WEEKLY BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2024-06-27 Th

ChinesChinese-made EVs; Rivian Autos investor day; very briefly noted; David Guarino on making calfresh.org; naughty Eric Hobsbawm; Dan Drezner on the “untrained” Harvard dean Lawrence Bobo; Dan...

Brad DeLong

Jun 27, 2024

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Very Briefly Noted:

Managerial Cybernetics: I am not sure Henry is right here: I still feel more confused than enlightened, and I definitely do not feel as though I have a gospel to preach. But, yes, ways of thinking about the leviathans we make that have people as their components—the artificial persons like the market or the state or the bureaucracy we construct because we need to coordinate ourselves at a scale of 8 billion, and everything in our evolutionary history has only predisposed us to deal with feudal, friendship, or small band ties and politics: Henry Farrell: ‘DeLong on why Davies’s The Unaccountability Machine is a "great book" is 5000 words of magnificence. There is something very important coming together here (maybe biased because I'm one small bit, but I still maintain it's true) <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/a-return-of-management-cybernetics>… <https://bsky.app/profile/himself.bsky.social/post/3kvoeslodui2s>
Journamalism: It is certainly true that the Washington Post needs a new approach if it is going to ever have any hope of recovering its status as a trusted information intermediary. But hiring a hack from the British arm of the Murdoch Empire is not the way to go: Richard Tofel: ‘This is… a declaration of war by WaPo’s publisher against his own staff. It says he referred some of them to HR, brands some reporting as antisemitic, asserts reporters ignored comments for a story proffered by his hand-picked editor and then lied about it… <https://www.threads.net/@dicktofel/post/C8hSpvUOWe_>
Economics: My nightmare is that in six months we discover that productivity was much stronger and employment growth negative since the start of the year: Tej Parikh: America’s dodgy job numbers: ‘The US labour market is probably weaker than the non-farm payroll numbers imply…. It is possible that the household survey has been unable to fully account for the large inflow of foreign workers into the US in recent years…. Estimating the birth/death rate of businesses — and thus the impact on employment — has been harder post-pandemic…. The labour market is probably softer than the non-farm payrolls are conveying, but perhaps not as weak as the household survey is showing either… <https://www.ft.com/content/f16bd06d-f0f3-47df-94f1-55ec8de3d9eb>
Right now, rates are too high. But because the Federal Reserve believes that it's first rate cut will be "consequential", and has communicated this to markets, it cannot cut rates without making expectations of future rates too low. I just want to point out that this is a trap of its own devising: if it thinks, as I do, that rates should be 75 basis points lower, then it should cut rates by 75 basis points and say: we really do not know whether our next move will be up or down: Tracy Alloway & Joe Weisenthal: This Is Going to Be Tricky for the Fed: ‘The calendar is tight, the Fed still has that Q1 inflation PTSD, and the economy is showing signs of cooling. But with any luck, the Fed probably has the time and space it needs to cut rates before that self-reinforcing process of substantial layoffs really starts to bite… <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-06-21/odd-lots-newsletter-this-is-going-to-be-tricky-for-the-fed?cmpid=BBD062124_oddlots>
Figuring out that insurance company reserves were a wonderful source of low-cost financing plus reasonable leverage did, I think, much more than half of the work in the Buffett Berkshire-Hathaway phenomenon. The rest, I think, was a very good eye at figuring out which way the tide was flowing, and thus what were the great companies he could acquire at average prices: Market Sentiment: Buffett’s Alpha: Skill of Luck?: ‘A majority of Buffett's returns could be attributable to a disciplined investing approach that relied on a few factors: a. Investing in low-beta, low-volatility stocks. b. A low but non-zero use of leverage (ranging from 1 to 1.7). c. A preference for cheap stocks with a low price-to-book ratio. d. Picking high-quality stocks with profitable, stable, and growing stocks with high payout ratios. e. Ability to secure low-cost financing. The researchers created a portfolio replicating Buffett’s market exposure and factors, which performed comparably to his actual portfolio on backtesting. The public stocks in Buffett’s portfolio performed better than private stocks, indicating that his stock selection abilities played a bigger role in his success than his access to exclusive opportunities. But private companies, especially in the insurance sector, provide both tax advantages and a steady source of financing… <https://www.marketsentiment.co/p/ideastorm-16>
I continue to be very puzzled by stories that talk about how the “NVIDIA tide is lifting the tech sector”.

Each dollar of Nvidia's profit comes from a TSMC and Samsung that have done a lousy job at marginal-cost pricing for their upstream fabrication services, and comes from hyperscalars and others that feel that they cannot afford to lag behind by a year in building out their AI-support infrastructure. Thus whenever NVIDIA’s market cap goes up by $1.00, $0.20 of that dollar is a lost opportunity for TSMC and $0.10 is a lost opportunity for Samsung. Moreover, the remaining $0.70 are investments by NVIDIA’s downstream customers that may well return no profits to the buying tech oligopolist purchasers of GPUs and NPUs, as these investments may well only provide services that become table stakes in maintaining market share.

In my view, the NVIDIA tide lowers the rest of the tech sector. The question is: by how much?:

Richard Waters: Nvidia tide is lifting the tech sector: ‘Shares in… Broadcom… have jumped more than 20 per cent…. Another rise like that and it would… [be] valued at more than $1tn, more than six times what it was worth half a decade ago…. Oracle… jumped 17 per cent after news of a deal to train OpenAI’s large language models…. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which had looked like missing out on the booming demand for AI servers that has lifted rivals Supermicro and Dell… caught a break … shares rose 24 per cent after earnings as investors reassessed its position in the AI boom…. The AI boom is spreading… spanning many different parts of the “tech stack”…. Wall Street is fixated on just how many tech boats will be lifted by the rising tide of generative AI… <https://www.ft.com/content/62875472-89f9-4fdf-b9be-076429e9ab25>
Central Country: EGMPEREAM: Experience-Generated Manufacturing-Process Expertise Rules Everything Around Me: Bloomberg News: China’s EV Success Story Built on Price Wars, Tesla Factor: ‘When Tesla Inc. started manufacturing locally in China in 2019, it sparked genuine enthusiasm among consumers and fueled the build-out of an entire EV supply chain…. Beijing’s willingness to let companies fail while boosting the overall new-energy vehicle sector is what’s made a difference…. China hasn’t sought to “create specific national champions,” said Gerard DiPippo…. “It wanted winners but didn’t want to pick them”…. That strategy has seen carmakers like BYD Co. offer electric hatchbacks that have rotating touchscreens from just 73,800 yuan ($10,200). Li Auto Inc.’s L-Series has rocketed to the top of electric SUV charts thanks to its spacious interiors and top notch in-car entertainment. While Apple Inc. gave up on its EV project, Xiaomi Corp. founder Lei Jun has fans queuing up to buy the smartphone maker’s recently released SU7 EV… <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-26/china-s-ev-success-story-built-on-price-wars-tesla-factor?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business>
Neofascism: Ken White: IMHO, the Roberts Court has now surpassed the Rhenquist court and is closing in on the tiny court as the worst Supreme Court in America's history as it continues its downward dive: ‘SCOTUS in Thomas Opinion: It is appropriate and traditional to slap babies in the supermarket. SCOTUS in Roberts Opinion two years later: It’s disappointing that you didn’t read carefully and recognize we didn’t mean all babies all the time, nor in all markets. Like not a bodega. Obviously… <https://www.threads.net/@kenpopehat/post/C8gLpbQRpT5>
Ditto: Ian Millhiser: The Supreme Court refuses to accept blame for its worst guns decision: ‘US v. Rahimi is completely incoherent, and it faults lower courts for the justices' own incompetence…. Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion is utterly incoherent… does nothing to clear up the mass confusion created by… New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.…As Justice Clarence Thomas persuasively argues in dissent, Bruen compelled the Fifth Circuit to rule that domestic abusers do, indeed, have a Second Amendment right to own a gun. Friday’s decision in Rahimi essentially carves out an exception to Bruen that is just large enough to allow Zackey Rahimi, the cartoonishly violent individual at the center of this case, to be disarmed. But Roberts’s opinion does little else. And it provides absolutely no meaningful guidance to lower court judges who are struggling to apply the vague “historical tradition” test announced in Bruen…. Roberts… tries to shift the blame, claiming that “some courts have misunderstood the methodology of our recent Second Amendment cases.” He then drops two incomprehensible paragraphs seeking to clarify how Bruen is supposed to work… <https://www.vox.com/scotus/356267/supreme-court-us-rahimi-domestic-abuse-guns-second-amendmen>
Fasci-fascism: Every time someone says to me "Leo Strauss loved American democracy" I want to say "have you listened to the guy?”

Leo Strauss may well have thought that American democracy was the best attainable regime today in that managed to maintain proper obeisance to the prejudices of hoi polloi, being a regime governed by gentleman advised by philosophers. But his principles were, as he said: fascist, authoritarian, and imperial.

And any belief that governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed depending on whether or not they protected people’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—all that struck Strauss to his dying die as a “shabby abomination”, as he said:

Leo Strauss (1933): To Karl Löwith: ‘That the new right-wing Germany does not tolerate us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the contrary: only from the principles of the right, that is from fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles, is it possible with seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and despicable appeal to the droits imprescriptibles de l’homme to protest against the shabby abomination… <https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/07/leo_strauss_giv.html>