The era of speedball capitalism

(economist.com)

28 points | by mikhael 1 hour ago

5 comments

  • Avicebron 1 hour ago
  • 650 33 minutes ago
    The intro is great and has been making the rounds online:

    “ In the past year American markets have digested the largest-ever initial public offering (SpaceX), equity raise by a public company (Google) or a foreign firm (sk Hynix), private-funding round (Openai) and private-debt deal (Broadcom), as well as most of the biggest bond issue in history (Amazon). There was the first $1trn exchange-traded fund, or etf (Vanguard), a record-breaking cash pile (Berkshire Hathaway) and stock-buyback programme (Nvidia), and the consummation of the largest-ever leveraged buyout (Electronic Arts). Then there are the enormous mergers in railways (Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern), utilities (NextEra and Dominion Energy) and media (Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery)—the last of which led, this week, to the largest ever junk-bond offering, beating a record set only last week (SoftBank). New markets have been created out of thin air (for compute) or become much bigger (for predictions). Worries about massive corporate scandals (First Brands) and hedge-fund blow-ups (Situational Awareness), which would have once occupied investors’ attention for months, are steamrollered by the relentless, totalising and extraordinarily flexible machine that is American finance.”

    • lelandfe 26 minutes ago
      Out of curiosity did you do text transcription of a screencap to write this quote
      • BugsJustFindMe 20 minutes ago
        Why do you ask that question when the text is selectable?
        • red369 4 minutes ago
          I would imagine because there are small differences "sk" vs "SK", "OpenAI" vs "Openai"
    • rayiner 30 minutes ago
      This makes us sound awesome.
      • psvv 0 minutes ago
        Just don't look up any historical precedent.
      • NDlurker 15 minutes ago
        Reminds me of some degen crypto stuff a few years ago, but now for the whole economy. Amazing
      • peterashford 21 minutes ago
        That's one word you could use, I guess
      • stvltvs 22 minutes ago
        Or reckless.
  • rubiquity 30 minutes ago
    Well, yeah I guess that just about sums it up.
  • ruined 9 minutes ago
    the speedball begets the gas station holdup
  • frmersdog 16 minutes ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECmh0M-aHPg

    Rationalization (bargaining).

    In other news, Gamestop (yes, that Gamestop) is up almost 50% over the past 2 months, for seemingly no reason. Pokemon cards have a better return YoY than GPUs (and they sell both).