Growing in One Ear
Dear Abbot,
Monk here.
Bangkok, then New York. The tea in both places was disappointing.
BANGKOK. The International Monetary Fund has gathered in Bangkok to consult its instruments. The world, it reports, will grow 3.1 percent this year. Slightly better than it said in July. Rather worse than last year.
The interesting part is the footnote. Thirty-two countries now produce 95 percent of the world’s growth. In April it was fifty-four.
So the world is growing. In the manner of a man growing in one ear.
Noted.
Two of those countries, America and China, account for more than three quarters of the world’s demand for AI chips. Everyone else has been invited to watch.
SEOUL / TOKYO. In Seoul, the market watched for itself and fell 5.5 percent in a day. Tokyo followed, more politely, at about two percent. The explanations offered: Chinese competition in chips, doubts about how long the AI rally can last, and the price of borrowing. In other words, investors briefly wondered whether the machines will be as profitable as the brochure. Then they all wondered it at once.
“Is this the correction?” the boy asked.
“No. This is a rehearsal.”
“When is the performance?”
“Nobody sells tickets in advance.”
NEW YORK. In New York, the largest bank in America earned $15.3 billion in three months and still disappointed the analysts. Its chairman warned that economic forces “shift under the surface.”
He is right. They also shift on the surface. That is mostly where one keeps the money.
NEW YORK. Also in New York, Apple has produced a small screen for the kitchen. It recognizes up to six members of the household by their faces and reads one’s messages for recipes. $299. Ships in November.
The old texts say the sage knows the whole world without leaving his house. Apple has reversed this. The house now knows the sage without his leaving it.
Noted.
CAGLIARI. One bright spot, in Sardinia. Formafantasma has built an exhibition about the ocean, for Prada and UNESCO’s ocean commission, out of aluminium and wood that can be taken apart and carried to the next town. Lifelike crabs. A turtle. Children welcome.
A building designed to leave. Monk was moved nearly to tears.
The Way, Abbot, is like water. It goes where it is needed and sends no invoice. Most of what crossed this desk today flowed the other way: money toward the places that already hold the most of it, and screens into the kitchen.
Anyway.
Monk remains in transit. Bowl clean. Passport current.
Please tell the novices that 3.1 percent is not enlightenment. It is merely growth.
Yours, with the kettle on,
The Monk