Michael Gapen is the Managing Director and Chief U.S. Economist at Morgan Stanley. Theresa Payton is the CEO of Fortalice Solutions and former White House Chief Information Officer.

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For this week’s post, I’d like to turn our attention to something else — another battlefield in which I actually have some experience: the media industry. Specifically, how it’s changed and where it’s going. Heads up: This isn’t another think-piece about the streaming wars or the death of cable. Those trends are old news. This is about something newer and more structural, a seismic shift that’s transforming the way we consume information at a global scale. Not streaming. Not AI. Clips.

Yes, clips, those one-minute videos you see every day on your social media feed. Some would simply call this “short-form content,” but clips are slightly different. They are specifically snippets of long-form content — things like podcasts, livestreams, and TV shows — a byproduct of something else. In other words, every clip is short-form content, but not all short-form content is a clip.

Why belabor the details? Because they’re important. As we’ll see, this specific format has taken over not just social media, but the entire media ecosystem itself. It’s therefore incumbent on all of us who care about the future of media to understand it.

So let’s dive in. Our journey into the world of clips starts with an unexpected character: OpenAI.

Technology Brothers

Last week we read a striking headline: OpenAI acquires popular tech talk show for ‘low hundreds of millions’. The tech talk show in question was TBPN, a live daily podcast that’s gotten quite popular in Silicon Valley. I was soon told by a friend that the deal was worth $200 million. That’s not confirmed, but for the sake of this post let’s assume it’s correct.

Let me put into context how much money $200 million is. The largest podcast deal in history was a $250 million agreement between Spotify and the world’s most popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, which reportedly rakes in more than ten million listeners per episode. Another one of the most popular podcasts is Call Her Daddy, which inked a deal with SiriusXM for $125 million. This deal is larger than that. It also makes TBPN three times more valuable than Dish TV, and nearly ten times more valuable than BuzzFeed. In sum, the deal is enormous.

That’s why you’ll probably be surprised to hear the following statistic: The average TBPN show receives roughly 7,000 views per episode. For context, my show (Prof G Markets) reaches roughly a quarter of a million people per episode. So why on earth would OpenAI pay $200 million? One word: clips. Despite its relatively small live audience, TBPN reaches hundreds of thousands every day with its clips. The average TBPN clip receives around 257,000 views, thirty-seven times larger than the viewership of the show itself.

This is the part where legacy media says, “Cute, but clips don’t make money.” This is where they’re wrong. Unlike most media organizations, TBPN bakes ads directly into their clips. At the end of each one-minute snippet: “This clip was brought to you by …” Ads in clips are what enabled TBPN to generate $5 million in revenue last year, on track for $30 million in 2026. The podcast isn’t so much a podcast as a vehicle for generating clips. The same could be said of many podcasts, by the way, but the ingenuity of TBPN is that they are the first organization whose business model actually reflected that.

Creators → Clippers

TBPN is the tip of the iceberg. Over the past couple of years, clips have birthed an entire generation of media stars. There’s Nick Fuentes, for example, the new king of the far-right. Or Hasan Piker, the controversial progressive livestreamer. Or Clavicular, the viral looksmaxing star. You might not have heard of these people, but for Gen Z, they’re practically household names. All of them have one thing in common: Their clips go extremely viral.

Despite a modest livestream audience of less than 20,000, Nick Fuentes reaches more than half a million people on average through his clips. One of his most recent clips reached eleven million people. That’s more than the population of New York City. Clavicular’s reach is similar: His actual show averages only 16,000 viewers, but his clips average a quarter of a million. Meanwhile his past ten TikToks reached roughly seventy million, more than the population of France. From TBPN to Clavicular to Hasan Piker, the pattern is roughly the same — the shows are small, but the clips are massive.

The craziest part about these clip numbers is that they’re actually underestimates. That’s because they reflect only the views of clips that are posted directly by the creators themselves, but don’t account for the millions of times those clips are re-clipped by other social media accounts (“fan accounts”), which often draw even larger audiences. (We’ll discuss this more in a moment.)

Soon you realize most of the hot new “shows” you see today aren’t actually about the show — they’re about the clips. I’ve even experienced this with my own show. Whenever a fan recognizes me in public, I ask them if they listen to the podcast, and every now and then I receive a striking answer: “No, but I watch your clips.” The first time I heard this I was confused. I thought our clips were the promotional material for our content. It soon dawned on me that wasn’t the case. For much of our audience, the clips are the content.

This is the crucial point to understand: Clips are no longer the byproduct of the main product — they’re the main product. Once you grasp this you start to realize how the entire media ecosystem is being flipped on its head. We’re entering a new media economy, what I call “the clip economy.”

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The Clip Economy

The clip economy has gotten enormous, but as with any economy, it can be gamed. The man who pioneered this happens to be one of the first clip-stars: Andrew Tate. Tate realized that the best way to win the clip economy isn’t to post clips yourself, but to have other people post them for you. So in 2021, he started an online course (pyramid scheme) called Hustlers University. The stated goal was to help young men “escape the matrix,” but the real goal was to get young men to post his clips.

The business model was simple: Tate instructed his subscribers to clip his livestreams and post them on social media with an affiliate link to his “community,” and with each new subscriber, the clipper received a commission. The result? Clips of Andrew Tate were viewed over 11 billion times on TikTok before he was banned. Despite the ban, however, Tate clips still regularly go viral on the platform. That’s the other great thing about having a clipping army: Even if you get cancelled, your clips live on.

The pay-to-clip model has since gone mainstream. “Clipping agencies” are now popping up all over the internet. In fact, one popular streamer known as “N3on” recently revealed how much he pays his clippers collectively each month. Answer: one million dollars. His clippers are paid on a per-view basis, and the best ones make millions of dollars a year.

But N3on is just one streamer, and not even in the top ten. MrBeast recently launched his own clipping platform — he pays clippers to post clips of his new theme park, Beast Land. Kick, one of the largest streaming platforms, also started a clipping program. It’s even trending in Washington: Last presidential election both Trump and Harris hired employees to clip their content. Clips are already the beating heart of every new media endeavor and we’re just getting started.

The Path Back

It’s no secret that legacy media isn’t doing well. Over the past five years, companies like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Comcast have all lost more than a third of their value. No amount of streaming acquisitions, rebrands, or spinoffs has been able to stop the bleeding.

Their problem is simple: People don’t watch traditional content anymore, they watch clips. Since before the pandemic, time spent watching video content on social media has more than doubled, and in that same period Meta’s revenues have nearly tripled and TikTok’s have grown tenfold.

This really hit home for me the night of the Oscars. I asked my girlfriend (who is a Chalamet fan) if she wanted to watch it, and to my surprise she said no. “Why?” I asked. Her answer was clarifying: “It’s too long and boring. I’ll just wait for the morning and watch the clips.”

There’s only one path back for legacy media: They have to win the clip economy. The bad news is it’ll feel beneath them. The good news is it will be easy. Legacy media is better at original content than anyone, and original content is to clips what light sweet crude is to gasoline. Put another way, Disney and Warner Bros. are sitting on a clip-field the size of the Permian Basin.

The next step will be monetization, which will also be easy. “This clip of the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop was brought to you by Heineken.” “This clip of Fareed Zakaria GPS was brought to you by T-Mobile.” “This clip of Shark Tank was brought to you by Capital One.” Sure, it’s a little dystopian. But the way I see it, legacy media has two options: Either sell clips, or die.

Call Me

If any media executives are reading this and want to discuss, feel free to reach out. I think about this every day for my own business, and I also find it fascinating.

And for those of you who find this all mostly depressing, I hear you. There is indeed a large body of evidence that suggests short-form content isn’t good for us. It decreases our attention span, makes us more anxious and depressed, and it’s very addictive. The clip economy will also exacerbate our polarization problem, which I’ve written about.

But the point of this post isn’t to say the clip economy is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s simply to tell you the truth about where we’re headed.

See you next week,
Ed

At the same time, Donald Trump is firing back with tariff threats, linking instability in the Middle East directly to U.S.–China tensions. Alice and James discuss whether or not the Chinese government is providing military aid to Iran, and explore why that’s such a fraught question. Plus — how China is playing both sides, and what it all means for global markets and oil prices.

And then, author and China scholar Eyck Freymann joins the show to talk about Taiwan — and the looming military threats that a China-led “reunification” effort would pose. From Beijing’s outreach to Taiwan’s opposition, to the ramifications of a potential conflict on the global semiconductor industry, Alice, James and Eyc…

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Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to officehours@profgmedia.com, or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit.

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Cast your vote HERE: ⁠https://wbby.co/57448N

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Even the draft is back in the news, with looming changes to the military registration system and a decree from Karoline Leavitt that Trump doesn’t “remove options off of the table.”

Democrats’ response has been to emphasize that President Trump is undermining the “world order,” but for young Americans, who lived only through Iraq and Afghanistan and are struggling to make ends meet, that kind of rhetoric just doesn’t resonate. It’s worse than not resonating, actually. It sounds like politicians are busying themselves with everything but what matters most: cost of living.

Harkening back to a time when alliances were intact and it was clear who were the good guys and the bad guys sounds like rhetoric, not action.

The good news is that young voters care about what the world order actually means in practice: safety, a global economy, and democratic values. By understanding these elements and connecting them to Iran, tariffs, and Trump’s relentless drive to isolate the US from our allies, Democrats can make global instability mean something to Gen Z.

The polling is clear: young Americans don’t respond to “world order” messaging

When Democrats talk about foreign policy, many of them want voters to think about the United States’ leadership role on the world stage, and the damage that Trump has done to it.

That’s strong messaging for some Americans, but it’s not for the next generation of voters.

Pew asked Americans last year how active the US should be internationally, and the contrast is stark:

• While 73% of those aged 65 or older said the country should take an extremely or very active role, only 39% of those aged 18-29 agreed. That’s a 34-point gap, and greater than the gap between Democrats (59%) and Republicans (50%).

• There was a similar chasm on military superpower status: 51% of Americans 65+ said it was extremely or very important for the US to be the only superpower, while only 25% of 18-29 year olds agreed.

Young voters have good reason to feel this way. They didn’t live through global conflicts on the scale of the First or Second World War, or even the Cold War. The only wars they know first-hand are America’s disastrous forays into the Middle East, which killed millions and left taxpayers with an $8 trillion bill.

Meanwhile, the most recent crises that young Americans have experienced have been domestic: the recession, COVID, and a cost-of-living crisis. Each a global problem, but exacerbated by homegrown dysfunction: decades of financial deregulation, a crumbling health care system, and poor infrastructure.

The youngest Americans also rarely hear about what life is like without human rights and free expression. News stories about the state of democracy in foreign countries don’t exactly light social media algorithms on fire.

Zoom out, and the world order is still relevant

To young voters, the term itself – “world order” – also sounds abstract. Trump takes advantage of that by framing it as a system where a shadowy group of globalist elites “control” and “dominate” Americans.

Beneath the surface, the concept is still relevant. Consider the three promises of the world order: security, trade, and American values.

Safety at home and abroad

One hundred million people died during the 20th century’s two world wars, or as Melanie Sisson writes, one of out every 23 humans on Earth at the time. It is no wonder that countries with shared values, led by the US, would seek to prevent that with a set of global rules administered through the UN and NATO.

Whatever conflicts countries might have, those rules serve today as a baseline to ensure some stability. Last we checked, the tally for world wars still stands at two.

Article 5, in particular (an attack on one is an attack on all) has lowered the risk of another world war. And we have recent proof that the system works: the article has been invoked only once, by the US, after 9/11 – when our allies jumped into action.

Economic growth and cheaper goods

Decades of protectionism and tariffs had depressed economies and destabilized relationships between countries. The creation of the UN, the IMF, World Bank and later the WTO created economic ties between countries, and eventually open trade and predictable borrowing with the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

There is no simple math for the right balance between trade and protectionism, but the benefits have been undeniable. The shift towards trade agreements beginning in the 1950s has, according to Congressional research, lowered prices of goods and increased the real purchasing power of both consumers and producers.

We’re seeing in real time what a return to barriers does: Harvard’s Tariff Tracker shows that tariffs have increased the price of imported goods by 7% and domestic goods by 5% in one year.

Pride in our values

The post-war world order also promoted a set of values to the world. Democracies that prioritized human rights, especially free expression, gained significant power. Principles like free and fair elections are only norms because countries like the US said they were important, putting American ideals at the heart of global institutions.

America sat at the center of this world order until the end of 2024, both in the sense that its values became institutional ideals, and that it had a powerful seat within those institutions, especially the UN and NATO.

Trump wants to replace that by chairing a “Board of Peace” that’s no more than a grab bag of middling powers.

Democrats can win by talking about what really matters

All three of these issues – security, trade, and our values – are at risk while Donald Trump is in the White House. Instead of letting a phrase like “world order” do the work for them, Democrats can win by addressing the specific ways that Trump is making life worse for young voters.

The Iran War is another threat to our security

Donald Trump is still arguing that the Iran War is an effort to promote peace and stability. The reality is that this is a war nobody asked for, that the president didn’t get permission for (from voters or Congress), and for young Americans who voted for Trump because of his stance on war, a betrayal of a core promise.

In the latest Fox News Poll, 36% of voters approve of the conflict. That’s already low. Among voters under 30, it’s an anemic 25%.

Even before the war, Democrats had a case to make on instability: we have been talking more than ever about our commitment to NATO and Article 5, and throughout Trump’s first year in office, we’ve seen more attacks on US soil, including in New Orleans, Michigan, and Virginia.

Tariffs are driving up prices

Then there’s inflation, where Trump has his lowest approval ratings of any issue. Like the war, price rises are unpopular with every group, but Trump is doing particularly poorly with young voters: Trump has just a 20% approval rating on inflation with voters under 30.

Democrats can point not only to the overall increase in the price of goods, but to specific examples: basics like clothing (17%), building materials (11%), and furniture (8%) are up whether they’re imported or made in America.

Democracy and human rights matter

The primary emphasis has to be on stability and affordability. But there is evidence that young Americans strongly support democracy and human rights:

• 81% agree or strongly agree on the importance of having elected leaders chosen in free and fair elections.

• 80% agree or strongly agree that fair laws and equal treatment of all people are essential.

They also like being part of a connected world. They know problems like climate change and health are global issues. They’ve eschewed the traditional media in favor of global platforms. They even want to travel abroad more than other groups.

A targeted message on these issues can still be part of the mix.

We’re in a foreign policy doom loop. But Democrats have an opportunity. Talk to voters about what matters to them about this topic: the Iran War, prices, and to the right voters, our values.

By dropping the old-school framing and focusing on the real issues, especially affordability, Democrats will still be defending the world order. They’ll just win the argument when they do.

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NASA is a point of national pride, a driver of technological progress, and a reason for top minds around the world to choose America. It is one of the most underrated brands in the world.

What unites humanity more than space exploration? Passion for sport? Love for our families? The list is short. A fifth of the world’s population — 650 million people — watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon in 1969. Five decades later, Americans are still excited about it.

• In 2019, 45% of Americans said there hadn’t yet been any other national accomplishment that gave them as much pride in the U.S. as the moon landing.

The NASA website gets more site visits than The Economist, twice as many as SpaceX, and almost as many as Tesla. Of all traffic, less than half is from the U.S.

Today, NASA is the most popular federal institution, ahead of the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Veteran Affairs. That is despite the fact that NASA is vastly less efficient than the privately run SpaceX. Over 118 space missions, NASA saw an average cost overrun of 90%. Over 16 missions, SpaceX saw an average cost overrun of 1.1%.

Yet, as recently as last week, 80% of Americans hold a favorable view of NASA. What other seemingly inefficient government agency do 80% of Americans like?

The NASA logo is so broadly admired that it has become a status symbol. Coach, Balenciaga, Kith, Estée Lauder, Nike, Adidas, and Vans have all collaborated with NASA or used its iconic red branding. Ariana Grande named a song after the agency, and NASA has been mentioned more than 230 times in rap lyrics since the 1990s. How many other icons can claim that kind of cachet?

ROI

NASA may look inefficient compared with SpaceX, but be clear: Its second-order effects on innovation and America’s reputation make it one of the most valuable U.S. assets. President George H.W. Bush reportedly called the Apollo program “the best return on investment since Leonardo da Vinci bought himself a sketchpad.”

For each dollar invested in the Apollo program, the U.S. got $7 back. Today, NASA creates more jobs per million dollars in budget than federal spending on defense, healthcare, or infrastructure.

It is also the launchpad for crucial American innovations. NASA calls the commercial products and services that have emerged from its research “spinoffs.” Most notably, NASA funding kick-started microchip and computer innovation in the 1960s. It is estimated that the Apollo program accelerated computer technology by 10 to 15 years.

Other spinoffs include products as impressive as precision GPS, solar panels, satellite TV, implantable heart monitors, and LASIK surgery, and as mundane as memory foam, golf ball dimples, and invisible braces.

Even more importantly, NASA’s achievements have inspired students and innovators. In the decade following the 1961 launch of the Apollo program, the rate of doctoral degrees in physics conferred in the U.S. tripled. Even as late as 2009, 50% of high-profile scientists named the Apollo missions as a major reason they pursued science.

Elon Musk, one of the most gifted entrepreneurs of this century said, “Landing on the moon was probably the most inspiring thing in history. It certainly inspired me. I’m not sure SpaceX would exist if not for Apollo 11.”

Vivek Ranadivé, a tech entrepreneur and billionaire, decided he wanted to study in the U.S. after hearing the moon landing broadcast on a transistor radio in Bombay. He now owns the Sacramento Kings.

NASA’s future

​​In many ways, space is Trumpian. It’s full of superlative opportunities — the farthest flight, the most powerful engine, the biggest rocket, etc. Space also provides another frontier — a key ingredient in America’s manifest destiny ideology. Last December, Trump signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to return to the moon by 2028, and establish a permanent lunar base by 2030. (Prediction: Trump names a moon crater after himself.)

Future lunar missions depend on SpaceX’s Starship to transport astronauts to the moon. NASA’s reliance on SpaceX makes the American space program vulnerable to Elon Musk’s whims — but that’s a separate post.

Another motivating factor behind our return to the moon is that China is trying to beat us there. Since 2015, China has increased funding for its space program by over 1,000%, and its robotic space missions have already retrieved samples from the far side of the moon — a feat the U.S. has not achieved.

National treasure

When Americans were asked what our country’s greatest achievement of the 20th century was, the most common answer was our space program. That sentiment doesn’t seem to have faded. Today, nearly 70% of Americans say it is “essential” that the U.S. continue to be a leader in space exploration.

We may be more divided than ever, we may be at war, and the American brand may be tarnished — but the American spirit is alive and well in NASA. In fact, NASA might be the last bastion of American patriotism, and it is undoubtedly a timely reminder of human unity.

Children in Juárez, Mexico, watched the launch livestream of NASA’s Artemis II mission. Source: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

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28%

Of Americans think they would lose in an unarmed fight with a rat

1. Markets in review: Trump, Iran, and the worst consumer sentiment on record

2. Is the $2 trillion tech sell-off a buying opportunity?

3. Newsletter Exclusive: NASA is America’s most underrated brand

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US-Iran Talks End With No Deal

President Trump said that the U.S. Navy would begin blockading the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks fell through over the weekend. Oil prices spiked more than 8% and major indices fell more than 1% on Sunday night.

In a post on X, Iran’s lead negotiator cited lack of trust in the U.S. as a primary reason for the failure of the peace talks.

News about the conflict has changed quickly. Just last week, President Trump threatened to destroy Iranian civilization unless its leaders reopened the Strait of Hormuz. Hours later, he announced a two-week ceasefire, contingent on Iran reopening the strait.

In response, U.S. crude plunged 16% and the Dow had its best day in a year. But within 24 hours, the strait remained effectively closed, and the deal unraveled over a dispute about scope — specifically whether the ceasefire applied to Lebanon, where Israel had continued to strike Hezbollah. By the following day, stocks were retreating, and oil was climbing again.

Throughout this entire conflict, there’s been one consistent dynamic: Trump promises to end the war and the market rallies, only to fall when his promises don’t materialize.

In fact, since Trump took office last year, nine of the S&P 500’s 10 biggest gains have had to do with Iran or tariff relief. If one were able to perfectly time these nine occasions, they would have earned a 52% return compared with 12% for buying and holding an index fund throughout.

Last week ended with news that the Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, rose 3.3% year over year in March — the largest increase since 2022. The increase was driven by a 12.5% year-over-year rise in energy prices.

Meanwhile, consumer sentiment has dropped to its lowest level ever. In other words, consumers feel worse about the economy now than they did during the depths of the Great Recession.

Josh Brown is the CEO and co-founder of Ritholtz Wealth Management

Paradoxically, the investor who looks least equipped to trade a market like this, the normal guy with a brokerage account, is actually in the best position. A professional hedge fund manager charging two and twenty has made an explicit promise to outperform the market for a significant fee. In normal times, that’s a hard promise to keep. In an environment where markets swing violently on a presidential tweet and reverse just as violently two hours later, it’s close to impossible.

Arguably, the market is less risky now than it was three months ago. I know that sounds insane, but valuations have compressed and earnings are growing across most S&P 500 sectors.

The war — whether it lasts three weeks or three years — will resolve itself. You can’t speed it up, and you can’t fully understand its depth or duration. But if you have earnings growth, which we do, and interest rates that aren’t rising, history says stocks resume their upward trend once the conflict ends.

Now step back and look at a global portfolio. On a rolling one-year basis, developed markets ex-US are up 46%, emerging markets up 55%, and the U.S. is up 27%. The U.S. underperformance reflects political instability and uncertainty around Trump.

But for investors with global portfolios, the answer to how you navigate an environment like this is: You already did.

”Two and Twenty”?

Two and twenty is the standard fee structure that hedge funds charge their clients. Two refers to a 2% annual fee on everything you invest, regardless of performance. Twenty refers to the 20% cut that hedge funds take of any profits above a certain benchmark.

Even if you had perfect insight into the geopolitical situation, it might not help you. Trump’s decision-making is genuinely opaque and erratic.

What does help, though, is access. In the prediction markets, three accounts made over $600,000 betting correctly on the ceasefire timing. These were the very same accounts that had already nailed the date and timing of the initial U.S. strikes on Iran.

SEC Enforcement Division Director Margaret Ryan was investigating this but abruptly resigned last month. Apparently she clashed with agency leaders over how to handle cases tied to President Trump and his family.

Markets function because participants believe prices reflect publicly available information. When that faith erodes, and when a generation of investors concludes the game is rigged, they leave. It happened after 2008, and the damage was lasting.

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Is the Tech Sell-Off Creating the Trade of the Year?

Since the start of the year, the Magnificent 7 have lost nearly $2 trillion in market cap. Goldman Sachs told investors in a note last week that this has been one ‌of the weakest periods of relative returns for technology over the past 50 years.

Globally, the technology sector now has a price-to-earnings ratio lower than that of the consumer staples and industrials sectors. Microsoft now trades at a lower forward price-to-earnings ratio than the broader S&P 500.

The tech sector has gotten hammered over fears that AI will disrupt traditional software workflows. Concerns over skyrocketing capex spending and broader macroeconomic uncertainty have pushed investors toward “safer” sectors like industrials, utilities, and materials.

However, earnings projections for the upcoming quarter paint the tech sector in a different light. According to Goldman Sachs, the market consensus is for IT earnings per share to grow by 44%, accounting for 87% of index earnings-per-share growth in the first quarter.

Investors are punishing Big Tech companies for overspending on capex, for plowing money into AI infrastructure with no clear path to profitability.

But here’s what doesn’t make sense: Anthropic and OpenAI are doing the exact same thing, just without the scrutiny. They’re spending enormous amounts with unit economics that don’t add up. If the market is punishing Microsoft for overspending, why aren’t OpenAI and Anthropic facing the same reckoning? Probably because they’re not public yet.

The market has been indiscriminately selling software for months — Salesforce, Microsoft, Palantir, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto. These are some of the best companies in the world, down anywhere from 25% to 50%. And yes, some face real AI disruption risk. But it’s gone too far.

The moment I decided to step in was when I saw a story claiming Anthropic was about to disrupt all of cybersecurity — that companies would rip out their Palo Alto infrastructure and just vibe-code something with Claude.

There’s no board of directors at any public company anywhere in the world that would sign off on that kind of cybersecurity plan. It’ll never happen.

I run a business. I’m a Salesforce customer. I’d love to cut that six-figure expense. But it’s a system of record. It’s the operating system of the firm. Any AI-driven alternative is going to cost money too — it’s not free just because it runs on AI.

The deeper story here is a revaluation that I flagged on February 9: The market has been overpaying for asset-light SaaS companies and underpaying for companies with real, heavy assets. Here’s what that correction looks like year to date — energy up 36%, materials up 10%, utilities up 9%, staples up 7%, industrials up 6%, real estate up 5%. Every one of those sectors owns things a chatbot cannot replace. Metal, steel, timber, bricks. That’s the adjustment we’re watching play out.

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Is NASA the Last Bastion of American Pride?

On Friday, four astronauts returned to Earth after venturing deeper into space than anyone has gone before. The mission, Artemis II, sent a rocket weighing 5.7 million pounds around the moon and back, setting the stage for a future lunar landing. This incredible feat is a timely reminder that American excellence still exists — if only under the NASA logo.

NASA is a point of national pride, a driver of technological progress, and a reason for top minds around the world to choose America. It is one of the most underrated brands in the world.

What unites humanity more than space exploration? Passion for sport? Love for our families? The list is short. A fifth of the world’s population — 650 million people — watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon in 1969. Five decades later, Americans are still excited about it.

• In 2019, 45% of Americans said there hadn’t yet been any other national accomplishment that gave them as much pride in the U.S. as the moon landing.

The NASA website gets more site visits than The Economist, twice as many as SpaceX, and almost as many as Tesla. Of all traffic, less than half is from the U.S.

Today, NASA is the most popular federal institution, ahead of the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Veteran Affairs. That is despite the fact that NASA is vastly less efficient than the privately run SpaceX. Over 118 space missions, NASA saw an average cost overrun of 90%. Over 16 missions, SpaceX saw an average cost overrun of 1.1%.

Yet, as recently as last week, 80% of Americans hold a favorable view of NASA. What other seemingly inefficient government agency do 80% of Americans like?

The NASA logo is so broadly admired that it has become a status symbol. Coach, Balenciaga, Kith, Estée Lauder, Nike, Adidas, and Vans have all collaborated with NASA or used its iconic red branding. Ariana Grande named a song after the agency, and NASA has been mentioned more than 230 times in rap lyrics since the 1990s. How many other icons can claim that kind of cachet?

ROI

NASA may look inefficient compared with SpaceX, but be clear: Its second-order effects on innovation and America’s reputation make it one of the most valuable U.S. assets. President George H.W. Bush reportedly called the Apollo program “the best return on investment since Leonardo da Vinci bought himself a sketchpad.”

For each dollar invested in the Apollo program, the U.S. got $7 back. Today, NASA creates more jobs per million dollars in budget than federal spending on defense, healthcare, or infrastructure.

It is also the launchpad for crucial American innovations. NASA calls the commercial products and services that have emerged from its research “spinoffs.” Most notably, NASA funding kick-started microchip and computer innovation in the 1960s. It is estimated that the Apollo program accelerated computer technology by 10 to 15 years.

Other spinoffs include products as impressive as precision GPS, solar panels, satellite TV, implantable heart monitors, and LASIK surgery, and as mundane as memory foam, golf ball dimples, and invisible braces.

Even more importantly, NASA’s achievements have inspired students and innovators. In the decade following the 1961 launch of the Apollo program, the rate of doctoral degrees in physics conferred in the U.S. tripled. Even as late as 2009, 50% of high-profile scientists named the Apollo missions as a major reason they pursued science.

Elon Musk, one of the most gifted entrepreneurs of this century said, “Landing on the moon was probably the most inspiring thing in history. It certainly inspired me. I’m not sure SpaceX would exist if not for Apollo 11.”

Vivek Ranadivé, a tech entrepreneur and billionaire, decided he wanted to study in the U.S. after hearing the moon landing broadcast on a transistor radio in Bombay. He now owns the Sacramento Kings.

NASA’s future

​​In many ways, space is Trumpian. It’s full of superlative opportunities — the farthest flight, the most powerful engine, the biggest rocket, etc. Space also provides another frontier — a key ingredient in America’s manifest destiny ideology. Last December, Trump signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to return to the moon by 2028, and establish a permanent lunar base by 2030. (Prediction: Trump names a moon crater after himself.)

Future lunar missions depend on SpaceX’s Starship to transport astronauts to the moon. NASA’s reliance on SpaceX makes the American space program vulnerable to Elon Musk’s whims — but that’s a separate post.

Another motivating factor behind our return to the moon is that China is trying to beat us there. Since 2015, China has increased funding for its space program by over 1,000%, and its robotic space missions have already retrieved samples from the far side of the moon — a feat the U.S. has not achieved.

National treasure

When Americans were asked what our country’s greatest achievement of the 20th century was, the most common answer was our space program. That sentiment doesn’t seem to have faded. Today, nearly 70% of Americans say it is “essential” that the U.S. continue to be a leader in space exploration.

We may be more divided than ever, we may be at war, and the American brand may be tarnished — but the American spirit is alive and well in NASA. In fact, NASA might be the last bastion of American patriotism, and it is undoubtedly a timely reminder of human unity.

Children in Juárez, Mexico, watched the launch livestream of NASA’s Artemis II mission. Source: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

Birth rates are falling across the developed world, but the usual explanations miss the point. In this Prof G+ exclusive video, Scott explains why the real drivers are economic: housing costs, stagnant wages, and fewer stable partnerships.

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What was supposed to be a breakthrough is unraveling—fast. Jessica Tarlov and Aaron Parnas break down the chaos surrounding Donald Trump’s so-called Iran ceasefire as tensions surge across the region and the deal appears to be collapsing in real time.

At the same time, Trump is facing a full-blown revolt from his own side. In a nearly 500-word Truth Social rant, he lashes out at prominent MAGA figures like Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Candace Owens, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—exposing a growing divide over his war posture and what “America First” really means.

Plus: Melania Trump breaks her silence on Jeffrey Epstein allegations, and Hunter Biden floats a literal cage match with the Trump family.

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Here’s a question for you: What was last week’s most important headline? Was it Trump’s address to the nation (where he told us nothing)? Was it the jobs report (which will likely be revised down)? Was it the firing of Pam Bondi (who’ll likely be replaced by someone worse)? No. Last week’s most important headline was something else. Per The Wall Street Journal: JUDGE HALTS CONSTRUCTION OF TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM.

We’ll get to why this matters in a moment. But first, a quick refresher on this ballroom. Last summer, President Trump announced plans to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom for a proposed budget of $200 million. (That budget has since doubled.) In order to do this he needed to demolish the East Wing, a historic portion of the White House complex that was built more than a hundred years ago. This was a controversial decision that required permission from Congress, however Trump didn’t seek any permissions and tore down the East Wing anyway, giving rise to one of the most iconic and disturbing images in recent memory.

That was the East Wing seven months ago. Fast-forward to today: The structure remains obliterated, a giant crater in the middle of one of our nation’s most historic sites. It’s an unpleasant sight, but one we assumed was temporary … until last week. A federal judge ruled the ballroom project unconstitutional, which means the ballroom may never get built — but, more importantly, the East Wing will remain in ruins for the foreseeable future.

This obviously matters for historic, ceremonial, and architectural reasons, but also for another reason more profound. The ballroom has become a metaphor for the president’s entire approach to policymaking. It is the mirror image of every major executive decision that has reverberated across economies, markets, and borders. It’s U.S. policy, if U.S. policy were a building.

I have a name for this strategy. I call it BNFL: “Break Now, Fix Later.” It describes the President’s tendency to break things (often old and historic) and promise to build something “bigger” and “better” in their place, until he realizes he doesn’t actually have the wherewithal (or the constitutional authority) to get it done — at which point he becomes bored and moves on to the next shiny object. The end result is that “the builder” never actually builds anything, but mostly just destroys things. Break Now, Fix Later.

As we shall see, BNFL describes almost every important decision the president has ever made — and it may help us predict those he’ll make in the future as well.

Iran

Let’s start with the crisis du jour: Iran. It’s still not entirely clear why we attacked the country. Supposedly, it’s because Iran’s nuclear capabilities had grown significantly, even though the president literally told us last summer that they were obliterated. Either way, the general idea was that Iran posed an “imminent threat” due to its belligerent regime, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The solution, then, was obvious: Install a new regime. Indeed, Trump said regime change would be the “best thing that could happen.”

As with the ballroom, the regime change operation kicked off by tearing things down. The U.S. launched more than 12,000 airstrikes on Iran, hitting 11,000 targets and more than 150 vessels. It also (according to preliminary investigations) destroyed a girls’ elementary school, killing over a hundred children in the process. Trump quickly swept those details aside and hailed the successful assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, which brought the murderous dictator’s regime to an end.

A few days later, we learned who’d be running the new regime: the dictator’s son. Yes, the Iranian succession plan went exactly according to script — only instead of the 86-year-old Ayatollah dying of natural causes (which was already imminent), he was assassinated by the nation’s sworn enemy. So not only did we not install a more friendly regime, we made the existing regime even angrier and more radical.

Soon after Khamenei Jr. was installed into power, Trump arrived at the “fix later” part of the operation. The “goal has been attained” he said. “We’ll be leaving very soon … within two weeks.” Few believed his new timeline after he blew the first one. But what’s more important is the sentiment: The operation was more tiring and complex than he bargained for — he’s over the whole Iran thing.

A trail of destruction is left in his wake. Not just in terms of lives (nearly 4,000 and counting) but the economy, too. U.S. gas prices have risen more than 30%. In Europe, they’re up more than 50%. Fertilizer prices, an essential input cost for food, have risen nearly 50%. Construction material prices are ballooning, which will lead to even higher housing costs. Investors went from expecting multiple rate cuts this year to expecting a rate hike, and recession odds have risen almost 10%. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, this war is making all of us poorer. In sum: Lots got broken and nothing got fixed.

Tariffs

The same pattern played out last year, in what has become Trump’s most defining policy: tariffs. On “Liberation Day,” Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to authorize the largest tariff hike on foreign imports in nearly a century in an attempt to reign in the trade deficit. Many of our closest allies were blindsided with rates as high as 50%. He even tariffed the Heard and McDonald Islands, a territory inhabited by only seals and penguins.

Chaos immediately ensued. The S&P 500 sold off nearly 10% — its largest weekly drop since the pandemic, erasing $5 trillion in market value. As Trump started to ease and pause tariffs, markets recovered — but supply chains didn’t. Nearly a third of all sea shipments were canceled immediately. As import costs rose, companies began to pass on those costs to their customers. Within a few months inflation was ripping upward again, as nearly 80% of the tariff burden was funneling down to the consumer. The average American was facing an estimated $2,000 annual financial loss, according to The Yale Budget Lab.

Things got even stupider when the Supreme Court determined in February that the tariffs were illegal. This wasn’t a difficult decision: Trump had falsely claimed emergency powers and levied a tax on Americans without congressional approval. As Founding Father James Madison put it, “Congress alone has access to the pockets of the people.” The U.S. government must now return the $160 billion it had collected over the course of the tariff saga. (In other words, this was all for nothing.) Ironically, despite bearing the majority of the costs, consumers won’t see a penny, as they did not directly pay the tariffs themselves. So not only did we not get anything done, we also set back American households even further. #BNFL.

DOGE

A major component of the Trump 2.0 agenda was to reduce wasteful government spending. The goal was, in Trump’s words, “to do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the budget.” So he created the “Department of Government Efficiency” and employed Elon Musk to get it done.

Within days it was clear that Elon and Trump had a shared passion for blowing things up. They immediately ripped up thousands of contracts, fired more than 200,000 government workers, and fed an entire agency known as USAID “into the wood chipper.” It’s estimated the elimination of USAID (which specialized in foreign assistance) will lead to nearly 10 million preventable deaths over the next four years. A high price, but a price they were willing to pay.

That was until DOGE got shut down. After a highly predictable falling-out between the president and Mr. Musk, the agency was quietly dissolved and its employees let go. The department said it saved $215 billion. Independent analyses have concluded the real number was a fraction of that, but for simplicity’s sake we’ll go with it. On Elon’s own terms, those results were underwhelming: His original projection was $2 trillion.

It wouldn’t be a true BNFL, however, if Trump didn’t actively make matters worse — and in the case of government efficiency, that’s exactly what he did. Right as Elon was canceling spending plans, Trump was building a new one: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would prove to be one of the largest government expenditures in American history. The bill both reduced revenue and increased spending, loading up our government with an additional $850 billion in expected interest payments and adding an estimated $4.2 trillion to our national debt over the next decade. There is no bill less efficient than this, which begs the obvious question: What was DOGE even for?

Take Your Pick

So far we’ve reviewed three major policy decisions, each of which were quintessentially BNFL, but let’s be clear, there have been plenty more. For example:

• Promising (threatening) to “take” Greenland, thus ruining our relationships with NATO allies, only to get distracted and ultimately reverse the decision on the global stage.

• Pressuring the Fed chair to cut rates (and threatening to fire him), which eventually raised yields as investors priced in the danger of an un-independent Federal Reserve, only to walk back his comments and let Powell play out the rest of his term.

• Pursuing greater energy independence with “drill, baby, drill” policies, which actually just meant gutting clean-energy programs. This backfired when we spiked oil prices with yet another war in the Middle East, making us even more in need of renewable energy than we already were.

Like the ballroom, each policy starts with a grand vision that could feasibly be framed as a net positive for society but is soon followed by a cynical fit of destruction. Then, once it’s time to actually build the thing, the circumstances suddenly change and it’s no longer possible. The strategy amounts to annihilation. It’s “move fast and break things,” minus the innovation.

Two Interpretations

There are two ways to interpret the BNFL strategy. One reading is that Trump is simply in over his head. After all, it’s easier to break things than to make things. To build anything worthwhile, you have to invest time and effort, you have to achieve a consensus, you have to pay attention to detail — and the president has no interest in any of these things.

There’s also a darker interpretation, however, and although I don’t necessarily believe it, I think it would be unwise to rule it out. That reading is the following: Maybe he genuinely only wants to destroy things. Maybe this systematic pattern of destruction is by design, and his promises to build things anew are in fact lies meant to conceal his thirst for destruction. That would make him a psychopath, sure, and psychopaths are rare. At the same time, though, the probability that a series of policies would all lead to the same destructive end by accident is … equally rare. Again, I’m not saying I believe this interpretation. I’m just saying it’s possible.

Artemis

I’ve struggled to write this, as every time I try to type my mind returns to Artemis II. More specifically, it returns to the mission’s recent photograph of Earth, which will go down as one of the most iconic images ever.

The image is a reminder that to build anything worthwhile takes time. It took nearly a decade of planning to send these astronauts into space. The astronauts themselves prepared for this specific mission for more than three years. The operation didn’t just involve them, but the coordinated efforts of tens of thousands of people. Nothing this hard could ever get done without collaboration and planning.

In a way, it’s the opposite of BNFL. Build now, fix … forever. A stark contrast to the image with which this post began.

P.S.

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Mark Zandi is the chief economist of Moody’s, a leading provider of economic research, data and analytical tools. He also hosts the Inside Economics podcast.

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1. How China brokered the Iran ceasefire

2. The Trump-Xi Summit Is Coming. The Relationship Isn't Fixed

3. China's AI Agent Takeover

China’s Peace Plan for the Iran War Has More Behind It Than Posturing

A ceasefire has paused the Iran war. Trump declared a two-week halt to US bombing, Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and talks are set to begin in Islamabad. Trump told AFP he believed China had persuaded Iran to negotiate. According to the New York Times, three Iranian officials confirmed that a last-minute intervention by Beijing asking Iran to show flexibility was what secured their acceptance. To what extent the White House and China were actively coordinating remains unclear, but that public acknowledgment was a key moment. The US was more willing to work alongside Chinese efforts than seemed likely just days ago.

The ceasefire is fragile. JD Vance called it a fragile truce. Israel and Iran have already traded accusations of violations in Lebanon. As of April 9th, the Hormuz blockade had not been lifted, and Iran’s 10-point proposal and the US 15-point framework remain far apart.

China and Pakistan’s five-point plan, which set this in motion, called for an immediate ceasefire, diplomatic talks, protection of civilian infrastructure, safe passage through the strait, and a comprehensive peace framework. Pakistan was the public face of the initiative. China was pulling the strings. The plan was always more than posturing. Multiple rounds of talks between Beijing and Islamabad, meetings between their foreign ministers, and credible reports of a four-way consultation involving Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt suggest serious work was done behind the scenes.

China had a material stake in seeing this resolved. It sources roughly 50% of its seaborne oil imports from the region, and while strategic reserves and rerouted Russian supply had provided a buffer, that window was closing within two months.

A Shanghai-based firm called Mitsa Vision had been publishing real-time satellite imagery of American military movements in the region on X, including footage posted ahead of the US operation that began February 28th. Whether China was actively sharing this data with Iran is not clear, but it was publicly accessible, and that alone raised serious questions about US force exposure in the region.

Alice’s Take: China’s goal here is a familiar one: claim the moral high ground. By positioning itself as a peacemaker while the US reserves the right to escalate militarily, Beijing reinforces the narrative it has been building for years. That said, China has a genuine material interest in seeing the strait reopen. The longer this drags on, the more acute the energy crunch becomes. I expect Beijing to continue to push harder bilaterally, working through its leverage with Iran to secure preferential access to oil shipments, regardless of what happens with the formal peace process. As for Trump, I think he ultimately needs China more than he’s letting on. It may be that come May he’ll want to claim a quick victory in the form of “good” relations with Beijing. If Operation Epic Fury stalls or becomes a quagmire, a positive China relationship may be his best available diplomatic off-ramp. We may look at the situation in a month’s time and find that Operation Epic Fury was a botched effort at regime change in Tehran that simply paved the way for “Operation Tollbooth,” whereby Iran calls the shots on tolling oil flows and China succeeds in pressuring the Gulf states to accept more yuan, not dollars.

James’s Take: The peace plan matters, but China’s fundamental credibility problem as a mediator is that it cannot and will not act as a security guarantor. Mediation can take you only so far. If a ceasefire breaks down, someone has to be willing to step in and hold the line, and China has made clear it will not use its military to keep peace on behalf of Iran, let alone risk a confrontation with the US and Israel. That is a structural hole in the initiative that no amount of diplomatic groundwork can fill. What the plan does accomplish is keeping China at the table, building its profile as a responsible power, and leaving the US looking like the party blocking peace. That’s a significant soft power gain, even if the hard security outcome remains out of reach.

Trade Probes and a Major Hack Put The Trump-Xi Summit on Shaky Ground

China launched two trade investigations into US practices this week, retaliating against Section 301 probes the Trump administration initiated after IEEPA was struck down by the Supreme Court. The targets: American policies Beijing says are choking global supply chains and shutting out Chinese green tech. The timing is pointed. A Trump-Xi summit is reportedly being planned for May, though Beijing has yet to confirm it.

The same week, the FBI declared a suspected Chinese hack of a US surveillance system a “major cyber incident,” with indications that sensitive data across agency networks was compromised. It echoes the 2015 OPM breach, when Chinese actors accessed records on millions of federal employees. The pattern holds: two countries trying to choreograph a diplomatic reset while their security establishments operate in deep mutual distrust. Whatever mood music a summit produces, the underlying dynamic does not change.

The economic picture is harder to spin. US exports to China fell 26% in nominal terms in 2025. By some estimates, bilateral trade was roughly $90 billion lower than it would have been absent the trade war. The administration has talked extensively about closing the deficit, but the actual mechanism for doing so, rigorous rules-of-origin enforcement to catch Chinese goods rerouted through Vietnam, Mexico, and elsewhere, has not materialized. The rhetoric has outpaced enforcement.

Alice’s Take: I’ve watched these cycles repeat long enough to be skeptical of the framing. The FBI hack will almost certainly be deployed politically, as these incidents usually are, to apply pressure ahead of talks rather than to reflect genuine outrage. My concern is more structural. Even setting aside the surveillance story, the underlying conditions for a meaningful summit aren’t there. The trade numbers are moving in the wrong direction. Yes, the bilateral trade deficit between the U.S. and China is at a two-decade low but the U.S.’s overall trade deficit has grown and simply shifted to Vietnam and Mexico, which are clearly used as re-routing hubs for Chinese goods. The security states are at each other’s throats, and the US approach to reducing the deficit remains more rhetorical than operational. If Washington were serious about curbing the deficit, they would go after “rules of origin” but they haven’t. The worse things get in Iran, the more Trump needs China, particularly if Iran becomes a sustained military commitment. That shifts the negotiating dynamic considerably.

James’s Take: What strikes me about this moment is how much it illustrates the chasm between the diplomatic track and everything happening beneath it. Summits, even when they go well, are fundamentally about managing the surface. But the security relationship between the US and China operates on a completely different plane, one defined by surveillance, cyber operations, and proxy conflicts where trust is essentially zero. The FBI hack is not an anomaly. These incidents are a permanent feature of the relationship. Every time the two governments try to build something at the diplomatic level, the security track erodes it. I don’t see that changing regardless of what happens in May.

China’s OpenClaw Moment

A free, open-source AI agent built by Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger has become one of the fastest-growing open-source projects in GitHub history since its release in November 2025.

OpenClaw is not a chatbot. It executes tasks: connecting to large language models, integrating with messaging apps, managing calendars, writing code, handling bookings. In China, it has taken on a life of its own. The local term for the frenzy, “Yang Longxia,” or lobster farming, is now ubiquitous. Chinese users are forking it, building new applications on top of it, and folding it into existing platforms. One developer built a version called QClaw that deploys the agent directly inside WeChat.

Alice’s Take: I’m calling it “Lobster Mania.” Token consumption, the key measure of AI usage in China, jumped from 100 trillion in December to 140 trillion in March, a 40% surge in three months. A KPMG survey found 93% of Chinese respondents already use AI for work. In the US, only 35% of people believe the benefits of AI outweigh the risks. In China, that figure is 69%.

Title: % of People Who Trust AI

Subtitle: 2025

What the numbers reflect is something deeper than enthusiasm for a new tool. China did this with super apps a decade ago. WeChat and Alipay built ecosystems so embedded in daily life that the West still has not replicated them. OpenClaw looks like the same instinct playing out in agentic AI, so in a way, I foresee the era of “super apps” being replaced by “super agents” in China. The government’s posture right now is permissive but that can’t be sustainable over the long-term. AI dominance is a national priority and regulators do not want to slow the momentum. But the Cyberspace Administration issued quiet guidance in December on anthropomorphic AI services, flagging concerns about systems that simulate family relationships for elderly users and calling for restrictions to protect minors. That is not a crackdown. It is just a signal that the let-it-rip phase has a shelf life, as has often been the case in China’s history of technological innovation.

James’s Take: I spent just over two weeks in China researching this topic, and OpenClaw was the dominant conversation everywhere I went in tech circles. What matters is not just the scale of adoption but what kind of tool people are actually adopting. A chatbot answers your questions. An agent executes tasks for you. That distinction has enormous implications for employment. Roughly 67% of Chinese industrial firms have already deployed AI agents in production, compared to about 34% in the US. But outside the tech sector, the mood I encountered was anxious. Almost everyone I spoke to who does not work in AI was worried about their job, or watching peers struggle to find one and drawing the obvious conclusion. Youth unemployment among urban 18-to-24-year-olds hit 18.9% last year. I think it exceeds 20% this year. The government can hold the let-it-rip line for now, but if that number keeps climbing, the political pressure to respond will be very hard to ignore.

Alice’s Prediction: China’s Cyberspace Administration may try to kill or delay Meta’s acquisition of Manus, a Chinese agentic AI company. Regulators are already looking into whether the deal violates tech transfer laws. While Manus isn’t directly national security related, AI is getting increasingly charged as a topic in China. My suspicion? Regulators will throw up obstacles mainly because it’ll make Mark Zuckerberg’s life a little bit worse.

James’s Prediction: I think 2026 will be a landmark year for the EU strengthening resilience against foreign cyber threats, especially Chinese technology. We’re going to see the European Commission expand restrictions to Chinese cars, cellular modules, wind farms, and other sectors where Chinese companies collect data throughout Europe.

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They discuss why most movements fail, the four factors that drive real change, and why mass mobilization alone isn’t enough. They also unpack the “3.5% rule,” the role of business and institutional power, and whether economic resistance can be more effective than taking to the streets.

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Robert Armstrong is a commentator for the Financial Times, author of the Unhedged Newsletter, and cohost of the Unhedged podcast. John Mowrey is the Chief Investment Officer of NFJ Investment Group.

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The U.S. and Iran agreed to a fragile two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan, just hours before President Trump’s threatened strike. Iran has pledged to keep the Strait of Hormuz open — but reports suggest it may demand payment in cryptocurrency. Israel continues major strikes in Lebanon, and drone and missile activity across the Gulf highlight how tenuous the pause really is. Markets have rallied on the news, but the real question remains: did the U.S. gain leverage, or did Iran get what it wanted on a silver platter?

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov break down the ceasefire, analyze the claims from both sides, and discuss the potential path toward a longer-term deal.

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Ian Bremer is the President and founder of Eurasia Group. Ronan Farrow is an investigative reporter and a contributing writer for The New Yorker.

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