banking, chomsky and thiel
i love macro
watched
A.I., Mars and Immortality: Are We Dreaming Big Enough? | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat. below is the tldr
thiel still believes the west is in a state of tech + institutional stagnation (esp. post-1970s). digital progress (esp. AI) is real but not enough. he thinks risk-aversion, bureaucratic sclerosis, and fear of apocalypse (enviro/nuclear) have frozen dynamism. sees populism + deregulation as necessary, though not sufficient. fears the real “antichrist” is a global stagnation regime masquerading as safety via global governance. ultimately wants aggressive risk-taking, scientific ambition, and civilizational revitalization.
How Nuclear Missile, Submarine and Stealth Bomber Capabilities Match Up | WSJ U.S. vs. China
The History of Global Banking: A Broken System? by Econocmics Explained. i love this channel for econ stuff
completed watching the dwarkesh pod with Ken Rogoff. it was really good. learned lots of stuff about macro and went the debt rabbit hole. below are some notes
china: overbuilt, overleveraged, underconsuming. crisis born in 2010, worsened by xi’s centralization. real estate = ticking bomb. de-dollarizing slowly.
us: high debt + political sclerosis → future inflation spike (10–20%) likely. fed independence fragile. austerity inevitable post-crisis.
japan: 1985 plaza accord → bad liberalization → lost decades. lesson: fast financial dereg = disaster.
agi: massive upside, but politically destabilizing. productivity ≠ solvency if politics broken.
markets: US equity premium unsustainable. foreign (esp. eurozone) undervalued. diversify.
core thesis: crises scar deep. growth alone won’t save badly governed economies.
watched some videos of noam chomsky’s views on iran, israel and palestine. i don’t support all of his points but his “manufacturing consent” concept is thought-provoking
read
completed reading invisible cities by italo calvino. loved it. need to read more stuff by him.
SEE YA NEXT WEEK!