The Biden-era compression of wage inequality; how Biden's industrial policies are changing the world; the FT on the nutsness that is Nvidia’s current valuation; the U.S. Treasury is issuing too...
So, according to the Arin Dube chart (which Noah should comment on), the wages of the lowest quintile have increased 0.1% ("Percent change... = 0.1"), while those of the highest quintile have decreased 0.02%. That's essentially zero. On a related note, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/opinion/economy-research-greed-profit.html
I agree about NVIDIA. It makes no sense. IDK how complex sewing together multiple GPUs in a seamless fashion is, but since AI farms already use many GPUs to create their models, it may just depend on parallel prorocessing or dividing up the components. We already know how to do parallel processing, so the only issue is whether this is sufficient to handle really huge training projects. China is already pursuing hardware to use multiple chips to replace high-end chips, so we will see how well this works.
GPUs as the C21st tulip mania? What was that about not learning from history?
I'm stealing "soul supplier" for my band name. Is that a monadopoly?
I disapprove of subordinating the Treasury's fiscal responsibilities to financial regulation, and I'm inclined to view the establishment of the FSOC as a Dodd-Frank mistake. I certainly don't think the onus should be on the Treasury to issue 6M bills at 5.15% instead of 5Y bonds at 3.8% just because the former make better collateral.
The AMOC story is by far the most important thing that you have Briefly Noted today and on that grounds ought maybe to have been the lead.
Interestingly the technology wasn't available in teh 1970s, other than reducing energy use for heating homes and buildings by using better design and insulation. Solar panels back then were thermal panels hooked to the water supply, or passive heat absorbers, like drm walls. When we really got more serious, say with the Kyoto conference, we still only had [small] onshore windmills like those in California. The cost of solar photovoltaic panels was still very high, but adoption has driven down the prices to where they are today with more to come. Solar thermal whether black panels or mirrors are not competitive with PV. Offshore windfarms with huge wind turbines are springing up, especially in Europe. But political inertia bought by vested interests has delayed adoption of renewables. I will say that despite his other behaviors, Musk did us a favor by acquiring and developing the Tesla range of EVs. as it made them very acceptable, and far surpassed the GM EV1 in performance (and styling). The only good reduction in CO2 back in the 1970s was incidental to the shift from huge US sedans to compacts from Germany and japan due to high oil prices. But as we know, once oil prices fell, huge SUVs and pickup trucks became teh auto industry's made profit center. The peak of that stupidity was in the 1990s with the HumVee, for which there was a dealership where I lived. Ugh.
Partly that was a joke, but seriously it presumably would have pushed technology a little faster and we would surely be closer to stabilizing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere if we had.
Taxing IMPORTED fossil fuels also made sense to reduce the monopoly power of OPEC. You want different policies for different objectives.
So, according to the Arin Dube chart (which Noah should comment on), the wages of the lowest quintile have increased 0.1% ("Percent change... = 0.1"), while those of the highest quintile have decreased 0.02%. That's essentially zero. On a related note, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/opinion/economy-research-greed-profit.html
and https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/its-been-30-years-since-food-ate-up-this-much-of-your-income-2e3dd3ed?st=le63zkwfhrn4igo&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I agree about NVIDIA. It makes no sense. IDK how complex sewing together multiple GPUs in a seamless fashion is, but since AI farms already use many GPUs to create their models, it may just depend on parallel prorocessing or dividing up the components. We already know how to do parallel processing, so the only issue is whether this is sufficient to handle really huge training projects. China is already pursuing hardware to use multiple chips to replace high-end chips, so we will see how well this works.
GPUs as the C21st tulip mania? What was that about not learning from history?
I'm stealing "soul supplier" for my band name. Is that a monadopoly?
I disapprove of subordinating the Treasury's fiscal responsibilities to financial regulation, and I'm inclined to view the establishment of the FSOC as a Dodd-Frank mistake. I certainly don't think the onus should be on the Treasury to issue 6M bills at 5.15% instead of 5Y bonds at 3.8% just because the former make better collateral.
The AMOC story is by far the most important thing that you have Briefly Noted today and on that grounds ought maybe to have been the lead.
I vehemently object to the concept of a video about IRA.
Global warming: Sure wish we had started taxing net emissions of CO2 back in the '70's instead of in the whenever's.
Interestingly the technology wasn't available in teh 1970s, other than reducing energy use for heating homes and buildings by using better design and insulation. Solar panels back then were thermal panels hooked to the water supply, or passive heat absorbers, like drm walls. When we really got more serious, say with the Kyoto conference, we still only had [small] onshore windmills like those in California. The cost of solar photovoltaic panels was still very high, but adoption has driven down the prices to where they are today with more to come. Solar thermal whether black panels or mirrors are not competitive with PV. Offshore windfarms with huge wind turbines are springing up, especially in Europe. But political inertia bought by vested interests has delayed adoption of renewables. I will say that despite his other behaviors, Musk did us a favor by acquiring and developing the Tesla range of EVs. as it made them very acceptable, and far surpassed the GM EV1 in performance (and styling). The only good reduction in CO2 back in the 1970s was incidental to the shift from huge US sedans to compacts from Germany and japan due to high oil prices. But as we know, once oil prices fell, huge SUVs and pickup trucks became teh auto industry's made profit center. The peak of that stupidity was in the 1990s with the HumVee, for which there was a dealership where I lived. Ugh.
Partly that was a joke, but seriously it presumably would have pushed technology a little faster and we would surely be closer to stabilizing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere if we had.
Taxing IMPORTED fossil fuels also made sense to reduce the monopoly power of OPEC. You want different policies for different objectives.
Goldberg: I wish it were only the MAGA-inclined who view the world as zero sum.
When do we get your review of Swisher? (Willing to wait till it's out ...)