2x Robotics Founder | Dad to 6 Kids | Angel Investor | Music Nut
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"You can arrive independently at the truth, but not at the same lie."
My first thought on reading this was - Canada is arming for leverage. However, Canada doesn't act like China. 85-90% of the US treasury holdings are by private and corporate entities. No one can order them to sell to exert pressure on US.
Canadians are holding their noses and buying more US treasuries because it is safer than the alternatives they see and sniff.
This is what highlights the Canadian reliance on the US.
Canadian private and corporate investors hold US$406.4 billion of US Treasuries.
Canadian private and corporate investors hold US$366.9 of Canadian bonds (US Treasury equivalents).
So, private Canadian investors have 10.8% more of their money in US bonds over Canadian bonds.
Canada does have to diversify its trading and investment partners as the US has proven to be predatory and unreliable (hate to say this, but it's true).
However, before it can convince foreign investors and trading partners that Canada is a great place to do business, it will have to convince Canadian investors of that first.
Chart : Gemini
BREAKING: Foreign holdings of US Treasuries jumped +$83 billion in August, to $9.33 trillion, their 6th-highest total on record.
The surge was driven by Canada, which raised its holdings by +$38 billion, to $465 billion, its 4th-highest on record.
This was followed by Belgium, which increased its holdings by +$20 billion, to a record $491 billion.
The UK, the 2nd-largest holder, raised its holdings by +$11 billion, to a record $1.01 trillion.
Meanwhile, Japan, the largest foreign holder, cut its holdings by -$36 billion, to $1.07 trillion, its lowest since November 2024.
China, the 3rd-largest holder, reduced its holdings by -$27 billion, to $591 billion, its lowest level since August 2008.
Foreign holdings of US Treasuries are rising despite continued selling in Japan and China.
As anarchy grows - hybrid warfare, AI, decline of civilizations, need for security grows. It's almost a no-brainer.
If you wanted to know all the jobs that AI will produce, look no further than cybersecurity. This is going to become one of the biggest investment areas for enterprises going forward.
And even as the work becomes more agentic and autonomous you will need more talent to point the agents at the most critical work, review findings, patch systems, respond to incidents, and more.
Lots of opportunity right now for the systems that protect data and enterprises, as well as the professionals that are deploying them and protecting organizations.
It’s going to only get more wild out there.
Milan Račić retweeted
1% of companies represent 90% of AI spending.
Of that 90%, 80% of this spend are from unprofitable VC backed companies.
So, roughly, $0.70-75 of every dollar of AI spending right now comes from AI companies spending VC investment dollars.
As a result, the revenue quality in AI is currently poor. This happened in previous cycles as well, like cloud when early users of AWS were mostly venture backed startups.
The thing, though, is that before AWS could scale and pull thru GCP and others as legitimate cash machines, there were a few clearing events to sort out these brittle revenues.
This is the extrapolation of Ken’s point. We will need to transition from speculative AI spending to consistent, reliable spend that shows up in public market earnings reports.
This hasn’t happened yet because most of the breathtaking revenue growth comes from LPs investing in VC funds who then send it to startups.
Milan Račić retweeted
Germany's Chancellor Merz told investors during a conference in Berlin this week: “If we agree on delivery dates, we stick to them. If you invite friends from Germany for dinner at 7, we will arrive at 6:58.”
Last time I traveled by train in Germany, it was delayed 50 minutes before even leaving the first station. How is that even possible?
On the other hand, this perfectly illustrates one of Germany’s main problems. Its political class, journalists, and unions are stuck in a world that no longer exists. Germany, with its hard-work and reliability values, used to be a global engineering and manufacturing superpower.
Not anymore. Germany has lost its values. Nobody in Europe works fewer hours than Germans. Productivity has stalled. Regulations and bureaucracy have replaced innovation, and a left redistribution mindset has replaced the famous entrepreneurship of German mid-sized companies. Young Germans choose government „jobs“ over starting a business.
It all starts with the mindset. Decades of left indoctrination in education and media destroyed solid German values. The Germany Merz talks about no longer exists.
"Socialism works until it has to pay the bills."
¿Qué pasa cuando un socialista gana y tiene que gobernar? Nueva York lo está descubriendo.
Zohran Mamdani, miembro de los Socialistas Democráticos de América, es alcalde de la ciudad desde enero. Prometió autobuses gratis, una oficina de seguridad comunitaria de 1.000 millones de dólares al año para que civiles y no policías atendieran las crisis de salud mental, y supermercados municipales para bajar el precio de la comida. Según cuenta el periodista Jonathan Chait en The Atlantic, los autobuses gratis desaparecieron de su primer plan de transporte, la oficina recibió algo más de 40 millones, un cuatro por ciento de lo prometido, y los supermercados quedaron en un proyecto piloto. Mantuvo a la jefa de policía Jessica Tisch y ahora pide agilizar los permisos para que los promotores privados construyan más viviendas.
Chait lo resume con ironía: Mamdani descubrió que el socialismo puede funcionar en Nueva York con un truco sencillo, abandonarlo.
La promesa que sí cumplió fue la peor. Congeló el alquiler de cerca de un millón de pisos de renta estabilizada, alrededor del 40% de la ciudad, y los propietarios ya lo pelean en los tribunales. Congelar precios protege a quien ya tiene contrato a costa de quien busca piso, porque nadie invierte en construir o mantener una vivienda que no le deja ganar dinero.
En Buenos Aires probamos el camino contrario. En diciembre de 2023 Milei derogó la ley de alquileres por decreto y en un solo mes la oferta de departamentos en la ciudad subió un 62%, según Zonaprop. Hoy hay más del triple de oferta que en el peor momento, febrero de 2023, y en el último año los alquileres de contratos nuevos subieron menos que la inflación.
El socialismo funciona hasta que tiene que pagar las facturas.
Milan Račić retweeted
There's nothing more dangerous than weak men and weak institutions. It's a provocation that'll eventually be answered by predators. Not all swords should be turned to plowshares.
Interesting take - give the rioters exactly what they are are supposedly rioting against. Don't let a good riot go to waste.
However, I think that France lacks the leadership required to enact the measures that could save it.
Why Emmanuel Macron should not be letting a good riot go to waste
@K_Niemietz's latest for @Quillette
quillette.com/2026/10/21/fra…
A hard rain's gonna fall ...
Now - 15 largest S&P 500 stocks account for record 46.7% of the index’s market value.
2000 Dot-Com Bubble - 15 largest stocks accounted for 27.2% of the S&P 500
BREAKING: The 15 largest S&P 500 stocks now account for a record 46.7% of the index’s market value.
By comparison, during the 2000 Dot-Com Bubble, the 15 largest stocks accounted for 27.2% of the S&P 500.
The remaining 485 stocks represent just 53.3% of the S&P 500’s market cap.
This comes as Nvidia, $NVDA, Apple, $AAPL, Alphabet, $GOOGL, and Microsoft, $MSFT, account for 7.5%, 7.1%, 5.9%, and 5.6%, respectively, or 26.1% combined.
This means just 4 stocks account for more than the next 11 combined.
Furthermore, the combined market cap of the 5 largest stocks now equals that of the bottom 434 stocks in the index, the largest gap on record.
Market concentration is at historic extremes.
Good morning Germany!
Chinas NEUER KI-Plan ist der Produktkatalog des deutschen Maschinenbaus:
Chinas Industrieministerium MIIT entwirft Maßnahmen für eine "neue Generation intelligenter Fertigung". Bekannt gegeben hat das Chefingenieur Wang Weiming am 20. Oktober vor der Presse des Staatsrats.
Ziel ist, KI über die gesamte Fertigungskette zu legen, von Entwicklung über Produktion und Betrieb bis zum After-Sales.
Die Zahlen, die er dabei nannte, sind der eigentliche Hammer: China hat bereits über 13.000 Smart Factories der fortgeschrittenen Stufe gebaut, dazu mehr als 1.000 Anwendungsszenarien in 20 Branchen, darunter Stahl, Automobil und Pharma.
Das ist die Bestandsaufnahme.
Und jetzt der Teil, der Deutschland direkt trifft. Gefördert werden sollen gezielt: intelligente Werkzeugmaschinen, Roboter, Prüfgeräte und Steuerungssysteme mit adaptiver Bearbeitung und Inline-Inspektion. Dazu Baumaschinen, Landtechnik und Medizingeräte.
Das ist die Liste der Produkte, mit denen der deutsche Maschinenbau sein Geld verdient.
Der Exportpfad steht im selben Plan: China will über Mechanismen wie die BRICS Standards und Erfahrung teilen und Partnerländern beim Bau eigener Smart Factories helfen. Wer die Standards setzt, verkauft später die Maschinen dazu.
Milan Račić retweeted
Mientras Europa se hunde en pensiones impagables Elon Musk y Michael Dell el hombre más rico del mundo y el segundo más rico del mundo, los dos viviendo curiosamente en Austin, Texas, se dan cuenta que el tema se soluciona en el momento del nacimiento. Porque las pensiones, si son dinero bien invertido y no como hacen en Europa que los jóvenes pagan por los viejos, se solucionan por si solas por el COMPOUNDING.
Ah, human nature doesn't change, as much as some would like to force a change.
This is one of the best reasons to be selective in dating.
I heard a fascinating story about human behaviour today.
A tour guide at a historic castle was getting very high ratings from tourists.
They went to see what he was doing differently.
On several of the rooms he had used the red velvet ropes to block the doors.
These were normally used when the rooms were being repaired or cleaned. He had put them up at the beginning of each day.
During g the tour he would look around and say to the group “would you like to have a quick look in here?” And they would say yes in hushed tones.
He would ceremoniously unclip the rope and let them through into the room. A room that was always a normal part of every tour.
This simple little bit of theatre made people love the tour that much more.
Humans love what we can’t have.
Even the company that made billions on "Just do it" forgot to just do it. It's human nature. Complacency breeds doubt, fear and slowness.
This is the reason you can count on inflation in the next 5-10 and longer. Governments don't have the balls to cut spending, so inflating the debt away is their only option. The only thing that can thwart that is a hard reset - crash.
Pick your poison. I vote for the hard crash to bring some sanity to the market, political leaders and voters.
The global debt crisis has never been worse.
Japan now has a gross government Debt-to-GDP ratio of 204.4%, the highest among any major world economy.
Italy follows at 138.4%, while the United States stands at 125.8%, which is only below the ~132.0% record set during the 2020 pandemic.
At the same time, France’s gross government Debt-to-GDP ratio is 118.4%, while Canada’s, China’s, and the UK’s are 110.7%, 106.9%, and 103.6%, respectively.
By comparison, Germany is the only major economy below 100.0%, at 64.6%.
The current average among advanced economies is 108.2%.
The world economy is drowning in debt.
Milan Račić retweeted
Russia’s military satellite Kosmos-2612 has maneuvered to within 26 meters of ICEYE-X36, a Finnish-American radar satellite whose imagery is supplied to Ukraine. Space analyst Georgy Trishkin said the near-zero relative speed could indicate an attempt to force ICEYE-X36 to make orbital corrections, potentially disrupting operations and using up its fuel. RAND researcher Michael Bohnert called the approach a show of force.
Milan Račić retweeted
BREAKING: Nvidia has now announced 4 investments into German startups 🇩🇪:
@MireloAI - develops AI models that generate sound effects, speech and music for video, helping creators and production teams produce high-quality audio that perfectly matches their visuals on screen.
@AgileRobots - which builds AI-powered robots, from robotic arms to its Agile ONE humanoid, for manufacturing, logistics and healthcare.
@aveliosmed - develops an AI-native hospital information system that serves as the core system of record for clinical and administrative workflows, integrating AI directly into hospital operations to free up doctors and nurses to deliver better patient care.
@reflexaerospace - designs and builds high-performance satellites ready for launch in about 12 months instead of years.
The company has already invested in n8n, Neura Robotics and Black Forest Labs.
Very cool, very needed, very hard to get traction (my guess).
200 AUAR micro factories. That’s all the UK needs to clear its entire yearly housing backlog. 🏗️
I just visited AUAR in London. They are building fully autonomous micro factories for houses. A robotic arm, a robotic saw, a robotic assembly table. All of it fits in a shipping container.
The bet: Ship the factory to the construction site. Build walls there.
For 100 years people tried to industrialize housing. Every attempt failed.
Transport costs kill the economics. The factory is too expensive, the product too heavy.
AUAR inverts it. Ship the factory, not the product.
Two containers build a village. Ten build a small town. 200 build everything the UK needs in a year. And now they are starting to scale production.
Mollie and Gilles are architects who spent a decade researching construction robotics before it was cool, they even wrote the book on it.
We visited them as they are finishing their latest micro factory for a home builder on the US East Coast. One micro factory. 40 homes. Next they will help to build new UK cities for a million people.
Disclaimer: we’re small investors, big fans..
Disclaimer 2: Yes, the housing crisis can be fixed by robots. 🦾🇪🇺
Full video on Youtube: youtu.be/FhUQ4YVQL3g
Milan Račić retweeted
The tragedy of it all is that rioting against inflation and cost of living by destroying stores just increases inflation and cost of living.
Fiscal issues lead to social issues, which lead to more fiscal issues and more social issues.
