Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
I think the only good news today, with reports that Vance is going to Greenland himself now to make a point, is that Vance is in the hubris phase so we will likely get to enjoy the nemesis part soon.
Tim Miller @Timodc · 5m Waltz doubles down on conspiracy suggesting Goldberg entered chat “deliberately”
Well, d'uh.
Deep state reporters can infiltrate any chat they want. Only the other day, I discovered Michael Wolff had joined my wife and I's chat.
Amateur. I've been leaking state secrets to the late Tom Wolfe.
He’s just bottom scum, so I’m sure you’re blameless.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/mike-waltz-yemen-plans-breach-signal-group … When the Fox host asked how Goldberg’s number ended up in the group, Waltz responded: “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number there? … Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out.”
Waltz did not offer any evidence for how Goldberg could have “deliberately” ended up in the group.
Earlier in the interview, he said he didn’t know Goldberg or text with him, calling him the “bottom scum of journalists” while criticizing the media for focusing on the controversy...
"So why has it taken so long just to get planning permission for this project? The reason is that colossal amounts of time and money have been spent building a mountain of paperwork. All told, National Highways has been forced to produce 359,866 pages to get approval from the crossing. Laid end to end, this paper trail would stretch 66 miles, almost five times longer than the road itself. There’s 1,800 pages on newts, 774 pages on bats, 5,800 pages on archaeology, and a long running debate National Highways had with a Cambridge college about nitrogen deposition." (£)
And we wonder why this country is going bankrupt and has no proper infrastructure to talk of.
Quite.
This is why we must not print £500bn for an 'infrastructure fund'. We'd just be feeding money we don't have to the insatiable beast. This sort of thing and the laws (mainly European) underpinning it need to be obliterated.
I don't disagree but why is Europe not paralysed by the same laws? What do we do wrong that causes such absurd, indeed farcical results here?
In Spain you can easily build a high-speed rail line because most of the countryside is utterly empty without even fields or farms as we would recognise them. (Technically they may exist).
But even metros in cities in Spain are built at about a tenth of the cost per mile here.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
"So why has it taken so long just to get planning permission for this project? The reason is that colossal amounts of time and money have been spent building a mountain of paperwork. All told, National Highways has been forced to produce 359,866 pages to get approval from the crossing. Laid end to end, this paper trail would stretch 66 miles, almost five times longer than the road itself. There’s 1,800 pages on newts, 774 pages on bats, 5,800 pages on archaeology, and a long running debate National Highways had with a Cambridge college about nitrogen deposition." (£)
And we wonder why this country is going bankrupt and has no proper infrastructure to talk of.
Quite.
This is why we must not print £500bn for an 'infrastructure fund'. We'd just be feeding money we don't have to the insatiable beast. This sort of thing and the laws (mainly European) underpinning it need to be obliterated.
I don't disagree but why is Europe not paralysed by the same laws? What do we do wrong that causes such absurd, indeed farcical results here?
In Spain you can easily build a high-speed rail line because most of the countryside is utterly empty without even fields or farms as we would recognise them. (Technically they may exist).
But even metros in cities in Spain are built at about a tenth of the cost per mile here.
I'm afraid it all comes back to the worst planning system in the world, with a big dose of over-engineering thrown in.
Yes it does, but the basis of these legal challenges and huge reports on newts etc. is the UK's rare species legislation, which is a codification of EU species regulation. And that is just one example. It is great that the Spaniards seem to give less of a shit, but you can't legislate to tell people to do that. So we must remove the European legislation.
Tim Miller @Timodc · 5m Waltz doubles down on conspiracy suggesting Goldberg entered chat “deliberately”
Well, d'uh.
Deep state reporters can infiltrate any chat they want. Only the other day, I discovered Michael Wolff had joined my wife and I's chat.
Amateur. I've been leaking state secrets to the late Tom Wolfe.
He’s just bottom scum, so I’m sure you’re blameless.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/mike-waltz-yemen-plans-breach-signal-group … When the Fox host asked how Goldberg’s number ended up in the group, Waltz responded: “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number there? … Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out.”
Waltz did not offer any evidence for how Goldberg could have “deliberately” ended up in the group.
Earlier in the interview, he said he didn’t know Goldberg or text with him, calling him the “bottom scum of journalists” while criticizing the media for focusing on the controversy...
They're going to end up throwing the journalist in jail, aren't they? Or getting him killed...
I think the only good news today, with reports that Vance is going to Greenland himself now to make a point, is that Vance is in the hubris phase so we will likely get to enjoy the nemesis part soon.
On Vance, one of my questions is how Vance will seek to organise his future to replace Trump, who has quipped in public about him not being successor. He'll want to Trump to be irretrievably taken down, rather than tilt at a windmill like say Goering did with respect to Hitler when Adolph was in the bunker, and Goering sent his "if I don't hear from you, I will assume that I need to take over" thing. Hitler cut him off at the knees.
Plenty of African dictators worked with an underling overthrowing the head of the pride, including to avoid being taken out themselves. Idi Amin was one such, who launched his revolt when he became aware that Milton Obote was going to have him arrested for corruption/embezzlement.
And I think it is now generally recognised that Trump's regime shares much with criminal regimes wearing a camouflage cloak veneer of democratic governance.
Probably fill your car this morning. The current relatively low prices for fuel will make additional duty almost irresistible.
But it will be the cuts that will get most of the attention. Once again, a party that pretended that austerity was a choice will find that TINA rules.
Labour voters though clearly want higher taxes and a wealth tax rather than spending cuts. Labour is already just 1% ahead of the Tories and Reform with the LDs on 16% and Greens on 10% in latest Yougov. Labour could soon fall to fourth if Reeves puts austerity first
"So why has it taken so long just to get planning permission for this project? The reason is that colossal amounts of time and money have been spent building a mountain of paperwork. All told, National Highways has been forced to produce 359,866 pages to get approval from the crossing. Laid end to end, this paper trail would stretch 66 miles, almost five times longer than the road itself. There’s 1,800 pages on newts, 774 pages on bats, 5,800 pages on archaeology, and a long running debate National Highways had with a Cambridge college about nitrogen deposition." (£)
And we wonder why this country is going bankrupt and has no proper infrastructure to talk of.
Quite.
This is why we must not print £500bn for an 'infrastructure fund'. We'd just be feeding money we don't have to the insatiable beast. This sort of thing and the laws (mainly European) underpinning it need to be obliterated.
I don't disagree but why is Europe not paralysed by the same laws? What do we do wrong that causes such absurd, indeed farcical results here?
In Spain you can easily build a high-speed rail line because most of the countryside is utterly empty without even fields or farms as we would recognise them. (Technically they may exist).
But even metros in cities in Spain are built at about a tenth of the cost per mile here.
I'm afraid it all comes back to the worst planning system in the world, with a big dose of over-engineering thrown in.
Yes it does, but the basis of these legal challenges and huge reports on newts etc. is the UK's rare species legislation, which is a codification of EU species regulation. And that is just one example. It is great that the Spaniards seem to give less of a shit, but you can't legislate to tell people to do that. So we must remove the European legislation.
Removing legislation whether it be European or not, takes time. More often than not it's partly gutted by new legislation. But that is only part of the problem.
Those that work in a statutory environment often find that changes in legislation don't filter down so people are unaware of their rights and responsibilities. Part of the joy of living in a nation of laws.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
As I have mentioned before, apart from Tesla several of the other US tech giants have clay feet. Alphabet is now seeing Google being comprehensively undermined as a search engine, and all the billions they put into AI will not come back after the DeepSeek breakthrough. Meta is a mess, with Facebook itself having already lost target demographics, WhatApp being challenged by lots of other messaging apps and only Insta holding on. You are paying up for the possibility of a WeChat/WePay breakthrough, but each day that passes renders that hope a dead duck.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
An independent KC has found “credible evidence” of unlawful harassment of two women by MP Rupert Lowe and “male members of his team”, Reform UK has said.
Jacqueline Perry KC, who was commissioned by Reform, said there was “veracity in the complaints from both women which amounts (to) ‘credible evidence’ — to use Mr Lowe’s own words”.
Perry said that the complaints of “victimisation, constant criticisms (and) discriminatory behaviour do seem to amount to harassment on the part of both Mr Lowe and his constituency team”.
Lowe's response is less ranty than I would have expected, but even if his view of events were correct, an independent KC authored report is a strong card to play in the game of public, and even party, opinion.
What does independent mean here? Reform hires a KC and she crosses her heart and hopes not to be biased?
Independent simply means that the declared intention is that a lawyer is acting in a quasi judicial role and not for one party or another. Like Martin Moore-Bick in the Grenfell inquiry.
Whether such a thing is possible is a different question, best not looked into too closely, like how juries reach their decisions. All societies need foundational myths and these two are an improvemnet on trial by ordeal.
This is a bit different from jury deliberations as she's subject to Bar Council regulation, and indeed her ability to earn a living is rather dependent on them concluding she maintained her independence. Lowe could go to them and say, "This is a travesty - she didn't tell me what the allegations were or let me respond; witnesses I suggested weren't approached" etc. But he probably won't as she probably did those things, and the Bar Council probably wouldn't uphold the complaint.
Long term it is probably not worth being a hack KC.
You've just reminded me that I downloaded all the old Rumpole episodes (including the original Play for Today) over Christmas. That's the next month or two's early evening viewing sorted.
And, your honour, when I say 'downloaded' - I mean in an entirely legitimate way that is entirely legal by all definitions. And if it isn't, I blame the autocorrect.
Like you, I have the DVDs. The original Rumpole Play for Today was quite dark. As in the series, it showed Rumpole's life falling apart but without the light touches.
Probably fill your car this morning. The current relatively low prices for fuel will make additional duty almost irresistible.
But it will be the cuts that will get most of the attention. Once again, a party that pretended that austerity was a choice will find that TINA rules.
Reportedly a small increase in defence spending - £2.2bn. I'm not clear whether that is the above inflation increase from the Autumn Statement, or supplementary.
Changes from the list from the Autumn are one to watch, of course. There's a fairly full checklist in the contents list of the costings doc here:
I think there'll be some quiet enabling stuff to lay grounds for if we need to take on Trump's tariffs, performative bootlicking having failed, perhaps around a less precise process being needed - which aiui is currently quite onerous. At present I can see tariffs or similar being stopped for 6 months by some sort of legal action around alleged lack of due diligence.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
Some astonishing numbers in here: -OpenAI loses $2 for every $1 it makes -OpenAI projects annual losses of $14 billion by 2026 -To break even OpenAI needs to increase revenue 25x in just 5 years -33% of VC portfolios are committed to AI -5 AI-heavy stocks account for 29% of the S&P 500's value
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
Some astonishing numbers in here: -OpenAI loses $2 for every $1 it makes -OpenAI projects annual losses of $14 billion by 2026 -To break even OpenAI needs to increase revenue 25x in just 5 years -33% of VC portfolios are committed to AI -5 AI-heavy stocks account for 29% of the S&P 500's value
I think the only good news today, with reports that Vance is going to Greenland himself now to make a point, is that Vance is in the hubris phase so we will likely get to enjoy the nemesis part soon.
On Vance, one of my questions is how Vance will seek to organise his future to replace Trump, who has quipped in public about him not being successor. He'll want to Trump to be irretrievably taken down, rather than tilt at a windmill like say Goering did with respect to Hitler when Adolph was in the bunker, and Goering sent his "if I don't hear from you, I will assume that I need to take over" thing. Hitler cut him off at the knees.
Plenty of African dictators worked with an underling overthrowing the head of the pride, including to avoid being taken out themselves. Idi Amin was one such, who launched his revolt when he became aware that Milton Obote was going to have him arrested for corruption/embezzlement.
And I think it is now generally recognised that Trump's regime shares much with criminal regimes wearing a camouflage cloak veneer of democratic governance.
I think the only good news today, with reports that Vance is going to Greenland himself now to make a point, is that Vance is in the hubris phase so we will likely get to enjoy the nemesis part soon.
On Vance, one of my questions is how Vance will seek to organise his future to replace Trump, who has quipped in public about him not being successor. He'll want to Trump to be irretrievably taken down, rather than tilt at a windmill like say Goering did with respect to Hitler when Adolph was in the bunker, and Goering sent his "if I don't hear from you, I will assume that I need to take over" thing. Hitler cut him off at the knees.
Plenty of African dictators worked with an underling overthrowing the head of the pride, including to avoid being taken out themselves. Idi Amin was one such, who launched his revolt when he became aware that Milton Obote was going to have him arrested for corruption/embezzlement.
And I think it is now generally recognised that Trump's regime shares much with criminal regimes wearing a camouflage cloak veneer of democratic governance.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
Not sure the courts are lost yet. I remain hopeful.
The issue isn’t with the courts. It’s with who’s going to enforce their decisions
I think the only good news today, with reports that Vance is going to Greenland himself now to make a point, is that Vance is in the hubris phase so we will likely get to enjoy the nemesis part soon.
On Vance, one of my questions is how Vance will seek to organise his future to replace Trump, who has quipped in public about him not being successor. He'll want to Trump to be irretrievably taken down, rather than tilt at a windmill like say Goering did with respect to Hitler when Adolph was in the bunker, and Goering sent his "if I don't hear from you, I will assume that I need to take over" thing. Hitler cut him off at the knees.
Plenty of African dictators worked with an underling overthrowing the head of the pride, including to avoid being taken out themselves. Idi Amin was one such, who launched his revolt when he became aware that Milton Obote was going to have him arrested for corruption/embezzlement.
And I think it is now generally recognised that Trump's regime shares much with criminal regimes wearing a camouflage cloak veneer of democratic governance.
You know what they say - there is no JD in team.
Don’t know what Hesgeth’s favourite tipple is, but wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of JD in the defence secretary.
I think the only good news today, with reports that Vance is going to Greenland himself now to make a point, is that Vance is in the hubris phase so we will likely get to enjoy the nemesis part soon.
I'm a little more hopeful than that. Normal laws of political gravity exist and apply to an extent, as Trump progressively seriously hurts or seriously offends each group who supported (or fell for) his shtick, and they notice.
He abruptly lost the UK military community afaics when JD Vance came to Europe and publicly pissed on the service and the graves of those 500k, or whatever the number is, of service people who went to Afghanistan or Iraq alongside the USA. It did not help that JD Vance's military service was writing articles.
He's just lost some US veterans with this latest leak debacle, his non-existent integrity, and his efforts to pretend that it is not serious. Some of that is trad USA Reagan-identifying conservatives. He's also going to blow up support from eg veterans and working class as he closes down their entitlements by fiat, demolishes the parts of the civil state they rely on, hoicks medical costs back up and so on.
Then there's his destruction of the democratic system and the rule of law.
The other side is will it cause sullen silence, or voting elsewhere. That's up to both parties. And the race between an election result and the progressive undermining of democracy to prevent one.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
As I have mentioned before, apart from Tesla several of the other US tech giants have clay feet. Alphabet is now seeing Google being comprehensively undermined as a search engine, and all the billions they put into AI will not come back after the DeepSeek breakthrough. Meta is a mess, with Facebook itself having already lost target demographics, WhatApp being challenged by lots of other messaging apps and only Insta holding on. You are paying up for the possibility of a WeChat/WePay breakthrough, but each day that passes renders that hope a dead duck.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
I'm inclined to agree. The problem is that the US has been a sell for quite some time now, but the constellation of events that might make it happen is certainly falling into place.
Amazon is likely the most resilient. I've been trying to use Amazon less, but buying stuff instead directly from UK retailers leads you into a maze of poorly designed or malfunctioning websites, out of stock items and higher prices.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
As I have mentioned before, apart from Tesla several of the other US tech giants have clay feet. Alphabet is now seeing Google being comprehensively undermined as a search engine, and all the billions they put into AI will not come back after the DeepSeek breakthrough. Meta is a mess, with Facebook itself having already lost target demographics, WhatApp being challenged by lots of other messaging apps and only Insta holding on. You are paying up for the possibility of a WeChat/WePay breakthrough, but each day that passes renders that hope a dead duck.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
The real threat to US tech valuations is China.
It's not just that they've managed to dominate industries like solar and battery manufacturing. It's the way in which they've achieved nearish parity in industries where they were supposed to be a decade behind - and are prepared to accept much lower margins than the US giants. Often with state subsidy (that allows market forces within an industry, but protects the sector as a whole).
The US can compete - but it probably can't maintain for much longer the huge margins it has enjoyed for decades.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
As I have mentioned before, apart from Tesla several of the other US tech giants have clay feet. Alphabet is now seeing Google being comprehensively undermined as a search engine, and all the billions they put into AI will not come back after the DeepSeek breakthrough. Meta is a mess, with Facebook itself having already lost target demographics, WhatApp being challenged by lots of other messaging apps and only Insta holding on. You are paying up for the possibility of a WeChat/WePay breakthrough, but each day that passes renders that hope a dead duck.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
The real threat to US tech valuations is China.
It's not just that they've managed to dominate industries like solar and battery manufacturing. It's the way in which they've achieved nearish parity in industries where they were supposed to be a decade behind - and are prepared to accept much lower margins than the US giants. Often with state subsidy (that allows market forces within an industry, but protects the sector as a whole).
The US can compete - but it probably can't maintain for much longer the huge margins it has enjoyed for decades.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
As I have mentioned before, apart from Tesla several of the other US tech giants have clay feet. Alphabet is now seeing Google being comprehensively undermined as a search engine, and all the billions they put into AI will not come back after the DeepSeek breakthrough. Meta is a mess, with Facebook itself having already lost target demographics, WhatApp being challenged by lots of other messaging apps and only Insta holding on. You are paying up for the possibility of a WeChat/WePay breakthrough, but each day that passes renders that hope a dead duck.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
On "tech" giants - Boeing. I see Trump trying to blame it all on Airbus, which has been doing better.
Also worth a note that US Debt is at 120% of GDP, and they are talking about raising the debt ceiling; I'm not sure where that is, and what happens if Trump tanks GDP, but he wants a chunk more or to suspend it to pay for his rich-man tax cuts.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
As I have mentioned before, apart from Tesla several of the other US tech giants have clay feet. Alphabet is now seeing Google being comprehensively undermined as a search engine, and all the billions they put into AI will not come back after the DeepSeek breakthrough. Meta is a mess, with Facebook itself having already lost target demographics, WhatApp being challenged by lots of other messaging apps and only Insta holding on. You are paying up for the possibility of a WeChat/WePay breakthrough, but each day that passes renders that hope a dead duck.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
On "tech" giants - Boeing. I see Trump trying to blame it all on Airbus, which has been doing better.
Also worth a note that US Debt is at 120% of GDP, and they are talking about raising the debt ceiling; I'm not sure where that is, and what happens if Trump tanks GDP, but he wants a chunk more or to suspend it to pay for his rich-man tax cuts.
Apple are fairly secure - they offer genuine quality (the M series chips were and are awesome), and their commitment to a level of privacy is a never more apt. They still take most of the *profit* out of their various markets.
Likewise, NVIDIA’s value is based on decades of investing in real, high quality products. Not flim flam. CUDA is where it’s at.
Microsoft have survived and prospered by making Windows, Office and keeping an otherwise low profile.
Anyone still thinking that the midterms are going to save America must have a screw loose. The courts and elections are a lost cause already, if America can still be saved it will be on the streets.
As if that's going to work given how over militarised many US Police forces are - because hey they can and they have.
November 2024 was the last fair US election for many years but it will be years before people realise it.
Fair? When Musk can spend $270m to buy his way to gutting government? Well, it's a view...
Tesla stock is up 25% since the White House commercial.
As a friend of mine - a former options trader - would yell "Yours!"
Yep - I don't see any reason for owning shares in Tesla beyond the fact it's valuation has defied reality for the past 10 years..
As I have mentioned before, apart from Tesla several of the other US tech giants have clay feet. Alphabet is now seeing Google being comprehensively undermined as a search engine, and all the billions they put into AI will not come back after the DeepSeek breakthrough. Meta is a mess, with Facebook itself having already lost target demographics, WhatApp being challenged by lots of other messaging apps and only Insta holding on. You are paying up for the possibility of a WeChat/WePay breakthrough, but each day that passes renders that hope a dead duck.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
I'm inclined to agree. The problem is that the US has been a sell for quite some time now, but the constellation of events that might make it happen is certainly falling into place.
Amazon is likely the most resilient. I've been trying to use Amazon less, but buying stuff instead directly from UK retailers leads you into a maze of poorly designed or malfunctioning websites, out of stock items and higher prices.
The problem with de-Amazoning is that their vast scale gives them the ability keep prices below most competitors.
Trying to avoid things like “binning” - identical (supposedly) products from different suppliers being held in a single area by Amazon - means higher prices.
"So why has it taken so long just to get planning permission for this project? The reason is that colossal amounts of time and money have been spent building a mountain of paperwork. All told, National Highways has been forced to produce 359,866 pages to get approval from the crossing. Laid end to end, this paper trail would stretch 66 miles, almost five times longer than the road itself. There’s 1,800 pages on newts, 774 pages on bats, 5,800 pages on archaeology, and a long running debate National Highways had with a Cambridge college about nitrogen deposition." (£)
And we wonder why this country is going bankrupt and has no proper infrastructure to talk of.
Quite.
This is why we must not print £500bn for an 'infrastructure fund'. We'd just be feeding money we don't have to the insatiable beast. This sort of thing and the laws (mainly European) underpinning it need to be obliterated.
I don't disagree but why is Europe not paralysed by the same laws? What do we do wrong that causes such absurd, indeed farcical results here?
In Spain you can easily build a high-speed rail line because most of the countryside is utterly empty without even fields or farms as we would recognise them. (Technically they may exist).
But even metros in cities in Spain are built at about a tenth of the cost per mile here.
I'm afraid it all comes back to the worst planning system in the world, with a big dose of over-engineering thrown in.
Easy to diagnose but there are many drawbacks to a blunt instrument planning system.
If you ask landowners/ householders/ business, why we have a planning system many will tell you natural justice aka the planning system in the face of an overweening state is all that stands between their investment in a competently run country and its value added and taking their capital elsewhere.
We will be seeing investment into the US drop due to lawlessness. A quick and dirty planning system has costs.
What jobs are you guys talking about, I honestly don’t get it. With AGI looming any jobs that aren’t straight up manual will be automated in 5 years. Practically all intellectual jobs are doomed. And manual jobs won’t last much longer, robotics is racing into the future. The whole conversation on these threads exists in a world where AI isn’t coming. Watch this:
Comments
Boeing plea deal opposed by victims' families might be made even weaker."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/report-boeing-asks-trump-admin-to-weaken-penalties-in-737-max-crash-case/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/mike-waltz-yemen-plans-breach-signal-group
… When the Fox host asked how Goldberg’s number ended up in the group, Waltz responded: “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number there? … Of course I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else. Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out.”
Waltz did not offer any evidence for how Goldberg could have “deliberately” ended up in the group.
Earlier in the interview, he said he didn’t know Goldberg or text with him, calling him the “bottom scum of journalists” while criticizing the media for focusing on the controversy...
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-madrid-built-its-metro-cheaply/
I'm afraid it all comes back to the worst planning system in the world, with a big dose of over-engineering thrown in.
Probably fill your car this morning. The current relatively low prices for fuel will make additional duty almost irresistible.
But it will be the cuts that will get most of the attention. Once again, a party that pretended that austerity was a choice will find that TINA rules.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2025/mar/24/visual-analysis-how-the-markets-boxed-in-rachel-reeves
They are the only real threat to the Trumpists too.
Plenty of African dictators worked with an underling overthrowing the head of the pride, including to avoid being taken out themselves. Idi Amin was one such, who launched his revolt when he became aware that Milton Obote was going to have him arrested for corruption/embezzlement.
And I think it is now generally recognised that Trump's regime shares much with criminal regimes wearing a camouflage cloak veneer of democratic governance.
Those that work in a statutory environment often find that changes in legislation don't filter down so people are unaware of their rights and responsibilities. Part of the joy of living in a nation of laws.
Even Apple, with its walled garden approach to services, is being squeezed by the Android open market and is maybe one failed product launch from being the next Nokia. Not to mention the massively expensive premium for actually pretty ho-hum services.
Amazon and Nvidia may be more secure for the time being, and Microsoft is a volume driven business and can survive pressure on margins by sheer market power, but the question of long term sustainability should put a cap on all their valuations nevertheless. So the reality is that the premium that has been paid for the Magnificent Seven is clearly not sustainable. With a slowing US domestic market and stuttering business models, a sharp correction in US tech is obviously out there. The only question is when and how much more.
Then there is the issue of the wider US market. With even NATO allies cancelling orders in the large US armament sector, and a partial boycott of US goods across the board, at what point does this pressure become a general problem? Is the US going to lose the "exorbitant privilege" of having an exclusive reserve currency. My bet is that if the pathetic chaos of the last two months continues, something could break. There is an awful lot of ruin in a nation, but we could certainly see a Dollar crisis later next year as the Mid-terms and yet further chaos begins to loom ahead.
The US represents 25% of global GDP and falling. It represents 60% of global market cap, and that premium reflects the belief in superior technology and more efficient capital allocation. If neither are true, long term, then the US in general, not just tech, is a clear SELL:
Changes from the list from the Autumn are one to watch, of course. There's a fairly full checklist in the contents list of the costings doc here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6721d2c54da1c0d41942a8d2/Policy_Costing_Document_-_Autumn_Budget_2024.pdf
I think there'll be some quiet enabling stuff to lay grounds for if we need to take on Trump's tariffs, performative bootlicking having failed, perhaps around a less precise process being needed - which aiui is currently quite onerous. At present I can see tariffs or similar being stopped for 6 months by some sort of legal action around alleged lack of due diligence.
Some astonishing numbers in here:
-OpenAI loses $2 for every $1 it makes
-OpenAI projects annual losses of $14 billion by 2026
-To break even OpenAI needs to increase revenue 25x in just 5 years
-33% of VC portfolios are committed to AI
-5 AI-heavy stocks account for 29% of the S&P 500's value
https://bsky.app/profile/ddayen.bsky.social/post/3ll7bvm534c2u
James Malone beats Josh Parsons in a district which went for Trump by 15 points and which has a 23 point GOP voter registration advantage .
NEW THREAD
He abruptly lost the UK military community afaics when JD Vance came to Europe and publicly pissed on the service and the graves of those 500k, or whatever the number is, of service people who went to Afghanistan or Iraq alongside the USA. It did not help that JD Vance's military service was writing articles.
He's just lost some US veterans with this latest leak debacle, his non-existent integrity, and his efforts to pretend that it is not serious. Some of that is trad USA Reagan-identifying conservatives. He's also going to blow up support from eg veterans and working class as he closes down their entitlements by fiat, demolishes the parts of the civil state they rely on, hoicks medical costs back up and so on.
Then there's his destruction of the democratic system and the rule of law.
The other side is will it cause sullen silence, or voting elsewhere. That's up to both parties. And the race between an election result and the progressive undermining of democracy to prevent one.
Amazon is likely the most resilient. I've been trying to use Amazon less, but buying stuff instead directly from UK retailers leads you into a maze of poorly designed or malfunctioning websites, out of stock items and higher prices.
It's not just that they've managed to dominate industries like solar and battery manufacturing. It's the way in which they've achieved nearish parity in industries where they were supposed to be a decade behind - and are prepared to accept much lower margins than the US giants. Often with state subsidy (that allows market forces within an industry, but protects the sector as a whole).
The US can compete - but it probably can't maintain for much longer the huge margins it has enjoyed for decades.
It’s a massive threat, China.
Also worth a note that US Debt is at 120% of GDP, and they are talking about raising the debt ceiling; I'm not sure where that is, and what happens if Trump tanks GDP, but he wants a chunk more or to suspend it to pay for his rich-man tax cuts.
Likewise, NVIDIA’s value is based on decades of investing in real, high quality products. Not flim flam. CUDA is where it’s at.
Microsoft have survived and prospered by making Windows, Office and keeping an otherwise low profile.
Trying to avoid things like “binning” - identical (supposedly) products from different suppliers being held in a single area by Amazon - means higher prices.
https://x.com/shitbritishpics/status/1904850831922409960?s=61
Easy to diagnose but there are many drawbacks to a blunt instrument planning system.
If you ask landowners/ householders/ business, why we have a planning system many will tell you natural justice aka the planning system in the face of an overweening state is all that stands between their investment in a competently run country and its value added and taking their capital elsewhere.
We will be seeing investment into the US drop due to lawlessness. A quick and dirty planning system has costs.
https://x.com/googledeepmind/status/1902349152249319670?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw