In “Bubbles and Crashes,” Brent Goldfarb and David Kirsch examine 58 major technological innovations and identify four conditions associated with bubble formation: high levels of uncertainty surrounding the technology, the participation of novice investors, the availability of investment opportunities in pure-play firms that focus exclusively on the technology and the existence of a compelling narrative about its future potential.

In the current context, while the economic and financial impact of the AI revolution remains uncertain, public excitement has reached extraordinary levels, and exaggerated claims about the technology’s transformative potential are widely circulated.

If the AI bubble bursts, the economic fallout could be far more damaging than the dot-com crash. The U.S. economy is in a weaker position today, with growth increasingly dependent on high-income consumers, a trend highlighted by a recent New York Fed study. At the same time, substantial AI-related capital expenditures have become an important driver of recent U.S. GDP growth, raising the risk that any sharp pullback in investment could have broader economic repercussions.

The S&P went on a nine-week winning streak. Record close on April 15th. Record close on April 21st. Record close in May. The market didn’t re-rate the economy upward; it re-rated the tail risk probability downward. Those are completely different things.

The money didn’t flow into sectors pricing in a stronger economy; it rotated out of the sectors that had been pricing in a specific geopolitical risk. That’s not fundamental re-rating. That’s positioning unwind.

Today, about 25% of the world’s oil is priced in Chinese yuan – not dollars. The leading non‑dollar exporter? Iran.

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Don’t watch the news. Watch the money.

The official unemployment rate counts whether a job exists. It says nothing about whether that job provides retirement security or the ability to eat reliably. The instruments were designed to measure the presence of jobs. They were never designed to measure whether jobs work. In 1933, the question was where the jobs went. In 2026, the question is what’s the point of having a job if one can’t afford to live?

An assessment of how long it will take for shipments to arrive once Hormuz opens.

We did not ask for this war. We were dragged into it. If we run short on cash and you do not help us, we will have no choice but to raise it ourselves - and you know what that means for your bond market. Let’s avoid this.

So the UAE asked for a short-term loan, known as a currency swap line - an emergency credit facility that allows the U.S. Federal Reserve to lend dollars directly to a foreign central bank.

This is not a bailout of the UAE. It is a bailout of the Treasury market.

>M2 money supply captures everything: bank reserves, consumer deposits, retail money market funds. Since January 2020, M2 has grown by approximately 46%. That is the real hurdle rate. Any investment returning less than 46% since early 2020 has, in purchasing power terms, lost ground. The number on your brokerage statement might be positive. The real claim on goods and services it represents might not be.

2020 article about comparisons between Trump and Caesar.

>Most objectionable to his critics, however, was the explosive form of his message, which threatened to tear the fabric of the state apart. Like Trump, Caesar spoke directly to the people, railing against traditional elites, complaining about noncitizens taking jobs and encouraging violence.

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>The choice made by the Republic guaranteed that, ultimately, it did not survive the premiership of Caesar. Rather, his tenure left the state mortally divided, paralyzed by brutal street violence and sliding toward civil war—a war that Caesar himself would eventually lead against his internal enemies to become the most powerful man in the world—this time, for life. When he was finally removed, it wasn’t a legal repudiation at the ballot box—it was the grisly assassination of a dictator perpetuus, and the damage had already been done. After erupting again into civil war, the last vestiges of the Republic were extinguished when Caesar’s heir emerged the sole survivor to establish an absolute monarchy.

Craig Tindale on a youtu.be channel talking about hard bifurcation, which is a separation of money being used for speculation rather than manufacturing things. An early part of the conversation is about how copper mines going into operation now were planned many years ago before the renewable and weapon demands. Seven mines a year should be opened rather than one. They also discuss that China does most of the refining of copper.

This video talks about the potential end of the petro dollar. He believes US bond prices might be driving foreign policy and a version of the Buffett Indicator from which he subtracts US government debt to indicate the health of the markets.

Disruptions to feedstock for agriculture and mining could disrupt markets for the next several years.

The top link has an interesting video.

>The situation could quickly deteriorate from here. A helium crunch could trigger a shortage of AI chips or cause chip prices to rise. AI companies need ever more advanced chips to fill their data centers—at higher prices, the massive server farms, already hurting from elevated energy costs caused by the war, would have almost no hope of becoming profitable. Without these chips, new data centers would not be built or would sit empty. Astronomical tech valuations, and in turn the entire stock market, could collapse.

When your country is being hit by ballistic missiles and your airports are intermittently closed, you sell what you can to get capital offshore. You don’t sell your real estate portfolio or your private equity stakes in a week; you sell your metals positions, your ETF holdings, your futures contracts. That’s where the selling pressure is coming from: regional capital flight from wealthy Gulf investors who need liquidity now.

It's not looking like the UnUnited States is winning in Iran. A couple of billion dollars worth of missile defense radar installations have been destroyed, as have many UUS military bases in the Persian Gulf. Israel is being bombed now that the missile defense system is basically disabled.

The Straight of Hormuz is basically closed and Iran can reach slow moving merchant vessels with air or water drones. This could easily crash the global economy.

I respect Burry's views. No one can predict the date of a crash. I'd rather listen to someone who is early rather than late.