Founded 1983: Liberal Mindset; Conservative Morality

June 10, 2026June 10, 2026

The Money That Never Leaves the Room: How AI’s Circular Financing Revived a Warning Richard Cantillon Issued Three Hundred Years Ago

In September 2025, the chip company Nvidia announced that it would put as much as $100 billion into OpenAI. The pledge carried a condition that few headlines bothered to translate: OpenAI would spend a large share of the money leasing and buying Nvidia’s own processors to fill the data centers the investment was meant to build. Nvidia pays OpenAI. OpenAI pays Nvidia. The figure on the press release reads as growth. The mechanism underneath reads as a man moving a coin from his right pocket to his left and announcing that the household has grown richer.

Continue reading → The Money That Never Leaves the Room: How AI’s Circular Financing Revived a Warning Richard Cantillon Issued Three Hundred Years Ago

August 8, 2013August 19, 2018

Murano: Island of Glass

We were up, breakfasted and out of the hotel on schedule. First stop, petrol station to fill up the car before leaving it at the airport. Go to the airport petrol station which is unmanned at that time on a Sunday morning and refusing to take foreign cards of any description — which means cash only. One problem with this — it only takes 20 euro notes — the five euro note slot is blocked — wonder if someone else tried to put their card in it?

We are told of several other petrol stations in the area and make our way to the first, the second, the third — all have the same problem — one petrol groups computers have obviously crashed overnight or are off-line for some reason. There is utter pandemonium as people get more and more frantic trying to fill up their cars — at the end there is a convoy of about 30 cars all trying to do the same thing — all of them with flights to catch.

We fill ours up until it will take no more — pass two and a half Euros credit on the pump to the next guy and make our way to the airport — our valuable time is ticking away. We park the car and run for the ferry terminal. The English woman in a hat is about to take on Venice!