Prepare for Liftoff
In order to avoid a debt debacle, the new tech would have to increase productivity...not just add complexity and novelty. Will AI do that? So far, there is no sign of it.
Wednesday, June 03rd, 2026
Bill Bonner, from Gualfin, Argentina
But wait...hold on. Won’t the younger generations benefit from all the nifty tech improvements made in the last few years? Won’t they have self-driving cars? Won’t they have AI to tell them what to think...and help them avoid thinking altogether?
Won’t they be able to live on Mars with all the comforts of Hoboken, thanks to one of Elon’s great rockets?
Maybe most important, won’t this new technology send the economy into escape velocity...freeing it from the zip-ties of $110 trillion in accumulated debt...making sense of the Nvidia’s 23x price/sales ratio...
And allowing the politicos — without even breaking a sweat — to balance the budget and make good on all those promises they made to credulous voters?
Could be...PWC:
AI adoption could boost global GDP by an additional 15 percentage points by 2035
But this is where the complexity comes back into the picture. We know that if you earn 10 shillings and spend 11 shillings...you are going in the hole. Keep it up and you will go broke.
And we also know that if you raise your income to 11 shillings…you’re very likely to spend 12!
But who knows? Maybe you’ll invent the 21st century equivalent of the wheel...or the hula hoop.
Better than that, says Wall Street; this is not just an investment opportunity...it’s the technical equivalent of the Big Rock Candy Mountain. In that great and glorious world of the future, AI will increase output for everybody. We’ll all get rich...pay off our debts...and never have to change our socks.
The idea, roughly, is that computers will mimic human thought. But somehow, they will get us out of the hole human thought dug. We will all have our AI ‘butlers’ waiting on us...directing us...helping us avoid mistakes, right? Will they tell us to stop spending those 11 shillings? Will we listen? These are known unknowns.
Among other known unknowns are the many things that AI will help people do that would be better left undone. AI, made by Palantir, for example, is helping US and Israel assassinate foreign leaders. Will it be an advance for humankind when AI geniuses on the other side murder our own leaders? And what about the time wasters? Already, you can fritter away hours following AI-induced clickbait. Down one rabbit hole and into the next one. Whee!
AI is getting better and better at organizing and presenting information. But it also organizes and presents fakes, propaganda, and outright lies. Will it be like the internet itself...vastly easing the flow of blah blah, but ultimately not making us any smarter or more productive?
In order to avoid a debt debacle, the new tech would have to increase productivity...not just add complexity and novelty. Will AI do that? So far, there is no sign of it.
And there’s SpaceX blasting off. More complexity. Not one investor in 1,000 understands how to send rockets into space...or how anyone will make money at it.
But millions of them seem to be hyped up, so much so...that normal, usually-sober investment pros place their bids as if they were the dot.coms in 1999...or the Japanese stocks of 1989. The price hardly matters, the chorus chants: this is a chance of a lifetime. MSN:
Space stocks and ETFs surge ahead of SpaceX IPO
And who knows? Maybe they are right; maybe the whiskey will come tumbling down the rocks. But until we get a taste of it, we’ll stick with the basics. It’s a bubble. Bubbles blow up.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
Research Note, by Dan Denning
Do you want to speculate on the commercial development of outer space by some public and some pre-public companies? There’s an ETF for that! It’s the Tema Space Innovators ETF [NASA]. See chart above. Highly speculative…and out of this world.
The ETF has $2.5 billion in assets under management, despite only launching in late March of this year. It’s actively managed and includes publicly listed companies like Rocket Lab, AST Space Mobile, and Intuitive Machines (companies all directly or indirectly involved in rocket propulsion, satellites, and the infrastructure required for commercial space flight and operations).
The fund also gives you pre-IPO access to some companies through Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). The second largest space-related ETF is the Procure Space ETF [UFO]. It tracks around 50 companies that make up the S-network Space Index. Buyer beware…and buckle up.
Bill, I spent my entire work life in the engineering world, mostly electronics. It was a great life. Many great developments, some even help mankind. What we see today from my view point is the greatest Ponzi Scheme ever created. YES, AI has some benefits and more to come , BUT, this is like the tower of Babel in the bible for me. Yes those riding the wave up today may make out well short term but the piper always has to be paid.
I'll stick with items of proven value over time thank you very much!
Jim Marshall
Well I could make a POWERFUL argument that the only thing the Internet did was DESTROY PRIVACY and RUIN SOCIETY and make a bunch of people, not me, enormously wealthy using the ages old dictum, THE GREATER FOOL THEORY. SELL IT WHILE ITS HOT AND CASH IN AND LAUGH ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK AS IT COLLAPSES ON ITSELF. Yes, we transformed society and employed 100 million people...doing what? Creating useless apps and games and making us all addicts to news and scrolling and data that now everyone can hack, steal, and then rape and rob you with. GREAT! We were better off before the internet. I said so then and say so now. When CLINTON and GORE RELEASED A CLASSIFIED INTRAGOVERNMENT SOFTWARE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM ON THE PUBLIC and IBM decided to shift from MAINFRAME COMPUTERS IN THE BASEMENT OF BIGBANKS AND BIGWHATEVER and put computers on individuals desks that were not dumb but active.....the world changed. Yes I know the techie argument is that life changed from candles to gaslights to electricity and from horse and buggy to automobiles locomotives and airplanes. Fewer froze to death, fewer died from disease (access to drugs and doctors) and fewer starved to death (created jobs and places to BUY food instead of having to grow it to eat.) And we wore clothes that came from harvested products and also from petroleum products. BUT now? Have we gone too far? ONE STEP BEYOND THE PALE that tips the scales to our own destruction? Maybe. I just ask questions I dont know the future or all the answers. And I support FREE SPEECH and PRIVACY and GUN RIGHTS and FAMILY RIGHTS and OLD FASHIONED VALUES that were the backbone of our middle class and our society, now shattered by liberal loons and libertarian nitwits and all of whom in BIGTECH created BIG BROTHER GOVERNMENT that both parties claimed to be against, wink wink. And now our enemies can attack us in a basement in Moscow or Tehran by hacking the DOD and your healthcare provider, your bank, your employer and your credit card company and your auto manufacturer and lender and so forth. NOTHING IS SAFE. NOBODY IS SAFE. AND CAMERAS ARE EVERYWHERE (including my paranoid neighbor who seems to be afraid of an invasion of red ants or some pest but has cameras to watch them and ME and RECORD what we say....which infuriates me and my HOA said, "NOT MY JOB." REALLY? Now what? That promotes escalation and that is NOT good. ) And So living in Calchaqui Valley seemed so strange and elitist (sort of, despite being poor country and remote and simple) and hard scrabble.....is now maybe not a bad concept on paper...though I might choose something a bit more civilized and with access to fresh running public water for showers, baths, sewer, cooking and pets/or cattle and better roads and so forth......maybe Salta is still too big and a target too or maybe San Martin is too small and remote and somewhere in between (size and public services and groceries). I just dont know.
I also think Armaggedon is coming because the Holy Bible says it is and we seem to be getting close and SOMETHING in the HEAVENS is in our atmosphere watching us....is it angels or martians I dont know. And angels are described in the Bible not always as human spirits with wings, but odd shaped items.......
And because of that, does it matter? My days are shorter than before meaning I am not as old as Bill but I am not far behind and making 80 will be a test...and my cars are both 2020 models in SHOW ROOM CONDITION and gorgeous and 'Merican cars' and under 60k miles and will outlive me. PAID FOR. NOT BUYING A 110k SUV to be trendy or keep up with neighbors ...JESUS DOESNT CARE what we drive or what we own. Or who we support in the nfl or mlb or EPL or whatever. HE ONLY CARES ABOUT LOVE. HE SAID SO.