Speedrunning Rome

History shows that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

But in the past, inflating the currency involved substantial work – clipping coins, or lowering and outright removing precious metal content. It’s a process that took the Roman Empire over 400 years.

In the United States, we’ve managed to devalue the dollar at a faster pace in just 110 years:

Since the inception of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. dollar has lost value faster than
the Roman Denarius (Source: @CarlBMenger via X)

That’s the power of progress — err, in this case, the technology of fiat currency, a printing press, or the ability to push buttons on computers and “add” money to a bank account.

Technology is a double-edged sword. We’re still living in the long tail of a hard money, capitalist society – and reaping new technologies out of it.

But the destruction of the purchasing power of the dollar stands to create a crisis – and drive investors back to safe havens like gold.

~ Addison

P.S. Grey Swan Live! continues this afternoon at 2 PM ET. This week’s guest is George Gilder. At the very least, Mr. Gilder’s an interesting character and makes for a great conversation.

George once handed President Reagan the first microchip, and now he says today’s tech wave dwarfs the original $6.5 trillion tech revolution of the 1980s.

Eight exponential technologies — AI, quantum computing, robotics, self-driving cars, blockchain, chips, advanced biotech, and even space — are no longer advancing in isolation.

They’re colliding, compounding, and accelerating into what could be the single greatest wealth-building event of our lifetimes – the ultimate positive Grey Swan.

The pace is staggering. George just issued new research with our colleague Ian King, which you can review here before Grey Swan Live!

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

History shows that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

In the United States, we’ve managed to devalue the dollar at a faster pace in just 110 years:

Since the inception of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. dollar has lost value faster than
the Roman Denarius (Source: @CarlBMenger via X)

That’s the power of progress — err, in this case, the technology of fiat currency, a printing press, or the ability to push buttons on computers and “add” money to a bank account.

Technology is a double-edged sword. We’re still living in the long tail of a hard money, capitalist society – and reaping new technologies out of it.

But the destruction of the purchasing power of the dollar stands to create a crisis – and drive investors back to safe havens like gold.

~ Addison

P.S. Grey Swan Live! continues this afternoon at 2 PM ET. This week’s guest is George Gilder. At the very least, Mr. Gilder’s an interesting character and makes for a great conversation.

George once handed President Reagan the first microchip, and now he says today’s tech wave dwarfs the original $6.5 trillion tech revolution of the 1980s.

Eight exponential technologies — AI, quantum computing, robotics, self-driving cars, blockchain, chips, advanced biotech, and even space — are no longer advancing in isolation.

They’re colliding, compounding, and accelerating into what could be the single greatest wealth-building event of our lifetimes – the ultimate positive Grey Swan.

The pace is staggering. George just issued new research with our colleague Ian King, which you can review here before Grey Swan Live!

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

As AI clusters demand more light at every layer — from rack to package — Coherent’s share of that energy pathway increases. The startups illustrate what’s possible; Coherent ensures it happens.

As light enters the data center — step by step, layer by layer — Coherent is the most experienced and scaled name in the field. It carries the light forward.

For decades, Moore’s Law — that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years — was the quiet metronome of progress. It defined an era. AI just smashed that clock.

Global data center spending will hit $900 billion by 2028, Kobeissi notes. AI servers are growing at a compound rate of +41%, with the overall market expanding +23%.

Just building the facilities, not including chips or servers, now costs $43 billion a year — up 322% in just four years. There are $40 billion worth of U.S. data centers under construction right now, up 400% since 2022.

For the first time in history, the total value of U.S. data centers under construction will soon exceed office buildings.

More than a metaphor, we’re living through a civilizational shift. The upside Grey Swan event, in our opinion, is that the narrative unfolds without any political interruptions or blowouts in the currency and credit markets.

All these rumors could work out to Intel’s benefit. That’s something no investor can know. What we can know is that the road to recovery will be a rocky one, fraught with disappointments along the way. It is all but certain that at some point, Intel stock will once again be far cheaper than it is today. And at that later date, investors will have far more information to be able to judge the likely success of the promised comeback. We’re not going to buy the rumors. We will wait for the news.

There’s something about big, round numbers that draws investors like moths to a flame.

In the stock market, every 1,000 points in the Dow or 100 points in the S&P 500 tends to act like a magnet.

Now, after consolidating for five months, gold has broken higher to $4,000.