Peter Atwater

A Sunday morning thought. While counterintuitive, courage is far harder than heroism.  Heroism is a natural impulsive response to the Stress Center when something must be done.  Courage, on the… | Pe... A Sunday morning thought. While counterintuitive, courage is far harder than heroism.  Heroism is a natural impulsive response to the Stress Center when something must be done.  Courage, on the other...

Some Sunday morning thoughts on courage versus heroism...

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Why Are So Many Women Dreaming of Rustic Domesticity? These days we could all use the respite of a patchwork quilt, handwoven baskets and a perfectly set dinner table

“People are nesting. Your home is the one thing you can control.”

www.wsj.com/style/design...

For those who may be new to the K-Shaped Economy, it is hardly a new phenomenon. This cartoon from @adamzyglis.bsky.social was first published 15 years ago.

If this cartoon was for Christmas 2010, God knows what he would draw for today.

AI: Yet Another Distant Relative This Thanksgiving On Thursday, Americans will come together around dining room tables to celebrate Thanksgiving. For some it will be a small gathering of close family.

AI's greatest threat is mounting populism and how psychologically distant it feels for Main Street.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-yet...

AI: Yet Another Distant Relative This Thanksgiving On Thursday, Americans will come together around dining room tables to celebrate Thanksgiving. For some it will be a small gathering of close family.

As Americans join together for Thanksgiving this week, I am struck by how much AI must feel like a "distant relative" to Main Street.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-yet...

The boom in sports gambling and prediction markets is creating “emerging credit risks,” per Bank of America sherwood.news/markets/the-...

As I write in "The Confidence Map," whether in business, politics, or sports, the character flaws that are eagerly ignored or overlooked when we confidence is high inevitably come back to bite leaders when it falls.

Then, it is only a question of when the knives come out.

Feels like a good morning to reshare this excerpt from my blog post on "Why 'Unsinkable' Markets Matter"

www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-un...

FWIW - the sudden popularity of the terms the "K-Shaped Economy" and "affordability," the election of Zohran Mandani, and the release of the Epstein files are all variations on the same societal mood-driven theme.

Talk about investor sentiment correlation...

ICYMI - It was great to speak with @lizannsonders.bsky.social about "The Confidence Map" and how its framework applies to investing.

www.schwab.com/learn/story/...

FWIW - I can't shake the feeling that this has the high likelihood of becoming a classic "middle finger" bar chart...

Our afternoon garage band name - "Digital Lettuce" comes from the AI space.

I suppose it begs the question whether AI can now turn over a new leaf.

One of the world’s most popular economists on why AI is ‘undoubtedly going to crash’: It’s built on ‘digital lettuce’—and the U.S. will be just fine anyway | Fortune Irish economist David McWilliams is taking his “History of Money” to America: “You kind of feel the boominess of the place, right?” he told Fortune.

‘He related his astonishment at getting in an Uber and being bombarded with a driver’s speculative initiatives. “Within 2 minutes, he was talking about the stock market, Bitcoin, AI, Nvidia, the whole thing. And I’m, like, driving down Sunset Blvd with this guy, right?”’ fortune.com/2025/11/20/d...

The Confidence Map: Charting a Path from Chaos to Clarity The Confidence Map: Charting a Path from Chaos to Clarity [Atwater, Peter] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Confidence Map: Charting a Path from Chaos to Clarity

The K-Shaped Economy was first and foremost a story about a divide in confidence between those at the top and those at the bottom. If you aren't familiar with why that matters, my book, "The Confidence Map" can help you understand its broad impacts.

www.amazon.com/Confidence-M...

Too big to mail.

‘Artificial intelligence might be the most transformative technology in generations. It is also the most joyless. While Wall Street greets AI with open arms, ordinary Americans respond with ambivalence, anxiety, even dread.’ www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-...

"This isn’t like the dot-com era," writes Greg Ip. Back then, "everyone had a web-based business idea."

Now, the optimism is among "executives calculating how much AI can reduce head count while workers wonder whether they will be replaced .."

While policymakers talk in the future tense and what they WILL do to address affordability, just a reminder that those at the bottom have a "Me Here Now" mindset and are looking for tangible actions that impact them today.

W&M’s AidData: China’s lending portfolio shifts focus to US, EU, sensitive industries New research tracks China’s secretive loans and grants in high-income and developing countries for the first time.

For anyone interested in China's financial influence around the globe, William & Mary's latest AidData report was unveiled this morning. Its findings are truly remarkable.

news.wm.edu/2025/11/18/w...

The Most Joyless Tech Revolution Ever: AI Is Making Us Rich and Unhappy Discomfort around artificial intelligence helps explain the disconnect between a solid economy and an anxious public.

Required reading:

Yet another K. As Greg Ip shares, there is an enormous contrast in the enthusiasm for AI between investors and tech and, well, everyone else.

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-...

The Ultrarich Are Spending a Fortune to Live in Extreme Privacy In Miami and elsewhere, the wealthy are moving in increasingly private spheres, shelling out big money to bypass the indignities of public life.

i am not convinced that a current cast member of the real housewives of miami is "spending a fortune to live in extreme privacy." www.wsj.com/lifestyle/tr...

Whether it is those at the top in NYC or a Swiss bank that serves them, there is consistent response to financial constraints: "We'll just leave."

FWIW While the relative mobility of those at the top vs. those at the bottom doesn't get much attention, it is something to watch.

It Is a K-Shaped Economy for US Consumers $XLY $XLP

The strength of higher-income household balance sheets relative to those of lower-income households is the reason consumer discretionary stocks have outperformed consumer staples in recent months.

Torsten at Apollo

AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and spike unemployment to 10% to 20% in the next one to five years, predicts Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. cbsn.ws/44c6Vgk

AI Anxiety Hits ‘SNL’ A memorable sketch tackled what happens when cutting-edge technology ends up disappointing Grandma.

Without overdoing it, last night’s “SNL” captured something fundamental about the growing cultural resentment surrounding AI, writes Michael Tedder:

Confidence requires feelings of certainty and control. The new administration's approach to tariffs has left business leaders with neither...

I liked the building remnants at the bottom of the image above. This image came in a very close second.

Do you feel lucky?

Move over Jenga Tower. Welcome to the Water Tower Economy!

An enormously heavy, intensely fragile, closed system of liquidity at the very top with not much of anything below it to keep it from swaying should a strong wind blow...