Post #3420045

2026-06-25 19:34 UTC

@gabrielesvelto@mas.to i dropped out of economics, so am not quite versed on the nitty gritty academic aspects of the field, so gotta ask: has there ever been a time in history when a few companies trapped themselves into an incestuous cycle of investments? what’s happening around NVidia and the slopware bros is eyebrow raising, especially since there isn't really any cash or even assets transferring hands. it’s basically promisory notes that make it look like they’re making money. just wondering.

Replies (2)

@jrconlin@mindof.jrconlin.com 2026-06-25 19:54

@blogdiva@mastodon.social @gabrielesvelto@mas.to Huh, interesting question. First thought was the East India Company, but that one was highly extractive, but still tended to follow "normal" commerce (they paid on contracts for things like ships and some goods without needing those companies to buy from them). In some respects, NVidia is also acting like a monopsony, since it's pretty much the sole provider of the GPUs being used by AI centers, with the rest of the high purchases (memory, disk, etc) being tack-on to that. The thing that is really weird is that NVidia is essentially funding their customers to establish it's own market, and I'm hard pressed to come up with an example of any other market doing that. Even some of the most egregious self constructed monopsony markets (Standard oil) actually produced something of value outside of it's own market, which lead to it self-maintaining. ( granted, I'm an amateur history buff, so I expect someone actually versed in this to have a better answer )

Open ##3420048
@gabrielesvelto@mas.to 2026-06-25 21:00

@blogdiva@mastodon.social I am no expert, just worked a couple of years in finance which gave me both a basic understanding of these numbers and a desire not to get anywhere near it again. That being said circular trading is illegal, there's no way around that... but under the current US administration no one is doing anything to prevent or punish it, and all the companies involved are based in the US.

Open ##3420050