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Today's Summary

Barry Ritholtz speaks with Stephanie Drescher, Apollos Chief Client and Product Development Officer. We discuss how creating company culture is so crucial. Barry Ritholtz: Condo prices this fall posted their biggest declines since 2012. He says we are in what Jeremy Grantham calls our third and probably most epic asset bubble in only 25 years. Environmental Movement has become irrelevant, by-passed, and effectively deceased. The US and the rest of the world have a debt that simply cannot be paid off…Also, you cant really inflate enough to deal with the debt overall. Fed policy has created the biggest wealth gap in the history of our country. Large-scale missile-drone strikes on energy infrastructure in Kiev have taken place, resulting in damage to 3 x Power Plants: TPP-4, TPP-5, and TPP-6. Russia arguably wanted to show France, the UK, and their shared US patron that its capable of swiftly hitting targets within NATO. Germany and France were against the introduction of Ukraine into NATO. The average transaction price in 2025 was $47,104. Tesla sales figures will all be gone in 2026 and I shudder to think what annual sales will look like when the year is over. The chaos in the US and around the world is scary and dangerous. The Secretary of Health and Human Services continues to get his way on the vaccine front. This will have the predictable result of reducing vaccine compliance and increasing preventable disease. We need a new national politics of basic needs–one that eschews phony tribal tribal tribal tribeship and builds local food production, affordable housing and education. We are witnessing the most insane unbelievable event in European climatic history. G. Tucker Compares ICE shooting to Israeli Genocide in Gaza! Barry Ritholtz: There is a palpable sense of uncertainty and foreboding following the U.S. illegal intervention in Venezuela. Japans postwar strategic framework has become obsolete, and this touches on everything from politics and economics to countrys alliances and constitutional matters. European weakness and division are the reasons the region is getting bullied by so many other powers. Europe needs to look for friends and allies — and export markets — other than America. Noah Smith and Brian Merchant debate how to distribute wealth from AI. Failure is an important part of the path to success creating technical expertise and adjacent technology that enable future successes. China is aggressively contesting the innovative sectors where the U.S. has long been the unquestioned leader. Stagnation isnt a criticism; its an opportunity for Japan to attract investment from all over the world, says Mercari Mercari. Japans corporate profits have seen a revival since the early 2010s. Few Japanese people study abroad these days, and those that do tend to go only for a very short time. Buy Local edition #74: Abundance and small business; Luxury housing and rent; Tariffs and the economy; Fraud; Math anxiety; Chinese robots. Vexl is a peer-to-peer trading app that helps people to buy and sell Bitcoin directly with each other, without any intermediaries, without KYC. South Korea is reportedly preparing to open its financial markets to spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) BlackRock warns cryptos love affair with AI is over as an energy war with Bitcoin miners begins. Key metrics imply Bitcoin price could surge past $125,000 before April. Number of Bitcoin whales holding at least 100 BTC has climbed to a new all-time high. Japans finance minister endorsed deeper crypto integration, including tax. Chinese authorities issue new guidelines on micro-grids at industrial parks to address hurdles. Rio Tinto and Glencore confirm they are in talks regarding a potential merger. Analysts frame the altcoin surge as a sentiment-driven classic rotation pattern where capital seeks higher-risk assets. DeepSeek is reportedly planning to drop its V4 model around mid-February. V4 outperforms Claude and ChatGPT on long-context code tasks. Data centers require huge amounts of land and considerable water sources, which could lead to conflict and issues of scarcity.