KJP

Is that right? I took a quick look and it appears that total common shareholders' equity is about $1.42 billion, but they have $377 million in goodwill. (I'm taking these numbers from the balance sheet in 2025 AR.) So, about $1 billion in tangible book against about 100 million diluted shares = ~$10/share in tangible book value vs current share price of about $14/share.

Ziff Davis

Can you say a bit more about what you mean by this? Also, if you liked Blood Meridian I'd recommend Heart of Darkness if you haven't read it already. I believe Conrad in general and that book in particular significantly influenced McCarthy in both theme and prose style.

With the new Nolan movie coming up, I decided to re-read this (and The Iliad) too for the first time since high school. I realized that I had basically forgotten everything except Books 9-12. I enjoyed the re-read much more than I expected (and much more than The Iliad). What did you think of it?

Well, I did say "attempted"! I agree that finding an acceptable long-run result in a simplified 50+ year overlapping generations models isn't really responsive to the claim that the near to intermediate term ride may get very bumpy.

A few attempted rebuttals: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/is-there-an-aggregate-demand-problem-in-an-agi-world.html And a more detailed counterargument that predates the Citrini memo: https://aleximas.substack.com/p/will-advanced-ai-lead-to-negative Of course, it's hard to fit a full rebuttal into a tweet.

His scenario does includes this explanation: "Agents went looking for faster and cheaper options than cards. Most settled on using stablecoins via Solana or Ethereum L2s, where settlement was near-instant and the transaction cost was measured in fractions of a penny." This scenario seems to imply the elimination of the consumer credit function of cards and the conversion of all transactions to something debit-like using stablecoins. In that world, there is no AXP or Discovery. I have no comment on his scenario's likelihood or plausibility or whether different geographies might adopt something like it at different speeds. On the insurance point, I don't know how he's getting his numbers, but I assume he's relying on some data about how insurers price new business relative to existing business, which I further assume insurers base in part on estimated LTVs given churn rates, etc. As you suggest, those historical trends (and pricing disparities) presumably would no longer hold in a world of much higher churn, because there doesn't appear to be 15-20% available in the system for even constant AI-generated churn to wring out.

This is very intriguing. I'm often put off by the tediousness (e.g., Rendezvous with Rama) or the prose style of much sci-fi (Heinlein, LeGuin, Gibson), but I've heard others also say good things about Wolfe. I'm going to check out Book of the New Sun. My sci-fi recommendation would be Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro, though it's very soft sci-fi. @Valuebo -- it's not sci-fi, but based on what you mentioned, you may enjoy Heart of Darkness by Conrad. [EDIT: Another recommendation: Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, which was adapted into the movie Stalker by Tarkovsky.] I'm currently (slowly) reading through Moby-Dick for the first time and reading Pynchon's latest book, Shadow Ticket. I've never really got Pynchon and this one is no different for me, so I can't recommend it. Some recent reads that I enjoyed: Disgrace by Coetzee Revolutionary Road by Yates Bright Lights, Big City by McInerney (the best of the limited amount of Brat Pack that I've read) Pnin by Nabokov Gilead by Robinson Parts of Invisible Man by Ellison, though it's so dense that I'm sure much of it went over my head.

I see four arguments in your response: 1. BTC should be analyzed as currency rather than a store of value because some people refer to it as a "cryptocurrency". Is this actually at all persuasive even to you in the face of an argument that it is a store of value? On its face a semantic straw man. 2. As a physical object, gold has a "tangible use" whereas BTC doesn't and never could. This is true. Gold has certain industrial uses and it has ornamental and aesthetic uses that have withstood the test of time. But are you claiming those uses support the current gold price and that it's use as a store of value (central bank reserves, etc.) are irrelevant? Or are you claiming that the store of value use is necessarily downstream of a pre-existing industrial/ornamental use, and that a different thing (tangible or intangible) could never become a store of value without first having tangible industrial and/or ornamental use? If that's the argument, why do you believe that to be true? 3. Gold has a long history and many people in many parts of the world have accepted it in exchange for real goods and services. While that statement is true, isn't it also true that the places you (as a US resident) actually shop at today for real goods and services do not accept gold? So, if acceptance as a medium of exchange were the relevant test, why isn't gold worthless? 4. You cannot assess BTC or gold's intrinsic value, so you're not going to play that game. This makes perfect sense to me and is the exact reason I do not and have never owned gold or BTC. And this seems to be your real reason. Everything else appears to be makeweight. The only thing I do not understand is your absolute confidence in the "ultimate outcome," given that we know that gold is still around and commands a significant price per ounce despite having the same IV issues.

@gfp is giving us a real-time test of this proposition. He has been right so far on this down leg. Why has his analysis to date not been sufficient to change your prior (at least slightly) on this question? If he continues to make correct calls on BTC via TA, will you change your mind?

Respectfully, I don't think this is responsive to @Milu's point, which was that no place where you actually shop accepts gold either. So, is gold worthless? By bringing in the concept of "currency" I believe you are creating a straw man -- my understanding is that BTC bulls see it as a type of long term store of value, like gold, rather than a everyday medium of exchange like the USD. I've never owned BTC or any other crypto (or gold for that matter). But I do not see how you or other others making similar comments have differentiated BTC from gold, other than gold's long history of use, which I agree is a significant distinction.

Thanks for the response.

I don't know if it was this thread or somewhere else, but I appreciated your point about the unusual price-supply dynamics of BTC and the relevance of charting to such an asset. I'm sure you've heard the claim that charting is easy after-the-fact but fake in real-time, so I also appreciate you sharing your thoughts in real time. What is the signal from the chart that the bottom leg on a bear flag is over and the probability is that the price will turn up?

Thanks for the heads up on this. Have you tried it yet?

I agree it's circular if past trade patterns continue.