There is the central question of whether all of this(the Great Reset) is going to work. By “working” I mean working functionally like your oven or your car or your cellphone works. We have all lived in a world where things worked, at least most of them. We may be entering a world where things no longer work, at least the ones based on technology, which is heading towards maximum prevalence and will exclude little that has been called civilization. I say this because you can’t simply make a claim that someone(say, the globalists) are going to tear everything down and replace it with something better, or rather something to their liking, and expect that it is simply going to work. We have roughly two hundred years of industrial and technological history that validate that this is so, that tell a different story. Perhaps the world was saved by the fact that during the Industrial Revolution and for all of the 20th century everything was not interconnected. It could not be. This matter of interconnection is one of the chief characteristics of the the Age of Reset that we are currently in, and is also its greatest vulnerability in my opinion. It is a vulnerability that, rather ironically, could bring the entire house down. The problem is simply massive complexity and the law of unintended(or unforeseen) consequences. It is ironic because they want to bring the entire house down, but I don’t suspect that they want to use the new house to knock the old house down, destroying both in the process. But that, I believe, is overwhelmingly the greatest risk that exists atop of what has also been called Build Back Better. The risk is that it will be Build Back Worse, for them and for us.
i refer to the systems/process as complex and/or complicated, complicated we can generally solve for a good answer. Complex systems on the other hand are not necessarily fully understood or controlable. the world we are in is full of complex systems waiting to fail and cascade in ways we can not even imagive
Thank you Dan, your knowledge and insight are greatly appreciated 🙏 Violence is just a human trait that can be magnified and manipulated together with mental illness. Good people just want to live in peace, work, love and search for peace and harmony with others who believe the same. Evil wants the opposite, and many times in history, those sociopaths and psychopaths are more driven and become more powerful due to their lack of God, empathy and morals. Unfortunately, many become leaders because of this and the results can be devastating. “One must choose between God and Man, and all ‘radicals’ and 'progressives", from the mildest liberal to the most extreme anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.”
Copper may be a good medium term play .As Dan says Copper and indeed most commodities are leading economic indicators.
I did pretty well buying Alcoa{ AA} back in Oct '25 at around $37 . I still am long .
Will we have a correction is not the question but rather whether the long term trend up will remain intact .I am pretty old so will continue my practice of buying good companies with long term prospects and hanging on to them .
If it all goes to hell we will plant another couple of rows of potatoes .
On copper squeeze: there’ll be less squeeze if we get a massive reduction of world population, as is desired by global Marxist elites (one Marxist decades ago put the desired global population at just 500 million), especially in what they consider the lower quality human beings. We’ve already experienced (fast) population decline with man-created virus and deadly government-decreed “solution” and (slow) decline from government-mandated energy-management (reduction) because of the “man-caused” or even “livestock-caused” climate change scam. Will we now experience very fast population decline because of wars (eg, Ukraine or Iran)? Remember , wars are fought to get needed resources for a nation’s or region’s population. China has been for years now (covertly?) amassing natural resources or deals with countries for such from all over the world. The one(s) who control needed physical resources (eg, China or US) or financial resources (eg, global financial elitists or banks) control the nature, system, and rules of economy.
Not sure what Marxists or Marxism had to do with the German decision to eschew nuclear power except for the obvious correlation of the two with stupidity and a general predisposition to ignore the consequences of one’s actions. Perhaps Dan can explain in a later missive. However, when it comes to the predisposition to ignore the consequences of one’s actions, there are plenty of present day examples of that too. Rather than bringing up apparently non-existent connections between Marxism and German nuclear policy, I respectfully suggest that Dan should consider discussing the consequences of ignoring the facts by those implicated in present day politics, events and what appears to be wide ranging criminal activities.
Marxismmight be an overstatement. They were absolutely fascist. The government, the elites , while not owning the utilities force them into the green policy. Convert or else. Nobody asked the voters. Worse, they did not consult the truckers or the farmers for grocers.... All just the Hague elites.
If it were the Hague elites, why does France have such a large nuclear generating capacity? Instead of invoking Fascism, Marxism, etc… why not consider Hanlon’s aphorism?
Germany decided to phase out nuclear energy in the early 2000's, well before China became a solar manufacturing heavyweight, and Chinese solar manufacturing overtook German manufacturing about 10 years after the initial decision by Germany to shut down its reactors. So the idea that the Chinese have created some sort of trojan horse solar industry to undermine the west doesn't make sense based on these timelines. The decision had been entrained well before China became a significant player.
Perhaps a better explanation is to understand that China is a big place, with some areas receiving copious sunshine while being far from coal resources, and with other areas closer to coal resources, but receiving less solar energy. This may better explain their energy generation mix than resorting to an explanation based on a trojan horse solar industry that was designed to undermine the west.
As for the Germans, doubtless they made a mistake, but it likely wasn't due to a Chinese conspiracy for the reasons outlined above. Rather, Germany scored an own goal, possibly due to one or more loud mouth idiots that the crowd decided was easier to follow than to oppose. I recall the debate. Rather than accepting the immediate consequences of opposing bad policy, the crowd went along with it.
Dan, it seems to me that AI is already decentralized to the point that every sovereign individual should be cheering. Breaking news, even those who cannot write software code can now gain agentic AI advantage to create/produce what they desire in the way of software function. Ones mind goes wild thinking of the possibilities... we live in a world filled with dysfunctional, sclerotic, self-focused institutions, government and private, that are just begging to be disrupted and dismantled. I see a future where individuals will be empowered if they will just step up to the task.
Dan, it seems clear that their isn't enough copper to support the rapid goal to grow the AI infrastructure in this country or the world requires. Dr. Copper has been a cornerstone of all economic growth since WW2. Now it appears to be a bigger driver than in the past. I think somewhere in the near future the AI movement will have to slow down until the raw materials to support the movement are available. You can't bake a cake without flower and eggs. You can't generate and distribute electricity without a lot of copper.
To me the question is whether AI will actually decentralize or continue centralizing on a micro scale within market segments. AI begins with the big information tech companies, Google, Apple and Microsoft. Regardless if it’s China or the US. These companies that control the platforms now, will control content on AI. Look how they already control what information gains access to their platforms. They control the information and the narrative online, they control the logic of violence and the rule of law. As you drill down to the different sectors of the economy, the biggest companies within that sector centralize their services. These companies are the movers and influencers. Guess how they move and influence their market segments, in their favor. The internet gave all of us an overabundance of information. It was said that it would set us free and put us on par with the privileged few previously privy of it. Now, this information is centralized by the aforementioned companies. They control the narrative; they filter what they define accurate or misinformation, allow distorted facts to favor those in control and move opinions towards their desired outcomes that benefit them financially and or politically. They will control the logic of violence. AI assemblies all their data, including the misinformation and then is re-assembled using algorithms to exclude the data that doesn’t support their desired conclusion. Almost a more centralized center. I refer to Dans great Private Briefing on November 29, 2025: Digital Privacy with Gabriel Custodiet. Some great points on privacy, worth the read and re-read, but what correlates here is Dan’s point; “What we’re seeing is diminishing marginal returns on the benefits of centralization, that there’s some tipping point where, rather than connecting you, a social network kind of restrains you,” The big tech companies keep us on an “need to know” basis. Reducing our choices, reducing our freedoms funneling us into predetermined, predictable patterns and decisions.
On AI: remember that AI is a “child” of its creators, teachers, and developers, according to their values, principles, restraints (if any), and expertise. Think of what it’s like to deal with adolescents, especially if they are left to run wild. What would “wild oats” look like from AI (entering now? or) traversing adolescence?
Something of possible interest to this community. I have lived in Bolivia off and on for 30 years. The last 20 have been a descending spiral into socialist destruction of the economy which had gotten to the point of no fuel and no hard currency available increasingly in the last couple years. Hyperinflation appeared to be on the immediate horizon but Last October the socialist government was voted out and replace by a new one led by Rodrigo Paz. They seem to at least have the idea that production equals prosperity. Anyone watching Argentina and Miele may be interested in the Bolivian saga going forward as well. Who knows how it will play out but with Bolivia it’s guarantied to be interesting!
There is the central question of whether all of this(the Great Reset) is going to work. By “working” I mean working functionally like your oven or your car or your cellphone works. We have all lived in a world where things worked, at least most of them. We may be entering a world where things no longer work, at least the ones based on technology, which is heading towards maximum prevalence and will exclude little that has been called civilization. I say this because you can’t simply make a claim that someone(say, the globalists) are going to tear everything down and replace it with something better, or rather something to their liking, and expect that it is simply going to work. We have roughly two hundred years of industrial and technological history that validate that this is so, that tell a different story. Perhaps the world was saved by the fact that during the Industrial Revolution and for all of the 20th century everything was not interconnected. It could not be. This matter of interconnection is one of the chief characteristics of the the Age of Reset that we are currently in, and is also its greatest vulnerability in my opinion. It is a vulnerability that, rather ironically, could bring the entire house down. The problem is simply massive complexity and the law of unintended(or unforeseen) consequences. It is ironic because they want to bring the entire house down, but I don’t suspect that they want to use the new house to knock the old house down, destroying both in the process. But that, I believe, is overwhelmingly the greatest risk that exists atop of what has also been called Build Back Better. The risk is that it will be Build Back Worse, for them and for us.
i refer to the systems/process as complex and/or complicated, complicated we can generally solve for a good answer. Complex systems on the other hand are not necessarily fully understood or controlable. the world we are in is full of complex systems waiting to fail and cascade in ways we can not even imagive
Thank you Dan, your knowledge and insight are greatly appreciated 🙏 Violence is just a human trait that can be magnified and manipulated together with mental illness. Good people just want to live in peace, work, love and search for peace and harmony with others who believe the same. Evil wants the opposite, and many times in history, those sociopaths and psychopaths are more driven and become more powerful due to their lack of God, empathy and morals. Unfortunately, many become leaders because of this and the results can be devastating. “One must choose between God and Man, and all ‘radicals’ and 'progressives", from the mildest liberal to the most extreme anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.”
George Orwell
Copper may be a good medium term play .As Dan says Copper and indeed most commodities are leading economic indicators.
I did pretty well buying Alcoa{ AA} back in Oct '25 at around $37 . I still am long .
Will we have a correction is not the question but rather whether the long term trend up will remain intact .I am pretty old so will continue my practice of buying good companies with long term prospects and hanging on to them .
If it all goes to hell we will plant another couple of rows of potatoes .
...not sure how "graphene" will play into copper.
If we are to believe the "hype" about graphene, it will replace copper.
stock ticker: GMGMF
I will check it out .Thanks.
Definitely go with the potatoes. How about adding a couple shade trees that you know you'll never sit under?
On copper squeeze: there’ll be less squeeze if we get a massive reduction of world population, as is desired by global Marxist elites (one Marxist decades ago put the desired global population at just 500 million), especially in what they consider the lower quality human beings. We’ve already experienced (fast) population decline with man-created virus and deadly government-decreed “solution” and (slow) decline from government-mandated energy-management (reduction) because of the “man-caused” or even “livestock-caused” climate change scam. Will we now experience very fast population decline because of wars (eg, Ukraine or Iran)? Remember , wars are fought to get needed resources for a nation’s or region’s population. China has been for years now (covertly?) amassing natural resources or deals with countries for such from all over the world. The one(s) who control needed physical resources (eg, China or US) or financial resources (eg, global financial elitists or banks) control the nature, system, and rules of economy.
think robots... autonomy.
A smaller population would be a good thing.
The implementation of these into society will surely disrupt the current natural selection process.
IMO the divide between productive folks and human vegetables will widen.
Solid logic!
Not sure what Marxists or Marxism had to do with the German decision to eschew nuclear power except for the obvious correlation of the two with stupidity and a general predisposition to ignore the consequences of one’s actions. Perhaps Dan can explain in a later missive. However, when it comes to the predisposition to ignore the consequences of one’s actions, there are plenty of present day examples of that too. Rather than bringing up apparently non-existent connections between Marxism and German nuclear policy, I respectfully suggest that Dan should consider discussing the consequences of ignoring the facts by those implicated in present day politics, events and what appears to be wide ranging criminal activities.
Marxismmight be an overstatement. They were absolutely fascist. The government, the elites , while not owning the utilities force them into the green policy. Convert or else. Nobody asked the voters. Worse, they did not consult the truckers or the farmers for grocers.... All just the Hague elites.
If it were the Hague elites, why does France have such a large nuclear generating capacity? Instead of invoking Fascism, Marxism, etc… why not consider Hanlon’s aphorism?
...it is a wide belief occidental adversaries abetted "climate change" fear propagation.
To dumb the masses into believing Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW's).
Ironically in the U.S., CAGW's are Citizen Against Government Waste...
It is interesting how China has invested so heavily in renewables and in renewable energy and related battery and ancillary technologies....
...from my understanding;
China needs every electron of energy they can muster.
It is also hyped the Chinese "renewable" industry is focused on selling goods, not using them.
China must feign some sort of effort in order to remain in good standing with catastrophic climate enthusiasts.
It is well known China is still building new coal powered electrical plants.
Germany decided to phase out nuclear energy in the early 2000's, well before China became a solar manufacturing heavyweight, and Chinese solar manufacturing overtook German manufacturing about 10 years after the initial decision by Germany to shut down its reactors. So the idea that the Chinese have created some sort of trojan horse solar industry to undermine the west doesn't make sense based on these timelines. The decision had been entrained well before China became a significant player.
Perhaps a better explanation is to understand that China is a big place, with some areas receiving copious sunshine while being far from coal resources, and with other areas closer to coal resources, but receiving less solar energy. This may better explain their energy generation mix than resorting to an explanation based on a trojan horse solar industry that was designed to undermine the west.
As for the Germans, doubtless they made a mistake, but it likely wasn't due to a Chinese conspiracy for the reasons outlined above. Rather, Germany scored an own goal, possibly due to one or more loud mouth idiots that the crowd decided was easier to follow than to oppose. I recall the debate. Rather than accepting the immediate consequences of opposing bad policy, the crowd went along with it.
Perhaps a better explanation.... but no.
-
Germany's decision to eliminate nuclear may have been hinted prior to 2011, but it was Fukushima that dealt Germany's nuclear industry the axe.
-
China was already well engaged in undercutting U.S. solar industry by 2007.
-
Today the U.S. is about 15% energy is renewable from solar and wind.
China about 8% from solar and wind.
China is the largest renewable generator however this includes nuclear and hydro dams.
Dan, it seems to me that AI is already decentralized to the point that every sovereign individual should be cheering. Breaking news, even those who cannot write software code can now gain agentic AI advantage to create/produce what they desire in the way of software function. Ones mind goes wild thinking of the possibilities... we live in a world filled with dysfunctional, sclerotic, self-focused institutions, government and private, that are just begging to be disrupted and dismantled. I see a future where individuals will be empowered if they will just step up to the task.
...unfortunately I see mass chaos as human cognitive thinking goes dormant.
Ai infiltrates the very essence of what makes humans engage, trust.
A generation from now we likely will no longer understand truth as we do today.
“If they will just step up to the task”🙏
See my Rational Optimist post Liberty
Dan, it seems clear that their isn't enough copper to support the rapid goal to grow the AI infrastructure in this country or the world requires. Dr. Copper has been a cornerstone of all economic growth since WW2. Now it appears to be a bigger driver than in the past. I think somewhere in the near future the AI movement will have to slow down until the raw materials to support the movement are available. You can't bake a cake without flower and eggs. You can't generate and distribute electricity without a lot of copper.
I liked Rubio's speech.
Jim Marshall
To me the question is whether AI will actually decentralize or continue centralizing on a micro scale within market segments. AI begins with the big information tech companies, Google, Apple and Microsoft. Regardless if it’s China or the US. These companies that control the platforms now, will control content on AI. Look how they already control what information gains access to their platforms. They control the information and the narrative online, they control the logic of violence and the rule of law. As you drill down to the different sectors of the economy, the biggest companies within that sector centralize their services. These companies are the movers and influencers. Guess how they move and influence their market segments, in their favor. The internet gave all of us an overabundance of information. It was said that it would set us free and put us on par with the privileged few previously privy of it. Now, this information is centralized by the aforementioned companies. They control the narrative; they filter what they define accurate or misinformation, allow distorted facts to favor those in control and move opinions towards their desired outcomes that benefit them financially and or politically. They will control the logic of violence. AI assemblies all their data, including the misinformation and then is re-assembled using algorithms to exclude the data that doesn’t support their desired conclusion. Almost a more centralized center. I refer to Dans great Private Briefing on November 29, 2025: Digital Privacy with Gabriel Custodiet. Some great points on privacy, worth the read and re-read, but what correlates here is Dan’s point; “What we’re seeing is diminishing marginal returns on the benefits of centralization, that there’s some tipping point where, rather than connecting you, a social network kind of restrains you,” The big tech companies keep us on an “need to know” basis. Reducing our choices, reducing our freedoms funneling us into predetermined, predictable patterns and decisions.
On AI: remember that AI is a “child” of its creators, teachers, and developers, according to their values, principles, restraints (if any), and expertise. Think of what it’s like to deal with adolescents, especially if they are left to run wild. What would “wild oats” look like from AI (entering now? or) traversing adolescence?
Something of possible interest to this community. I have lived in Bolivia off and on for 30 years. The last 20 have been a descending spiral into socialist destruction of the economy which had gotten to the point of no fuel and no hard currency available increasingly in the last couple years. Hyperinflation appeared to be on the immediate horizon but Last October the socialist government was voted out and replace by a new one led by Rodrigo Paz. They seem to at least have the idea that production equals prosperity. Anyone watching Argentina and Miele may be interested in the Bolivian saga going forward as well. Who knows how it will play out but with Bolivia it’s guarantied to be interesting!
"The world was a marketplace. And trade provided plenty for all".
Really?
When?
Seems the world is an economic battle ground, each country fending for themselves...
Interesting post about recent advances in AI from Rational Optimists.
https://rationaloptimistsociety.substack.com/p/rip-chatbot-era-2023-2025?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true