“Happy premise number three: even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won’t.” – Bowfinger
My ex-wife was more versatile than carbon: she could form more than four bonds at the same time.
The economy recently feels to me like a(nother) bad sequel to The Matrix: smoke, mirrors, simulated steaks and guys pretending to be girls directing everything.
It made me think of Bowfinger, a 1999 Steve Martin flick. Steve Martin plays the titular producer, Bobby Bowfinger. His character drops this gem while trying to scam a crew into working on his latest film:
“That’s after gross net deduction profit percentage deferment ten percent of the nut. Cash? Every movie costs $2,184.”
The rest, it’s like Hollywood? Fake sets, fake stars, fake everything. Our economy, I think, has officially hit 8.9 out of 10 on the Bowfinger scale.
It’s a façade of trillions propped on fraud, fiat, and fairy dust. The evidence is everywhere: from federal slush funds laundering cash to “charities” that fund political hit squads, to Somali scams siphoning billions for terrorist toys, to the AI hype train where Nvidia’s® GPUs vanish into vaporware voids. It makes me ask one question:
Have we peaked at “peak fake”?
Genghis Khan stayed in shape during conquests by making sure he hit his steppe goal each day.
Start with the government’s golden shower of “aid.” In the last few months, we’ve watched as the public found out that billions flood from Uncle Sam’s coffers to “nonprofits” and foundations that, surprise, boomerang right back to commentators, politicians, and partisan ops that give the opinions to the Democratically-appointed judges to make sure that their cash lifeline is safe from scrutiny. Sibling marriages are less incestuous.
Remember the post-election blitz Democratic blitz? A Free Press® investigation uncovered a $27 billion rush-out-the-door bonanza, with $20B hitting eight leftist nonprofits faster than Kamala could say “unbourboned by what has been.”
It would be one thing if these were soup kitchens serving the starving, but these are slush funds for radical agendas, exploiting tax dollars to bankroll everything from election meddling to “community organizing” that looks suspiciously like astroturf Antifa® activism. It’s like if United Way™ funded Trotsky but funded by the Czar.
Robespierre, Trotsky, and Pol Pot walk into a bar. There were no survivors.
And USAID? They shelled $44K to Politico™ for subscriptions chump change, but emblematic of how federal funds feather media nests. Nonprofits are NGO scams, funneling billions to progressive power grabs, sometimes even recycling it from overseas. Ukraine is the country that just keeps giving. I mean, if you’re a Democratic politician.
House hearings exposed how these networks weaponize your taxes for ideological insurgency. You’re paying for the people who keep bleating: “muh democracy.” This is Bowfinger budgeting: real costs hidden, profits pocketed by players who script the narrative.
Speaking of Minnesota Somalisota . . . (otherwise known as Mogadishu on the Mississippi), the relentless spotlight has turned from Indian invaders to Somalian swindlers. The “Feeding Our Future” fraud, where Somali networks allegedly pilfered over $250M from child nutrition programs during COVID. That’s bad enough, but state audits have found broader scams at over $1 billion in taxpayer theft, with funds funneled overseas to anti-American terrorists.
Terrorist training: “C-4 yourself.”
I mean, not just anti-American Democrats, but actual “was given a dowry of AK-47s, goats, and C-4” dirka-dirka terrorists.
This isn’t petty theft: this is peak fake philanthropy that rivals the Clinton Foundation. “Charities” as cover for African clan cash grabs, shipping your dollars to fund foes abroad. If you watch videos of interviews with these people, they have no connection philosophically to the United States, wish to live under sharia law, don’t speak English, and don’t have jobs, other than stealing. I guess the only saving grace is that at least these “charities” didn’t pay for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding and the terrorists are fine with using standard NATO rounds.
The next fake? I’ve mentioned it again and again, Nvidia®.
It’s not so much Nvidia™ as the hype around A.I. Nvidia® seems to (mostly) be just selling computer chips. Mostly. Their stock has been exploding upward like a Somalian with a grenade, doubling since April, with a market capitalization flirting with $4 trillion.
Who is buying all those GPUs, and for what? Is it kids playing Fortnite®?
Ed Zitron, tech industry writer, estimates Big Tech needs $2T in AI revenue by 2030 just to justify their A.I. spending binge, or it’s going to lead to a fall that will leave a mark. We’re back to Wilder’s A.I. Paradox: if A.I. is valuable enough to be worth the money that’s being invested in it, it will wreck the economy with a wave of unemployment. If it’s not, it’ll wreck the economy because it failed.
Yay! It’s almost like we don’t have a choice!
My quantum computer wasn’t working, so tech support told me to turn it on and off at the same time.
It’s a lot like the French having a military: if they fight, they lose, and if they run, they lose.
Who is buying this stuff? The usual suspects: OpenAI®, Microsoft™, Oracle©, Amazon™, and Google©. As we’ve shown here before, this investment simply doesn’t have the infrastructure like electricity, PEZ®, or clean water production to support it even if they could build all that stuff. It smells like tulips in the Dutch Republic back around 1637.
Me? I think it’s entirely possible that we’re building a multi-trillion-dollar computer that might wreck our economy if it works. And it might wreck the economy if it doesn’t.
So, is this peak fake?
We’ve got governments gifting billions to grifters on an endless cash spin-cycle. We’ve got immigrants importing scams and exporting cash to jihadi Jamal in Jowhar. Also, we have A.I. alchemists turning silicon into massive debts that might be decadal mistakes.
If it was just that, yeah, it might all work out. But there’s this: the economy is a house of cards built on counterfeit confidence: $36 trillion in fiat debt, infinite inflation, and innovations that might wreck everything if they don’t become a robotic overlord. Is it any wonder that the smallest pebble dropped onto this slope might cause a landslide?
How much dirt is in a six foot deep, three foot diameter hole? None. It’s a hole.
Fake fails eventually, but often lasts longer than almost anyone would believe during inertia.
Will we reset? I think that’s almost certain. When will we reset?
That I can’t tell. As long as everyone agrees that the market is up, the market is up. But Wendy’s™ is getting ready to close 5% of its restaurants because the business is so great. I think the lower end of the income spectrum has thrown in the towel.
“A Dave’s Single™? What, do I look like a Rockefeller?”
Going back to The Matrix: “You know, I know this steak Dave’s Single® doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.”
Ignorance, bliss? What do those words even mean? In other news, I’m in a great mood!
Disclaimer: This isn’t investment advice, this is an Internet humor column. You might want to try those little cartoons they had in Bazooka Joe® gum for better advice on timing and market direction than I could give you. I don’t own any positions in any stock mentioned in this post, and I also do not own (much) real estate on the Moon, though I was sold a 1/10th share in some bridge in New York by an Albanian.
