Month: May 2026

Productivity Booms As Labor Market Shows Signs Of Revival

(…) on balance, the latest batch of labor market data suggests that employment conditions may be improving (…).

We [Ed Yardeni] agree with Jevons’ Paradox: Making a production input more efficient lowers the cost of the final product, stimulates demand for it, and ultimately results in greater demand for the input itself, despite the productivity gain.

Productivity is measured as nonfarm business output divided by labor hours worked. Output increased 3.3% y/y in Q1-2026, solidly above the comparable 2.7% rise in real GDP. Hours worked rose only 0.4% y/y.

So productivity increased 2.9% y/y, exceeding its historical average of 2.1%.

In our Roaring 2020s scenario, productivity growth is likely to increase to 3.5%-4.0% over the remainder of this decade and continue at that pace through the Roaring 1930s.

Unit labor costs is measured as hourly compensation divided by productivity. It rose by 1.2% y/y in Q1-2026, the slowest pace of growth since Q3-2023.

This confirms our view that the labor market isn’t currently a source of inflation but rather disinflation. For now, the latter is being offset by other inflationary pressures, i.e., higher energy prices and tariff-related increases in durable goods prices.

Inflation-adjusted hourly compensation is determined by productivity. Businesses can only sustainably raise real pay when productivity gains provide the underlying economic value. We expect productivity growth to rise close to 4.0% by the end of the decade, supporting equivalent real hourly compensation growth (chart).

Strong productivity growth tends to widen profit margins. Profit margins are currently at record highs, and boosting corporate profits. S&P 500 earnings growth has been surprisingly strong as a result.

The May 7 Challenger, Gray & Christmas report showed that US employers announced 83,387 job cuts in April. For the second consecutive month, AI was cited as the primary reason for layoffs, accounting for 26% of all cuts (roughly 21,490 jobs).

Despite the monthly jump, year-to-date layoffs remain down 50% compared to the same period in 2025. This confirms that while specific sectors are being disrupted by AI, the overall labor market remains resilient. It is also entirely consistent with our belief that AI will create jobs on net.

Yesterday, ADP reported that private-sector payrolls rose by 109,000 in April, the fastest pace of job creation since January 2025. The result is corroborated by Revelio Labs, which reported that total nonfarm payrolls rose by 66,400 in April, the most since March 2025, with gains led by health care and social services and the finance sector.

Yardeni here uses YoY growth rates (left chart) which is helped by a weak Q1’25. On a QoQ basis (right), productivity growth has slowed since Q3’25 to +1.6% annualized in Q4’25 and to +0.7% in Q1’26.

 

Since Q4’19, labor productivity has grown at an annualized rate of 2.1%.

Ed also focused on the YoY Challenger layoffs data, helped by the jump in tariff-induced levels in April of last year.

Challenger does not publish seasonally adjusted numbers but notes that job cuts in April were up 38% from March and that this April’s total is the third highest since 2009.

David Rosenberg’s own seasonal adjustments show layoffs rising from 37k in February to 40k in March and to 74.5k in April.

Also:

Hiring plans fell 69% in April to 10,049 from 32,826 in March. They are down 38% from the 16,191 hiring plans announced in April 2025. So far this year, employers have announced plans to hire 60,936 workers, down 13% from 70,058 new hires announced during the same period in 2025.

“With a number of factors potentially impacting summer travel plans as well as how businesses operate across sectors, we predict hiring plans will remain muted,” said Challenger.

Goldman Sachs’ wage tracker stands at 3.1% annualized in Q1 (vs. 3.7% in Q4) and 3.6% year-over-year (vs. 3.7% in Q4).

PCE inflation was +3.1% YoY in Q1, +3.5% YoY in March. On a QoQ basis: +4.5% annualized in Q1, +8.3% in March.

This seems like a good place to insert this:

Ray Dalio Says US Is Entering Period of ‘Great Turbulence’

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio said the US is headed for years of tumult, driven by large deficits, the growing wealth gap and left-right political divisions.

A new geopolitical system and disruptions from AI will also contribute to the turmoil, he added.

“There will be huge changes over the next five years, with all of these forces coming together,” Dalio said in an interview on the New York Times podcast Interesting Times with Ross Douthat. “And on the other side of that, it’ll be almost unrecognizable. It’ll be very different, and it’ll be a period of great change and great turbulence.” (…)

“We’re going to come into the midterm elections and I think that the Republicans will probably lose the House,” he said. “I think from that point on, you’re going to see an intensification of political and social conflict that’ll take place in that period, particularly between that election and the presidential election in 2028.”

Internationally, he said, there is no longer a rules-based order and the outcome of the US-Iran war can be defined in “almost black-and-white terms of who will control the Straight of Hormuz, and who will control the nuclear materials.”

Investors should maintain a well-diversified portfolio with between 5% and 15% in gold, he said. “When we look at history, we see that in all such periods, all the fiat currencies go down, and gold goes up.”

Separately, Apollo Global Management Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Rowan warned Thursday of a “massive geopolitical realignment” that will lead to “blue-collar ascendancy and white-collar stress.”

Yesterday, David Rosenberg published these 2 charts. I added the black dashed lines to show where the US was before Trump 1.0 vs the pre-1970’s period. Since 2018, the corporate sector has hugely outgrown the personal sector, creating the largest imbalance ever.

 

• BofA’s Hartnett Says US Stock Gains Have Rarely Been This Strong

(…) US stocks and gold are hurtling toward a fourth year of double-digit gains, rallies so exceptional that there have been few such episodes in history, according to Bank of America Corp. strategists.

The S&P 500 is set for an annualized 20% gain while bullion is on track for a 30% rally, said the team led by Michael Hartnett. For stocks, such prolonged, “big stuff” advances only played out in World War II, the period of peace that followed a few years after that conflict and in the bubble of 1995-1999, they said. (…)

The latest impulse from the artificial intelligence capex frenzy has pushed the US market higher in a very narrow rally driven by a just a handful of stocks. Now, other areas have started to see stronger gains. (…)

Consensus forecasts now predict the American economy to expand by a nominal 5.5% this year, with earnings growth at 20%.

The BofA team tipped material stocks to be the next strong gainers. While this sector accounts for just 2% of the S&P 500, close to 30-year lows, this is set to change.

A geopolitical grab for resources, increased military spending, the AI capex boom and efforts to address housing shortages should make materials “the new bull on the block,” they said.

Meanwhile:

BlackRock Cut Its Private Credit Fund Five Percent.

Two days ago, Oaktree (OCSL) marked down its private credit fund and cut its dividend. Today, BlackRock TCP Capital (TCPC) did the same thing. Two major asset managers, same week, same category.

BlackRock cut its fund value 5 percent. Six portfolio companies drove most of the decline. The common thread was software loans written in 2021 when valuations were high and rates were near zero. Those same companies now carry higher debt costs and lower revenue as AI replaces their products.

That double pressure was not in any 2021 underwriting model. It is in the 2025 results.

Gundlach warned at Milken this week that private credit investors will lose money and compared the market to dot-com and pre-crisis mortgages.

Two funds confirmed. The next two weeks of BDC earnings reveal whether this is a pattern or a coincidence. One more major fund markdown makes it a pattern.

The data is now catching up to the warning.

Much more than microchips: Trade soars in AI-related goods, driving U.S. trade deficit

American imports related to the artificial intelligence boom have more than doubled since 2023 while non-AI imports have fallen. This hunger for AI investment has increased the U.S. trade deficit despite the highest tariffs in a century. AI-related exports from the U.S. have also surged, though not as much, according to new (AI-assisted) research from Minneapolis Fed Monetary Advisor Michael Waugh (Minneapolis Fed Staff Report 684, “Trade in AI-Related Products”).

By tapping a large language model (LLM) to analyze data for more than 18,000 products, Waugh pushes beyond obvious AI inputs, like computer hardware, to capture the broad range of goods related to the build-out of data centers and other infrastructure. It’s not just microchips and circuit boards: A sharp rise in categories such as electric power, cooling HVAC, and telecommunications clearly accompanies the recent investment in AI. (…)

As of January 2026, the analysis finds imports of AI-relevant goods were 111 percent higher in nominal dollars than the monthly average in 2023. Imports with low AI relevance were down 14 percent. Prior to 2024, these high and low AI-relevant bins displayed nearly identical trends.

Another way to quantify the change: For all of 2025, total dollar imports of AI-relevant products ($379 billion) were 72.6 percent higher than in 2023. Imports of products with low AI relevance rose just 2.5 percent.

This growth occurred alongside historic increases in U.S. import tariffs during 2025. Using methods from his tariff-related research, Waugh calculates that AI-relevant goods faced an effective tariff rate of just 4.5 percent, versus 12.1 percent for non-AI goods. Tariff exemptions—principally one for consumer electronics—covered about 69 percent of AI-relevant imports, a situation that remains largely unchanged after February’s Supreme Court rule invalidated some tariffs.

AI trade flows both ways. U.S. exports related to AI were 35 percent higher in 2025 than in 2023. But the rise in imports was much larger. In a counterfactual exercise, Waugh finds that without these AI effects on trade, the U.S. trade deficit would have been 16 percent smaller in 2025.

The analysis unsurprisingly finds that Taiwan, the world’s dominant producer of advanced semiconductor chips, is a major source of AI-relevant imports. But under Waugh’s broader umbrella of AI-related goods, Mexico is equally important, with Mexico and Taiwan each supplying about a quarter of U.S. imports. Mexico is a major source for electrical, cooling, and networking products.

Mexico is also a major destination for America’s AI-related exports. Some of this traffic, Waugh believes, represents supply chains that cross the southern border multiple times. AI-related trade also helps explain why U.S. trade with Mexico remained robust in the face of tariffs while imports from Canada dropped. (…)

EARNINGS WATCH

British Airways owner IAG warns Iran war will add €2bn to jet fuel bill Company plans to recoup about 60% of higher costs through savings and raising ticket prices

(…) “If the current conflict continues to restrict flows of both crude oil and jet fuel from the Middle East, there is the potential for supplies of jet fuel to be restricted on a global basis.” (…)

Toyota warns of $4.2bn hit from Middle East war World’s biggest carmaker sells record 10.5mn vehicles last year on strong demand for hybrids

Toyota has said the Middle East conflict will cost it ¥670bn ($4.2bn) in higher component prices and lost sales, becoming the latest carmaker to lay bare the strains caused by the turmoil.

The world’s biggest carmaker said on Friday that the hit from surging prices for parts such as aluminium and rubber tyres, as well as lost sales in the region, would result in a 22 per cent fall in net profit to ¥3tn. That would be the third consecutive annual drop.

“We do not believe we can fully offset negative ¥670bn Middle East impact,” said Takanori Azuma, accounting group chief officer at Toyota.

The surging costs add to the ¥1.4tn burden from US tariffs that was a factor in pushing down net profit by 19 per cent to ¥3.8tn in the 12 months to March, although the company managed to exceed its previous projection.

Toyota’s estimate highlights the growing fallout of the war on the global motor industry after the big three US carmakers sounded the alarm on a $5bn financial hit from commodities inflation. (…)

Azuma said the estimates for higher costs assumed that the war would continue until next March. (…)

The North America region made an operating loss of almost ¥300bn largely because of the tariffs, the company said. (…)

Rule of Law 2, Trump’s Tariffs 0 The Section 122 border taxes go down, his second big legal defeat.

Another tariff swing and another legal miss for President Trump. A 2-1 majority of the U.S. Court of International Trade on Thursday ruled his Section 122 tariffs unlawful. Although the White House may turn to other statutes to dun businesses and consumers, the decision is important for the rule of law and limits on willful presidential discretion.

Mr. Trump invoked Section 122 to reimpose his border taxes after the Supreme Court struck down his emergency tariffs in February. Section 122 lets a President impose tariffs as high as 15% for up to 150 days to address “large and serious balance-of-payments deficits.” Mr. Trump set his rate at 10% across the globe.

The President claims the tariffs are needed to reduce the $1.2 trillion U.S. trade deficit in goods. The legal and semantic problem is that the balance of payments and trade balance aren’t the same, as judges Mark Barnett and Claire Kelly explain. “It is clear that Congress was aware of the differences in the words it chose,” they write. (…)

Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that the President can still impose tariffs because trade deficits are part of the balance of payments, and the President can pick and choose among the components. “Such an expansive reading of the statute would raise a non-delegation issue, which in turn would prompt a constitutional question,” the judges write.

But the judges say there is no need to address the constitutional arguments since the law doesn’t give the President the authority he claims. “Although the current account (and the balance of trade as a component of the current account) are relevant to balance-of-payments deficits, they are distinct, and the statute recognizes the distinction,” they write. (…)

The judges blocked the tariffs for the business plaintiffs, though they declined to issue a universal injunction.

The practical effect may be minimal since the litigation probably won’t be fully resolved before the law’s 150-day shot-clock for imposing the tariffs ends on July 24. Mr. Trump has also teed up new tariffs under Section 301 against specific countries for allegedly unfair trade practices, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says will soon be unveiled.

(…) it’s hard to recall another President so gung ho about a policy as economically destructive and politically unpopular as are Mr. Trump’s border taxes.

Anthropic weighs deal for near $1tn valuation as revenue surges

Anthropic is weighing raising tens of billions of dollars this summer to fund a vast expansion in computing capacity, in a move that would catapult it past rival OpenAI to a valuation of almost $1tn. (…)

The new round is expected to value Anthropic at about $900bn pre-money and to raise as much as $50bn, said three of the people. They added it was likely to close within two months. OpenAI was valued at $852bn post-money in March after it closed a record funding round of $122bn. (…)

Warming seas are brewing extreme weather in months ahead, scientists forecast Concerns raised about the development of an El Niño warming cycle this year combined with climate change

Sea temperatures around the world were the second highest on record for the month of April, stoking concerns among scientists that an El Niño warming cycle is brewing that would intensify extreme weather.

The naturally occurring El Niño weather phenomenon, where water temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become significantly warmer, temporarily accelerates the rise in global air temperature, resulting in the spread of fires, floods and droughts. (…)

The World Meteorological Organization said in March that El Niño had a better than even chance of returning by the end of this year, while in April the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put the odds of an El Niño returning between May and July at 61 per cent.

At the end of April, the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia said all climate models, including its own, suggested continued ocean warming over the coming month, reaching El Niño thresholds later this year. (…)

“We know that El Niños in general amplify temperatures, so if the impending one is as severe as feared, then we’re in for one hell of a ride,” he said.

“The climate system is complex and predictions are not promises — but I think the coming months and into 2027 are very likely to include a succession of grim environmental stories.” (…)

Oil and Stocks Depend on How Serious Trump Deal Is Markets care far more about the Strait than Iran’s nuclear program.

(…) Eric Golson of the University of Surrey argues that, given Tehran’s tolerance for economic pain, it could plausibly hold out for longer. In his view, the energy shock has yet to fully play out:

They’ve got the world backed into a corner and, at the moment, there’s no advantage for them to surrender before the world feels the pain. They have every incentive to keep holding on until they get the best possible deal they can.

For markets, reopening the Strait matters most. Brad Conger of Hirtle Callaghan points out that investors are less focused on parts of the deal relating to denuclearization; that raises the possibility of a narrower deal to restore transit flows first, leaving broader issues until later:

The world economy does not actually care whether Iran has a nuclear weapon or is developing a nuclear weapon. And so even a bad deal for the United States is, in the market’s view, good because it takes pressure off of all of the intermediates, in addition to fuel, fertilizers, plastics, and all the things that are starting to be in shortage.

Equities seem assured that some deal lies ahead and are looking beyond the shock, drawing support from robust high-tech investment. For them, the latest developments were a pure positive, and the stocks that were already leading performed best. (…)

While P/Es are rising,

(…) the average G7 10- and 30-year borrowing cost ended April at 17-year highs (and we remain within a few basis points of these levels today). Even if a permanent deescalation were to come to fruition, the risk that the long-end remains high is very real.

Certain members of the group, notably the U.S. and U.K, were already contending with overly high price pressures before a single missile was launched. Several members have been overly generous in their spending by subsidizing energy (or cutting taxes), despite the fragility of their public finances.

The lack of fiscal discipline combined with a high level of geopolitical risk will continue to put upward pressures on term premiums going forward.

On the forex side, markets are increasingly treating the long-term yield moves as risk premiums rather than return premiums. For the greenback, safe-haven flows are reversing, and the broad USD is now nearly back to where it was before the conflict, leaving it still down 7% from when President Trump first took office.

In Japan, higher yields are undermining, rather than restoring, yen support.

While G7 yields may remain high, this environment favours Canada as a relative outperformer given that inflation was much better contained and fiscal policy is on a more sustainable trajectory. We expect some near-term softness through Q2 but look for the currency to strengthen into the second half of the year. (NBC)

Who’s got the cards in this “little US excursion”?

• Iran Takes Its Time on a Response to Trump The surge in energy costs is a major headache for Trump and American voters are increasingly against the war.

Axios: U.S. officials said they expect a response from Tehran in the next 24-48 hours. “We are not far, but there is no deal yet,” one U.S. official said.

Other U.S. officials are skeptical a deal will come together.

• Jet-Fuel Prices Are Spiking and Trump’s Advisers Are Worried Administration officials have spoken to the airline industry, which has voiced concerns about the rising costs

Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu delivered a warning to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a recent visit to Washington: Already-high airfares will surge if the war in Iran doesn’t end soon.

Sununu, a Republican who represents some of the biggest airlines as the president of the industry group Airlines for America, has for weeks sounded the alarm to Trump administration officials about the economic fallout from high jet-fuel prices. The war, Sununu has argued, must come to a close soon, or things will get worse.

Administration officials have gotten the message.

Privately, President Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war in hopes that prices will begin moderating before November’s midterm elections. (…)

Sixty-three percent of Americans said they put a great deal or a good amount of blame on Trump for the increase in gas prices, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, PBS and Marist. More than 8 in 10 Americans said struggles at the gas pump are putting strain on their finances.

Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high. Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins. U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March—up 30% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels.

In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21% from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales. So far, airlines have said the higher fares haven’t deterred bookings and they are hoping to recoup more of the fuel-cost increases as the year goes on. (…)

Sununu said Trump administration officials are conscious of the economic fallout from the war: “They get it…and I think that’s why they’re trying to get through the war as fast as they can.”

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to prewar levels. “Ticket prices won’t go down immediately” after the strait is fully reopened, Sununu said. “You’re looking at elevated ticket prices through the summer and fall because it takes a while for the prices to go down.” (…)

The war has already contributed to one casualty in the industry: Spirit Airlines. Company representatives have said they were forced to close the airline because the sustained surge in jet-fuel prices derailed the company’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy. (…)

A group of budget airlines last month sought $2.5 billion in financial assistance to offset higher fuel costs, and they separately wrote to lawmakers asking for relief from certain ticket taxes.

• Why the Collapse of Spirit Airlines Means Higher Fares for Everyone Defunct budget airline had long been a competitive force on lower-cost tickets
• The Iran War Is Crushing Whirlpool’s Profit—and Higher Prices Are Coming

The Michigan-based maker of refrigerators and washing machines cut its full-year earnings guidance roughly in half Wednesday, from $6 a share to a range of $3 to $3.50, and said it would suspend its dividend as it focuses on paying down debt. Whirlpool stock dropped by 18% in after-hours trading. (…)

Though shoppers still replaced aging or broken appliances with modestly priced equivalents, they shied away from the company’s higher-price, more profitable models.

“We believe that’s absolutely driven by the fact that consumers are being a bit more cautious in terms of what they’re spending, and most likely reducing the amount of big-ticket purchases,” Warner said. The company lost $0.56 per share in the quarter, compared with the $0.38 earnings per share that Wall Street had expected.

Warner said the company was further hurt by the Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate the Trump administration’s emergency tariffs. Following the decision, she said, rivals cut their prices in anticipation of receiving refunds.

Warner said a new tariff policy announced in April, applying a flat 25% levy on the total value of imported appliances, would give Whirlpool the advantage it has long predicted over its foreign competitors. The company makes 80% of its products for the U.S. market domestically.

Whirlpool reduced its discounts on many products in April to make up for what it said were three years of cost inflation it hadn’t passed on to consumers. Atypically, its competitors swiftly followed the effective price hike with their own increases, which Warner said was a sign that higher prices were sustainable.

The company plans to increase list prices for its appliances by about 4% in July.

It seems that the wealth effect does not extend to high end appliances. Investors also seem to underestimate the costs of the war.

• America’s Army of Supercommuters Is Reeling Over High Gas Prices
• ‘Plastic shock’ hits Asia as Iran oil crisis strangles supplies Shortage of petrochemical inputs drives up prices of packaging for food and medical products

The disruption of oil shipments from the Middle East has severely constrained supplies of naphtha, a petroleum product that is turned into speciality chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing but is also essential to making plastic. The price of naphtha in Asia has almost doubled since the war began.

That has sent the prices of bags, containers, cups and utensils soaring, sparking fears of shortages as manufacturers struggle to source packaging for products such as instant noodles, beverages and cosmetics.

In Indonesia, one of the world’s most populous countries and one of the largest consumers of plastic, suppliers have warned plastics retailers that they could be forced to cease production due to scarcity of naphtha. (…)

Increasing plastic prices could add to inflationary pressures across Asia, where many countries rely on imported energy and were already grappling with higher costs. (…)

Some Asian petrochemical plants, which use naphtha to make ethylene and propylene, the building blocks of plastic, have already reduced or halted production. (…)

The food and beverage sector accounts for 60 per cent of plastic packaging demand in the country.

“But cosmetics, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals are also affected,” she added. (…)

Fed’s Goolsbee Sounds Warning on Inflation, Consumer Behavior

Fed’s Musalem Says Risks Are Shifting More Toward Inflation

NY Fed president John Williams: the Middle East conflict has added “significant and unpredictable risks.”

Europe Is Facing Stagflationary Shock, EU’s Dombrovskis Says

ECB Rate Hike in June Is ‘All but Inevitable,’ Kazimir Says

Top Bank of Korea Official Says It’s Time to Consider Rate Hike

Norway’s central bank raises interest rates amid impact of Iran conflict

US Firms Add 109,000 Jobs, Most Since Early 2025, ADP Says

Private-sector payrolls rose 109,000 in April after a revised 61,000 advance in the prior month, according to ADP Research data out Wednesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 120,000 increase.

More than half of the hiring advance was due to health services and education. Trade, transportation and utilities payrolls also increased. Construction employment grew, which may reflect the building of data centers that are at the heart of massive investment in artificial intelligence. (…)

The ADP report, published in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, also showed workers who changed jobs saw a 6.6% increase in pay from a year earlier. Wage growth for those who stayed put was 4.4%, slightly less than a month earlier.

The government’s employment report due Friday is expected to show a more moderate pace of hiring in April, a month after the biggest advance since 2024. (…)

ADP bases its findings on payrolls covering more than 26 million US private-sector employees.

Trump Is Losing a Second War

Last month, out of more than 11,000 new passenger vehicles registered in Norway, only around 150 had internal consumption engines. The rest were fully electric. In mainland Europe as a whole, EV sales are up 51 percent from a year ago.

The global energy transition — the shift from fossil fuels to electrotech, which uses solar, wind and batteries to power an electrified economy — is accelerating. It’s now clear that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz marks an inflection point: the global green energy curve, which was already on a rapidly rising trajectory, has suddenly become even steeper. “Investors,” reports the Financial Times, “are piling into clean energy funds.”

This acceleration isn’t just a consequence of soaring fossil fuel prices. It is also the result of the worldwide realization that, with the end of Pax Americana, depending on imported hydrocarbons is a risk not worth taking. The United States cannot be relied on to keep sea lanes open when cheap drones can take out an oil tanker or a major pipeline. Even relying on oil and gas from America itself is dangerous, since one never knows when an erratic U.S. government – now under the control of a twice-elected malignant narcissist — will try to use energy as a tool of coercion. (…)

Trump’s energy officials are barely less delusional than their boss. Last month Chris Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, dismissed the rise of renewable energy as a failed project:

The result has been 10 or 20 years of just massive investment in energy that wasn’t helpful in better energizing the world. Wasn’t helpful in lifting people out of poverty. Wasn’t helpful in expanding access to energy. In fact, I believe it’ll go down as the greatest malinvestment in history.

Meanwhile, last year solar and wind power accounted for 99 percent of the growth in world electricity supply, while generation using fossil fuels declined: (…)

Fortunately, America is not the world. We account for less than 20 percent of world electricity generation. So Trump’s policies can’t stop the global energy transition. Indeed, as a result of the Iran debacle, Trump’s presidency has been a net positive for the global green energy revolution.

Trump and the fossil-fuel cabal may be able to extract a few billion dollars in profits by keeping America stuck in a dirty-energy past. But in so doing they will also ensure that the United States is left behind, and that the future belongs to China.

One kind act really does set off a chain reaction

Think about the last time a stranger did something unexpectedly kind for you. Maybe someone held a door open, picked up something you dropped or gave you a compliment. Did it change how you treated the next person you encountered?

New research suggests that for most people, your kind gesture isn’t just helping one person — it’s helping many.

Kindness spreads, especially as we age.

People on the receiving end of random acts of kindness are more likely to direct kindness to strangers, according to a recent survey by Gallup and the Values-in-Action Foundation.

Younger adults are less likely than older adults to initiate acts of kindness toward strangers.

Of the adults age 50 or older surveyed, 72% said they felt comfortable initiating an act of kindness after being a beneficiary themselves. But only 40% of adults 18 to 29 who also received multiple acts of kindness said the same.

That suggests the “pay it forward” instinct is something many of us grow into, not something we’re simply born with.

Broadly, the country is doing better than cynics might expect: More than 60% of Americans across every region said they’d experienced kindness multiple times in just the past week. (…)

Values-in-Action’s United States of Kindness campaign is asking individuals and organizations to participate in 250 acts of kindness to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

• Find more information, ideas and resources on the United States of Kindness website.

If you were looking for a sign to help your neighbor, this is it.