Friday’s jobs report was a rout. Employers added 165,000 jobs in October, 100,000 more than economists expected, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%. Third-quarter GDP grew at a 3.4% annual rate in the first estimate. By any scoreboard, the economy is producing. Yet here in California, gas topped $6 a gallon in late September, and plenty of families are asking why a boom feels like a squeeze.
I’m a husband, a father of three, and a small business owner. Thirty years in investment management taught me a lesson from the other side of the table: When the model says great, and the client says otherwise, believe the client’s statement. My argument fits on a pay stub. The boom is real, paychecks lag it, and the fix is cheap, abundant energy, including the power that the artificial intelligence buildout needs. Freezing data centers would put a major growth engine at risk to settle a billing dispute we can settle by making developers pay their way.
