Nick Martell

It's a story of hubris, building too high, too fast, and the whole thing falling apart.

But what Nick and I find most interesting is that the American Pope is telling Americans that our economic religion is basically wrong.

He's kind of calling out the economists on this one.

Because for 80 years, one economic stat has made us Americans feel like we're winning, baby.

GDP, gross domestic product.

But the Pope says we're not winning.

So Jack, pause the pod for a sec.

What really is GDP besides a nice acronym?

GDP is an economic calculation of both what we as a country spend and what we as a country receive as income.

And by that measure, we're number one, China's number two, and Japan and Germany come right behind at three and four.

But the Pope says GDP is broken as a North Star of measuring economic wellness.

Basically, it gives them an ick worse than the Chicago Cubs do.

And to explain why, Nick and I are giving our own example.

We're looking at data centers.

We were curious what he meant by this, and we think we see it with data centers, you know, because tech companies are spending a trillion dollars this year on these things.

And that $1 trillion of data centers adds to our GDP.

But does anyone actually benefit from all that GDP?

People do benefit.

NVIDIA benefits, and their shareholders benefit from this huge splurge on data centers.

And so do the profits and the shareholders of the entire AI supply chain.