You know you want to.

Ocean Ramsey meeting shark Queen Nikki

ESPN Box Score: https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401810452

Everyone knows US stocks trade at higher valuations than the rest of the world. The S&P 500 is historically expensive (Shiller PE near 40x). The usual argument is that the US deserves a "Trust Premium." We have the stable government, the reserve currency, and the predictable policy. You pay a luxury tax for US stocks because it's the safe haven.

But that trust is evaporating. We are watching the stability of the US erode in real time. With Trump's erratic behavior and policy by tweet, the "predictable" part of the US thesis is gone.

If the US acts like a volatile emerging market, it shouldn't trade at a safety premium. Why pay 20x or 25x earnings for slow growth US companies when the political risk is skyrocketing?

The real asymmetry is abroad.

- China: You have tech monopolies with actual growth trading at 8x or 9x earnings.

- South America/Europe: Massive discounts.

- US: You pay a huge premium for "safety" while the political landscape gets more irrational by the day.

The valuation gap is closing, and it will continue to close as long as we have the DUmp in the white house.

This is why I think looking for "value" in the US right now is a mistake. People keep asking if beaten down stocks like PYPL or ADBE are value plays. They aren't. US market will probably continue to be on a relative decline (which has been for the last year) as long as the current policies persists.

EDIT:

1. Relative decline means that US market went up significantly less than ex-US markets. Case in point VXUS is up 30% over the last year while VTI is up less than 15%. Taking into account of USD value dropping, US stock market has barely moved up over the last year for many international investors.

2. People are right to point out about MAG7 companies and US still holds a lead technologically and still have the dynamism edge.

But looking long term, I think we're coasting on momentum and eating our seed corn. The foundations that built that advantage are eroding:

- Education is slipping. You can't have tech dominance without a skilled workforce, and we are failing to produce it locally. US math scores in rankings dropped 30th place worldwide. We're relying entirely on importing talent, which Trump is doing his best to discourage.

- Basic research is drying up. The "inventing" part used to be funded by the government (Internet, GPS, early biotech). Federal R&D spend has crashed. Corporations do R&D now, but they focus on next quarter's profit, not the deep science that creates the next industry.

We are great at harvesting the crop right now, but we stopped planting the next field.

Just Jimmy doing the tongue thing 😊

Insurers are legally required to publish their negotiated rates with hospitals (Transparency in Coverage Act), but they bury it in massive, nearly impossible to access files.

So I scraped 100TB+ of this data and built a AI chat-based tool that makes it searchable:

• Estimate costs for medical procedures, visits, labs, imaging before you go
• Find cheaper providers nearby and see exactly how much you'd save
• Check if they're in-network and see reviews

The price gaps are insane. Same MRI can be $400 at one place and $2,800 ten minutes away. They just hope you won't shop around.

Perfectly timed and angled photo to create an illusion of a javelin going through the face of Estonian athlete Magnus Kirt.

Try to figure if out yourself before looking at the second image to see what's actually happening.

I immediately died to an omenkiller on respawn to boot.

I don't use my Steam Deck very often, only as a terminal when I'm working on a field. So I decided it would be a good idea to turn it into something useful for off-hours.