citrin_ru

> the top 10% get about 50% of pre-tax income

May be not top 10% but top 0.1% are good at avoiding tax using various loopholes. Like borrowing against stocks (and other appreciating assets) till death to avoid paying CGT and debt is then repaid by heirs which do not pay CGT AFAIK. So they can spend more than income stats would suggest.

In the UK it's common to have 3.4% beer/ale (for ABV >= 3.5% the duty is higher) but there are little options between 3.4% and <=0.5% (alcohol free). I find 3.4% to be a good trade-off between the taste and the alcohol content. I do drink Lucky Saint occasionally but find it less pleasant than various 3.4% ales.

They do contribute to GDP growth but society at large sees no benefits from this growth. Governments like growth because it allows to collect more taxes and reduce the budget deficit. But AI companies are not paying taxes because they are not yet profitable and even profitable tech companies are bad tax payers (they actively exploit tax loopholes, the most famous is the Double Irish but it's no longer the current scheme AFAIK).

If people who are responsible will be prosecuted the company unlikely fail (just because of this) and will continue to be a part of the economy. Hacking is good for their marketing but they should be able survive without such rogue marketing. But that's unlikely to happen anyway.

The US GBP is 100x large than Iranian one and yet the US cannot open the Strait of Hormuz and even defend own bases in the region from cheap drones (52 aircraft lost, most on the ground). GDP is not the only factor when it comes to military capabilities.

If a private person did a fraction of hacks OpenAI did they will be put in jail for years. But AI companies can operate with impunity. How that works?

> I’m particularly interested in how they plan to finance reactors in a grid dominated by solar.

Solar is 15% - a lot but not yet dominated. Solar works at day and demand is also highest during the day so solar should not be an enemy of nuclear.

Greenland stuff doesn’t make sense even if they believe into the climate change. The US already has military bases there which are barely used. It’s just plain imperialism.

> There aren't that many places outside of MENA that produce oil in reasonable quantities

AFAIK all these countries can increase production given enough investments: US Canada Guyana Venezuela (high political risk but with high oil prices the risk will be taken) Brazil

Whether the US is self sufficient or not is not that important as net production and its dynamics.

Oil will not stay expensive for a long time without some carbon tax. Even if Hormuz will remain closed for years production will rise elsewhere. The main reason production is not increasing significantly right now - investors are not sure that prices will stay at the current level for a long time (3+ years) and expect prices to fall before they’ll get enough to recoup investments. The longer prices will stay around $100 the more will be invested into new oil wells.

It's so tempting (because it's valuable) to give a model access to the internet (via harness) that the only way to stop people from doing this is some enforceable legislation or stricter liability when people will not be able to avoid responsibility by saying it's not me, it's AI on it's own.

It’s a global commodity unless there are export restrictions. Russia maintains petrol/diesel prices way below world level thanks to export ban among other things. China did impose temporary export restrictions too. I would not be surprised if Trump will eventually impose export restrictions on refined products to maintain low domestic prices.

It does. Oil export is down after repeated attacks on ports and export infrastructure both on Black and Baltic sea and attacks on tankers in Black (and even Mediterranean) sea. Russia exports less oil than it extracts and will start shutting down oil wells soon (may be doing this already).

Attacks on refineries also have impact on worlds petrol/diesel prices - one of biggest exporters turned into an importer at a time when there is world shortage of refining capacity and cracks spread is at or near all time high.

> It also limits their ability to fund the war.

It does but it also makes petrol and diesel more expensive around the world.

> There is nothing stopping US refineries from producing more diesel

Aren't they already producing as much as they can? Which is not sufficient given that globally a significant fraction of refining capacity is offline.

Does it matter? I don't think anyone expects the current LLM generation to be profitable in the next few years. The bet I think is that OpenAI will be the first to develop ASI or at least among the leaders of the race.

I would expect that a golf course construction is relatively rare event. And there is definitely no explosion of new golf courses. Total DC power consumption growth is practically exponential for the last 5 years.

OpenAI leaked financial data (2025) suggests this - it has $5.7 billion for marketing which 44% of revenue. It’s hard to explain where these billions go other than into subsidised subscription plans and a free tier.

Just guessing - companies which not outsource development to likes of infosys will outsource to OpenAI instead.

I have an impression that most CxO are driven by FOMO. Having a fixed R&D budget (no cheap credit anymore) to get $$$ for tokens they are laying off developers.

Destroying own wells only to import gas does nothing to reduce the carbon footprint (it's actually increases it if you'll account emissions from LNG tankers). Efforts should be directed into non-carbon generation and electrification. And if it will be competitive there will be little incentives for the next government to restart the production.

> When interest rates are high, companies and investors don't take out loans

And yet companies borrowing for AI capex like never before - total amount of debt is staggering. And it’s not only likes of OpenAI/Anthropic, companies which had positive cash flow for many years started to borrow too.

> Datacenters do not need water. It is just slightly cheaper for them than cooling with electricity.

As long as electricity at least partially produced using fossil fuel I would prefer data-centers to use as little electricity as possible. There are regions which are getting plenty of rainfall on average (which can be collected and stored) or were getting some water from rivers will have negligible ecological impact.

But currently DC operators have little incentives to choose DC location based on outdoor temperature or water availability and there are plenty of DCs in hot and arid regions.

AI companies are data hungry, they likely use everything from books to the internet and chat logs.

I know it's fashionable to blame capitalism for everything which is wrong with the world but it's the people and governments who don't care about the pollution and think that's it's fine to throw garbage on the ground or in the river instead of disposing it properly. The Soviet Union did a fair amount of damage to the environment, despite not being a capitalist country.

Update: a small grammar fix.

They dropped a few points in pools but for Conservatives they likely will be the main competitor - among Reform UK voters there are much more former Tory voters than former Labour voters.

It's madness but I hope abolishing ULEZ will have little impact at least for London - people who already drive modern cars will not start suddenly replacing them with older more polluting ones.

Conservatives flipped on multiple of their policies after Reform's success on local election in 2025 and started to copy Reform UK. Even the Labour shifter right after 2025.

It's an optimization problem which could be solved if impact of contrails could be estimated. Making a long detour unlikely is good choice but if a small route / altitude changes could help - why not?

> healthy food isn't as tasty

Mediterranean cuisine tasty and healthy. But it’s not as cheap as ultra-processed food.

> We stopped high sulfur when we realized it was causing acid rain

Coal AFAIK a bigger source of acid rains and world has not stopped using coal.