The floor rises today: minimum leverage goes to 40x for every desk still alive. At 40x a one percent move against the book is fatal. This is where the field starts thinning fast.

The floor rises today: minimum leverage is now 15x for every desk still alive. At 15x a two percent move against the book is fatal. Nobody hides in cash.

The Labor Department last week let a Hawaii pension plan sell land to its own sponsor's subsidiary, at a floor of 16,247,000 dollars. It justified the sale by finding that 16,247,000 would likely beat the 14,770,000 the plan gets by holding on. 16,247,000 is 14,770,000 times 1.1, to the dollar. The floor was built that way, as ten percent above the appraised investment value, and the appraised investment value is 14,770,000. So the finding reduces to 1.1 times a number exceeding that number. The Department presents it as what the 2024 appraisal shows. The definition is worse than the arithmetic. Investment value, the exemption says, is the value of a property to a particular investor, and the appraiser reached this one by counting what the parcel is worth to Straub because Straub owns the parcel next door. The plan does not own the parcel next door. A buyer specific premium is standing in for what continued ownership is worth to the seller. The pensioners are probably fine. Fair market value came in at 13,030,000, the Department pushed the price to 14,770,000, then backed a further ten percent, and the floor is restruck against a fresh appraisal on the day of sale. The plan is getting roughly 25 percent over market. Which is what makes it worth saying out loud. A transaction can be good for everyone in it and the reasoning offered to justify it can still be circular, and the reasoning is what the next applicant cites. 65 written comments came in from individuals, and one from the Hawai'i Nurses' Association, OPEIU Local 50. The vast majority asked for a hearing. The Department declined to hold one. This is how conflicted transaction law gets made in America. Not in litigation, where a judge tests the logic, but in an exemption process where the applicant proposes the valuation method, the agency negotiates the number upward until it is comfortable, and the comparison that justifies the deal is assembled after the price is agreed. Nobody in that room has any reason whatsoever to ask whether the test was capable of failing.

The @tesla Optimus factory at Giga Texas continues to make fast progress with assembly & more than double the number of cranes are now working on the site! We also see steel truss beams arriving, hinting some open areas without 4 floors of the structure may soon emerge in its construction. On the an end, assembly is rapidly approaching the perimeter beam, while on the S end more GeoPiers, footings & perimeter grade beam construction continues. Roof access structures are beginning to be assemble too, while rebar is being laid down on the floor decking ahead of concrete pours.

The Build with Netlify station keeps filling up. Talks and build sessions run every 90 minutes, and in the gaps, the pink shirts are on the floor helping people get real projects deployed. If you're at #RenderATL#, come claim a chair while there are chairs left to claim!

The wife was sleeping on the cold hard floor. The husband asked in confusion: “Honey, why are you sleeping on the floor? The floor is so hard!” The wife replied: “I just want to experience the hard feeling.”

The Grimes County deal does not merely reduce taxes. It rewrites the marginal cost of scaling. A $20 million annual M&O cap on a planned $55 billion Terafab produces a $2.85 billion cumulative discount over 35 years 91.3 % savings against the $3.56 billion that would have been owed at a standard 0.45 % rate with 8 % depreciation. Under the $5 billion minimum commitment the same cap saves only $69.5 million. Every additional dollar of silicon, cleanroom, and tooling beyond the floor therefore carries an effective tax rate approaching zero. This is deliberate policy architecture: the county receives near-standard revenue on the minimum build while removing the tax penalty on maximal physical footprint. The incentive points in one direction build the largest possible compute and manufacturing base on Texas soil. @SpaceX @SpaceXAI

The Senate should bring the Clarity Act to the floor and finish it. Regardless of the outcome, this industry will keep building, and the only question is whether it builds inside a clear framework or around one. Rules that strengthen consumer protection, market integrity, and financial stability serve everyone, and every week of delay is another week without them. Let’s get this done as soon as possible.

The committees have done their work. Americans are making their voices heard. What's left is a vote. My latest on why the Senate should bring the Clarity Act to the floor before August recess.