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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1h

I think the most likely scenario where OAI drops some huge amount (and I'm skeptical tbh) is that Microsoft just swallows them up, negotiates a haircut on any huge liabilities with the counterparties, and no government intervention.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1h

In 2000, Cisco was briefly the most valuable company in the world and fell by over 80% in about a year.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1h

Within the Democratic Party, there is substantial Black political power that would persist without racial gerrymandering. There's a case that the VRA in a world where partisan gerrymandering is illegal, Section 2 weakens Black political power rather than strengthens it. But here we are.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1h

The dirty secret is that if SCOTUS hadn't made partisan gerrymandering legal the case for Section 2's persistence would be different!

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 2h

Google is obviously best positioned, and can monetize through GCS and Youtube and makes its own chips, and has so much FCF it can not worry about having to swim back. Meta does seem boned.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 2h

ChatGPT has 800m DAUs and yes only 5% are paying customers but usually companies that much breadth and that many eyeballs on the internet can sell ads and make a lot of money. Figuring out how to do it well is obviously an issue but doesn't seem impossible.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 2h

I agree with a lot of this and Theo knows more than I'll ever know about machine learning, but I think OAI has a lot more potential even in the models stop improving no machine god capex oblivion world.

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 3h

of the majors, I think Google and Microsoft are well-positioned to stop capex if the profits come in too low to justify the investment and then buy back investor loyalty with stock buybacks. NVIDIA is probably in for a big correction because they can't do this. in this world OpenAI is dead.

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Reposted by Joel Wertheimer

Guy Berger @econberger.bsky.social · 2h

We don't have BLS data for the time being, but Morning Consult data shows no increase in the unemployment rate (on a Y/Y basis) in their first 2 shutdown data points.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 5h

Of course, this is a weird situation where we obviously know there's a ton of investment spending happening that does not require a lot of employment growth. Also earnings data looks like GDP. On some level we might just be in the dreaded jobless expansion.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 5h

Jason Furman's CEA when at White House put out a great piece on this obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/defaul...

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 7h

Rachael's description of RFK seems exactly right, “tallow-fried blood-and-soil nationalism." www.theargumentmag.com/p/rfk-jrs-de...

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 18h

I feel like a lot of people view at as declasse or something to sue for defamation, but Eric Trump accused Smith of a serious crime and he should sue him for defamation.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

Eric Trump: "We found out that Jack Smith was actually planting classified folders in Mar-a-Lago"

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 20h

If Platner were outpolling I'd be all in, but she's a reasonably popular governor (i.e. she's known statewide, has been attacked, and people still like her) who is polling well against Collins. It's a pretty good starting point for a candidate!

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 20h

And Mills is a really strong prog. Her fight with Trump in April was about her standing up for trans participation in sports! She’s just old and Schumer wants her which I don’t think is enough to dismiss her.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 20h

I don't even know the answer I just really want to beat Susan Collins and I'd rather wheel out an 82 year old Mills with a staffer voting for her to vote against Pam Bondi SCOTUS justice and win than lose with the younger guy who I like.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 20h

This is interesting research but I don't understand why it cuts against Mills running rather than Platner dropping? What if she's just the vibes candidate and people don't like it because she's old. 40% of Maine voters are 65 and older. They might just love her vibes. bsky.app/profile/jake...

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 23h

The research does suggest that competitive primaries hurt the party in high salience races like this one.

I'd bet that it's even bigger when party organizations like the DCCC fundraise for one side in the primary--half of the base will get really mad at that.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 20h

Is she the one initiating the competitive primary?

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

In 2020, even in polling that dramatically overstated Gideon, Collins had a 13% favorable rating from Democrats and 48% from independents. In 2025 those numbers are significantly lower (not apples to apples but useful). I ignore her overall favorability because Republicans mostly hate her.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

In what sense?

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

If Maine really has shifted 4 points to the left since 2020 then just change in national environment and change in state partisanship alone would mean that the same Susan Collins might lose *to Sara Gideon* in 2026 let alone to a different candidate. And is Susan Collins the same?

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

This meant that in 2024, while the country went from D+4.5 in 2020 to R+1.5, Maine only went from D+9 to D+7. In terms of PVI, Maine swung to the left a lot. Some of that is that white voters just swung less than nonwhite voters in 2024, but it's also because of lib in migration and that's kept on.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

Maine, to put it bluntly, has really libbed out. Lots of libs have moved to Maine since 2020 and Maine has huge domestic in migration compared to its population. And the people moving in are super liberal. Of swingy states, only Minnesota had more liberal in migration from 2020-2024.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

If 2026 has a national environment more like 2018 than 2020, it would be D+8 or so nationally. That would be a 3.5 shift from 2020 alone and that would mean Collins +3 just from national environment change alone. Okay that's (1), but (2) I think is more interesting.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

Start with the 6.5 point margin from 2020 and we can think of four sources of change that impact how we think about beating Collins in 2026: (1) national environment; (2) shifts in Maine politics, (3) shift in Collins's approval, (4) change in Dem candidate quality.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 21h

The other thing with Collins is that here 2020 performance was *excellent* but a bit overrated because they didn't run the ranked choice vote and the independent candidates pushed their voters to rank Gideon and polls suggested they would do that. The 8.5 was probably more like 6.5.

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