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Flower power

14 June 2026

One of the most shocking movie scenes that burnt into my mind was in the opening credits of the 2009 Watchmen movie, directed by Zack Snyder. 50,000 protesters took part in the March on the Pentagon in 1967. A row of military police was pointing their rifles at the protesters. A flower power protester puts a flower into the barrel of one of the rifles. In the movie, Bob Dylan's The Times They are A-Changing is playing over the scene, recreating an iconic photograph from 1967. (link in comment)

But in the alternative reality of the movie, the police fires at the protesters.

I remember seeing that scene in the movie theater, and I found that image absolutely distressing, thinking about the terrible alternate reality that would have been. How many people would have died, how different the United States would be today... and being glad that reality took a different turn.

... but did it?

Today I learned about the 1967 Detroit riots. More than 7000 people arrested, 43 people killed, of which 30 were killed by the authorities and another six by store owners or security guards. It was in the same year. And the authorities were shooting and killing the people, mostly black people. But that seems a lot like the terrible "alternative reality" Snyder's movie was drawing. But it was not an alternate reality. It was just not the story of mostly white hippies on the coasts, but of mostly black people in Detroit.

I am ashamed it took me until today to have learned about these events. But one thing I can do is reading more about the events and maybe reach others who might not have known.

• Flower Power photograph - Wikipedia
• 1967 March on the Pentagon - Wikipedia
• Intro scene from Watchmen
• 1967 Detroit riot

Simia

Mega-IPOs

8 June 2026

There are more than 15 trillion (!) dollar invested in index funds. Starting in a few days and going on until the fall of next year, more than half a trillion dollar of that money will be pulled out from the existing company shares in numerous indexes and used to buy SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic shares from their existing share owners. (Most of it will start happening in about a year, when the S&P500 lets SpaceX join. Unlike NASDAQ, S&P didn't change their rules to fast-track these mega IPOs. But they will join NASDAQ before their first quarterly report as a public company).

With the IPOs of SpaceX (this Friday), OpenAI, and Anthropic, and them joining NASDAQ and FTSE's global index within a few days after their IPOs (and S&P and Dow Jones a year later), everyone who has invested in index funds, be it directly through ETFs or indirectly through their 401k and other retirement plans, will automatically sell about 5% of the shares they are currently holding, and buy shares from one of these three companies. All three IPOs will be, by far!, the largest IPOs in history.

So, if you have $100 invested in a NASDAQ-indexed ETF, you will be selling $5 of the stocks you currently own (while everyone else is doing the same) and buy $5 worth of Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenAI stocks (while everyone else is doing the same), automatically and predictably.

It will be a tough time for the rest of the stock market this year, as there will be a lot of people's money flowing to OpenAI, SpaceX and Antrhopic without anyone ever intentionally buying it, with the market sending 5% of its liquidity to these three new mega IPOs. It will be immensely beneficial for everyone selling these shares.

Whether it will be beneficial for the general public, i.e. for the people holding these index funds, is something we are going to see in the next few years. I wouldn't wager a prediction on that. Maybe there's an AI bubble that might burst, maybe making more of their numbers public will make some people think they are overvalued, maybe all three companies will realise incredible value and will lift the stock indexes well beyond the 5% of the market they will initially cost. We are going to see. If I could make predicitons about how these things will develop, I'd be much richer.

But it seems that in the next 12-18 months, 100s of billions of dollars are slated to go from retirement plans and other stock investors to Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and others. Happy to discuss if I misunderstand.

Simia

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