Monday Morning Links

• What is the use of machines? The world is full of machines: railways, telegraphs, telephones, motors, flying-machines, talking-machines, adding-machines, typewriters — no end to them. Why are they made? To save time, space, trouble, money. They are often a nuisance to everybody around, they spoil one's eyes and ears, offend the senses, make life dangerous; worst of all, the better the machine, the less it uses our intelligence. It is quite possible to argue that they do more harm than good: but suppose they are all good, suppose time, space, money, labour is saved, what then? The question then comes, How am I to use the time, space, money, and labour which has been saved? In making more machines? In sloth, eating, drinking, self-indulgence? In quarrelling with my neighbour, and destroying what I cannot understand? Here is the question which the world has not faced. So much time has been saved, that thousands of people who used to be working all day now have leisure; and they do not know what to do with it. They are often ignorant, violent, intolerant, and they are so many, that the few wiser who ought to guide them are forced to follow. To what end? [W.H.D. Rouse]
• As U.S. oil prices dropped below $60 a barrel in recent months, the industry shed rigs by the dozens and laid off crews that frack wells. Yet, the country’s wells last year gushed a record 13.6 million barrels of crude on average each day—100,000 barrels more than the Energy Information Administration, the federal forecaster, had anticipated before President Trump’s inauguration. The disconnect between slackening activity and the increasing yield has mystified even oil chieftains. “I’ve been wrong,” said Kaes Van’t Hof, chief executive of Permian producer Diamondback Energy. “I thought we’d be down by now.” [WSJ]
• Pardee Resources Company (the "Company") announced today that Greenbrier Minerals ("Greenbrier"), a coal operator on one of the Company's properties located in Logan County, West Virginia, issued a Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification ("WARN") Notice on Friday, February 13, 2026. The WARN Notice indicates that Greenbrier, through various subsidiary companies, intends to idle seven coal mines, including several located on the Company's Logan County property, and begin laying off 530 employees around mid-April. Greenbrier claims the layoffs are due to "the current adverse market conditions". This action is likely to have a material negative impact on the Company's 2026 operating results as these mines were expected to generate between $4-5 million in revenues for the full year. While Pardee intends to work diligently to replace this production on its properties going forward, there can be no guarantee that it will be successful in doing so. [Pardee Resources Company]
• Despite a mixed construction environment, Eagle’s portfolio of businesses continued to perform well during the quarter, generating revenue of $556 million, EPS of $3.22 and gross margins of 28.9%. While the residential construction market was challenged, federal, state, and local spending on public infrastructure projects and private non-residential construction remained elevated, supporting strong demand for our Heavy construction products. Our Cement sales volume was up 9% and our organic Aggregates sales volume increased 34%. [Eagle Materials Inc.]
• It should be remembered we can deport foreigners on a plane faster than they can have kids, and our long-term goal is to salami slice Democrat coalition by starting with Somalians and moving down the tribal list to reverse Hart-Celler Act (1965) with 150 million deportations. We will start by targeting all foreigners on welfare, which is an easy rhetorical argument. It makes zero sense for America to bring in worthless foreign savages who can't speak English, then give them scarce resources of free housing, welfare, food stamps, and medicine. At every stage of the process, our goal is to exhaust Democrats and force Leftists into publicly destroying their own credibility by taking ownership of indefensible positions, such as when Democrats protect Mexican pedophiles and cartel sicarios from deportations. Our goal during this process is to build cohesion among smart young white Christian men, and strengthen our position by deporting 20 million foreigners on welfare. At that point, Democrats will be massively weakened, and our wins will build self-reinforcing momentum. Our priority should always be to fracture Democrat politics by attacking the weakest and most vulnerable group in their coalition, such as transgender mass shooters. It's a win-win: either Democrats abandon their footsoldiers, or Democrats tarnish their national public brand. [Fugitive Caesar]
• Many compare India and China’s energy systems as they stand today. From this perspective, China is ahead in most new energy metrics, from solar capacity to electrification. But the comparison has limits. China is at a later stage of development. China’s GDP in purchasing power terms is over double that of India; its electricity consumption is five times greater; its manufacturing output, in monetary terms, is nearly an order of magnitude larger. It is more reasonable to compare the two countries at equivalent levels of development. When we do so, a different story emerges. India is generating more solar electricity, burning far fewer fossil fuels and electrifying transport faster than China did at an equivalent GDP per capita. [Ember] 
• We show that any cross-national measure of human material wellbeing that is (i)
  basics (not luxuries), (ii) general (uses indicators from multiple domains), and (iii) plausible
  (uses any defensible choices for weights) will have a statistical relationship with country GDP
  per capita with four features. First, the relationship will be strong, with nearly all cross-national
  variation in basics associated with variation in GDPPC. Second, the relationship will be non-
  linear, with a stronger elasticity of basics to at lower than higher levels of GDPPC. Third,
  GDPPC is empirically sufficient: no country has high levels of GDPPC and low levels of basics.
  Fourth, GDPPC is empirically necessary: no country has high levels of the basics at (very) low
  levels of GDPPC. [Lant Pritchett] 
• While Western OEMs have generally moved toward outsourcing, this is not true across the board for Chinese automakers, some of which retain much higher levels of in-house production. BYD and Leapmotor, in particular, have roots in electronics manufacturing and operate with high degrees of vertical integration. Leapmotor reportedly produces 60–70% of its components in-house. Our bill-of-materials analysis indicates that BYD manufactures around 80% of Tier 1 components and roughly 36% of Tier 2 components internally—more than twice Tesla’s in-house share of Tier 1 components (37%). A UBS study similarly estimates that 75% of BYD’s Seal is produced in-house, compared with 46% for Tesla’s Model 3 and 35% for Volkswagen’s ID.3. For BYD, vertical integration is the single most important factor behind the company’s price advantage. [Rhodium Group]