Noah Smith
· Noahpinion
· June 08, 2026 at 07:42
· ⏱ 19 min read
| Read on Substack ↗
Summary
The newsletter dismisses Thomas Piketty's degrowth/climate plan as unworkable and based on outdated science, while highlighting limits of AI-generated output (declining app usage) and a warning from Sam Altman about AI spending pullback. It also argues Western militaries are falling behind on drone warfare due to Trump's anti-Ukraine stance, and that tariffs on China are inadvertently boosting manufacturing in poorer countries. No direct trade recommendations are made; the piece serves as a skeptical review of current narratives across climate, AI, defense, and trade policy.
•Piketty's climate proposal uses the outdated RCP8.5 scenario, rejected by most climate scientists, and calls for degrowth via central planning.
•The number of apps with significant usage is declining even as AI enables a flood of new apps, per FT data from Demirer et al. (2026).
•Sam Altman warned of a significant pullback on AI spending for the first time since generative AI emerged.
•Lowy Institute reports Western militaries are failing to learn drone warfare lessons from Ukraine and the Iran conflict.
•Trump administration's hostility toward Ukraine delayed a major drone deal, hindering U.S. military drone development.
•Tariffs on China are driving Chinese factories to move abroad; e.g., Chinese investment in Mexico created 100,000+ jobs (2020-2023).
•India's GDP growth from 2011-2023 may be overstated by 1.5-2 percentage points due to methodology issues (Anand et al. 2026).
•Economist George Borjas' research on immigration repeatedly contains data errors; a subsequent paper on ideological bias was invalidated by a coding error.