AI Bubble

Americana, Current Affairs

It’s not about how much you earn. It’s about what you’re worth. And who’s worth the most? Companies that lose money. Pinterest, Snapchat, no revenue. Amazon has lost money for every fucking quarter for the last 20 fucking years, and that Jeff Bezos is the king. Russ Hanneman in the HBO fictional series Silicon Valley.

The photograph above is of my first car on California Highway 395. In my car log, now lost on a hard drive on a computer I will never use again, I described it as A 1948 Pontiac 4-door sedan: faded blue with chrome stripes on the hood and an Indianhead hood ornament that lit up; powered by a flathead straight 8. It was my maternal grandmother’s car that I was asked to buy (for $300) when she got too old to drive. She had covered the seats with thick plastic seat covers, so when I got the car, it was an 8-year-old beater with new gray wool – derogatorily called mouse fur – seats. About this time, I started camping, and this car did many uncomplaining miles on dirt roads. The car had a good life. It eventually died on a dirt road near Longs Peak, Colorado, while being driven by the second owner after me. He, fittingly in my opinion, left it by the side of the road to exfoliate back into the earth.

I don’t remember ever taking this car this far south on 395, though. I also don’t remember the Velociraptors, but it was a long time ago, and I didn’t take the picture. I did, however, make it, or at least direct Gemini to make it. And the fact that an 85-year-old, computer-illiterate person can do this in about 15 minutes surprises me. Even more surprising is that this is just the start of the AI revolution, maybe iPhone 2 level. It is still early enough in the cycle that anything seems possible, and the stock market reflects that.

Just before Christmas, I heard the tail end of a speech by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – more commonly known as AOC – on November 18, 2025, during a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing. AOC said we are probably in an AI bubble and that, when that bubble pops, the Government shouldn’t bail out Wall Street or AI companies. My first reaction was surprise that she knows so much about both AI and the Stock Market since I know so little about either. About a month later, I had lunch with a friend who pays close attention to the Market, and he felt the Market was acting strangely.

It led me to rethink AOC’s speech and credentials. I knew she graduated from Boston University in 2011; what I didn’t know or forgot was that she graduated summa cum laude with a double major in Economics and International Relations. I also went back and listened to earlier parts of AOC’s speech.

AOC said there is an AI bubble that poses a significant threat to the U.S. economy. She pointed out that 40% of U.S. economic growth and 80% of stock gains in 2025 were attributed to just seven major tech companies. Many of these companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, the creator of Claude, and xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, among other AI companies, have yet to turn a profit and might never make a profit. She argued that their current valuations are based on “promises” rather than actual returns and warned that the broader economy’s exposure to this single, unproven sector creates a massive stability risk.

    A couple of days ago, I read in the Washington Post that Michael Burry, the fund manager made famous in the book and movie The Big Short, is now saying he thinks we are in an AI bubble, so I’m convinced we are all in for an AI shock. I’m also convinced that Russ Hanneman, quoted at the top, is right, even though he is not real.

    What A Difference 15 Years Make

    Americana, Politics

    Fifteen years ago, in early January 2011, about when the top picture was taken, a shooter shot Representative Gabrielle Giffords in the head and killed six bystanders. President Obama led a national moment of silence.

    It is easy to compare that presidential reaction to President Trump’s reaction to Renee Good being publicly executed by ICE Agent Jonathan Ross. But I don’t want to do that. It won’t change anything any more than calling Trump names will change anything other than making me feel righteous. Trump was elected because a large portion of our population didn’t think our government – their government – was helping them or even paying attention to them (and I think they are right).

    They voted for change and authenticity over talking points from a teleprompter and more of the same inaction because “it’s too soon” or “too expensive”, and change and authenticity is what they got. Maybe some people are still thrilled with Trump, but I don’t think most Trump voters expected the change and authenticity to come with such assholery, and that assholery, especially without any of the promised financial relief, has soured a lot of people on Trump.

    People haven’t wanted politics-as-usual for more than a while. In 2008, they wanted change so much that they even voted for a Black guy with a name that sounded like the most notorious terrorist of the day. When they didn’t get the promised change, they voted for Trump, a guy who said he was already rich, so, unlike other politicians, he wouldn’t need to steal their tax dollars. He said he would end our endless wars and even make his voters, if not rich, at least less poor. They got Trump, who, it turns out, does need to get even richer and is now talking about fighting wars in Venezuela and Greenland.

    If that sounds hopeless, I don’t mean for it to be. Trump is a nasty, evil man and is doing a tremendous amount of damage to a lot of people as well as the country in general, but I am actually pretty optimistic about our future. First, Trump and his band of followers are inept and often sound like they are getting more done – or doing more damage, if you prefer – than they really are. Additionally, Trump’s manner of governing – for lack of a better word – makes for lots of headlines but results in relatively ephemeral changes, not the kind of long-term structural changes he would have gotten if he had run his stupid and fascist ideas through Congress and changed the actual laws. More importantly, or at least as importantly, our governmental and societal antibodies are waking up. Trump is losing legal challenges at higher levels of the court system, and his Congressional support is starting to weaken.

    Most importantly, in my opinion, the people, the electorate, still don’t want politics as usual. Trump hasn’t delivered the economic change they are asking for, and they are still pissed and still looking for change. In New York, a city with a large Jewish population, they were even willing to vote for a Muslim with a beard. He is also a Democratic Socialist who says he’ll govern as a Democratic Socialist. Actually, there is a growing group of potential and already elected legislators who are willing to run from the left with the aim of actually bringing the change we so desperately need. Reactionary powerhouses like AIPAC are losing power, and their campaign money is even becoming toxic.

    I’m not saying Trump isn’t dangerous and won’t continue to be dangerous and nasty, but I’m optimistic that the tide is turning. Just like the little Agave in the top picture has grown into the huge Agave in the picture below, and is getting ready to bloom.

    Happy New Year.

    Merry Christmas

    No category
    Photo by Michele, whose hands are reflected in the heart.

    I grew up saying “Merry Christmas,” even though nobody in our family was an actual practicing Christian, and it is still my most comfortable greeting for this time of year. For us, for me, anyway, Christmas is a secular holiday to celebrate the return of the Light, the return of the promise of renewal that, first, the New Year, then Spring, which is now just around the corner – Coastal California, at least – gives us.

    If, however, you would prefer Happy Bodhi Day, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Yalda Night, then “Happy Bodhi Day”, “Happy Hanukkah”, or “Happy Yalda Night”. If you prefer Happy Holidays, then “Happy Holidays”.

    Around Yangshou

    China, No category

    The river forms a green gauze belt, the mountains are like jade hairpins. (漓江像一条绿色的丝带，山峰似一根根玉簪) Han Yu, written sometime between 768 and 824 (when it wasn’t as smoggy).

    Yangshoe has been a tourist destination, of sorts, for a thousand years. Now – well, in 2009, really – the town was full of tourists. Mostly Chinese tourists, many of them staying at big, expensive-looking hotels with BMW X5s and Mercedes in front, and the handsomest store in town is a wedding arranger.

    On our second day, we wandered out of Yangshou into a rural landscape. Still, walking around the farming area by Yangshuo, everything seemed familiar. The sights, the smells, the quiet, the slow pace of the people, the water buffalo. At first, I thought my mind was making it feel familiar so I would feel safe, then I realized Michele and I have been walking through these areas for as long as we’ve been married.

    But China is very different. In other countries we’ve been to, the children would come up and ask for pens or candy; in China, they take pictures of us on their cell phones. We bought water at a small store, and the salesgirl – and the salespeople are almost always young girls, that hasn’t changed – scanned the bottles! 

    We chatted with the only tourist we saw all day, a White woman from South Africa, who we saw on the trail, which in China, is a paved road! – and she said “It’s like China skipped a stage”. Here, in the good ol’ USA, we are told almost daily how poor China is, and it is, compared to us, but not compared to what it was. China’s transformation is a story of skipping a stage, as the woman on the trail observed. It began in 1978 with the shift from a centralized planned economy to a decentralized market economy. This series of moves created a manufacturing powerhouse, integrating China into the global economy and pulling over 800 million people out of poverty. China has become a vast, modern economy, now evolving toward high-tech innovation.

    The country’s economic muscle is undeniable, but the change has also brought complexity. It’s no longer just the world’s factory; it’s now a global player in tech and value-added industries. Yes, our internal propaganda still talks about how poor China is, but compared to its past, it’s a radically different, modernized place, in the cities, at least. Traveling through China’s cities is fascinating, but the countryside is probably not very different today from what it was in, say, 1975, or from Korea in the 60s, or rural Guatemala, or Morocco. In the countryside, the rapid ascent – from quiet, familiar rural scenes to an undeniable technological leader – is not as noticeable.

    Robert A.M. Stern & Frank Gehry R.I.P.

    No category

    The American dream has always depended on the dialogue between the present and the past. Robert A. M. Stern

    Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness. Frank GehryThe

    A couple of days ago, I got a text from Beth Stelluto, saying, “So sorry to read that one of your architectural heroes died. 96wow! Love his creativity.” I texted back, “And Robert A. M. Stern died two weeks ago.” The exchange started me thinking about Stern and Gehry and how much they, in particular, and architecture in general have enriched my life, which led me into the infinite rabbit hole of the World Wide Web and the realization of how much of their work I missed and how much they have formed our world.

    To start at the end, the world of architecture, all of us really, lost two of our most influential architects recently: Robert A. M. Stern, who died on November 27, 2025, at 86, and Frank Gehry, who died on December 5, 2025, at 96. Each began their careers at the high-water mark of Mid-Century Modernism, and each reacted in entirely different ways to the great majority of their fellow architects. They ostensibly ended up occupying opposite ends of the design spectrum – one, Stern, almost a classical architect until you look closely, and the other, Gehry, pushing Mid-Century Modernism into sculpture – were both ultimately committed to the same thing: making buildings that absolutely demanded to be seen, discussed, and remembered, enriching our world. For almost diametrically different reasons, they are two of my favorite architects.

    Robert A. M. Stern became the master of pre-Mid-Century Modern (for the lack of a better definition). He was born in Brooklyn in 1939 and built his architectural practice on the idea that buildings should be contextual and honor the site’s longer cultural lineage. Stern wasn’t a nostalgic purist, but, in his own way, a rebel who asserted that elegance and history were vital components of contemporary urban life. His aesthetic was rooted in echoes of the past and a desire to fit in, as seen in his limestone-clad, 550-foot-high residential tower at 15 Central Park West in Manhattan (on the far left, below).

    Except that he never changed his name, Robert A. M. Stern reminds me a lot of Ralph Lauren (and, believe me, that’s a compliment). Both were outsiders who took the establishment’s worn-out accoutrements and revitalised them; in other words, both got rich catering to the bourgeoisie ( bourgeoisie in the Marxist context of the capitalist class who own most of society’s wealth and means of production as opposed to the proletariat). I went to a lecture at, I think, an AIA conference about thirty years ago when Stern was the featured speaker. One of the shocking things he said was that more than fifty percent of his commissions had no budget for either architecture or construction.

    Frank Gehry, born Ephraim Owen Goldberg in Toronto in 1929, was a revolutionary who spent years designing modest shopping centers, designed and built on budget, before his creative explosion. It wasn’t until the transformative remodeling of his own Santa Monica home, using a chain-link fence and corrugated metal, that he began to show his talent. He went on to become one of the most influential architects of our time, forever reshaping skylines with his striking, sculptural works, such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and 8 Spruce Street in Manhattan.

    Looking at these two buildings in New York, the classic facade of the Stern condo, and the rippling curves of the Gehry apartment, these two titans of architecture, for all their differences, represented the full, rich spectrum of American architecture. Robert A. M. Stern and Frank Gehry built different worlds, one of dignified grace echoing the past and the other pushing design freedom, both leaving behind a profound and lasting legacy. We’ll miss them.

    Finally, here are a couple of their building that I don’t think need architectural identification.