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I find the nuclear motivation an excuse. I mean, enrichment plants or not, if Iran wants a few nukes I am pretty sure that Russia would part with some enriched material and smuggle it pretty easily to Iran.

My theory is that Israel has dirt (Epstein files maybe) on Trump and holds him by the balls. The second idea is that this is an obfuscation campaign to have the public opinion forget about Epstein, the state of the real economy, the falling approval rates, or all of the above.


What makes you think Trump is not interested in this himself they just offered him hotels and land. Him getting blackmailed is I feel a lot of people that have voted for him are using as a coping mechanism. The attack on Iran proves the point just like Russia attacking Ukraine if you want to protect your territories you need nuclear weapons. Canada, Greenland and countries in South America should also look to acquire nuclear weapons as once they are done with Iran you will be the next.

I don't agree about the attrition bit.

On paper you're right, but in reality while doing so you give the incentive to higher-ups to set in place measures that make the life of their underlings atrocious. Mandatory RTO for no clear reason, jumping through hoops to get anything done, cut to budgets, ... . At least that what I experienced and talking with friends that was the case for them as well.


I did. I moved to sovereign debt (not US), bonds and stocks of boring companies (staples, energy, medicine, ...) that have at least AA rating. Might miss out a few months of glamorous growth, but fuck that, it reached a point that just one company hiccuping will send the whole thing tumbling (IMHO).

Energy and healthcare has big AI exposure too. If it pops, you're going to be better off but not totally spared. I suppose that's probably a smart move though...

Fair enough and thank you for the comment.

I went with a bit of Roche, Novartis, ... So something that would at least cushion the fall with dividends and not being in the GenAI crossfire since they definitely use AI/ML (I got them through an ETF). Also almost all my assets are now either CHF or Euro denominated/hedged. I am also not comfortable with the dollar weakening and the next Fed head probably cutting rates again like Trump wishes


You’d be surprised. A lot of biotech is using genai not just traditional ml. And hiring for genai and LLM. They want to build their own chatbots, only trained on their own data and primary literature not reddit comments from armchair biologists.

Yeah, I figure. The thing is that I have a mix of bonds and stocks. Bonds should remain stable or even rally a bit if a crash happens. I mean, usually governments cut interest rates in time of crisis, so existing bonds should go up. It is definitely a hard time to invest as everything feels expensive

Oracle debt holders are sweating profusely right now I imagine. How does OpenAI gets 300B$ to pay Oracle [1] when nVidia has to be convinced to shell out "just" 30B for actually purchasing nVidia hardware.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/90aa74a5-b39d-4131-a138-367726cb1...


> How does OpenAI gets 300B$ to pay Oracle

Easy, they just have to sell their overpriced vram chips (which haven't been manufactured yet), from their GPUs (which haven't been bought yet) which are in their data centers (the ones they're planning to build "soon"). It really isn't rocket science


Or as OpenAI has been trial ballooning for months, the government bails them out.

Why would that happen? Extremely little will happen to the US economy if OAI fails. The government has absolutely no reason to bail them out beyond pure corruption.

OAI's most valuable assets are hardware that will be worthless in 6-8 years. The second most valuable assets are the code which other companies are doing just fine with their own. The third is the hype halo that keeps them getting these deals that are disconnected from reality. Nothing there is holding up the economy.

They only have 4,000 employees. If they all lost their jobs, it would barely be a blip in a monthly jobs report. It's not as though millions of people will lose their jobs disrupting the economy like COVID.

The only downside is some imaginary money vanishes and some investors take a haircut on the imaginary money.


> Why would that happen

"National Security", and the usual fluff about "ensuring that the United States remains at the forefront of cutting-edge AI technology". "Adversaries" will almost certainly be mentioned, "China" specifically has a 50% chance to be name-dropped.


> United States remains at the forefront of cutting-edge AI technology

then the US can just call up Google and Anthropic and use their on-par if not better cutting-edge AI technology. OpenAI just isn't important enough and alternatives exist to fill the crater they leave. Also, the public isn't a huge fan of AI taking all the jobs and it's an election year (albeit mid-term).


Grok is the US gov'ts platform, not OpenAI.

Their most valuable asset is the connections the CEO and others on the board have. The US is a banana republic, and the government chooses the winners. There's a continously escalating level of blatant corruption at the top level, and OAI positions themselves as the next recipient. Betting on OAI is betting on how far american democracy will fall. I don't think the odds are bad.

You are speaking like the president is a rational adult who believes in meritocracy

Congress has the power of the purse and an OpenAI bailout would cost more than shifting money around could find.

You are completely correct.

I said literally nothing about any specific person or officeholder. That said, as today's SCOTUS ruling reinforces, the president doesn't control the bank book. MAGA will riot (again) if the admin actually bailed out OAI.

The tariff ruling the potus said he isn’t following you mean?

No, I don't mean that and I said nothing relating to tariffs.

Epstein files were a litmus test for MAGA and they failed badly.

Lehman was allowed to go under because hey, their liabilities numbered in the low billions plus they are such dicks anyway. Especially the Dick in charge.

Salient point being, it didn't seem like that big a deal. Compared to the high-powered AI deals it seems like nothing at all.

The next day, an important monetary fund broke the buck because well, they were into Lehman and that was no longer great business.

This was the OG monetary fund, not some fly by night operation and suddenly everyone was redeeming all there was to redeem with a religious fervor. This faith centered around Wall Street Broker the Redeemer, something like that. Not much of a religion but then these are very down-to-earth people.

Then AIG called. They bragged about their stroke of genius idea to raid their vaults for commercial paper, raising well over 10B just like that — paper they didn’t even know they had! Sounds crazy? Read the full story, it’s way crazier than can be put in a paragraph.

Briefly pausing here to let it sink in just how pedigreed the pedigree of these masters of the universe is. They got it all — the degrees, the grit, the genius. Only the creme de la creme get hired for the elevated job at the higher echelons of Wall Street skyscrapers.

But back to the story. The vault loot was impressive but it wouldn’t cut it.

Realizing now the surprising fact of these institutions being interconnected and this contagion well beyond controllable with social distancing (from Lehman), Hank Paulson, the hero of the story (the film version at least, the real story leaves you with a different impression of this shrewd operator) makes the difficult decision to tell the Pres that “oh hey, we’re fked but, idk, a trillion dollars could help a lot”.

His aides don’t like the t-word much, so they kinda vibe out a more palatable number and the rest is bailout history.

If you think Oracle took a risk taking out that loan, think again. That loan is the hedge. A gun to the head of the vaunted Markets, free but admittedly somewhat feeble, makes for a powerful persuasion tactic. They won’t even have to ask for the bailout — Wall Street will do it for them. Systemic risk. Need they say more?

Different than 2008? No doubt. The numbers flying around the DC buildout Ouroboros dwarf the 2008 headscratchers and the companies involved made sure to link up like tentacle monsters getting it on. Interconnected as they were, 2008 investment banks still were somewhat in competition with one another -- the 2026 batch of trouble are in bed with each other.

When you're 30k in debt and insolvent, it's your problem. 30mil in debt, the bank's problem. 30B? Not a problem at all, certainly nothing the Fed couldn't solve, for you and the bank. And solve it they will for what's the alternative? Show must go on.


> Oh sweet summer child.

I'm sorry, but this line is so condescending I can't bring myself to read whatever else you wrote. I really can't stand it when people feel the need to be so demeaning when disagreeing.

I completely understand what happened with the finance bubble in 07/08. This is nothing like it, at all.


your post doesn't make a lot of sense and it doesn't matter anyway. What happened in 2008/9 and what may eventually unfold in the AI bubble aren't comparable.

> Show must go on.

the show will go on without bailing out OpenAI, that much should be obvious to everyone.


There is a distinct possibility that the credit expansion for the datacenter buildout will turn the AI bubble into a 2008 like situation. That would be painful.

True., however I think it'll probably be more like the fiber buddle in the dotcom era, withsome bankruptcies and a lot of excess capacity. I don't think it'll spread as wide as 08 because that had bad debt sprinkled so far and wide that everything was infected. I think this is more contained. I think. I hope. Because the pop is coming...

OpenAI is not the one who will be requiring the bailout. they aren't even a public company, for one.

Oracle, Coreweave or both will be the ones requiring it, ostensibly. in reality it's much larger than that.

tremendous money has been invested into AI already, commitments for far more spending still have been made, contracts signed and funds borrowed. the DC building sites are abuzz with expensive effort and soon racks will welcome fresh batches of not-so-fresh previous gen GPUs.

investment is roaring like a locomotive joy-ride atop tracks freshly laid. AI executives are also roaring on any talk show and podcast that will have them but the path to profitability still leads through a maze of smoke and mirrors and hasn't been exactly charted.

you think the LPs of VC firms will just write off the losses when those are realized? O&C will just default on loans and their many creditors will let them?

there are tens if not hundreds of billions already locked in the storm cloud beyond the point of no return. financiers from all corners of finance and sundry are already holding a compartment or two in that bag, each.

when the bag turns out to be largely filled with hot air, i suppose all those powerful bagholders will just go "welp, we dun goof'd" and hold a Sprint Retro about the learnings that will be their consolation prize for the financial haircuts suffered.

perhaps if they had no other option, they would. they do have that other option and the debts in risk of default which, something tells me, creditors won't be able to write off without being pushed to the brink themselves, are the wedge already planted in the financial system the bailout breeze draft will gently blow through.

P.S. it's not that Oracle or any of the Magnate 7 are devoid of means to patch up the fabric of a battered balance sheet.

that wasn't the case in 2008, either. it's a little known and even less appreciated fact that parties tied up in Lehman on day of Chapter 11 filing were made whole to the tune of 100 cents on the dollar after all was said and done in the post-bankruptcy proceedings. sure it took 10 years but it happened.

in the heat of the moment, though, there's a burning hole in the pocket, runs on the bank imminent if not in motion already and 401 millions of voices crying out in anguish.

that's no time for methodical disbursement, it's time for the hair-on-fire vaudeville act Wall Street had gotten rather good at throughout the numerous reruns of that particular number they performed to date.

it will be politically absolutely unacceptable and a burning public grievance for numerous news cycles. so what? as if that spectacle of manifest outrage, justified and futile, was anything but jolly good entertainment for those looking on at it from the gallery.


This reminds me when F22s blasted Chinese balloons out of the sky.

Reminds me of when we sent balloons into Russian Airspace to see how many we could get back on the other end, in the 1950s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Genetrix


TIL. Great read.

I'm a bit disappointed the balloons weren't nuclear powered, considering the era.

I have no idea why they would do that. Outside blatant corruption, which we shouldn't discount.

> Outside blatant corruption

Are we acting like this is a low probability outcome?


Do they have enough liquidity to bribe Trump to do that?

Tax payer bails them out, he gets his cut. The maths checks out.

I think most bribes to Trump appear after the fact so no issues there (he does have plenty of enforcers to make sure he collects the bribes).

Reallocate the $70 billion split difference to orbital station AI datacenters and Moon mass driver launched life cycle renewal equipment resupplies.

Good point, let's all invest in the SpaceX.ai IPO

Maybe they could sell the RAM reserves they've been hoarding

Can they? The articles said that they bought wafers, not finished RAM. Is there interest in buying something like that?

They could sell them, but not at the price they bought them for!

They would have to actually get fabricated first

OpenAI is the HBM market.

If you search on YouTube for "carney walks out" or similar you'll see several videos with AI vibes (hard to tell at a superficial glance) about Carney interrupting crude oil exports or similar stuff. In the URL there's one of these videos.

Normal news outlet didn't report anything on the subject, but some of these videos are approaching 1M views (which is frightening).

Edit (as I can't change the URL): https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=carney+walks+ou... <- link with the search query results


From my understanding (which is poor at best), the cache is about the separate parts of the input context. Once the LLM read a file the content of that file is cached (i.e. some representation that the LLM creates for that specific file, but I really have no idea how that works). So the next time you bring either directly or indirectly that file into the context the LLM doesn't have to do a full pass, but pull its understanding/representation from the cache and uses that to answer your question/perform the task.

Wouldn't this give more munitions to the lawsuit that Elon Musk opened against OpenAI?

Edit (link for context): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-17/musk-seek...


China might purchase the data and train their models just to make the AI bubble pop. A few billions to throw a wrench in your competing superpower economy might be totally worth it


If they did that it would be pursuing a commodify-the-complement strategy of some kind, not just "popping" a bubble. Same as nVidia publishing their own open models. If anything the value of everything AI would rise even further due to Jevons' Paradox.


It Is more likely that people are cashing out very liquid assets (tech stocks) to pay back their loans in Yen as interest rates are rising over there.

Tech stocks with all the hype are second only to crypto in terms of how easy and fast are to sell (hence BTC dropped and now tech stocks IMHO).

Btw, I was too young to fully remember, but wasn't the year before the dot com crash also full of IPOs?


Apparently the last two times the Super Bowl Ads were dominated by Tech companies was 2000 for dotCom and 2022 for Crypto.


FWIW, BTC is currently still triple what it was at that time. Crypto as a whole of course isn't. So really this seems like a "time to stick to the big boys".


in dollar yes. if you use the Swiss Franc as baseline, not.


That's a really interesting tidbit. Thanks for sharing.

And thinking about it it makes sense since the decision to pay the outrageous rates for an ad during the Superbowl must be driven by strong emotions (confidence or desperation). In this case, considering there's no clear moat for any of the big players, I believe it's the latter.


> Btw, I was too young to fully remember, but wasn't the year before the dot com crash also full of IPOs?

yes.


In my European mind (I have 25 mandated days off per year), if there was not a mandatory paid vacation limit two things would happen:

1. Further exploit desperate people since those that don't need to work at any cost would steer clear of jobs that have 0 holidays. 2. You would further penalize people with families where both parents work. It is well understood that if your kid is sick you can't really use your sick days and so must use your PTO days. Having 0 available days doesn't play well with having kids (personal experience).

And finally, having mandated PTO allow you to actually take holidays. I heard too many times of companies that offer unlimited PTO and when the employer tries to take some they sabotage him/her or plainly threaten his/her job security.


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