“Value accrues, historically, in all industries, to those with a durable competitive advantage manifesting as either pricing power or an untouchable cost or distribution advantage. Most will not benefit, because their competitors will benefit to the same extent, and neither will have a competitive advantage because of it.” – Michael Burry on AI buildout capex (20260110)
“There has never been a society that welcomed immigration for its own sake, for reasons beyond its economic utility. So the poor must be imported — reluctantly. A sharp reduction in this supply would trigger hyperinflation, owing to the nonlinear effects of such squeezes. The illusion that immigration benefits ONLY immigrants. Most of people holding such beliefs end up relying on immigrants for their own “better life”, unless their definition of “better life” has nothing materialistic in it. We end up in the strange situation of xenophobic people importing labor for their own purposes while voting against immigration—a sort of tragedy of the commons.” – Nassim Taleb (20250923)
Next:
- 2-2c1 If you have negative externalities, tax it
- 2-2d Gresham’s Law generalized—the bad practice drives out the good
Related:
- 2-1b4 Not fighting can win you the battle
- Avoid parade-tiptoe situation (or the escalator example)—see Warren Buffett (p. 215)
- 2-1e Everything is connected in a complex way
- 6-3b3g Federated (protocol) networks have a tendency, a fundamental by-product of their architecture, to evolve into corporate networks because network effects ensure that small advantages compound to create big winners