Ben Gaither

Shipbuilding in the United States has been in shambles due to decades of shortsighted policies and neglect. Today, the U.S. rolls out about three large cargo ships a year while China does around 1,000. The Trump administration has called this a national security crisis. Sunday.

BREAKING: In an incredible moment with Jon Stewart, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan just laid out the best case we've seen for how Democrats can win again. Let's go.

@buccocapital x.com/annmarie/statu…

Basically every Republican state is racing to cut income tax at the same time Democratic ones are sprinting to raise them Will be a fascinating economic experiment

The defense of shoplifting from the left has roots in the idea that 'the personal is political' The artsy people who think it's fine to steal from Whole Foods are envious losers, downwardly mobile types who think they're owed something by society. They can't grapple honestly with their own lack of success, or how they perceive themselves. So they tell themselves a fairy tale about how it's actually fine to steal, mumbling incoherently about Big Business or Life Under Late Stage Capitalism or whatever pre-defined phrase hits their ego in the right place. They don't have the finances to buy what they want. But they're entitled to that fancy hand cream, life owes them that neatly pre-packaged sushi roll! And so it's fine if they steal it, because, you know, Bezos is, umm, killing the planet. Yeah! They try to make their personal grievances into a political issue to justify their lack of morals.

People really keep missing the point The goal of PE firms is to be top quartile, not save 2 associates salaries (peanuts) Let me remind you about the Economics of a PE firm Let's look at a $5bn private equity firm with some basic assumptions We will assume the management fee is 2%, that is $100mm/yr. For simplicity, let's just see carry as a yearly component of revenue, and we can be conservative and say that is 50% of the management fee (implying pretty poor results), so that is $150mm of revenue per year (we are assuming carry is spread equally) A firm of this size will have ~10 associates (24-year-olds who did 2 years in banking before) A private equity associate salary is usually $350k. Total salary of associates is $3.5mm, which is 2% of revenue 2% of revenue, read that again, do you think this is the first place to cut costs? Do you think vice presidents want to be turning managing partners’ comments at 2am, asking Claude to do them? What happens when Claude cannot figure out the model? Or it cannot read the handwriting? Or when it needs to create something without any guidance? Upside Opportunity This brings us to our next point, the competitiveness of capital markets. People who have never worked in investing do not realize how hard it is to make money (in both private and public markets). Regardless of how useful you think associates are, do you think firms will want to save 2% of revenue and give up the people doing the grunt work? Would it not be better to keep them on payroll, give them these AI tools, and try to outperform peers? Go back to upside vs. downside. Always think in terms of upside vs. downside. Upside: you keep your associates, outperform, and make $100M more. Downside: you keep your associates, they make you money, and you paid them $3M That is a 33x upside / downside decision, do you think an investment firm will take that bet?

Worthwhile to read this SemiAnalysis piece on whether AI datacenters are actually driving up electric bills. In PJM, household bills are up ~15% but the main driver is a capacity auction where prices spiked 9.3x based on a forecast that keeps getting revised down. PJM overestimated datacenter load by 800MW in 2024 and another 1.1GW in 2025. Meanwhile Texas has higher forecast AI buildout with no price shock because ERCOT lets real-time market signals do the work instead of a central planner's simulation.

The data center buildout has allowed Loudoun County to lower property tax rates by 38% since 2010, translating to average savings of about $3,400 per year for homeowners.

Nearly every country that’s introduced a wealth tax has since repealed it because it’s a form double and triple taxation that crushes investment and kills jobs. Even 70% of Dem voters rejects this commie garbage.

If you are new to the industry, I want you to internalize this clip

Micron’s $100B megafab in NY is at risk of delay due to just 6 “concerned citizens” and their frivolous lawsuit. (1/10) 🧵

So according to a senior USG official, Deepseek: (1) illegally obtained banned Blackwell chips, (2) used those chips to train its upcoming model, and plans to delete the evidence (and likely lie about what chips it actually used), and (3) also trained its model using "distillation" attacks that allowed it to steal IP from leading U.S. AI labs. When Deepseek releases its new model, and claims to have trained it from scratch using 2,000 H800 chips, hopefully the world will recognize that is a lie. The fact is, Deepseek is almost entirely dependent on banned American technology and IP. It is training its models by illegally using U.S. chips, and illictly stealing U.S. IP. These actions must have consequences. reuters.com/world/china/ch…

Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off fiscal problems to some future day. Democrats in city halls should stop governing as if the goal is to announce new entitlements, and instead make government work. My take:

@BarstoolBigCat our coalition is growing…

Essential viewing: Ben Sasse is an American hero. A shame that he couldn’t stay on as @uflorida president—though he put that institution on the road to reform—but an even bigger shame that America is losing his statesmanship.

In December 2025, former US Senator @BenSasse announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. That's the primary topic for this @UncKnowledge conversation about mortality, faith, and what truly matters when time is short. Talking to host @P_M_Robinson, Sasse reflects on "redeeming the time"—holding ambition lightly, loving family more deliberately, and resisting the urge to make politics or professional success the center of life. The discussion also covers Sasse's thoughts on the failures of Congress; the dangers of a fragmented, attention-starved republic; the crisis of higher education; and the moral challenges of technological abundance. He speaks candidly and movingly about regret, forgiveness, prayer, and suffering—arguing that while death is a real enemy, it does not get the final word. Watch the full conversation on X:

@YaBoiTeej @colincsalao @FOS Pretty sick

@colincsalao @FOS @WallStWalkOn

The first seats at Northwestern’s new Ryan Field were installed today in the 200s section. Here’s the view from the top level of the $862M stadium, which Northwestern has labelled as “premium for everybody.” It’s expected to fit 35,000 fans, three-quarters of the old stadium.

Excellent article on how Portland’s permissive approach to crime has actually undermined everything that made the city great. Instead of enjoying craft beers, Portland is wrecked by criminality and layoffs.

wild how Ezra Klein has been viewed, correctly, as a pretty left wing figure his entire career, and then immediately gets labeled as some zealous right winger because he wrote a book saying we should make it easier to build housing and we should run socially moderate candidates in red states

Few things alienate me from my fellow Americans more than reading about their spending habits in general and food delivery in particular nytimes.com/2026/01/30/din…

@buccocapital You seem too smart for this take

They executed him on his knees in the street. I cannot believe what is happening to my country. I say this not as a Democrat, or a Republican, but as an American. They are boiling us like frogs, trying to acclimate us to the destruction of our nation.