On Telegram most of the ads I get are for pump-and-dump scams. They're quite open about it. People get signals to buy a (crypto) coin and then half an hour later they get a signal to dump it. I check and these coins are all going down in the long term, but if the line jags up a bit, it's worth a punt in the here and now. They're burning the candlestick at both ends, until the lights go out.

You might think this behavior is isolated to crypto, but it's not. The Financial Times describes the same phenomenon, writ large across the entire US economy. The US of A is, increasingly the US of AI. Almost all economic growth is from AI spending, despite it producing no real economic output. The US of AI is just one big pump and dump which also offers opportunity for little pumpery-dumpery here and there, like the Oracle Debacle.

Recently, Oracle got an IOU for a future $300 billion from a company with negative cashflow and negative projections (OpenAI), but all the stock markets analysts and all the money men don't see anything wrong with this, because they're all fucking in on it. Oracle's stock jumped the GDP of a medium country immediately, and now came back below where they started, once the pump and dump was complete.

Long-term retail investors get fleeced so reprobate insiders can stay in quarter-zips for a quarter century. If you got the ‘signal’ before meaningless IOUs were passed between mendacious morons you could make a killing, but if you were just hodling the stock, the overall trendline is down. OpenAI is never going to make money but the hype cycle lets them take money now. In this way, crypto is not some cancerous outgrowth of capitalism, it's the whole business model. They pumped and dumped the whole planet with the South Sea Bubble, and now they've created an artificial plan to pump and dump in the AI Bubble now.

This pumpery and dumpery isn't isolate, it's state policy now. President Trump is pumping and dumping the entire stock market with tweets, and his relatives and insiders are getting Nancy Pelosi type returns in weeks. If you get the signals a little bit before, you can make a killing, but if you're a retail investor just holding, you're left holding the bag for the whole thing. There are huge, herky-jerky movements in the US markets which are very profitable for insiders, though the fundamentals are shit. But some people are getting their bag while others are left just holding it (I give a shit about either, Death to America).

Retirement investors will not have anything when the whole thing crashes, but real insiders can cash in and cash out now, on little jagged jumps on an overall trendline down. Saying crypto is a scam is redundant, the whole US economy is a scam, crypto is just the kiddie's table. While rich kids are pumping and dumping coins here and there, rich adults are pumping and dumping the whole US economy. America's crypto and AI czar are the same person because it's the same fraud.

At this point AI spending is just a huge, steroidal pump applied to the US economy at large. If you take AI spending out, the US basically isn't growing at all, but if you keep the scam going, you can make cold hard cash now. The masses get distracted by pretty pictures and extremely dubious medical advice while the upper classes get rich on the roller coaster, helicoptering out before the drop. The rich know it's a scam, but the prudent financial advice is still get it while the getting's good. And you don't have to take my word for it, ask the ghouls at Goldman.

Jim Covello from Goldman Sachs says “Over-building things the world doesn’t have use for, or is not ready for, typically ends badly,” but in the same breath also says, “That said, one of the most important lessons I've learned over the past three decades is that bubbles can take a long time to burst. That’s why I recommend remaining invested in AI infrastructure providers.” They know they're selling dog shit, but as long as enough people say it's roses, they'll give it a buy recommendation. This is tulip mania all over again, without any of the redeeming qualities of tulips. The US of AI is a bunch of waste heat destined for the waste heap, with no redeeming qualities.

It's become increasingly obvious that the Empire has no clothes, but instead of laughing and leaving like in the story, the courtiers have decided to get naked and have a financial orgy too. They're pumping and dumping the whole US economy, with little pump and dumps for insiders, and crypto for the kiddos. It's not that there's fraud within the US economy, the whole thing is fraud. This turkey is getting plucked, but the rich will feather their nest while regular people get, you know. Fucked.

I must repeat that I do not care about the people about to lose in the Greatest Depression of 2026 anymore than I care about the people that lost money in the South Sea Bubble of 1720. The latter bet on slaves and the former bet on artificial slaves and they can all get punted into the sun for all I care. The only thing that will take down this evil empire is the only thing it cares about, money, and I, for one, hope it all crashes soon.