Animal Spirits

Sinead had some animal spirits, but it's a term more associated with economics, capitalism to be exact. John Maynard Keynes wrote about animal spirits in his 1936 book, The General Theory of Money, Interest, and Employment. Keynes knew a lot about money, unlike say money innovator Satoshi Nakamoto, who knew nothing at all. Today, not three months since its Oct all time high, Bitcoin's lost 41% of its value. What kind a currency is that?

Of course, the Bitcoin proselytizers will say its always been volatile and no one could argue that. Up and down, up and down, but this is a big slide and now below where it was when this president got elected. Which would certainly make you want to ask how the various Trumpcoins are doing or even the whole crypto-ecosystem?

Let's pull a random, but known coin, Ertheum, down 53% in five months. And what about Coinbase? One of the numerous crypto-exchanges (is it exchange or eco-system, I do get confused) made famous with Stanford's own, big-time politically connected, Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX, one of crypto's greatest flame-out to dates. He plunged like Gandalf with the Balrog's whip wrapped around his ankle. Coinbase is down 57% in the past six months.

Of course what would you value some lines of code supposed to be a currency, and as all the internet was marketed to do, cut out the middleman. You know, you wouldn't need exchanges. This was no-trust money. But a few years ago they proclaimed, "Just kidding, it's really not a currency, it's crypto, and of course you need trustworthy exchanges, that's where all the money's made." Let's just say the crypto-ecosystem looking a little red these days.

Ok, what about the AI-ecosystem? Oracle claims to be an AI company these days. They're down 53%. Oracle also added $68 billion in debt in the last quarter and another $25 billion just yesterday. Bloomberg claims, "Oracle $25 Billion Bond Sale Helps Ease Fears of AI Debt Wave." I guess.

Let's go to the deepest, darkest cesspool of money, one that's helped set the zeit of the post 08 financial collapse, none other than Elon's World or is it Universe? He just announced the merging of rockets and AI into a $1.5 trillion company. OK. great. But when he first announced Tesla, Elon said it was an AI company. Now he's separating AI from Tesla when they just announced for the first time, they had sold less cars in 2025 than the year before. Yet Tesla's stock is only 12% off its top. Those some animal spirits there.

Place your bets.