𝐬 𝐚 𝐥 𝐮 𝐭 𝐚 𝐫 𝐲 (𝐁𝐅𝐖)

gm. I've rewritten substantial portions of the essay Midrange Jumpers for the Middle Class. a favorite on here and 'Stackhouse I'll be doing a part 4 soon. illustrating axioms of accounting and the persistent imperative supply chains have to squeeze the middle. link in comments.

Midrange Jumpers for the Middle Class This chart made me sad. It’s the inexorable result of moneyball. When every decision is maximally maximized, when every choice is an expected-value calculation. It’s also the inevitable result of globalism. Moneyball kills your midrange jumpers, globalism kills your middle class. Both in a poetically similar way. Excessive optimization in all things eventually turns the human spirit, sports, and supply chains, gray. Unrelenting pursuit of 1% better margins or 1% greater chance of success in *insert competitive domain* is how the McKinsey consultant sees the world. It’s how the pedigree-touting economist understands every decision. These are people trained to think unnaturally, inculcated to believe what the Excel sheet spits out is absolute truth. The most noble pursuit to attain is that which maximizes the expected value. They go to schools that exalt undermining the parochial, viewing their neighbors with disregard, so long as it enhances gross margins. Because, hear me out, if it helps gross margins, it MUST be what's best for everyone. Because it makes the trinkets cheaper. Because we are trinket maximalists. Harvard Business Review is scripture. Why create your trinkets domestically when China has an underclass that exists on 1,400 calories a day and will do it for a fraction of the cost? The answer to this is obvious, if you assume people only value cheaper trinkets, hedonism, and materialism. The middle class has no desire for eudaimonism, and fulfillment from a life that imbues purpose. This must be so, because the Excel sheet doesn’t know how to calculate those other things (eudai-what? dude stop making up words and get in on this sale), and my MBA says more is more. When globocorp’s bottom line is the unwavering guiding light, when the expected value of each basketball position is the only consideration, actions eventually converge on the same expected-value-led strategies. Tedium. Mankind needs variance, otherwise he'll breaks things until the volatility and color he secretly relishes returns. If you go too long without a life of purpose, without eudaimonism, something inside you begins to chafe. Grayness seeps in. Life needs color, which is to say that which you can’t always predict. You know what maximizes predictability? Expected-value thinking. Moneyball. Globalism. You can push the grayness beachball underwater, but eventually the volatility tax will be paid. An expected-value existence is corrosive to the middle. Empirically. Demonstrably. The Excel-sheet mind cannot comprehend this, but the NBA shot chart and the factory worker can. RELIGION, PRETENDING TO BE ECONOMICS Just as the priest only knows “Christ is King”, the Trinket Maximalist only knows “open trade open borders good”. It's religious thinking, masquerading as post-hoc, economic-presenting rationale. Because you cannot possibly conceive that the highest-order value for a nation isn’t the cheapest trinkets possible. Unfathomable. When all your beliefs and motivations can be distilled down to “what gives the best margins?”, you implicitly worship the material. Because explicitly, the material is all you value when you think this way. You project this value onto others, often unwittingly, when you treat global trade as Christ 2.0. This is the religion of consumption, hedonism. No salutary purpose, eudaimonism. If it doesn’t facilitate profligate intake, I’m going to have to kindly ask that you go to college. If a couple more basis points of gross margin is the North Star, and one more point on the scoreboard is all the strategy knows, you're left with no midrange jumpers, and no middle class. Remember Rip Hamilton? Kobe? They lived in the midrange. Jordan did everything, everywhere, all at once. Now you know what you do in the modern NBA? You either get a sniper to shoot a foot behind the 3-point line, or you throw it to the post. Listen, we ran the numbers, and the Monte Carlo analysis says what it says: no more 15-footers or you’re benched. No more domestic manufacturing, or you’re out of business. Diversity? Lol yeah not that kind. Have you seen the NBA’s ratings? You get what you fucking deserve. Who cares about all the action in between the 1st quarter and the final buzzer. The sport whose very reason for existence is to entertain and excite. The event we gather in big stadiums for and have our identities tied to. Meh, you see, all that matters is just one. more. point. than the other guys. Who cares about a population’s sense of identity and esteem. A blue-collar existence of dignity and self-sufficiency. The men who derive their purpose, value, and autonomy from their ability to provide. It’s fine if we rob them of their agency, because the trinkets are that much cheaper for it. You don’t need a sense of independence, you need a smartphone that folds! A hedonistic worldview like this dominates everything else you believe. Boy you’re really laying it on thick for those flyover-state peons! All we want is just one. more. point. of gross margin bro. Chill. You clearly don’t read Harvard Business Review. > "What's the expected value of each possession? What’s the cheapest way possible to build that product?"… This kind of thinking produces grayness, and disembowels the middle. No midrange jumpers. No middle class. Blog in profile. If you read this far, you owe me a follow. I think that's fair. A related essay in QT:

Uniswap getting some other organization to buy their worthless tokens does not make the revenue-less token any less worthless LayerZero is on the right track; guiding towards $100 million of ARR in 2026, understanding that the market wants value attached to the tokens now

Financial Savages: A History of M&A and its Strategies You find out how a business instrument really works, and why it’s worth something, when you learn how it’s used by the guys who have the ability to shake some trees. Does the company have to listen to you because you hold its asset? Or can they say “Meh, shoo shoo, don’t care”. PE firms and activist investors are the unsung heroes of markets. They are the Batmans watching in the shadows who step in if a company is mismanaged or if stock price grows disconnected from business value. They don’t target someone for no reason, and almost always have a very good point to make - and they enforceably make it by holding enough of the stock. And even when they lose… they still kinda win: some concessions or change in company behavior happens and shareholders benefit. They keep the company accountable by way of wielding an enforceable asset. You cannot ignore Carl Icahn, you cannot brush aside KKR. Because the credible threat of M&A and board control always looms, and because those capitalist Batmans are always watching, stocks track underlying business earnings. The cash flow statement and balance sheet show up in the equity - fundamentals matter and you can invest in the company, as the stock is an investable asset. Stocks do not have to, and often don’t, pay any dividends and you have no “right” to one unless the board says you do. The “claim on cashflows” description is an academic platitude that does not manifest in reality. But… they always effect enforceable control. DeFi “project” tokens (a childish turn of phrase, you are a business who doesn’t act like it) are not investable assets. They are trading beans with no rights and no reason to be worth anything. They are vibe units whose reason for existence is selling them to someone else for more than you paid. Price is what you pay, value is what you get. Crypto thinks manipulating a number and dumping on a greater fool is what investing is - demonstrating they do not comprehend what makes an asset truly worth something. So much nonsense pours out of these false pretenses. They LARP as if the token is a stock by frivolously deploying equity concepts (e.g. market cap, buybacks, P/E ratios), when the token has zero stock characteristics! “Did you know buybacks are tax advantaged and companies prefer them, do a buyback for your token”… thank you counsel, quick question: is the token a stock? Do you actually understand why buybacks work for equities? You cannot just vibeaciously (when one is guided only by vibes) abstract that same concept to any asset! Why does the equity reflect the value of the issuing company, but DeFi tokens do not? It’s because the tokens lack enforceable control, binding connective tissue, over the companies that issue them. The raw mechanics of value accrual are laid bare by examining the history, methods, and outcomes of M&A - and how stocks concretely work. New post, see comments.

We’re just kinda repeating basic corporate finance huh

AI is not a young technology. It’s an ancient one. AI is more appropriately understood as superhistory, not superintelligence This has application beyond AI. It changed how I view myself and those around me. You are a centaur 🧵