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Joined July 2011
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C/\L retweeted
"Do you shower before a fight?"
In honor of Internet Day, name your favorite Internet moment of all time.
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Quite simply, a preposterous game of darts. Champions week is the gift that keeps on giving.
WOW. WOW. WOW. WHAT A MATCH. WHAT A LEG. WHAT A SHOT! 🤩 Watch Here 👉 pluto.tv/gb_ie/watch/live-tv…
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Schrödinger’s Beignet You’ve got to read this.
Meta is financing a $27 billion AI data center through a company called Beignet Investor LLC. Its next one? Sopaipilla Investor LLC. I'm not making this up. Big Tech is now funding the AI boom through off-balance-sheet vehicles named after fried dough. And that's not even the scariest part. I spent a week in the filings. Most of what I found isn't in the headlines. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta will spend roughly $735 billion on AI capex this year. Triple 2024. By 2027 it's heading for about 3% of US GDP. The telecom bubble peaked at 1.2%. The 1830s railway mania peaked at about 2%. We are building past both. And the cash has run out. Google, Meta, Amazon and Oracle now spend more on capex than their businesses generate. Google just posted negative $9.1 billion of free cash flow in one quarter. Its long-term debt nearly tripled this year to $125 billion. Meta hasn't bought back a single share in 2026. Oracle told investors it won't be cash positive until the second half of fiscal 2028. Its stock went up 11% on the news. Here's the part I think the market is missing. When these companies lease a data center, it doesn't show up as debt or capex. It shows up later, as rent, paid out of operating cash flow for 15 to 30 years. Leases signed but not yet started: 1) Meta: $356 billion (up from $279 billion three months ago) 2) Microsoft: $329 billion 3) Oracle: $288 billion (up from $100 billion a year ago) 4) Google: $85 billion, plus $924 billion of other purchase commitments That's over $1 trillion of rent that hasn't hit yet. My rough math on what that rent does when it starts: - Oracle: about 53% of its operating cash flow - Meta: about 18% - Microsoft: about 11% Oracle's lease costs already doubled in a year. Most of its leases haven't even started. Remember when Microsoft "cut" its 2026 capex guide from $190 billion to $175 billion? Headlines called it discipline. It wasn't. Its CFO said the plan is unchanged. New data centers just moved into operating leases, which don't count as capex. The $15 billion didn't disappear. It moved somewhere you don't see it yet. Now back to the donuts. Meta owns 20% of Beignet. Blue Owl owns 80%, so the $27 billion of debt sits on Blue Owl's books, not Meta's. But Meta guarantees the building's value if it walks away. That guarantee just jumped from $28 billion to $41.5 billion this year. Meta records a liability of zero. It calls a payout "not probable." Who bought the bonds? Pimco reportedly took about $18 billion. Across Beignet and one Oracle deal, Pimco holds roughly $28 billion. That's your bond fund, your annuity, your pension. The Beignet bonds have already fallen to about 91 cents on the dollar. So who are the customers for all this? Roughly 40% of Big Tech's $2.4 trillion order backlog traces to two companies that lose money: OpenAI and Anthropic. Their compute commitments are about 10x their revenue. And who funds them? The same companies selling them the compute. Microsoft put $13 billion into OpenAI. OpenAI promised $250 billion back to Azure. That's $19 of sales for every $1 invested. Amazon put $50 billion into OpenAI. Got $138 billion back. Nvidia took a $30 billion OpenAI stake and reportedly offered up to $105 billion of credit support for a data center that will be filled with Nvidia chips. In 2000, Lucent lent its customers about $7 billion so they could buy Lucent equipment. When the customers went bust, so did the backlog. The circle is already starting to bite. Last quarter Google booked a $99 billion gain on its stakes in Anthropic and SpaceX. This quarter the SpaceX stake fell and knocked about 55 cents off Google's earnings per share. Circular deals inflate profits on the way up. They do the opposite on the way down. Want to know what Microsoft's name is worth? IREN, a GPU cloud, borrows at 6% when a Microsoft contract backs the loan. Everything else costs 9%. CoreWeave pays up to 15%. Its bonds trade around 14.5%. Its default insurance implies about a 60% chance of default. Most of the leverage in this system sits with companies that don't have Microsoft's name on the contract. And the collateral is shaky. The last time GPU supply caught up with demand, H100 rental prices fell 79% in two years. They've only recovered because capacity is scarce again, and Nvidia now ships a new generation every year. A lot of this debt is secured by chips whose value already fell 79% once. Capex isn't even the only bill. R&D jumped 32% at both Meta and Google. Microsoft cut its R&D headcount for a second straight year to pay for the build. AI now hits these companies three times: capex, rent and R&D. So who holds the bag? Not Microsoft, Google or Amazon. They'll survive. US life insurers hold $85 billion of AI-related assets, up 24% in six months. In the ECB's stress test, pension funds lose 5 to 6% of their assets. Banks lose almost nothing. Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft alone are a record 21.7% of the S&P 500. The head of the IMF said it this month: "We now have an economy that is standing on one leg, the AI leg." We've seen this movie before. After the fiber bust, bondholders got back 16 cents on the dollar. Global Crossing went from $47 billion to a $250 million sale. Cisco took 26 years to get back to its 2000 high, and only because of this boom. AI is real. So was the internet. So were the railroads. The people who paid for them first still got wiped out. The question isn't whether AI wins. It's who's left holding the beignet. Check out my website. I built a presentation on all of this mess. deepfuckingvalue.com/ai/#cha…
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C/\L retweeted
'It was never going to be enough!' @TomSwarbrick1 thinks Burnham has made 'the same mistake' as Starmer and Sunak... running 'MoneySavingExpert governments'.
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C/\L retweeted
Remembering this unforgettable moment with a true legend, whose talent and presence reached far beyond the stars ✨ Rest In Peace, Sir Patrick Stewart ❤️
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Graham Norton subtly warning us about David Walliams in 2020
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C/\L retweeted
I'm crying bro, who does he think he is? 😭😭😭😭
Tsimikas juggling before a winning penalty and missing it is hilarious
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One of my favorite posts to date: The benefits of junior golf. Full article linked below.
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You want to know how Dubai created one of the most vibrant economies in the world … in a desert??? They applied English law … with low taxes. At any time in the future the UK can change policy and the country will boom. It’s a policy choice - smaller government and lower taxes will lead to a prosperous nation. Eventually the penny will drop.
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My reaction to the Budget.
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Kemi Badenoch tore Labour to shreds today at the budget. A serious leader. “They love to dish it, but they can’t take it.” “Those on benefits are getting an increase, those going out to work are not. That is not fair…Labour are addicted to welfare”. We deserve better.
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16 year old Archie Self hits a 9 darter on the Modus in Champions Week He’s a bit good isn’t he?
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The Restore Britain Budget. Britain has spent decades being governed by politicians who believe the answer to every problem is yet more government - that policy has destroyed our country. More spending. More borrowing. More regulation. More taxes. More state. Parasitic overreach into our lives - delivered by politicians and civil servants who have no understanding or appreciation of how real wealth and opportunity is generated in the private sector. And what have the British people received in return? A country where working families struggle. Where businesses face punishing costs. Where young people cannot afford homes. Where failing public services demand ever more money, whilst prioritising endless third world migrants. Where inflation runs rampant. For British men and women, it is a government-backed scam. Corrupt incompetence. It is impossible for Britain to tax itself into prosperity. I repeat, IMPOSSIBLE. Wealth is created by people - the public sector should exist to support the private sector, not the reverse and that is the principle which underpins our philosophy. Restore Britain backs the farmer producing food, the white van man driving the economy, the engineer designing machinery, the shopkeeper serving customers and the entrepreneur risking everything to start a business. It comes down to this - Restore Britain will protect their freedom to succeed. If you work hard and contribute, we are on your side. Our Budget would begin the work of returning power, responsibility and money to the British people. First, the spending cuts - to come before ANY reductions in tax. Our 20 point plan to restore prosperity… 1. Freeze working-age benefit rates. We will freeze working-age benefit rates for the duration of the first Parliament. Britain cannot indefinitely increase expenditure without considering the burden on the people funding it. That would be morally wrong. The healthy indolent will not be rewarded. 2. Restrict welfare eligibility. No more benefits for foreigners, saving billions. No need to expand. 3. Reform sickness and disability benefits We will overhaul eligibility, assessment procedures and return-to-work support. People with serious disabilities and health conditions must receive appropriate protection. But those who can work, will work. If they refuse, they will be put to work. That simple. 4. Reform pensions. We will protect the State Pension while replacing the triple lock with annual CPI uprating. Public-sector pension arrangements will be overhauled to address differences with private-sector provision. These measures will save tens of billions - all outlined in full in our economic paper, The Wealth Of Our Nation. Next, take an axe to unnecessary government spending 5. The quango bonfire. We will conduct a comprehensive review of arm's-length public bodies, the default will be abolish unless there is a serious reason to retain. Where its functions duplicate a government department, consolidate them. Deliver accountability and savings. AI will mean vast cuts are possible. A LOT of Whitehall civil servants will lose their jobs. To be frank. 6. Freeze most departmental budgets. We will introduce a three-year nominal spending freeze across most government departments - the main exception will be our programme of mass deportations, which in the short term will cost, however as we know, any immediate funds will be quickly recovered and then some. 7. End public spending on Net Zero. We will end all public expenditure directed towards achieving Net Zero. Energy security will be our main priority. We will support investment in dependable domestic energy supplies, including the infrastructure needed to maintain a resilient electricity system. Energy security will be placed above any ideological dogma. If it makes Britain more resilient, we will pursue it. 8. Review government consultancy and discretionary expenditure. We will audit consultancy contracts, procurement services, and ALL external advisory work - spending that cannot demonstrate a clear public benefit should end. The procurement scam will end. All bullshit ESG and social value nonsense will be stripped away - if the public sector wants to use a third party firm, make it the best one - subject to right-to-work checks to ensure no illegals are being employed. As stated - spending cuts first, then tax cuts. Done carefully and responsibly. Here’s an overview of how a Restore Britain Government will lift the tax burden… 9. Raise the income tax personal allowance to £16,000. Nobody should be paying income tax on their first £16,000 of earnings. We will raise the personal allowance and extend the basic-rate income tax band to £100,000. We will also restore the full personal allowance to higher earners, ending the withdrawal that creates exceptionally high effective marginal tax rates. Success will be rewarded, hard work will be rewarded, ambition will be rewarded. 10. Cut corporation tax. We will introduce a zero corporation tax rate on the first £50,000 of company profits. Above that threshold, we will restore the headline rate to 19%, with a longer-term ambition of 15%. As soon as fiscal conditions allow. Let’s give small businesses the genuine breathing room to get their operation off the ground, and then use the corporation tax cut to compete with our neighbours. 11. Abolish inheritance tax and stamp duty. Families should not be punished for saving, investing and passing assets to their children. We will abolish inheritance tax. For farmers, for family businesses, for everyone. The state has no claim to a family's lifetime of accumulated wealth simply because somebody has died. I detest it. It will be binned for all. Stamp duty makes moving home more expensive, discourages mobility and creates unnecessary friction in the housing market. We will abolish it. 12. Reduce disruptive tax. We will cut the standard rate of VAT from 20% to 18%. We will also raise the VAT registration threshold to £150,000, helping smaller businesses grow without immediately facing additional tax burden. The amount of businesses hovering just under the current threshold is painful. The issue is OBVIOUS, yet nobody in government has thought to act. And we will ditch unnecessary taxes. We will abolish: Insurance Premium Tax. Air Passenger Duty. The Climate Change Levy. The UK Emissions Trading Scheme. We will also substantially increase the annual Capital Gains Tax exemption. Restore Britain’s objective is a tax system that is simpler, more predictable and less hostile to investment. Next, we will restore a state that works for our people. 13. Hold the NHS accountable. The NHS will remain free at the point of use for British citizens. We propose charging non-citizens at market rates - ensuring they actually pay the bills. We will make private healthcare expenditure tax deductible. If people want to go private, let’s make it cheaper. Alongside far-reaching structural reform, we will demand basic improvements in patient communication. Answer the telephone. Confirm referrals. Explain test results. Keep patients informed. Use AI to clear pressure on GPs. All patient-facing staff must demonstrate the English-language communication skills necessary to perform their roles safely. If staff can’t speak English to the required standard, they will no longer have a job. 14. Restore Britain’s education system. We will move towards greater school-level autonomy, with funding more closely linked to pupil numbers. We will remove VAT from private education and make private education tax deductible. We will also promote practical education, apprenticeships and stronger links between schools and employers. The aim will be to prepare children for working adulthood - full paper to come. Apprenticeships are vital - my businesses have developed hundreds and hundreds. It works, especially with the rise of AI. Student loan interest abolished for British nationals resident in the UK, full paper published. An overhaul of childcare regulation and funding - led by those in the sector who know what’s necessary and what’s not. Next. The Restore Britain Budget will work to restore a self-sufficient Britain, backed by sovereign AI capabilities. 15. Support British farming and food security. We will review the regulatory and tax burdens facing British farmers. Food security must be recognised as a matter of national resilience and urgency. That will be central to everything. We will make it FAR easier for domestic producers to compete for public-sector food contracts and examine ways to reduce unnecessary administration. Let’s use the public sector spend to back our own people, not import from foreign farmers. Britain should not become increasingly dependent on imported food while making it harder for its own farmers to survive. And we desperately need to bring more young people into the industry… 16. Ease pressure on transport network. We will rebuild Britain's transport network, tackling potholes, congestion and crumbling infrastructure while improving vital freight routes and rural roads - motorists will no longer be treated as cash cows. Fuel duty cut, and plenty more. (Full paper about to be published.) Get this right, and the whole economy is lubricated. 17. Back small businesses. We will review regulations introduced over recent decades, with a presumption in favour of removing law. Compliance simplified, licensing stripped back. Administrative burdens burned away. Scrap IR35, obviously. Business rates abolished for small high street businesses. Review car park charges. Boost police numbers in town centres. Restore confidence on the high street. Bring footfall back. Watch businesses thrive. 18. Develop sovereign AI capability. AI is coming whether we like it or not. We need to ensure that we have our own protected AI capability which can promote and defend our own interests. We’re already falling behind, and it’s getting worse. We have the opportunity to be a genuine world-leader. Let’s pursue it. 19. A foreign policy that puts Britain’s interests first. No endless foreign wars driving up the cost of living for ordinary families, no foreign aid unless explicitly to advance our interests. We will prioritise national security, trade, energy independence and protecting British citizens abroad. Spending will be increased, but our armed forces exist to defend Britain and our vital national interests, not to act as the world's policeman. 20. Protect sound money and fiscal stability. This is the most important of all. We will pursue a balanced Budget over the medium term and a declining debt-to-GDP ratio. Our aim is to cut the debt, not just the deficit. The era of mass money printing will end. Inflation will be controlled. The cost-of-living reduced. The aim - a Britain that belongs to its people Every Budget promises change, while the state grows larger and the taxpayer becomes poorer. Restore Britain offers a completely different direction. A smaller government that spends less - all helped by a massive reduction in the number of migrants living in Britain. Doing a small list of things, but doing them well. A welfare state that protects genuine need and expects personal responsibility. A tax system that rewards work, saving and enterprise. Public services that answer to the people who fund them. An economy built on productive businesses rather than a parasitic state. We do not believe the British people need politicians to manage every aspect of their lives. We believe they need the freedom to build better lives for themselves. In short - we will stop buying votes with other people’s money. Our ambition is not to make government richer. It is to restore the prosperity of the British economy, the British nation and the British people.
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It’s 31 years since Dean Windass scored The Greatest Goal You’ve Never Seen. Deary me. He’s got no business hitting it from there. (👍🎥 @BoothferryPod)
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C/\L retweeted
kane did this for a team that finished 7th and they gave the pots award to ruben dias 😭😭
Replying to @MusialaEra
They watched him do this and decided to mock him instead 😭😭😭 Prem fans really are a social experiment sometimes
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Dowman getting sent off for reacting to nearly getting his leg broken. 🫠
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Excellent take on the markets from Mark Cuban. Spot on imo:
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I earn £100 grand a year. I have a detached house. 2 cars and my wife is a full time home maker. I can just about afford this. I probably couldn’t afford the house I own if I was buying for the first time today. My salary puts me in the top 5% of earners in the UK. Top 5% to have a similar standard of living to Homer Simpson. That is a disgrace. We have a flatter salary distribution than Soviet Russia and the highest taxes and borrowing costs we’ve seen in generations. Success is almost impossible because our tax system means hard work makes you a stressed out tax cow, not wealthy and certainly not free. We need something radical. Less state. More family. Less handouts. More reward for risk. Instead. Tomorrow, Labour will offer another batch of policies which will send one message to aspirational Brits: why bother.
I read a piece in the FT this week about the price of being middle class in Britain now and it said a couple earning £436,000 combined take home £216,000. That’s a crazy amount of tax, and it doesn't include VAT on purchases, council tax, stamp duty or other taxes (I think does include pension contributions). I can’t stop thinking about it.
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C/\L retweeted
Mark Cuban shares his advice for people stuck working a 9 to 5 job and living paycheck to paycheck “Don't go get the best job because that's the hardest to find. Don't get the perfect job because those are hard to find. Just get a job” “When you have a job, just work to be really good at it” “You have to be brutally honest with yourself because nobody looks at the job they're doing and says, ‘I suck.’ They're like, ‘Oh, I'm great at this’” “When you're really good at something, that's when doors do open up” “Even in the worst possible job, you could be working at a McDonald's, at a Dairy Queen but there's a path” “The fact that you can show a future employer that you moved up the line and then when they asked for a reference, they said, ‘Steven was incredibly valuable. We're really sorry that he's leaving. We tried to keep him.’ That's what you need” “That can happen in 2-3 years. It's just most people don't want to think like that”
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𝗥𝗬𝗔𝗡 𝗝𝗢𝗬𝗖𝗘 𝗕𝗨𝗟𝗟-𝗕𝗨𝗟𝗟-𝗕𝗨𝗟𝗟!!! 🎯🔥 🚨 Ryan Joyce’s EPIC 150 checkout going 3 x Bullseyes 💥💪😱
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