Tootfinder

So in another dream I just woke up from, I was talking to someone about "the idea problem" (that it's becoming harder to monitize ideas, from a vox article written by an AI cooked reporter).
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/executive-disorder-white-house-weekly-46-313675864/
Basically, I was arguing that the majority of inventions target men because patriarchy puts economic control in men's hands. As men have started to help more with childcare, there have been more inventions related to childcare. (I don't have any idea if this is true. Seems legit, but I'm just relating my dream. I think I was also oversimplifying a bit to "men" and "women" because of my audience, but anyway it was a dream.) There's actually more low-hanging fruit, I pointed out, related to making care work easier.
So I argued that the real problem was a failure to invest in research into solving that problem. Today there are all these boondoggles built around killing people. What if, instead of all this government research into killing people, we dumped a ton of money into making it easier to support a household? That would be great for the economy. (Being asleep, I seem to have forgotten that working people need money.)
In the blur of being just awake I started thinking about how you could kickstart the US economy by taking the money from the AI boondoggle and other autonomous murder bots and create something like a program to build robots for housekeepers. You'd still be funding tech with government money, so the same horrible people get paid, but you're now actually solving real problems. It wouldn't even matter if it was a boondoggle, honestly. Just dumping money into something other than murdering people is good enough.
I imagined first if there was a program to fund a robot housecleaner, like robot dog with AI some laundry pickup, that would be provided, free of charge, to help people with children. It would work the same as the military boondoggle where a private company makes the government buy a piece of hardware from them and then also pay them to service it for some number of years. But instead of that hardware sitting around waiting to kill someone, it would be getting brought to people's houses to help them.
Then I thought, hey, you could even boost the economy more if you just had government funding for doulas and housecleaners and paid them a living wage. Hey, you could really kickstart the economy by nationalizing healthcare and including doula support as part of all births. Oh, and you could also just include the optional household help for families with children until the kids turn 18.
None of this is perfect (I don't actually think most of this is possible from any state), but the point is that it's actually wildly easy to figure out all kinds of ways to invest in the economy and monitize ideas as long as you aren't entirely focused on the same old "make money from spying on people and killing them." Funny that. Like they said in the podcast, maybe "finding ideas" isn't the problem.
Hope you enjoyed the weird semi-awake brain dump/rant.

U.S. Economy Grew More Slowly at End of 2025 (Ben Casselman/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/business/economy/us-economy-gdp.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260220/p120#a260220p120

Trump’s approval rating slips on the economy and immigration:
#USpol

Trump’s approval rating slips on the economy and immigration - AP-NORC
Approval of Trump’s handling of the economy and immigration are down about 10 points since March. Border security remains Trump’s best issue with 50% approval.

Much more so than in his first four years in office,
Trump has begun his second term with what amounts to an all-out assault on many of the institutions and policy paradigms that have long been seen by leaders of both major political parties as the foundations of American economic strength.
He has sought to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve,
fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an agency that collects key economic data,
and cut funding to …

Trump’s First Year Could Have Lasting Economic Consequences
President Trump’s policies have so far done little to change the overall state of the American economy, but economists warn they will ultimately weaken the United States.

Underhållande samtal mellan Mark Leonard, Adam Tooze och Carl Johan von Seth. https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/experten-trump-ar-en-attaaring-som-skriver-ett-argt-brev-till-jultomten/

Adam Tooze: Trump är en åttaåring som skriver brev till tomten
DN:s Carl Johan von Seth träffade Mark Leonard, chef för European Council on Foreign Relations, och Adam Tooze, chef för European Institute på Columbia University.

Bixby bekommt neues Leben eingehaucht – mit KI von Perplexity
Samsung will seinem eigenen Sprachassistenten Bixby neues Leben einhauchen: Dabei hilft jedoch nicht Google mit Gemini, sondern der Mitbewerber Perplexity.

"En 2025, l’électricité produite en Europe Š partir de l’éolien et du solaire a dépassé celle d’origine fossile"
https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2026/0…

En 2025, l’électricité produite en Europe à partir de l’éolien et du solaire a dépassé celle d’origine fossile
Le nucléaire reste la première source de production électrique dans l’Union européenne, selon le cercle de réflexion Ember. Le charbon poursuit son déclin, tandis que le solaire décolle.

US choking off Cuba's oil.
"…country is only able to produce about 40% of…energy it requires. Blackouts …become commonplace — …can last 10 to 15 hours & have even reached…Havana."
https://www.dw.com/en/cuba-oil-fuel-embarg

US oil blockade: How long before Cuba collapses?
As the US oil embargo on Cuba takes hold, the country is rapidly running out of fuel. The effects on the country's economy and population could be devastating, a Latin America expert in Havana told DW.

MAGA Delusions of Economic Leverage (Paul Krugman)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/maga-delusions-of-economic-leverage
http://www.memeorandum.com/260121/p50#a260121p50

U.S. economic growth slowed sharply at end of 2025, dragging down the year (Abha Bhattarai/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/02/20/gdp-2025-economy-tariffs-trade/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260220/p94#a260220p94