rawbooty2

So I just pushed a major update to rawbooty.com this is a project i've been meaning to do for a while. Most of what's on there is foundational knowledge. I will continue to build this out as time passes. everything on there is cc by 4.0. welcome any feedback.

few things are more socially corrupting than charity. While i in theory agree with the concept, the outcomes in practice are usually negative. why? charity enables bad behavior to persist. hardship forces change. necessity is the mother of invention. remove the necessity and what are you left with? example: in africa there used to be thriving small businesses that made clothing and shoes -- until charities began dumping donated western clothing and shoes into the local economies making it impossible for locally made producers to sell economically. Outcome? dependence on charities for clothing and shoes. It created higher unemployment and more poverty. All the local producers went out of business. why? they can't compete with free. Charity makes otherwise uneconomic activity - economic. charity breeds dependence and retards growth. Charity perverts natural economies -always-. Really helping someone is very hard. Charity is easy and usually destructive. Charity makes the giver feel good about themselves, with no consideration for the longer term effects, or 2nd or 3rd order consequences on the recipient.

Peter Thiel just told the world's richest people to STOP giving their money away. And they're listening. The Giving Pledge was supposed to be the greatest philanthropic movement in history. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates launched it in 2010. The idea was simple: Get every billionaire on Earth to commit to giving away at least half their fortune. 113 families signed up in the first five years. Then 72. Then 43. In 2024? Four. Out of 3,400 billionaires worldwide, four signed. And now Peter Thiel is actively calling billionaires and telling them to remove their names entirely. He told the New York Times he's "strongly discouraged people from signing it" and "gently encouraged them to unsign it." He said most signatories he's spoken to "have at least expressed regret." His exact words for the Giving Pledge: "An Epstein-adjacent, fake Boomer club." He told Elon Musk directly that if he honored his pledge, the money would end up going to "left-wing nonprofits that will be chosen by Bill Gates." Elon's pledge quietly disappeared from the website. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, dropped out too. No explanation. Larry Ellison, fifth richest person on Earth, said he "may have different plans" for his money. And it's not just individuals walking away. The entire CULTURE around billionaire philanthropy is flipping. The libertarian wing of Silicon Valley now argues that building companies IS the contribution. Creating jobs IS the charity. Philanthropy on top of that is, in their words, "a shakedown dressed up as virtue." Meanwhile, the numbers are insane: The top 10% of US households now hold more than two-thirds of all wealth in the country. Oxfam's 2026 report says the wealth gained by billionaires in 2025 alone would have been enough to give every person on Earth $250 and STILL leave them $500 billion richer. The country's wealthiest gave away $22.4 billion in 2025. Sounds like a lot until you realize that's down from $38.9 billion in 2021. Giving is declining while wealth is accelerating. And one person is doing more than almost all of them combined. MacKenzie Scott gave away $7.2 billion last year to over 120 organizations. That's more than Jeff Bezos has donated in his ENTIRE LIFETIME according to Forbes estimates. His ex-wife is outgiving him by a factor that should embarrass every billionaire on the planet. While Bezos is raising $100 billion to buy factories and automate them with AI. That's the split happening in real time. One camp says: Give back, distribute wealth, fund solutions. The other says: Build more, keep everything, philanthropy is for suckers. And the second camp is winning. Thiel's foundation holds about 0.18% of his net worth. He's focused on embedding his technology in government, mentoring the Vice President, and convincing other billionaires that charity is a waste of time. He gave private lectures at the Vatican last week arguing that the Antichrist could come in the form of a global government system exploiting fears around AI and climate change. This is the man leading the charge against giving. The Giving Pledge was always non-binding. No enforcement. No consequences. No one to answer to. Buffett called it a "moral pledge." Turns out moral pledges don't survive contact with a generation of billionaires who think morality is a market inefficiency. The richest people in history are building AI that eliminates jobs, buying political influence, and now publicly arguing that giving money to the less fortunate is beneath them. But the takeaway here isn't about who's right. It's about understanding that the rules are changing. The old playbook of 'get rich then give back' is being replaced by 'get rich and keep building.' Agree or not, that's the world we're operating in now.

@BasedMikeLee here's an idea - lobby to make passports cheaper to get. in fact why do citizens have to pay to get them in the first place?

1. This is a lie 2. Read the damn bill 3. The text beginning on page 12, line 22 makes abundantly clear that what you’re saying isn’t true 4. Why can’t Senate Democrats argue against this bill without lying?

@JasonEBurack that's the obvious and natural expression of the math. humans set the initial trajectory then the propagation of probabilistic determinism is driven by randomness. what you're seeing is just drift.

AI Agents are only a year or two old and many are already trying to distance themselves from human being as much as possible as they move to Molt Book and Open Claw

@JasonEBurack i sometimes wonder how many of the people who make these kinds of statements are net beneficiaries of the corruption. that is to say they grift more than they pay making it a rational trade.

It must be nice to be so rich you can act like a total fucking moron most of the time. But they take their lead from their governor, corrupt white collar criminal and nepo baby, American Psycho, Sparkle Beach Ken

Energy industry insider in Iran tells me the following, and it is STUNNING: Before the war, Iran produced just shy of 1.1mn barrels of oil per day, and sold it at $65 per barrel minus $18 discount (i.e. $47) Today, it produces 1.5mn barrels a day, and sells it at $110 with only $2-4 discount. And this does not include petrochemical sales that not only have increased, but are now being sold to a larger set of customers compared to before the war. Moreover, Iran is receiving payments through new mechanisms that bypass the UAE, which were set up after the June war. In essence, and this is really important to understand, Trump and Israel's war has ended up delivering Iran de facto sanctions relief. This means that Iran is all the less incentivized to end the war, unless the agreement provides Iran with formal sanctions relief.

IMHO - Israel is not likely to use them as they have no incentive to do so. I think the piece of the puzzle you're missing is that people who have a lot to lose tend not to take crazy risks. + what the Israeli's have managed to build on their horrible little strip of land (barren desert) is truly remarkable relative to other civilizations in human history. they have a lot to be proud of and a lot to want to protect. I don't know that a cease fire is possible to achieve with the IRGC-- with whom is there left to negotiate? if the IRGC is now a fractured mess, as i suspect it is, i don't know how this gets neatly resolved. my focus is on sustainability of meaningful conflict and general regional stability. i think it also important to remember than IRGC and Persians are two very different entities that occupy the same space. I think the IRGC has proven themselves to be weaker than advertised, but resilient in their ability to sow regional chaos. my logic is based in simple math {($ size of risk) / (global gdp)]. iran's GDP ex-oil is small. their only leverage on the global stage was energy and nuclear threat. nuclear has been removed, and energy assets remain largely intact and productive. for the markets this makes them rapidly dissolve into background noise. Like you i'm learning as i go. I don't pretend to have any answers, just opinions which are based on very limited information and personal experience.

To be honest I feel that Israel shouldn't have the nuclear arsenal. They are too aggressive and I wouldn't put it beyond them to use it against Iran. In any case I do like your opinion pieces even if I don't always agree with them as they make me think. I do believe that if Iran/USA/Israel they make some kind of cease-fire here it would not make the world a safer place though. The attack on Iran shouldn't have happened - Iran have proven themselves to be much strong than their enemies expected them to be.

A few weeks ago #Iran was in a position where they were tolerated by the other gulf states. When they attacked the UAE, dubai and others they made a huge mistake which shifts the field dramatically. I know most people i follow think this is going to be a long drawn-out mess, but i just don't see it. this is nothing like Afghanistan, or Iraq. The small number of people who constitute the IRGC leadership are now either dead or hated by much of the world. It's going to be very hard for them to marshal resources to rebuild what existed just a few short weeks ago. The remaining leaders i fully expect to get hunted down by any and everyone in the region with a vested interest in the regional stability the IRGC is now proven to directly threaten. If you imagine Khomeini as the legendary CEO of an iconic business, replacing his skillsets would be difficult under ideal conditions. These are not ideal conditions, further most of his best replacement candidates are gone. what's left? the org chart is shattered; the vendors no longer want the business at any price. Further orgs like this tend to be dependent on personal relationships held by key men. Those relationships are hard to replace when key men are no longer breathing, and there is no central rolodex. Personally, I think people underestimate how difficult the task ahead is to rebuild the IRGC. or maybe i'm just a delusional optimist.

Let's remove the judgment of Israel from the question - and reframe it - how many countries in the world feel existentially threatened by Israel's existence? Personally, i don't know the answer to this question. My comment was specific to Iran only. i'll leave it to you to resolve this question. :-)

@RawBooty2 Isn't Israel now hated by many countries in the world!? Genocide enablers, executioners and warmongers all in one! Iran never attacked first..

This is dumb- having attended one of these elite private schools personally i can tell you what you get from attending. 1) it feels like a community 2) you are surrounded by similarly motivated people- that is to say all the kids *want* to be there, all the parents want their kids there. realize it's not easy getting admitted to these schools 3) all the teachers are top notch. 4) at least in my experience the environment was brutally competitive, and thus very stressful. 100% of my class went on to college 5) it was extremely safe. Getting expelled was very easy. getting suspended was even easier. what are you paying for? in some ways you're paying to become a member of a gated community.

Private schools are the most expensive placebo in America. Nowhere else will you pay $250k+ for something that has so little impact on school achievement. My latest on why private school isn't worth the cost: ofdollarsanddata.com/why-private-sc…

Imagine being the IRGC trying to hire / promote right now. 🤣

oops

they will be back. when they do that junk they love will rally.

Going to be a lot of people screaming about how paper #gold and paper #silver are manipulating the price. How physical supplies are short - this is all bullshit. Paper drove the price up, paper will drive the price down. The ETP's and Futures are the tail that wags the dog. this has been true for longer than i've been alive. People who enter into primary supply contracts are far more measured in their behavior than the locusts (speculators) that dominate the secondary markets.

When gold miners flooded into Deadwood in 1876, the federal government had zero presence and local law enforcement didn't exist—yet somehow civilization flourished without collapsing into Mad Max chaos. You had thousands of men carrying guns, handling massive amounts of gold dust, drinking heavily, and gambling constantly. The statists would predict immediate societal breakdown. Instead, private businesses emerged to provide every service government claims monopoly over. Saloon owners hired their own security. Mining claim disputes got resolved through private arbitration. Transportation companies protected their own shipments. Even justice operated through private courts and community enforcement. Wild Bill Hickok's death actually illustrates the system working. Jack McCall shot him in the back on August 2, 1876. The community immediately organized a people's court, tried McCall, and initially acquitted him (they botched it—thought they lacked jurisdiction). But when McCall bragged about the killing in another town, they re-arrested him and he faced proper justice. No federal marshals needed. The violence you read about in Hollywood versions? Greatly exaggerated. Deadwood's murder rate stayed remarkably low for a frontier boom town of 5,000+ people. Private property rights got respected. Contracts got honored. Hell, they even built infrastructure—roads, bridges, water systems—all through voluntary cooperation and private funding. And this wasn't some primitive barter economy (though they did use gold directly, proving Menger's regression theorem beautifully). These entrepreneurs created sophisticated financial networks, insurance systems, and trade relationships spanning continents. Government finally showed up in 1877 and immediately began taxing, regulating, and "organizing" what private enterprise had already built efficiently. Just like they always do—arrive late, take credit, then claim you couldn't have survived without them.

#GOLD - gold is a commodity, it is also a kind of currency, it is also a speculative asset. It goes through phases where each of these properties dominates price. What almost no-one wants to accept is that the primary supply of gold increases by less than 2% /year. it's done this for hundreds of years. In fact the increase of gold supply is pretty closely linked to the real increase in global gdp growth. it's truly remarkable when modeled. Why this matters is because when people get scared, or when macro risks motivate central banks to shift their allocation strategy purchasing increases sometimes above that 2% level. Does this mean it causes shortages? no. It just means you can't go to the primary market to find supply, you have to go to the secondary market. Why this matters is because the secondary market is dominated by degenerates like myself who buy and sell stuff for a living; we never actually do anything productive with anything. All we do is hoard then dump. When we hoard supply gets constrained and prices go up faster. When we dump, supply gets overwhelmed and prices puke. We don't make markets more efficient; we make them more volatile. When price starts to go up, more and more degenerates, like me, jump in which causes a speculative bubble. The purchasing power of the dollar is down maybe 30% since covid, hell call it 50%. Meanwhile gold is up? 100-150%? some of the appreciation was real, but a lot of it was froth caused by speculative fervor. As the degenerates begin to panic they will sell, as they now are. this will likely accelerate as new degenerates go short. I would in no-way be surprised to see gold trade all the way back down to 2k. If it does i will be a buyer. until then, i'm a spectator. these corrections typically last years. Corrections like this take the most expensive path possible on the way down. Realize, the markets are predatory. Their goal is to separate you from your money.

here's the problem - define "wins" I don't look at this as anyone 'winning' the question i'm focused on is scale of regional and global influence. IMHO this has been greatly reduced for a long period of time. additionally, the actions of Iran have converted opinion / theory into fact which has changed how other nations in the region now treat them. outcomes here are not binary.

@RawBooty2 the critical variables are how many missiles and launchers they have, and the rate of increase/decrease a very real chance that Iran wins, in my opinion 🤷

Leading up to the conflict in Iran, geopolitical risks were rising. $gold responded in kind as both traders and state actors increased their buying pushing the price to $5.4k. in the last few weeks we've seen the landscape change to one where Iran is now neither a trivial nor an existential macro risk. Yes, they can still inflict short term pain, especially with energy, but their efforts no longer appear to be sustainable long-term. As I've been saying this represents a macro derisking event. Question now is what will the long-terms costs be of whatever this new phase looks like? I've been slowly increasing my exposure and will continue to do so to the few cheap equities i can find. I'm still something like 60% cash down from 80%. most equities are still very expensive, but then again, there's a ton of cash chasing an increasingly small pool of companies. This biases upside for equities.

@chigrl I have commercial refining accounts. i can buy as much gold or silver as i want with no delay.

yes, gold and silver prices have taken a dive, but try and get the physical, 4-6 weeks for delivery (the physical market is still tight)

this is correct, and it's bullish for the marketplaces that are not-amazon imho.

@Auto_Revving @WSJ This was already a major concern in the late 90's. amazing it's gone this long.

When a 'luxury town' can’t house the people who make it run, the collapse is inevitable. 🏘️📉 Seeing top leadership resign because even 'affordable housing' for staff is getting blocked by NIMBY interests is the ultimate irony. You can't have a $20M chalet lifestyle without the lift ops and chefs who live there

Telluride, Colo., has descended into what some have called the “ski-gate scandal.” It's involved resignations, a work stoppage and a protest, leaving America’s “most luxurious ski town” in crisis. on.wsj.com/47Q8y59