Just Another Pod Guy

I’ll spell it out explicitly one last time. Everyone thinks Trump wants balanced trade. He does not. He wants to force allies to stop trading with China. Completely. Zero inbound supply. Because it’s not just because of American jobs. It’s a proactive move to slow down Chinas industrial rise. Everything is downstream of this. Reserve currency status. The ability to address fiscal debt. It’s a crazy risk because China has a vote. It’s a crazy risk because you are forcing Europe to commit seppeku because they have very little leverage or say in the matter. It’s a crazy risk because Xi might bomb the fabs in Taiwan and the world doesn’t get AGI. It’s a crazy risk because China knows how financialized we are and will dump bonds and equities to drive anger towards trump. But it also has benefits if it works. If your allies can’t trade with China there is no near peer competitor to worry about. That has a ton of benefits. Just look at what happened after WW2/USSR collapse when American was the last man standing. Hegemony. Trumps advisors like Miran believe that you can coerce your allies to pay for your security umbrella in the form of buying longer dated treasuries. This removes the overhangs of the debt load while allowing you to pump markets in time for midterms. If Mexico can’t import from China then you solved the fentanyl crisis because they won’t have precursors. More importantly by establishing a tolerance for risk the level of fear you can instill in cartels is an order of magnitude higher. “Shit if they risked WW3 they won’t think twice about droning Sinaloa. “ This same “logic” applies to the Middle East. Now I will repeat for the 100x that this is not advocacy. I’m only telling you guys what the people in power believe. And I’m telling you that what happens next if I’m right will come down to how Xi wants to fight. He can go gloves off or glove on. There are real constraints as I have outlined in prior tweets. But there is a plan and therefore the tolerance for market pain is way way higher than you think. Because first you need Europe to be willing to commit economic seppuku. And they won’t want to (rightly). So Trump will crush them economically until they cry uncle. And then they still won’t want to and he’s going to threaten to defang NATO. And then they still won’t want to and he will withdraw swap lines. Or a lot more likely, he will do it all very forcefully and all at once to maximize leverage. Now you’ll rightly ask… why wasn’t this messaged better? Why have midwits like Lutnik on the team? Because you are attempting to execute a reckless gambit where the big variables are not what the tariffs rates are. Or if you tariff penguins. Or if the person sounds dumb on TV. Non of that matters. What matters is - will Japan capitulate quickly and agree to buy a large amount of treasuries? Will Saudi capitulate quickly with your B2 bombers waiting in Diego Garcia to bomb Iran? Will China invade Taiwan? Many of you think everyone around Trump is retarded. I get it. You hate the guy and everything he stands for. But I will say this until I’m blue in the face. Bessant, and even Miran, have higher IQs than most if not all of you. They thought through the second order effects. Believe me. If I, a dumb TMT L/S bro thought this far ahead, they certainly did too. Which means they warned Trump how risky this was and how deeply irrational it is if you planned to eventually cut a deal with China. Therefore you have to assume Trump heard the risks and said “fuck it we ball” anyways. Economic Blitzkrieg. That’s what we’re seeing. And it’s only the start.

I agree. I’m also terrified of what happens when model IQ increases by another 50 pts and it can think more abstractly with infinite context. It’s fine tho. There’s always money in the banana stand.

I admitted defeat too soon 😉

@blknoiz06 the post-AI abundance we were promised 🚀

what in the black mirror episode is this

@CapoPines Yes but more uncertain about timelines now that it’s becoming more apparent that midterms are going to go for Rs

@TMTLongShort Haha can’t win em all. So you’re just as strong on decoupling as prior to the summit?

I was wrong about this….twice now 😂

@GunsBuns161615 🤷‍♂️

@TMTLongShort Right before Eid al-Adha? Would Saudis agree?

You aren’t ready for what comes next. Slowly then all at once. Just don’t die long enough to live forever.

@Antropysm Awesome so far

@TMTLongShort How’s the Reta going?

Aging is a disease. Start thinking of it as such.

@SharpeShark Would guess yes but outside my circle of competence

@TMTLongShort Thinking clinically in particular

@dwarkesh_sp Also Leopold

Who should I interview on my podcast? Open to more AI, but also to random history/econ/etc professors that I might not have heard of before.

@dwarkesh_sp Also Druckenmiller

@LukeGromen Broken. But there’s reason to be optimistic. AI about to run through the establishment like a wrecking ball.

@TMTLongShort Begs an interesting question: Why does the medical establishment spend so little time fighting disease the way they recommend fighting aging (diet & exercise v. Rx)? 🤔

@dwarkesh_sp Michael Every for macro grandstrategy

@AlmaCap114204 Soon

@TMTLongShort When does it get cured mr pod?

@LongOnlyLarry @MRatable I was vocal before the de-rate but ok

@TMTLongShort @MRatable I think I would respect it more if you just said price drove your narrative

What changed to bring about this realization, you ask? Simple, the IGV went up 27% in the last 25 trading days.

@LongOnlyLarry @MRatable Not at nearly the same pace as apps. They will be disrupted just not as quickly

@TMTLongShort @MRatable You said and I quote “I don’t consider infra or cyber when I talk about sw disruption”. Aka you don’t think infra or cyber is getting disrupted

@k3ithmccullough @MRatable 😘

@MRatable Watch out he's gonna 😘 u

@LongOnlyLarry @MRatable Will just take longer to disrupt and there’s a clear budget tailwind that makes it impossible to short. To be clear im not advocating owning them only saying they are relatively less fucked.

@TMTLongShort @MRatable If you believe the value in software is just the code why would infra and cyber not be considered SaaS? You think it’s hard to install an agent on an endpoint?

Supply of compute drives research org at labs which drives model capabilities which drives inference demand. Demand for intelligence is unlimited. The compute imbalance will only worsen until scaling laws break.