

Business Financial Distress Nears COVID Levels As Sole Trader Numbers Rise Authored by Rex Widerstrom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The volume of businesses struggling to pay their debts in Australia is on track to exceed the heights set during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to two reports on the nation’s economic health. Australian dollar coins and banknotes in Melbourne, Australia on April 4, 2024. AAP Image/Joel Carrett Up to 13 percent of working-age Australians and 47 percent of secondary school students want to work for themselves or start a business, but that’s...

We now live in a fundamentally altered landscape where old certainties no longer confer fitness.

Three Key Constraints That Could Derail The Data Center Buildout Story The data center investment macro story centers on hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon Web Services, whose massive cloud computing services are becoming the backbone for AI workloads, including ChatGPT and others. However, as we've previously noted, the data center buildout has run into supply-chain snarls, including memory chip shortages, power-grid constraints, and even a shortage of turbine blades for natural-gas generators. The data center boom powering the AI revolution is certaintly impressive to watch unfold, but it...