S15 EP166: Hour 3 - What Happened to Xi?

Breaking news opens the hour: the Federal Reserve under Chairman Kevin Warsh votes 12 to 0 to raise interest rates a quarter point, the first hike in more than three years, with the dot plot signaling another to come and the inflation target pushed out to 2029. Erick then turns to the horseshoe theory tying together the Nazi-curious weirdos on the right and the effective altruism crowd at Anthropic who want you to worry about the wellbeing of AI chatbots, and why both groups are really just asking to be put in charge of your life. Plus: Xi Jinping appears to fall ill at the BRICS summit in India; another look at the purge of his own generals, Mitch McConnell's decline, and Susie Wiles announcing she is cancer-free.

• The Federal Reserve's unanimous 12-to-0 quarter-point rate hike, the 3.75 to 4 percent target range, Kevin Warsh declining to submit a dot, and PCE inflation now projected at 3.7 percent
• Horseshoe theory in action: Charles Haywood and the American Reformer and Claremont Institute crowd on the right, the effective altruism movement and Dario Amodei's Anthropic on the left, and why both want to decide for your family
• Why Erick Erickson opposes AI regulation, how incumbents use regulation to kill competition, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta's quiet safety review, and why free market competition beats Chinese one-party rule
• Xi Jinping's apparent health scare at the BRICS summit as Narendra Modi pauses his remarks, Gordon Chang's stroke speculation, the purge of Xi's own generals, and China's real estate and debt crisis
• Events, dear boy, events: Harold Macmillan's line applied to Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, Iran, Mitch McConnell, Brian Johnson's quest to beat the clock, and Susie Wiles announcing she is cancer-free