Spending time at home

A new study finds college-educated fathers are working significantly shorter hours than before the Covid-19 pandemic, and are spending more time with their families. Fathers with degrees and young children slashed their time on the job by six hours a week and increased their time spent on housework and child care by more than four hours a week, according to analysis of federal time-use data from the think tank American Institute for Boys and Men. The study compared the three-year period through 2019 and the three-year period through 2024, the latest data available. That marks a significant shift from the two decades leading up to the pandemic, when the amount of time fathers spent on child care and household chores barely budged even as more mothers of young children joined the labour force.

(Adapted from “More Dads Are Scaling Back At The Office For Kids And Homework,” by Harriet Torry, published on May 25, 2026, by The Wall Street Journal)

Decaying treasury market

Since Richard Nixon broke the link between the American dollar and gold in 1971, global finance has floated on a sea of Treasuries. No asset is more important than America’s government debt. It provides a haven for investors at dangerous moments. Trillions of dollars of contracts and securities worldwide are priced with reference to Treasury bonds. Alas, the world’s safe asset has seen better days. The volume of Treasuries outstanding has grown by 126pc over the past decade, to almost $32tr, far outstripping steady demand from the likes of foreign central banks. As a result, yield-hunting private investors and hedge funds, fuelled by leverage, have taken a growing share of the market. Occasionally — most notably in March 2020 — this demand has suddenly dried up, sending short-term funding costs surging and forcing the Federal Reserve to buy bonds and, in effect, to underwrite the market.

(Adapted from “America’s Decaying Treasury Market Needs A Fix,” published on June 4, 2026, by The Economist)

AI and industrial rot

The numbers look staggeringly good. Taiwan, a rich economy that in a good year might be expected to expand by 3-4pc, is growing at 14pc. That is thanks to an explosion in exports, which, even after adjusting for inflation, rose by over 40pc last year. In a similar vein, operating profits at South Korea’s biggest firms ballooned by 159pc over the past year, thanks chiefly to its mighty exporters. Even usually sluggish Japan is seeing record corporate profits. However, North-east Asia’s export industries increasingly operate on two tracks. On one track, the boom in artificial intelligence is driving high-tech exports by the all-conquering chipmakers of South Korea and Taiwan, and by Japanese makers of equipment and materials used in chipmaking. On the second track, the rest of the industry is clapped out.

(Adapted from “Japan, South Korea And Taiwan Are Suffering Industrial Rot,” by The Economist, published on May 27, 2026, by The Economist)

Digital twins

A small but growing number of executives have created AI versions of themselves that offer a glimpse of future workplaces where one person’s output is no longer limited to one person. Here is how it works: An AI system analyses how an executive writes, speaks and thinks by studying everything from the person’s work emails to his or her speeches and interviews. Then, the AI double takes on various jobs for the executive — like answering questions from subordinates —that use the human’s knowledge and communication style. Sometimes, with a video-based version, these AI twins even speak at conferences or make presentations. Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn co-founder and partner at venture firm Greylock Partners, mostly uses his digital twin, Reid AI, for public appearances and media interviews. The system — trained on 22 years of Hoffman’s books, speeches, podcasts and articles — has delivered more than 75 addresses and presentations since its 2024 launch.

(Adapted from “Too Much Work To Do? Have Your Digital Twin Handle It?” by Joann S Lubin, published on May 25, 2026, by The Wall Street Journal)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 8th, 2026