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Paul Turcynski won last week’s world-famous-news-haiku™ competition with this beauty about how a solar-powered robot can now mow your lawn:

Paul writes, in response to his win: “Gen X nostalgia all the way!”

And here’s how Paul fared against the competition:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 1. Two robots diverged, in a wood not on my lawn. They missed. I mow still. ~Jeff Sawyer (27)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 2. I guess I'll try drugs, robots taking the good jobs. I'll tell ya what. –Hank ~Kaitlyn Pino (9)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 3. Robot -- you can mow, My lawn but can you down a…12 pack at same time? ~Lodro Rinzler (34)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 4. Green grass fed by sun, Robots powered by sun. Bots cut lawn, I chill. ~S.Chaney (27)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 5. Standing in the sun, Metal man awaits his move. Cuts down his grass foe. ~Shelley Connolly (13)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 6. Stacy’s Mom has it wrong, Solar Power mowers have, It going on, and on.... ~Thomas C. Clair (53)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 7. Grass getting too long, Robots revive old adage, Make hay while sun shines. ~Stephen R. Balzac (23)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 8. Sun makes the grass grow, Powers mower which cuts it. The circle of life. ~Bob Andersen (72)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 9. I remember when, Cutting grass was my first job. Twelve-year-old replaced. ~Paul Turcynski (85)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 10. The tin man of light, Gets his power from above. Blades of grass fly free. ~Janine G (23)
366 Votes

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how August jobs numbers smashed forecasts, adding pressure on Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to raise interest rates to cool inflation, because he contends that the labor market is robust enough to take such a cut without pushing the economy into a recession. That’s a lot of syllables, but as we all know, a haiku contains just 17 (5,7, and 5). So. Best of luck! Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Jobs Numbers Smash Forecasts, Adding 162,000

• Regulators Take Aim at Tesla’s New Cybercab

• OpenAI Says It's Overtaken Anthropic With New Bot

• Meta Pays Firms to Let AI Learn From Their Data

• Freedom Fuel and Lawsuit Land in Detroit

• Poll of the Day: Regulation Alienation

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.38% )  $DJI ( ▼ 0.51% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$TSLA ( ▼ 5.92% )  $OPEAZZX ( ▲ 1.67% )  $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 0.62% )  $META ( ▲ 1.0% )  

Jobs Numbers Smash Forecasts, Adding 162,000

The U.S. economy added a whopping 162,000 jobs in August, absolutely obliterating the meager 55,000 predicted by Wall Street's finest minds. You would think a rebound like this — following July's sluggish 21,000 gain — would warrant pop-the-champagne celebrations. Instead, it has triggered widespread panic that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is about to hike interest rates yet again.

“Today’s number is tipping the scale further and further in the direction of a hike,” warned Jason Granet, chief investment officer at BNY, talking to the Financial Times on Friday. Stephen Brown, chief North America economist at Capital Economics, agreed, noting, “even the most committed dove would struggle to find anything in the August employment report to justify keeping interest rates unchanged.”

This reality has politicians sweating. President Donald Trump wasted no time taking to Truth Social to demand rate cuts, insisting, “A STRONG COUNTRY MEANS A LOWER INTEREST RATE - IT’S A BETTER CREDIT…Very simple!” He followed up with a patriotic nudge: “The Fed Board... must get smart - BE PATRIOTS for a change.” 

But economists aren't buying the political spin. Andrew Hollenhorst, chief U.S. economist at Citigroup, pointed out that the report “keeps the labor market off the table as a concern and keeps the focus on inflation.” And as RBC BlueBay’s Mike Bell put it, “Unless you get a weak inflation print, it makes a hike in September pretty likely.”

So, congratulations to the 162,000 newly employed Americans! Just try not to apply for a mortgage anytime soon. Likewise, the stock market fell as a result of the numbers. Of course it did.

Quote of the Day

Regulators Take Aim at Tesla’s New Cybercab

Tesla’s $TSLA ( ▼ 5.92% ) newly unveiled, shiny gold Cybercab has a lot going for it: Robot chauffeur dreams, a $1.4 trillion market valuation riding on its back, and of course, no steering wheel.

Unfortunately for Elon Musk, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) actually quite likes steering wheels.

Just as Tesla paraded its steering-wheel-free taxis in Austin, and Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI, boasted on X that “the streets won’t be the same anymore,” the federal government politely cleared its throat. The NHTSA launched an investigation into whether this futuristic, mirrorless wonder actually complies with real-world safety regulations.

You see, while Tesla tweeted that “the future of transport is safer, more enjoyable & gives you more time back,” federal regulators are stuck in the boring present. Currently, auto safety rules require things like brakes and steering wheels. Jonathan Morrison, NHTSA’s administrator, clarified the agency's stubborn stance with the New York Times: “NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed.”

Amazon's $AMZN ( ▼ 0.15% ) Zoox went through the tedious process of getting an official federal exemption to put its custom self-driving vans on the road. Tesla seemingly decided those rules simply didn't apply to them, which, given the nature of its CEO, is just remarkable, isn’t it?

Critics aren't holding their breath for Musk's robotaxi revolution. Matthew Wansley, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law, didn't mince words, calling the vehicle a sideshow: “To me the Cybercab is a distraction. If Tesla wants to build a lot of vehicles they can build a lot of vehicles. The question is can they build an automated driving system that works.”

For now, if you want a ride in a gold Cybercab, you might have to stick to the 45 permitted in Texas, assuming the feds don't confiscate the keys first. Wait, there are no keys either.

OpenAI Says It's Overtaken Anthropic With New Bot

OpenAI $OPEAZZX ( ▲ 1.67% ) has just unleashed its latest model, GPT-6 Astra, proudly declaring it "the world’s most intelligent" bot as it fights to claw back the crown from its arch-rival, Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 0.62% ) . OpenAI's $852 billion valuation is currently being dwarfed by Anthropic’s $965 billion. Naturally, OpenAI’s solution is to claim that they have finally achieved “Artificial General Intelligence.”

Well, sort of.

Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, insists Astra “represents a generational leap in capability.” When pressed on whether it’s actually AGI, he got philosophical: “Everyone has a different definition of AGI…it’s a grey, fuzzy thing. But I think when we look back people will think it’s about this time and about this model.”

Previously, AGI was a concrete milestone written into multi-billion-dollar contracts with Microsoft and Amazon. Now, according to Brockman, AGI is “more of a mission concept or a spiritual concept.” Next time I miss a deadline, I’ll just explain that my work is complete in a spiritual, grey, fuzzy sense. (Plus ca change — Ed.)

Song of the Day: Miley Cyrus, ‘Bass Persuades’

Miley is back with a dark, club-oriented, synth-powered dance-pop track, a lot like this newsletter.

Meta Pays Firms to Let AI Learn From Their Data

In the gold rush for AI training data, Meta has decided to stop pretending and just buy companies’ cooperation. Muse Spark, Meta’s flashy new model designed to run autonomous coding and workflow agents, comes with a 95% discount for companies willing to open their data sets for Meta to train the platform.

If you want to keep your prompts and outputs private under standard enterprise terms, 1 million input tokens will cost you a cool $1.25, and outputs cost $4.25. But if you let Mark Zuckerberg peek at your homework, those prices plummet to 10 cents for inputs and 20 cents for outputs.

Meta has had a desperate year on the data-gathering front. A previous initiative to track the computer usage of its own employees sparked intense internal outrage and had to be paused in June. But if your proprietary corporate strategy starts showing up in a teenager’s AI-generated coding homework next year, was it worth it to save $1.15?

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

Freedom Fuel and Lawsuit Land in Detroit

The Freedom Fuel Network, the gas station chain heavily endorsed by Donald Trump for its rock-bottom prices, has officially marched into Detroit, selling regular unleaded for $3.47 a gallon when the Michigan average is $4.09. The network proudly proclaimed on its website, “Due to the massive success of the network... we heard you — and we’re expanding further.”

But there is just one teeny, tiny catch.

According to a federal lawsuit, the secret behind these miraculously cheap prices isn't "America First" efficiency, it might just be not paying for the gas. Georgia-based supplier Mansfield Oil Co. is suing middleman Syed Kazmi and his company KRSM for allegedly running off with 1.1 million gallons of fuel worth $4 million, some of which magically ended up at Freedom Fuel stations. As Mansfield's lawsuit notes, KRSM was “able to sell such fuel for such low prices and garner such publicity because it never paid Plaintiff for such fuel.”

Now, the feds are trying to find the money. A judge ordered KRSM to keep $2.75 million in an M&T Bank checking account, but Mansfield alleges the account is underfunded by $2.25 million and has mysteriously been transferred to a different Kazmi entity named "Universal.” Urs Broderick Furrer, Mansfield’s lawyer, is on the hunt: “we have asked the Court to enforce its order and to permit limited discovery into where the money went.”

KRSM's lawyer, Mauro Tucci, dismissed it all as an “accounting dispute over fuel invoices mis-priced by Mansfield Oil.” Meanwhile, Freedom Fuel remains defiantly patriotic: “Despite the misinformation and baseless speculation circulating.… Just like the President, we remain committed to putting America First! God bless the U.S.A.”

Indeed.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️ 

Nope.

Poll of the Day: Regulation Alienation

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