July 4 2025
- AIS 2025
- AllIn Tequila orders
- Big Beautiful Bill
- Vance had to cast tiebreak vote
- AI regulation
- Federal vs State?
- Clean Energy Subsidies
- Marginal cost of energy has to go to zero - any way you can produce energy - its a winning trade in the US over the next decade
- CA has only 5 days of energy deficit per year (PGnE data)
- Mostly ~50% utilized
- Elon vs Trump wrt BBB
- Seems both sides have a valid point of view about the deficit
- Both too powerful to be able to get along too long
- Ray Dalio has been calling this situation for a long time - our debt death spiral is probably already here
- Goals vs Reality
- 3% inflation → 2.4%
- 3% GDP growth → 1.4%
- 3% deficit to GDP → 6%
- Question is if tax cuts and AI increase GDP growth - how will tariffs help - not sure how any of this works out
- Balaji has already called that the US is bankrupt
- This is the issue of our time
- US dollar down > 10% in 2025
-
Dollar has devalued 50% or so in the last 35-40 years
-
So this is nothing new as an operating environment
-
See what Buffett says about it not being a winning trade to bet against the US
-
In the last 10 years - US treasuries held by foreign owners has dropped
-
Will the debt become more expensive in a smaller market?
-
Is this good that foreigners have less influence over US treasuries?
-
- Harvard vs Trump
- Harvard issuing $750M bond - they have budget issues - now with Trump conflict over DEI, etc
- Not clear these universities are following through on the last affirmative action ruling
- They might still be discriminating against Asian students 😟
- Their PE asset allocation in endowment went from 20-40% since 2019
- They will have to sell it at a discount because they need the funds - and this is an illiquid asset - bought it at the top and selling low
- Another threat to universities is first the internet and then AI - everything is available for free online - the best courses - and folks will learn personalized
- But at the end of the day - parents value brand - so that isn’t easily circumvented
- But even for that there are new ways to filter - coding challenges, work challenges, etc
- There are great opportunities available for folks who don’t have money
- Grammarly acquires SuperHuman
- They also bought Coda
- Figma filed their S1 for IPO
- AI startups are eating all other tools
- Pop culture shout outs
Comments