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Comment by some you mean.. (Score 1) 42

the company's best option might be walking away from some data center commitments.

'some' is a really funny way to spell 'most'

This is going to be one hell of shit show for Wall Street (probably not Main Street) but hoo boy is this going to pull down valuations of some big NASDAQ components... When OpenAI goes tits up, or as likely gets parted up and sold off in pieces.

Comment Re: You can't cut off cheap Chinese goods (Score 1) 37

Because that will not pacify the poor. Printing money constantly will cause monetary inflation, so only the rich will be able to buy anything of significant value like homes. You'd have to also give away housing. It makes much more sense just to take the money from the rich and give it to the poor, the rich will end up with it again anyway.

Comment Re: Alibaba (Score 2) 9

I buy from AliExpress all the time. (Same business, different storefront.) As a rule they are roughly as responsive as Amazon. Shipping takes longer but prices are much better. Pretty much all the cheap crap on Amazon comes from them and it's much cheaper from the source. So far they have processed all of my complaints gracefully.

Comment Re:Could the AI bubble do something good? (Score 1) 54

I agree that's the main problem in this context, but there are other large ones of course. The nuclear isn't just a problem in construction, it's also a problem in maintenance, and in decommissioning. Nuclear is also not cheaper than fossil fuels if you consider full lifecycle costs of operation. You might say it's cheaper because it's possible to contain the waste and that's not possible for fossil fuels, but fossil fuels shouldn't actually even be in the running.

Comment Re:Difference in fundamental rights. (Score 1) 61

As I said; I can default. A bankruptcy would let me even keep quite a lot of the property. Government printing is the same as that default, or at least the opposite side the coin. They get to keep their spending, your savings get devalued.

inflation isn't free, and it is not magic - (there are other reasons it might be better for growth than deflation) but in terms of government purchasing power, a growing economy without and increase in money supply would just mean the existing money buys more, so government budgets could just stay 'static' and effectively they'd be increased year-over-year in terms of real value/spend.

I come back to; for all intents my home budget really isn't so different than a sovereigns budget. The notion that maco and micro economics are different in terms of deficit and liability accumulation, is an article of faith, and that is all. Its not backed by anything but orthadoxy and wishful thinking.

Comment Re:At last. (Score 2) 61

1) - Entirely correct; a block chain currency is stupid
2) - Also correct and the reality is governments need these things, which is why I think it would be about the dumbest move in history but..

lets again say your goals are
* Dodge the legislature and the existing body of law
* Get people to continue participating in your economy, while also doing something that will completely destroy any faith and trust in your ability to control a currency for generations because you're effectively going to swipe their life savings.

lets also assume you don't really care about (2) because you have the view, however misguided that you have the biggest guns and enough well-armed law enforcement and military assets that you can just go bust skulls and shatter hands or regime change any entity that won't comply with your edicts.

My engineering hat very much tells me that this had bad idea written all over it but; I don't know if many of the leading plutocrats and elected officials alike even have engineering hats.

Comment Re:Difference in fundamental rights. (Score 1) 61

You do understand that government budgets don't work like balancing your home expenses, right?

People keep saying this but where is the real evidence for it?

We have been doing this pure fiat experiment for less half a century. It seems to me it works only as long as people are willing buy government bonds and that is only as long as they think the interest paid outweighs the time depreciation + whatever value they place on the 'security in terms of capital preservation'

This is exactly the same as my home budget, I can spend more than I make as long as people will continue to extend me credit ...

Once that stops working the government has to rely on balance sheet expansion to meet its obligations. the 2020s have proven deficits DO matter because if you pump the money supply, when there is any supply/production constraint the people that do have money take it off the side lines a buy the things they want by out bidding everyone else for it. Inflation skyrockets! In the market economy distribution of goods then becomes even more wildly unequal.

This too is actually pretty similar to my home budget in that I can default, file for bankruptcy and my creditors will be forced to take a lot of write downs, and I'll get to keep a lot my stuff. I can do this at least once.. (maybe some governments can get away with it more than once, maybe we don't know)

Comment Re:At last. (Score 2) 61

Just be sure who the fools are. While this applies to the Federal government more, Texas might know something and might be hedging.

I mean if I was a large government with structural financial problems, deficits that politically I could never close and mountain of existing debt.. I might be very interested say transitioning the real economy to something like bitcoins, (giving my wealthiest friends a heads up on that of course).

Get business selling stuff in btc, paying employees in btc, collect taxes in btc, pay government contractors in btc, etc; then you can print print the old currency as much as you like, it won't inflate the btc the real economy is running on, but you can pay off all you legacy currency denominated debts with no pesky legal hurdles no force measure, no 'voluntary write downs', no 'default' that trigger other credit events and penalties... You just wipe out everyone's savings and there is fu*k all they could do about it. Everyone would also include foreign sovereigns that hold a lot of your legacy currency in their reserves.

As importantly all your existing appropriations, entitlement obligations are in the old currency too, so if some court say "no nope congress appropriated 150Billion to Harvard to search for snails with reverse twisting shells you must pay them" you can just sure "here is your pallet of newly minted cash, good luck finding anyone who will still accept it"

Now you might say why bitcoin. Well because as crypto goes it probably has the most trust. Importantly you don't control the issuance so even if you are large holder of bitcoin you might still succeed in getting people to accept it and use it as a perceived safe store of wealth, even as you vaporize any trust anyone has in your legacy currency and debt instruments..

Now I am not saying this is going to happen. I am not saying it does not create a lot of problems. I am not saying if someone like Scott Bessent actually has such an idea it won't be recorded as one of the biggest mistakes in human history; because I think it would certainly be among. I can see the appeal though..I can imagine some of our plutocrat class having the hubris, recklessness, and greed needed to think it is a good idea as well.

Comment Re:uh (Score 1) 25

That's interesting to know. I never spent a lot of time with NeXTStep, though I have played with it a little bit. I think I have a VM for an x86 version around here somewhere, but it was a little crashy in a way that the 68k machines weren't and I don't know which piece's fault that is. I spent more time with OS X, but not a whole lot, so I didn't get that far into it.

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