117 | Circle Jerk Economics

"Everyone's getting paid — just not by each other." In Episode 117 of The Economy of Nothing, Mike & Mike chart the endless feedback loops of modern capitalism — the tech giants investing in each other, the fake profits, and the divine grifts that hold it all together. The cold open starts with Mike's "laser pointer whip" moment — the classic EoN chaos that perfectly transitions into a conversation about how value gets invented, how faith becomes a business model, and how America's economy turned into a perpetual motion machine made of belief and branding. From there, we spiral through: AI's round-tripping shell game — OpenAI, Nvidia, and Google all paying each other to pretend something real is happening. Quantum computing hype — the modern version of turning lead into gold, complete with its own priesthood. Schrödinger's cat and dark matter — science as metaphor for markets you can't observe without changing. Jesus Christ vs. the stock market — when both rely on blind faith, miracles, and infinite returns. Indiana Jones' missing whip — what happens when storytelling, like capitalism, loses its texture. Blood diamonds, Jamaica, and the illusion of value — the global cost of the American circle. It's an hour of quantum confusion, theological meltdown, and patriotic recursion — a sermon on the hill for the attention economy. YydatNBDEVGSC8sFpEYh