Barron’s (March 26)
“The war in Iran and consequent blockage of the Strait of Hormuz offer a stark reminder of a different geopolitical risk, one lurking in tech-heavy global portfolios that are betting on artificial intelligence: Taiwan.” 75% of global foundry revenue originates in the island nation. “Investors often put Taiwan in the ‘too big to fail’ bucket, meaning China wouldn’t dare attack anytime soon because of the cascading ramifications…. But the far-reaching ripples from Iran’s attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, itself once thought to be in the unlikely bucket, is a reminder of the risks to global chokeholds and the potential spillover from geopolitical conflict.”
Tags: AI, Attack, Cascading, China, Foundry, Geopolitical risk, Global chokeholds, Hormuz, Investors, Iran, Ramifications, Revenue, Spillover, Taiwan, War
Wired (August 30)
“A major driver of Antarctica’s cascading crises is the loss of floating sea ice, which forms during winter.” Since 2014, “the coverage of sea ice has fallen not just precipitously, but almost unbelievably, contracting by 75 miles closer to the coast.” Over the past decade, winter sea ice “has declined 4.4 times faster around Antarctica than it has in the Arctic…. Put another way: The loss of winter sea ice in Antarctica over just the past decade is similar to what the Arctic has lost over the last 46 years.”
Tags: 2014, 46 years, 75 miles, Antarctica, Arctic, Cascading, Coast, Contracting, Coverage, Crises, Decade, Driver, Loss, Precipitously, Sea ice, Winter
Wall Street Journal (December 26)
“As temperatures plunged this weekend, Americans in much of the country were told to turn down their thermostats and avoid using large appliances to prevent rolling blackouts. The cascading grid stress… was all too predictable to anyone paying attention. The interconnected U.S. grid is supposed to be a source of resilience, but the government’s force-fed green energy transition is creating systemic vulnerabilities.”
Tags: Americans, Cascading, Green energy, Grid stress, Plunged, Predictable, Resilience, Rolling blackouts, Temperatures, Transition, U.S.
Bloomberg (October 13)
“The vital question for many investors has been whether the problems for speculative real estate will cause broader contagion, either through cascading losses in the financial system or through economic weakness.” The former remains unlikely, but “the second — an economic slowdown of which Evergrande is both a cause and a symptom — grows more likely with time.”
Tags: Cascading, Contagion, Economic weakness, Evergrande, Financial system, Investors, Losses, Real estate, Slowdown, Speculative, Vital
The Atlantic (September 11)
Amid “growing concern about the real possibility of war with North Korea,” many have still not realized the danger of “an even darker specter. Could events now cascading on the Korean Peninsula drag the U.S. and China into a great-power war?”
Tags: Cascading, China, Concern, Danger, Korean Peninsula, North Korea, U.S. War
