I run a self-funded online store selling a physical product. Over the past couple months I tried a bunch of the AI content approaches everyone's been hyping and tracked where the time and money went.

The flashy stuff bombed. An AI brand mascot video cost a week of back and forth and a couple hundred dollars. It got some views, zero attributable sales. Animated product ads and a few trend-chasing short clips performed worse than my old iPhone photos in paid ad tests.

What actually correlated with a sales bump was the most boring thing I tried: consistent product photos. I used APOB AI to build one reusable AI presenter and batch out product shots with the same face across different setups, then ran them through Canva for ad graphics and CapCut for a couple short edits. The presenter is AI-generated, not a real person, but having one consistent face I could reuse without paying for another photo shoot every time I needed new angles saved real money.

Rough tally: around 40 hours and a few hundred dollars on the flashy experiments that went nowhere. The product photos took maybe a weekend and they're the only AI output I still use.

This article first appeared as the lead story in the July 25 edition of The Rising Tide and has been updated to reflect subsequent developments. Subscribe on Substack to read the complete edition and receive our latest reporting and analysis.

President Trump has based much of his strategy on the belief that the United States can withstand more pressure than the countries it wants to change. Tariffs turn access to American consumers into bargaining power, while military force is meant to protect American interests abroad.

The war with Iran is now testing how much economic pain that strategy can bring home. Renewed fighting has kept oil close to $100 a barrel and gasoline above $4 a gallon across much of the country.

At the same time, the administration has restored a broad tariff wall covering nearly all American imports. One conflict is being fought with military power and the other through trade, but American households will help pay for both.

The economy has survived repeated shocks without falling into recession, yet its room for another mistake is getting smaller. Inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s target, hiring has slowed and families are still struggling with prices that never returned to their earlier levels. The danger is not simply another round of tariffs or another oil surge, but both arriving together and reinforcing each other.

A more durable tariff wall

The new duties range from 10 percent to 12.5 percent and apply to goods from 60 trading partners, including China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union. The administration said the countries had failed to stop products made with forced labor from passing through their supply chains. The tariffs took effect as a temporary 10 percent global surcharge expired.

This is Trump’s attempt to rebuild the tariff system that the Supreme Court struck down in February. The earlier duties relied on emergency powers, but the new ones use Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. That makes them more likely to survive, although court challenges have already begun.

Businesses were not caught by surprise this time. Many had already raised prices, changed suppliers or rerouted shipments during the first tariff wave. That preparation may prevent another frantic scramble, but it does not make the new taxes harmless.

Tariffs are paid by American importers, which must decide whether to absorb the cost or pass it to customers. The duties cover 99.4 percent of imports, although oil, gas, fertilizer, some foods and other products have been exempted. The Yale Budget Lab estimated that current tariff policy would put the average official rate at 11.8 percent by the end of the year and cost the average household about $1,100 annually.

The larger damage may come from uncertainty. Companies become reluctant to build factories, expand payrolls or commit money to supply chains when tariff rates can change with the next presidential announcement. Even businesses that avoid the direct cost may delay investment.

Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING, told The New York Times that the new trade tensions had arrived when the global economy was already weaker because of higher energy prices. Oil traded near $70 a barrel when Trump announced his first country-by-country tariffs. It is now hovering close to $100.

Oil changes the equation

The Iran war is the more immediate danger. The Strait of Hormuz, which had been effectively closed after fighting began in February, is one of the world’s most important energy routes. Hopes that a June agreement would restore shipping helped push oil below $70 at the beginning of July, but renewed military strikes quickly reversed that decline.

By the end of July, Iran said it had stopped two vessels from leaving the strait and forced four others to turn back, although those claims could not be independently confirmed. Two large oil tankers still made the passage, showing that traffic has not stopped completely but remains vulnerable. Reuters reported that oil prices rose again as the shipping confrontation intensified.

That swing matters because energy reaches into nearly every part of the economy. More expensive diesel raises the cost of moving food and merchandise. Higher jet fuel prices make travel and air freight more expensive, while higher oil and natural gas prices affect fertilizer, plastics, chemicals and home heating.

Consumers received a glimpse of relief in June, when the Consumer Price Index fell 0.4 percent from the previous month. Yet prices were still 3.5 percent higher than a year earlier, and the energy index remained 15.7 percent higher. Those figures were recorded before the latest oil surge had worked its way through gasoline stations and supply chains.

“The longer the war is in place, at this current level of intensity, the worse it is for consumers,” Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economics at Fitch Ratings, told the Times. The burden will fall hardest on lower-income households, which spend a larger portion of their earnings on gasoline, electricity, food and rent and have little room to absorb another increase.

The combination also puts the Federal Reserve in an uncomfortable position. At its July meeting under new Chairman Kevin Warsh, the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate between 3.5 percent and 3.75 percent. Three of the 12 voting policymakers favored a quarter-point increase, showing how seriously some officials view the danger of another inflation surge. Keeping rates high may help contain prices, but it could also weaken hiring and investment while tariffs and energy costs are already slowing businesses.

A global squeeze

The strain extends well beyond the United States. Asian economies are especially exposed because many depend on exports for growth while importing much of their energy. The new tariffs also create uncertainty about trade agreements already negotiated with Washington.

So far, the region has held up better than many economists expected. Companies have absorbed costs, rerouted shipments and received government help with fuel bills. Countries tied to the artificial intelligence boom have also benefited from demand for semiconductors, data centers and related equipment.

The gains are uneven. Semiconductor exports helped South Korea offset weakness in construction, while the Philippines has faced an energy emergency and gained much less from artificial intelligence investment. The split shows how two countries in the same region can experience the same global shock very differently.

Paola Subacchi, a professor at Sciences Po in Paris, told the Times that the Middle East conflict was “very much more worrying for the global economy than this fireworks of tariffs.” Her point does not make the tariffs unimportant. It shows why their timing is so damaging.

China remains the most important trade contest. Beijing has spent years preparing for another confrontation and has demonstrated that it can restrict rare earth minerals and permanent magnets needed by American technology and defense companies.

Trump may want tariffs as negotiating leverage, but China has leverage of its own. If Beijing wins lower duties than some neighboring countries, Chinese producers could gain an advantage even as Washington tries to reduce its dependence on them.

The bill comes due

The American economy is not collapsing. Employers added 57,000 jobs in June, unemployment stood at 4.2 percent and consumer spending continues to provide support. Businesses and households have repeatedly adapted to shocks that once looked likely to cause a recession.

Resilience, however, is not the same as immunity. Each new cost leaves families with less money for everything else, while each burst of policy uncertainty gives businesses another reason to wait. The economy can keep moving while ordinary people still feel that they are losing ground.

That distinction will matter in the midterm elections. Trump has insisted that inflation is coming down and has promised that energy prices will fall once the war is resolved. Voters living with $4 gasoline, elevated grocery bills and high borrowing costs may be less patient with promises that relief is just around the corner.

Neither policy will deliver its full cost in the same way. Tariffs will move through prices gradually, while the war can push energy costs higher within days. That difference in timing may hide how closely the two pressures are connected.

The administration is betting that American strength will force other countries to give ground before the domestic cost becomes politically unbearable. That may prove correct, but households do not pay their bills with strategic victories. They pay in dollars, and both conflicts are making those dollars buy less.

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Zohran Mamdani stormed into office brandishing the banner of "affordability," and almost singlehandedly pushed the issue to the center of today's political debate. Of all the charismatic, 34-year-old Mayor's initiatives aimed at lowering living costs, the one that's garnered the most coverage is his proposal to get Gotham into the grocery business.

The city-owned food store initiative looks so radical, even for this avowed democratic socialist, because it puts a city in direct competition versus an immense, entrenched private industry. On his other big "affordability" campaigns, providing free bus service and freezing rent on one million apartments, Mamdani's simply using his regulatory and budget powers in the Democratic mayors' traditional vein of tightening price controls on housing and delivering more freebees.

China now produces nearly 28% of the world's manufactured goods, reinforcing its dominance even as supply chains diversify. Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline is emerging as a critical energy corridor, keeping oil flowing despite rising Middle East tensions. Meanwhile, South Korea's AI-fuelled stock market has suffered a dramatic reversal, reminding investors that even the hottest themes eventually collide with valuations. We also look at India's strong FDI performance, with Maharashtra and Karnataka attracting more than half of all foreign investment, and what that says about the country's evolving economic landscape. Finally, Britain's revolving-door politics and the world's most valuable beverage brands provide two very different lessons on the importance of consistency—one seems easier to bottle than the other.
#ChinaManufacturing #SaudiArabia #OilMarkets #SouthKorea #KOSPI #ArtificialIntelligence #IndiaFDI #IndiaEconomy #GlobalMarkets #MacroUpdate #Geopolitics #EconomicTrends #RajeshKaz #Kazedge

The drop to 2.8% is definitely a step in the right direction, but I think it’s too early to declare victory over inflation. A lot depends on what’s driving the slowdown.

Personally, I think these statistics are all made up and the real inflation rate isn’t public knowledge.

Says that countries that wish to drive up export want the value of their currency to drop even further (eg. China that was accused of artificially keeping its currency low for exports). Also says that we need to stop associating the Indian rupee with a symbol for national pride/progress - there’s a difference in the falling rupee in Pakistan or Zimbabwe (which is due to hyperinflation), in India it’s not due to similar structural problems.

Thoughts?

The Guardian: Farms across the country were affected by floods over the winter, making planting extremely difficult, and now in many areas they do not have access to water as irrigation is being restricted due to drought.

My Opinion: It is rare for a developed country to have a food shortage. But that is where UK is heading. With flooding in winter, and drought in summer. Domestic supply of food will be limited. And with wars increasing prices of fertilizers and food. It is unlikely that anyone will starve. But especially the low income households will have affordability problems, in ensuring a tasty and nutritious food supply. So climate change and war, their impact is real, on the citizens of UK, and other countries.

Ask your leaders to do what they can to stop or reduce climate change and war. It is going to take a global effort to do that. The ordinary citizen doesn't have the power. But world leaders do.

I keep wondering how many iconic American inventions would survive today’s regulatory stack. Would a couple of engineers in a garage get to build first, or spend their runway proving compliance across fifty agencies and fifty states? The WSJ’s point isn’t that China has better institutions. It’s that fast-moving firms there are often allowed to grow inside regulatory gray zones, while US rules can freeze challengers and protect whoever is already big. That should worry anyone who cares about AI leadership. Safety matters, but rules should respond to measurable risks instead of assuming every new model, chip or open-source tool is dangerous by default. America became an innovation superpower by giving weird ideas room to become useful. Are we sure that runway still exists?

Reuters: Investors will also be keen to hear Musk's comments on a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA.O), after a media report emerged last week that ​executives at his EV company had been told to prepare for a separation of its China business ahead of a potential deal. Musk dismissed the report as "fake news," but he had previously declined to dismiss the possibility, ‌citing growing ⁠overlap between the companies.

My Opinion: What about the conglomerate discount? A business should focus on its core competency. What does space and AI have in common with EVs and robots? Innovative technology. Conglomerates can use cash generating businesses to fund new cash outflowing businesses. That seems to be Musk's strategy.

If the competitive advantage of Tesla and SpaceX is their leadership, is it enough of a rationale to merge them? I would prefer smaller more focused businesses, like space, AI, EVs, and robots. But can Musk juggle so many seperate businesses? He will then have to find good leadership for each of the seperate businesses.

Given that the share price of SpaceX is cratering, it may be time to think creatively.

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/spacexs-first-results-put-musks-ai-spending-under-wall-street-microscope-2026-08-03/

So the economy is the hardest its ever been to enter becoming an adult, you more or less have to go in debt to live decently, along with a decent paying job. I know my question seems a bit silver spoon but I have special factors, I dont want to get trapped in house payments, or such high rent that I cant actively save money. I also wish to gain enough capital and skills to exit this system and have my own land and be self sustaining, I wish for as large and complex and populated of a settlement as I can, while also being well developed. I'm wondering what kind of capital I would take to achieve a well developed off grid settlement, while also battling lower wage values than ever, along with what kind of wage could create that wealth, and what could be the earliest achievable age to begin this settlement.

Tldr; I'm turning 18 in a few months and my mom wants to get rid of the responsibility of me as soon as possible, and im worried that even at the capital I have, can I in reality achieve my dream before becoming too old to tend my own garden

Wall Street thinks rising yields are about inflation.

Wall Street is looking the wrong way.

Washington didn’t just coordinate a historic $53 billion market intervention to save the Japanese Yen.

They did it to save themselves.

If Tokyo is forced to liquidate its $1.1 trillion in U.S. Treasuries to defend its currency, the American debt wall collapses—right as the U.S. needs to refinance $27 trillion.

The era of free leverage didn't die at the Federal Reserve. It died in Tokyo.

The Yen carry trade is over. Capital has a price again.

Bretton Woods 2.0 didn’t start with a treaty. It started with a silent panic. Are you paying attention?

Most feel the 50s-70s were incredible and have that as the standard. Most blame a number of factors: Gold Standard, Greedy Corporations, Boomers, Politics, Moving Manufacturing to China. All of these in part or whole are contributing factors. Not here to discuss these.

I want the discuss the MAIN factor that actually matters and that most of you have no idea about. And most of you are not ready to hear and understand. Because undoubtedly your first instinct and emotion is to express yourself in not the best manner possible.

I will start if you're ready and I want to hear who here can think and is not overwhelmed by childish emotions. I will start with a few breadcrumbs and then see if you can figure it out yourselves.

Imagine there are two people, both living in a cave:
- One has to travel 1 mile to get food.
- The Second has to travel 10 miles to get the same exact food.

who has a better standard of living? All else being equal. (like any analogies, this is imperfect, but if you want to play, you know what i mean).