YouTube

Watch First

The single most worth-watching video this period is The Wall Street Journal’s Why the World’s Largest Megaproject Collapsed | WSJ, an incredibly sharp investigative autopsy exposing how Saudi Arabia’s Neom megacity dream devolved into an astronomical $8.8 trillion “dance of mutual delusion” before grinding to a sudden halt. It is a stunning, cautionary tale of unchecked power colliding head-on with cold, hard financial reality.

Highlights by Theme

News & Business

Valerie Ramey at the Hoover Institution delivers a masterclass in empirical economics in Do Stimulus Checks Actually Stimulate the Economy?, utilizing historical data to show how temporary payouts fail to boost aggregate consumption and instead leave massive debt trails. On the corporate strategy front, CNBC explains How Car Dealerships Hedge Against Downturns by leaning heavily on highly lucrative, 50%-margin parts and service departments to remain profitable even when auto sales crater. For soccer fans and finance geeks alike, CNBC International tracks the post-pandemic corporate marriage of convenience in Inside Crypto’s Multiyear Rush Into Soccer, while the Financial Times highlights growing fiscal strains and interventionism under Indonesia’s new leadership in Why are investors shunning Indonesia? | FT #shorts.

Learning & Ideas

In The Shroud of Turn: The Mystery Science Can’t Explain, the Hoover Institution explores the baffling chemistry of the Shroud of Turin, detailing why top scientists still lack a plausible hypothesis for how this directionless, highly detailed photographic negative was created. For history and culture enthusiasts, the Chinese-language channel LIFEANO CLUB offers a brilliant deep dive in 袁Sir聊休达：非洲版的“大逃港”？, tracing how the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa became a dramatic bottleneck for modern migration and the historic launching pad for Europe’s Age of Discovery. Additionally, GQ Taiwan reveals that the ancient Egyptians were essentially learning on the job in 金字塔是一邊摸索一邊蓋的？, showing that Saqqara’s Step Pyramid was built with tilted stones as a trial-and-error precursor to Khufu’s masterpiece.

Tech & AI

On Bloomberg Originals, What’s Beyond ChatGPT? The ‘Godmother of AI’ Has a Plan | The Circuit interviews Fei-Fei Li, who is bypassing traditional chatbots to build “world models” and spatial intelligence at her startup, World Labs. Meanwhile, the Chinese-language podcast Zhang Xiaojun Podcast features a highly inspiring conversation in 151. 17岁被2026年ICML收录论文的小少年：我bet开心！开心！开心！, where self-taught 17-year-old high schooler Su Tinghao shares his journey to publishing an Attention mechanism paper at ICML and his refreshing philosophy on prioritizing human happiness over AGI anxiety.

Everything Else

For pure entertainment, GQ Taiwan hosts a retired FBI agent in 史上接近完美犯罪的一億美元搶案！, who explains why stolen masterpieces are practically worthless liabilities in today’s hyper-surveilled, digital fingerprint world. CNBC Make It takes us inside an industrial park in I Hid A Speakeasy In A Gas Station, profiling a business owner pulling in $5 million a year with a secret, antique-filled cocktail bar hidden behind a convenience store cooler door. Lastly, GQ Taiwan serves up lighthearted trivia and banter in 蜘蛛人和Zendaya錄影現場鬥！嘴祝大家情人節順利破關, with Tom Holland and Zendaya playfully arguing about gaming and Marvel projects.

🎨 Since the economic debates between Ramey’s debt research and the case for capitalism are quite complex, would you like me to create a comparison chart mapping out these different economic schools of thought?