The Reality Behind the AI Race & SFL’s Inflation Pace – Top 3 Takeaways – September 15th, 2026

Takeaway #1: A matter of months

In yesterday’s Top 3 Takeaways I made the case that today’s AI race is similar to the nuclear race during World War II and every bit as important as it. In the words of President Trump “whoever wins with AI wins”. He’s exactly right. As the U.S. AI industry, led by the message from Anthropic’s CEO, has effectively and universally called for a “slow down” of AI development due to expressed fears that agentic AI is developing faster than cyber security safeguards, historical perspective could be key to understanding the risk of doing such a thing. While we can look back at World War II history recognizing how close the free world was to being on the brink of losing everything to the Axis powers, something that seldom gains much attention is how the U.S. technological edge proved to be the key to ending the thing...and how the U.S.’s technological edge has prevented World War III ever since. Trivia Time... How big was the U.S.’s technological edge by the end of World War II? Researchers who’ve studied the remains of Germany’s war machine (which continues to this day) – the most recent study entitled: How Realistic Was the Threat of “Hitler’s Atomic Bomb”? was published in the Journal of Nuclear Engineering in February. So how far behind the U.S. was Germany in nuclear technology? The estimate is about three years. So, you can look back at the end of World War II realizing that it was about a three-year edge in technology that led to the Allied win. So fast forward to today and let’s stay with the AI comparison. How far do you think the U.S. lead on Chinese AI happens to be? The answer, according to former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, is currently only 6-9 months! On Monday she told CNBC: The best estimates tend to say China’s very best models are something like six to nine months behind the very best U.S. models. If that means that we slow down and they just rip past us because they’re pretty close behind — that’s a problem. Right, we had a three-year edge in tech in World War II – compared with what’s estimated to only be 6 to 9 months today? That’s certainly, potentially, problematic if we take our foot off of the gas for a moment. On Monday, China’s Foreign Minister pushed back on the threat of AI too saying this: Fear mongering, confrontation, competition will just disrupt [the] process of global AI governance. (AI is) the main battleground for global technological competition and a new arena for strategic rivalry among major powers. That statement tells you two things. 1) There’s no way in Hades that China’s taking its foot off of the AI gas, and 2)

Takeaway #2: China clearly recognizes that “the country that wins in AI, wins”

They’re simply suggesting/propagandizing that they’ll be good actors in the end. In response President Trump posted this to Truth Social: The only control or “guardrails” that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades! The Trump Administration has stopped AI “people” from doing bad, or potentially bad, “things,“ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a “perfect little angel” - and we will continue to do so! We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE! Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP. He’s exactly right about this. The truth behind the desire for the AI industry to call on being further regulated, is being done out of self-interest to limit future liability to the companies – especially as Anthropic is preparing to go public with a planned IPO this fall. But China’s AI industry, which is completely state controlled, doesn’t have to worry about liability and such things. And the sense of urgency that’s being expressed by President Trump is the sense of urgency that comes with only having a technological edge by a matter of months. This is similar but different than the digital currency industry stating that the whole premise behind crypto currencies was decentralization - to provide financial vehicles that weren’t tied to government central banks...only to change the story more recently to repeatedly asking for government regulation and intervention as a means of attempting to mainstream after having had the base case for the tokens fail over the past couple of years. Speaking of which, the Clarity Act which would regulate crypto currencies as the industry has asked the government to do – comes up for a procedural vote in the Senate today. We should know by how this vote goes – whether the Clarity Act will pass in this congress. The bottom line is that when an industry, especially in technology, is asking for government intervention – it isn’t because they’ve suddenly become altruistic. The AI industry knows the average American fears what they do, and so they’re attempting to utilize that fear to exact protections for their companies from the government in the name of “see we’re doing something”.

Takeaway #3: Inflation anticipation

For most of the past year, South Florida’s inflation rate had actually been lower than most of the state, and the country for that matter. Largely due to stagnant or declining houses prices, the overall inflation rate for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro had typically been about a tenth or two percent below the average annually inflation rate...however that’s not the case anymore. While the national inflation rate was 3.4% year-over-year, the rate for South Florida rose from 3.3% to 3.7% over the past year. Housing is still trending in a more affordable direction, with the overall average cost of shelter declining by a tenth of a percent...however the cost of energy increases has been even higher here than much of the country with the average cost of energy checking in at 14.8% more than this time last year due almost entirely to the 28.9% increase in gas prices over the similar period last year. Due to South Florida’s reliance on refined gasoline being shipped into Port Everglades with additional transportation costs for gas to be delivered from there – as transportation costs for energy have risen (particularly with the cost of diesel hitting record highs), it has a compounding effect on the metro compared to other locations across the country that may be able to use pipelines for most of the distribution instead. And here’s the next thing...Due to diesel prices reaching record highs recently – there's a strong chance that higher inflation will soon be hitting with a lot of things we buy in stores too. Usually with South Florida’s inflation rate is higher than the rest of the country it’s, due to housing. Currently, it’s almost entirely about proximately and the rising cost of the delivery of things. This reality hitting across the country will likely led to the Federal Reserve raising the interest rate by a quarter point tomorrow.

The Brian Mudd Show