All In Podcast Episode 131 Recap and Notes Jun 2 2023
June 2 2023
Friedberg loves pistachios - besties had fun in Vegas
Presidential candidates
Sacks donation strategy
RFK for Democrats
DeSantis for Republicans
Chamath and Sacks holding a fund raiser for RFK soon
Chamath is independent
Has donated millions to democrats
Important to acknowledge Biden issues
Challenge his mental acuity
Not funny that its weekend at Bernie’s like meme going on around the President
Someone needs to be in the arena on the democratic side and put Biden’s mental acuity to test
Lack of turnover in the White House seems concerning
Want to see Biden being in charge and not some shadow government
So what people who are not elected are actually running the government?
Biden has held fewest news conferences since Reagan
Debates, town halls, rallies are cognitive tests - but if he doesn’t debate anybody, you won’t see it
This is single important person/job in the world - how can we not take this seriously?
Seems to be a concerted effort to keep RFK Jr out of the Democratic process - 538 polling is showing gaps in this aspect
Jamie Dimon for office?
Bill Ackman made a good case for him
Debt ceiling resolution
Interest payments on debt are mounting way too high
Federal government is spending more on interest payments than defense
(social security, medicare, defense are major cost outlays for federal govt)
Debt refinancing is happening at higher interest rates
$2T savings over next 6 years from latest debt ceiling deal is only $2T out of $42T ($7T per year right now)
Not clear that foreign governments are interested in holding US treasuries
Foreign treasury holdings dropping
In the past US had trading relationship with China where China had trade surplus, a huge part of that was used to finance US deficits and debt - and not bring it back home
So China would fund US spending very cheaply
China is in a demographic time bomb - do not have enough people - country will be halved in another 70 years or so
BRICS countries are trying to do transactions without the dollar
China brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran
Yuan and Rial might be pegged to US Dollar (NOTE: needs checking)
China is setting up an alternative to the IMF - that’s not dollar denominated
On the one hand the US is spending a lot and wants other countries to fund our debt, on the other hand, the US is weaponizing the dollar, the capital system, the SWIFT system, geopolitical issues, etc and antagonizing the other countries that would buy our debt
Something’s gotta give
US is leading in innovation
India is firing on all cylinders but will need 50+ years to match the US
Book banning issue in Florida
The question is about what books are allowed in the school library
On the other hand Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming books are being re-written in ways the authors never intended
To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn, etc removed from curriculum
Some books were moved from elementary school curriculum to middle school curriculum - but characterized by media as a book ban
Removing the book from the library is preferable to being edited
NVidia
Vertically integrated AI hardware
Grace Hopper design
GPU-CPU superchip
This + CUDA could create a high level of lockin
They will create a 1 company monopoly in AI at this rate
If in the next quarter, AMD, Google, Microsoft, Amazon don’t announce something, NVidia runs away with this
Everyone wants portability other than NVidia
Populism in both parties
Biden fall might scare people more - though need to be empathetic to physical frailties - FDR was in a wheelchair
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