December 19 2025
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Bernie vs AI
- Decel pitch
- Proposing moratorium on new data centers so “democracy” can catch up
- This would be the biggest own goal ever
- He wants us to become like Europe (that has half the share of global GDP that they had 30 years ago)
- He just wants to stop all progress
- Capitalism might lead to unequal distribution of wealth but Socialism ALWAYS leads to equal distribution of poverty and misery
- Jury’s still out on AI - only Nvidia is making money - everyone has put a lot of capital at risk
- AI is just the new lightning rod for fear so politicians can drive fear in the conversation
- People are justified in asking questions about AI effects - job loss, electricity prices, etc while the AI companies are circle jerking capital around
- We should invest like Andrew Carnegie built 2500 libraries - so people can feel part of the progress
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Wider Anti-AI sentiment issue
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Vanguard study debunks AI job loss doomer narrative
- As you make workers more productive, the value of their labor goes up so you hire more of them
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Future of Life Institute is funding anti-AI journalism fellowships at major news outlets
- This place is funded by Vitalik, etc
- $600M war chest
- Funding NIMBY organizations acting against data centers
- Water use claim is a total haox
- These people are just following in the steps of Ida Tarbell from the industrial revolution
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AI job loss and Motte and Bailey
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Unemployment and Inflation
- CPI 2.7% vs 3.1% expected - so markets are high
- Core CPI is lowest since March 2021
- Over last 3 months - if you annualize it - will be 1.6% (according to Kevin Hassett from Fox Business) - so inflation is almost beat
- Most of the October unemployment is government jobs - 162000 - probably just the DOGE buyout folks waiting till the last possible moment
- Gas prices lower
- Lowest in 5 years
- Real wagers higher
- Government workers went from 2.4M to 2.15M
- Lots of tax cuts coming in 2026 should help
- Trump’s approval rating is at historical lows
- Economic target was 3 - 3 - 3
- Inflation is 2.7% so they beat 3, GDP growth is > 3% so they beat it, but deficit to GDP is worse - so that needs to be fixed by cutting spending
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Dog Corner!
- Friedberg’s dog Monty died earlier this year
- His next door neighbor got Monty’s brother
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China has built a prototype of ASML’s EUV machine
- Since 2018 they were forbidden from getting these machines from ASML
- Seem SMIC has made progress
- Recent news story (from Reuters) highlighting their progress - claiming it might have had some links to folks from ASML
- But Friedberg called this out many times earlier this year
- Seems progress in China is very fast - they publish to show they are doing well - when they get too advanced the theory is that they are asked to stop
- It could also be an artifact of the Chinese national competition system - maybe 50 odd players keep publishing and competing, and when there is a national champion the publishing stops
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Besties moving to Texas?
- Sacks already bought a house
- Friedberg looking at homes too
- CA revenues are going to plummet $100-$200B over the next 5-10 years
- Billionaire tax is coming so you might as well move
- CA pension fund system is underfunded by a trillion dollars - its a stage obligation
- Its clear NY and CA will have 60%+ taxes
- Property seizures
- City is using your money to give homeless people alcohol
- In CA you have to now flee instead of defending your family
- Gavin is actually good - the ones coming are much worse
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Trump passed EO switching marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3
- Obama wanted to do it in his second term but it didn’t happen
- Schedule 1 is heroin so its clearly not the same but what about having toxin/toxicity labels?
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