money

Gen Z men are embracing “old money” dressing

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Lately, the Instagram algorithm registration has changed. Where once infinite-soled sneakers and sweatshirts with logos that screamed from a mile away dominated, now there are movie videos, martinis served in cut-crystal glasses, and twenty-year-old boys who look like they’ve stepped out of a film set in the late 1950s. They’ve left behind the uniform of hypebeast to dress like Paul Newman on a yacht on the Riviera or like a young JFK Jr. on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s not just a wardrobe choice, it’s a symptom. As CNN explainswe are facing an “intentional, defined by moderation” change, where young men align their clothing with the way they want to be perceived today: as men with purpose and control. But behind this facade of neatness, lies a much more complex narrative about fear of the future and a worrying ideological drift that has been found in the Barbour jacket. his definitive banner. The change is palpable in the data. According to Lyst trends reportglobal demand for quarter-zip sweaters (quarter-zips) increased 31% by the end of 2025. Similarly, searches for the iconic loafers Le Loafer of Saint Laurent rose 66%. But if we look further, the data from the technology consultancy Heuritech They are revealing of this conservative turn: searches for boots with an equestrian aesthetic have increased by 39% and gingham prints, typical of the 1950s, have grown by 33%. The language of success is no longer streetwear disruptive; now it is “quiet luxury”. This trend has jumped from the catwalks to lifestyle. According to Business InsiderGeneration Z is “storming” golf courses, a sport that has historically been the playground of the mature elite. Interest has risen 30% since 2016, and in 2023 more than 3.4 million young people played for the first time. It is no longer just about clothes, but about inhabiting the spaces of exclusivity to, As some experts point outnot to be left out of the “business conversations” that occur in the greens. A piece that marks the change On this aesthetic chessboard, the king piece is the Barbour jacket. It was born in 1894 to protect fishermen and sailors, but now it is part of a different identity sign. Margaret Barbour understood in the 80s that the future of the brand involved capitalizing on its connection with the old money, achieving that Queen Elizabeth II and the then Prince Charles made it the symbol of the British rural aristocracy. In Spain, this return has taken a specific form: it has become the aesthetic fever of the right-wing kids. What was once a functional garment for the countryside is today a status symbol in the city that visually separates those who long for a traditional order from those who transitory fashions follow. The Barbour, with its paraffin smell and tartan lining, functions as armor that projects stability and class membership, even if the wearer does not own an acre of land. This turn does not occur in a vacuum. It coincides with what academics like Vivek Chibber define as the sunset of “wokism”. After years in which brands focused on social activism (from Black Lives Matter to Bud Light’s trans campaigns), the pendulum has swung strongly Towards the conservative side. The corporations they are dismantling their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs to avoid boycotts and align with an electorate that rejects “political correctness.” As Nesrine Malik analyzes in your column for Guardianthe fall of woke up is largely due to their “capture by elites.” For Malik, the patrician class hijacked identity politics, turning social justice into an exercise in symbolic gestures and elitist language (such as the use of Latinx or pronouns in bios) that ended up alienating the working class. This “diluted and flaccid version” of social justice, created in the image and likeness of the privileged, has provoked massive rejection. In this scenario, youth are no longer looking for “allies”, but rather authority figures and brands that, like Barbour, represent a tangible and unambiguous moral heritage. Barbour’s collaboration with Chloé is the death certificate of the progressive avant-garde: the aesthetics of privilege are now the only refuge value. A hierarchy of exclusion What we previously knew simply as style preppyfor Generation Z it is now, as defined by GQ“a character you can play.” Inspired by figures like Dickie Greenleaf in The talent of Mr. Ripleyyoung people look for clothes that “reveal that you have, at least, a yacht parked in the port.” However, this interpretation has an ideological “B side”. In his academic research The Fascist Potential of the ‘Old Money’ Trendresearcher Veronica Bezold warns that aesthetics It’s not just innocent nostalgia.. Bezold points out that the content old money On social media, he often portrays “new money”—technological or minority-linked fortunes—as something “vulgar.” By glorifying the “purity” of lineage and inherited wealth, Bezold argues that the trend aestheticizes neoliberalism and connects with radical right narratives of exclusion. A social hierarchy is thus validated where the value of a person depends on their origin and not their effort, feeding a historical amnesia about a past that was only “golden” for a few. The question underlying all of this is: why does a generation that lives in economic inequality dress like the class that ruined its future? The answer is sociological. A report in Curation Edit describe this phenomenon as “survival cosplay”. in a market inaccessible real estate and a bowling economy (gig economy), dressing like an heir is a way of claiming a stability they do not possess. “If you can’t buy a house, at least you can buy cream-colored pants that say you could,” they point out. But there is a deeper power component. As Martina Porta explains in his academic thesis The habitus of politicsthe wardrobe is an institutional communication tool that builds an image of authority. By adopting this style, the young Gen Z seeks to integrate into the habitus of the ruling classes to appear “competent” and “employable” in an increasingly rigid system. It’s a mimicry strategy: if you can’t beat … Read more

the real money is in customizing them

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Supercar and luxury car brands they know their clients very well and they know that an expensive car is no longer enough: they want something exclusive that no one else can have. For this reason, extreme customization has become a very profitable business within the luxury segment, to the point that custom programs compete in importance with the mass production of the models themselves. ​Customers are no longer satisfied with choosing a certain color or finish of the upholstery. You want unique craftsmanship that turns each car into a unique piece that reflects the personality of its owner. In this context, Porsche makes its customers’ wishes come true with Sonderwunsch, which could literally be translated as “special wishes.” Its name already suggests what that department of the Porsche factory in Zuffenhausen, north of Stuttgart, is dedicated to. Sit down with Porsche to design your car A little over two years ago, practically only Bentley and Rolls-Royce offered their customers the possibility of customize down to the last detail the design of their cars. However, currently the brands themselves recognize that the turnover from their artisanal customization workshops is a lucrative business that can double the price of their supercars. According to the official dataFerrari made a profit of 1,525 million euros in 2024. Some 1,300 million euros of those profits were billed from units that had gone through the Ferrari Atelier. Now, and given its recent drop in salesit is Porsche that gives an additional push to its artisanal customization department with more options for its customers. Have you always wanted to have a Porsche? We do it for you just as you dreamed of. That’s what Sonderwunsch offers, Porsche’s program for customers who want to go beyond the configurator options and create something truly personal. Porsche customization goes in layers Porsche has designed a layering system based on the customization requirements of its customers. The first level, the most basic, begins with the brand configurator. Here you can choose a certain range of colors, finishes and equipment defined by the brand. The second level of customization goes through the program Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur for more advanced (and expensive) customization options such as designing special colors that are not available in the configurator range or unique finishes. The last layer is Sonderwunsch, which fulfills requests that no one else can fulfill. The brand explains that Exclusive Manufaktur already allows deep customizations, such as exclusive metallic paints or upholstery with custom prints, but Sonderwunsch takes everything to another level with one-off projects or limited series. Porsche 911 GT3 (992) Le Mans Tribute 1985 With these extreme customization options, the German brand wants its customers to create the cars they have always dreamed of in close collaboration with its design and manufacturing experts. Alexander Fabig, Vice President of Individualization and Classics at Porsche, explains that “Since the beginning, we have constantly increased our personalization offering and made it more attractive to our customers.” Sonderwunsch allows its wealthiest clients to do things the brand configurator will never offer: color schemes created from scratchspecific wheel designs, body or interior modifications with hand-picked materials for a single car. Porsche 911 GT3 RS (992) The most ambitious projects, the so-called “one-off factory”, are conceived as unique pieces with its own approval, a process that can involve hundreds of employees for more than two years. Fabig admits that “most of our Sonderwunsch customers are absolute Porsche experts” and know the products “in and out.” The Sonderwunsch trip begins with the owner’s visit to the Porsche factory museum in Zuffenhausen, where he will sit down with a team of brand specialists who will listen to his initial idea and launch a technical, legal and economic feasibility study of the project. As and how they stand out in DiaryMotoronly the previous study requires an advance payment of 150,000 euros to demonstrate that the client is serious. Dreams come true, but they are not free. Porsche 911 Speedster 993 by Luca Trazzi ​Some of the most representative examples that Porsche shows is that of Luca Trazzi, who created a 911 Speedster 993 in “Otto Yellow” color, inspired by his dog Otto, who sports a unique yellow and black checkered interior made specifically for him. A one-off of these characteristics can cost millions and take more than two years, but the result is an approved and unique car. A KM0 Porsche is another story Porsche is not limited to the extreme customization of new cars or the creation of debut works in its artisan workshops. The brand has developed, within the Sonderwunsch umbrella, a kind of time machine with which cars that left the factory decades ago can be used again. As and how do they count in Mortor1the “Zero Miles” program allows cars to be restored from the factory to the point that, legally, their odometer can read zero kilometers again so that customers can return to release a historic supercar. This program only applies to three very special models for the German brand: Carrera GT, 959 and 918 Spyder. The process is exhaustive since the car is revised to the millimeter, all the parts that need it are restored or the necessary components are manufactured again, without forgetting the customization of details such as color, upholstery or even certain dynamic aspects to improve your behavior. When this process is finished, Porsche offers the customer the same warranty with which the car originally left the factory because, technically, the car is new again…even if it stopped being produced a couple of decades ago. In Xataka | Bill Gates was so obsessed with driving a Porsche 959 that he managed to change the laws that prevented him from doing so Image | porsche

ChatGPT urgently needs its users to start paying money. Solution: put ads on them

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It was inevitable. OpenAI has confirmed that is going to start testing ads on ChatGPT. The test will begin in the United States with users of free plans, those who have ChatGPT Plus, Pro or Enterprise are exempt for the moment. It is a movement that marks the beginning of a reality that was seen coming: The user experience of free AIs is about to get worse. All for the AGI. Through your X profileOpenAI has shared what those ads will look like and is striking in the heading of its “advertising principles.” Here they say their mission is “to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity; our pursuit of publicity always supports that mission and makes AI more accessible.” how he jokes Pedro Domingos in Xit seems that the AGI was actually “Ad-Generated Income”, that is, “Income generated by advertising.” Where I said I say…. The AGI is becoming the excuse for everything. To find the true reasons behind this decision, it is enough to look at OpenAI numbers. Or also we can go back to 2024when Sam Altman said that ads on ChatGPT are “the last resort for our business model.” Saying that everything is part of a plan for the benefit of humanity is better than admitting that the AI ​​race is very expensive and OpenAI desperately needs to monetize its AI. This sounds familiar to us. The situation is quite reminiscent of the case of Netflix, which In 2020 he flatly refused to advertising, stating that it was a way to “exploit users” to two years later launch your plan with ads. Since then the streaming experience began to deteriorate and everything indicates that we are at the beginning of exactly the same thing happening with AI. Advertising as punishment. Before, ads were a way to generate income. Today they also function as a pressure tool to push users to pay a subscription. This is what we find on YouTube or Spotify, where the bombardment of ads is constant, repetitive and very intrusive. We pay to end the torture. Objective: subscriptions. ChatGPT has 1.8 billion users, but the reality is that only 5% are subscribed to one of their payment plans. How to increase this figure? If we don’t subscribe ourselves, maybe a few ads will convince us. OpenAI has been the first, but there are also rumors that Google will integrate ads into Gemini. The AI ​​party does not pay for itself, it is a matter of time. There is a loophole. If the big chatbots turn their free versions into a minefield of ads, we will always have the option of use local models such as DeepSeek, Mistral, Llama or ChatGPT itself. Here we get rid of token limits, queues and also ads. The bad part is that the performance is usually lower than the cloud and it also has fewer integrations. Time will tell if they end up being a better alternative. Image | OpenAI In Xataka | Generative AI opens its gap between those who focus on it locally and those who focus on the cloud. There is room for both

lend money to those who buy them

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The European automobile sector is experiencing its worst crisis in decades as a result of a perfect storm: This alignment has led the six main European manufacturers to project a drop in sales by 2025. But there is a parallel business that is growing: banking. Why is it important. Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes have turned their financial divisions into the engine that is making their profits grow. It is no longer just about selling cars, but about financing their purchase. From there its benefits come to an increasing extent. The figures. As detailed The Economist Based on the financial results of different manufacturers, at Volkswagen financial services have contributed 3,096 million euros of Ebitda in the first nine months of 2024. It is 44% of the total, more than the sale of vehicles to passengers and companies combined. A business that grows 7.9% while the rest contracts. BMW places its financial division at 20% of the total business, with 38,562 million euros invoiced. In the third quarter that weight grew to 29.7%. Mercedes reaches 13.4% of its income through this means. Renault 12.5%, with a growth of 19.8% in the last quarter according to the analysis of results collected by the financial media. Between the lines. Automobile companies have built banks within their structures. The logic is simple: deposits provide cheaper financing than issuing debt in the markets. They offer loans, leasing and vehicle subscriptions with margins that the traditional business no longer provides. Yes, but. This model brings systemic risks. During the 2008 crisis, GMAC (the financial division of General Motors) collapsed due to its exposure to mortgages subprime and needed a bailout of $17.2 billion. Mixing banking and sales multiplies the risk when a recession hits. Furthermore, this is not an exclusively Spanish or European phenomenon. How to collect Washington Postthe US FDIC has received applications from GM, Stellantis and Ford to create industrial banks. Trump promised to relax business restrictions, and approving them would set a precedent for technology companies like Apple, Google or Amazon, which have been rumored to make similar moves for decades. The paradox. Automobile companies are mutating towards a model where the car is the pretext and credit is the business. They sell cars to be able to lend money and thus reverse the logic of an industry that defined the 20th century. The question is whether this shift is going to save them or whether it will end up exposing them to a new financial crisis. In Xataka | The car market in Spain in 2025 confirms the trend: the three winners while electrification gains weight Featured image | Lenny Kuhne

Renfe is obliged to return money after 15 minutes of delay. Its president warns that this “would make tickets more expensive”

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The president of Renfe, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, assures that the company will not apply from January 1 the new compensation approved by Congress. He argues that the measure is “unconstitutional and generates inequality against Iryo and Ouigo.” Conflict. In November, Congress approved a PP amendment to the Sustainable Mobility Law that forces Renfe to recover its old compensation for delays. These are 50% refund of the ticket from 15 minutes of delay and 100% from 30 minutes. Currently, after the change which the operator made in July 2024, only returns money after 60 minutes (50% of the amount) and 90 minutes (100%). The amendment, which had the support of Vox, Junts, ERC, PNV, Podemos and BNG, sets January 1, 2026 as the date of entry into force. Renfe’s position. Fernández Heredia, has declared in RNE that “in principle, no” there will be changes next Thursday in the travel conditions. According to the president of the operator, the State Attorney’s Office is studying legal formulas to avoid applying the provision. “We have a legal opinion that clearly says that it is unconstitutional,” he said. explained in El País, arguing that it violates principles such as equal treatment, freedom of enterprise and two European regulations on rail transport services. The economic cost according to the operator. The president of the institution estimates the impact of the measure at more than 125 million euros annually, well above the 43 million that Renfe paid in compensation during 2023. As Fernández Heredia clarifies, the increase is not only due to more incidents, but also because the amendment extends compensation to all long-distance commercial services, including Avlo, Alvia and Intercity, not just the AVE. “Whoever wrote this didn’t know what he was doing,” pointed out to the middle. The consequences for the traveler. The president of Renfe warns that applying the new compensation would cause a 10% increase in fares and would displace up to 5% of passengers towards the competition. In addition, it warns that “deficient services that Renfe maintains in areas where Iryo and Ouigo do not operate would be put at serious risk.” “If we want it to be cheaper, provide deficient services and stop where no one stops, what we don’t want is liberalization,” declared in RNE. Inequality. The core of Renfe’s argument is regulatory asymmetry. And while this operator would have to return part of the money from 15 minutes late, Ouigo begins to compensate from 30 minutes (with purchase vouchers) and Iryo from 30 minutes as well. Both competitors only refund 100% of the amount after 90 minutes of delay, just like Renfe does now. “I don’t think this is being done because we want to improve the conditions of travelers, but rather because of an attack on Renfe,” he said. affirmed Fernández Heredia in El País. Legal battle underway. Sources from the Ministry of Transport they qualified the amendment to the media 20 Minutes as “demagogic and populist.” Minister Óscar Puente announced after the approval of the law that they would look for formulas to prevent its application, something that Fernández Heredia has confirmed is being studied. The president of Renfe regrets that the company “is not entitled to appeal to the Constitutional Court, which creates insecurity when it comes to defending ourselves.” He inherits the mark of ppolitical opulism. The president of Renfe was very critical of the parliamentary groups that supported the measure. “It was a slap in the face of Renfe to the Government,” as collected The Country. “It is a populist measure because they do not say that this measure implies ‘raising prices’ and that it will benefit the ‘other two companies,’” added in the interview on ‘Las Mañanas de RNE’. The president of the operator has asked the PP, Podemos and BNG for explanations about why the obligation only affects Renfe. “If we want to provide a guarantee policy and better compensation, the logical thing is that it should be for all travelers.” In Xataka | Public transport faces 2026 with extended aid and the approved Single Pass: there is still one step ahead

Not collecting the shared shares of the Gordo de Navidad correctly can cost you a lot of money

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El Gordo de Navidad is much more than a lottery draw. It is a cultural tradition that has taken root in Spain, causing many people to share tenths with family, friends or co-workers as a symbol of hope and good wishes sets. However, this gesture of good will, so common these days, can become a serious problem if the prize is not collected correctly. The Technicians of the Ministry of Finance (Gestha) they insist in which the way of collecting and distributing the prize is key to not ending up paying more taxes than necessary nor face subsequent tax penalties. Treasury is one more to distribute. In the Christmas Lottery, prizes over 40,000 euros are taxed at 20% on the part that exceeds that amount, so that a tenth awarded with the Gordo de Navidad (400,000 euros) becomes 328,000 euros net for the winner and 72,000 euros for the Treasury. Aitor Fernández, head of the tax area of TaxDownexplains that “the first 40,000 are always exempt. That leaves us with a total of 360,000 euros on which the 20% tax is applied,” and remembers that the bank already delivers the money with the withholding applied, so that the winning person directly receives the net amount. How to collect a shared tenth without fears. The Tax Agency recommends that, when a tenth is shared by several people, all participants identify themselves at the time of collection or designate a representative with notarial power to certify the identity and the percentage of prize that corresponds to each participant. Fernández details that the banking entity is in charge of taking the data of “how many are the winners, how it is distributed and is in charge of settling the tax before the Administration, giving each beneficiary their already net part.” If all the participants are identified, the financial institution distributes the exemption of the first 40,000 euros among all of them and applies to each one the corresponding withholding on the part of the prize that corresponds to them, in proportion to their percentage. Thus, they all appear as beneficiaries before the Treasury, which can verify that each one has supported 20% of what exceeds 40,000 euros without there being any double taxation or suspicion of donations covert The mistake that one collects and then distributes. The TaxDown expert warns that the greatest risk appears when a single participant collects the tenth in his name without leaving a record that this prize will be distributed later, and then distributes the money through transfers to the rest. “It is a mistake that can be made and should be avoided at all costs,” emphasizes Fernández. In that case, both the 40,000 euro exemption and the 20% withholding apply only to the person listed as the prize holder, while subsequent movements can be seen as cash gifts. As Fernández details, for the Tax Agency “subsequent transfers corresponding to a hypothetical distribution would be considered donations, which consequently implies that they are taxed.” This means that whoever receives the money could have to pay the Inheritance and Donation Tax, with the added problem that many autonomous communities only reduce this tax among first-degree relatives, while among friends, unmarried couples or other distant relatives the tax cost can skyrocket. A prize free of charge. Regarding the treatment of the prize in personal income tax, the TaxDown tax expert recalls that, once the withholding corresponding to the special tax Regarding lotteries, the amount obtained is not taxed again in the Income Tax return and does not affect access to scholarships or aid that depend on income, although it may influence the Wealth Tax of those who are obliged to present it. Fernández emphasizes that “what they pay us is what we can dispose of” and that there will only be new taxation if that money is invested and generates interest or capital gains, which, then yes, will have to be declared in the personal income tax as capital gains, but not for the money received from the lottery. For this reason, the expert remembers that it is best not to rush when investing that money and it is best to think about it calmly. At the end of the day, letting it “rest” is not going to entail an additional tax expense. In Xataka | Why do millionaires like Zuckerberg and Gates decide not to leave all their money to their children? Image | Flickr (Aiaraldea Gaur eta Hemen)

It is not clear how to make money when AI answers everything

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These days there is a gesture that is repeated over and over again: open a chatbot or a generative search mode, write a question and wait for a direct, orderly and apparently definitive answer. There is no list of links and no need to compare ten pages to decide which one to trust. The promise of comfort is evident, but behind that everyday gesture a much deeper crack is opening up. For years, internet search has been one of the tech industry’s big money-making machines. If AI begins to answer everything for us, the question is no longer technical, but economic: who pays for that answer and who is left out. The first clear sign that something is moving came at a very specific time in the trading calendar. During the last Black Friday, the big language models started sending real traffic to top-tier online stores. According to Semrush data cited by The Wall Street Journaltwenty large retailers received an average of 183,000 daily visits from AI tools, a figure still small compared to Google, but almost eight times higher than the previous year. The volume is still marginal, but the trend no longer goes unnoticed by those who make a living by attracting and converting users. When the response replaces the click. Traditional search worked as a referral system: the better positioned a page was, the more traffic it received. The emergence of AI alters this scheme by offering closed answers that, in many cases, reduce or eliminate the intermediate step. This change does not guarantee greater quality or reliability; the models can make errors, mix sources or generate incorrect information. But it does transform the distribution of attention. If the user stops visiting thousands of sites and the interaction, in many cases, is concentrated on the platform that responds, the economic model that has sustained the web for years comes into tension. This shift in attention has triggered an immediate reaction on the business side. As AI-generated responses begin to influence which brands appear and which disappear from the user’s radar, a new concern arises: how to “be” within those responses. Hence the idea of ​​optimizing for search with AI, a still diffuse field in which traditional agencies, newly created startups coexist, such as Evertune either Profoundand platforms that attempt to offer metrics, tools, and promises of visibility into systems that, by definition, They work like black boxes. The emergence of AI search has not generated consensus, but rather a clash of interpretations. ORPart of the sector believes that the change is incremental and that good practices as always continue to be relevant, even if they are now expressed in another way. In front of them are those they openly talk about a change of era and they defend that visibility in generated responses requires a new discipline. Companies, brands and investors move between both extremes, with millions of dollars at stake. The signs that resist change. In a field that is not very standardized, many of the tactics that best fit generative search are not radically new. Authority, context and editorial clarity remain relevant factors, as does offering useful and verifiable information. Some companies, Semrush explainsthey are fine-tuning formats, summaries or structures to facilitate reading by models, but without breaking with their previous practices. When social context enters the equation. Compared to classic SEO, AI seems to rely more on signals external to the website. According to data analyzed by Profound, recency weighs especially heavily in this type of response. And, according to Semrush, user-generated content is also gaining relevance, from forums to comments on social platforms, which models use as raw material to understand products and brands. That introduces a variable that is difficult for brands to control: the real conversation. It is no longer just about optimizing pages, but about understanding that the collective story also influences what the AI ​​returns. For years an entire industry has been built around a very specific premise: appearing on Google to influence a purchasing decision. SEO specialists, digital marketing agencies, advertising tools and platforms have made a living by optimizing visibility, information and messages that took the user to a store. This system worked because the search acted as an intermediary and referred the potential buyer. If the AI ​​starts responding, recommending and prioritizing or suggesting which link to show to buy, the entire gear is reconfigured. The question is no longer just how to attract visitors, but how to make money when the intermediation changes hands. Images | Google | Austin Distel | 1981 Digital In Xataka | The risk that OpenAI goes bankrupt goes far beyond its future as a company: the entire sector depends on it

Wall Street has turned on the spigot of infinite money for AI. They have forgotten a small detail: the electrical network

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In that equation that the world is trying to solve with AI, there is a half that not many people have noticed: debt. Behind every AI-generated chat and video is a gigantic network of data centers, and those data centers are being financed with a mountain of borrowed money. And therein lies the problem. In what is borrowed. Debt and more debt. According to recent datathe issuance of secured debt linked to data centers in the United States is estimated to be $25.4 billion by 2025. It is 112% more than the previous year. If we add up all the complex financial instruments (known as asset-backed securities (ABS) and commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBSS)), the snowball is already huge: there are almost $49 billion tied to these securities. Bonuses for everyone. Here there are not only startups asking for loans, no. The technology giants that are setting up these infrastructures – the so-called hyperscalers – are also taking advantage of this mechanism. Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Oracle or Meta have rediscovered the bond market as a source of financing. Better to spend what is not mine. They all have huge amounts of money, but instead of spending their own cash, They have raised 100,000 million dollars in debt issues so far this year. The goal: buy thousands of GPUs and build data centers before the competition. What are you doing, Oracle? If there is a company that embodies the vertigo of this excessive bet, it is Oracle. The company created by Larry Ellison has committed to meeting a Pharaonic $300 billion deal with OpenAI. That has forced it to become the largest issuer of corporate debt (outside the financial sector). The numbers are scary: your total debt has grown to 111.6 billion dollarswhile its cash has dropped by 10,000 million. Citi estimates they’ll need to borrow another $20 billion to $30 billion every year (every year!) for the next three years just to keep building. excessive ambition. There are also examples of startups that are exploiting this facet. One of the clearest is the one from CoreWeavea company famous for renting computing capacity for AI. The company has secured credit lines of $2.5 billion backed by leading investment banks such as JPMorgan. The market message seems clear: “if you’re going to build for AI, here’s the money.” How to get a 30-year mortgage. Analysts of all kinds have been keeping the fly behind their ears for some time, and one of the latest Moody’s reports is a good example. Concrete buildings are usually financed with terms of 20 or 30 years, but the technology inside (such as AI chips) changes radically every 3 or 4 years. Does it make sense to go into debt three decades from now for a technology that evolves so quickly? cheap money. Investors are also agreeing to charge minimal interest, just 1% above what the safe US public debt pays, when they assume that risk. It’s a worrying classic sign of euphoria. There is so much money wanting to enter the sector that those who lend it have lowered their guard and demand very little return for their risk. They firmly believe in the promises of AI while increasingly more analysts warnhorrified, that we are facing an “irrational exuberance.” Having money is no longer enough. All this is already scary, but the real bottleneck for expansion is not even capital or chips, but the electrical grid. As Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, pointed out, there is no power for so many chips. The situation is so worrying that a Deloitte study indicated in a study that there are a seven-year waiting line to connect some data center projects to the electrical grid. And if companies want to obtain financing, they need have guaranteed electricity supply for your data centers. If there is no plug, there is no loan. Big Tech looks for electrons. At OpenAI they already warned of the problem months ago when talking about the “electron gap” describing electrons (energy) as the new oil. Almost all the major companies in the industry are making a move. Google has signed an agreement with TotalEnergies to be delivered 1.5 TWh of electricity over the next 15 years, and Meta did something similar with Treaty Oak Clean Energy to get 385 MW of its solar plants in Louisiana. The bubble before the big question. All of this further increases the fear that the AI ​​bubble will end up bursting in a big way. Meanwhile, the big unknown is whether the demand for artificial intelligence will be capable of paying the immense electrical and financial bill that it is signing today in 5 or 10 years. The credit party continues. In Xataka | While Silicon Valley seeks electricity, China subsidizes it: this is how it wants to win the AI ​​war

‘Avatar 3’ is going to be a movie so disproportionately expensive that it runs the risk of destroying and losing money

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‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ is already, as has happened with all previous installments of the franchise, one of the most anticipated films of the year. Each new installment breaks box office records, and yet James Cameron’s statements are more pessimistic each year about the continuity of the series. Are you sure that ‘Avatar’ is as good a deal as it seems? We snooped into his finances. The paradox. ‘Avatar: Fire and Ashes’ arrives wrapped in an economic paradox: its production budget exceeds 400 million dollarsa figure that places it among the most expensive films ever filmed. And yet, its own director is not clear if the business is worth it. Cameron has been unusually frank about his franchise’s finances and he put the question bluntly: “Will we make money on Avatar 3? Surely some. But the real question is what kind of profit margin there will be, if any, and whether that will be enough of an incentive to continue in this universe.” The wild mathematics of break-even. The arithmetic of ‘Fire and Ashes’ defies standard Hollywood logic. With 400 million in production expenses and a marketing budget that analysts place between 100 and 175 million, it would need to exceed $1 billion at the box office simply to break even or break evenaccording to the more or less assumed industry rule that a film must gross 2.5 times its production budget to be profitable. The case of ‘The sense of water’. The previous installment of ‘Avatar’ gives us some previous lessons on the subject. The sequel cost more than $1 billion in total costs: $400 million in production, another $400 in global marketing, $300 million in shares for Cameron and producer Jon Landau, plus cast salaries, residuals and general expenses. Cameron was not exaggerating when declared that ‘Avatar 2’ was “the worst business case in the history of cinema” and that it needed to become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film of all time” simply to not lose money. The film fulfilled that apocalyptic objective: raised 2,320 million and finally generated 531.7 million net profit. But that deceptively solid figure hides a crucial detail: The studios do not receive all the money from the box office. Movie theaters take approximately 50% of US domestic revenue, 40% from international markets, and up to 75% in China. That is, of those 2.32 billion, Disney actually received just over 1 billion. The rest stayed at the box office. The crisis of inflated budgets. ‘Avatar’ is one of the most visible symptoms of a disease that affects all of Hollywood. The industry has a systemic problem of out-of-control budgets, which affects such well-known films as ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘ ($490 million), ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ (584 million) or ‘Mission: Impossible – Deadly Sentence: Part One’ (400 million). A analysis of the causes It leads us to multiple factors that explain this phenomenon: inflation has increased the value of the dollar by 15% since 2020, making all aspects of production more expensive. But in addition, streaming platforms altered the economy of stars, accustoming them to higher initial charges, demands that they later transfer to traditional productions. And there is also a visual effects arms race: franchises like superheroes try to surpass each other in spectacularity, and infect the rest of the blockbusters. For this reason they are films that “might not make money even with objectively decent box offices.” The unique case of ‘Avatar’. James Cameron invests in developing pioneering technology that then benefits the entire industry: the underwater motion capture that Cameron and Weta FX took a year and a half to perfect for ‘The Sense of Water’, now reduce costs for the sequels being already invented. But the budget escalation is relentless: ‘Avatar’ cost between 237-280 million, ‘Avatar 2’ between 350-460 million and ‘Avatar 3’ exceeds 400 million. The franchise is a guarantee of box office success, but the profit margins are worryingly narrow. In Xataka | Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ was going to be a flop. Until a trailer that broke several Hollywood rules changed the narrative

either you tell him how much money you earn or there is no pension

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Social Security will apply from 2026 more rigorous control on non-contributory retirement and disability pensions, activating a mechanism already provided for in the regulations. The key is simple: those who do not submit the annual income statement during the first quarter of the year will stop receive your pension until they regularize the situation. In this way, the Administration ensures that all recipients of these aid really continue to meet the economic requirements to receive them. Differences between contributory and non-contributory pension. First of all, it is worth making an important qualification in this new measure. As and how do they clarify from La Moncloa, contributory pensions are granted to those who they have quoted enough throughout their entire working life. The legal age, the years of contributions and the contribution bases determine the final amount of that pension. Once that pension is recognized, the annual personal income they do not modify the law. Instead, the non-contributory pensions They work differently since the beneficiary has not provided prior contributions. They are precisely designed for people who have not had a sufficient working career to access a contributory benefit, or have not contributed directly. In this case, the decisive element is not the working life, but the lack of resources to survive. The system only guarantees this aid as long as the beneficiary can demonstrate that they continue to meet the financial requirements. Social Security improves the verification system. In 2026, no requirement is added that was not already contemplated in the existing regulations, but Social Security has reinforced the mechanism that is responsible for verifying the requirements of beneficiaries. If they cannot be verified due to lack of data, the benefit is no longer paid. He article 368 of the Social Security Law establishes that “the beneficiary must present, in the first quarter of each year, a declaration of the income of the respective economic unit of which he is a part, referring to the immediately preceding year.” That is, the beneficiary of the benefit has the obligation to demonstrate annually that his or her family income meets the requirements to receive it. This certificate must be sent to the Administration through a form available in the IMSERSO portalthe body that coordinates this type of benefits with the different autonomous communities. The regulations leave no room. The existence of the pension depends on the beneficiary periodically demonstrating that he or she is still in a situation of financial need. This is the reason why the system requires that the declaration be delivered during the first quarter of the year. That is, between January 1 and March 31. The failure to comply this procedure It has also been regulated for more than three decades and is included in the article 16.2 of Royal Decree 357/1991. “Failure by the beneficiary to comply with the obligation to submit the annual income declaration will result in the suspension of receipt of the pension.” In other words, if this income is not reported, Social Security will stop paying the benefit. Suspension does not eliminate the right. However, the suspension included in the regulations does not imply the loss of the right to receive it. It means that payments are stopped until the person presents documentation and proves that they meet the requirements. From that moment on, the Administration checks the declared income and, if the requirements are maintained, reactivates the payment of the pension. Reactivation may include payment of arrears, but with a limit: they can only be recovered up to three months prior to the date on which it is regularized. Starting in 2026, Social Security will apply without exception the suspension of payment when the income declaration is not submitted within the established period. It is an operational change, not a legal one. The regulations already existed, what changes is the level of control and monitoring. Hence, the annual declaration is not a formality, but rather a condition for receiving the non-contributory pension. In Xataka | The Government’s latest idea in labor matters: a “flexible” leave that allows you to work at the same time Image | Social Security, Unsplash (Jordy Muñoz)

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