I like to quip that any sufficiently sized US company eventually becomes a bank, a landlord, a defense contractor or some combination thereof. Another way to put this, in the author's framing, is a tool of empire. We've seen how quickly and easily these large companies have fallen in line with the administration. The era of the tech company as an antiestablishment upstart is long over.

I call the Hormuz crisis the biggest strategic blunder in US history and it's not even close. It's such a blunder it will probably be written about in history books as the end of the post-1945 era. It's not lost on people that the US would rather let the world burn than split with its attack dog in the region, even slightly. We're also seeing that, as the author notes, a tiny power can strategically defeat a military that over $1 trillion a year is spent on.

The author rightly points out of the lawlessness of everything going on and the destruction of trust in financial markets. All of this is correct. But I don't think the auuthor really identifies the reasons for the push for AI. And that is, labor displacement and wage suppression. Or, to put it another way, further wealth concentration into the hands of the "oligarchs". I guess it's another version of "whatever our oligarchs want to steal this month, they get."

> I call the Hormuz crisis the biggest strategic blunder in US history and it's not even close.

This crisis created billions of arms sales which is a success for some, especially as it made the other scandal go away.