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Executive Order Provides For Bailout Of Overextended AI Companies
In December 2024 President Donald Trump named venture capitalist David O. Sacks as the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.”
Sacks is set to guide the administration’s policies for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.
AI-researcher Gary Markus is wondering how two recent tweets by Gary Sacks relate to each other:
One theory of capitalism holds that every company should be left to their own devices, with state intervention kept a minimum. This view was well articulated just a few weeks ago, by White House AI and Crypto Czar and well-known podcaster, David O. Sacks:
David Sacks @DavidSacks – 16:52 UTC · Nov 6, 2025
There will be no federal bailout for AI. The U.S. has at least 5 major frontier model companies. If one fails, others will take its place.
The other theory of capitalism, if we can indeed call it that, holds that we should bailout important companies or industries that might overextend themselves. Quite the opposite from the above.
This latter theory, almost a form of safety-net socialism for overextended companies, seemed to be implied today, in a tweet that seemed to be laying the groundwork for bailout, by none other than … White House AI and Crypto Czar and well-known podcaster, David O. Sacks:
David Sacks @DavidSacks – 17:34 UTC · Nov 24, 2025
According to today’s WSJ, AI-related investment accounts for half of GDP growth. A reversal would risk recession. We can’t afford to go backwards.
The WSJ report Sacks mentions, archived here, is indeed gloomy:
The economy’s dependence on AI comes with risks. Stock price/earnings ratios are near record highs. If lofty profit predictions prove wrong, share prices may tumble and investment could slow. The S&P 500 fell about 2% last week on concerns about a bubble, despite rallying 1% on Friday.
Falling stocks could trigger a reverse wealth effect: Americans would consume less, which would tend to depress sales, profits and, potentially, employment.
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If AI investment stopped growing, that could knock another 0.5 point off growth, Millar estimates. If it went to zero, that would knock a full percentage point off.
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Another risk relates to the growing scale of AI-related borrowing.
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If the revenue necessary to service that debt doesn’t materialize, lenders could take a hit, spilling over into debt markets, said Berezin.
China is letting the first type of capitalism reign their Artificial Intelligence efforts:
Rather than pick winners and losers, China states the policy objective and hundreds of commercial initiatives compete using diverse strategies to fulfil the ambition. Instead of a ‘winner takes all subsidies’ China gets a diverse, agile, ecosystem growing in parallel to its rapidly innovative economy.
Many Chinese models are published as open source and can be run on smaller clusters.
The U.S. has however decided to let the second form of capitalism rule its AI endeavors. There are only a few companies working on large AI projects. Their models are private and blocked from scrutiny. They are promising too much and are spending a huge amount of money. They are in need of ‘safety-net socialism for overextended companies’.
To provide for this the White House issued an Executive Order on:
LAUNCHING THE GENESIS MISSION
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. From the founding of our Republic, scientific discovery and technological innovation have driven American progress and prosperity. Today, America is in a race for global technology dominance in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), an important frontier of scientific discovery and economic growth. To that end, my Administration has taken a number of actions to win that race, including issuing multiple Executive Orders and implementing America’s AI Action Plan, which recognizes the need to invest in AI-enabled science to accelerate scientific advancement. In this pivotal moment, the challenges we face require a historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project that was instrumental to our victory in World War II and was a critical basis for the foundation of the Department of Energy (DOE) and its national laboratories.
The Department of Energy is ordered to direct the initiative combining federal laboratories and ‘industry partners’:
Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary shall identify Federal computing, storage, and networking resources available to support the Mission, including both DOE on-premises and cloud-based high-performance computing systems, and resources available through industry partners. The Secretary shall also identify any additional partnerships or infrastructure enhancements that could support the computational foundation for the Platform.
The federal government will of course have to pay for those private resources.
Research with the help of AI will be done in six high priority fields. The timeline provided in the Executive Order is extremely ambitious.
Besides providing the instruments for a bailout the Executive Order is also creating the means of central control over AI and its application:
If you strip away the branding, Genesis is the U.S. government building a national AI backbone inside the Department of Energy and then inviting the biggest private sector AI players to plug into it.
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But underneath, it centralizes the AI stack. Instead of letting the highest end compute and model capabilities drift entirely into the private sector, Genesis pulls them back into a structured federal environment. Access becomes conditional: follow the safety rules, share the data, integrate into the platform and you get to operate at the frontier. Don’t, and you’re on the outside looking in.
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Genesis is the beginning of a nationalized AI infrastructure strategy. It will function as the bridge between government compute and private sector models, letting Washington influence which companies sit closest to the frontier and which capabilities get priority. It will speed up real scientific breakthroughs, but it will also quietly define the rules of the AI race on who participates, who gets access, and how the most powerful systems are directed.
By allowing for a bailout of over extended AI companies via ‘Manhattan Project’ sized federal spending Trump is also attempting to prevent a stock market slump that would cost the Republicans the majority in the House.
I guess this needs repeating at the bar
14 POINTS OF FASCISM
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights
The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism
Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.
5. Rampant sexism
Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.
6. A controlled mass media
Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.
7. Obsession with national security
Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together
Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.
9. Power of corporations protected
Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated
Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.
14. Fraudulent elections
Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.
NOTE: The above 14 Points were written in 2004 by Dr. Laurence Britt, a political scientist. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of: Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile).
Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 25 2025 20:57 utc | 132
The Chinese do Capitalism better…
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 25 2025 16:35 utc | 37
That is true, but why is that? The Chinese arguably made the shift to a full embrace of Capitalism relatively recently. Let’s say from Deng forward. So we’re looking at a young Capitalism taking off in a huge virgin territory. The US did Capitalism better too at that stage. If that were it, I’d say the Chinese would become Imperialists within a certain period of time, following the historic course of the US. What’s interesting is that the CCP has also considered Marx’s critique of Capitalism (like Hudson) and this seems to inform their state driven efforts to mitigate it’s excesses by firmly subordinating the bourgeois to the state. While this innovation is not Marxism or Socialism, it does seem to promise a very different, healthier trajectory for Chinese Capitalism. But only time will tell.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Nov 25 2025 16:47 utc | 44
China is a communist country running a socialist economy with the goal of attaining communism. China is not capitalist. This is not up for debate.
People like Ahenobarbus and Peter AU1 referencing Deng as the point when China regressed to capitalism shows that they either bought the attempts by their capitalist ruling class to claim China’s achievements for itself, or they are agents of capitalism attempting to spread the aforementioned narrative. Ahenobarbus and Peter AU1 are both into promoting “conservative socialism“, which is code for National Socialism, which itself is code for fascism. Ahenobarbus tries very hard to pretend that he is a Marxist, but every time he opens his mouth he reveals his ignorance. The good thing about MoA is that posts are not subject to deletion and Ahenobarbus cannot attempt to hide his very public display of ignorance.
From Lenin writing in 1917, asking Can We Go Forward If We Fear To Advance Towards Socialism?
For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.
From Lenin writing in 1921 on The Tax in Kind:
Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. It is inconceivable without planned state organisation which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production and distribution. We Marxists have always spoken of this, and it is not worth while wasting two seconds talking to people who do not understand even this (anarchists and a good half of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries).
From Mao writing in 1953 On State Capitalism:
The present-day capitalist economy in China is a capitalist economy which for the most part is under the control of the People’s Government and which is linked with the state-owned socialist economy in various forms and supervised by the workers. It is not an ordinary but a particular kind of capitalist economy, namely, a state-capitalist economy of a new type. It exists not chiefly to make profits for the capitalists but to meet the needs of the people and the state. True, a share of the profits produced by the workers goes to the capitalists, but that is only a small part, about one quarter, of the total. The remaining three quarters are produced for the workers (in the form of the welfare fund), for the state (in the form of income tax) and for expanding productive capacity (a small part of which produces profits for the capitalists). Therefore, this state-capitalist economy of a new type takes on a socialist character to a very great extent and benefits the workers and the state.
The true goal of the fascist Ahenobarbus pretending to be a Marxist is to slip in his little poison of hating on migrants, which was his goal all along.
Our dear host b deserves a small share of the blame for uncritically sharing ideas like “safety-net socialism for overextended companies” that grossly abuse the word “socialism”. There is nothing socialist about capitalist states protecting the interests of capitalists. What b described is simply capitalism. At least b never claimed to be Marxist or understands Marxism, unlike Ahenobarbus.
Stop pontificating on MoA and stop besmirching Marxism, Ahenobarbus. At least have the dignity of openly calling yourself a fascist. But come to think of it, an American like Ahenobarbus misappropriating the term “socialism” for his Boydian fascist project that he shares with the likes of Roger Boyd, William Gruff and Peter AU1 is to be expected because America’s fascist progeny did the exact same thing when they called themselves National Socialists:
We have to understand the context in which they applied the term. In our own days, right-wing politicians no longer use the term. Why? Because socialism is no longer so popular. But back then, anti-communists faced the challenge of gaining access to socialist strongholds and convincing as many working-class voters as possible. So, they had to present their policies as agreeing with the interests of the working class. The trick was to benefit from the popularity of socialism, which was widely seen as the force of the future, but at the same time to distance themselves as much as possible from its substance.
Death to America
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Marg bar Âmrikâ
Posted by: All Under Heaven | Nov 25 2025 22:43 utc | 156
Modern definitions of fascism refer to a centralised power structure, however the traditional symbology only sometimes included an axe. Other times it was a bundle of arrows, etc. […]
Posted by: Ornot | Nov 25 2025 19:20 utc | 102
James Corbett did a fine job discussing fascism’s story, its enshrined symbolism and implementation by US governments throughout its history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVy2sZLhRbY
“[…] It’s the same idea, eventually, essentially, which is that we are all part of one great nation and we all must work together and blah, blah, blah, blah, that kind of feel-good political rhetoric about unity and strength through unity, rather than the we-will-cut-off-your-head-if-you-disagree symbol of power that the fascis were, for example, in ancient Roman times.
Although, in the end, it’s kind of the same thing, of course, because always at the end of every statist argument is the implied threat of, and if you don’t, we’ll come and throw you in a cage, and if you resist being thrown in a cage, will kill you. So it does ultimately end at the same place, but it starts with much more inspiring and rousing rhetoric. The lictors carrying the fascis in ancient Rome were known as thugs and were derided by the populace, but the politicians standing in front of the fascis in the U.S. House, I mean, those are good, upstanding people that are looking out for our interests.
Interesting. Well, anyway, long story short, yes, this is the history of the fascis and how they have become a very powerful political symbol that continue to be used to this very day. I think there is more to be said about it than is often said in trite articles about, yeah, there’s fascis all over Washington, but relax, guys, it doesn’t mean much.
No, it does mean something because, again, the very founding principles of fascism, the very founding idea, is all about collectivism and subordinating the individual to the collective. There is no this silly liberalism and their silly idea about individual rights. Ah, that’s stupid. The state is the only thing that matters. […]
And I don’t know about you, but personally, I think that makes me very squarely and very unashamedly an anti-fascist. […]”
Posted by: Juan Moment | Nov 25 2025 23:09 utc | 161
@144 Karlof
The idea of labour whose produce is destined for market is to produce a surplus to trade for what others are also producing as surplus. This is simple economy of efficiencies, where specialisation is much more productive.
For example, someone producing all the items that they need requires the tooling and knowledge, the access to raw materials, to do so. This is complicated and costly. If they produce just one required item, they learn to produce at quality and scale, and for lower initial investment. That is traded with others doing the same for other items. Nothing new there, and all fair and balanced.
Unjust exploitation of labour is something different though, and it is not just a Marxist point of contention – parallel to whatever unfairness or corruption throughout history have been voices of objection and philosophies explaining, or critical of, any apparent injustice.
Where and how exploitation occurs is very complex, via various methods, and it would take a book (or ten) to work through those to obtain a broader more inclusive picture. Even that would leave various ponderables that could only be resolved subjectively, by cultural preference for example.
@160 Juan
“Although, in the end, it’s kind of the same thing, of course, because always at the end of every statist argument is the implied threat of, and if you don’t, we’ll come and throw you in a cage, and if you resist being thrown in a cage, will kill you. So it does ultimately end at the same place…”
…as @162 Michael I find definitions too conflated or confused to draw a correct sentence . So I tend to reduce to something similar to the above quoted for whatever ideology or policy .
If you look around, many end at that same place in practice, whether misrepresented or taken to extremes is neither here nor there ; it makes it almost impossible to discuss using practical examples as reference of definition.
Posted by: Ornot | Nov 26 2025 0:56 utc | 182
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