| China’s ticking time bomb | |
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| Welcome to the weekend! In his 1889 essay The Gospel of Wealth, Andrew Carnegie wrote, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Which billionaire cited that quote in an announcement on Thursday? Find out with this week’s Pointed quiz. Then head over to the Bloomberg app to enjoy our Weekend audio playlist: six great stories, read by human beings. What’s the best way to enjoy an audio playlist? Try listening while lounging in a courtyard, watching your kids at a “skate garden” or — why not — spending some time on a swing set. Those are a few of the urban design ideas Alexandra Lange explored in a Bloomberg CityLab series that just won a Pulitzer for criticism. Don’t miss Sunday’s Forecast, in which we dig into “AI-native startups.” For unlimited Bloomberg.com access, subscribe! | |
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| Abby Gao has been planning weddings in China for almost 20 years; she once filled a venue with 35,000 roses. But these days Gao is diversifying into children’s birthday parties — there simply aren’t enough weddings to plan. Marriages in China plunged 21% last year to a record low, Lucille Liu writes, as more young people embrace “no marriage, no children” and shrug off government incentives meant to change their minds. | |
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| China’s child-averse say their country’s economic slowdown and paternalistic culture foster an environment in which families can’t thrive. In the US, President Donald Trump’s attacks on universities and defunding of scientific research are creating an analogous conundrum for academics. European universities are being inundated with inquiries from US-based scientists. If history is any indication, the result could be a drag on US productivity, innovation, and tech leadership, Simon Nixon writes. | |
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| In the United States, Trump risks squandering American exceptionalism by stifling science. In Russia, he risks squandering his leverage with Putin by neglecting to step up sanctions, Stephanie Baker writes. Oil is key to degrading Russia’s war machine, and now that oil prices have come down, Trump has plenty of wiggle room to hit Russia where it hurts. If he doesn’t, Putin will continue to work with China, North Korea and Iran to wreak havoc on the rules-based order. | |
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| Leverage might be a unifying theme of the current Trump administration, which eschews institutions that don’t align with its worldview. Back in the post-World War II years, that worldview — and the US’s unrivaled power — hinged on a global order governed through international bodies such as the United Nations. Now, writes historian Dexter Fergie, Trump and his allies are recasting the UN’s constraints on unilateralism as a burden, and throwing its future into doubt. | |
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| Washington, DC
When the US House of Representatives is in session, Brad Wells can be found nearly every day outside its chamber. The 53-year-old Baptist pastor makes himself available to members for prayer and spiritual support while he waits for a little-known conclave of five Republicans and five Democrats to decide on the next official US House chaplain. In a sign of the times, this year even picking an official spiritual leader is proving divisive for the chamber where Republicans hold a slim majority.  Illustration: Baptiste Virot for Bloomberg New York City
On a recent afternoon in Manhattan, a cleaning woman stood in the Fifth Avenue window of Eden Gallery dusting a $400,000 bronze purse. Inside the gallery, a print depicted Winnie the Pooh wearing a Louis Vuitton T-shirt and holding a honey pot filled with $100 bills; nearby sat a Swarovski crystal-covered sculpture of a large Balmain perfume bottle. The art market may be in a slump, but Eden is thriving by leaning into pop culture, and by selling relatively affordable pieces to consumers coming in off the street.  Illustration: Daniel Zender for Bloomberg | |
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| Warren Buffett’s career is one big argument against capitalism. Buffett’s famous search for companies with a “wide economic moat” is a folksy way of saying that he only wants impregnable monopolies, John Authers writes for Bloomberg Opinion. Success comes not from innovation or “creative destruction,” but by not having to compete at all. DEI may not survive, but shareholder activism will. The late corporate governance guru Roberts Monks saw popular ownership of companies as necessary for “responsible capitalism.” While his ideas were initially met with hostility, in recent years the shareholder activism revolution has become an orthodoxy, Adrian Woolridge writes for Bloomberg Opinion. | |
The Little Barge That Could | | “Once I found the barge it was a complete treasure stove of stories. It had really touched so many facets of the modern economy and the offshore world.” | | Ian Kumekawa Harvard academic and author of ‘Empty Vessel’ | | There are many histories of the recent era of globalization, but a new book takes a novel approach, tracing the ebb and flow of global commerce through the prism of an unlikely subject. Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge tracks the history of a barge that, since its construction in the 1970s, has experienced a shipping crash, an energy boom and at least one war. | | |
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| What we’re paying for AI: nothing. January’s “DeepSeek moment” made clear that a technology once dominated by Silicon Valley is increasingly out of its hands — China is giving it away for free. What we’re paying for a car: Who knows? One study suggested Trump’s tariffs could drive the price of a new car up by $12,000 in the US. To sort out what to buy now and what to wait on, explore Bloomberg’s Ultimate Tariff Buying Guide. What we’re wondering: Can American money save English football? As the Premier League grows more expensive, clubs are embracing US-style luxury to boost revenue. But some fans worry the pursuit of profit is leaving them behind. What we’re sending home: cash. Remittances total more than $800 billion globally and serve as crucial funding for the developing world. Now wealthy nations’ crackdowns on immigration are putting that pipeline of cash at risk. What we keep saying: Cybersecurity is a team sport. A Chinese hacking group breached major US telecoms in an attack uncovered by Microsoft, highlighting the growing sophistication of state-sponsored cyber threats and the role private companies play in national security. | |
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