AI Still Has A Real Economy Problem
The hyperscaler earnings bonanza last night continued to show that AI related capex is still only delivering marginal incremental growth benefits in end real economy activities like advertising.
https://t.co/TJ6VNsnXH8
To be clear, what the @DOGE team and @USTreasury have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:
- Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.
- All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!
- The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.
The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from @DOGE. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!
Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.
When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!!
This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.
BREAKING: The vessel speed reduction rule proposed by federal regulators to protect North Atlantic right whales that alarmed Nantucket's ferry operators and would have had potentially devastating effects on the island's economy has been withdrawn: https://t.co/cIJzOgcAuB
“The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.”
~ Johns Hopkins professor & surgeon, Dr. Martin Makary
The new continuing resolution spending bill is 116 pages vs. the original 1,547 and here are some of the key changes:
-No pay raise for Congress
-No transfer of the football stadium land
-No Global Engagement Center extension
-No section on “Pandemic Preparedness and Response”
-No language change for “justice-involved individuals”
Source: https://t.co/pPYgM326rl
BREAKING: Senator Elizabeth Warren has sent a letter to Trump to establish "conflict of interest" rules for Elon Musk given he is a top adviser, per WaPo
In response, Trump's team called her "Pocahontas," and said that Warren was a "career politician whose societal impact is 1/1024th of Elon Musk's," per BI.