Hey, yeah this one's mine. Quick version if you don't wanna click:

• 400+ people shopped the same Instacart cart at the same time and almost 3 in 4 items had more than one price (Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative, More Perfect Union). Instacart says it was random and stopped the tests
• pricing companies literally sell "willingness to pay" tools to retailers and airlines
• New York now makes companies label it, and the retail industry sued to stop the label

Honest question for this sub: is this just old school price discrimination with better data, or is it a different thing when it's YOUR data? 🤔

Sources if you want them: https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490/ · https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indicates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer

I keep hearing people say the economy will eventually cycle around. Prices are bad now but at a certain point things will go down. They point to historical examples of ups and downs. "The economy always goes up and down.."

But what if it doesn't come back up?

What if the wealthy account for enough spending that businesses literally don't need to make their products affordable for the "working class" anymore?

I feel like people act like life is a coloring book. And we just need to stay inside the lines and everything will be okay. But I fear that's not the case I fear we are in uncharted territory with our technology and the reach and power that the ultra wealthy have. I don't know how applicable past examples of ups and downs are to the modern day economy. I'm hoping someone can enlighten me. Do old examples of economic ups and downs still apply in 2026?

Recent foreign investment tracking highlights a significant uptick in Chinese greenfield commitments across Eurasian transit infrastructure—totaling roughly $1.6 billion in new builds and logistical hubs.

Given the ongoing shifts in EU-China trade relations and supply chain diversification, how does this growing Eurasian footprint impact European freight corridors and peripheral trade security? Is the EU positioned to offer competitive infrastructure alternatives in the region, or are Eurasian routes increasingly leaning east?

Data breakdown and primary source links referenced viaTradeTrend Analysis.

Any responses are appreciated.

Financial Times:

Anthropic’s founders said AI could “raise productivity across every sector of the economy”. But they also warned its models “have become better able to circumvent” systems designed to make sure they act as intended, and have been found to “manipulate or subvert” monitoring...

... Anthropic said it would issue five different classes of shares, including Class T shares that would give its Long-Term Benefit Trust the right to appoint the majority of its board and Class F stock that would hand its seven founders 50.1 per cent of the voting power.

My Opinion: Anthropic is a risky bet for long term investors. With the public turning against AI and data centers, while business and consumer demand for AI services is growing.

As with many of the tech companies, they are not democratic. Because the control of the company will remain with the founders, and not the other shareholders. So they will be insulated from the demands of the public, to a certain degree. But they will still have to work on the narrative of how AI and data centers benefits the economy and society.

Reference: Anthropic begins countdown to IPO with prospectus filing / Financial Times