This thread was written 7 months ago in the aftermath of DeepSeek unveiling. And the AI show is still on the road. Which is impressive, or concerning, depending on your vantage point. I just see it as a massive concentration risk (the omni-beta) on which far too much now depends.

Actually, one question we might want to start grappling with is that we *could* be left with an awful lot of spare data centre capacity. And we should think about the potential uses for that.

So, if I get this right, OpenAI is paying Oracle $300BB for computing power, which is built on its partnership with NVIDIA, which is funding OpenAI to the tune of $100BB

Okay we're there.

This is a transparent lay-up to blame the Fed for bad downstream consequences of the overall policy mix. It manages to forget that the OBBBA included a load of spending, that tariffs are a tax on consumption, that the mechanism lowering rents would be v damaging to growth etc etc

Coincidentally, the rigorous analysis comes out near the number the administration wanted to begin with. Truly remarkable when you see this kind of accidental coordination in the wild.

Daily caffeine consumption currently consists of 1 or 2 morning coffees; 1x white tea; 2x jasmine tea. Feels like this is a reasonable level vs 4+ coffees a day previously but struggle with late afternoon/early evening lethargy. Anyone find decaf an effective placebo?

The government is firmly against unfunded xenophobia

Lots to agree with here but I don't really think it's clear that we can easily square softening UK labour market w/ economy running at/near full capacity. Still think there is room for the government to borrow to fund investment, as it has done, but need to show that they can use tax levers as well.

One really hard thing when you're a head of department is hiring people from outside the UK. You tell them, "congrats, you've got the job", and you wait to tell them, "by the way, the university doesn't cover the cost of your visa, or the cost of your NHS surcharge"

Once the norm of treating thinly disguised xenophobia as disqualifying was breached, we were always likely to reach a point where we would need to face down ethnonationalism directly to redraw it. That it’s happening while the centre is in disarray is deeply worrying, but we cannot cede another inch

It is cute that there is a section of US commentators still apparently convinced that the political discourse could be changed if only people posted on X a bit harder.

There’s now something out from USCIS. Still waiting for CBP guidance. www.uscis.gov/sites/defaul...

Lemme be absolutely clear *every* H-1B visa employee at my (large cap) US firm was summoned back to the office from wherever they were in the world today for this crap. For some, it was utter panic. Appalling.

Again Bouie from the top rope

I am not going to be able to return to my job…huh

Oh Jesus Christ, we're doing this discourse again. The reason that Democrat lose in Red States more than they used to is educational polarization and nationalization reshaping coalitions. There were, in fact, many pro-life Democrats a decade ago, and they all got replaced by Republicans!

BOS -> LHR ✈️

Just hyperextended my arm opening my laptop bag like a prime idiot and now trying my best to look normal in my office lobby as I grimace through the pain

Quick thread on US public credit markets and some of the nuances around current valuation

Cheat code: the Mag-7 just keep buying each other's products and each other's stock and everyone gets rich.

Quick thread on US public credit markets and some of the nuances around current valuation

HY refi cycle can start in earnest (effective yield below par weighted coupon on the index for the first time since March 2022):

Most people working in this area have known for years that DWP's figures on trends in out-of-work benefit caseloads are complete junk but have struggled to find more accurate figures. Ben has now produced an estimated time series and the discrepancy is huge. Nobody should be using these stats!

1) a policy of moving closer to the USA on crypto is de facto a policy of moving away from the EU on financial services in general, absolutely crazy from a growth standpoint 2) the US government's "crypto friendly approach" is based almost entirely on "deregulation through non-enforcement"...

The people saying we shouldn’t worry about Fed independence are the same people who told us Trump wouldn’t try to overturn the elections and would eventually accept that he lost. These are the kind of questions you can’t afford to get wrong.

In other words, real retail sales (I'm deflating w/ CPI, close enough as the chart above shows) is up an anemic 0.3% annualized this year. But over the last three months its annual advance is over 5% annualized. 4% over the last two months. That REALLY doesn't look like final demand collapsing.

Note of caution on retail sales - biggest August seasonal adjustment since 1992 (~0.6%). NSA was ~0.1% but bumped up to 0.7% after seasonal adjustment. Last year it *cut* 1.1pp from August reading.

Bro just wants to see where Musk’s unconditional guarantee to fund lawsuits from X posts caps out

Actually stopped myself having rows today - even when accused of bad faith by a rando - so gonna put a 1 on the board if I make it to tomorrow without a lapse

Since January, BLS has lost about 1 in 5 staff, largely through the combination of DOGE layoffs and paid admin leaves + hiring freeze. This led to erosions in data collection and quality. Good to see them open a crack in the hiring freeze. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

2 studies of the Rx Kids program are out today—one about the moms and one about the kids. Here's what happened when $1500 was given to ALL pregnant moms in Flint and also $500/mo for a year after birth: Flint saved $6.2M in NICU expenses due to fewer premature births Postpartum depression fell 14%

There’s an ice cream stand near where I’m sat at the airport and watching the sheer delight of people (of all ages) ordering is making me think I’ve stumbled onto the set of a Richard Curtis film

I don’t have a particularly strong view around quarterly earnings reports except that, given the backdrop of the administration’s attempts to influence the Fed and the BLS, it’s not a *great* time to be discussing reducing visibility/timeliness of data provided by the corporate sector.

superb column from @stephenkb.bsky.social “racism does not diminish through rising GDP but through the willingness of politicians to argue against it….” www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

Idea I am coming round to after a large number of conversations with heavy users of various AI models is that there very clearly are already a number of use cases - some of which are genuinely exciting in terms of expanding the scope of particular fields of inquiry. But it should not be mass market.

We did finally get a bit of this but only after the spectacle of MPs talking about how it demonstrated the UK’s capacity for free speech. Again, though, the miscalculation is that they must *know* that they have to condemn this stuff eventually. There is no way around confronting what is happening.

On freedom of speech - the reason the police were attacked was they were trying to stop the fascists physically attacking the counter-protesters. Freedom of speech wasn't 'alive and well', it was hanging by a thread.

Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday. I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric. Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.

This is the owner of X actively campaigning to take down the elected government of a country he is neither a resident nor a citizen of - and using threats of violence in the streets to further his aims www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

This is superb

This market is just jolly japes* all the way down *Ed: that’s an unusual way to spell complete insanity

The fee attrition in public credit ETFs is still going strong

In other words, what's happening now is unprecedented in universal franchise Westminster elections. First past the post breaks down entirely in these circumstances. Voters already know this - support for reform to the Westminster electoral system is higher now than it has ever been before

Find this deeply conflicting b/c I think it true - & likely exactly how I wld behave if I had any of his talent - but popularity isn’t the enemy of creativity. Understandable that years of unsuccessful pitches can back you into a cul-de-sac of intellectual purism www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

A politician who had actually been elected, state legislator, murdered 2 months ago. She didn’t get 2nd item and 10 minutes on the BBC News.

AI is becoming the omni-beta

I was going to tweet this last year but somehow I was impeded… “When [economic] growth does, and does not, reduce poverty” www.bii.co.uk/en/news-insi... — A great literature review by a team including @paddycarter.bsky.social and @paulsegal.bsky.social

Don’t want to generalise too much around a single appointment that was always something of a known risk, but the Mandelson arc looks very much like smart tactics in place of any semblance of strategy that has beset Starmer’s first year in office. It might have been worth the risk if there was a plan

Grimly crisp illustration of the mechanism whereby toxic and unrepresentative social media shapes mainstream coverage. Prominent journalist logs onto X, sees claim, assumes truth, repeats in national broadcast from trusted mainstream news org. Happens all day every day, just especially stark here.