most of my writing just tries to understand the economy through cultural history—and vice-versa. but to understand this moment, i explored a different history this time: my own. a tale of two bank failures, and the most personal thing i've ever written: davidphelps.substack.com/p/b…

the concept of Christopher Nolan's nearly $2B grossing blockbuster about the most famous story ever told losing Best Picture to Nathan Fielder being a weird little freak

Why is the overall market so fixated on $CRWV's imminent demise? At the peak of the Dot Com bubble, $CSCO - the largest company in the world, and the $NVDA equivalent of the era - generated about 10% of its revenue from circular deals through vendor-financed startups. When those startups lost access to capital, $CSCO's revenue growth went from +66% to -30% within a few quarters, and the stock lost 80% of its value. The same story played out across the dot com supply chain, sending the Nasdaq down 80%. Today, $CRWV alone makes up roughly 8% of $NVDA GPU sales. Losing that demand is enough to nuke $NVDA's growth story all by itself. Oh, and $CRWV isn't an isolated example - every major neocloud is hemmoraghing cash and borrowing costs are going UP across the board. If you lose the neoclouds, you lose the incremental growth driver for marginal data center capacity, and the AI capex trade goes up in smoke. That's why we're seeing carnage across the entire AI supply chain, from $CAT and $GEV to $MU, $AVGO and more recently $NVDA. This is what the beginning of the end of a debt-fueled, circular-financed capex bubble looks like.

EVERYONE SHOULD GO SEE DIGGER The election is important, but so is this

Wow, the potential $BMBL acquisition is for $1 BILLION. That's more than $6+ per share. (EDIT: after debt and dilution it's actually just a bit above $4.30 per share)

Earning $100K in 2016 is inflated adjusted equivalent to earning roughly $140K in 2026 Within the span of a decade, we have seen 40% inflation. This is based on CPI numbers, which itself understates inflation across many key items that we buy everyday The reality is that the national debt levels have only left us with one choice. We must grow ourselves out of debt, which itself is inherently inflationary Unless you own assets, you will get left behind. There has never been a worse time to be a simple salary man with savings

Sen. Chuck Grassley Files for 2028 Re-Election; Would Be 101 by End of Term

BREAKING: Inflation on many everyday items was entirely due to tariffs, NY Fed has said per CNBC

Netflix are already making shows for "second screen" viewers. So plot lines have to be repeated and dopamine hits and action must occur every ten minutes. This is changing the way stories are written. Accommodating neurological damage & habit-forming addiction to smartphones.

The New York TImes: What’s one issue in politics that you’ve changed your mind about? Zohran Mamdani: The role of the private market in housing construction.

I really don't think you are ready for this doc

idk how we're ever going to deal w/ how much of the public square is controlled by a couple billionaires who tweak the algorithm & allow disinfo to spread against the left all around the world. we have no way to combat it. these guys are spreading maga all over the world

If you want to know why I think Skydance is a nuke for Hollywood, here's why: They’re committing to 30+ theatrical movies a year while carrying roughly $80 billion in debt and billions annually in interest expense. They can finance those movies. That’s not the problem. The problem is whether audiences show up enough to justify producing, marketing and distributing a new movie every 12 days. Yes. Skydance needs to release a new movie roughly every 12 days. If Skydance floods theaters with movies that underperform, they hurt themselves first. Less revenue, weaker margins, more pressure on financing and more incentive to cut costs. But the damage doesn't stop there. Theaters depend on a steady flow of movies that actually make money. If enough Skydance releases fail to perform, theaters take that hit too. Marginal locations become harder to justify, screens disappear and the entire theatrical market gets weaker. Then Disney, Universal, Sony, Amazon and everyone else inherit the fallout. With fewer viable screens and a weaker theatrical marketplace, those studios become even more dependent on huge IP-driven movies to generate a return. Smaller movies become riskier. Original movies get squeezed. Budgets become harder to justify. That's the nuke. Skydance doesn't have to collapse to hurt Hollywood. It just has to stumble badly enough that everybody else gets caught in the blast radius...and die from the fallout.

My favorite part of this article is one of the visiting scholars pointing out that by Olah’s logic he is by far the worst slaver in history and he must immediately give up this abhorrent and immensely lucrative project, which anthropic people ignored.

this should be illegal

David Fincher has exited his deal with Netflix. The partnership lasted 13 years.

A paradox in pro-AI rhetoric is that they want to tout the idea of massive productivity benefits (not just random slop) but deny massive labor market disruptions, when I don't think it's possible to have one without the other.