David Bellairian

 I'm David Bellairian, founder and CEO of Glencore Associates. When I wrote here last week about layoffs at profitable companies, the thread running under all of it was Oracle redirecting billions of dollars of payroll into AI data centers. I want to pull on that thread properly, because the actual number behind it is bigger than almost anyone outside the industry realizes, and the honest question about it isn't being asked enough. The size of the number Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle are on track to spend somewhere between 660 and 700 billion dollars combined on capital expenditure in 2026. Amazon alone is guiding to around 200 billion. Alphabet is in the 175 to 185 billion range. Meta is targeting 115 to 135 billion. Microsoft is tracking toward 120 billion or more. Oracle, the smallest of the five, is still at roughly 50 billion. Depending on which estimate you use, this is a 36 to 62 percent increase over 2025, which was itself already a record year. Roughly ...

 I'm David Bellairian, founder and CEO of Glencore Associates and founder of AIDiscover. I read a lot of layoff announcements this year, partly because I allocate capital for a living and partly because AIDiscover works with companies going through exactly this kind of restructuring. The pattern in 2026 doesn't look like the layoffs I remember from prior downturns, and I think most coverage of it is asking the wrong question. The scale of it Tech layoffs topped 245,000 in 2025 and are already running past 180,000 for 2026, on pace to come in higher than last year. Amazon alone cut 16,000 corporate roles in January, on top of 14,000 the previous October. Oracle cut as many as 30,000, roughly a fifth of its workforce, days after reporting strong quarterly earnings. Uber cut 3,300 jobs as part of a restructuring the CEO described as removing management layers, not cutting costs to survive. Cisco cut 4,000. HPE announced 2,500 over eighteen months. Here's the detail that actual...

 I'm David Bellairian, founder and CEO of Glencore Associates. Precious metals are one of five asset classes in the portfolio I run, and I wrote here recently about the debt dynamics behind a possible fisca l crunch. Gold is the other side of that same story. It's had one of the best runs of my lifetime, and the reasons behind that run are exactly the reasons I'm not touching my position. The run, in numbers Gold started 2025 near $2,600 an ounce. It gained roughly 65 percent over the course of that year, breaking through $3,000 and then $4,000 for the first time in history. By late January 2026 it had spiked to an intraday high above $5,500, before pulling back to settle closer to $4,900. Silver, platinum, and palladium all moved with it. This wasn't a quiet grind higher. It was one of the sharpest moves gold has made in my lifetime, and it happened alongside record central bank buying, a weakening dollar, and the heaviest ETF inflows in years. Why it's happening ...

 I'm David Bellairian, founder and CEO of Glencore Associates. Real estate is one of five asset classes I hold, and I underwrite deals for a living. So when I tell you I skipped a lead and asbestos inspection on a Glendale property and paid for it, that's not a story about someone who didn't know better. It's a story about how a good deal can talk you out of a step you'd never skip on a bad one. How I talked myself out of the inspection The property checked every box I actually cared about. Right neighborhood, right price relative to comparable rents, right bones. Older homes in Glendale almost always mean lead paint and, depending on the era, asbestos in flooring, insulation, or popcorn ceilings. I knew that going in, the way anyone who's bought a few older properties knows it. I treated it as background risk instead of something to actually test for, because the seller's timeline was tight and a specialized inspection would have added time and cost to a de...

 I'm David Bellairian, founder and CEO of Glencore Associates. I allocate capital for a living, and lately the question I get most from other operators and investors isn't about any single stock. It's about the debt. Is the United States actually approaching a crisis, or is this the same recurring panic that's been wrong for fifteen years running? I went back through what the Fed itself is saying, what the government's own watchdog projects, what Ray Dalio's debt-cycle research shows, and what the leading skeptic on the other side argues. Here's what I found. The numbers as of 2026 Total federal debt has climbed past $38 trillion. Debt held by the public, the portion that matters most for interest costs, sits above $31 trillion. The Government Accountability Office, Congress's own fiscal watchdog, projects annual deficits averaging over $2 trillion every year through 2036, with publicly held debt reaching roughly 123 percent of GDP by then. Net interest ...