Elon Musk’s F-bombs

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

AI is more dangerous than nuclear bombs.
–Elon Musk

A BIG THINK

Has the Worm Turned?

The idiom the worm has turned dates back at least to the 1500s. The worm has turned means that someone who has previously been downtrodden has triumphed, someone who has previously been unlucky has become lucky, or someone who has previously been obedient has spoken up.

Has the Western world’s political worm turned?

The legacy liberal and left-leaning power establishment in the Western world looks to be in the process of losing their grip on voters. As we know all too well, given the massive media hysteria over Donald Trump, something in many Americans’ minds changed a few years ago.

When Trump was elected, career politicians and bureaucrats were put on notice. Voters were expressing their collective anger, frustration, and impatience with those in power. It was a kind of warning shot, an attempt to send legacy government (not to mention legacy media) a message. Now other voters in Western countries are doing the same.

The new push toward different government leadership just showed up in Italy, where voters elected conservative Giorgio Meloni. Meloni appealed to the many middle- and lower-income citizens who had tired of legacy social and economic policies. Since then, New Zealand voters elected its most conservative government in decades, Argentina elected a libertarian and the Netherlands elected a new far-right leader.

When this many conservatives win general elections in the Western world, our legacy media probably needs to stop referring to these elected politicians as the “far right,” “racist,” “fascists,” or the leaders who will destroy democracy and even, as the media claims, want to destroy democracy. This expansion of voters with disdain for legacy government policies is looking like the next and new normal.

So why is a growing number of voters turning away from their left-leaning governments? Maybe because the approach of these left-leaning democracies has reached its point of diminishing returns. More and more voters seem extremely dissatisfied with the current power elite.

This would not be the first time voters dramatically change course. Most recently, voters turned against the conservative ideology of the 1950s and early 1960s. When those in power back then went on Communist witch hunts in Hollywood and around the country, voters’ sensibilities changed. That’s when conservative ideology reached its point of diminishing returns.

If a new, more conservative consciousness is emerging, it likely will continue for a few decades. This won’t be a binary change. Similar to what happened post 1950s and 1960s the new social consciousness will grow more pervasive over time. And, as these things go, it will eventually reach another point of diminishing returns. When that happens, the worm will turn again.

THE ECONOMIC VIEW

Job openings keep falling
Hiring slows slightly
Unemployment ticks down a bit
Wait a minute, it was expected to tick up!

Manufacturing activity is in recession territory
Yet Fed chair says rate cut talk is premature
But investors think cuts are coming soon

Americans turn frugal after summer of splurge
Is YOLO spending resilient?
BofA’s CEO thinks so
Will FOMO and YOLO lead to NO MO’?

THE INFLATION BOGEYMAN

Goods deflation is back
Falling corn prices threaten farmers
Is your lawn guy cutting his price?

Did greedflation contribute to inflation?
Consumers are now pushing back.

Eurozone inflation falls to 2.4%
Imagine Europe without tourism.

THE LABOR VIEW

The people with the highest levels of education
Work for non-profit organizations

Take-home assignments for job interviews
Are rising fast but irk candidates

Department of Labor wants to expand overtime
To thousands of salaried jobs.

MEANWHILE IN EUROPE

Gaza war fuels terrorist threat in Europe
While voters turn against immigration
Ireland says they’ve run out of room for refugees

Sweden has a violent gang crisis
Led by second-generation immigrants.

Germany’s economy is in trouble
Capital investment is falling.
Budget woes risk their chip ambitions

THE GLOBAL GAME

North Korea has a birth rate problem
Kim Jong Un urges women to be “good comrades.”

Global child mortality rates
Move to Estonia, leave Nigeria ASAP.

Could Indonesia become an economic superpower?
What would China think of that?

THE UKRAINE FIRE

The West put sanctions on Russian oil.
Now exports are larger than pre war
US wants to halve Russian oil revenue
Good luck with that.

New US drone could change the game
It can destroy other drones.

Turkey’s military exports to Russia soar
Turkey is in NATO, right?

THE GAZA FIRE

Houthi attack vessels in the Red Sea
Sounding an alarm over global trade.
US considers adding to Red Sea task force

How Israel is attacking Hamas’ tunnels
A methodical effort to eliminate them.

US presses Israel to negotiate
Can you negotiate with today’s Nazis?
Israel rebuffs calls to halt war

THE NEW COLD WAR

Is another invasion about to happen?
Venezuela’s Maduro orders Guyana takeover

Italy exits China’s Belt and Road
Does China need Italy?

Mexico buddies up with China
Well, we’re buddies with South Korea and Japan.

Putin makes Middle East whirlwind tour
Well, we’re buddies with Israel.

FINANCE

The VC startup implosion is getting worse
Tough times if you don’t generate cash flow.
VCs follow private equity’s lead
Continuation funds replace liquidity events.

The PE industry’s challenges deepen.
More pain and consolidation could be coming

Global stocks have best month in 3 years
Traders bet big on falling rates
Wall Street’s fear gauge tumbles
Does everyone expect easy riches to return?

REAL ESTATE

Is housing permanently overpriced?
Lower rates help some, but not enough.

Real estate commissions
Are really under attack now!

TECHNOLOGY

The largest areas with data centers
Are near the centers of political power.

Are today’s big tech companies monopolies?
Maybe not strict monopolies, but they do control markets.

Smart toilets may be on the way
To provide useful health info.

THE CHAT ON AI

Musk raising $1B for his AI
Expect a battle for AI supremacy.

The people who feared AI
Now want to make billions from it.

UK sets up AI “hit squad”
That will reduce government employment???

THE NEXT NORMAL

American confidence in higher ed collapses
Everyone gets an “A” at Yale
Oregon lowers high school test bar
70% of US wants legal marijuana
A future of dumber citizens.

Has the next Covid already started?
Is China covering it up?

CVS wants to overhaul drug costs
Will they go lower or higher?

COP28-ING  OUT

As far as global events go
COP28 produced the largest carbon footprint—ever!

COP28 gets disaster fund commitments
US commits $17.5MM
What autocrat will pocket that money?

UN secretary-general lambasts COP28
Remember, he’s a career socialist and bureaucrat.

Exxon CEO ups his climate stance
Bureaucrats have no practical energy knowledge.

THE WAR ON CARBON

An African land grab is coming
For carbon credits.
But COP28 says it’s a decimated market

IEA is critical of carbon capture
It’s not likely a solution.

American Airlines buys carbon credits
From a company that buries sawdust.

THE NEW ENERGY TRANSITION

India to triple underground coal mining
They gotta meet energy demand.
South Africa and Indonesia go big on coal
It’s their cheapest, most reliable option.

Komatsu acquires American Battery
Electrifying construction and mining equipment.

UAE signs deal with nuclear reactor company
The company is backed by Bill Gates.

THE EV DREAM

The EPA wants to force you to buy an EV
A Republican bill tries to strike it

Repairing EVs is expensive
Who told us it was going to be cheap?

Biden wants China out of US EV market
No IRA tax credits for them.

THE CHINA SYNDROME

Bye bye, China.
Foxconn moving factories to India

XI tightens control over financial sector
Is he killing the golden goose?

China’s financial meltdown could get worse.
After banks, trusts are starting to melt down
Evergrande gets an extension
Shadow banks are on the edge
Moody’s cuts China outlook to negative

THE WASHING-TONE

Does Gavin Newsom want to be president?
California has a $68B budget deficit

We are out of funding for Ukraine
Suggests White House budget director.
Want more money for Ukraine?
Then tighten our own border, say Republicans

Biden lifts Venezuela’s sanctions.
Soon after they disqualify an election
Now they won’t release US detainees
And now they lay claim to part of Guyana

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Getting old, worrying about your memory?
Here’s how to protect it

Great leaders cultivate emotional intelligence
Here’s how they do it.

The nature cure is powerful
Spend time outdoors.

HOW ABOUT A BREAK

2023 photography awards
Truly stunning images!

Learn French in just one year
Really, yes, really.

The best places in the world for stargazing
The top spot is in the US.

SONG OF THE WEEK

Kiss could play on forever
Will avatar concerts draw fans?
“God Gave Rock & Roll to You”

Abba’s avatars make $2MM a week
ABBA Voyage trailer

CASTING AROUND THE PODS

Elon Musk talks with “DealBook”
Amid the F-bombs, he’s got real insights.

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

The Poor Things trailer.
Will Emma Stone get an Oscar?

What would the world be like
Without a new Willy Wonka movie?

The Grand Theft Auto VI trailer.
A trailer for a video game? OMG! Wow!

FROM THE HEADHUNTER’S KITCHEN

25 beef tenderloin recipes
Man oh man, count me in!

Fortune telling with cheese
Will I be a billionaire one day?

Is dinner the height of decadence
Or an act of artistry?

THE RANDOMS

Driving around the freeways in Houston makes me wonder how many people learned to drive playing Grand Theft Auto.

Big banks need more out of Wall Street. Or maybe they need to return to Glass-Steagall.

Here’s a New York Times article from yesterday: “Charles Barkley calls Trump supporters ‘nutty’ on CNN.” Is this what we call journalism?

If Elon Musk is right when he said “AI is more dangerous than nuclear bombs,” will the competition between big tech companies to produce the “best” generative AI model, in order to earn the yet more billions of dollars, be the cause of humanity’s demise?

To become the king of social media, Facebook certainly did not care that it was destroying the lives of young people.

Musk also said that, when he helped launch OpenAI, “it was supposed to be open source for everyone’s benefit, but it is now a super-closed source for maximum profit.”

Of course inflation is falling. The global economy is cooling substantially. When economies fall, demand falls, so prices naturally fall…ah…maybe they just stop rising, which is the measure of inflation.

China’s economy is struggling. Germany’s GDP went negative last quarter. Europe’s problems may be far more than just a shallow recession. Japan’s economy fell far more than expected last quarter. South Korea’s economy is barely growing. Imagine if we didn’t have those super rich US consumers powering third quarter 5.2% GDP growth. But will FOMO and YOLO soon lead to NO MO’?

You think inflation will return when the global economy gets back to growing? What if global growth doesn’t return? What if the world is now too much in debt? If you were too much in debt, wouldn’t you cut back on spending?

Will deflation be our next big economic battle? The EU seems worried about it.

A couple days ago, the following came out of my mouth: “When are we going to get tired of the all of everything?” Huh? What? Yep, that may be logic in our “modern” world.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Climate Change Policies Are a Bust
December 1, 2023

It’s All About the Kolache
November 24, 2023