PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Veranito 2025

[el malo]

Llevamos unas semanas de muchos titulares que relacionan IA, inversiones de cantidades obscenas y energía, esa gran olvidada. Por un lado hay que ser lo más energéticamente eficiente posible pero por el otro nos gastamos millonadas en pedirle a las IAs que conviertan mi foto en un personaje de los Simpsons.
La IA  me dice que transformar mi foto cuesta el equivalente energético a cargar un smartphone y que usa unos 2 litros de agua para enfriar el hardware asociado. La misma IA me dice que generar 1000 imágenes produce el mismo CO2 que conducir 4.1 millas.
Por cosas como esta se que toda esta nueva ecología y el CO2 y spm es una estafa, porque si de verdad hubiera una emergencia climática el uso de la IA se habría restringido a campos donde realmente aporta valor, y no se hubera puesto en manos todos los Pepito Perez del mundo para que se líen a consumir agua y energía como si no hubiera mañana.

El punto que les quería comentar es que estas inversiones billonarias podrían tener un efecto muy curioso. ¿Se imaginan que Google o Meta den con la fusión nuclear o cualquier otro Santo Grial energético como efecto colateral de necesitar energía barata para sus centros de datos? O por el lado negativo, ¿se imaginan que se les permita a empresas privadas construir y controlar de manera autónoma centrales nucleares? ¿qué podría salir mal?

La siguiente patada adelante podría venir por ahí. O puede que desencadene una verdadera revolución. Quién sabe como acabará todo esto con esas cantidades mareantes de dinero que leemos todos los días. Lo que tengo claro es que el dinero y el factor trabajo tampoco no valen absolutamente nada. Sálvese quién pueda.

[senslev]

Fuck.

https://x.com/QTRResearch/status/1965436934664139116

everyone keeps asking me what my macro take is. so here it is once and for all. here's how i see the next 6-18 months. the BLS revisions confirm the economy is officially grinding to a halt. soon, it will be on life support as far as discretionary spending. we are probably at inning 2 of 9 of a real recession and don't know it yet. three years of positive real rates have finally had the effect on the economy everyone thought they would years ago, but there was 1) the usual 12-18 month lag from monetary policy to the economy and 2) tons of excess liquidity from covid that delayed the inevitable.

now, it looks like we have really stepped in shit. credit card delinquencies are rising, home sales are cooling, private equity marks and commercial real estate marks are probably all about 20-40% too high on whatever books they're on. auto loan delinquencies are next. you've had analysis showing securitized auto loans are being dealt to related parties because there's no bid, and that aaa-rated commercial real estate is now under distress. decades-long cre firms – like one recently in miami – are filing for bankruptcy. oh, and the banks that carry a lot of these loans and securitized loans also have treasuries on their books that are trading far lower than when they were bought, with rates at 0%, a la silicon valley bank.

you also now have the re-introduction of paying off student loans, which adds a whole new quick chunk of debt for many already distressed borrowers/americans. cost of capital is already the highest it's been in decades and now this group – already probably faced with cutting spending – has to make even quicker, faster moves about how they are going to adapt their budget. many of these people are simply stuck, and these loans – including many of their other ones – will default. but the one thing that's for sure is they don't have cash to spend anymore.

at the same time, the u.s. stock market is at its all-time high valuation when combining a number of key metrics. this move higher has been driven by 7 companies that are disproportionately weighted far heavier in indexes than they should be. they get an incessant bid from the passive bid, which buys them disproportionately regardless of valuation. that bid will dry up as jobs do and as de-leveraging happens. there are about $50t in funds in these types of retirement vehicles and most funds don't have the cash to cover a tiny % of that in redemptions. this decades-long incessant bid could turn into a seller at some point, which would be catastrophic for markets.

as the "e" in p/e stops growing, valuations will get even more aggressive and the market will – at the first point in decades people actually stop to say "where could the mean reversion be in the s&p?" – blow out even further to all-time highs.

then, sitting atop the markets is $4 trillion in total speculation, known as the crypto market. this market routinely allows 50-100x leverage and theoretically has no floor. there is no cash flow or balance sheet to hold it up and make it "deep value." it's literally just numbers on paper. btc and eth have some purpose and use case, which may give them a slight floor, but we have no idea how much lower that could even be. there's at least imo $2 trillion in outright detritus in crypto that is worth $0. there is no "dip buying" that makes sense for many of these tokens, in other words.

the situation begets a sharp deleveraging. except the fed stepping in to quickly do qe will 1) fail to take effect immediately due to the same aforementioned lag and 2) send already high inflation at 2.8% potentially much higher. the fed needs to work the labor market collapse brake with the inflation gas at the same time. and honestly, rate cuts aren't the answer right now. but they don't care – they'd rather have inflation. so they will print, and our bond market will officially crack, and people will realize inflation is never leaving. no one wants long-dated paper, and the u.s. is a much larger credit risk than 4% on the 10y. the fed will then do yield curve control and sound money assets will explode higher (along with financial assets and anything else that benefits from tons of money printing).

the brute force destruction from the inflation that follows will be talked about only as second fiddle to praising the fed for doing a great job bailing out the economy again. powell will get praise, stocks will move higher, and the wealth gap between the top 10% and the rest of the country will widen the fastest in history. all the while, people in financial media will tell you everything's fine because the market hasn't collapsed totally in nominal terms. the bottom 50% of the country won't be able to afford a box of cereal, and guys in suits will be giving central bankers the nobel prize in 5 years for "fixing" things. it's so nefarious because the consequences won't be immediately obvious. the market will come back after the fed does qe, but the real pain will be in inflation's effect on the middle class. it'll be clear in the price of gold, maybe bitcoin, and maybe real estate and stocks.

people who have saved cash will be wiped out. and it'll happen under cloak of darkness in the background instead of as a front-page headline, because most people don't understand it – which is what makes it that much more nefarious. honestly, this one feels like end-of-empire stuff. keep your head on a swivel. i hope i'm wrong.

[el malo]

Fuck.

https://x.com/QTRResearch/status/1965436934664139116

everyone keeps asking me what my macro take is. so here it is once and for all. here's how i see the next 6-18 months. the BLS revisions confirm the economy is officially grinding to a halt. soon, it will be on life support as far as discretionary spending. we are probably at inning 2 of 9 of a real recession and don't know it yet. three years of positive real rates have finally had the effect on the economy everyone thought they would years ago, but there was 1) the usual 12-18 month lag from monetary policy to the economy and 2) tons of excess liquidity from covid that delayed the inevitable.

now, it looks like we have really stepped in shit. credit card delinquencies are rising, home sales are cooling, private equity marks and commercial real estate marks are probably all about 20-40% too high on whatever books they're on. auto loan delinquencies are next. you've had analysis showing securitized auto loans are being dealt to related parties because there's no bid, and that aaa-rated commercial real estate is now under distress. decades-long cre firms – like one recently in miami – are filing for bankruptcy. oh, and the banks that carry a lot of these loans and securitized loans also have treasuries on their books that are trading far lower than when they were bought, with rates at 0%, a la silicon valley bank.

you also now have the re-introduction of paying off student loans, which adds a whole new quick chunk of debt for many already distressed borrowers/americans. cost of capital is already the highest it's been in decades and now this group – already probably faced with cutting spending – has to make even quicker, faster moves about how they are going to adapt their budget. many of these people are simply stuck, and these loans – including many of their other ones – will default. but the one thing that's for sure is they don't have cash to spend anymore.

at the same time, the u.s. stock market is at its all-time high valuation when combining a number of key metrics. this move higher has been driven by 7 companies that are disproportionately weighted far heavier in indexes than they should be. they get an incessant bid from the passive bid, which buys them disproportionately regardless of valuation. that bid will dry up as jobs do and as de-leveraging happens. there are about $50t in funds in these types of retirement vehicles and most funds don't have the cash to cover a tiny % of that in redemptions. this decades-long incessant bid could turn into a seller at some point, which would be catastrophic for markets.

as the "e" in p/e stops growing, valuations will get even more aggressive and the market will – at the first point in decades people actually stop to say "where could the mean reversion be in the s&p?" – blow out even further to all-time highs.

then, sitting atop the markets is $4 trillion in total speculation, known as the crypto market. this market routinely allows 50-100x leverage and theoretically has no floor. there is no cash flow or balance sheet to hold it up and make it "deep value." it's literally just numbers on paper. btc and eth have some purpose and use case, which may give them a slight floor, but we have no idea how much lower that could even be. there's at least imo $2 trillion in outright detritus in crypto that is worth $0. there is no "dip buying" that makes sense for many of these tokens, in other words.

the situation begets a sharp deleveraging. except the fed stepping in to quickly do qe will 1) fail to take effect immediately due to the same aforementioned lag and 2) send already high inflation at 2.8% potentially much higher. the fed needs to work the labor market collapse brake with the inflation gas at the same time. and honestly, rate cuts aren't the answer right now. but they don't care – they'd rather have inflation. so they will print, and our bond market will officially crack, and people will realize inflation is never leaving. no one wants long-dated paper, and the u.s. is a much larger credit risk than 4% on the 10y. the fed will then do yield curve control and sound money assets will explode higher (along with financial assets and anything else that benefits from tons of money printing).

the brute force destruction from the inflation that follows will be talked about only as second fiddle to praising the fed for doing a great job bailing out the economy again. powell will get praise, stocks will move higher, and the wealth gap between the top 10% and the rest of the country will widen the fastest in history. all the while, people in financial media will tell you everything's fine because the market hasn't collapsed totally in nominal terms. the bottom 50% of the country won't be able to afford a box of cereal, and guys in suits will be giving central bankers the nobel prize in 5 years for "fixing" things. it's so nefarious because the consequences won't be immediately obvious. the market will come back after the fed does qe, but the real pain will be in inflation's effect on the middle class. it'll be clear in the price of gold, maybe bitcoin, and maybe real estate and stocks.

people who have saved cash will be wiped out. and it'll happen under cloak of darkness in the background instead of as a front-page headline, because most people don't understand it – which is what makes it that much more nefarious. honestly, this one feels like end-of-empire stuff. keep your head on a swivel. i hope i'm wrong.

Si esto se cumple va a ser curioso lo que viene en Europa en un contexto europeo de recortes del Estado del Bienestar y aumento del gasto y la deuda.

Aunque en líneas generales estoy de acuerdo, creo que no se ha tenido en cuenta el impacto de la GENIUS act en el tema cripto y su impacto colateral en la deuda pública americana. Las cosas pueden salir como dice el artículo, o las stablecoins pueden convertirse en un vehículo OBLIGATORIO para el comercio de ciertos servicios (o incluso commodities) desplazando al USD, pero para acceder a esas stablecoins hay que comprar títulos americanos. Esa sería la cuadratura del círculo y la enésima patada adelante. Ahí si veríamos las criptos y el oro a niveles estratosféricos (aunque fuera temporalmente).

Me explico: imaginemos que US dice que a partir de ahora sólo te vende su gas licuado (ese que ya no podemos comprarle a Rusia) en LNG coins, y que para tener LNG coins (emitidas por la sólida, neutral y nada sospechosa entidad JPMorgan -recordemos que las sc son PRIVADAS-) sólo se aceptan títulos de deuda pública americana con un valor 1-1 (cada USD de deuda se corresponde con 1 USD de LNG coin).

¿Qué les impide hacer esto (además del sentido común y la decencia)? Nada. El payaso naranja se saca mañana de la manga una directiva que obligue a esto y ya tenemos demanda de deuda pública USA garantizada para los próximos 30 años. Además los títulos cotizarían al 0% porque hay que dar estabilidad al mercado y bla bla bla (ahí está el dardo envenenado de la GENIUS, que no se puede ofrecer retorno a los tenedores de stablecoins, por lo que los títulos de deuda tendrían que ir al 0%).

Financiación gratis para USA, aumento de la masa moneria sin imprimir ni un sólo USD. El tipo de interés oficial como tal pierde todo su sentido (excepto para los pepitos que tienen que pagar sus deudas, para esos sí que importa) así que podría irse al 8%. A EEUU no le afecta ni le impacta a la hora del pago de su deuda externa. Mientras EEUU tenga cogidos por los bemoles al resto del mundo occidental este escenario es viable.

El efecto colateral sería una explosión de los BRICS en pocos años y un mercado alternativo de energía al que se accedería a través de, por ejemplo, el yuan digitial. Ahí ya sí hay que escoger bandoy decidir a quién le compramos, si a nuestros "aliados" o a "los malos". Poniéndonos catastrofistas, en el momento en el que EEUU vea que los países se van con "los malos" y que puede perder la hegemonía se la juega a un todo-o-nada y lanza su ejército en bancarrota a liarla parda.

Por favor díganme que estoy loco y arguméntenme por qué esto no puede pasar, porque me estoy poniendo de una mala leche y de un apocalíptico sólo de pensarlo.