On the bright side, these chucklefuck large corporations that support the Frontier Labs are getting their products reverse engineered, hell, even open source models can do it. If this is such an epic crash, they will be fucked too, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Don't worry, this US administration will totally backstop the AI industry, while fighting a war(s) all over the place, and then America will be Trump's final bankruptcy.
More like "there's a good chance that the dollar keeps losing value to inflation, whether 2% per year or 3.7% per year, so we may as well own shares of businesses that can adjust to inflation."
Maybe having the entire economy being just a handful of gigantic tech companies borrowing money from each other in a circle jerk isn't the most robust economic outlook? Main street has been hammered by trumps tariffs for over a year now. This is only getting worse as prices continue to rise.
How is main Street hurting? Unemployment rate is ok, despite self imposed inflation it's only at 3.7% which is historically low. Liquid wealth is slightly higher than historical levels, participation in labor is finally ticking up.
Certainly it's for its issues: real wage growth is turning negative but it's had a good run, and if course housing.
None of this is new and sucks but it's not universal bad or historically so.
Crash the economy, vote in dems , dems work to fix the economy with no help from republicans, voters not happy the the economy hasn’t been fixed already, votes in republicans, rinse repeat
Yeah it's a tough place for the Democrats because it's so much easier to destroy than create. DOGE wrecked the federal government in a matter of months. It will take years, possibly decades to rebuild. It was also a lot easier for Republicans to just obstruct everything the Dems tried to do during the Obama administration than it was for the Dems to pass laws to benefit people.
The "both sides" people fail to realize this. Yes, corporate Dems suck, but at least they're pretending to try to help people. The Republicans have been lock step in stymying any amount of progress since Reagan.
What the tech bros and wall street bets bros don't understand is that AI may be the future, but debt servicing is still the present and that bitch is hungry.
"Spend yourself out of debt" is literally what a business loan is. The idea is that your spending generates more value than the cost of the loan. This isn't home economics, we're not talking anout your credit card. Lol!
People who talk to you like public and business debt is the same as personal household debt are essentially calling you rube right to your face. You don't have to let them.
Which companies do you think will have trouble servicing their debt?mostly just coreweave right? Even oracle isnt in that much trouble. When most people say "tech bros" they mean MSFT, GOOG, META, AMZN. Those companies are all basically at zero net debt except META and even they are completely fine
Your change of topic has me worried that you don't know what you're talking about. Are you asking if I know that Google's CapEx is greater than their free cash flow? Yes, I am aware. I was asking you about their debt.
Google has $98B of debt. They have $242B in cash/bonds. They could pay off all their debt tomorrow, give every single one of their employees a million dollars, buy Coreweave in cash, THEN pay SpaceXs entire yearly R&D budget, and STILL have money left over. Oh, and they make $242B per year in net income and their credit rating from Moody's is literally better than the US Governments.
formerly a fixed income PM, not only is it hungry I can say from experience that the risks were and are poorly understood and understated. A LOT of people on my desk just saw the absurd figures and rushed in with hilariously lax covenants that are still highly rated in-house, so much so that if (and really when) they aren't able to realize their outrageous earnings estimates we're in a really bad spot.
There are some absolutely gaudy SRTs out there right now.
What Wall Street focuses on is a series of 3 month periods. All they care about is current quarter results and next quarter’s performance. Everything else is outside the decision making window and is mostly ignored.
The reason Wall Street is now talking more about a financial downturn is that it’s in their window and it’s going to affect performance in the next 1 to 2 quarters. So now the short term paychecks are in play and that gets peoples attention.
I mean anybody who looks at the US economy is fully aware it’s being driven by one thing alone. AI infrastructure spending. Without it the recession everybody loved predicting might actually have taken place.
Any interruption to the flow of capital to AI is a major problem for the US economy.
Can't the recession still be taking place in large sections of the economy? Sure data center construction helps gdp but are we seeing the benefits of that expenditure walled off from the rest of the economy?
Yes, recessions are just two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction. Removing AI infrastructure spend, pretty sure we've been in a recession or stagnant for the past 3 years
Here read this article in the Financial Times about the different speeds of the economy. Were use to hearing about the K shaped economy denoting rich people doing well (the upper leg of the K) while everyone else suffers deteriorating finances. In this latest analysis, the FT describes it more as an E shaped economy.
The link bypasses the paywall.
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/ddaeb5bd-5713-4e55-8f8b-d97cd26ff33b Is the K-shaped economy really more of an E?
I agree. However, I will continue to stand up against AI vocally because with no water we all die. I am from out West and I know how close it is to crisis level with water in several western US states, and that was BEFORE all these flipping data centers.
A recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, so by pedantic definition, no, it is not possible. But it’s absolutely true in spirit.
Which is silly too, because business can’t afford to raise capital for growth when AI is soaking up all the capital and making the future so unknowable that people are afraid to take risk when they expect to get undercut, leap frogged or have planned for a future that won’t be there
Again, maybe. For example, Goldman Sachs estimates AI’s contribution to US GDP growth is only 0.1%.
The reason is most of AI spending is on chips from Taiwan and South Korea (75%). So those countries are seeing a huge boost in GDP growth. If you take that 75% out and consider the huge size of the US economy, AI doesn’t actually look that impactful for the US.
But that’s just one analysis. It is the analysis from GS, though.
Also the filthy rich own almost everything which essentially insulates stock market from major losses. Until they start feeling pain or getting scared and blink and selling, capital markets can hold out without the bottom 99%
Shocking to see that summarized so succinctly. I have been trying to understand how the stock market completely de-coupled from economic reality. ARGH it all sucks -- so many people are suffering badly in America and so much of it is hidden because so many have been taught to believe that economic struggle and poverty are personal moral flaws. It's the SYSTEM.
And a gov deficit of 7% of GDP. In other words since our economy is growing at 2% our economy would be shrinking by 5% without the deficit. But that deficit is funded by debt meaning we are passing that shrinkage to our children. Thats not nice.
Nearly 13% of U.S. credit card balances are 90 or more days past due, marking a 15-year high.
The share of seriously delinquent auto loan balances has hit a multi-decade/historic high.
Nearly 20% of U.S. households reported being late on at least one debt payment, up sharply from about 12% in recent years.
24% of Americans have zero emergency savings, and 37% have had to tap into their emergency reserves over the past year primarily for essential living expenses.
Well the thing with an emergency fund is the fact it should be readily available. So not tight up in funds that could for whatever reason not be accessible or sellable or worth as much as expected/needed.
The far more important thing about an emergency fund is about not taking on debt to cover sudden costs. If you put a sudden cost on your credit card and untangle your assets over the next few weeks to cover that expense before interest kicks in, you can cover a sudden expense without issue
If you put all of you money in investments and have to sell at a loss to cover a medical bill, thats short sighted and risky but it doesnt put you in a situation where you might be stuck in debt for months/years or (important to the broader economy) have to default on debt because of one unforeseen accident or illness
Man do I hate Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, all these clickbait rags. In this case, what this headline is doing is making you think the article is about "hurr durr, stupid Wall Street bros think economy is vulnerable despite data"
But, what the article is actually about (and I'm not even sure if the author knows this), is this:
>Bespoke Investment Group spotted something it did not like in the most recent National Federation of Independent Business survey this week: That small businesses increasingly report their “number one problem” is poor sales.
Now here's that report: https://www.nfib.com/small-business-trends-research/
Which has this:
>Poor sales and taxes are tied as the third most important problem among small business owners in September. Eleven percent of small business owners reported poor sales as their top issue, up 1 point from August and the third consecutive month of increase. The percent of small business owners reporting taxes as their single most important problem decreased 5 points from August to 11%.
And in the detailed report, expands here:
>A seasonally adjusted net -8% of owners reported higher nominal sales
in the past three months, up 1 point from August. The net percent of
owners expecting higher real sales volumes over the next quarter rose
3 points to a net 9% (seasonally adjusted). The net percent of owners
reporting inventory gains fell 4 points to a net -10% (seasonally
adjusted), the lowest reading since September 2024. Not seasonally
adjusted, 9% reported increases in stocks (down 2 points), and 18%
reported reductions (up 3 points). A net 0% (seasonally adjusted) of
owners viewed current inventory levels as “too low” in September, up 1
point from August. A net 2% (seasonally adjusted) of small business
owners plan inventory investment in the coming months, up 1 point
from August and the highest reading since December 2024. Sixty-two
percent of small business owners reported that supply chain
disruptions affected their business to some extent, unchanged from
August. Seven percent reported a significant impact (up 1 point), 21%
reported a moderate impact (up 2 points), 34% reported a mild impact
(down 3 points), and 38% reported no impact (up 1 point).
So here's the thing - if you just read the headline, you think the article is talking about wall street bros speculating that there's underlying weakness, the article itself really fails to actually detail any of the important stuff here - which is that there's ongoing trends among small businesses of slumping sales. Now, it should be noted that broad retails sales/consumption is up, but this sort of isolated trend can be an important leading indicator over time.
TLDR: Much much more important economic news about business sales buried in here, who cares about what some investment research firm's bit of commentary was on that. The trend itself is important. And every ounce of that actually important news gets lost if one just reads the headline....
Can confirm your deep dive, at least locally. We are seeing more and more local businesses either getting priced out of locations due to rent, extremely poor sales because nobody is really spending on much of anything except necessities because that's all anyone can afford, or they are burnt out and/or can't find help. There are some examples of some pretty successful places just closing up shop this year because the landlord wanted to increase the rent too much.
So on top of all the rotted-out vacant houses we've had for decades when NAFTA destroyed local factory jobs, now we have rotting-out store fronts because landlords are too greedy and would rather just sit on the property because it's worth money.
This economy is broken and has been for quite a while. We learned nothing from 2008 or the systemic shock of COVID it seems.
The shame is, this took me maybe 45 seconds. click article to see what BS they were referring to, first paragraph I saw the reference to actual data which was of note, stopped reading the article and pulled the report in the next tab, read that.
It don't take much, I really encourage everyone here to use that exact process - don't read these articles to see what the author is trying to say, read to see what they're referring to then just pull that direct info yourself.
I personally am seeing slumps based on regions for the most part, midwestern businesses seem to be seeing more headwinds than those on the coasts, smaller towns a bit worse, larger cities faring fine, etc.
Every single one of my business tax clients have told me their estimated tax for 2026 based on 2025 is too high because sales are down. We'll see how true that is next month's, but it seems like it's not a great time for small business owners at all.
So the article title is making it seem there's some underlying weakness in the economy, when in actuality there's some underlying weakness in the economy?
Doesn't look great for the small guys who will be getting hit directly with the higher energy prices and tariffs, while at the same time having consumers tighten up their spending and interest rates rising. They have much less wiggle room to absorb the price volatilities.
Any idiot with half a brain can see the entire thing is a complete house of cards propped up by shenanigans and financial engineering. I'm calmly waiting for the black swan that will bring it all down. It's going to be epic when it happens.
I think there is a belief that the breakthrough will happen over the next few years that increases productivity by enough that the debt looks like a minuscule price to pay for what is achieved.
Do I believe that? Fuck if I know. But it’s why they keep throwing money at it.
Which would very probably amount to the mass culling of the middle class, because this is how you can achieve those mirific productivity gains.
Meanwhile there is a determined effort by the nefarious scumbags at the head of some of those companies, investment funds and political parties - GOp - to ensure the deployment of a surveillance state robust enough to withstand the blowback when chicken will come home to roost.
Because they will. Either because of the possibility aforementioned, or because of a once in a century stock market crash.
And to those who believe fairy tales of worker augmentation and schumpter creative destruction just listen to the patheticly unconvincing CEO of Nvidia on the matter in his itw with Erza Klein
It actually might be more nefarious than that. There are corporate leaders and national governments that believe the first to achieve super intelligence will then rule the world outright.
So what does debt mean now if it’s believed that is a probable outcome?
I think it's possible to create a super AI that is ethical, logical, and altruistic towards humanity. But that would make it at odds with a large segment of the most powerful people. A super AI that is in line with the psychopaths that are frequently dominating business and government would be an existential threat to humanity.
Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter? Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.
But there must be some set of skills that matter.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.
There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.
It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.
One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.
There’s no win here. Either the ai dream comes true and everyone loses their job and the economy collapses OR ai doesn’t produce and the entire economy collapses. I see no path in between.
I don't understand the AI glazers either. They seem to think that if they adopt AI they'll somehow be immune to losing their jobs or they'll just pivot to the new jobs that get created.
But at that point every single knowledge job is on the chopping block
We’re at point in many career fields where you cannot ignore the productivity gain that AI provides, if you do, then you won’t hit metrics that have been updated because everyone else is using AI.
The way to survive in the AI economy is you have to be very good at using it.
No one who isn’t already technical wants to deal with using AI agents to do technical work, at least for now until AI is given full autonomous trust, which enterprise level organizations are not going to want to do for some time.
The productivity gains show up everywhere except for in the statistics. I don't disregard that it makes people faster in some tasks (ie: raw lines of code) but what value is it actually creating in the end?
Also how do you "get good at using it"? It's piss easy to spin up some agents and have Claude Code grind out some code for you. There's not much skill involved in using AI
The value is that it has significantly raised the floor for every intelligence based job.
Reaching the minimum viable level to be an employable programmer or sysadmin or accountant etc. used to be difficult and require months if not years of dedicated study.
Now the skill you have to have to be junior level has significantly decreased.
This is why junior level employment has gotten so much harder, all of the bums in your college class who either didn’t have the talent or dedication can now produce at your level.
Don't be pulled into the hype. At its base they duct taped a chatbot onto a language translation model experiment that was never meant to replace jobs, never was made as a consciousness, etc. They've just gotten bigger and became better liars. The demand doesn't exist to satisfy the laughable spending spree of the children who run the frontier labs.
The AI hype bros have burned their brains on the psychoactive drugs that are LLMs, and they can't let their drug dealers go under! Their drug dealers happen to have access to a giant credit card that is starting to trigger fraud warnings.
In between is the most likely. The dotcom bust wasn’t the end of the world, but the internet was a big deal and now all the top companies are internet adjacent at least
This seems to be the consensus of what’ll happen. Not AI magic genie or economic calamity. Probably just a recession like we somehow always get when “unlucky”republicans are in the Whitehouse
I agree with the sentiment/expectation. But I don't see how that is possible. The extreme amount of debt needs to be managed which means they need a certain amount of revenue. But at the same time if AI can make tasks easier, it diminishes the value of those tasks. We're already seeing this play out in many industries. And this doesn't even cover the fact that AI will take jobs leaving less people to pay for their service
The US federal financial reserves look very much like the White House presently does. Half in ruins.
The massive smoking grenade in the room is that they have nothing left to fight the next financial crisis. They have already borrowed themselves pretty much into a corner.
In 2008, the government was in OK shape. Bernanke could throw money out of helicopters.
This time, there may not even be fuel for the helicopters.
Technically, they can start burning the furniture to keep the house warm, but that won't end well. Much like how they are drawing down the strategic oil reserves.
Nor, are the people presently in charge of the federal government well equipped to deal with any crisis, money available or not.
Of course, there are some fools who are going to say, "The US can print unlimited money to buy itself out of any problems." Good luck with that.
When Clinton ran for president the slogan in their HQ was, "It's the economy stupid."
These midterms are going to test and/or prove that slogan pretty damn hard.
Let's be honest, Wall Street does not need bailing out. CoreWeave was always a risk. The banks had varied results but they are required by Dem-lead law to have 'back up'//liquid assets. They aren't going anywhere. (and Citibank brought their woes on themselves by their determination that there illegal clients were worth more to them than the fines they would receive.)
BlackRock and ilk generally had a blow out quarter.
The Russell is going to always suffer when the interest rates are so high and the country has a president who thinks tariffs are a good idea.
Let the zombies die. The big boys have very positive cash flows.
It's a game of musical chairs. Wall Street and retail dance for AI spending with rose tinted glasses. Except there are some who know exactly when the music will stop and it's not us.
What occurs today is the super rich flexing their ability to organize news and post bullshit in order to influence the market in the direction they want.
The 10 yr yield had already fallen to 5.09% before the market opened. Oil was down as well. At 3 AM these assholes posted to sell.
They organized this across multiple news sources to make it prophetic, and then they did their best to hammer stocks in order to create a buy-in opportunity for big Ai names before they reported.
All of this was to create an entry point.
Tomorrow is the reversal, the buy-in opportunity. The following two weeks are the reports.
Republican buffoonery leadership always crashes the US economy, that is one consistent rule in life. The dumbest people with lowest iqs vote for the oldest, most currupt, selfish incontinent Republican leaders. Which is fair and good, they have the right to do so.
Unfortunately for us, reality is cruel. Backwards policies set us back 10 years as the rest of the world, mainly Asia and Europe charge ahead with science and innovation, while republicans continue to take advantage of the most gullible idiots with jackassery and antiquated ideas and technologies. But also the negative stink of losers and unpopular leadership will outlive Trump, because Trump and republicans are just so god damned “lame” which will forever taint American businesses abroad.
Trump is different. American oligarchs made the rational optimal choice to bend the knee to Trump, and wave pride flags when he’s gone, like he never existed because they will gain favorable policies and lose nothing. However, Trump regime inc. has the unique capability to eliminate our soft power and commercial success worldwide by making our country so god damn “uncool” that nations will actually change policies to make it untenable to keep companies like Google, Tesla, and Microsoft within its borders.
What will result from a leader like that of Russia? An economy like Russia…
This week I received two emails hinting at the necessity to start charging for AI -- one from Microsoft and one from Zoom. I hate AI and don't care, but it got my attention and my first thought was, they need to make money somehow off of us so they can placate the shareholders.
Americans voted in a dictatorship and now we’re all surprised the house is burning down?! We voted to let this government removed all guardrails, oversight, law and order, checks and balances and rule with an Iron Fist. This country refuses to vote for our best interests, we choose to fuck over our neighbor who doesn’t agree with us politically, RIP USA
Suddenly? More market irrationality. Nothing is different really today than the last several months or and least wasn’t predicted. it is just that enough people said it out loud and acted on it.
Just in time for Democrats to take over, people start worrying about the economy like a drunk waking up in the morning. Where are my pants? How did I blow 3 trillion dollars?
It’s because GameStop isn’t it? GME is running and the system is gonna collapse because of the shenanigans they pulled 6 years ago and hoped everyone would forget about it. Instead people just keep buying like a bunch of Retreads. Myself, I sold my GME about 18 months ago when I finally caved.
Suddenly, Wall Street SPX is at an all time high and economics thread again spamming with false click bait articles but if we post to short of a post it gets flagged. So shame on you economic mods for letting this slide and shame on the people posting these misleading articles.
ButtBesmircher | 4 hours ago
Wall Street: “There’s a good chance that we may lose a lot of money and let us tell you why we’ll need to you bail us out again.”
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
DeltaFoxtrot144 | 4 hours ago
best i can do is offer like 8 foot of rope.
artbystorms | 4 hours ago
Best I can offer is a sharp blade to attach to that rope.
Lopsided-End-1985 | 4 hours ago
Oh I got some spare wood. We might be able to put it all together!
Holiday-Hippo-6748 | 3 hours ago
8 feet is too close to the floor!
Foo_Dog61 | an hour ago
And 10 feet of floor height.
Auzou | 4 hours ago
There is no money for bailout this time. That would only make it worse.
Lemp_Triscuit11 | 4 hours ago
I reckon that will depend entirely on what sort of kickbacks are promised to the Trump family
Franklin_le_Tanklin | 4 hours ago
That’s the plan. Print money, inflation everyone’s wealth away, and let the billionaire asset holders runaway with anything valuable
Initial_Savings3034 | 3 hours ago
Yeltsin 2.0
doctor_morris | 4 hours ago
The question is always: Make it worse for whom?
Penultimo_1 | 4 hours ago
The answer is always make it worse for the plebs.
Defiant-Classroom-20 | 4 hours ago
sorry we used all the money for AI but we'll be rich soon guys trust
Olangotang | 38 minutes ago
On the bright side, these chucklefuck large corporations that support the Frontier Labs are getting their products reverse engineered, hell, even open source models can do it. If this is such an epic crash, they will be fucked too, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
lack_of_communicatio | 3 hours ago
'for you'
jotsea2 | 2 hours ago
'this time'
As if there was money the last 4 fucking times
dust4ngel | 30 minutes ago
> There is no money for bailout this time
there's always $40T in the banana stand
Major_Bag_8720 | 4 hours ago
There’s no money to bail out Wall Street unless the Fed just prints it and the resultant effect on inflation would be unlikely to be positive.
zanzara1968 | 3 hours ago
Inflation is up and the FED rates will rise, no surprise stocks went down
0o0o0o0o0o0z | an hour ago
Don't worry, this US administration will totally backstop the AI industry, while fighting a war(s) all over the place, and then America will be Trump's final bankruptcy.
mistressbitcoin | 4 hours ago
More like "there's a good chance that the dollar keeps losing value to inflation, whether 2% per year or 3.7% per year, so we may as well own shares of businesses that can adjust to inflation."
wonderlawl | 31 minutes ago
Too rich to go broke!
Only the poors can be poor. Rich people with shitty assets get free money! They convinced us it made sense in 2008 and they'll do it again!
belovedkid | 35 minutes ago
Wall Street doesn’t need bailed out. More likely private credit firms and tech borrowers. The banks are fine.
DjCyric | 4 hours ago
Maybe having the entire economy being just a handful of gigantic tech companies borrowing money from each other in a circle jerk isn't the most robust economic outlook? Main street has been hammered by trumps tariffs for over a year now. This is only getting worse as prices continue to rise.
saml01 | an hour ago
The fact that people conflate the stock market with the economy is the problem.
dust4ngel | 28 minutes ago
bambin0 | 25 minutes ago
How is main Street hurting? Unemployment rate is ok, despite self imposed inflation it's only at 3.7% which is historically low. Liquid wealth is slightly higher than historical levels, participation in labor is finally ticking up.
Certainly it's for its issues: real wage growth is turning negative but it's had a good run, and if course housing.
None of this is new and sucks but it's not universal bad or historically so.
SnooPears754 | an hour ago
Crash the economy, vote in dems , dems work to fix the economy with no help from republicans, voters not happy the the economy hasn’t been fixed already, votes in republicans, rinse repeat
FractalFunny66 | an hour ago
You said it. That is our entire reality and has been for so long! It sucks!
Altruistic-Spend-896 | an hour ago
Dems should refuse to fix, let repubs fafo
inyourface317 | an hour ago
Or publically point out thier refusal to do thier job as an elected representative
Altruistic-Spend-896 | an hour ago
Which they are already accused of😬
Capital_Spite9272 | 41 minutes ago
Yeah it's a tough place for the Democrats because it's so much easier to destroy than create. DOGE wrecked the federal government in a matter of months. It will take years, possibly decades to rebuild. It was also a lot easier for Republicans to just obstruct everything the Dems tried to do during the Obama administration than it was for the Dems to pass laws to benefit people.
The "both sides" people fail to realize this. Yes, corporate Dems suck, but at least they're pretending to try to help people. The Republicans have been lock step in stymying any amount of progress since Reagan.
Picks6x | 4 hours ago
What the tech bros and wall street bets bros don't understand is that AI may be the future, but debt servicing is still the present and that bitch is hungry.
DeltaFoxtrot144 | 4 hours ago
waa? you cant just spend your way out of debt ? thats what our golden turd of a president said you can do.
Picks6x | 4 hours ago
People unironically believe this on this sub sometimes. they aren't well respected but they do try
Caracalla81 | 4 hours ago
"Spend yourself out of debt" is literally what a business loan is. The idea is that your spending generates more value than the cost of the loan. This isn't home economics, we're not talking anout your credit card. Lol!
Picks6x | 2 hours ago
The important part is you tried
Caracalla81 | 2 hours ago
And succeeded.
People who talk to you like public and business debt is the same as personal household debt are essentially calling you rube right to your face. You don't have to let them.
AlcibiadesTheCat | 2 hours ago
Unless you're too big to fail. Then who cares if you don't succeed, just let John Q. Taxpayer pay for your fuckup.
CallMePyro | 54 minutes ago
Which companies do you think will have trouble servicing their debt?mostly just coreweave right? Even oracle isnt in that much trouble. When most people say "tech bros" they mean MSFT, GOOG, META, AMZN. Those companies are all basically at zero net debt except META and even they are completely fine
dust4ngel | 25 minutes ago
> Which companies do you think will have trouble servicing their debt?
out of curiosity, have you seen their burn rate?
CallMePyro | 13 minutes ago
Your change of topic has me worried that you don't know what you're talking about. Are you asking if I know that Google's CapEx is greater than their free cash flow? Yes, I am aware. I was asking you about their debt.
Google has $98B of debt. They have $242B in cash/bonds. They could pay off all their debt tomorrow, give every single one of their employees a million dollars, buy Coreweave in cash, THEN pay SpaceXs entire yearly R&D budget, and STILL have money left over. Oh, and they make $242B per year in net income and their credit rating from Moody's is literally better than the US Governments.
Goatsonice | 29 minutes ago
formerly a fixed income PM, not only is it hungry I can say from experience that the risks were and are poorly understood and understated. A LOT of people on my desk just saw the absurd figures and rushed in with hilariously lax covenants that are still highly rated in-house, so much so that if (and really when) they aren't able to realize their outrageous earnings estimates we're in a really bad spot.
There are some absolutely gaudy SRTs out there right now.
Picks6x | 23 minutes ago
Once Anthropic and openAI IPO we can put this baby to rest finally and see their financials. it's gonna be a wild ride
emi_fyi | 4 hours ago
so perfectly said. i may steal this!
BareNakedSole | 4 hours ago
What Wall Street focuses on is a series of 3 month periods. All they care about is current quarter results and next quarter’s performance. Everything else is outside the decision making window and is mostly ignored.
The reason Wall Street is now talking more about a financial downturn is that it’s in their window and it’s going to affect performance in the next 1 to 2 quarters. So now the short term paychecks are in play and that gets peoples attention.
big-papito | 4 hours ago
The goldfish economy
jayr114 | 4 hours ago
I mean anybody who looks at the US economy is fully aware it’s being driven by one thing alone. AI infrastructure spending. Without it the recession everybody loved predicting might actually have taken place.
Any interruption to the flow of capital to AI is a major problem for the US economy.
Unexpectedpicard | 3 hours ago
Can't the recession still be taking place in large sections of the economy? Sure data center construction helps gdp but are we seeing the benefits of that expenditure walled off from the rest of the economy?
SouthIsland48 | 2 hours ago
Yes, recessions are just two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction. Removing AI infrastructure spend, pretty sure we've been in a recession or stagnant for the past 3 years
Olangotang | 34 minutes ago
Recession are whatever NBER say they are.
NF11nathan | 2 hours ago
Here read this article in the Financial Times about the different speeds of the economy. Were use to hearing about the K shaped economy denoting rich people doing well (the upper leg of the K) while everyone else suffers deteriorating finances. In this latest analysis, the FT describes it more as an E shaped economy.
The link bypasses the paywall.
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/ddaeb5bd-5713-4e55-8f8b-d97cd26ff33b Is the K-shaped economy really more of an E?
FractalFunny66 | an hour ago
So what does the shape E mean? I will read the article later, but if someone knows, let me know.
NF11nathan | an hour ago
Richest doing great
Middle earners doing okay
Everyone else in trouble
FractalFunny66 | an hour ago
I agree. However, I will continue to stand up against AI vocally because with no water we all die. I am from out West and I know how close it is to crisis level with water in several western US states, and that was BEFORE all these flipping data centers.
EchoFieldHorizon | an hour ago
A recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, so by pedantic definition, no, it is not possible. But it’s absolutely true in spirit.
mhizzle | an hour ago
Tech companies really taking "Too Big to Fail" as a challenge
SurinamPam | 2 hours ago
By one source, AI spending in 2026 in the US is $730B.
The US GDP in 2025 was $30T.
I know this is not an apples to apples comparison, but it’s not clear that AI is keeping a $30T economy afloat.
How Much Are Companies Spending on AI in 2026? $730B Tracker
https://valueaddvc.com/ai-spending
BoinkDoinkKoink | 2 hours ago
I think OP meant GDP growth was driven by AI. Which is accurate. Else we'd see a shrinking economy and a potential recession.
BenjaminHamnett | an hour ago
Which is silly too, because business can’t afford to raise capital for growth when AI is soaking up all the capital and making the future so unknowable that people are afraid to take risk when they expect to get undercut, leap frogged or have planned for a future that won’t be there
SurinamPam | an hour ago
Again, maybe. For example, Goldman Sachs estimates AI’s contribution to US GDP growth is only 0.1%.
The reason is most of AI spending is on chips from Taiwan and South Korea (75%). So those countries are seeing a huge boost in GDP growth. If you take that 75% out and consider the huge size of the US economy, AI doesn’t actually look that impactful for the US.
But that’s just one analysis. It is the analysis from GS, though.
https://pwm.gs.com/nam/en-us/insights/markets-and-investing/investment-strategy/ai-impact-gdp-productivity-jobs
ta_ran | an hour ago
What if some get that scared of AI, that they willing sending in drones, and the other side have to push 'through' what ever that cost
adidasbdd | an hour ago
Also the filthy rich own almost everything which essentially insulates stock market from major losses. Until they start feeling pain or getting scared and blink and selling, capital markets can hold out without the bottom 99%
FractalFunny66 | an hour ago
Shocking to see that summarized so succinctly. I have been trying to understand how the stock market completely de-coupled from economic reality. ARGH it all sucks -- so many people are suffering badly in America and so much of it is hidden because so many have been taught to believe that economic struggle and poverty are personal moral flaws. It's the SYSTEM.
Any_Sale2030 | 56 minutes ago
And a gov deficit of 7% of GDP. In other words since our economy is growing at 2% our economy would be shrinking by 5% without the deficit. But that deficit is funded by debt meaning we are passing that shrinkage to our children. Thats not nice.
DiligentAd7956 | 2 hours ago
Nearly 13% of U.S. credit card balances are 90 or more days past due, marking a 15-year high.
The share of seriously delinquent auto loan balances has hit a multi-decade/historic high.
Nearly 20% of U.S. households reported being late on at least one debt payment, up sharply from about 12% in recent years.
24% of Americans have zero emergency savings, and 37% have had to tap into their emergency reserves over the past year primarily for essential living expenses.
tabrisangel | 2 hours ago
I dont put much stock into that stuff.
I have about 250k with an zero "emergency fund" and I liquidate investments now and then to buy things.
supamario132 | an hour ago
Based on the wording of every poll I've ever seen regarding emergency funds, you would not fall in the demographic that has none
Annachroniced | an hour ago
Well the thing with an emergency fund is the fact it should be readily available. So not tight up in funds that could for whatever reason not be accessible or sellable or worth as much as expected/needed.
supamario132 | an hour ago
The far more important thing about an emergency fund is about not taking on debt to cover sudden costs. If you put a sudden cost on your credit card and untangle your assets over the next few weeks to cover that expense before interest kicks in, you can cover a sudden expense without issue
If you put all of you money in investments and have to sell at a loss to cover a medical bill, thats short sighted and risky but it doesnt put you in a situation where you might be stuck in debt for months/years or (important to the broader economy) have to default on debt because of one unforeseen accident or illness
The_Duke_of_Nebraska | an hour ago
"no poor people can't exist that's dumb!" No one cares about your investments
snoogins355 | 15 minutes ago
Talk to more people. Not just internet strangers and bots
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 4 hours ago
Man do I hate Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, all these clickbait rags. In this case, what this headline is doing is making you think the article is about "hurr durr, stupid Wall Street bros think economy is vulnerable despite data"
But, what the article is actually about (and I'm not even sure if the author knows this), is this:
>Bespoke Investment Group spotted something it did not like in the most recent National Federation of Independent Business survey this week: That small businesses increasingly report their “number one problem” is poor sales.
Now here's that report: https://www.nfib.com/small-business-trends-research/
Which has this:
>Poor sales and taxes are tied as the third most important problem among small business owners in September. Eleven percent of small business owners reported poor sales as their top issue, up 1 point from August and the third consecutive month of increase. The percent of small business owners reporting taxes as their single most important problem decreased 5 points from August to 11%.
And in the detailed report, expands here:
>A seasonally adjusted net -8% of owners reported higher nominal sales in the past three months, up 1 point from August. The net percent of owners expecting higher real sales volumes over the next quarter rose 3 points to a net 9% (seasonally adjusted). The net percent of owners reporting inventory gains fell 4 points to a net -10% (seasonally adjusted), the lowest reading since September 2024. Not seasonally adjusted, 9% reported increases in stocks (down 2 points), and 18% reported reductions (up 3 points). A net 0% (seasonally adjusted) of owners viewed current inventory levels as “too low” in September, up 1 point from August. A net 2% (seasonally adjusted) of small business owners plan inventory investment in the coming months, up 1 point from August and the highest reading since December 2024. Sixty-two percent of small business owners reported that supply chain disruptions affected their business to some extent, unchanged from August. Seven percent reported a significant impact (up 1 point), 21% reported a moderate impact (up 2 points), 34% reported a mild impact (down 3 points), and 38% reported no impact (up 1 point).
So here's the thing - if you just read the headline, you think the article is talking about wall street bros speculating that there's underlying weakness, the article itself really fails to actually detail any of the important stuff here - which is that there's ongoing trends among small businesses of slumping sales. Now, it should be noted that broad retails sales/consumption is up, but this sort of isolated trend can be an important leading indicator over time.
TLDR: Much much more important economic news about business sales buried in here, who cares about what some investment research firm's bit of commentary was on that. The trend itself is important. And every ounce of that actually important news gets lost if one just reads the headline....
Serious_Berry_3977 | 3 hours ago
Can confirm your deep dive, at least locally. We are seeing more and more local businesses either getting priced out of locations due to rent, extremely poor sales because nobody is really spending on much of anything except necessities because that's all anyone can afford, or they are burnt out and/or can't find help. There are some examples of some pretty successful places just closing up shop this year because the landlord wanted to increase the rent too much.
So on top of all the rotted-out vacant houses we've had for decades when NAFTA destroyed local factory jobs, now we have rotting-out store fronts because landlords are too greedy and would rather just sit on the property because it's worth money.
This economy is broken and has been for quite a while. We learned nothing from 2008 or the systemic shock of COVID it seems.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 3 hours ago
> your deep dive
The shame is, this took me maybe 45 seconds. click article to see what BS they were referring to, first paragraph I saw the reference to actual data which was of note, stopped reading the article and pulled the report in the next tab, read that.
It don't take much, I really encourage everyone here to use that exact process - don't read these articles to see what the author is trying to say, read to see what they're referring to then just pull that direct info yourself.
I personally am seeing slumps based on regions for the most part, midwestern businesses seem to be seeing more headwinds than those on the coasts, smaller towns a bit worse, larger cities faring fine, etc.
pgold05 | 2 hours ago
Click....the article? Read? What are you some sort of internet explorer? Way to dive into the details!
AlcibiadesTheCat | 2 hours ago
...say that again...
Logical_gravel_1882 | 55 minutes ago
Internet explorer...what a name!? We could build a software package on a moniker like that. Maybe a search engine...or...a web browser.
Elect2Toss | 3 hours ago
Every single one of my business tax clients have told me their estimated tax for 2026 based on 2025 is too high because sales are down. We'll see how true that is next month's, but it seems like it's not a great time for small business owners at all.
Dick_Lazer | an hour ago
So the article title is making it seem there's some underlying weakness in the economy, when in actuality there's some underlying weakness in the economy?
Washpa1 | 2 hours ago
These are some interesting numbers.
Doesn't look great for the small guys who will be getting hit directly with the higher energy prices and tariffs, while at the same time having consumers tighten up their spending and interest rates rising. They have much less wiggle room to absorb the price volatilities.
BotherEconomy4413 | 4 hours ago
Any idiot with half a brain can see the entire thing is a complete house of cards propped up by shenanigans and financial engineering. I'm calmly waiting for the black swan that will bring it all down. It's going to be epic when it happens.
harbison215 | 4 hours ago
I think there is a belief that the breakthrough will happen over the next few years that increases productivity by enough that the debt looks like a minuscule price to pay for what is achieved.
Do I believe that? Fuck if I know. But it’s why they keep throwing money at it.
DramaticSimple4315 | 4 hours ago
Which would very probably amount to the mass culling of the middle class, because this is how you can achieve those mirific productivity gains.
Meanwhile there is a determined effort by the nefarious scumbags at the head of some of those companies, investment funds and political parties - GOp - to ensure the deployment of a surveillance state robust enough to withstand the blowback when chicken will come home to roost.
Because they will. Either because of the possibility aforementioned, or because of a once in a century stock market crash.
And to those who believe fairy tales of worker augmentation and schumpter creative destruction just listen to the patheticly unconvincing CEO of Nvidia on the matter in his itw with Erza Klein
harbison215 | 4 hours ago
It actually might be more nefarious than that. There are corporate leaders and national governments that believe the first to achieve super intelligence will then rule the world outright.
So what does debt mean now if it’s believed that is a probable outcome?
OlafMetal | 3 hours ago
I think it's possible to create a super AI that is ethical, logical, and altruistic towards humanity. But that would make it at odds with a large segment of the most powerful people. A super AI that is in line with the psychopaths that are frequently dominating business and government would be an existential threat to humanity.
harbison215 | 3 hours ago
You said it. We both know which is exponentially more likely.
Qeltar_ | 3 hours ago
> mirific
Learned a new word, thanks. :)
Skank_A_Saurus | 4 hours ago
Agree with what you said, except that Ezra Klein is an insufferable, naive milquetoast of a human being. Don’t know how anyone can listen to him
Traditional-Fox-1597 | 3 hours ago
Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter? Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.
But there must be some set of skills that matter.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.
There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.
It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.
One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.
303uru | 4 hours ago
There’s no win here. Either the ai dream comes true and everyone loses their job and the economy collapses OR ai doesn’t produce and the entire economy collapses. I see no path in between.
SwirlySauce | 3 hours ago
I don't understand the AI glazers either. They seem to think that if they adopt AI they'll somehow be immune to losing their jobs or they'll just pivot to the new jobs that get created.
But at that point every single knowledge job is on the chopping block
303uru | 3 hours ago
There’s always a useful gang of idiots who you can convince are part of the in group.
Quick-Quail-1683 | an hour ago
This just disregards reality
We’re at point in many career fields where you cannot ignore the productivity gain that AI provides, if you do, then you won’t hit metrics that have been updated because everyone else is using AI.
The way to survive in the AI economy is you have to be very good at using it.
No one who isn’t already technical wants to deal with using AI agents to do technical work, at least for now until AI is given full autonomous trust, which enterprise level organizations are not going to want to do for some time.
SwirlySauce | an hour ago
The productivity gains show up everywhere except for in the statistics. I don't disregard that it makes people faster in some tasks (ie: raw lines of code) but what value is it actually creating in the end?
Also how do you "get good at using it"? It's piss easy to spin up some agents and have Claude Code grind out some code for you. There's not much skill involved in using AI
Quick-Quail-1683 | an hour ago
The value is that it has significantly raised the floor for every intelligence based job.
Reaching the minimum viable level to be an employable programmer or sysadmin or accountant etc. used to be difficult and require months if not years of dedicated study.
Now the skill you have to have to be junior level has significantly decreased.
This is why junior level employment has gotten so much harder, all of the bums in your college class who either didn’t have the talent or dedication can now produce at your level.
SwirlySauce | an hour ago
Okay so exactly what I said earlier. All the jobs are on the chopping block
Quick-Quail-1683 | an hour ago
Yeah but until that point if you’re not using AI you’re limiting your productivity.
The writing is on the wall, you’re using AI until the organization trusts it enough to run a skeleton crew just managing it, or until it replaces you.
If you don’t use AI and willingly let your productivity suffer, then there are plenty of people can.
That’s why people use AI
Olangotang | 28 minutes ago
Don't be pulled into the hype. At its base they duct taped a chatbot onto a language translation model experiment that was never meant to replace jobs, never was made as a consciousness, etc. They've just gotten bigger and became better liars. The demand doesn't exist to satisfy the laughable spending spree of the children who run the frontier labs.
The AI hype bros have burned their brains on the psychoactive drugs that are LLMs, and they can't let their drug dealers go under! Their drug dealers happen to have access to a giant credit card that is starting to trigger fraud warnings.
harbison215 | 3 hours ago
Or whomever creates the first really smarter than humans and capable AI takes an iron grip control of the entire planet.
BenjaminHamnett | an hour ago
In between is the most likely. The dotcom bust wasn’t the end of the world, but the internet was a big deal and now all the top companies are internet adjacent at least
This seems to be the consensus of what’ll happen. Not AI magic genie or economic calamity. Probably just a recession like we somehow always get when “unlucky”republicans are in the Whitehouse
TraderJulz | 30 minutes ago
I agree with the sentiment/expectation. But I don't see how that is possible. The extreme amount of debt needs to be managed which means they need a certain amount of revenue. But at the same time if AI can make tasks easier, it diminishes the value of those tasks. We're already seeing this play out in many industries. And this doesn't even cover the fact that AI will take jobs leaving less people to pay for their service
EmperorOfCanada | 2 hours ago
The US federal financial reserves look very much like the White House presently does. Half in ruins.
The massive smoking grenade in the room is that they have nothing left to fight the next financial crisis. They have already borrowed themselves pretty much into a corner.
In 2008, the government was in OK shape. Bernanke could throw money out of helicopters.
This time, there may not even be fuel for the helicopters.
Technically, they can start burning the furniture to keep the house warm, but that won't end well. Much like how they are drawing down the strategic oil reserves.
Nor, are the people presently in charge of the federal government well equipped to deal with any crisis, money available or not.
Of course, there are some fools who are going to say, "The US can print unlimited money to buy itself out of any problems." Good luck with that.
When Clinton ran for president the slogan in their HQ was, "It's the economy stupid."
These midterms are going to test and/or prove that slogan pretty damn hard.
TheGoodCod | 3 hours ago
Let's be honest, Wall Street does not need bailing out. CoreWeave was always a risk. The banks had varied results but they are required by Dem-lead law to have 'back up'//liquid assets. They aren't going anywhere. (and Citibank brought their woes on themselves by their determination that there illegal clients were worth more to them than the fines they would receive.)
BlackRock and ilk generally had a blow out quarter.
The Russell is going to always suffer when the interest rates are so high and the country has a president who thinks tariffs are a good idea.
Let the zombies die. The big boys have very positive cash flows.
CornerOne238 | 3 hours ago
It's a game of musical chairs. Wall Street and retail dance for AI spending with rose tinted glasses. Except there are some who know exactly when the music will stop and it's not us.
PlanetCosmoX | 3 hours ago
What occurs today is the super rich flexing their ability to organize news and post bullshit in order to influence the market in the direction they want.
The 10 yr yield had already fallen to 5.09% before the market opened. Oil was down as well. At 3 AM these assholes posted to sell.
They organized this across multiple news sources to make it prophetic, and then they did their best to hammer stocks in order to create a buy-in opportunity for big Ai names before they reported.
All of this was to create an entry point.
Tomorrow is the reversal, the buy-in opportunity. The following two weeks are the reports.
Jgusdaddy | an hour ago
Republican buffoonery leadership always crashes the US economy, that is one consistent rule in life. The dumbest people with lowest iqs vote for the oldest, most currupt, selfish incontinent Republican leaders. Which is fair and good, they have the right to do so.
Unfortunately for us, reality is cruel. Backwards policies set us back 10 years as the rest of the world, mainly Asia and Europe charge ahead with science and innovation, while republicans continue to take advantage of the most gullible idiots with jackassery and antiquated ideas and technologies. But also the negative stink of losers and unpopular leadership will outlive Trump, because Trump and republicans are just so god damned “lame” which will forever taint American businesses abroad.
Trump is different. American oligarchs made the rational optimal choice to bend the knee to Trump, and wave pride flags when he’s gone, like he never existed because they will gain favorable policies and lose nothing. However, Trump regime inc. has the unique capability to eliminate our soft power and commercial success worldwide by making our country so god damn “uncool” that nations will actually change policies to make it untenable to keep companies like Google, Tesla, and Microsoft within its borders.
What will result from a leader like that of Russia? An economy like Russia…
FractalFunny66 | an hour ago
This week I received two emails hinting at the necessity to start charging for AI -- one from Microsoft and one from Zoom. I hate AI and don't care, but it got my attention and my first thought was, they need to make money somehow off of us so they can placate the shareholders.
cyberdude419 | an hour ago
Americans voted in a dictatorship and now we’re all surprised the house is burning down?! We voted to let this government removed all guardrails, oversight, law and order, checks and balances and rule with an Iron Fist. This country refuses to vote for our best interests, we choose to fuck over our neighbor who doesn’t agree with us politically, RIP USA
ratpH1nk | 57 minutes ago
Suddenly? More market irrationality. Nothing is different really today than the last several months or and least wasn’t predicted. it is just that enough people said it out loud and acted on it.
roscoe_e_roscoe | 25 minutes ago
Just in time for Democrats to take over, people start worrying about the economy like a drunk waking up in the morning. Where are my pants? How did I blow 3 trillion dollars?
RedditsFullofShit | 3 hours ago
It’s because GameStop isn’t it? GME is running and the system is gonna collapse because of the shenanigans they pulled 6 years ago and hoped everyone would forget about it. Instead people just keep buying like a bunch of Retreads. Myself, I sold my GME about 18 months ago when I finally caved.
Theverybest92 | 4 hours ago
Suddenly, Wall Street SPX is at an all time high and economics thread again spamming with false click bait articles but if we post to short of a post it gets flagged. So shame on you economic mods for letting this slide and shame on the people posting these misleading articles.