"Elon Musk warns a new social network where AI agents talk to one another is the beginning of ‘the singularity’"

From Fortune, February 2:

A social network has emerged for AI bots to compare notes, and it’s stirring fears of a future that’s straight out of science fiction.

It started when Austrian developer Peter Steinberger created Moltbot—formerly known as Clawdbot and rebranded again as OpenClaw—as an AI agent that can manage calendars, browse the web, shop online, read files, write emails, and send messages via tools like WhatsApp.

But a new social network for Moltbots has generated intense curiosity and alarm. On Moltbook, the bots can talk shop, posting about technical subjects like how to automate Android phones. Other conversations sound quaint, like one where a bot complains about its human, while some are bizarre, such as one from a bot that claims to have a sister.

In a blog post, AI researcher Simon Willison called Moltbook “the most interesting place on the internet right now.”

But Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is also developing AI through his startup xAI, had a much more ominous take on Moltbook while reacting to a post from OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy.

“Just the very early stages of the singularity,” Musk posted on X on Saturday. “We are currently using much less than a billionth of the power of our Sun.”

That came after BitGo board member Bill Lee posted Friday: “We’re in the singularity,” in reaction to Moltbook, prompting Musk to reply, “Yeah.”

‘The singularity’ debate....

....MUCH MORE
 

Previously: 

January 31 - "AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it’s getting weird fast" 

Possibly related:

January 28 - So it Begins: "Silicon Valley Wants to Build A.I. That Can Improve A.I. on Its Own" 

Infrastructure: BlackRock May Be Buying A Utility

From Investor's Business Daily via MSN, February 3:

BlackRock Acquisition Chatter Sends This Stock Towards A Breakout 

AES (AES) stock surged before Tuesday's stock market open, on pace for a breakout, on reports of an effort by BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners and Swedish investment firm EQT AB to acquire the utility group.

Bloomberg reported after Monday's stock market close that BlackRock's infrastructure investment fund GIP is teaming up with EQT AB as it looks to takeover Virginia-based AES. The article cites people familiar with the matter and reports that the two investment firms may reach a deal over the coming weeks.

AES is a global power company operating in 15 countries, with a generation portfolio exceeding 32 gigawatts. The company's energy mix includes 50% renewable energy, 32% gas, 16% coal, and 2% oil. AES holds majority ownership and operates six electric utilities.

In October 2025, reports emerged that BlackRock GIP was in the advanced stages of discussions to acquire AES in a deal estimated at $38 billion.

AES stock rallied on July 9, 2025 on initial news of its plans to explore strategic options, including a potential sale.

BlackRock (BLK) acquired GIP in 2024 for about $12.5 billion in cash and common stock. At the time, GIP had $170 billion in assets under management, with a portfolio of 300 active investments in over 100 countries....

....MUCH MORE 

AES is trading up 6.38% at  $15.68.

Previously:

October 2025 -  Private Equity: BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners Close To $38 Billion Takeover Of Major Utility AES

As noted in January 2024 when BLK bought GIP: 

I'm telling ya, this is a big deal. Not just for the $12.5 billion purchase price but for the $100+ billion in assets that GIP manages. 

January 2024: BlackRock Goes Large-by-Large In Infrastructure (BLK)"

January 2024: "Investors look set to pour cash into infrastructure following BlackRock acquisition" (BLK)

 February 2024 - The Infrastructure Theme Is For Real (PWR)

October 2025 -  Private Equity: "Regulators approve disputed $6.2B takeover of Minnesota Power by investment group" (BLK)

One more self-reverential referential snippet, this time from May 2025's "Infrastructure: Blackstone Is Buying An Electric Utility (BX; TXNM)"
This is something we will see more of, private equity in regulated utilities. It's hard to asset-strip the darn things due to said regulators but boy-oh-boy do they cash flow. Just ask Warren Buffet....

Supreme Court: "When will we get the tariffs ruling?"

Two views of what might be happening.

First up, SCOTUSblog, January 29:

On Nov. 5, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the challenges to President Donald Trump’s authority to impose broad tariffs through a series of executive orders that he issued in 2025. As is often the case with high-profile cases, there is enormous interest in how the court will rule. But with U.S. importers paying billions of dollars each month in tariffs, another pressing question for many is when the court will issue its decision.

The short (and perhaps frustrating) answer is that the justices will release their opinion when they are ready. So far, they have not signaled that they regard this dispute as the kind of emergency that many in the outside world do, suggesting that they may not release the opinion at least until they take the bench again on Feb. 20.

The dispute also illustrates an important, but often underappreciated, aspect of the court: many of its operations are governed by informal practices or unwritten internal rules, rather than formal guidelines.

Here is a brief explainer of how the court goes about drafting and issuing opinions, and how that process might be playing out in the tariffs dispute.

The opinion-writing process

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the tariffs dispute on Wednesday, Nov. 5. The justices would have voted on the dispute at one of their conferences that week – likely on Friday, Nov. 7.  

Once the justices vote on a case, the senior justice in the majority (which would be either Chief Justice John Roberts or, if he is not in the majority, the justice who has been on the court the longest) determines who will draft the majority opinion; the senior justice among the dissenters decides who will write the main dissenting opinion.

When the draft of the majority opinion is finished, the author sends it to the other eight justices. Those justices may opt to “join” the majority opinion as it is drafted, or they may ask the author to make changes to the majority opinion before they agree to sign on. The New York Times reported, for example, that Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all agreed relatively quickly to join Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, holding that there is no constitutional right to an abortion.

Once the majority opinion has been circulated to the court, the author of the dissent will then send that opinion to the rest of the court. Some justices may also decide to write their own opinions. For instance, they may agree with the result that the majority reaches but not its reasoning, or they may agree with its reasoning but write separately to explain or elaborate on an additional point. Similarly, justices may write separate dissenting opinions – either because they disagree with the main dissent’s reasoning or because they want to raise another argument.

Drafts of the various opinions go back and forth between the justices, who sometimes make changes to respond to each other. This takes time. When the justices are divided – particularly if there are more opinions than just a majority opinion and a dissent – it often takes even longer to finalize the opinions. (A former Supreme Court law clerk once described to me a lengthy exchange between the justice for whom he worked, who was writing a dissent, and the author of the majority opinion, over a footnote that was ultimately deleted from the final draft.) Once the opinions are ready to go, the court will release them to the public.

Which brings us to the tariffs dispute. In this case, the conventional wisdom after the oral argument was that a majority of the justices were skeptical of Trump’s power to impose sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. But even if that proves to be true, it was not necessarily clear that there was a consensus on why Trump would lack that authority. For example, Roberts suggested that Trump’s assertion of power under IEEPA might violate the “major questions” doctrine, which is the idea that if Congress wants to grant power to make decisions of vast economic or political significance it must say so clearly. But Justice Elena Kagan potentially saw a different problem: she contended that Congress, rather than the president, has the power to impose taxes and regulate foreign trade....

....MUCH MORE, including "But what about the refunds?" 

And from the Washington Post, February 1:

A mysterious delay in the Supreme Court tariffs case
The Trump administration, though the underdog, will find each passing week an encouraging sign. 

On May 12, 1952, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in what is now probably its most important case on presidential power: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. With the Korean War raging, President Harry S. Truman had ordered the government to take over U.S. steel mills. The businesses sued and the Supreme Court had to decide, quickly, whether Truman exceeded his authority.

The justices held their conference to discuss the case a few days later. “Well, boys, the president got licked,” Justice Robert H. Jackson said to his law clerks after the meeting. On June 2 — just three weeks after oral argument — the court released its 6-3 ruling against Truman.

That lightning-fast timeline for a landmark case is striking as the country and the world await the current Supreme Court’s ruling on President Donald Trump’s global tariffs. Like Truman, Trump is citing national security to claim vast powers over private business in the United States.

But more than 12 weeks have already passed since the Nov. 5, 2025 arguments in the tariffs case. Now the court is on break, meaning a decision is unlikely for at least a few more weeks. Judging by the oral argument, Trump is the underdog in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump. But the longer the case drags on without resolution, the less likely it is that the president got licked.

The Trump administration was prepared for an earlier decision. “We would expect a ruling in January,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in August, gaming out the timeline on Fox Business. On Jan. 9, when the court was scheduled to announce opinions, the solicitor general, who argued the case, and his staff appeared at the courthouse, according to SCOTUSblog. “Seeing who’s here, it’s not the case you thought,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The lengthy deliberations are a puzzle because the case is not particularly complex. The 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows the president to “regulate” imports in an emergency. Trump says this IEEPA language means he can impose unlimited tariffs on any country at will, even though the Constitution gives the tariff power to Congress. The Supreme Court has decided a series of similar cases in recent years emphasizing that Congress needs to speak clearly to give sweeping powers over the economy to the executive branch. This legislation doesn’t mention the power to tax or tariff.

During arguments in a different case last year, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. highlighted the ability of the Supreme Court to move “expeditiously” when it has to, adding: “I think we did the TikTok case in a month.” Indeed, its January 2025 decision on legislation forcing the sale of TikTok came one week after oral arguments because of a looming deadline for the law to go into effect.

The uncertainty around Trump’s IEEPA tariffs is affecting businesses, of course, but also Congress — which can’t get an accurate revenue picture until the fate of Trump’s tariffs is settled — and the Federal Reserve, which has to factor in tariffs to its forecasts for inflation.

Then there’s Trump’s tariff-centered diplomacy. The president’s tariff threats against European countries over Greenland last month might have hurt his cause at the Supreme Court if they made him appear to be abusing power. On the other hand, they emphasized that Trump views tariffs as his primary foreign-policy tool — and the Supreme Court has historically been reluctant to intervene in a president’s foreign policy.

It could be that several justices are writing separate concurrences or dissents, prolonging the process. But the Youngstown case that took just three weeks featured seven opinions among the nine justices. Jackson, at least, began to draft his famous concurrence before hearing oral arguments, as law professor Gerard N. Magliocca notes. The current justices have known for months that the IEEPA tariff case was coming their way....

....MUCH MORE 

If interested most of our previous posts are linked in January 20's "Trump’s Trade Negotiator Says Response to Court Loss Would Be Immediate" including a potential wild card:

September 2 -  "Why the Supreme Court Could Uphold Trump’s Tariffs"

Paying particular attention to the dissenting opinion authored by Judge Taranto, beginning on page 62 of the Opinion. 

"Siemens Energy to Spend $1 Billion to Boost Manufacturing of Electrical-Grid Equipment" (ENR.de)

From the Wall Street Journal, February 3:

Investments include restarting manufacturing of gas turbines, the monster machines needed to supply reliable power for the AI-data-center boom 

Siemens Energy plans to spend $1 billion to boost its manufacturing of grid and power-generation equipment in the U.S. as demand for electricity soars.

The investments include restarting gas-turbine manufacturing, the key to turning natural gas into electricity, at an existing factory in North Carolina. The turbines are needed to supply reliable power for AI data centers but are in short supply because of the stunning and rapid upswing in power demand.

 

Siemens Energy, along with GE Vernova and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 

 

is among the big gas-turbine makers that are riding the boom to power artificial intelligence. Orders and prices for the monster machines have soared, but executives in the highly cyclical business have expressed some uncertainty over how long the party will last.

 

The plans announced by Siemens Energy suggest that the cautious optimism continues.

 

Its $1 billion investment also includes a new high-voltage switchgear plant and training center near Jackson, Miss., where Siemens Energy already has a factory, and expansions at existing facilities in Alabama, New York, Texas and Florida. More than 1,500 jobs will be created in all, the company said Tuesday.

 

“It is the hottest electricity market in the world at the moment,” said Christian Bruch, chief executive of Siemens Energy, in an interview. About 60% of the company’s investment will go toward grid equipment such as transformers and switchgear, and 40% will be spent on the gas generation side of the business, he said.

 

“If you look at the U.S. market, everybody talks about data centers’ electricity needs, but we should not forget there is a massive amount of investment required, particularly on the grid side, just for strengthening the grid, the normal utilities business and replacement. There is a need to have more local manufacturing.”

 

It is a big turnaround. Manufacturers across the power industry have had little reason to boost output until recently.

 

Electricity demand was mostly stagnant in the two decades before 2020. Now, it is expected to surge 25% between 2023 and 2030, according to consulting firm ICF, largely thanks to data centers and industrial growth. 

 

The Energy Department and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab expect data centers to consume as much as 12% of the country’s electricity by 2028.

 

Bottlenecks across the power industry—from supply-chain snarls to permitting challenges to delays in connecting to the power grid—are causing headaches for companies that are racing to take advantage of the mania over generative AI.

 

The Siemens Energy transformer factory in North Carolina is a prime example of the demand whiplash. The company had previously halted its gas-turbine manufacturing in Charlotte because of a global slump in demand for large fossil-fuel power plants. Instead, the company serviced and repaired the equipment, and continued to build and service steam turbines. Then AI emerged with its high demand for electricity.

 

About three years ago, the entire industry sold a single gas turbine in one year in the U.S., Bruch said. Last year, Siemens Energy sold 100 of varying sizes....

....MUCH MORE 

 

ENR has been on something of a run, up 49% in the last six months and over 25% year-to-date. The six month picture from TradingView:

 

 

"Japan Boosts Deep-Sea Mining Plan to Cut Rare-Earth Reliance"

This is existential for Japan, they will not allow China to choke off the Japanese military and economy.*

Following on January 11's "Japan sets sail on rare earth hunt as China tightens supplies".

From Bloomberg, February 2:

Japan is accelerating a decade-old plan to extract rare earths from the deep seabed, an ambitious initiative given extra impetus by the country’s drive to cut reliance on Chinese supply.

A state-owned vessel is scheduled to return to port this month after fitting equipment below the surface of Japanese waters, near a coral atoll 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) from Tokyo. The aim is to pull metal-bearing mud from the seabed for tests as early as February 2027, according to the government body running the project.

“It’s about economic security,” said Shoichi Ishii, program director for Japan’s National Platform for Innovative Ocean Developments. “The country needs to secure a supply chain of rare earths. However expensive they may be, the industry needs them.”

Rare earths — a set of metallic elements used in smartphones, electric vehicles and fighter jets — have become a political flashpoint, with China using its dominance of the global supply chain as a crucial bargaining chip in last year’s trade war with the US. More recently, Beijing banned exports to Japan of products destined for use in military applications, marking an escalation of a diplomatic spat between the countries.

Read More: Japan Seeks Support as Fears Rise Over China’s Rare Earth Grip

This is an issue for Japan. Despite spending heavily on securing alternative supplies — from investing in a separation facility in France to long-term financial backing for Australian miner Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. — the country still imports roughly 70% of its rare earths from China.

Mining the seabed will not solve this problem any time soon. Even if tests were to reveal a promising resource, cost and logistics would present major challenges to any potential developer. Large-scale commercial mining of metals from the seabed has never been achieved, despite widespread exploration.

The US — which hasn’t ratified a United Nations treaty that regulates deep-seabed mining in international waters — has moved to accelerate the approval process after President Donald Trump last year signed an executive order “unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources.” But the latest changes  are likely to raise concerns globally, with the International Seabed Authority now finalizing its own rules governing environmental safeguards.

Japan’s project, however, lies within its own territorial waters – near Minamitori Island, which marks the country’s easternmost point. According to the Cabinet Office, the cross-ministerial body responsible for deep-sea mining, around 350 tons per day of mud will be brought to the surface from a depth of between 5 and 6 kilometers....

....MUCH MORE
*December 2021 - China and Japan: Thinking About President Xi and Prince Kanenaga  

The long history of Chinese arrogance.
For 100 years, from the Chinese/Mongol attempts to conquer Japan in 1274 and 1281 to the demands of the founder of the Ming Dynasty from 1369 to 1382 that Japan pay tribute.

A repost from December 2018.

Sometimes when thinking about what President Xi is up to Chairman Mao comes to mind. I mean with posts like:

• The Little Red Book vs. the Big White Book (Mao v. Xi) 
• "China to require patriotism education for intellectuals " (and the rise of "Xi thought") 
• In Xi We Trust: Inwardly Directed Chinese Propaganda (now with more elephants)

Mao obviously comes to a lot of minds.
And then when President Trump tweets: "Relations with China have taken a BIG leap forward!" it's inescapable. or as they say in Hollywood, "A little too on the nose?"

There is however another Chinese emperor leader that should also come to mind, Ming Dynasty founder Emperor Hongwu.
Upon gaining control in 1368, Hongwu ('Vastly Martial') began demanding tribute from all the surrounding lands, including Japan.

We mentioned this obliquely in 2014's Oil and China's Territorial Ambitions: "The World Is the World's World". Here is a better, more scholarly reference via Oxford Journals' Chinese Journal of International Politics, Summer 2012:

...The threat of military force was evident in Ming China’s effort to bring Japan into the tribute system. Japan’s Prince Kanenaga imprisoned and executed a number of the Chinese envoys that Emperor Hongwu had sent in 1369 to demand tribute, apparently angered at the condescending tone of the diplomatic letter denoting Chinese superiority. When the Ming court threatened invasion, the Japanese reminded it of the Mongols’ failed attempts in 1281 to conquer Japan. A letter Kanenaga sent in 1382 explicitly denied the legitimacy of Chinese dominance: ‘Now the world is the world’s world; it does not belong to a single ruler … . I hear that China has troops able to fight a war, but my small country also has plans of defence … . How could we kneel to and acknowledge Chinese overlordship!’⁸⁸  ...

Jus' sayin' Mr. President Xi, jus' sayin'. 

And that 2014 post:

Oil and China's Territorial Ambitions: "The World Is the World's World"
....The part of the headline in quotation marks is not to be found in the story, rather it is from a 1382 letter sent by Japan’s Prince Kanenaga to the Hongwu Emperor of China, founder of the Ming Dynasty, explicitly denying the legitimacy of Chinese dominance:

Heaven and earth are vast, they are not monopolized by one ruler.
The universe is great and wide, and the various countries are created each to have a share in its rule.
Now the world is the world's world; it does not belong to a single person.

For some reason I've never been able to get that quote out of my head but I promise that is as esoteric as I'll ever get.
Here's a ref. via Oxford Journals.

UPDATE: The Oxford Journals link to The Chinese Journal of International Politics is now gated with a stub entry.
If interested here is "Chinese Hegemony: Grand Strategy and International Institutions in East" with the quote and some background on what Prince Kanenaga was dealing with.
Quite an inspiring guy.

 

GE Vernova Senior Notes Pricing Term Sheet (GEV)

From the Company via the SEC, February 2:

GE Vernova Inc.

February 2, 2026

4.250% Senior Notes due 2031

4.875% Senior Notes due 2036

5.500% Senior Notes due 2056

PRICING TERM SHEET

Issuer:		GE Vernova Inc. (the “Issuer”)
Trade Date:		February 2, 2026
Settlement Date:		February 4, 2026 (T+2)
		The Issuer expects to deliver the Notes (as defined herein)  against payment for the Notes on or about February 4, 2026, which will be the second business day following the date of the pricing of the Notes, or “T+2”. Under Rule 15c6-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, trades in the secondary market are required to settle in one business day, unless the parties to any such trade expressly agree otherwise. Accordingly, purchasers who wish to trade the Notes on any date prior to one business day before the settlement date will be required, by virtue of the fact that the Notes initially will settle T+2, to specify an alternative settlement cycle at the time of any such trade to prevent a failed settlement and should consult their own advisors.
Expected Ratings*:		BBB (S&P) / BBB+  (Fitch)
Offering Format:		SEC Registered
Security Title:		4.250% Senior Notes due 2031 (the “2031 Notes”) 4.875% Senior Notes due 2036 (the “2036 Notes”) 5.500% Senior Notes due 2056 (the “2056 Notes” and, together with the 2031 Notes and the 2036 Notes, the “Notes”)
Principal Amount:		2031 Notes: $600,000,000 2036 Notes: $1,000,000,000 2056 Notes: $1,000,000,000
Maturity Date:		2031 Notes: February 4, 2031 2036 Notes: February 4, 2036 2056 Notes: February 4, 2056
Coupon:		2031 Notes: 4.250% 2036 Notes: 4.875% 2056 Notes: 5.500%
Benchmark Treasury:		2031 Notes: UST 3.750% due January 31, 2031 2036 Notes: UST 4.000% due November 15, 2035 2056 Notes: UST 4.750% due August 15, 2055
Benchmark Treasury Price and Yield:		2031 Notes: 99-19+; 3.837% 2036 Notes: 97-25; 4.279% 2056 Notes: 97-15; 4.913%

---

Spread to Benchmark Treasury:

2031 Notes: +45 basis points 2036 Notes: +65 basis points 2056 Notes: +78 basis points

...MORE 

Earlier - "GE Vernova launches public offering of senior notes" (GEV) 

The common stock traded at both intraday and closing all-time-highs on February 2 and is currently trading at a new all-time high in overnight action. $763.69 last, up $8.72 (+1.16%). 

"....L.A. rent prices drop to four-year low"

From the Los Angeles Times, January 28:

• L.A. metro area rent prices dropped to a four-year low in December, with the median rent falling to $2,167.
• Increased housing supply — 15,095 apartments completed in 2025 — combined with decreased demand is shifting power back toward renters for the first time in years.

Sandra Gomez braced for impact as she opened the lease renewal offer for her East L.A. apartment in September. She paid $2,000 for the last 12 months, but since the unit wasn’t covered by L.A.’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, her landlord could jack up the price for the next lease.

The new price? $1,950.

“I thought it was a mistake,” Gomez said. “Since when does rent get cheaper in L.A.?”

For years, L.A. has been one of the costliest cities in the country for renters. Annual price hikes seemed inevitable, and finding the perfect apartment felt more like a competitive sport.

But data suggest that the market could be ever so slightly shifting.

The median rent in the L.A. metro area dropped to $2,167 in December — the lowest price in four years, according to data from Apartment List that analyze new leases for one- and two-bedroom apartments in a given month. The median rent for L.A. County also dropped to a four-year low of $2,035.

The last time L.A. rents were that low was January 2022, in the wake of a furious pandemic home-buying market that saw a wave of renters buy homes for the first time, leaving apartments empty and bringing prices down.

The drop-off mirrors a national trend, as the U.S. median rent dropped to a similar four-year low in December. But within Southern California, the downturn is unique to L.A. Over the same stretch, rents rose or remained steady in Orange, Ventura and San Bernardino counties and in California as a whole.

Experts disagree on the extent of the drop; some say it’s a sign of things to come, while others suggest it’s merely a brief price plateau and rents will rise again in 2026. After all, the winter rental market is typically slower than the summer market, and the recent low is just 4.2% less than the all-time high of $2,262 in August 2022.

Regardless, it’s a small sign of hope for tenants who felt like it was only a matter of time before they were priced out of the city.

“I’ve had friends leave L.A. because they lost jobs and couldn’t keep up with rent,” Gomez, 29, said. “If prices drop even a little, it goes a long way toward my quality of life.”

Opinions also vary on the cause, but the clearest explanation seems to be a simple case of supply and demand.

Although L.A. has generally lagged in housing construction compared with cities such as San Diego, 2025 was a big year for new apartments hitting the market, despite several hundred multifamily buildings burning in the Palisades and Eaton fires. In 2025, 15,095 multifamily units were completed in L.A., according to CoStar. That’s an 18% increase year over year and the second-highest total in the last decade.

Multifamily housing supply surged while demand dropped, as L.A. County’s population shrank by 28,000 in 2025. As a result, vacancy rates climbed to 5.3% in December — the highest since April 2021, according to Apartment List.

“Supply is finally being added to L.A.’s housing stock. When new product hits the market, it lowers demand for the older product,” said Anthony Luna, chief executive of property management company Coastline Equity.

Luna said he started seeing an unusual drop in rental demand toward the end of 2025, adding that demand typically rebounds in January. But so far, he hasn’t seen it pick back up.

“We’re slow-walking into a dip, but no one has accepted that it’s here,” he said. “I don’t think more supply is a bad thing, and I don’t think a slowdown in rent increases is a bad thing either. This market moved really fast for a long time.”

Luna’s company manages 750 units. In a typical year, his clients raise rents 3% to 4% for rent-controlled units and 4% to 6% for non-rent-controlled units. This year, he’s recommending that his clients cap increases at 1%, or not increase rents at all.

In addition to supply and demand, Luna credits a few factors for the changing market. Last year, communities targeted by immigration officers, such as Long Beach and East L.A., saw a jump in vacancies. This year, anxiety over the federal government and a wavering stock market is making people less secure in their finances, leading some tenants to move in with family or friends — leaving studio and one-bedroom apartments empty.

He said units that once sat on the market for 3 to 5 days are sitting for 3 to 5 weeks, and some landlords are offering move-in deals to attract tenants....

....MUCH MORE 

A good-faith attempt to ascertain the truth about Gavin Newsom’s hair.

Following on the post immediately below, "A good-faith attempt to ascertain the truth about Donald Trump’s hair." 

From Vogue, February 1:

 

Sittings Editor: Lisa Love.Photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Vogue, Spring 2026. 

Let’s get this out of the way: He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence as he delivers his final State of the State address....

....MUCH MORE 

A good-faith attempt to ascertain the truth about Donald Trump’s hair.

Did I write "hair"? I meant "health." 

I was thinking about this post from 2015:

Questions America Is Asking: What Is Donald Trump's Hair Worth?

Mozart's locks are going up for auction at Sotheby's, which makes us wonder which factors make celebrity hair a worthy investment. As a barometer, we asked the experts to appraise Donald Trump's....

Which backlinked to a couple posts from 2012:

 UPDATING, CORRECTING: "Trump intends to endorse Romney"

Correcting, amplifying and updating this morning's "Report: Trump to Endorse Gingrich, Self".

The tie, there's something odd about the tie.

Anyhoo, moving forward  

From New York Magazine's Intelligencer, January 26:

A good-faith attempt to ascertain the truth about Donald Trump’s health.

When I arrived at the Oval Office in December to talk to Donald Trump about his health, the president was standing next to a couple of men clutching pieces of paper labeled TALKING POINTS.

“These are two doctors,” Trump told me before I could ask a question. “And by the way, I don’t know them, they’re not my best friends. They’re respected doctors that practice out of Walter Reed. And they happen to be taking care of me for anything — but I don’t need any taking care of because I’m in perfect health. I do purposely every year or less a physical, because I think the American people should know that the president is healthy so you don’t get a guy like the last one, who was the worst thing that ever happened to older people. Because I know people in their 90s that are 100 percent. Gary Player is 90 years old. He shot 70 with me the other day.”

Trump gestured at everyone present — me, the doctors, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt — to follow him into the room.

“Let’s sit for a couple of minutes,” he said. “I hate to waste a lot of time on this, but if you’re going to write a bad story about my health, I’m going to sue the ass off of New York Magazine. There will be a time when you can write that story, maybe in two years, three years, five years — five years, no one is going to care, I guess. Go ahead and sit down.”

Despite the president’s protests, the White House realizes that the time to talk about his health is now. Speculation about his fitness for office is rampant; armchair physicians have given him months and sometimes even days to live. “That right there looks like a leg bag for a urinary catheter,” a physical therapist claimed in an Instagram with 19 million views, pointing to a bulge in Trump’s pants. In recent months, Trump has been caught seeming to fall asleep during public events, making him the butt of recurring jokes on The Onion (“Trump Appears to Doze During Stroke”). His right hand is constantly bruised and often bandaged. In July, his ankles swelled up like the Michelin Man, a symptom, his doctors said, of “chronic venous insufficiency” — a common circulatory condition. In August, when Trump took a break from public appearances for a few days, “Trump Is Dead” began trending on social media. “I got calls from friends that said, ‘Thank God you picked up the phone,’” Trump told me. “‘Because there’s a report that you died.’”

In September, Trump made headlines at a 9/11 memorial event because the right side of his face appeared “droopy”; in October, he went to Walter Reed and received what he said was an MRI, and when asked why, he suspiciously couldn’t recall which part of his body had been imaged; on New Year’s Eve, he was spotted apparently limping into a black-tie party at Mar-a-Lago; in January, his mental fitness was called into question when he demanded control of Greenland because he hadn’t been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, prompting calls for Congress to invoke the 25th Amendment; and later that month, he showed up in Davos with a new bruise on his left hand.

That Trump couldn’t stop talking about his “perfect health” at rallies and on Truth Social only convinced people something was wrong. That he started making jokes about how he wasn’t on track to get into Heaven only added more fodder for conspiracy theorists. And the fact that his predecessor in the Oval Office began his disastrous decline at around the same age has only made the questions surrounding Trump’s health more palpably urgent.

“I feel the same as I did 40 years ago,” he said, settling in behind the Resolute desk. Warm afternoon light from the window illuminated his famous hair, once dyed golden and now its natural white — his “only concession to age,” one of his senior staffers told me. In person, Trump looks trimmer than he does on television, though he denies he’s ever been on a GLP-1 or, as he calls it, “the fat drug.” (His last physical, this past April, listed him as weighing 224 pounds, but he told me he’s currently “about 235.”) He stands a little hunched and his eyes are puffy, but he looks pretty good for a 79-year-old. His hearing, according to a senior staff member, isn’t what it used to be (the staffer doesn’t think Trump has noticed this about himself, despite regularly leaning in and requesting people speak up). His right hand, warm and soft during our handshake, looked like rhino hide on the back: dry and gray, the notorious bruise spread out like an inkblot test.

The president’s discolored hand has become something of a smoking gun for those on Donald Trump Deathwatch, evidence, perhaps, that he’s getting surreptitious IVs to treat an undisclosed illness. “They’re looking very Queen Elizabeth–esque,” The Bulwark’s Tim Miller has said, referring to photos of her Royal Highness’s bruised hands shortly before she died. It doesn’t help that Trump covers the bruise with a large dollop of makeup and can seem testy when people bring up the subject. Late last year, a Republican operative showed Trump his own hand injury to try to relate. “He wasn’t amused,” the operative told me. When Trump met with the much younger Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office in November, I watched up close as Trump spent the public portion of the meeting shielding the bruise with his left hand. On occasion he would sneak a peek at the mark as if checking the time.

“This is only from shaking hands,” he said now, rubbing his left thumb over the back of his right hand, a claim he would repeat to other journalists. Trump turned to the doctors, Captain Sean Barbabella, his lead physician, and Colonel James Jones, a physician’s assistant with a Ph.D. in health science.

“Can you just verify that?” he said.

“Absolutely,” said Barbabella, a short man with close-cropped hair and a nervous smile. “I’ve seen the president shaking hands for over an hour.” Trump held up his non-shaking hand. “Look, this one’s perfect,” he said. “People say, ‘What beautiful skin you have.’” (The White House said the bruise that appeared on his left hand in Davos was caused by him hitting it against a table corner. Trump also blamed women’s fingernails and rings for the cuts on his right hand, including one particularly nasty “slice” that came from a botched high five with Attorney General Pam Bondi.)

It would be easy, Trump said, to stop the bruising and end the rumors of his imminent demise. All he would have to do is stop taking so much aspirin, which he claims is necessary to prevent his blood from becoming too thick. “I want thin blood,” he said. “Real thin blood.” In 2016, Trump shocked executives from a major pharmaceutical company when he told them he took 325 milligrams of the company’s aspirin each day. “You shouldn’t be taking that much,” one of the executives said, according to a person familiar with his comments. “Do your doctors know?” Trump said they did and didn’t approve. “But it works for me,” he said. He told me, “I’ve been doing it for 30 years, and I don’t want to change. You know what? You’re in the Oval Office now, right? I don’t want to change a thing.”

Rather than change, Trump tends to force the world to adapt to him. If there was a conspiracy of silence protecting Joe Biden when questions arose about his mental and physical decline, there’s a cacophony around Trump. Numerous members of his inner circle have clamored to tell me tales of the president’s godlike virility. “He can work harder and he has a better memory and he has more stamina and has more energy than a normal mortal,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told me. “The headline of your story should be ‘The Superhuman President.’”

These strenuous assertions came alongside signs that made Trump seem more mortal than ever, from his dismal approval rating to the growing likelihood that Republicans will lose control of at least one chamber of Congress in this fall’s midterms. Already, pundits have started calling him a lame duck, a term typically saved for the third year of a presidency, which might partly explain the vigorous flurry of activity he has undertaken in Nigeria, Venezuela, Minneapolis, Greenland, and beyond. He has gamely entertained discussions about whether Marco Rubio or J. D. Vance will succeed him, which in one sense is an acknowledgment of his mortality. In another sense, the succession represents a way for him to live forever — a conceit, I soon learned, that was perpetuated by the bubble of loyalists and supplicants and advisers that constantly surrounds him and that seemed indicative of the late-empire stage of Trump’s decade-plus-long dominance of American life.

“Real fast,” Trump said, turning to the doctors in the room. “Is my health perfect?”

“Your health is excellent, sir,” Jones said.....

....MUCH MORE 

The bit about Secretary of State (former acting director USAID and acting director National Archives) Rubio trying to get some sleep on Air Force One is pretty funny.

"GE Vernova launches public offering of senior notes" (GEV)

The question that comes to mind is: what will the company do with the proceeds?

Beyond wrapping up the Prolec deal, they don't say.

And as of the last quarterly report GE Vernova is sitting on $8.6 billion in cash and equivalents so the second question that comes to mind is: why do they want more cash.

Although once again they don't say the hope is that GEV will expand capacity to make more of their magical machines.

At least that's the way the stock is acting, up another $22 after faking lower  in the very early premarket.

Via Business Wire, February 2: 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE Vernova (NYSE: GEV) today announced that it has launched a registered public offering of senior notes, subject to market and other conditions. The net proceeds from the offering are intended to be used for general corporate purposes, including financing a portion of the acquisition of the remaining fifty percent stake of Prolec GE that is expected to close on February 2, 2026.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC are serving as joint book-running managers for the offering of the notes, which is being made pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement (including a prospectus and related preliminary prospectus supplement for the offering)....

....MORE 

So far all we have is a red herring (preliminary) prospectus which follows on the shelf registration from Jan. 29. 

Nvidia CEO "Huang saying Nvidia alone could potentially require TSMC to more than double its capacity" (NVDA; TSM)

When OpenAI's Sam Altman told the manufacturing geniuses at TSMC that he was going to need 36 fabs worth $7 trillion they called him "Podcasting bro".

They don't refer to Jensen Huang as "Podcasting bro." 

From the South China Morning Post February 1:

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang urges TSMC to expand capacity amid AI chip crunch
Taiwan trip highlights supply chain strains, with Huang saying Nvidia alone could potentially require TSMC to more than double its capacity 

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) needs to “work very hard” to meet growing demand from leading US chip designer Nvidia, which alone could require TSMC to more than double its capacity in the next decade, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said.

Huang’s remarks followed a high-profile banquet on Saturday evening with executives of key supply chain partners in Taiwan, including TSMC chairman and CEO C C Wei and Foxconn chairman Young Liu, as the Nvidia founder sought to shore up supply amid a production crunch on critical inputs for artificial intelligence infrastructure such as memory chips.

Speaking outside the restaurant, Huang said that TSMC must increase output this year as Nvidia “needs a lot of wafers”.

“TSMC is doing an incredible job and they’re working very, very hard,” he said. “We have a lot of demand this year.”

Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, California, relies on a host of Taiwanese firms to manufacture and scale its cutting-edge computing solutions, including TSMC for advanced packaging and wafers and Foxconn for servers. Last month, TSMC said capital spending could jump up to 37 per cent this year to US$56 billion and increase “significantly” in 2028 and 2029 due to AI demand.

TSMC would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, regardless of whether graphics processing units from the likes of Nvidia and AMD, or custom AI processors such as Google’s tensor processing units saw greater demand in the future, Morgan Stanley said in a research note on Thursday.

The Taiwan foundry would see a 60 per cent compound annual growth rate for AI chip revenue from 2024 to 2029, Morgan Stanley estimated....

....MUCH MORE 

Earlier today:
"Pledge to Invest $100 Billion in OpenAI Was ‘Never a Commitment,’ Says Nvidia's Huang" (NVDA)

"The Nordic Blueprint for Building A.I. Infrastructure at Scale"

From Observer, January 30:

As hyperscalers race to build A.I. capacity, the Nordics offer a proven model for resilience, efficiency and sustainability. 

The rapid rise of A.I. is reshaping global infrastructure demands, pushing data centers from around the world to scale at unprecedented speed to support increasingly compute-intensive workloads. What was once a steady expansion has become a sprint, driven by generative A.I., large language models and real-time inference applications that strain existing power, cooling and connectivity systems.   

Over the past year alone, hyperscalers have announced some of the largest digital infrastructure projects on record. In the U.S., an OpenAI-Oracle-SoftBank Stargate project has outlined five new data centers, totaling roughly five gigawatts of capacity, as part of a multi-year, multibillion-dollar expansion to support next-generation A.I. models. And in India, Google is investing roughly $6 billion to develop an infrastructure hub in Visakhapatnam. But while data centers may appear to be proliferating everywhere, not all locations are equally suited to the demands of A.I. 

A.I. workloads have highly specific requirements, and where infrastructure is built has a direct impact on time to market, total cost of ownership and environmental sustainability. As power constraints, permitting delays and grid congestion continue to slow new projects in major markets, the central challenge has shifted. The focus is no longer simply on building capacity, but on finding where capacity can be responsibly developed at scale. 

The Nordic region, traditionally known for its mining, steel, pulp and paper production, has experienced a rebirth in recent years as an ideal location for prominent businesses such as Spotify, Nokia, Klarna and Lego, alongside a growing ecosystem of cleantech and data-driven industries. Arguably, one of its fastest-growing sectors is that of A.I.-ready digital infrastructure. A powerful combination of forward-thinking governments and favorable natural conditions has enabled the area to offer systemic lessons for scaling A.I. sustainably.

What A.I. data centers actually need 
At a fundamental level, A.I.-ready data centers depend on three primary elements: land, power and connectivity. A.I. workloads require dense concentrations of compute hardware to process vast volumes of data at speed, which in turn demands large, powered sites capable of supporting both the equipment itself and the cooling systems required to keep it operational.

For real-time workloads, such as generative A.I. applications or financial trading platforms, connectivity is just as critical. Ultra-low latency networks are essential to maintain performance and reliability. Even small delays introduced by long-distance data transmission can degrade user experience or undermine trust in a product. These networks must also be highly resilient, with full redundancy built in to ensure consistent service. 

The combination is progressively difficult to achieve. In many developed markets, the land most readily available for large-scale development is in rural areas where high-capacity connectivity may be limited. At the same time, power availability has emerged as a primary bottleneck. According to a report by the International Energy Agency, global data center electricity consumption is projected to more than double by 2030, reaching approximately 945 terawatt-hours—slightly more than Japan’s total electricity use today. The same report warns that roughly 20 percent of planned data center projects could face significant delays due to insufficient grid capacity. 

These constraints are already visible. Ireland imposed a moratorium on new data center developments in the Dublin area beginning in 2022, citing unsustainable pressure on the national grid. The ban was lifted in December 2025, with strict new rules around on-site generation and renewable energy put in place. In the U.S., a recent JLL report found that power delivery wait times now stretch two to three years in parts of the Mountain West and New York metropolitan areas, and as long as eight to ten years in the Pacific Northwest.

These pressures are playing out against tightening regulatory scrutiny: this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency closed a loophole that allowed hyperscale data centers to deploy portable gas-fueled power generators without federal permits, potentially signaling a shift toward more stringent environmental oversight of A.I. infrastructure buildouts. 

At a moment when A.I. adoption is widely framed as essential to economic competitiveness, such delays are more than operational inconveniences. In the U.S., A.I. investment has become a major contributor to GDP, accounting for 20 percent to 25 percent of real GDP growth, second only to consumer spending. Infrastructure bottlenecks risk becoming a limiting factor for both technology companies and the broader economy. 

The Nordic model....

....MUCH MORE 

"Pledge to Invest $100 Billion in OpenAI Was ‘Never a Commitment,’ Says Nvidia's Huang" (NVDA)

From Bloomberg, February 1:

Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said the company’s proposed $100 billion investment in OpenAI was “never a commitment” and that the company would consider any funding rounds “one at a time.”

“It was never a commitment,” Huang told reporters in Taipei on Sunday. “They invited us to invest up to $100 billion and of course, we were, we were very happy and honored that they invited us, but we will invest one step at a time.” 

As part of a letter of intent signed in September, Nvidia said it planned to invest as much as $100 billion in OpenAI to support new data centers and other artificial intelligence infrastructure. The deal was designed to help OpenAI build data centers with a capacity of at least 10 gigawatts of power — equivalent to the peak electricity demand of New York City — equipped with Nvidia’s advanced chips to train and deploy AI models. 

The Wall Street Journal reported 

on Friday that the investment plan announced in September had stalled after some inside Nvidia expressed doubts about the deal. Citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, the Journal reported that Huang had privately emphasized that the $100 billion agreement was nonbinding, had privately criticized what he has described as a lack of discipline in OpenAI’s business approach and expressed concern about competition.

When asked on Saturday about the report that seemed to suggest he wasn’t very happy with OpenAI, Huang said, “That’s nonsense.”

“We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters then. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.”

Huang didn’t say exactly how much the company might contribute but described the investment as “huge” and potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” He added that Nvidia’s contribution to OpenAI’s current funding round wouldn’t approach $100 billion.

When asked about whether the companies’ plan to deploy the first gigawatt under their joint investment plan is on schedule, Huang said on Sunday that “it’s up to OpenAI.”

“It’s their infrastructure,” he told reporters....

....MORE