Deal Junkie

Always learning.

[Alice @RationalBlonde]

“We don’t want data centers here.”

Great. Your town’s economic development plan can remain a Dollar General and three vape shops

[Theo Jaffee @theojaffee]

The anti-datacenter psychosis sweeping through both sides of our national politics might be the worst mass movement I've seen in my lifetime. The magnitude of lies underpinning it, the threat it poses to our economy and civilization, and the sheer scale of its popularity are totally unprecedented. It should be an enduring national shame that the country that invented the airplane, landed on the Moon, and created the Internet is descending into superstitious panic at the very moment growth matters most

[Bret Greenstein @bretgreenstein]

Data centers have become the easy proxy/scapegoat of the public who fear AI, based on the actions of AI lab leaders who amped up the scary talk. On their own, data centers are not a real issue - most recycle water, they generate tax revenue, they pay for their own power generation, and they might help us cure cancer. But, as long as people fear or dislike AI, this kind of pushback will continue. And, it will affect elections in addition to investment and progress.

AI data centers in space might help the pushback, but they won't address the fear.

[JⓂ️🅰️ @J_Nole22]

Jayden Daniels when he sees a 4 year old kid celebrating their 5th birthday

[X @XaviercMiller]

What’s going on in the NBA, MLB & other major sports is just a reflection of what’s happening throughout the rest of society, and most people aren’t even aware of it yet.

Society has moved from an ownership economy to an access economy, and I don’t think people fully understand what that means for society.

Look at what’s happening around us. People are increasingly renting homes instead of owning them. Sports teams are moving toward private equity and fractional ownership. Entertainment and software have become subscriptions. Cars are leased, financed and even adding subscription features. Music went from something you bought and owned to something you pay every month to access.

Different industries, same trend. As valuable assets become more expensive, fewer individuals can afford to own them. Eventually ownership starts migrating toward corporations, private equity firms, investment funds and other institutions capable of pooling large amounts of capital.

And when ownership changes, the incentive changes with it. An individual might own something because they love it. A family might own something because they want their children and grandchildren to have it. But an institution owns something because the numbers have to work.

So everything becomes a financial optimization problem. How much revenue can we get out of this asset? What can we charge for that used to be included? What can become a subscription? What can be rented instead of sold? What else can we monetize? How much more value can we extract from the same customer?

You can even see it in many cities. Beautiful land, open spaces, historic neighborhoods and locally owned businesses increasingly have to justify themselves against whatever produces the highest financial return. A field becomes a subdivision. A neighborhood becomes a development. A local business becomes a national chain. Eventually every city starts looking the same because everything is being optimized by the same spreadsheet.

And that’s where the societal impact becomes much bigger than people realize. The danger is that we can become richer on paper while becoming poorer in all the things a spreadsheet doesn’t know how to measure.

We’re in an economy where people have access to more things than any generation in history while actually owning fewer things. Meanwhile, the institutions receiving all of those payments are using that cash flow to accumulate even more assets.

That’s why becoming an owner is going to be more important than ever. If you own valuable assets today, whether that’s a home, land, a business, equity or other productive assets, you need to think very carefully before giving them up.

Obviously not every asset is worth holding forever. Sometimes selling is the right decision. But the next 10-20 or 30 years will make ownership of genuinely scarce and productive assets nearly impossible for the average person, and eventually even for people with good incomes.

Because income and ownership are two different things. You can make $200,000 a year and still be competing against an institution managing billions of dollars. A good salary doesn’t necessarily give you the purchasing power to compete with pooled capital.

That will become one of the defining economic divides of the future. Not simply rich versus poor. Owners versus renters. People who own appreciating and productive assets versus people whose income is continuously being used to pay the people and institutions that do.

Everything could become more convenient, more efficient and more accessible while simultaneously becoming more financially optimized to extract every possible dollar from the consumer.

It’ll produce incredible returns for capital. But it won’t produce a better society. If you can become an owner, become one. And when you acquire something genuinely valuable, understand what you have before you give it up.

Because a time coming where buying it back will be significantly harder than selling it was.

[Alejandro Zúñiga @ByAZuniga]

Michigan men's basketball had the nation's No. 2 incoming class when Dusty May left for the NBA.

All nine members of that group — six freshmen and three transfers — are sticking with the Wolverines this season.

https://t.co/kpjKMqZh8Y

[Deal Junkie @DealJunkie409]

@johnarnold 100%
And it's not even close

[Deal Junkie @DealJunkie409]

@SMB_Attorney 100%. And not even a close second

[Deal Junkie @DealJunkie409]

@FreddyLA7 Go Blue!
Welcome to the leaders and best

[Trung Phan @TrungTPhan]

LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Reddit

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Bravo @JeffBezos!

[Southern Chestnut 🇺🇸 @AppyOrtho]

The older I get the more I understand why people who have their acts together are willing to pay a fee every month to a country club so that they have a social outlet for their family where the dregs of society are filtered out.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am the Chairman and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust. Eighty-four years old. Seven buildings in Midtown Manhattan. I said what I said.

I said "tax the rich" is the equivalent of a racial slur. I said it at REBNY. Into the microphone. Eight hundred people. Median net worth in that room was north of $240 million, I know because our CFO ran the guest list through a Bloomberg terminal as a joke, and then it wasn't a joke. And when I said it, twelve people applauded. The rest nodded. One woman in the third row mouthed, "Finally." I saw her.

Sharon, my communications advisor, Columbia, $430,000 a year, very bright, Sharon wants me to walk it back. She drafted something. "Mr. Roth's comments were intended to highlight the emotional impact of political rhetoric on business communities." I read it. I put it in the trash can on my desk. Not the recycling. The trash. Here's my clarification: I understated it.

"Tax the rich" is worse than a slur. A slur is just a word. It doesn't come with a CBO score. Nobody is introducing a bill called the Racial Slur Implementation Act of 2026. But there are seventeen active proposals in Congress, I had Sharon count them, seventeen proposals designed to take more of my money. My money. Mine. Money I acquired by being better at acquiring Manhattan commercial real estate than anyone alive for four consecutive decades. That is not a crime. That is a record.

I pay property taxes on $18.2 billion in assessed assets. $412 million a year. Say it again: four hundred and twelve million. I carry that number. It's the first thing I think about when I see a protest sign. I think: I pay more in property tax than the entire annual budget of the city of Fort Lauderdale. I looked this up. Fort Lauderdale: $408 million. Steve Roth: $412 million. I am a small city. And the city doesn't get screamed at.

My effective tax rate last year was 11.4 percent. I say this because I believe in transparency and because I'm not ashamed of it. The rate reflects the legal structure of real estate investment trusts, depreciation schedules Congress established in 1986, and carried interest provisions that both parties have voted to preserve for forty years. I did not write these laws. I organized my entire financial existence around them with the help of nine full-time tax professionals who have offices on the 38th floor of 888 Seventh Avenue, which I also own. Their office is in my building. Their work protects my buildings. This is not a loophole. Sharon calls it a loophole. I've told her: a structure maintained by nine attorneys across four decades is not a loophole. A loophole is something you slip through once. This is architecture. This is the foundation. This is the building.

Last Tuesday, same as every Tuesday, I walked past 1290 Sixth Avenue. My building. And there was a man. Same man as last week. Same sign: "Billionaires Pay Your Fair Share." He was standing on my sidewalk. My literal sidewalk — my company owns the ground lease. He was maybe thirty. He was wearing a jacket I would estimate cost $60. My lunch that day was $114. For one. I am telling you this not to boast but because these are facts. He has decided I'm his enemy. Based on a number he saw on a Forbes list. He doesn't know what I pay. He doesn't know what my buildings cost this city in construction jobs and lease revenue and foot traffic. He knows one number. He has made one judgment.

I see him every Tuesday. I've started to notice things. He brings coffee from the cart, not the Starbucks. He has a backpack that looks heavy. He doesn't look unhealthy. He looks like he probably works somewhere, but not on Tuesdays. I've wondered: does he have a job? Does he have a building? Does he have anything that depends on him the way 4,200 employees depend on me? I suspect not. And yet he has opinions about my tax rate.

I gave $22 million to charity last year. The Met. NYU Langone. Mount Sinai. I gave a building to NYU. Not money for a building — a building. The Steven Roth Residence Hall. It houses 400 students. That man with the sign has never housed 400 students. He hasn't housed one. He gives cardboard. I give structures. This is not a comparison I'm making to flatter myself. It's just arithmetic.

When I said what I said at REBNY, I was saying what every person in that room believes and none of them will say publicly because they have communications advisors and the communications advisors all went to Columbia and they all say "unhelpful." I'm eighty-four. I'm too old for helpful. I'm too old to perform restraint for people who hate me for something I can't change.

I didn't choose to be rich. I chose to be good at one thing for a very long time, and this is what happened. You don't punish someone for that. You don't legislate against someone for that.

My net worth fluctuates between $3.8 and $4.1 billion depending on the quarter. I fluctuate more in a fiscal week than that man on my sidewalk will earn in his life. Both of these are facts. Only one of them is considered polite to say.

They want me to apologize.

I'll be dead in ten years. Twenty if I'm lucky. And they'll still be renting my buildings.

[Deal Junkie @DealJunkie409]

same plus doordash and apple tv..im up before i started

[Ken Lukehart @mm81031]

@jamiequint @Chase Meh, $300 travel credit, $120 Lyft and $300 StubHub basically gets me there before anything else.

[Ken Lukehart @mm81031]

@jamiequint @Chase Meh, $300 travel credit, $120 Lyft and $300 StubHub basically gets me there before anything else.

[Deal Junkie @DealJunkie409]

@andrewztan Sending 5 to Cal Tech maybe an even bigger flex !!

[Deal Junkie @DealJunkie409]

100%

Ai should solve this hopefully

[David Parker @david_parker]

This is why your healthcare sucks. Most of the money is being used to create fake jobs for parasites.

[9️⃣ @Pxxdwskiii]

I’ll tell my kids that this is the man that decided to leave a prime Bayern team to join a rebuilding Barca squad and brought them back to the top.

- 188 games
- 118 goals
- 24 assists
- 3x La Liga
- 3x Supercopa
- 1x Copa del Rey
- 1x Pichichi winner

Barca legend, forever 💙❤️

[John Arnold @johnarnold]

The 3 ideas Trump had to reduce the deficit were DOGE, $1 million “Gold Card” visas, and tariffs. None worked.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

I’m entirely convinced that the key to life and happiness is having low expectations for things outside your control and high expectations for things within it.