[mentalgear]

PS: If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US, I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment. When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent.

[jfengel]

It's bizarre seeing the outright bribery.

A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office. You couldn't give money directly to the candidate for personal use. Donations went to the campaign of the guy who already agreed with you. The FEC used to take a dim view of outright pay-for-service, even dressed up.

This is new. And now people need to decide how they feel about that. They get one chance to say "no, that's not how we do things." Even if the administration suffers a blow this November, if they hear that this is mostly acceptable to their base, it will be what every politician does from here on.

[coldtea]

>A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office.

Having a preferred candidate you give money to is already bribery - whatever the law says. You fund your favorite pony to get the power. They then scratch your back or lend a sympathetic ear.

[specialist]

IANAL, IIRC: SCOTUS has very narrowly defined bribery as explicit quid pro quo. And sometimes not even then.

[wrqvrwvq]

In what sense is this new, other than a different side cares about the optics?

[dragonwriter]

> If openly bribing a crony gov to cancel your competitor is now the de-facto standard of making business in the US

It very clearly is, the present AI instance is far from the only recent case.

> I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment.

They evaluate the propensity and ability to profitably engage in open corruption the same as they evaluate other capacities of the company. “Secure” isn't a binary category, and the risk here is much like any other risk.

> When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent.

That is the expected result of increasing perceived risk. yes, probably one of those “slowly and then all at once” things.

[ilamont]

> When the rule of law degrades into pay-to-play politics, the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent.

No, it's not inevitable. What you've described is the way a lot of authoritarian states work, such as China. China attracts plenty of capital and external talent, including people from other countries such as Taiwan and the United States. You have be all-in on the CCP's rules, though.

Vietnam operates in a similar way. Untold billions of FDI in the past 20 years from Japan, the U.S. and China. Talk with top executives there, and you'll frequently find close connections or family ties with leaders in Hanoi.

[iririririr]

china attract zero capital in the sense being discussed here, which would be VC. it attract lots of capex expenses like factories.

[bootsmann]

This has already happened, its a key reason why the dollar is down 15% since the new admin took power.

[mountainriver]

This has pretty much always been happening, it’s more brazen under Trump

[coldtea]

>I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment.

Investors just care for the returns. As long as they can identify and bet on the side doing the bribing, they're fine...

[Aeolun]

> I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment

I the problem is that from the companies’s side you just have a whole country to exploit, so I’m fairly certain the investments still work.

[amarant]

The logical conclusion to your analysis is that Musks companies must be a great investment. Musk already owns most of the government after all. And the US is still among the largest economies in the world.

[direwolf20]

That means bribing the government is a very secure and profitable investment to invest in.

[therobots927]

The rational investors have been moving their money outside the US for approximately 15 months. Compare the chart of VEA to VTI.

[foogazi]

> I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment.

It’s the best investment - just bribe your way to contracts

[cermicelli]

Well you think corruption is bad for the rich investors? I hope I can find that kind of optimism and live in a more corrupt world.

Tldr; Rich people can bribe more, hence Rich people can be more rich+er..

I think a lot of poor tech multi-millionaires hate this in US but all rich billionaires must be loving it...

[CamperBob2]

the inevitable result is a mass exodus of both capital and top-tier talent

To where?

[ben_w]

Anywhere offering opportunity.

I'm in Europe, I'd like to see it come here. The news I see suggests China's ahead of us in this race, but I don't know if that's for all talent, or if it was just an artefact of a lot of Chinese people in the US on work visas returning home.

Or indeed whether the news about China doing well here was real or hallucinated by an LLM.

[AndroTux]

Europe is nice this time of year

[rssoconnor]

https://totalrealreturns.com/n/VTI,VXUS?start=2025-01-20

[danielparsons]

Bit melodramatic. The US still has the most talent, most capital, and best property protections of anywhere in the world. Name a country that (1) doesn't have any quid-pro-quo system with the govt, and (2) has pro-growth pro-capitalist policies.

[RichEO]

I wonder if maybe those two things have a causal relationship

[ProllyInfamous]

>I don't see how any rational investor could still see US companies as a secure investment.

2025 was also the first year that the majority of stocks were traded off-market (i.e. hedgie darkpools, no public price discovery).

----

Hope ya'll bought your gold before Monday.

#RemindMe2days [gold@5290USD, this post]

[maxbond]

Trades in dark pools still get published to the consolidated tape; they're still part of price discovery. What's "dark" about them is that you don't see the order book, but people break up large orders into smaller orders to disguise their order size in lit markets too.

[burner_]

>2025 was also the first year that the majority of stocks were traded off-market (i.e. hedgie darkpools, no public price discovery).

Do you have any sources for that?