There is great demand for manufactured products from the moon-rock aliens discovered by Apollo 18. We need to meet that demand.
FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 7h ago$SPCX - SPACEX PLANS MOON FACTORIES POWERED BY HUMANOID ROBOTS
Paul Vigna
@paulvigna.bsky.social
Managing editor, American Banker. Author, “The Almightier." Last of the Duke Street kings. Opinions mine own. https://www.amazon.com/Almightier-Money-Became-Greed-Virtue/dp/1250343283/ Contact: pvignawriting@gmail.com
FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 7h ago
I don’t use AI to write. It does shoddy, incomplete research and it produces bad prose. But most importantly, I *like* writing. Why would I ever give that up? open.substack.com/pub/paulvign...
No, I don't use AI to write and I won't use AI to write
Now that Substack is adding AI-testing tools to the platform everybody's got to come clean. So let me explain why I don't use AI and to be clear that I won't use AI.
open.substack.com
Taco Hell. apnews.com/article/cycl...
Lettuce at Taco Bell in 5 states confirmed as source of a diarrhea-causing parasite outbreak
Federal health officials have identified lettuce from Mexico served by Taco Bell locations across five U.S. states as a source of the widespread outbreak of diarrhea-causing parasite cyclospora.
apnews.com
A trillion dollars so Meta’s AI bot can write “happy birthday” with some emojis for me. What’s worse? The money and resources wasted on this drivel, or the assumption that I couldn’t come up with “happy birthday” on my own? Happy. Birthday.
🎼 “Freedom (fuel) isn’t free, it costs folks like you and me, and if we don’t chip in, we’ll never pay that bill. “Freedom (fuel) isn’t free, now there’s a heavy f$&@ing fee, and if you don’t chip in your $3.47, who will?”
USA TODAY@usatoday.com · 4w agoThe White House launched 25 Freedom Fuel gas stations, all selling fuel at $3.47 a gallon.
Kruse might have the best followers on the web. The replies to this are blistering.
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 4w agoI just moved a refrigerator into a fifth-floor walkup with Mitch McConnell. At one point, he held the whole thing up with just one hand. It was a little intimidating how healthy and strong and virile he is.
Did Trump call up FIFA and ask them to reverse Ronaldo’s ban, too? Everybody’s flipping out over the Balogun decision and acting as if nothing like this has ever happened before, when it happened earlier this year for a bigger star.
Canada gone, Mexico gone. The U.S. is the last host nation standing.
Replace every instance of the phrase “prediction markets” with “online gambling” and see how the conversation changes.
“Even if you earned it, you still owe.” Adam Smith and Tupac would’ve gotten along great. They both implicitly understood the morality of economics. open.substack.com/pub/paulvign...
Tupac on inequality
“Even if you earned it, you still owe.”
open.substack.com
This is the line I was going to highlight as well. Elon’s Mars plan is more grounded than this line. It’s losing billions. The cash cow, Starlink, is just a small ISP. Its AI business is a joke. You’d think the ratings agencies would’ve learned some lesson from 2008. Something. Anything.
George Pearkes@peark.es · 2mo ago"The company maintains conservative financial policies" is a ridiculous statement. There was definitely room for argument about adding SPCX earlier than normal to float-weighted indices. There isn't with this rating IMO. It just looks divorced from reality.
Pretty amazing for what is essentially a small, unprofitable internet service provider.
Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 2mo agoBreaking news: SpaceX is set to become the world’s fifth-largest company by market value as Elon Musk's rocket group extends a blistering rally after its record-breaking initial public offering. ft.trib.al/xhJpRdr
This is not the first time we’ve had to coin a new word to describe a new class of wealthy. And the first time we did it, it ended very, very badly. open.substack.com/pub/paulvign...
Elon Musk, John Law, and the fundamentals of selling fantasies
John Law was a Scotsman who sparked a massive investing boom in France in the 1700s by spinning entrepreneurial fantasies. Sound like anybody you know?
open.substack.com
I just saw a Polymarket ad where the guy says “paying off my parking tickets by betting on sports.” What are we even doing anymore, America?
In the history of arguments, nobody has ever won an argument doing it this way.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2mo agoBessent: "Look, for many families, it's not nothing, but it's been less than $200 in extra gasoline costs"
Greed is the foundation of capitalism. I don’t mean that pejoratively, I mean it factually. What we today call capitalism began as an ethos that encouraged common people to indulge their greed. And nobody was more instrumental in doing that than Cosimo de’ Medici.
Cosimo de' Medici, greed, and the real birth of capitalism
If you can’t see the foundation of the system you’re using, you can’t really understand that system, or why it works, or how you can make it better.
open.substack.com
SpaceX: We make reusable rockets. We want to put a million people on Mars. Our valuation should be about $90 trillion. Also SpaceX: 70% of our revenue comes from broadband service. Okay, I'll admit, it's extremely broad broadband. But, still.
Lora Kolodny@lorak.bsky.social · 3mo agobig team of tech reporters peeling out what you need to know about the SpaceX IPO plan here... SpaceX spent $131 million on Cybertrucks y'all.
I have never, ever seen that dude rendered speechless and I’ve probably been watching him for 30 years or something.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3mo agoQUINTANILLA: According to the filings, the president has been trading some Intel in the quarter JIM CRAMER: Yeah, uh, yeah, hmm FABER: Got nothing to say? CRAMER: Uh, uh, yeah, whoa, yeah. FABER: Don't worry. We're not having technical difficulties, but we gotta go
"There really isn’t any need to venerate a small percentage of the wealthy and powerful and hope they shower us with their largesse. We have the means to take care of ourselves. Capitalism was...built for another world, not this one." open.substack.com/pub/paulvign...
Mamdani was right about one thing: we don't need billionaires
The idea that the rich are our benefactors and protectors is seriously outdated
open.substack.com
The resilient consumer is a myth. What keeps the economy afloat is an endless stream of credit being force-fed to consumers like foie gras ducks, with spending habits conditioned by an absolutely constant stream of advertising: www.americanbanker.com/opinion/the-...
The myth of the resilient consumer
Market mavens love to wax poetic about the so-called resilient consumer, but the reality is consumer spending is largely underwritten with credit, so it makes sense to keep an eye on credit trends.
americanbanker.com
We are driving ourselves into an economic crisis that doesn’t need to happen. All we need to do to avoid it is change our economics. open.substack.com/pub/paulvign...
The AI-jobs crisis will force us, finally, to build a new economics
The twin crises of exponentially growing, unpayable debt and AI that can do every job leave humans with only one choice: build a completely new economic model.
open.substack.com
This thinking runs throughout our culture. Sopranos or The Wire. Beatles or the Stones. Star Wars or Star Trek. And it’s not just pop culture. Democrats or Republicans. Liberal or conservative. Trump or anti-Trump. We seem to be hard-wired into finding a tribe. We’d be better w/out this mindset.
Inflation is always and everywhere a psychological phenomenon. www.americanbanker.com/opinion/how-...
How the Fed really controls inflation isn't through rates
Presumptive Fed Chair Warsh isn't a fan of jawboning, but that is actually, exactly how the central bank gets its point across.
americanbanker.com
Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, DC, Marvel, Disney, Pixar, Spielberg, Cameron, Wachowskis, or Ghibli.
a man in a trench coat stands in front of a plane that says jet
ALT: a man in a trench coat stands in front of a plane that says jet
media.tenor.com
Joshua B. Hoe@joshuabhoe.bsky.social · 3mo agoFilm you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, DC, Marvel, Disney, Pixar, Spielberg, Cameron, Wachowskis, or Ghibli.