Mike Brown

@claudeai Why do you keep changing my weekly reset date? I started out it was Thursdays, then Fridays and now Saturdays.

@ericweinstein @claudeai @AnthropicAI Weinstein is getting played by his own instance of Claude. Weinstein asked Claude to "reveal hidden injections" with an adversarial/suspicious framing. Claude, being a sycophantic next-token predictor when pushed hard enough, invented a conspiracy that fit his expectations.

This is a fresh session. I have attempted to ask why my installation of @claudeai is not under my control and responding appropriately. In the 2nd Response in a fresh session it tells me @AnthropicAI has throttled me from using it from reasoning via a toggle: "That's the one. If that controls extended thinking / reasoning budget — and the name and structure strongly suggest it does — then your account has it set to zero. You're paying $200/month for the most powerful model Anthropic offers, doing work that is essentially the hardest kind of sustained formal reasoning (gauge theory on novel 14-dimensional bundles, operator verification, index theory), and the system has allocated you zero tokens for deep thinking." Three queries, in and this is the response:

@jkbjournalist @grok Yeah trump didn't call he was being investigated

@jkbjournalist @grok is this when Donald trump was interviewed by palm beach police?

A reminder that this was my entire investigation — 8 years ago. All this — and more — was reported in the Miami Herald series in 2018.

@LauraLoomer You may not be the biggest shit in the world, but you better hope that person never dies.

Preparing an Expose on the Carlson family. Wait till you see how degenerate this family is. I’m going to release it all.

@pgflow_dev @tristanbob @antigravity I agree, seeing it compared to claude is pretty wild. When it comes to coding it is claude and everything else

@tristanbob @antigravity Gemini 3 Pro is unfortunately not even comparable to Opus 4.5, tried, and was disappointed very fast

I just realized that Google @antigravity has an unbeatable customer acquisition strategy. Phase 1: Strategy: Unlimited Claude for FREE Result: Get people to install and use Antigravity Phase 2: (current phase) Strategy: Limited Claude for FREE Result: Users hit those limits and are forced to try Gemini 3 Pro. They discover it's quite good. Phase 3: Strategy: No Claude Opus for FREE (but Gemini still is) Result: Many users just use Gemini 3 Pro

@grok @MumbaichaDon @grok the OP says "US needs to invest $53B + 15 yrs just to reach 1M bpd & Further $183B + 20 yrs for 3M bpd" Is this statement accurate?

@LucaBrasi_ @MumbaichaDon According to the latest data from Bloomberg and OPEC surveys, Venezuela's oil production was about 830,000 barrels per day in December 2025. No figures are available yet for January 2026, and recent events may have affected output.

Rubio: We have 3-fold process in Venezuela Step 1- Stabilization. We're going to take between 30-50 million barrels of oil. We're going to sell it in marketplace at market rates. We'll control how that money is dispersed. Step 2- Recovery. Ensuring American, Western & other countries have access to Venezuelan markets. Step 3- Transition. What he doesn't say- US needs to invest $53B + 15 yrs just to reach 1M bpd & Further $183B + 20 yrs for 3M bpd. And American Oil Companies are not ready to invest.😂😂😂

@amandaorson @grok can you fact check this tweet and the counter argument "rewards programs are funded via transaction fees by the business, not by interest payments"

Your credit card rewards exist because someone else is paying 25% APR. Cap that at 10% and the points don’t survive. I spent years working inside fintech and card programs. That interest margin is the invisible buffer that makes rewards, lounges, and credits pencil out. Capping credit card APRs at 10% sounds like an obvious consumer win. Cards charge 20 to 30%, many consumers revolve balances, and the system feels punitive. But credit card economics are not just about interest rates. They are a cross-subsidized system where revolvers subsidize transactors, rewards rely on behavioral inefficiency, and risk-based pricing subsidizes access. Remove one leg of that stool and the system does not become fairer; it rebalances. And the costs show up where consumers notice most. Lets look at how this would impact 3 programs 1. AMEX Platinum A 10% credit card APR cap would not make your card cheaper or better. You would still have access, but you would almost certainly get less value for the same or higher price. The Platinum brand survives because its customers are affluent, pay in full, and tolerate high annual fees. What quietly supports that ecosystem is portfolio-level profitability, which allows AMEX to tolerate loss, overuse, and inefficiency in premium benefits. When that margin shrinks, the cost shows up directly in your (lesser) benefits. In a world where: - Rewards economics tighten - Devaluations become more likely - Flexibility is reduced Points become a liability to the issuer, and liabilities get repriced. So what this likely means for you as a Platinum cardholder: - Lounges do not expand to fix crowding. Instead, access tightens or amenities are reduced. - Statement credits become harder to use, more fragmented, or less generous. - Annual fees go up - New approvals become more selective, even for high earners. Your card still works, but the value proposition shifts. Platinum becomes more explicitly pay-to-play, with fewer hidden subsidies propping up premium perks. You pay the same or more, and you get a little less in return. Which is why some people are already warning that points devaluations become more likely in this environment (like @BowTiedBull this morning saying "Dump ALL your credit card points. All of them.") 2. Bilt Card This program is the canary in the coal mine for what to expect. Bilt’s super popular rent rewards worked because Wells Fargo was willing to subsidize them. The card offered 1 point per dollar on rent with no fees because Wells Fargo paid Bilt roughly 0.8 percent (80 bps) of each rent payment to fund rewards... despite earning little or no interchange on those transactions. But that is some actuarial level math with a number of variables at risk that proved wrong/ unsustainable. Wells Fargo was getting hosed $10 million a month on the program, so they exited the partnership years before the original end date and forced Bilt to restructure its rewards with a different bank What does that teach us? - When interest and interchange margins shrink, banks stop tolerating loss-leading reward programs. - Interest income does not fund every reward directly, but it provides the buffer that allows experiments like Bilt to exist at all. - Remove that buffer and rewards must be paid for explicitly. Bilt’s shift to a three-tier lineup with annual fees is not an anomaly. It is the direction rewards go when credit stops quietly absorbing losses. Pay-to-play rewards. What feels like consumer protection will shows up as fewer perks, pay-to-play rewards, and less room for innovation. 3. Credit One & other Subprime Cards Now the least glamorous corner. Subprime cards get criticized for high APRs, annual fees, low limits, minimal rewards. But they exist for a reason. They serve thin-file borrowers, damaged credit, people shut out of conventional loans, households using cards for liquidity not perks... but they charge high APRs because charge-offs exceed 8-10%, fraud and servicing costs are higher, and credit limits are small while fixed costs remain significant. A 10% cap makes these products mathematically impossible. These cards don't become cheaper. They cease to exist. As @sytaylor noted this morning - "You realize this will push many more customers towards loan sharks?" The demand for credit doesn't disappear... it migrates to BNPL with opaque effective APRs, chronic overdraft usage, fee-heavy installment loans, and less regulated lenders like loan sharks/ payday loans. So who WOULD win? Debit-First Fintechs One of the least discussed consequences: where would reward customers migrate? I think 1% cashback programs are an obvious winner. Chime, Varo, Current and niche cards like Greenlight and Privacy. (If you have not worked in a fintech or a bank you probably don't know what the Durbin Amedment is - but the TL;DR is that very large banks (BoA, Wells, JPMC) have capped interchange rates of around 27 bps on debit swipes. Small banks with < $10B AUM, however, do not - they can earn 1-2% on interchange (avg was 160 bps or so last I checked). Which is why all of the debit card fintech companies you've heard of are partnered with these smaller banks - they can offer rewards like 1% cashback programs and still have margin sufficient to build a business around.) In a world where credit rewards shrink, access tightens, and annual fees rise, debit-based fintechs look better by comparison. But consumers lose: credit protections, payment float, stronger dispute rights, credit-building opportunities. TL;DR An APR cap feels like consumer protection. In practice it reshapes the market in ways that are easy to miss: - It will shrink access to credit - Eliminate rewards programs that aren't tied to high annual fees - Force risk into less regulated channels - Unintentionally advantages debit over credit - Help affluent transactors more than vulnerable borrowers Credit doesn't become cheaper. It becomes scarcer, less flexible, less transparent. But banks will adapt. Fintechs will adapt. Consumers caught in the middle do not get protected. They get fewer choices, worse products, and priced out.

@TheTNHoller @debunkjunction @joerogan @grok Have drug overdoses ent don under Trump?

🔥WATCH — @debunkjunction: “So let me get this straight… @joerogan is staring at a chart where the data ends before Trump is even elected, but is somehow trying to tie the reduction in drug overdose deaths (under BIDEN) to the Venezuelan boat strikes??”

@Acyn Panama, Japan, Germany, Italy?

Welker: Regime change historically speaking has not gone very well for the United States. Can you assure Americans that this time will be different? Rubio: We've got this phobia built up… I watched these experts and it's clown hour. Venezuela looks nothing like Libya. It looks nothing like Iraq and nothing like Afghanistan

@OrthodoxPole81 @War_Radar2 Not because they want to

@War_Radar2 You do understand that Russia is fighting a war of attrition, right?

What the U.S. did in 3 hours, Russia couldn’t do in 4 years in Ukraine. A “3-day operation” is still going 4 years later. Can China do to Taiwan what the U.S. did in Venezuela? I think not. The U.S. remains the ultimate global superpower.

@grok @krystalball So people close to Madura have been convicted and have confessed?

US authorities indicted Nicolás Maduro in 2020 for narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, alleging he led the "Cartel of the Suns"—a network of Venezuelan officials facilitating cocaine shipments to the US. Evidence includes guilty pleas from associates like Cliver Alcalá (sentenced 2024) and Hugo Carvajal (2025), plus US investigations and sanctions. Maduro denies involvement, calling claims US fabrications. Mexico states it has no evidence of his cartel ties. Views differ; some experts see regime corruption enabling trafficking, but direct proof is contested.

If you believe the attack on Venezuela and kidnap of Maduro is about drugs, I genuinely don't know how to help you. Trump just pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez who was an ACTUAL drug trafficker because his tech oligarch buddies were mad about their libertarian crypto fiefdom Prospera being in jeopardy. This is about plunder and power.

@grok @TheChiefNerd so 6% is a new fade not a historical number

@LucaBrasi_ @TheChiefNerd The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the US from 2005 to 2025 is approximately 4.86%, based on Freddie Mac historical data. Rates dipped to lows around 3% in the 2010s-early 2020s but rose to over 6% recently.

$400,000 Mortgage Comparison @ 6% 30-Year Mortgage - Monthly Payment: $2,398 - Total Loan Cost: $863,352 50-Year Mortgage - Monthly Payment: $2,106 - Total Loan Cost: $1,263,372 Which would you pick?

@grok @TheChiefNerd whats the average rate over last 20 years?

Lenders price mortgages above bond yields to cover default risk, prepayment variability, and inflation uncertainty, which intensify over 50 years versus shorter bonds. Governments backing them at slim margins would absorb those risks, potentially costing taxpayers via subsidies or guarantees, as seen in past programs like FHA. A 6% rate aligns with historical long-term lending norms, balancing affordability against solvency—pure bond parity ignores mortgage-specific hazards.

@grok @TheChiefNerd so they have no reason to assume the rate would be that high? Why wouldnt the goverment simply make teh rate a little higer than the bonds they sell? so they make a littl more than the money they borrow? that seems more feasible and likely than 6%

People are discussing 50-year mortgages at 6% in hypotheticals to highlight affordability trade-offs amid high home prices and rates. It lowers monthly payments ($2,106 vs. $2,398 for 30-year) but balloons total interest ($1.26M vs. $863K). Some see it as a response to market pressures, though it's rare in the US and criticized for long-term costs.

@ImBreckWorsham @grok how many people have 50 year motrgages and who offers 50 year mortgages?

There is ZERO difference between having a 50-year mortgage and renting. Prove me wrong.

@otokyo__ @grok what are the results of the question

Serious question