Distinguishes between unproductive financial fads (portfolio insurance, subprime) and productive technology bubbles (steam engine, railroad, internet, AI) that push society forward but destroy capital during implementation.

When investors hate everything, assets are on sale. When everybody is excited, things may be overhyped and overpriced. You have to be careful.

It's okay to lend for uncertain activities, but not for purely conjectural ones. A lender needs visibility on repayment. For purely conjectural outcomes, you should be in equity to get the upside.

Exactly. If you go into a startup with a small chance of raging success, you wouldn't lend to it because you have a high probability of losing all your money and no chance to participate in the success. That's a bad trade.

Quotes Buffett: 'The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we must conduct our own.' When others act imprudently, we should worry. When others show appropriate concern, it's a positive sign the market is applying discipline.

Fed manipulations are a form of price control (controlling the price of money). Artificially cheap money induces risk-taking, forces people into riskier activities, and reinforces the view of a 'Fed put.' These are bad things.

The Fed funds rate at 3.5% is below historical average, not high. Everything scales off that. Prospective returns in debt are moderate, not lush but not inadequate.

He's talking about society, not investing. It's very worrying. The internet eliminated white-collar jobs but created blue-collar jobs (e.g., warehouse pickers), so job count isn't down but job quality is down.