Perry Mehrling, RIP. According to the History of Economics Society, Perry Mehrling died "Monday night from injury sustained in a fall several days earlier." He was Professor of International Political Economy at Boston University and, previously, longtime Professor of Economics at Barnard College. He was a highly esteemed historian of economics. Here is his homepage: sites.bu.edu/perry/ His last book: "Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System" amzn.to/47RVhJ2 "Charles Kindleberger ranks as one of the twentieth century's best known and most influential international economists. This book traces the evolution of his thinking in the context of a 'key-currency' approach to the rise of the dollar system, here revealed as the indispensable framework for global economic development since World War II. Unlike most of his colleagues, Kindleberger was deeply interested in history, and his economics brimmed with real people and institutional details. His research at the New York Fed and BIS during the Great Depression, his wartime intelligence work, and his role in administering the Marshall Plan gave him deep insight into how the international financial system really operated. A biography of both the dollar and a man, this book is also the story of the development of ideas about how money works. It throws revealing light on the underlying economic forces and political obstacles shaping our globalized world." Charles Goodhart: "The discipline of economics is balanced, somewhat unsteadily, between two legs, with the skill of the historian on one side and of the mathematical modeler on the other. In the second half of the 20th century, the tide flowed strongly to elevate the second leg and to diminish the first. In this delightful biography of Charlie Kindleberger, a charming and loveable man, Perry Mehrling shows how Charlie, in his chosen role, as an international monetary economist, fought against that tide, often unsuccessfully. Perry writes so beautifully that one would only need a smattering of economics to enjoy the tale; while if one is interested in the history of economic thought in international monetary economics, then this book is, of course, a must read.' amzn.to/47RVhJ2

Great observation from Tracy below. But I’ve annotated the chart as I think a lot of people still don’t understand that it was Deepseek that triggered this acute phase of hyper scaling. By going open weight Deepseek commoditised AI ensuring the “there can be only one” race had no choice but to turn to capex spend instead. It’s been a simple “who has the ways and means to moat up most expansively?” ever since. If you’re confused by the economics, it’s because the economics aren’t supposed to make sense. The irrationality of the infrastructure spend is the logic. We’re in the world of Highlander. That means you win by forcing everyone else to go bankrupt. Potentially even yourself (safe in the knowledge that if you do Uncle Sam still inherits the legacy infrastructure.) In that sense it’s no different from the USSR diverting the nation’s entire consumer budget into vast steel plants that no one else could ever afford to match on cost. But if loss leading your way to AI domination through control of compute was the plan, last month’s Kimi moonshot disrupted everything. It’s like beating Russian steel with the invention of a Star Trek replicator. That’s why I’d be surprised if the pace of debt issuance continues on at the projected pace. If anything, Leopold’s blow up implies a pivot towards greater capital efficiency is incoming. Alternatively this is when “the project” begins in earnest. Either way, I’d bet on more secrecy and even more centralisation. The only question now is whether the USG takes control or not. Judging by Anthropic’s previous spat over Pentagon access, this is the point where the statecraft is gonna get complicated. 👇