The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

In Anthropic We Trust

Ben Whitaker up at Mabana Financial Services calls me up every 6 months or so to inquire over beers at the watering hole next to his office if I would like to consider a few opportune investments he’s uncovered. I tell him if I’d have put my money on the micro-beer company, the one we usually buy their beer at our usual tavern, I’d be set for an easy retirement.

“Well, that right there is what I’m talking about,” he told me.

“What?” I ask, “you mean I missed the boat on an early retirement?”

“Naw,” Ben says, “you missed another golden opportunity. But give me a few minutes — I’ll even buy the beers — and I’ll set you on a path to fiscal sanity.”

Ben talks like this, just can’t help himself, and maybe his clients don’t get the implication that he’s just diagnosed them with fiscal insanity. Or in this case, me. But I like Ben and I like even more that he usually buys the beers, probably writes our tab off as a business expense, no doubt it’s legitimate, and I have noticed he always asks for a receipt. “Is the tip a write-off too?” I asked one time and got his stock answer: “everything’s a business expense in this line of work.” I can only imagine what the Big Boyz, the corporations and their hired guns the accountants and tax lawyers, what they declare as business write-offs, maybe why I pay more than some of them.

So after Ben orders our IPA’s, ever the optimist that the alcohol will soften me up for his newest sales pitch, he leans across our corner table and practically whispers, “AI.” He says, “Artificial Intelligence can make you rich. Guaranteed. Stock market is on fire, Nasdaq’s going through the roof, all of it driven by AI. Jump in Skeeter, the sky’s the limit. You’ll hate yourself if you sit on the sidelines.”

Ben had a couple of hot prospects, so he claimed, said I’d be on Easy Street no time flat, very little risk. “Be a pain to change addresses, Ben. Stationary, business cards, drivers license …”

“Go ahead and laugh, but you’ll be missing the chance of a lifetime.”

“My lifetime is almost run out, Ben. More money isn’t going to give me more years. I’ve got a nice little nest egg, no debts, Social Security, Medicare. I might be on Easy Street already, Ben. Why would I gamble that on the bet I could make it even easier?”

Ben’s heard this every pow-wow for years but it’s hard for him to imagine someone who wouldn’t want More, it’s practically un-American to him. At least un-patriotic. When we finish our 2nd round of beers I offer to pick up the check.

“Naw,” he says with a laugh, “this one’s on the IRS.”

I got a friend who has turned into a Day Trader, buying and selling stocks, ebullient that in the past year or more, the Market is running wild, setting new record highs, making him even richer than he was before. The rich, maybe you’ve heard, are getting richer. Most of consumer spending isn’t spread across the nation’s demographics equally, it’s the result of spending by the wealthy. If you think they’re worried about the cost of groceries or the price of gas, you obviously aren’t in the 1%, maybe not even the 10%. Should have maybe taken out a second mortgage and tossed it into the S&P 500. Or better yet, any of the stocks hitched to the Artificial Intelligence bet.

Folks I know who are betting their farm on the AI wave think all stocks rise on an expanding bubble. The Dutch who paid thousands of guilders for rare bulbs thought the price of tulips had no ceiling, same as the banks who collateralized shaky mortgage loans, same as the investors of the Roaring 20’s who bought on 10% margins. I’m not envious of their profits — while there are profits — I just hate the collateral damage when the bubble bursts and the economy crashes.

What goes up, I tell my friend, inevitably comes down. But he doesn’t believe that old chestnut. AI is different, he claims, nothing like the tech bubble of the 90’s, totally impervious to the laws of gravity. Sure, I reply, and rare tulips still hold their value today.

Probably time to buy Trump meme crypto, if for no other reason than to hedge the bets.