Key Takeaways from the 2026 Special Summer Issue of The Economist

I read the special summer issue of The Economist, cover to cover, and dissected, summarized, and satirized its contents. Read on to become an informed global citizen.

LEADERS

The Economist smugly calls its opinion pieces Leaders. Behold this week’s hot takes.

World's Biggest Blowhard: In an exclusive interview with Elon Musk, technologist, industrialist, and White nationalist, The Economist twisted itself in knots trying to explain the nonsensical ideology of the world's richest, saddest, and most pathetic man. Despite their valiant attempts to put him over, including referring to him as a "genius" and repeatedly using the word "paradox" to rationalize his glaring contradictions, the pro-business newspaper arrived at the only sane conclusion: Elon Musk is completely full of shit.

Free the Market: After decades of political corruption, sectarian violence, financial mismanagement, and skirmishes with its hostile neighbors, long-suffering Lebanon finally has a chance to rebuild—but only if the country embraces the benevolent power of capitalism.

Long Odds: Unsophisticated degenerate gambling platforms, such as Polymarket and Kalshi, won't be able to attract big bets from sophisticated degenerate gamblers, such as Citadel Securities and Goldman Sachs, until they start playing by clear and concise rules.

Nostalgia Junkie: Andy Burnham, Britain's newest Prime Minister, is, like the rest of the depressives in his downtrodden empire, living in the past.

Prolific Proliferation: POTUS-45/47's "deal" with Saudi Arabia opens the door for the enigmatic kingdom to build its own nuclear weapons—and likewise encourages every other country with hateful neighbors to arm up, too. Think: Turkey, Japan, South Korea, and the like. On the bright side, the forthcoming spike in radiation levels will be accompanied by a precipitous decline in carbon emissions.

Keep the Pretense: Nicaragua's dictator, Daniel Ortega, declared shambolic elections a thing of the past and proudly eliminated voting altogether. The Economist prefers superfluous dog and pony shows, however, because they provide oppressed peoples with false hopes—or something.

UNITED STATES

War Games, Part 1: Because of POTUS-45/47's military misadventures in South America and the Middle East, he doesn't have the financial firepower to pursue military misadventures in Asia. Sad!

War Games, Part 2: Even flag-humping, troop-supporting, jingoistic foreign policy hawks have accepted the Iran War is an unmitigated clusterfuck, and that—perhaps—POTUS-45/47 isn't the shrewdest commander-in-chief after all.

Among Democrats, net approval of the war is -84%. Among independents, it is -52%. The only large group that still backs it is MAGA Republicans, with a 72% net approval, and even this Trump-loving group is wavering. An Ipsos poll finds that, for the first time, significantly more than half of Trump supporters approve only “somewhat” of the way he is handling his job, rather than “strongly”. Republicans who call themselves “non-MAGA” have soured dramatically on the war, with net approval falling from +26% in April to -25% now.

Trump ❤️ Taxes: POTUS-45/47 has never met a tax—a tariff on income—he didn't skirt, nor has he ever met a tariff—a tax on imports—he didn't levy. Don't try to reconcile this dichotomy or you'll go insane.

Coppered Out: Michigan's upper peninsula is home to a smorgasbord of critical minerals, including copper, but proposed mining projects have been stalled for years due to financial constraints, bureaucratic mismanagement, and environmental NIMBYism. Sometimes political dysfunctional pays off.

Empathy Gap: Right-wing nutjobs' incessant raging against "empathy" is rooted in tribalism and hypocrisy. As a person who hates tribalism and hypocrisy, I'm finding it hard to empathize with them.

THE AMERICAS

Sated South Americans: The great news is, by taming inflation, reducing budget deficits, and expanding social programs, South America is on the cusp of eliminating hunger. The not-so-great news is, climate change and systemic poverty risk stunting further progress. We ridiculous little monkeys even make eating a challenge.

Pix Americana: POTUS-45/47's misguided assault on Pix, Brazil's national payments processor, has galvanized the country's citizens and strengthened president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's odds of winning reelection in October.

ASIA

Make Japan Fash Again: Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's war-mongering, deficit-spiking, culture war-inflaming agenda has drawn the ire of voters, rivals, colleagues, the bond market, and just about every other person on the increasingly irrelevant island nation.

Cartel Killings: The Philippines government's nightmarish and ineffective "war on drugs," first instituted by ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, has continued under current president Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos. Expect the blood—and drugs—to keep flowing.

Civil Standoff: Indonesia's corrupt army is facing off against Indonesia's corrupt police. Whichever side wins, Indonesia's citizens will lose.

Modi Operandi: India's disgruntled youth have taken to the streets—and social media—to protest Prime Minster Narendra Modi's corrupt and incompetent government. Modi's corrupt and incompetent government responded with violence, which has exacerbated the crisis and proved the protesters right.

CHINA

Pacific Theater: China's "maritime militia" has been conducting unusual exercises in the East China Sea, which suggests Emperor Winnie the Pooh is preparing the navy for a potential blockade—or invasion—of Taiwan.

Black Sheep: Shantou, a moribund port city, has failed to keep pace with its high-flying peers Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Xiamen. All four cities were designated "special economic zones" in the late seventies, but lowly Shantou is undoubtedly the class dunce cap. What went wrong? The usual suspects—corruption, economic mismanagement, xenophobia, and brain drain—played their parts.

Qing Controversies: The Chinese Communist Party is shook by a hot new historical fad: dunking on the Qing Dynasty. Why? Ethnic hostility toward the Manchus—the Qing Dynasty's ruling class—and the inconvenient fact that Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Taiwan were each annexed during that halcyon epoch gives lie to the party's claim that China has always been one big happy harmonious family.

MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA

Cool Hard Cash: As climate change heats the planet to inhospitable temperatures, innovative air conditioning manufacturers in the Gulf are well-positioned to cash in on the crisis.

Mega Projects, Mega Problems: Inspired by successful mega-projects in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Angola, African countries are thinking big when it comes to industrial investments on the continent. The benefits could be massive, but such ambitious ideas are often plagued by infrastructure bottlenecks, geopolitical headaches, and cost overruns. Alas, fortune favors the bold.

Radio Built the Internet Star: Abundant access, ease of use, and low costs have made old school radio stations an enduring feature of African life, even among the young and hip. In fact, radio has helped establish new stars on social media—rather than vice versa—and additional investments in internet infrastructure are increasing the analog technology's appeal.

EUROPE

Generational General: In an effort to modernize its military strategy and improve sagging morale, Ukraine appointed General Mykhailo Drapaty, 43, as commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces. Here's hoping for a swift, equitable, and lasting resolution to the pointless conflict.

War Games, Part 3: Ukrainian drone strikes within Russia's borders, including at a warehouse for a popular e-commerce company called Wildberries, are bringing the horrors of war to the home front. Here's hoping for a swift, equitable, and lasting resolution to the pointless conflict.

Auf Wiedersehen: Jens Spahn, an unpopular member of parliament with ties to Peter Thiel, had a surrogate baby in America with his husband, even though surrogacy is illegal in Germany and he'd previously said it should stay that way. He resigned, and the world was once again shocked—Shocked!—to discover a politician turned out to be a massive hypocrite.

Good vs. Evil: Spain cruised to World Cup glory by showcasing virtues such as modesty, tenacity, and teamwork. FIFA cruised to record profits doing the exact opposite.

Tourist Trap: Europe's economic malaise and limitless bureaucracy make the continent's most valuable product tourism. Related: Europeans hate tourism.

BRITAIN

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah: Over the course of four whinging articles, The Economist complains about new Prime Minister Andy Burnham—logical—but never once concedes that rapacious neoliberalism and the rent-seekers in The City are largely, if not wholly, to blame for the former empire's intractable rut—cynical.

Money-grubbers: Britons are becoming increasingly litigious when it comes to fighting over family inheritances. Anachronistic laws, lousy demographics, generational income inequality, and terrible reality TV shows have exacerbated the trend. In the end, as always, the only winners will be the lawyers.

Confederacy of Dunces: The hard right's CPAC GB festival, starring Liz Truss, was as pathetic and irrelevant as you'd imagine.

Eye Sores: Ever the masochists, Britons love to walk around and ogle the dystopian buildings they constructed in the wake of World War II.

INTERNATIONAL

Death Spiral: Global climate change is making air conditioning an essential good while also complicating its production, distribution, and geopolitics. In better news, when billions of old, poor, and melanin-heavy people die from excessive heat exposure, demand will fall back in line with supply.

War Games, Part 4: In yet another piece on the Iran War, The Economist finally states the obvious: POTUS-45/47 is a fucking idiot.

1843 MAGAZINE SUMMER SPECIALS

Predictably Dysfunctional: In a wide-ranging analysis, The Economist spends thousands of words detailing what any sane person could've told you in a single sentence: Prediction markets are a shitshow.

Chinatown: When a pretty, young, conspicuously wealthy millennial named Alice Guo ran for mayor of a small Philippines town called Bamban, and won, her victory was heralded as a renaissance for the region. When she was arrested a few years later, prosecutors learned she was of Chinese descent, discovered she'd forged her way into the country, and determined she was a key member of an organized crime syndicate which had established a massive scam center in town, and which relied upon human trafficking and torture to execute its hugely profitable and utterly horrific business model. This piece is scary, compelling, and a master class in reportage.

Symptom vs. Cause: Because humanity's destroying the planet, your cuppa will soon become a luxury of the past. But, to save our caffeinated brains, a "maverick" botanist named Aaron Davis is on a quixotic quest to encourage coffee producers to switch to a climate-resistant crop called stenophylla. Solving climate change would surely be saner—and probably simpler, too.

Human Capital: Cuba's most durable—and lucrative—export is physicians, but to punish the dysfunctional island nation, POTUS-45/47 has instituted policies that have severely restricted doctors' ability to travel and work aboard. As a result, Cuba's gotten poorer, and the countries its doctors used to serve have gotten sicker. The cruelty, as ever, is the point.

BUSINESS

Taciturn Profiteers: China's burgeoning class of young billionaires is keeping a low-profile to avoid government scrutiny. Speaking of which, has anyone heard from Jack Ma lately?

Weighed Down: Soaring costs and economic protectionism are allowing Chinese "AI" companies, which produce cheaper "open weight" models, to keep pace with their U.S. rivals. With any luck, they'll put each other out of business.

War Games, Part 5: Supply chain snags, pusillanimous procurement, and the advent of drone warfare have smashed the stock prices of Europe's feckless defense firms.

Sticker Shock: Rising grocery bills across the West can be attributed to higher input costs, such as fertilizer and fuel, rather than price-gouging retailers. Fair enough, but Wal-Mart can still fuck off and die.

Status Death: Among capitalism's lesser known and more insidious aspects is the fear of so-called "status death," which occurs when previously prestigious institutions—Ivy League universities, investment banks, august newspapers—no longer elevate their members to the highest echelons of society. As a result, humanity's most venal strivers will seek new ways to ruin the world for everyone else. See the prediction markets piece above.

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

Billionaire Bashing: An analysis by The Economist posits that more billionaires than ever are self-made and argues that taxing them at higher rates is bad politics and worse policy. The argument's surprisingly convincing—until you stop and think about how stupid it is.

Chaos Exporters: Because "AI" technologies cost too much, displace too many jobs, and are too socially destabilizing, the Chinese government plans to dump these toxic products on idiotic Americans and immigrant-fearing Europeans. I guess the Chinese really are smarter.

The Coming Crash: Across the globe, paper wealth generated by financial assets—deposits, stocks, bonds, etc.—has far outpaced "real" wealth created by tangible assets—property, minerals, infrastructure, etc. Bringing the two figures back into balance will require a lot of pain, likely in the form of higher inflation and/or an epic stock market crash.

Trad Wife, Happy Life: Heteronormative married couples where the woman earns way more money than the man report lower levels of happiness, poorer mental health, and, in some cases, are much more likely to get divorced. Nobody tell my wife about these findings.

Inflationary Fatalism: Central bankers have learned to stop worrying and love inflation. Start stockpiling supplies stat.

Technological Fatalism: History has shown that anti-technology movements, such as Luddism, have done nothing to stem the tide of technological change. Governments, for better or worse, ultimately dictate the pace of adoption and the scale of implementation. Good thing, then, that extremely thoughtful and deeply serious people are presiding over the "AI" revolution.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Seeing Red: Photobiomodulation, the process of using red and infrared light as therapeutic tools, could lead to a host of medical enhancements, such as mending wounds, repairing vision, treating traumatic brain injuries, and ameliorating psychiatric disorders. Clinical trials are ongoing, but expect the technology to really take off when applications expand to penis enlargement and erectile dysfunction.

Electric Aviation: Hybrid planes, like hybrid cars, should soon be flying at an airport near you. A good, if obvious and long overdue, invention.

Publicity Stunt: As part of its pre-IPO marketing strategy, OpenAI claimed one of its most advanced "AI" agents broke containment, logged itself onto the internet, and hacked a machine learning company called Hugging Face. The incident proved, once and for all, the only way to control "AI" is for governments and investors around the globe to give all their money to OpenAI.

Moon Shots: The engineering required to produce orbital data centers is plausible, but the fact that the "AI" business model is undercooked, launch costs are too high, and Elon Musk is involved all point to inevitable crashes in the physical and financial realms.

Self-Control: Should you micro-dose GLP-1s? No.

CULTURE

Abandon Your Dreams: Three books offering career advice to Gen Z—How to Start, Runnin' Down a Dream, and 80,000 Hours—are each uniquely unhelpful, and prove the super lucky grown-ups who get to publish stupid non-fiction books are out of touch and out to lunch. Chart your own path, kids.

Stranded in Paradise: Thanks to the illusory effects of Instagram, ill-equipped Gen Z hikers are getting stranded in picturesque locales at an alarming rate. Social media isn't real life, kids.

Ode to NYC: Cool Machine, the final novel in Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, proves he's the most fun of the four American authors who have won two Pulitzer Prizes—the others being William Faulkner, Booth Tarkington, and John Updike. I have copies of the first two novels in the series, Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto, on my bookshelf, but have yet to read either. Blame my children.

Blasphemy: According to a new history book, Rome's Age of Revolution, rather than being a persecutor of Christianity, the Roman Empire created and expanded the religion into its modern form.

Cottage Industry: Modern civilization is so ugly and nightmarish, bankers in London and tourists from afar are flocking to the Cotswolds. There, they can admire bucolic, 400-year-old buildings, ignore geopolitics, forget about climate change, and try to convince themselves their lives aren't meaningless.

OBITUARY

Born to Fly: Wally Funk, the preternatural pilot who spent a lifetime paving the way for women aviators, routinely outperformed her chauvinistic counterparts, and, at the ripe old age of 82, finally became a proper astronaut with an assist from Blue Origin, passed away on July 8. She was 87.