February 2, 2026

FINGERS CROSSED: ‘We’re not in a bubble yet’ because only 3 out of 4 conditions are met, top economist says. Cue the OpenAI IPO.

Owen Lamont, a portfolio manager at Acadian Asset Management and a former University of Chicago finance professor, said that while the market looks and feels frothy, we are not currently in an AI bubble. As he talked to Fortune from his office in Boston, the S&P 500 breached 7,000 for the first time, but he wasn’t dissuaded. To Lamont, the tell-tale sign of a bubble is equity issuance, when corporate executives, the ultimate insiders, rush to sell overvalued stock to the public.

“Part of the reason I think there’s not a bubble is I don’t see the smart money as acting like there’s a bubble,” he told Fortune. “Maybe I should say there’s not a bubble yet.”

In his view, the smoking gun for a bubble forming would be companies going public and selling equity. That would be a play for the dumb money, he added.
…
Lamont’s bubble-detection framework relies on “Four Horsemen”: overvaluation, bubble beliefs, issuance, and inflows. While he conceded that three of these are present in the market of early 2026—valuations are high, retail investors are piling in, and sentiment is frothy—the absence of issuance disqualifies the current cycle from bubble status.

In the meantime, enjoy the ride.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

THE MISSING MEN OF UNC. UNC-Chapel Hill is now slightly more than 60/40 women to men. This is more lopsided in terms of sex balance than most big state schools because NC’s big engineering school is at NC State, but this is just another wake-up call that there is a mismatch between what our culture (likely) needs and what our institutions are designed to deliver. (I say “likely” because you can credibly argue that men are less likely to need a college degree because of the nature of the jobs they may select.)

Posted at 10:05 am by Robert Shibley

RESIST: LAPD Says It Will Not Enforce Gavin Newsom’s Mask Ban For ICE Agents.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said the policy makes little sense from a safety standpoint, ABC7 Los Angeles reported. He called the law a poor public policy decision that lacked proper consideration.

We are in line with our federal partners on everything except immigration enforcement,” McDonnell said. “What we’ve seen since June here in Los Angeles and seen across the country, we’re as frustrated as everybody else — about the way that’s being done.”

McDonnell told reporters at a news conference that one armed agency confronting another over a misdemeanor creates unnecessary conflict, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. He said his department’s job is to de-escalate situations rather than escalate them.

Federal agents shouldn’t be masked — but there’s really no alternative when the Left has turned to doxxing and violence.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green

CHANGE:

Make the Western Hemisphere Great Again.

Tangentially related in Venezuela: That Must Have Been One Heck of a Phone Call. “The actions that have followed in the few days since sort of give you an idea of exactly how that phone call went down. I’m guessing Trump may have reminded her that there could easily be a ‘second wave.'”

Posted at 9:20 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems Are So Lunatic That Conservatives Root for the Feds Now. “I live right next to downtown, and while I was out for a long walk on Friday afternoon, a lot of the protesters were walking through my neighborhood, on their way back to wherever it is they go to feast on bile and bitterness. They were dragging their signs along with them, looking like they were returning from a funeral. They were all beyond miserable.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green

MINNESOTA FRAUD OLDER THAN THOUGHT: An FBI raid on a fraudulently run child care center in 2015 suggests things have been rotten in Minnesota than previously thought. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has reforms to get a handle on all of the fraud.

Posted at 8:58 am by Mark Tapscott

THE GOVERNMENT AS CURRENTLY CONSTITUTED IS JUST A MONEY LAUNDRY FOR POLITICAL TYPES:

Posted at 8:52 am by Glenn Reynolds

COME SEE THE BIGOTRY INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM:

When they don’t have facts on their side, they make it about identity.

Posted at 8:49 am by Stephen Green

CHANGE: Denmark unveils legal reform to allow the worst foreign criminals to be deported.

Denmark unveiled a legal reform on Friday allowing foreigners who have been sentenced to at least one year of unconditional imprisonment for serious crimes to be deported.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the measure would affect any foreign national convicted of serious offences, such as aggravated assault and rape, though she acknowledged the idea — part of a series of legal changes — could conflict with European human rights conventions.

Everybody in Europe seems to have human rights, except for Europeans.

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green

THE LEFT’S WORST NIGHTMARE, A FLOURISHING AMERICA:

Posted at 8:14 am by Glenn Reynolds

JAMES FREEMAN: American Exceptionalism: It’s about time a European official forcefully rebutted the ‘Newsroom’ fallacy.

Even Barack Obama eventually came around to embracing American exceptionalism. But if one hangs around social media, one is periodically treated to a clip from an old HBO program in which a character played by Jeff Daniels seems to puncture the idea that there is something special and unique about the United States of America. The clip is often shared by those who wish to demonstrate that they are too smart and knowledgable to succumb to enthusiastic patriotism.

In the scene from a show called “The Newsroom,” Mr. Daniels is wittingly or unwittingly portraying a self-important and semi-informed media personage. His character dismisses the idea that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world and argues that freedom doesn’t particularly distinguish the U.S. He quickly rattles off an extensive list of other countries where people also enjoy freedom.

What he does not mention is that in every single one of the countries on his list, free people enjoy the protection of the American defense umbrella. The smug character then goes on to make the preposterous suggestion that roughly 180 countries in the world are free, as if it’s the natural state of things and not a blessing paid for with the blood of Americans and other brave people over many generations.

Of course there have also been enormous financial bills to pay. In only one country did free people build an economy large enough to fund the worldwide defense of liberty for decades. This exceptional and indispensable quality of America underlines why the financial health of the U.S. is also indispensable. There is no backstop for us. It’s essential that U.S. government spending is reduced and put on a path toward budget balance not just for Americans but because a collapse of the United States would be uniquely catastrophic for the world. Search history and it’s hard to find happy endings for governments that took on so much debt that interest payments rose above defense spending, as has recently occurred in the U.S.

Trump understands this.

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

SAY ANYTHING:

The Community Note is brutal.

Posted at 7:47 am by Stephen Green

SPACE: Musk’s SpaceX applies to launch a million satellites into orbit.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has applied to launch one million satellites into Earth’s orbit to power artificial intelligence (AI).

The application claims “orbital data centres” are the most cost and energy-efficient way to meet the growing demand for AI computing power.

Traditionally, such centres are large warehouses full of powerful computers that process and store data. Musk’s aerospace firm claims processing needs due to the expanding use of AI are already outpacing “terrestrial capabilities”.

It would increase the number of SpaceX satellites in orbit drastically. Its existing Starlink network of nearly 10,000 satellites has already been accused of creating congestion in space, which Musk denies.

The new network could comprise up to one million solar-powered satellites, according to the application filed on Friday with the US Federal Communications Commission – which does not specify a timeline for the plan.

SpaceX claims the system would deliver the computer capacity required to serve “billions of users globally”.

I’m trying to imagine the earthbound infrastructure to make that happen.

Posted at 7:32 am by Stephen Green