On The Record (5-26-26).

This week we looked at the AI capital black hole—three companies with a combined $3 trillion in prospective market cap preparing to go public while public R&D budgets get gutted and the rest of the economy gets starved of investment. Then we checked in on consumer sentiment, which has basically fallen off a cliff, because when gas hits $5 a gallon and inflation keeps eating your paycheck, reality has a way of setting in. Chapters Intro: 00:00:38 Quick Takes: 00:01:33 Max Notes: 00:04:47 Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:18:17 Chart of the Week: 00:20:03 Headlines: 00:21:38 Outro: 00:22:57 Resources Remarkably Bright Creatures The Vanguard: Jillian Michaels ROASTED by Her OWN AUDIENCE After Sam Seder SMACKDOWN (Plus She Calls US Out???) CNBC International Live: Jeff Currie on potential U.S.-Iran peace deal: Sell the tweet, buy the molecule National Science Foundation: Trends in U.S. R&D Performance and Funding Goldman Sachs: Tracking Trillions: The Assumptions Shaping the Scale of the AI Build-Out CNBC: Tech AI spending may approach $700 billion this year, but the blow to cash raises red flags McKinsey: The cost of compute: A $7 trillion race to scale data centers IG: SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic: upcoming IPOs to watch in 2026 New York Times: OpenAI Prepares to File to Go Public in Coming Weeks Reuters: OpenAI lays groundwork for juggernaut IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation Bankrate: The 10 Largest American IPOs Of All Time WIPO: Global Innovation Index 2025 - Global Innovation Tracker Nature: US science after a year of Trump: what has been lost and what remains Scroll Deep: Why are they people-shaped? ITIF: How Reducing Federal R&D Reduces GDP Growth University of Michigan: Final Results for May 2026 WSWS: The Ebola epidemic, imperialism and the political economy of social murder Truthout: The Justice Department Just Shut Disabled People Out of Essential Online Services for Another Year The Lever: The Pro-Israel Lobby's Quiet Cash Shuffle UNFTR Resources Video: On The Record 5/26/26 (Will SpaceX and OpenAI Starve the Market?) Essay: The AI Black Hole . -- If you like , please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and

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On The Record (5-26-26). is an episode from Unf*cking The Republic by UNFTR Media.

This episode is 23:14 long.

This episode was published on May 26, 2026.

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