christopher lis

In a properly functioning two-party system, each side merely accuses the other of hypocrisy until the country is bankrupt

@basedspinach literally just dont bet against america. i dont have any other strategy

@nntaleb Also a function of people with means being able to leave, while those without must stay

A perceptual bias: because the Iranian diaspora is naturally more heavily anti-regime than residents of Iran (people vote with their feet), some decision-makers may overestimate potential domestic support for the strikes.

No one knows you. No one has a story about who you are. No one is waiting for you to be the person you were yesterday. You're just a stranger in a chair by the window, watching a city that doesn't need anything from you. It's the feeling that anything could happen. That the world is bigger than the walls you built around yourself back home. That the life you've been living is just one version of a life, and there are others, and they're not as far away as you thought. At home, you're fixed. Known. You fit into a shape that other people recognize, and after a while, you forget you're even in a shape at all. But here, alone, somewhere new, the shape dissolves. You could be anyone. You could be more of yourself than you've ever been. No one is watching to see if you stay consistent.

A Final Message From Scott Adams

Marcus Rubius appointed proconsul of Venezuela. Gavin Newsom elected President in 2028. Marcus Rubius conquers all of South America. Newsom blocks his return to run for President in 2032. Marcus Rubius leads his legions across the Panama Canal, hereafter known as “the Rubiocon.”

Nice. As I wrote in Skin in the Game, the only people annoyed by inequality are the no-skin-in-the-game bureaucrats and professors who envy the class above them. The rest of us worry about mobility.

It's almost like the economics profession doesn't fully understand tariffs

It can't be said enough: we need to get energy prices down (they rose in Jun) - it's a ubiquitous input that affects prices throughout the economy; we're not getting any help from fiscal or monetary policy, so this is a necessity for bringing down inflation...

Never underestimate a man who has no convictions

Borderlands 3 was noteworthy for its screeds against capitalism and bad developer behavior. Interesting that Gearbox/T2 chose to be the worst aspects of both

The trans suicide rate is horrifically high. It’s astronomical, it’s beyond anything else we can compare it to. Trans ideology refuses to engage on why this is so. They try to chalk it up all to mean words on the internet. I’m sure they don’t help, but we all get mean words thrown at us on the internet. Parental shunning and abuse is not enough to explain it either, because this isn’t unique to the trans experience. There’s something at the core of being trans that causes this. Laying a foundation upon which your entire life is built, your friends, your sexual partners, your family, your whole identity, but the foundation is not true. They may for a time believe it, but just one crack in lie and it all comes flooding back, that their whole life isn’t true. Everything predicated on that lie gets thrown into question. Its similar psychological phenomena to finding the life you built with your wife is a lie because she’s been cheating on you. Every detail you relied on for stability, for identity gets called into question. It’s a psychological torment that few can weather. But it’s a storm they have to deal with quite frequently.

Which way western man?

> be trump > 4D chess grandmaster > announce insane reciprocal tariffs, refuse to elaborate formula > global markets implode, msm shrieks about trade apocalypse > exactly as planned > china mad, retaliates by cutting off hollywood films imports > woke propaganda machine collapses overnight > unintended victory (or genius 5D psyop?) > PANICANS devastated, patriots get what they voted for > defense spending to $1 trillion, biggest in history > neoliberals crying fiscal murder, doesn't matter > short-term (1 day) consumer pain, strategic sacrifice > tariffs force rapid reshoring of US manufacturing > full industrial renaissance starts. the golden era is real > factories rise overnight, fully automated, AI-driven > trump literally weaponized protectionism into autarky > nations panic, realize new rules: obey or starve > EU and japan run to DC, beg for tariff-free trade deal > elon spams milton friedman videos to confuse more > trump laughs, grants zero tariffs to obedient allies > global trade realigns around america > hyper-acceleration, american supremacy back on the menu > china implodes, yuan collapses, CCP regime in shambles > America starts colonizing the stars > everyone confused, patriots wink at each other: they knew, tariffs were always smoke screen, pure leverage > trump still winning, abundance timeline secured how does he keep doing it?

Bessent was hired to strengthen the dollar by doing the opposite of all the warning signs he saw in the British Pound. Inflated housing markets, treasury yields, etc. all pointed to the big short that the Soros fund pulled off. Bessent's obsession with the prices of homes and the interest rates on treasury bonds isn't just rank populism. He's looking to strengthen the leading indicators of a currency. This is what I mean by "white hat hacking" the dollar. Mapping out its vulnerabilities to protect it against future exploitation. One of the most glaring vulnerabilities was a heavily overinflated trading market. Wall Street was on a sugar high. Hedge funds were leveraged to the gills, and if that bubble popped, it would have created an 08 style financial crisis. The tariff roll out... volatility and all... was a way of creating controlled detonation. Wall Street FREAKED OUT and deleveraged themselves. Now, there won't be any banks or hedge funds who can't afford to pay off their loans because they overlevered. The extreme tariffs are also coming at a time when Bessent sees a recession or depression happening in China. He emphasized this several times with Tucker. By boxing in China and shutting down their exports, he's creating the same conditions that led to the big short of the British Pound. If the Chinese Yuan collapses, then it'll cause a global flight into US Treasury bonds. Driving down interest rates even further for when they go to refinance the $9T of expiring debt.

Tim Dillon is a national treasure. “Charlie, why did you sell the factory overseas? All of the Oompa Loompa’s are on fentanyl!”

Trump’s new tariffs aren’t a trade tweak—they’re the first move in a full-spectrum reset. $9.2T in debt matures in 2025. Inflation lingers. Alliances are shifting. One announcement just set a dozen wheels in motion. Here’s what’s really happening—and why it matters 🧵

Am teaching corporate finance rn. This tweet’s going into the EMH lecture next week. (@FischerKing64 is right btw)

I didn’t lose any money in the stock market because I didn’t sell anything. The decline does not make me happy. I like the potential for selling more, and my paper losses are… considerable … But several things are clear to me. First, the stock market was overvalued and a correction was coming. You can tell because it lost 3000 points in two days. It indicates to me the values were soft. I note that a significant number of Americans have no stake in the stock market. Many who do, like me, have been through this before. What goes down always goes up. The question is, will it go up before November 2026… Second, it’s very clear we need to restructure our economy and that couldn’t happen without somebody suffering pain. We can’t maintain the same trade relationships we have had for 80 years. It’s caused too much damage to Americans who only Donald Trump listens to. Plus, the national debt is going to destroy our country unless we get it under control. This is part of that. I know people are getting hurt by the disruption, but that’s why they call it a disruption. Guys like me did very well as the market inflated. It’s no surprise that we’re going to have to carry some of the load here. Third, I trust Trump because he’s performed before and because he has an enormous interest in the economy doing well over time. If it doesn’t, he loses power. If he gets out of office and there’s no Republican legacy, they will come after him and his family. He understands its life and death, since they try to imprison him for the rest of his life and murder him before. So, this is a guy with incentive. It doesn’t mean he’s not crazy, but that seems remote. Still, he could be wrong. Fourth, I’ve got zero faith in the experts who keep telling me this is a disaster. They might be right. If they do turn out to be right, it will be literally the first time they were right about any major question in the realm of economics, culture or foreign policy in about 30 years. The establishment is greedy, incompetent and corrupt. It’s track record proves it. So, when the establishment cries, I ignore it. There are people I respect who are very unhappy. I’m paying attention to them and considering their points of view. But for now, I think Trump’s going to come out ahead. In any case, that’s where I am. I haven’t sold anything. I don’t intend to. And if I have to make a bet – which I’m kind of doing – it’s on the economy getting better over time.

Always wanted to at least connect to Alaska 🤞

1/2 Advice for small colleges with good-but-not-top-tier prestige: The first among you to announce that henceforth admissions will be based exclusively on test scores will immediately become a safety application for 1500-1600 SAT students who are subsequently turned down