Marge Incall | Wall Street Memes

Jerome Powell just made his final address as Fed Chair and surprise, surprise… he held the rates as is (between 3.5% and 3.75%).

Now that’s enough on its own to upset President Trump, but Jay Powell also revealed in his speech that he plans to stay on the board of the Fed until at least 2028 when his term expires.

Powell cited the probe into him and the bank as the reason for his need to stay. “I’ve said that I will not leave the board until this investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality, and I stand by that.” How very handy.

This means JP will have a say in future interest rates and Fed policy. Sounds like the Powell-shaped hole in Trump’s head isn’t going anywhere.

The President responded to the news saying that Powell was only staying because he “can’t get a job anywhere else.” Which is probably true, what company would want to start beef with the most powerful man in the world by hiring his arch nemesis?

As for the rest of the speech, Powell highlighted the need for central bank independence in a subtle dig at the ongoing attacks from Trump.

“We just work directly for the American people,” said Jay. “We don’t think, oh, I want to do this because the president says it’s a good idea, or because there’s an election coming up and I want to speed up or slow down the economy. This isn’t bipartisan. This is nonpartisan.”

Sorry, did I say ‘subtle’? I meant ‘very direct’.

The front runner for Powell’s chair next month is still Kevin Warsh, who just won the backing of a key Senate committee. And since Warsh has already said he’d fight to keep the Fed’s independence, it looks like the Trump vs. Fed cage fight isn’t ending any time soon.

I’ll go get some more popcorn.

The OpenAI trial has begun and just one day in, it’s already generating some interesting quotes.

For anyone not following, this is the civil lawsuit in which the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, alleges that OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, tricked him out of the company that he cofounded.

Sorry, not ‘company,’ ‘charity’. The crux of the suit is that Altman allegedly took the not-for-profit, for-profit and Elon now wants the clock turned back.

So just what are these crazy revelations from day one of the trial of the century?

Well, firstly Elon explained that we should be careful about AI because “It could kill us all.” Cool, well, that fills me with confidence.

The Iron Man 2 co-star then pivoted to chatting movies saying, “We don’t want to have a Terminator outcome. We want to be in a Gene Roddenberry outcome, like Star Trek. Not so much a James Cameron movie like Terminator.”

Good point. Other than the existence of the Borg, that’s a very good point.

Maybe the most interesting revelation is that Musk pins the entire existence of OpenAI to one conversation with Google co-founder Larry Page. According to Elon, in 2015 Page said that AI would bring about a utopia but Elon worried that he wasn’t considering the risks.

“The reason OpenAI exists is because Larry Page called me a ‘specieist’,” said Musk to the judge and jury. I’m assuming by ‘specieist’ Page meant Elon was anti AI and pro humanity, not just massively racist against koalas or something.

But how is this retrospective mud-slinging relevant to the OpenAI case? Well, going out on a limb, it seems like Musk is painting the narrative that OpenAI was built to be the antidote to unregulated AI development. That’s why it was originally conceived as a non-profit.

Now it’s evolved into its for-profit form, however OpenAI has courted the US government and been continually looking for ways to monetize its flagship product ChatGPT.

Elon wants a u-turn on that direction and has brought this suit to trial to try and make that happen.

We’ll just have to watch and see if he succeeds or if the Borg really do take over (that’s a Star Trek reference).

Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats, the trial of the century is about to begin! In the red corner: it’s billionaire champion of the world Elon Musk! Aaaaand in the other corner: it’s Sam Altman!!!

Yes, Musk and Altman are locking heads in a court case that could decide the fate of AI and therefore humanity…

So Elon’s (civilly) suing OpenAI for not keeping themselves a charitable non-profit as originally intended. OpenAI call the lawsuit “baseless” …but they are planning an IPO, right?

Musk left the board in 2018 and started rival AI company xAI five years later which then merged with SpaceX and now that’s up for a record-breaking IPO.

For Sam’s part, after a public falling out with Musk, OpenAI’s co-founder took over as CEO in 2019 and has been a public champion for the company and AI in general.

In the lawsuit, which begins tomorrow, Musk claims he was “assiduously manipulated” and “deceived” and is seeking $134 billion in “wrongful gains” although he wants those funds to go back into OpenAI. Elon also wants Altman and OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman removed from the board.

We’ll see how things play out but jury selection was already off to a tetchy start with a number of jurors confessing negative views on Musk and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers admitting that “the reality is people don’t like him.”

Err, we sure that’s not going to sway things just a little bit?

While Sam Altman has yet to speak out on the case directly, Elon took to X to post his thoughts:

So we’ll see how all this plays out but in one scenario OpenAI has a new leader and becomes non-profit again, genuinely changing the course of AI and potentially humanity.

Exciting times.

Look, this is good news really, I know philosophers are often seen as useless, but when big tech has dived in headfirst into maybe the most complex moral and existential waters humanity has ever faced, it seems insane in hindsight that they didn’t think to hire a lifeguard.

But then on the other hand to some extent it’s more AI hype, like, AI is not conscious, it’s not intelligent and hiring a philosopher could just be a marketing strategy to signal to investors that yeah, we’re on the brink of human-level intelligence here.

But hopefully this is an exception, because if anyone needs a philosopher on board it might be the morally suggestible ChatGPT.

The philosopher in question is Henry Shevlin, former associate director at the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.

Writing on LinkedIn Shevlin said, “It’s a rare privilege to work on questions I’ve spent my career thinking about, now with the resources and urgency that come with being inside one of the world’s leading AI labs.”

So, why is this terrifying? Well, I guess the placement implies AI is super sophisticated and needs reigning in by a philosopher. But that could all just be hype.

Oh, sorry, we’re just talking about the cartoon movie here, not the James Cameron, blue aliens one. Was that not clear? Hey, don’t blame me I didn’t name two fantasy franchises the exact same name…

Anyways, yeah, this is the story that the upcoming Nickelodeon movie based on that cartoon TV show called Avatar (that I thought everyone had moved on from) just got leaked, maybe from a hack.

Sorry, sorry, I know you’re still confused, so just to make it clear, we’re not talking about Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005), Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024), Avatar: Seven Havens (2027), The Last Airbender (2010), Avatar (2009), Avatar: The Shape of Water (2022), Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025), no, we’re talking about Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender (2026).

It’s a cartoon movie sequel to the original TV show and it’s not out yet but two clips have been posted to social media well before any official material has been released.

Claiming credit is a hacker group named PeggleCrew and a leaker called @ImStillDissin who says that Nickelodeon accidentally emailed him the full movie and script. So I guess this was a phishing scam then?

The clips have since been copyright striked and taken down but not before Mr. Dissin could issue a threat for Paramount (Nickelodeon’s parent company) to release a trailer or else he’ll “I’ll livestream the entire movie alongside some Peggle Deluxe gameplay.”

So we’ll just have to wait and see if the threat is hollow or not or if Paramount capitulates but probs they’ll just ignore this publicly and have some lawyers on it in the background.

Paramount could not be reached for comment.

It’s a crazy time we live in, huh?

Iran is planning to require ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz a toll in Bitcoin in what would be a major move away from the US’s control of the economics of that area for now maybe.

Bitcoin is obviously up following the news, rising above $72,500. Maybe Trump’s massive investment into Bitcoin was him playing 4D chess all along.

It’s a big deal because people are talking about how America has this leverage over the global economy because the dollar is the reserve currency. Obviously places like Iran and China don’t want that and now Iran’s holding all the cards they have the political sway to kneecap the dollar.

Here’s an idea though. Maybe rather than Bitcoin or dollars or yuan, why don’t we try something else, why don’t we use buttons?

Now here me out.

Firstly, everyone has buttons, everyone owns buttons so you’ve got a good supply there. They have a practical usage as well because they hold up my pants which dollars don’t do so you’re already winning there.

Buttons already look like coins so you won’t be needing to change slot machines or anything like that.

Buttons have holes in the middle so if you wanted to you could tie them together and keep your money safe like that.

Buttons are much lighter than coins or gold so you can have fun with them there.

Buttons come in all sorts of shapes and sizes so that’s more fun for you there.

Anyways, yeah, what I’m saying is we should go for the petrobutton. Iran should be demanding buttons not Bitcoin. It’s the currency of the future.

Thank god Trump Always Chickens Out because honestly, who wanted him to follow through on his threat that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”?

And in this case, sabre rattling seemed like a good idea at the time even if wiping out a civilization is probably a bad idea for everyone.

But how did Wall Street react?

Oil prices have crashed of course, which is great for my bank account.
The trading floor went wild with an influx of last minute trades reacting to the news.
The larger investment firms have gone all in on AI and treasury funds while the price is right.

In short: it’s a massive rally as Wall Street heaves a sigh of relief that we might have some stability for two weeks at least.

We’ll see if it’ll last of course. Who knows, Trump could easily TACO out of his TACO and Uno Reverse us again. You never can tell with the man who once said, “As president, my highest aspiration is to bring peace and stability to the world.”

Do you remember when the first news about COVID first broke? I don’t know about you but I really discounted it. We’d had so many pandemic scares on the news before it was like the boy who cried wolf. I know that’s maybe selfish, like, these were affecting places and my first thought was ‘don’t care until it affects me’.

But my point is that when a disease gets reported on it is hard to tell if this is the real deal or just another sensationalist headline (because they do like those).

So just keep your wits about you when we talk about Cicada, a new COVID variant officially called BA.3.2. It’s from the Omicron strain (remember that one?) and the current vaccine is less effective against it (but does provide some resistance).

Since its identification in November 2024 it’s spread to 23 countries and at least 25 US states.

“These are still early days,” said professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Dr. William Schaffner. “But at the moment the conclusion seems to be there is this capacity for this new variant to evade some of the protections we have all acquired over the years.”

“Whether it will push itself to the front of the line remains to be seen. We’ll have to wait and see.” Encouraging stuff.

Oh here’s a good quote: “We haven’t seen evidence of this variant causing more severe disease or an increase in hospitalizations elsewhere,” according to CBS News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder, editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News (what a mouthful).

So we’re OK, right? RIGHT? I CAN’T HANDLE ANOTHER LOCKDOWN!!!

Hey, I’m just heading to the store, do you want anything…? A 20 billion dollar base on the moon? Yeah, that’s not on the shopping list…

Oh, OK, you’re going to cancel the Lunar Gateway Station that you had planned? And repurpose the equipment for the moon base? Well, that’s lovely, but I think they only do fruits and vegetables. I can get you a kumquat?

Yeah, I think a moon base is going to take at least seven years to build, I’ve only got the afternoon because I’ve got to pick up the cat from the vets. …put down, yeah. I mean, I can make a start on the moon base then just see where I get to in a couple hours?

What’s that? “It should not really surprise anyone that we are pausing Gateway in its current form and focusing on infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface.” OK, but I’m telling you I am surprised, I’m telling you none of this was on the shopping list.

“Despite some of the very real hardware and schedule challenges, we can repurpose equipment and international partner commitments to support surface and other program objectives.”

Yeah, no, that’s putting it lightly. I could maybe steal you a shopping trolley but I’m not sure that’s going to be much help. Look, I’m just saying this is a really big pivot, Jared.

Can I get you anything that’s actually reasonable? Lettuce? Mayonnaise? …A nuclear electric propelled deep space rocket to Mars? …I mean, if I can get it on my loyalty points, sure.

And that needs to be launched before 2028? Well, that’s plenty of time, order online and you won’t need next day delivery, just go standard and save yourself some money.

What’s that? You want to call it Space Reactor 1 Freedom? Alright, well in that case you’ve got two years to think of a new name too.

Look, I’m going to shops anyway, no, yes, I don’t care if China gets there first, I’m getting the basic groceries and for everything else you can just sort yourself out. Got it? Alright, see you later.

You know in sci-fi movies when they would just fill out the background with news reports on the TV or whatever and they have these implausible futuristic headlines like “Venutian Uprising Quelled!” or “Mutant Spiders Conquer India!”? …well this is one of those, except it’s not the future. It’s now.

The robotics firm, Foundation, is reportedly sending two humanoid robots to the front line of the Ukraine war in a groundbreaking test that could shape the future of combat.

In February, two Phantom Mk-1 units, designed for simple factory work, were deployed for reconnaissance trails in Ukraine. As Foundation CEO Mike LeBlanc told Time, “We think there’s a moral imperative to put these robots into war instead of soldiers,” and eventually these robots should be able to use “any kind of weapon that a human can.”

See what I mean? This is copy from a cyberpunk video game, not actual news, surely?

Now, I know Mike says there’s a “moral imperative” to use his product and give him money, but if you’re going to bring up morality, let’s talk about that, shall we? Because sure, it’d be better if machines are being ‘killed’ in wars rather than people but if you’re arming those machines, you’re still arming them to shoot other people. Right?

What this’ll just end up being (and what it has been in almost every modern war) is you’ll have one side who can afford to use robots to minimise casualties while the other, poorer side will still be using good old disposable humans.

So it makes you wonder, is it moral to fight a war where only your enemy loses soldiers, Mike?

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves for sure. We’ve seen enough viral clips of Asimo falling over to know that we’re still a long way off any kind of terminator scenario. Additionally bear in mind that ‘Foundation’ and other tech companies have it in their interests to conjure these sci-fi headlines because it makes them seem so advanced and trailblazing that you just have to invest in them.

The future is a long way off but investing in the hype is happening right now.

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