Entropy Economics

Writing is hard and time consuming. Thanks to ChatGPT, it just became far easier and faster. Rudimentary chat bots have been writing simple articles, such as sports game summaries, for years. ChatGPT, from artificial intelligence supernova OpenAI, leaps far beyond through its vast search of billions of internet texts and its ability to generate passable prose based on prompts and questions. It can even simulate software code. But it’s a Large Language Model, or LLM, so it is still not great at math, or lots of other things. It makes funny mistakes.

So what. It’s powerful enough to begin transforming dozens of tasks and businesses. And it doesn’t need to be perfect or even human-like to be the source of unimaginable mischief, too. Read more . . .

See our latest in The Hill: The Microchip Renaissance Needs More Than Money 

“The United States is pouring money into microchips, but will this fix the supply chain problem? The newly-passed CHIPS Act provides more than $75 billion for advanced fabrication of microchips in the U.S. and is the centerpiece of a strategic effort to boost domestic high-tech manufacturing.

“Money alone, however, is not enough. If policymakers don’t correct an array of obstacles across the high-tech supply chain, the CHIPS effort and America’s broader high-tech manufacturing strategy could falter.

“Over the past four decades, most of the world’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing capacity gravitated to Taiwan and nearby Asian locales, while the U.S. share of leading-edge capacity fell to around 12 percent. Low-wage labor was a factor, but enormous government subsidies were more important. Now, China and India are pushing additional subsidies and further undercutting the U.S. on a host of industrial regulatory burdens…” continue reading at The Hill . . .

The economic and geopolitical poverty of ESG

The world scrambles for oil, gas, and coal. With inflation, prices soar. Consumers struggle to keep up. Hydrocarbon energy firms, meanwhile, enjoy giant bumps in profits and stock market value. 

If you took the advice of the world’s largest financial firm, however, you were ill-prepared for these events. Over the last half-decade, BlackRock, the index fund behemoth, told nations, firms, and investors to pursue so-called green energy and shun hydrocarbons. Now, the nations, firms, and investors who took (submitted to) BlackRock’s advice (diktats) are worse off. They suffer with unreliable and expensive energy mixes, are stuck with bad green investments, and lose out on profitable hydrocarbon investments. 

This is environmental, social, and governance investing, or ESG. Read more . . .

Bitcoin and ether, the largest and most established cryptocurrencies, have plunged around 60 percent from their highs last November. Bitcoin now trades at around $29,000 and ether at $1,950. There is chaos and depression across the world of coins, tokens, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—so much that my college-age daughter called me last week to ask, “What’s up with the crypto crash? Is crypto over?”

Lots of crypto skeptics surely think and hope so. My own optimism for crypto, which has waxed and waned over the last decade, had more recently been rising. Market crashes induce fear and doubt but can also bring clarity. So my daughter’s question helped me organize and simplify my thoughts. Read more . . .

How over-vaccination drives the pandemic. The power of innate and recovered immunity. The early treatment solution. The unwisdom of vaccinating young people.

See our new report offering a new Covid-19 strategy. We describe the complex evolutionary dynamics of the virus. [Newly salient with the emergence of the Omicron B.1.1.529 variant in South Africa.] We show how well-intended mass vaccination exerts evolutionary pressure toward more infectious, vaccine-resistant variants. We demonstrate the potency – and preciousness – of innate immunity, especially among young people. We show how the current strategy of maximal vaccination is leading to higher all-cause mortality. We detail highly effective but underutilized early treatments. And offer a rubric for cost-benefit analysis.