It’s very funny to me how all the “economic experts” in all of these threads about this refuse to acknowledge that you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry, let alone a single technological development.
Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
Not to mention the economy would be much better of if we didn't have dumb tariffs and an oil crisis.
Trump's Ice also caused local business to crash, because although employers hired illegal migrants, these same migrants also bought stuff from the local community.
Tourism also went down by almost 10 billion dollars.
> Trump's Ice also caused local business to crash, because although employers hired illegal migrants, these same migrants also bought stuff from the local community.
I work for the corporate office of a retailer and we have seen huge drops in shopping in a number of our locations because of nearby ICE raids and the knowledge that ICE is patrolling. Even for born-on-US-soil citizens, the possibility of being questioned or detained is enough to get them to change their habits.
Their approach could have been conducting their investigations/deportations the same way it was done during Obama, Biden or even Trump's 1st term and only escalating when confronting criminals, but they just had to make showy and gestapo like.
And the lesson from the crash following the Covid lockdowns; was how much tourism was integral to the global economy. When AI is no longer able to hold up GDP it will become obvious how poor the rest of the economy is doing.
Yeah the economy already tanked for consumers, the markets just started printing paper like it was Monopoly money and passing that around instead. Acting like everything is better than ever and telling consumers how good they got it.
I live in a border town and it's crazy to see how well Canada bounced back after receiving actual COVID relief instead of a couple of one-off checks (besides the whole "everyone can see a doctor" thing).
It's worth noting that this isn't totally true; countries can absolutely be held up by a single industry. It's just that, when that industry crumbles or collapses, the whole nation falls apart.
We're sort of seeing this with Canada now; O&G is not the powerhouse it was 20 years ago, yet it basically defined that nation. Venezuela, alternatively, is an example of what happens when your country is essentially propped up by a mono-industry, too. West Virginia and coal are another great example of a singular-resource-driven territory buckling under the weight of its own failures.
So again, it's not that they can't; they can, but it's not a long-term/sustainable scenario. I do think it can work in a short period of time, such as a wartime-crisis scenario.
On the subject of pretend economic experts, you know yesterday stocks are up and it’s “hooray Dems, markets know Trump is cooked”. Today stocks are down and it’s “Trumps economy, Trump did this, etc”
Like, fuck yeah the election results were great and Trump absolutely sucks, but sometimes stock volatility is also just stock volatility. Trying to tie in broad political narratives with a few hours of market action as your key evidence rarely ends well.
I do think there's some truth to post election exuberance being a factor in yesterday's gains. Just like there's some realization that maybe datacenter build out will be slowed and companies will face a tougher environment. After all it was a significant concern of the voters based on polling. Isn't that herd mentality part of stock market volatility?
For sure, but markets almost always rally post election, like consistently. They rallied after every time Trump got elected, rallied after every blue wave, etc. The post election bump is a pretty common phenomenon.
I don’t have this at my fingertips but midterms specifically generally have a rally - the figure I saw not long ago was that the day after midterms averages about a half percent up across the history of the modern market.
I’m kind of confused why stocks rallied yesterday and are a sea of red today. No new information was released, it’s not like the candidates suddenly revealed secret anti-datacenter plans…
The election is the information, at bare minimum it provides certainty. In this case the certainty that the legislative process will be more measured with a split government, so you can generally plan for no major legislative changes for two years. That’s positive news for markets.
It’s just the market calibrating to the election results. It rallied with positive sentiment, but it’s possible it over shot and investors/traders are capitalizing on that. Usually negative impacts are larger and for shorter periods than growth, whether you’re talking about short term noise or longer term trends. So today’s drop was maybe an overcorrection to yesterday’s gain.
My tinfoil hat theory is the reality of corruption investigations is beginning to settle in and the rats are trying to dump their holdings so they can claim they didn't make anything from insider trading.
>Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
It's because AI is mostly smoke and mirrors. None of the AI products are profitable, and have zero path to profitability. It's all circular financing to create the image of value.
I've been in Silicon Valley for 20+ years. People need to understand the best thing an Entrepreneur can do is sell his idea to someone with deep pockets. Founders, Banks, Media - are all in it together to sell retail investors on AI concepts that provide little value, and CERTAINLY aren't worth the asking price.
Would anyone pay $200/mo to have Perplexity make slop images? Maybe a few people... But not enough to fund the datacenter buildout. But they gotta hype it up, have the IPO, and flee to Argentina.
The US economy is propped up by healthcare services and pharmaceuticals, both of which have an outsized share of GDP. Healthcare has floated the economy for almost two decades now. It doesn’t flex as much even with broader downturns.
Remove tech stocks (esp AI stocks) and US markets are flat or down. Include inflation spikes and devaluation of USD and it's absolutely negative.
Remember, Biden's policies had us headed to a -1% improvement on inflation, or it falling 1%. Trump, in just 2 years, has flipped that to a +2.9% increase (I think CPI). Net of about +4% inflation in 2 years is...bad
Most industries are already in a recession. AI will only exacerbate that.
The economy isn't propped up by a single industry. But a single sector can easily drive the growth of the economy.
>Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
No. But degree of regulation is a large part of the reason that the tech industry in Europe has not taken off, whereas in the US it has been driving the economy.
Europe is currently rethinking it's regulatory approach to the tech industry.
That certainly hasn't been the case with the tech sector for the past 25 years. Even taking into account the dot com crash, far more value was created than destroyed by the companies that went under.
Interesting perspective there. I was a very young man then, just trying to keep my head above water, but I don't recall how more value was created by a company that went under.
Not meant as a slight against your point, just curious about more information regarding it.
Value wasn't created by companies that went under. They destroyed capital. But, the few companies that survived, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook(now Meta), Google(now Alphabet), etc, are some of the most valuable companies in the world.
The few winners created vast amounts of value and capital, that is much larger than the amount destroyed by the many losers.
I expect something similar to happen with AI. Many companies will fail. Staggering sums of money will be destroyed. And the winners will probably be significantly more valuable than the sum of all the destroyed value.
But how much of that vast capital from the few tech companies has translated into jobs and wages and middle class growth? Compared to previous economy-defining industries like railroads, automobiles, or even investment banking?
That feels like a very technical, academic question that I'm not able to answer. But I do feel fairly confident in saying that over the past 25 years, inflation adjusted median family income has risen significantly, so the average family doesn't seem to be missing out
Amazon has killed thousands of businesses and is in the process of murdering the idea that products last longer than a season. Netflix has made your local movie theater, and thousands of theaters just like it, into ghost towns. Facebook and Google will steal your location data and listen in on your most private moments to try to sell advertisements to other corporations.
"Value" isn't just economic, it has to related to people for the value to have any meaning, and the tech companies have no meaning within them. They are like settler colonialism: Sure some people make out like bandits, but only because they are doing bandit shit. The rest of us are left with no value with a new leash around our necks.
I certainly am, it works very well for me. Seems to be what people, in general, want, considering they pay for it. It's hard to beat 2 day delivery, if not faster, and endless entertainment at home.
I'm sorry we don't follow your preferences for small businesses and movie theaters.
Yea, I'm going to have to disagree. These companies have become fabulously wealthy, and so have been good for their shareholders, but they have not innovated in a net benefit. They simply became monopolies that now use that position as a way for them to extract wealth from both their individual and business clients, while continuing to offer a poorer experience and eliminating new opportunities for innovation from competing firms.
And now they want to continue to destroy wealth by tying the future to AI.
And before we think that will be a net benefit to us all, I have to ask what about their past behavior should encourage me to believe that they are interested in sharing their future wealth because of AI with any of us plebs?
I'd argue they will only continue to horde any wealth they generate.
And I'm going to have to tell you that I strongly disagree with you about them not innovating a net benefit.
Amazon, with 2 day delivery, or faster, has revolutionized commerce and allowed me to save thousands by ordering parts directly from the manufacturer, bypassing the OEM markup.
Netflix, Amazon, and others, make basically endless entertainment available at home at ridiculously cheap prices. If you remember renting movies from Blockbuster, you understand.
Facebook is great for keeping in touch with people, and Facebook marketplace is the world's best flea market. Again, thousands of dollars saved.
>And before we think that will be a net benefit to us all, I have to ask what about their past behavior should encourage me to believe that they are interested in sharing their future wealth because of AI with any of us plebs?
Why do I care? I've already benefited massively from what they offer. They have made my life so much easier and cheaper.
>I'd argue they will only continue to horde any wealth they generate.
Cool. Buy their stock so you can be entitled to their profits. Why would you get money as some uninvolved rando who doesn't participate?
My experience, and bear in mind it's only my experience, has been that the products and services these companies offer have gotten progressively worse and more costly over the years.
They are simply techno-feudalists at this point, charging rent to access the digital space they hold a monopoly over.
I think the only improvements will come with anti-trust regulation, followed by monopoly break-ups and future competition.
I know, it's an overly simplistic view, but it's just how I see it from where I am standing.
Pirating entertainment and going to the physical store is always an option. Or just going without. It's not like you are obligated to pay for these things
I'm not saying their aren't downsides to the corporations who want to serve up endless content to engage you regardless of the impact to your mental health or the accuracy of the information. But, man, if you can sift through the endless pig shit, there are diamonds galore in here.
The article mentions Caterpillar. Its market cap is $260B and its trajectory looks a lot like any of the other tech stocks. By "single industry" I think you mean software, but Caterpillar is not an AI-adjacent company, but looking at its stock motion over the past year, it looks like one. I think the AI talk is myopic, clearly there's a lot more going on here.
> refuse to acknowledge that you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry, let alone a single technological development.
It’s not.
> Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
The economy didn’t tank. The stock market dropped 3%.
People consistently oversell changes in the market as catastrophic. It gets really tiresome and one loses any interest in following financial news, which is a shame
Also the gold rush sucks up all the free capital that could be in other industries creating returns; there's a bunch of medical research, materials engineering, energy research and production, personal/commercial/industrial construction, and who knows what else that isn't happening because everyone is chasing the fantasy of what the AI data centers could be instead of what it actually is.
Particularly when said industry is building its valuations on thin air and hype. A lot of these companies are basically just trying out the meme stock route that Elon pioneered. Many of them, including SpaceX and Tesla, need to be brought back to reality.
I didn't say they haven't, I said it is highly unstable if something happens to said industries. Which can literally be seen right now in both of them... There's a reason why the middle east is so desperate to move away from being solely reliable on oil for their economy, things do not stay the same forever.
I’ve always thought it odd that this incredible complex economic system, which is hard data in numbers and other things has its entire value at the mercy of 1% of the populations feelings.
All the "experts" are just paid guessers, and they're wrong a lot.
It's just that the market began reacting to the guesses, instead of ignoring the speculations, like a professional athlete following crowd direction instead of the coach. From that point on, the "market" has been in a positive feedback loop with fewer & fewer regulations.
At this point, it's destabilizing cuz that's what positive feedback loops do, and most folks are so busy trying to rack up more points that they've forgotten how the system is supposed to work.
Yep. Reps shocked they lost when toting GDP numbers that were all driven by AI thus benefiting AI companies and employees, while everyone else got left in the dust.
Healthcare should be a priority. We have a great healthcare system that only the wealthy can access comfortably. It's a shame that people travel to other countries to get minor dental or surgical procedures done.
We could be investing in so many things besides oil and tech. How about a sustainable gardening/farming network? Maybe bring back summer jobs for fire prevention? Create more youth tech programs for welding and manufacturing, and ramp up jobs programs at the same time.
We should be finding jobs for people that will benefit everyone.
AI has potential to be useful for a lot of things, but right now it's sucking up all of the computer parts. What about businesses that need to buy computers?
It's also sucking up all of the capital. Combine that with the general increase in interest rates, and I would think that's an issue for new or expanding businesses.
I'm not an economist, but this feels like too many eggs in one basket, to the detriment of almost all other industries that aren't directly involved in the AI supply chain.
It's 5% of an index that is largely made of vapor and vibes. Not the whole economy. Stings if you own some of it, but let's keep things in perspective.
I'm hoping some rational return to pre-tariff trade and rebuilding our cross-country trade relations will counteract a whole lot of "AI slowdowns" that frankly needed to have happened in 2025.
There's this old saying of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Guess our government forgot. I think the other money maker is healthcare for investors, I could be wrong. Some wallstreet bro come and correct me please.
I totally agree, and I also think the bizarre DEI push was as well. The glorification of extremely non-productive (in the economic sense) roles meant there was so much money your companies could be spending on salaries for roles that frankly did nothing to help the bottom line.
>It’s very funny to me how all the “economic experts” in all of these threads about this refuse to acknowledge that you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry, let alone a single technological development.
Counterpoint: basic hygiene, healthcare, agriculture, oil, electricity. Our economy would crash if we lost the benefits of any one of these.
It’s funny to me that people can elect people who openly attack said industry and want to regulate the hell out of it wont create issues. Then blame said industry. It’s almost like an actual open free market economy is a good thing and the government getting involved isn’t having an open market.
AI and data center CapEx were the only thing keeping the US from having zero real GDP growth. Dems have already announced they are going to attempt to freeze or add red tape to data centers and AI development. Also, many of the states previously seen as safe to build things in (primarily Texas) are now less attractive.
Pretty clearly going to be near zero or negative growth in the short term.
True but we as a society need to decide whether we would like to continue propping up the economy by creating trillionaires while ordinary people languish economically and suffer the consequences of climate change or languish economically while we try to do something about climate change and financial disparity
I don’t think that is a convincing argument. There is tons of demand for data centers - nearly everyone, including us commenting here, uses them, and exponential AI use growth shows the revealed preferences of the average person.
If the data centers are not built in the US, which has relatively good environmental regulations, they will be built in other countries with less environmental laws and any local emissions will concentrate near poorer global populations.
Americans are not really fine with data centers near them though they all love the product of data centers.
43/44 anti data center bills on ballots passed this election, even against projects powered entirely by clean solar and using recycled cooling water.
It’s the same NIMBYism that has affected housing - everyone is fine with abstract apartments, as long as they are somewhere else. But there is no somewhere else, because everyone everywhere opposes the local construction.
Many companies are not “acting shady”. People just universally oppose large construction projects in modern America. I cannot even imagine attempting something as ambitious as the highway system or the Hoover Dam today lol
Saying a dozen or so data centers have used unpermitted generators or done unpermitted construction is not a great counterpoint. There are 6k data centers nationally. That level of compliance, if anything, is high. I can’t imagine a single digit % of any manufacturing or industrial sector are following environmental laws.
Y'know that's fair, because there are a lot of other examples they didn't mention. A lot of local town hall meetings about data centers have been pretty aggressive towards their constituents, for example certain information being presented to the council but then censored from the public.
So I live in a small Midwest town where there's a data center fight going on at the moment. There are people who are ardently against them no matter what. But there are many of us who are against because it's a terrible deal for us, but are open to it under different terms. Our city is revenue starved because city council thinks TIFs and other tax incentives are a magic bullet that can fix all of our problems. As usual, the city wants to give a 10 year tax deal to the data center. The company isn't going to use local construction and development businesses here. There is no additional noise limits, which concerns people who are close. There's no deal with the developers paying for power grid expansions of rate increases, and our city is small enough that a data center could significantly increase our energy use, which raises everyone's bills.
So why exactly shouldn't we fight this? The city is rolling out the red carpet for a private company and in return our city gets little to no economic benefit. At the most they might bring less than 10 jobs, but there's no guarantee they won't move staffing here instead as many data centers are doing.
Yes. Another thing too, everyone loves to say oh you use the Internet and AI but you don't want the data center in your city. It's a nonsensical point. Consumer demand is not really driving the build out, it's a drop in the bucket. It's tech and other industries who want compute for AI, big data, and various modeling and computational work. These things aren't being built so we can watch cat tiktoks and ask chatgpt for a summary of whatever random topic.
It is about money. If you offered my state a good deal, we'd take it.
But they want 10 years of no taxes, they want non union labor, they dont want to build their own power stations
They essentially want to be treated like a company that will bring a location 1000 jobs without providing 1000 jobs.
I personally sell to 2 data centers here in NJ. Older ones.
They have NO noise pollution and no one cares about their existence. Why are new data centers so loud? Is it just the company skimping out? Do they need to be that loud now?
The loud ones are the ones with on-site turbines for power generation. Turbines are there because grid around them either does not have enough power for them yet or can't handle the draw from a data center properly.
The noise should subside after new power plants are built in the regions they are deployed since using those turbines are really expensive and rather inefficient for the data center. There are other solutions for power as well (it became a whole specialized sector), but I know turbine powered power plants are definitely the loud ones.
Its funny because I also sell supplies to 2 power plants that supply enough power to cover all of Philadelphia and the surrounding areas and they also make no noise.
They also built them in cornfields where no one ever complains about them.
To add to what the other responder said, the quieter data centers are possibly DPU or CPU -based. These new ones are GPU-based tho so that’s going to be louder and be a lot more energy hungry
They do soundproofing but GPUs are just that much louder. Unfortunately, there’s only so much that can be blocked. Supposedly the liquid cooled campuses are better soundproofing but there’s still the energy consumption issue to handle which adds more noise on top of the cards
This is not really accurate. Smaller counties and regions face the same local opposition that bigger counties do. And most AI development is already happening in “unused land” away from residential areas, since the land costs are lower and permitting is less complicated.
Because it doesn’t make sense to build apartments in rural areas. And they’re notoriously hard to build in cities
Everyone loves roasting Chinese ghost cities, but that’s sort of adjacent to what your advocating
But the idea isn’t so bad, because these cities probably cost less than building a single high rise in a major city like Manhattan. A lot to be said for building it out before people are around
In my opinion, this isn’t really about data centers, that’s just the use-case du jour.
This is about over four decades of economic and social policy that has consistently concentrated the gains into the few at the expense of the many.
Globalization, tech advancements, environmental regulations, labor regulations, tax policy, social programs, healthcare, education…since ~1980 the US has consistently made choices that have driven more and more income and wealth inequality and, at the same time, created negative environmental and social impacts for the majority of people.
That trend is, quite simply, not sustainable. The past decade has started to increasingly expose the fractures. We have to fix it. We have to do better. Otherwise it’s a death spiral if we’re lucky, or an outright collapse if we’re not.
How many other buzz words you have to throw in there ? It makes no sense. Economic growth benefits us all, leading to higher standard of living and enable more industries being created.
Unless you get lung cancer from burning data center turbines and die. Every single member of my family has had a different type of cancer. We grew up in Texas with little to no environmental protections. I know it played a role in our sickness.
Data centers currently account for 0.5% of US greenhouse gas emissions. I do not believe the analysis you shared by the Sierra Club is accurate. The Sierra Club estimates ~650m tons of excess emissions due to new buildouts. Compare to other sources:
- the Union of Concerned Scientists, another anti-AI / biased source, estimates 350m tons, or about half
- Frontiers in Sustainability estimates as little as 40m tons, or about 1/15th
- Bloomberg estimates about 1/4
I think, particularly with dems taking charge, most new data centers will be mandated to use solar, so even those estimates from pre-election seem high.
Not get rid of them, but strongly limit their ability to harm citizens with their externalities, yes. We should be strictly limiting emissions and other negative effects from industry on the environment
Sorry that doesn't work out well for your portfolio, but we should not be allowing people to harm citizens in the pursuit of profits. Period
Local labor contracts don’t really work for hyperscale data centers. There literally aren’t enough skilled workers or contractors in smaller counties to build these.
This is the same mentality of why Europe is being utterly dominated by the United States and China right now
Nobody is against all environmental regulations, but if you're singling out data centers which are probably one of the least resource wasting and least polluting industries in America, then we have no hope for any other industry.
Are you opposed to driving and flying as well ? Also do you eat beef ? Of course any changes do have effects. We just have to balance it out, try to help affected people to soften the blow but you can't completely not Inconvenience anyone if you want any progress at all.
one of the greatest benefits that nobody appreciates is that trillionaires can make democracy impossible by having the power to influence elections. the reason this is beneficial is because it creates more trillionaires, and economic growth benefits us all. unless democracy is your thing, but if so you hate the economy.
This is a sloppy subreddit and I think the mods do a relatively poor job of keeping focus on real economic research, which is a bummer. It’s mostly populist political stuff with a smidge of econ analysis.
We literally have a K-shaped economy with historic levels of wealth inequality, and you're over here still trying to convince people that economic growth benefits everyone. The Republicans losing the built-in electoral advantage they had in the Senate contradicts your thesis here. Economic growth certainly can benefit everyone, but it is definitely not a universal truth.
Obviously the weight loss comment is different than the curing cancer comment.
In August of this year, Moderna stock doubled in one day because they announced their AI-developed cancer vaccine worked in a human trial with 1,000 patients. They believe the AI cancer vaccine personalization process will be applicable to many types of cancer.
Well forgive me for not seeing how "people won't be able to afford super drugs to cure cancer" wasn't addressed by your comment of "AI was used for a completely different application and it turned out affordable"
Which also fails to acknowledge nothing is affordable if you've got no income, and the stated goal of these AI companies is to destroy millions of jobs.
Think critically for a second here. Of course I can’t claim “people can afford cancer cures” on AI-related cancer treatment, because they are mostly still in development - people can’t buy them yet! I showed you how AI is already improving / making more accessible other drugs that are already on the market.
If your only argument against AI cancer treatments is some people can’t afford them, color me not convinced - right now ZERO people get personalized cancer vaccines because they don’t exist. If eventually, only people with insurance can get them, that’s great because 90% of people have insurance, and those 90% of people will be better off because of AI.
Actual evidence suggests yes. GLP-1s like retatrutide are manufactured with AI assistance and that is now the fastest growing class of drug in the entire US, within just a few years of launch. And those drugs are relatively affordable to even the uninsured.
lol the fact this is the top comment on a Reddit thread about AI really means you should take the opposite side. Just because Dems won majorities of congress doesn’t mean a freeze on all data centers is going to happen. Nor is it now “pretty clearly” going to be zero or negative growth.
No one said "freeze on all data centers," why needlessly strawman?
But the people of the US did aggressively vote against data centers in the election, it happened. Pro-data center incumbents were routed, while data center critics swept major races in states that, as the person you responded to ACTUALLY said, were viewed as "pretty safe" from regulation issues.
Trenton, Ohio voted 80%-20% to ban all new data centers. This is a town of roughly 14,000 people in what used to be deep red Ohio.
I get it's easy to get upvotes acting like the peoples' votes won't matter, but they will. And yes it matters that Texas Democrats won every statewide race because they explicitly ran on corruption, affordability and being anti-data center. Guess what? Most Americans view all three issues as inextricably intertwined.
You can disagree with the voters all you want, put screaming that we're not allowed to look at how election results will affect policy while on an academic subreddit, of all places, is frankly hilarious because your comment fully explains why Republicans got once in a generation wrecked.
Listening to Joe Kearns on CNBC yesterday cry about GDP numbers was maddening, like dude, take away the CapEx from the AI buildout and what is that number really? To say nothing of how so little of the growth in the economy actually trickles down to working people.
The data center buildout has been a financial boon for people working in trades (construction, pipefitting, electricians, etc.). What are you even talking about.
It absolutely is for normal working people. Anyone who makes sensible career decisions and regularly contributes to their 401k will eventually have capital gains that exceed their salary.
Lots of people don't do that, which is fundamentally a financial education problem. The solution is to make sure people understand the importance of holding stock, instead of trying to change the system to devalue the stock market.
I have 0 sympathy for people who don't put money in their retirement funds.
I'm not some high paid tech/finance bro, i just have a normal job and i have 7 figures in my retirement account because i live a fairly simple/frugal lifestyle and put most of my money in my ira/401k and have done so for decades.
Your personal experience says nothing about the experience of everyone else and if you constantly compare others to your best parts, you will always look down on people.
Again, your experience says nothing of the experience of others and you don't get to just force a world view onto other people, especially if your world view is just "the capitalists won so become one or die"
Erm, the buildout of the data centers is estimated to create ~400,000 good paying trade jobs. Many of those trade jobs are paying *way* above average for their fields right now. That's not nothing.
I work in AEC and this is the part nobody ever carves out when specific projects are discussed in terms of job creation. During construction there are hundreds of workers, if not thousands on larger sites, that will work on the project during design and construction. After the project is built those jobs only exist if other similar projects are coming online. You see this kind of bolstering of numbers a lot specifically with large scale infrastructure type projects all the time and it is so clearly not what is commonly meant when we talk about job creation.
There are tons of jobs in the economy that don't have five year certainty windows. How many software engineers are goingt o be around in five years and compared to five years ago?
400,000 is cumulative though I’ve never seen that number. At any one time it’s around 30,000 construction jobs with an additional 30,000 with jobs adjacent to it. 60,000 consistent jobs is not worth it in any way.
doubtful in my state (michigan). the republicans just got completely wiped out of state government. I’m a regulator and the industry i regulate is having AI job displacement, but that has mostly led to no new hiring. Basically, the companies i regulate are growing more than ever but they aren’t hiring or firing, but instead growing with increased use of AI. I feel terrible for new college grads, they don’t stand a chance
And once the construction ends then most of the jobs will be gone. AI data centers need little maintenance or actual employees on a daily basis. Construction could be better used for our infrastructure: better roads, high speed trains, or green energy
Here's the rub, the data center money isn't federal money, it is private money. So sure, taking private money to build things you want is better for you than things you don't want? News?
Because Joe's argument was that voters should not be upset about the economy since GDP was 3% or whatever it was, but a large portion of that number is just CapEx spend for the buildout and not a representation of an economy that is growing and "rising all boats".
Only a small sliver of the population is actually benefiting from AI.
> but a large portion of that number is just CapEx spend for the buildout and not a representation of an economy that is growing and "rising all boats".
This is literally how ALL GDP growth works.
Do you think economies grow by uniformly expanding all industries at the same time??? Lol
Economies at the frontier of the innovation curve grow by developing new technologies and then expanding those technologies. Stacking S-curves. That’s just how it works. It makes no sense to remove one of those S-curves and then claim there’s no growth.
BUT THAT MEANS JOE'S ARGUMENT IS STUPID. Dont you get it? Using GDP numbers as an argument for why regular working people shouldn't feel down about the affordable crisis is a bad argument.
But we know that gross GDP is correlated with things like standard of living and GDP growth is correlated with unemployment and wage growth. It doesn’t matter if that GDP growth is only because of one industry because that’s how all GDP growth works, and yet it’s still correlated with things that benefit average worked.
Nothing else is growing because AI is sucking all the air out of the room, soaking up capital and creating uncertainty. If there was no AI boom, we’d have the normal stifled growth we always have under republicans for the last 100 years
Yeah by the way as they fucking should. These things are destroying eco systems and using insane amounts of power and resources for a reason that cant be explained. I just hope the taxpayers arent on the hook for bailing them out
I agree. It can roll out but the 0 oversight it’s had has been reckless and hurtful. The environment, its cost on citizens, its use, and future utility all need to be considered carefully.
That’s definitely not true. If they weren’t investing that money in data center construction, they would be investing it in other parts of the economy, and the GDP growth would be coming from there in stead.
All that money doesn’t just cease to exist without the data centers.
The hyperscalers are hoovering up all the resources that other businesses would use for growth. If a small business owner wants to add 100 employees, he has to find a way to source 100 new computers, and when he find them, they come at more than double the cost they were before this all started. Consumers are spending more money on electricity and water that should be going into the economy. And those are just the first two things I thought of. The domino effects of the AI industry and hyperscalers are EVERYWHERE.
Large tech companies have gone all in on AI and some of the main drivers of the current market growth are specifically AI companies who aren't profitable without further scaling.
I'd partially agree, but a lot of capital may have already been badly misallocated. Nvidias's and Micron's margins have eaten a lot of investment, and how productive that'll actually be is debatable. A lot of the funding is also coming from just four very profitable companies, who'd otherwise be spending much of it on buybacks instead of investing in future productivity.
The lasting damage may be that the US government made a gamble that AI will bring a productivity miracle that will let them solve all their debt and demographic issues painlessly, with no tax increases. That narrative has made them feel comfortable further ballooning the deficit and pushing more unfunded tax cuts that'll be politically difficult to reverse.
It just has to be attractive areas to deploy. The rate of return on AI data center build out has been much higher than building a new home or other parts of economy. That’s why people chose to allocate capital there
good. fuck AI and the data centers they rode in on. I was just in ruby red rural ohio and the residents there are pissed at the massive data center outside Bowling Green. The residents in a small town near me in michigan just voted the entire board out over a proposed data center outside of town. Nobody but incel Elon chuds wants this technology
The data centers that serve internet and the data centers that run AI are not interchangeable at all. You might as well point out that we all used computers/phones to type this.
They are not. All data centers are just rows of servers that get rented out to whoever rents them. Sometimes the tenants rent them out for AI training or for AI users, which is where a lot of the demand growth is coming from. Other times it’s stuff like Netflix, or Reddit, or anything on the internet. I rent out a small server in Ohio for a website. But the actual data centers themselves are not different. There is just more demand now due to AI so people are building bigger ones.
They are literally the same thing. You do not know what you are talking about.
You can make an argument that data center demand growth is because of growth in AI demand, but actual data centers are literally not different for AI vs internet. Individual servers can do either, and it just depends on who the renter of a specific server is.
No, he is precisely correct. Data centers being built to support AI functions are in many cases radically different from traditional server farms
In many different ways, but just one that I will point out is that AI data centers are often 10 to 25 times more power intensive per rack, then traditional content servers. If you stop and think about what the purpose of them is for a minute, you'll see that this is not surprising
> In many different ways, but just one that I will point out is that AI data centers are often 10 to 25 times more power intensive per rack, then traditional content servers.
This is just more land efficient. It is easier to cool and power a small, dense rack than a huge sprawling rack. It doesn't change the fundamental question which is power consumption and land value.
Latency and the fact that "less regulated" countries tend to be corrupt dictatorships that you don't want to have in control of billions of dollars worth of the world's most expensive tech.
Like which dictators are you thinking of here? I can only think of Xi who is generally quite steady, but he prevented Meta from setting up in China because he wanted control of their servers.
Where are all the sensible, pro-tech freedom dictators? Name names!
Oh yes they'd probably love data centers. Cooling would be fun in their climate. Solar power would be great there, if the techlords can bear to dirty themselves with it.
So you are dismissing it just because it doesn't fit with your worldview? I always find it funny when people pretend they know what they are talking about.
They are starting to do that more often. Google announced in the past 24 hours that they are investing $15b into Malaysian data centers.
In the US, prior to this election, ~80% of data center spend was going to less regulated southern states. So the same pattern will play out if those state become more regulated, but with countries.
It is and it's another one of his "hype" ideas that is meant to keep his fanboys invested. Like so many of his promises, it's just stupid in reality. Space is not a good or even cheap means of having datacenters.
It's only for hype and press. Data centres in space make no sense. Latency and cooling are near-insurmountable problems. Plus who is going to go in there and fix things when there's a problem? A truck roll should not cost $20,000,000.
Anyone who believes the Dems are going to do anything other than prevent data centers from being built in wealthy areas pays zero attention to politics and/or how lobbying works
That was actually part of Biden’s infrastructure bill and republicans rejected it. The original bill had like $300 billion in housing investments built into it before it got gutted. American voters all rejected this lol
“President Biden originally proposed $213 billion to $318 billion in housing investments—aimed at producing, preserving, and retrofitting over 2 million affordable and sustainable homes and building or rehabilitating more than 500,000 low- and middle-income homes—as part of his broader Build Back Better agenda. However, these housing provisions were not enacted as part of the final bipartisan infrastructure law.”
Yep the reason we don’t have nice things is that the Republicans fillibuster everything and Dems have never had a 2/3 majority in the past 50 years except for just one month when we passed the Affordable Care Act
Many of the laws and permitting processes used to stall or stop housing are also used against industrial or commercial uses like data centers too though.
because that would benefit not rich people and not rich people dont have as much money
Zoning and regulation is a nightmare, but tbh the data center bs really proved how little those rules mattered when push came to shove. The political will was just behind one and not the other
I would just like to point out the counter point to this claim, but when you remove the 4 or 5 largest companies from comparison, of course it looks ugly.
that's not true - the data centers cause enough health issues to require more healthcare jobs to handle the increased traffic to the hospital, so they're also responsible for job growth.
They are already regulated pretty heavily. Many of them interact with NEPA on top of arduous local permitting processes, in addition to a rapidly expanding set of state and local laws.
Reality is reality. Tech spending can't insulate every other industry from fallout of tech products. It's also more circular today than ever with nvidia investing in AIPRODUCT which then buys nvidia gpus. The infinite GDP glitch is gone.
We already had sub zero GDP growth. GDP is determined by stripping out nominal inflation from the GDP data to see what the actual change is to the production value of goods and services.
And all that requires is you believe the NOMINAL inflation rate is real.
But what happens if real inflation is 20% but they remove a huge hunk of that inflation because it is tariffs (tax) and taxes are not counted in the prices people pay, so they print a 3.6% CPI for the year? They will take the GDP calculation and strip out 3.6% of that to adjust for this bogus nominal inflation and it is still barely 1.5% up. In reality they needed to strip out at least the 20% that is what we really experienced as a price increase even though a large part of the increase was an illegal tax. Or in the following year oil related increases from a moronic war in the Middle East that is disrupting supply chains.
And once the prices went up they never went back down, and while the cash taxed out of you and me was returned, it was returned to corporations who had already passed that tax on to us as higher costs. We never got a single dime of it back.
So, REAL GDP is falling rapidly, it was probably larger at the beginning of the Great Depression, but not by that much. And we will see if the supply chains are disrupted or permanently damaged with higher energy prices going forward.
I do know that refining margins for the big oil companies are up in the 100% to 600% range and not just record profits, but some like BP used the windfall to settle all remaining debt from the Deepwater Horizon accident years early. And I also know Trump was bragging before the election how great the war is for profits and how many people were becoming millionaires and billionaires from all the refining windfall profits. So, about 0.00001% of the population actually make more money from fuel price increases than they are paying at the pumps. The rest of the 99.9999% are getting ripped a new financial asshole every time they fill up. And that alone accounts for a big part of the democrats wins.
Closer to 4.8%. A few lenders are offering 6.5% with no points for borrowers with excellent credit. They are saying that demand for agency MBS has increased and the mortgage spread has narrowed.
Sure, its possible, I don't watch lending rates anymore. However a 6.5% mortgage is still brutal in the 25 year context or so. Moreover, housing prices haven't come down much at all to adjust for the higher rates and construction costs are ridiculously elevated.
I just finished building another home and my price per ft was ~440. The last house I build was 9 years ago and it was ~190/ft, similar finishes and size.
Many buyers were priced out when rates went to 7.5% and have been waiting on the sidelines. Many of them will be able to afford the home they want at 6.5% and jump into the market.
Then there are states such as FL where the property tax reduction amendment passed and the property tax on a homesteaded property will go down by $2500 a year. Thats a $200+ per month reduction in the monthly payment and will additionally spur home buying.
Housing market has lagged for the last 2 years whereas the tech stocks soared. Now the pendulum has started swinging in the other direction.
I would be very careful operating under the notion that the housing market is going to see an upswing. Prices remain high, construction prices remain high, the job market and stock market is getting pretty damn jittery.
Is it time for a little bit of profit taking or could I even ask about some bearish puts even shorts?
Yes I know this is the story some of us want but growth is still ahead.
If you are in it for the long haul, buying an index fund after a 4% drop is basically never a bad move. Unless the stock market turns into Japan from 1990-2024
There are a lot of really good takes on this post. I just wanna add something purely political. If we see a major correction because of a move away from AI stocks, it only underlines the weakness of Trump’s economy, it’s lack of diversity and foolishness in defensive tariffs add wars that drive up energy costs. If we can’t survive one industries correction, well then we didn’t have much of an economy to begin with
Eh, most voters weren't getting the benefits of the AI industry and aren't as leveraged into it as, say, their own homes in 2008. It's not going to be painless, but it's not going to be a great recession or covid level event.
I don't think that holds. Thinking of AI as one industry is naive. It'll have impacts in every industry. More akin to a factor of production, like labor.
Nasdaq CTA Artificial Intelligence Index (
NQINTEL): Tracks 58 public companies across technology, industrial, medical, and other sectors involved in AI and robotics, with a recent value around 4,362.69.[
1]
MSCI Global Artificial Intelligence Index: Captures 100 leading global AI companies selected via relevance scores, market-cap weighted with a 10% cap, covering a massive global universe
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iSTOXX AI Global Artificial Intelligence Large 100: Targets 100 large multi-industry companies heavily investing in AI development, featuring top components like NVIDIA, Meta Platforms, Alphabet, and AMD. [
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AI-INDEX 15: Comprises 15 core pure-play AI-focused companies (such as Palantir, CrowdTrail, ServiceNow, and Synopsys) weighted by market capitalization. [
1]
BREAKING: humans unexpectedly mad about being replaced. Join us at 11 when our investigative reporters dive into the details during our special AI segment called "Why don't they just shut up and take it?"
I guess you could use AI to like advertise online for the Bar but in a world where everyone can just shit out infinite AI ads for cheap is that really providing much utility?
my first thought when I see an AI ad is “do I want to go to a shitty bar/buy a shitty product/etc from a place that can’t be bothered to do more than the bare minimum advertising?”
When my team causes the stock market to go down it is for a righteous purpose. When the other team causes the stock market to go down it is for an evil purpose.
I’m not sure how you can post something like this unironically in this sub given the fact that the last two years have been filled with evidence of how horribly this administration has been destroying the US economy, but I guess when you pretend to play the “both sides” game you don’t have to be intellectually honest.
So you think Trump should have taken anti-democratic measures to block the Democrats from winning? I'm not sure how you build resilience to losing a democratic election?
That makes zero sense. Having a halt on AI isn’t “oversight”, it’s backwards. Yes, I want a lawmaker who barely has enough capacity to operate a computer to halt a bleeding edge technology while they try to figure out a way to either line their pockets or make it ineffective out of fear of the unknown. Democrats used to be the party of technology and moving forward but that type of policy is completely backwards.
> When democracy causes the stock market to go down it is for a righteous purpose. When fascist criminals cause the stock market to go down it is for an evil purpose.
Yes? Oversight and applying the rule of law is a good thing. If that makes markets fall then clearly the markets were corrupt and abusing their power.
When the president's buddies make billions in oil bets minutes before he speaks about Iran and his war, something is wrong.
When the president makes more stock trades than all of congress, something is wrong.
When the president buys $28mil in Dell stock days before announcing a partnership with Dell, something is wrong.
When the president's sons sit on the boards of gambling companies whos ee sweetheart deals and regulation, something is wrong.
When the president's sons sit on the boards of defense contractors seeing tens of billions in government contracts, something is wrong.
When the president's son in law is caught overseeing hundreds of billions of payments and slush funds while acting as an unregistered foreign agent and dealmaker for the country, something is wrong.
When the president's son operated a massive crypto scam raking in billions and sees no investigation, something is wrong.
Do you get it yet or are you in support of corruption, grift, theft, greed, and fraud?
Welp, now's the part where we deal with all the debt the GOP ran up this time.
I've already seen the hard left start to go at Dem leadership, just because that's what they do. Thank god they were irrelevant this year. This is referring more to the grifters than the DSA candidates, glad they won.
The debt level has reached unsustainable levels. Somehow in our society when the GOP is in charge, with the media playing right along, we get to hold air for a bit at times.
And then the reality of national GOP governance hits. Again.
The Dems are the only adults in the room, but the media will once again play against them, as usual. All the problems will be because of the Dems, like they'll say this drop is their fault. So convenient for them, it's never Trump's unless it's already gold plated.
We've first off got to end the tariffs, and end the war completely.
Trump won't like that but he better triangulate or he will be swept aside.
There is no good way to end the war quickly. Trump dug us into a very big cesspool.
America created a big mess for the whole planet. America has a responsibility to help clean it up, so we can't just pack up our toys and leave. The only winning move was to have never started the war in the first place.
I mean at this point, USA can just walk away from the strait then, without talking to Iran at all. Not like things can get any worse for the relationship if they did so.
Let the global community handle it how they want to
It doesn’t benefit China if the US goes from building a few dozen interceptors per month to building thousands, which is what is happening. The US is ramping up weapon production to deal with the problem of the depletion, increasing war capabilities in the long run.
Yeah--like, if these people could turn off Fox News for a second and actually get a clear idea of how unbelievable ffffed the entire Iran situation is... it's kind of intractable, at this point. There's no good way out, and the bad ways out are unbelievably costly. This was a decision so bad it's hard to describe.
And also worth noting that going forward, there is zero, literally zero chance that Iran doesn't speedrun a nuclear bomb. Obama's treaty, imperfect though it was, literally kept a cap on progress and we had in-facility people who could make sure they didn't make progress. That kind of opportunity is gone forever.
Why do you all assume that Israel and the Arab states will allow Iran to get nuclear weapons? You realize that Israel is likely to launch a preemptive nuclear strike with Arab support to prevent that, right?
Israel has nuclear weapons and it hasn't destroyed the world yet. I don't think Iran getting nuclear weapons does anything other than give the entire world a big peaceful break from nonstop wars in the middle east.
Great… and when Iran actually gets to close to building nukes, and Israel launches its nukes preemptively to prevent them while the Arab states turn a blind eye, you’ll be crying that we didn’t do the hard thing by staying the course that we’re stuck in to prevent it.
It’s not just the US. The other Middle Eastern states won’t allow a nuclear Iran that controls the Strait of Hormuz either.
I think thats a likely scenario if we wanted to rip the band off as fast as we can, but ideally we can use the global leaders to help negotiate this out to have some better terms.
The problem with Trump was he is increasingly stubborn about these types of issues. Perhaps Iran might be more forthcoming to a newer deal jsut they also can move away from all of this.
After all, their best "nuke" is being able to close down the strait at any time they want.
But it doesn't make sense to drag this on of it continues to hurt their bottom line.
As for the nuke stuff, I think the USA should discuss this with other global leaders. It's not like we border Iran anyways. If the global leaders are fine with it, then so be it.
Stop pretending the deficits and debt are somehow a new thing or specific to a party. The driving force behind the debt is entitlement spending and tax cuts. Both parties had huge hands in both.
2026 deficit is projected at just under $2T, not the 4T you are quoting. Moreover, the deficit was flat the previous year at a bit over $1.8T and flat compared to the year before that.
Meanwhile the *increase* in medicare outlays for 2026 is estimated at ~$90B.
You're right, those increases were over the next decade and include losing ~$6 trillion from the OBB, and half a trillion from immigration and adminstrative action. So only an extra 650 billion increase per year!
And how are those not directly the result of Trump?
Now factor in what portion of that is due to increasing interest expense due to long term bond rates going from less than 2% to over 5% in the past few years.
Since this is the case, why tf would they cut taxes. I believe there is a figure that shows $10 trillion has been added to the debt just by Bushes and 1st term Trump's tax cut alone.
So why did the stable genius and party of fiscal responsibility cut them again, all the while flunging tariffs and an oil crisis, both of which increased bond rates and inflation
Interest rates are far less related to oil prices and inflation than simple global sovereign deficits and bond oversupply. That's basic macro econ, something every central banker has spoke about repeatedly for the last six months.
I don't disagree on the tax cuts, we should go back to the *full* stack of Clinton rates. That means tax hikes and subsidy cuts *for all households*.
I agree on the cuts stuff, but don't totally agree with the bond stuff.
You don't think the foreign appetite for U.S. bonds significantly lowered due to how obnoxious this current admin is, which in turn fueled the bond crisis?
It might not be a large factor but it certainly played a part, along with the untamed inflation that every country is experiencing thanks to the oil crisis and tariffs.
From a textbook, basic macro point of view doesn't bond yields and inflation go hand in hand?
Although I do yield that big tech offering higher yields also caused the yields to go higher.
But we still live in a world where could see the consequences of the tariffs and oil crisis coming from a mile away but did almost nothing to stop them.
No, not meaningfully and the best example is the target of Trump's harshest critique has been Canada and they have increased their UST holdings YoY.
End of the day investing in treasuries doesn't have much to do with a jackass carnival barker, it has to do with interest rates, securities, and alternatives. The real question you have to ask is whether or not a country would prefer to put their reserves in UST, or Yuan bonds, or Yen, etc. It's not a question of how great the treasury looks, it is a question of relative value and stability. For all the warts that DJT has, I don't think he has meaningfully changed the view in that regard and I think the fact that holding allocations havent changed much at all.
deficits have increased slower under dems would be the correct way to phrase this. The deficit hasn't gone down under any presidency since clinton. And the the total debt added each term has gone up for every president since Bush 2.
The thing is, spending under Obama and Biden was mostly done to deal with the financial crisis and Covid.
Bush set the stage with the Wars and Tax cuts and Trump went hard on the Tax cuts. The Republicans seemed to have worsened the deficit to a much higher degree
>deficits have increased slower under dems would be the correct way to phrase this. The deficit hasn't gone down under any presidency since clinton. And the the total debt added each term has gone up for every president since Bush 2.
Nah deficits go down under dems over time. Youre thinking of debt where clinton started having a surplus.
And debt isnt as bad as long as the country is growing.
Incorrect. As an example, it increased in 22, 23, and 24 (post COVID).
I am not blaming Biden's admin for that, it was largely a function of mandatory spending. That's what people don't realize, the overwhelming bulk of US spending is tied to mandatory programs which have ratcheting costs each year (SS, MCare, MCaid).
Agreed, but that was predictable too. We were never going to be able to sustain 2-3% debt financing, particularly not while flooding the market with $1-2T of new issuance per year. Then consider all of the western world is floating new issuance as well. There is simply too much debt for available capital, thus rates rise.
We were actually looking pretty good under Biden. Financing was going below 4% for the 10 year. Tariffs fucked it up and then the war. Really stupid mistakes.
The decade of america really got destroyed by this guy.
We could have had some tweaking and been really good for decades. Now I'm not sure what we will do. If you raise taxes youll immediately lose like bush sr. But if you dont then it might explode at some point.
Biden was a balance of growing faster than the debt for a bit but changing demographics will destory it
I think it is wrong to attribute treasury yields to administrations. They *really* don't have a lot of input on how Mr.Market treats new issuance. Moreover, in order for your position to make logical sense you would need to have a disconnect between the US and other western nations... you don't. Global sovereign debt costs have all correlated in the same direction almost perfectly. That supports my hypothesis, in that there is an oversupply/saturation of sovereign debt, far more than yours imo.
Take a step back and ask yourself if banks and financial institutions are really going to price trillions in debt differently because of orange man bad. They don't, they haven't, and they won't. It's an entirelty different decision making process.
>Eurozone bonds have the weakest and least stable link. The rolling correlation fell to roughly zero from spring to autumn 2025. That fits two events I know of: in March 2025 Germany announced a fiscal and defense spending package that pushed Bund yields up, and in April 2025 the US tariff shock sent Treasuries down while euro bonds held up. By mid-2026 the correlation had rebuilt to about 0.8, and it has since faded to about 0.43.
>Take a step back and ask yourself if banks and financial institutions are really going to price trillions in debt differently because of orange man bad. They don't, they haven't, and they won't. It's an entirelty different decision making process.
If thats your takeaway then you dont understand why orange man bad. Hes bad because he disrupts global order and budgets with trade wars and you have to price in the risk of him for example starting a war for literally no reason. Especially when hes unconstrained by congress or judicial branch. Correlation goes down once countries make plans for such things as opening other trade partners or partnering with china over the usa etc.
COVID era was a pretty similar situation when the US treasury flooded the market with a sudden influx of $2T in unanticipated bonds. Ultimately this is a supply v demand issue and elasticity in pricing.
Outstanding sovereign debt issurance has climbed by more than 10% per year for each of the last two years. We, the globe, are simply pumping too much debt into a market that is capital constrained to absorb it. Look at foreign holders of US debt YoY. Canada up. Germany up. UK up. Belgium, way up. The downs? China down huge, Japan down slight.
The issue is the fact that global sovereign debt is rising at ~$6T a year the last two years against an 2024 figure of $59T. $6T is just too big a number, I think it really is that simple.
What do you expect Dems to actually do about the debt? There is no solution. The largest contributors to the deficit are mandatory entitlements that are politically impossible to cut.
Not pass a Big Beautiful Bill, for starters. It's projected to increase deficits by 4.7 trillion by 2035 while also somehow reducing medicaid spending by $1.2 trillion. So we literally get more debt with less services.
Like come on, these are easy answers here. It's literally "Undo what Republicans have done". We have still last a ton of revenue ever since the corporate tax rate was reduced from 35% to 21% in 2017 with his first admin.
If you undo what republicans have done you just end up with smaller deficits. There are no easy answers. We have an entitlement structure that no longer works with our current demographic trajectory, and in 10 years the interest expense on the debt will be over $2tn a year at current pace, $1.2tn a year if we balanced the budget today. We are all fighting over dollars that don't exist.
Smaller deficits buy time. Time that is necessary for the generation on Social Security and Medicare to shuffle off the mortal coil.
Once those mandatory entitlement spending numbers fall back down to the more normal curve, then there will be a lot less government spending.
And that would mean our deficits shrink even more or are even eliminated. Which would let us start paying off the debt.
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I don't know why everyone keeps forgetting that the Baby Boomers are an abnormal "bubble" in the demographic pipeline of the country. They had less children than their parents did. (IE: the generation that were their children are a smaller generation than the Boomer generation themselves)
Meaning less workers to pay for their benefits. Which result in ballooning deficit spending on those benefits.
But humans don't live forever... and somehow, everyone keeps forgetting that fact.
I will absolutely take smaller deficits over larger ones. However that becomes increasingly difficult as interest expense starts eating more of the budget. And you are correct the boomers entering old age is a uniquely tough period; however, it isn't going to get much better when they are gone unless we reform the entitlement structure. Millennials are a larger cohort than Gen X which helps, but they're all old enough to be in the labor force at this point. Gen Z and Alpha are both smaller so we will face the same issues.
Immigration was always the solution. And it was inherent in the founding principles of the country, too.
For immigrants are already of the age to enter the workforce... and are young enough to not need social security or medicare for years to come. And they typically marry and have children.
So they pay into the system for decades, now... and increase the population of future taxpayers.
Except that the Republicans now absolutely despise it.
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>The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus
>Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
>"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I don’t think this new crop of Dems are the adults in the room like they used to be, they’re the loudest kids at a Palestine protest. They’re less pragmatic and more idealistic than ever
Guess what? If they're not posting a never-ending steam of dick jokes to their official government accounts, they're the adults in this particular room.
Uh, the so-called "adults in the room" have screwed things up massively over the course of all of our lifetimes, why should they be given a presumption of competence?
What conversation? That the former “adults in the room” softness and ineffectiveness helped paved the way for mess we’re dealing with now? Being nice and cordial does not make you pragmatic.
I seriously do not care about what the market does. It isn’t reflective at all about the state of the economy for every day people. After midterms and presidential elections, this same thing happens.
It's over. Because the AI buildout is so leveraged it doesn't even matter if Dems can pass any meaningful regulation. All that needs to happen is a mere slowing of growth in capex and the house of cards falls down. Some degree on financial contagion will ensue because of what private credit has been doing. We also seem to have forgotten we are in the middle of an oil crisis with no plausible resolution in the short term. Oh, and the housing market is in the worst spot in two decades. As soon as unemployment ticks up all hell will break loose.
Voters basically rebelled against data center construction by putting moratoriums in place everywhere from California to rural Kansas. The manic data center buildout is dead, and the AI industry's hope for growth that relies on rapid Data Center growth. The future of the AI industry is either more efficiency, or local LLM models that run on the user's own computer.
I feel like many people are glossing over the fact that this election showed anti-data center sentiment from voters across the political spectrum. This isn’t simply about Democrats being more weary of AI companies, it’s about these data centers being extremely unpopular among the general public.
They won’t be able to do things like build them on cheap rural land near inexpensive power while also getting tax breaks. The specific needs of AI data centers gave them a lot more leeway on location. Cost is way more important than connectivity/latency. Don’t need colo customers nearby, don’t need users, just need power, space, and cooling capacity.
They will build them in industrial zones again, where power and land are more expensive and where they have to use more expensive layouts and equipment to comply with noise and emissions regulations.
Which…I guess is fine? That’s where stuff like that is supposed to go.
They're already trying to make deals even with local communities and voters are still rejecting them en masse, it's actually wild to see voters just flat out saying "there's no way on God's green earth"
They've lost the trust of the people. Can you blame them? In my state, they caught the new data center build running hundreds of un permitted gas fired generators.
These companies could've come in, taken the sweet no tax deals and built to code and been fine.
But they got greedy.
Hell even the Trump supporters in Texas hate data centers. When you lose that crowd as a business owner, youre cooked.
It’s just going to get funneled into states like Alabama and South Carolina that will spread wide open to subsidize any shitty project proposed. In SC it will go to places like Cherokee county, lots of available land and a small number of bitter uneducated people who won’t be able to fight them off.
This stock slide started the Thursday and Friday before the midterm because of falling corporateprofits and MASSIVE capx, however im sure that Democrats will be immediately blamed for any market correction
And its coming, anyine who pays attention has been saying we are really due for a massive correcrion because the AI mania has really gotten out of hand
Well, they have two months to sabotage the markets and economy before the 120th DEMOCRATIC congress is in power. This is plan B in case they lost. Blow up the economy so they can claim it is the democrats fault.
"President Donald Trump blamed the Democrats' sweeping midterm election victories—which gave them control of both the House and Senate—for Thursday's massive stock market sell-off, claiming the results triggered a drop in Americans' 401(k) portfolios."
Hey arsehole, it is YOUR economy. And yeah it sucks, that is why the democrats won! You cannot blame us for shit till we are sworn in and then see what happens.
I feel this. I have a market account built with high-tech stocks to afford a new car when I finally find one I want. The value dropped by $18k+ in the past month, $12k alone this week. Intel really fucked me. I am in the anti-data center camp, but I hoped I'd have better luck, as it's taking years to find a good fit. Neither of my current potential options is out until next year.
I mean, if you leave the money in a savings account, you’re vulnerable to it losing 30+% of its value over a year.
That happened to many who didn’t want to “gamble” on stocks. The fed printed $10T and injected it straight into the market. Historic inflation but the market ran hot. If you were a “saver,” you got fucked.
Well, the CPI is designed to underestimate inflation.
But cost of living has increased ~30% since Feb 2021. Vehicles, housing, insurance, healthcare. The items that actually make up a significant portion of budgets but the CPI intentionally underweights to keep inflation metrics lower.
Official inflation numbers have to be low not just for political reasons, but also because social security is indexed against the CPI. The government literally couldn’t afford to accurately measure inflation even if they wanted to.
If I was using this for retirement or something, I'd agree. But for my purposes, gambling was the better choice.
I mean, the account grew from $28k to $62k, now it's down to $45k. By the time next summer or fall rolls around, it'll likely return to the mid 50s, which is enough for my needs.
Without buying the vehicle this year, I couldn't take the tax hit from that much capital gains. Otherwise, I'd have sold in September.
So Trump very predictably posted on his echo chamber of a platform that the post-election rally was all because of him and his overall greatness. Will he also take credit for this drop? I’m thinking not.
Everyone thinks the dems are going to do something Ultra stupid like put blocks on all new data centers. I don't think that's going to happen. I think it has zero chance of happening federally, and governors will realize that it's keeping trades in work. You'll just have the usually clown show crew like Bernie that pushes this in places where data centers weren't going in the first place. Hinojosa has already said he's going to allow permitted building to go through and new building is going to need to pay their own way on utilities (which is already a thing in several states).
Trump needs to declare state of emergency and build these out under federal regulation. The same people voting against data centers and AI today would vote against the atomic bomb development during WW2. These are cowards and traitors.
Yes that is one version. The other version is they has no oil, no navy, 4000 planes (4000 were lost at Okinawa alone) their infrastructure was obliterated, and they lacked food. If you'd like to review the truman diaries, the bombing survey of 1946, etc etc you will see the concern was with the proposed invasion of Japan by the sovieta slated for the 2nd or 3rd week of August 1945.
zlide | 20 hours ago
It’s very funny to me how all the “economic experts” in all of these threads about this refuse to acknowledge that you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry, let alone a single technological development.
Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
Ok-Piece-2546 | 20 hours ago
Not to mention the economy would be much better of if we didn't have dumb tariffs and an oil crisis.
Trump's Ice also caused local business to crash, because although employers hired illegal migrants, these same migrants also bought stuff from the local community.
Tourism also went down by almost 10 billion dollars.
MTS122917 | 19 hours ago
> Trump's Ice also caused local business to crash, because although employers hired illegal migrants, these same migrants also bought stuff from the local community.
I work for the corporate office of a retailer and we have seen huge drops in shopping in a number of our locations because of nearby ICE raids and the knowledge that ICE is patrolling. Even for born-on-US-soil citizens, the possibility of being questioned or detained is enough to get them to change their habits.
bloodontherisers | 19 hours ago
It's almost like authoritarian countries tend to have worse economies
actuallyapossom | 18 hours ago
Unpossible. Next you'll tell me mass deportations remove laborers and consumers which causes economic contraction.
Ok-Piece-2546 | 19 hours ago
Yep, it's awful.
Their approach could have been conducting their investigations/deportations the same way it was done during Obama, Biden or even Trump's 1st term and only escalating when confronting criminals, but they just had to make showy and gestapo like.
Dense-Permission8346 | 19 hours ago
Literally nothing changed. The only thing that changed was your algorithm telling you it’s bad.
avsgrind024 | 14 hours ago
The electorate said something very different on Tuesday night.
actuallyapossom | 18 hours ago
Sounds like your algorithm is the problem, the federal government has been very vocal and clear about the changes.
Marijuana_Miler | 20 hours ago
And the lesson from the crash following the Covid lockdowns; was how much tourism was integral to the global economy. When AI is no longer able to hold up GDP it will become obvious how poor the rest of the economy is doing.
The10KThings | 19 hours ago
It’s obvious now, lol
snowflake37wao | 18 hours ago
Yeah the economy already tanked for consumers, the markets just started printing paper like it was Monopoly money and passing that around instead. Acting like everything is better than ever and telling consumers how good they got it.
more_housing_co-ops | 16 hours ago
I live in a border town and it's crazy to see how well Canada bounced back after receiving actual COVID relief instead of a couple of one-off checks (besides the whole "everyone can see a doctor" thing).
theavatare | 18 hours ago
You forgot the grant abrupt cancellation that decimated people downstream from them that didn’t have cashflow for the storm
cutearmy | 18 hours ago
Also rising food prices as produce picking is handled by immigrants
Jase_66 | 19 hours ago
Surely though the economy also can't be built knowingly on illegal, black market labor
CyberSmith31337 | 19 hours ago
It's worth noting that this isn't totally true; countries can absolutely be held up by a single industry. It's just that, when that industry crumbles or collapses, the whole nation falls apart.
We're sort of seeing this with Canada now; O&G is not the powerhouse it was 20 years ago, yet it basically defined that nation. Venezuela, alternatively, is an example of what happens when your country is essentially propped up by a mono-industry, too. West Virginia and coal are another great example of a singular-resource-driven territory buckling under the weight of its own failures.
So again, it's not that they can't; they can, but it's not a long-term/sustainable scenario. I do think it can work in a short period of time, such as a wartime-crisis scenario.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 20 hours ago
On the subject of pretend economic experts, you know yesterday stocks are up and it’s “hooray Dems, markets know Trump is cooked”. Today stocks are down and it’s “Trumps economy, Trump did this, etc”
Like, fuck yeah the election results were great and Trump absolutely sucks, but sometimes stock volatility is also just stock volatility. Trying to tie in broad political narratives with a few hours of market action as your key evidence rarely ends well.
youngishgeezer | 20 hours ago
I do think there's some truth to post election exuberance being a factor in yesterday's gains. Just like there's some realization that maybe datacenter build out will be slowed and companies will face a tougher environment. After all it was a significant concern of the voters based on polling. Isn't that herd mentality part of stock market volatility?
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 20 hours ago
For sure, but markets almost always rally post election, like consistently. They rallied after every time Trump got elected, rallied after every blue wave, etc. The post election bump is a pretty common phenomenon.
I don’t have this at my fingertips but midterms specifically generally have a rally - the figure I saw not long ago was that the day after midterms averages about a half percent up across the history of the modern market.
shouldbepracticing85 | 9 hours ago
To a certain extent it’s probably people acting once the uncertainty of an election resolves.
kingkeelay | 20 hours ago
They aren’t going to participate in a conversation about feelings.
TechnologyEither | 20 hours ago
I’m kind of confused why stocks rallied yesterday and are a sea of red today. No new information was released, it’s not like the candidates suddenly revealed secret anti-datacenter plans…
ireliawantelo | 19 hours ago
I think some of the rhetoric of a certain few elected officials were much more extreme than what the market originally priced in.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 20 hours ago
The election is the information, at bare minimum it provides certainty. In this case the certainty that the legislative process will be more measured with a split government, so you can generally plan for no major legislative changes for two years. That’s positive news for markets.
ether_reddit | 19 hours ago
Also, given the significance of the bump yesterday, some will simply be wanting to lock in their gains by selling.
I certainly would have sold off yesterday, if I needed some large chunk of money sometime in the next few months.
loopernova | 12 hours ago
It’s just the market calibrating to the election results. It rallied with positive sentiment, but it’s possible it over shot and investors/traders are capitalizing on that. Usually negative impacts are larger and for shorter periods than growth, whether you’re talking about short term noise or longer term trends. So today’s drop was maybe an overcorrection to yesterday’s gain.
CosmopolitanIdiot | 17 hours ago
My tinfoil hat theory is the reality of corruption investigations is beginning to settle in and the rats are trying to dump their holdings so they can claim they didn't make anything from insider trading.
kingkeelay | 16 hours ago
That’s not how that works
NorCalJason75 | 19 hours ago
>Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
It's because AI is mostly smoke and mirrors. None of the AI products are profitable, and have zero path to profitability. It's all circular financing to create the image of value.
I've been in Silicon Valley for 20+ years. People need to understand the best thing an Entrepreneur can do is sell his idea to someone with deep pockets. Founders, Banks, Media - are all in it together to sell retail investors on AI concepts that provide little value, and CERTAINLY aren't worth the asking price.
Would anyone pay $200/mo to have Perplexity make slop images? Maybe a few people... But not enough to fund the datacenter buildout. But they gotta hype it up, have the IPO, and flee to Argentina.
Thick_Goose7742 | 20 hours ago
The US economy is propped up by healthcare services and pharmaceuticals, both of which have an outsized share of GDP. Healthcare has floated the economy for almost two decades now. It doesn’t flex as much even with broader downturns.
coke_and_coffee | 19 hours ago
The economy is what we do. It doesn’t make sense to say that healthcare “floats” the economy.
Thick_Goose7742 | 19 hours ago
Sure it does, as both a $ value and % it drives GDP growth and dampens GDP contractions.
jjwhitaker | 15 hours ago
Remove tech stocks (esp AI stocks) and US markets are flat or down. Include inflation spikes and devaluation of USD and it's absolutely negative.
Remember, Biden's policies had us headed to a -1% improvement on inflation, or it falling 1%. Trump, in just 2 years, has flipped that to a +2.9% increase (I think CPI). Net of about +4% inflation in 2 years is...bad
Most industries are already in a recession. AI will only exacerbate that.
Ok_Principle5942 | 20 hours ago
The economy isn't propped up by a single industry. But a single sector can easily drive the growth of the economy.
>Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
No. But degree of regulation is a large part of the reason that the tech industry in Europe has not taken off, whereas in the US it has been driving the economy.
Europe is currently rethinking it's regulatory approach to the tech industry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/technology/europe-big-tech.html
kasst123 | 20 hours ago
The best way to destroy capital is to centralize it in one sector.
Ok_Principle5942 | 19 hours ago
That certainly hasn't been the case with the tech sector for the past 25 years. Even taking into account the dot com crash, far more value was created than destroyed by the companies that went under.
kasst123 | 19 hours ago
Interesting perspective there. I was a very young man then, just trying to keep my head above water, but I don't recall how more value was created by a company that went under.
Not meant as a slight against your point, just curious about more information regarding it.
Ok_Principle5942 | 19 hours ago
Value wasn't created by companies that went under. They destroyed capital. But, the few companies that survived, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook(now Meta), Google(now Alphabet), etc, are some of the most valuable companies in the world.
The few winners created vast amounts of value and capital, that is much larger than the amount destroyed by the many losers.
I expect something similar to happen with AI. Many companies will fail. Staggering sums of money will be destroyed. And the winners will probably be significantly more valuable than the sum of all the destroyed value.
immortal_AntonEgo | 13 hours ago
But how much of that vast capital from the few tech companies has translated into jobs and wages and middle class growth? Compared to previous economy-defining industries like railroads, automobiles, or even investment banking?
Ok_Principle5942 | 13 hours ago
That feels like a very technical, academic question that I'm not able to answer. But I do feel fairly confident in saying that over the past 25 years, inflation adjusted median family income has risen significantly, so the average family doesn't seem to be missing out
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N
ScannerBrightly | 18 hours ago
Amazon has killed thousands of businesses and is in the process of murdering the idea that products last longer than a season. Netflix has made your local movie theater, and thousands of theaters just like it, into ghost towns. Facebook and Google will steal your location data and listen in on your most private moments to try to sell advertisements to other corporations.
"Value" isn't just economic, it has to related to people for the value to have any meaning, and the tech companies have no meaning within them. They are like settler colonialism: Sure some people make out like bandits, but only because they are doing bandit shit. The rest of us are left with no value with a new leash around our necks.
Ok_Principle5942 | 18 hours ago
>Amazon has killed thousands of businesses and is in the process of murdering the idea that products last longer than a season.
I prefer Amazon to these businesses. And no, Amazon did not invent cheap junk, that's been around forever.
>Netflix has made your local movie theater, and thousands of theaters just like it, into ghost towns.
Again, I prefer watching movies at home.
>Facebook and Google will steal your location data and listen in on your most private moments to try to sell advertisements to other corporations.
My cellphone logs my location all the time. It's been a useful feature. Am I supposed to be afraid of ads?
>"Value" isn't just economic, it has to related to people for the value to have any meaning, and the tech companies have no meaning within them.
We're literally talking about economic value.
>They are like settler colonialism: Sure some people make out like bandits, but only because they are doing bandit shit.
Lol. No. I've found the services of these companies very useful.
>The rest of us are left with no value with a new leash around our necks.
How exactly have they hurt you? Was it via ads?
ScannerBrightly | 16 hours ago
Well, I'm glad we run the global economy based on your personal preferences. I'm sure that will, in no way, backfire.
Ok_Principle5942 | 16 hours ago
I certainly am, it works very well for me. Seems to be what people, in general, want, considering they pay for it. It's hard to beat 2 day delivery, if not faster, and endless entertainment at home.
I'm sorry we don't follow your preferences for small businesses and movie theaters.
kasst123 | 16 hours ago
Yea, I'm going to have to disagree. These companies have become fabulously wealthy, and so have been good for their shareholders, but they have not innovated in a net benefit. They simply became monopolies that now use that position as a way for them to extract wealth from both their individual and business clients, while continuing to offer a poorer experience and eliminating new opportunities for innovation from competing firms.
And now they want to continue to destroy wealth by tying the future to AI.
And before we think that will be a net benefit to us all, I have to ask what about their past behavior should encourage me to believe that they are interested in sharing their future wealth because of AI with any of us plebs?
I'd argue they will only continue to horde any wealth they generate.
Ok_Principle5942 | 16 hours ago
And I'm going to have to tell you that I strongly disagree with you about them not innovating a net benefit.
Amazon, with 2 day delivery, or faster, has revolutionized commerce and allowed me to save thousands by ordering parts directly from the manufacturer, bypassing the OEM markup.
Netflix, Amazon, and others, make basically endless entertainment available at home at ridiculously cheap prices. If you remember renting movies from Blockbuster, you understand.
Facebook is great for keeping in touch with people, and Facebook marketplace is the world's best flea market. Again, thousands of dollars saved.
>And before we think that will be a net benefit to us all, I have to ask what about their past behavior should encourage me to believe that they are interested in sharing their future wealth because of AI with any of us plebs?
Why do I care? I've already benefited massively from what they offer. They have made my life so much easier and cheaper.
>I'd argue they will only continue to horde any wealth they generate.
Cool. Buy their stock so you can be entitled to their profits. Why would you get money as some uninvolved rando who doesn't participate?
kasst123 | 13 hours ago
My experience, and bear in mind it's only my experience, has been that the products and services these companies offer have gotten progressively worse and more costly over the years.
They are simply techno-feudalists at this point, charging rent to access the digital space they hold a monopoly over.
I think the only improvements will come with anti-trust regulation, followed by monopoly break-ups and future competition.
I know, it's an overly simplistic view, but it's just how I see it from where I am standing.
Ok_Principle5942 | 13 hours ago
You could always just not pay for these services.
Pirating entertainment and going to the physical store is always an option. Or just going without. It's not like you are obligated to pay for these things
kasst123 | 13 hours ago
I should also say, I appreciate your point of view. Valid arguments, which isn't always something I get online.
Ok_Principle5942 | 13 hours ago
I appreciate it.
I'm not saying their aren't downsides to the corporations who want to serve up endless content to engage you regardless of the impact to your mental health or the accuracy of the information. But, man, if you can sift through the endless pig shit, there are diamonds galore in here.
FlyingBishop | 19 hours ago
The article mentions Caterpillar. Its market cap is $260B and its trajectory looks a lot like any of the other tech stocks. By "single industry" I think you mean software, but Caterpillar is not an AI-adjacent company, but looking at its stock motion over the past year, it looks like one. I think the AI talk is myopic, clearly there's a lot more going on here.
FriendlyPraetorian | 19 hours ago
Caterpillar's recent growth has been fueled by gas turbine orders for data centers, so it's arguably pretty adjacent.
TeaInASkullMug | 18 hours ago
Look at its debt
TheDoomBlade13 | 4 hours ago
What equipment do you think gets rented/bought/contracted out to work at these sites building new data centers?
coke_and_coffee | 19 hours ago
> refuse to acknowledge that you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry, let alone a single technological development.
It’s not.
> Isn’t it a huge fucking problem that even just the possibility of maybe regulating AI more than not at all is enough to “tank the economy”?
The economy didn’t tank. The stock market dropped 3%.
harmfuldischarge | 19 hours ago
People consistently oversell changes in the market as catastrophic. It gets really tiresome and one loses any interest in following financial news, which is a shame
notaballitsjustblue | 19 hours ago
Why not?
PedanticPaladin | 16 hours ago
Also the gold rush sucks up all the free capital that could be in other industries creating returns; there's a bunch of medical research, materials engineering, energy research and production, personal/commercial/industrial construction, and who knows what else that isn't happening because everyone is chasing the fantasy of what the AI data centers could be instead of what it actually is.
FeRooster808 | 19 hours ago
Particularly when said industry is building its valuations on thin air and hype. A lot of these companies are basically just trying out the meme stock route that Elon pioneered. Many of them, including SpaceX and Tesla, need to be brought back to reality.
kaplanfx | 19 hours ago
But today’s sell off has nothing to do with fundamentals and everything to do with vibes.
AdmirableSelection81 | 19 hours ago
> you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry,
???? yes you can, the middle east was propped up by oil, Taiwan was propped up by semiconductors
AccNumber77 | 14 hours ago
And both are highly unstable whenever anything happens to either of those industries... You can do it, but it is fucking stupid idea...
AdmirableSelection81 | 2 hours ago
Dude, both the middle east and taiwan have feasted for many many decades on their respective specialized economies.
AccNumber77 | 2 hours ago
I didn't say they haven't, I said it is highly unstable if something happens to said industries. Which can literally be seen right now in both of them... There's a reason why the middle east is so desperate to move away from being solely reliable on oil for their economy, things do not stay the same forever.
Oceanbreeze871 | 18 hours ago
I’ve always thought it odd that this incredible complex economic system, which is hard data in numbers and other things has its entire value at the mercy of 1% of the populations feelings.
FOSSnaught | 18 hours ago
The genuine experts admit that no one understands the economy and stock market in their entirety!
Oceanbreeze871 | 18 hours ago
Some sort of magical alchemy
FOSSnaught | 17 hours ago
And Cats
Morgannin09 | 18 hours ago
That's what happens when 1% own 99% of the money and refuse to give up a dime.
JesT_Weird | 17 hours ago
All the "experts" are just paid guessers, and they're wrong a lot.
It's just that the market began reacting to the guesses, instead of ignoring the speculations, like a professional athlete following crowd direction instead of the coach. From that point on, the "market" has been in a positive feedback loop with fewer & fewer regulations.
At this point, it's destabilizing cuz that's what positive feedback loops do, and most folks are so busy trying to rack up more points that they've forgotten how the system is supposed to work.
Just my take, tho. I could be wrong.
ireliawantelo | 20 hours ago
Not really. The stock market has always been spearheaded by a specific few while others posted slow growth. This is way before AI.
Timelycommentor | 20 hours ago
Yep. Reps shocked they lost when toting GDP numbers that were all driven by AI thus benefiting AI companies and employees, while everyone else got left in the dust.
hopefuldonkeykick | 19 hours ago
> you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry, let alone a single technological development
This is the kind of shit that the IMF would rake a developing nation over the coals for.
stephcurrysmom | 19 hours ago
Or a single corrupt party who just got the boot
KickerofTale | 19 hours ago
But it’s got what plants CRAVE!
Stormcloud217 | 19 hours ago
Healthcare should be a priority. We have a great healthcare system that only the wealthy can access comfortably. It's a shame that people travel to other countries to get minor dental or surgical procedures done.
We could be investing in so many things besides oil and tech. How about a sustainable gardening/farming network? Maybe bring back summer jobs for fire prevention? Create more youth tech programs for welding and manufacturing, and ramp up jobs programs at the same time.
We should be finding jobs for people that will benefit everyone.
snowflake37wao | 18 hours ago
Would it be appropriate use of “tankies” here, or is the US gunna need to appropriate?
Skraelings | 17 hours ago
While also everyone else taking it in the ass from multiple directions.
xole | 17 hours ago
AI has potential to be useful for a lot of things, but right now it's sucking up all of the computer parts. What about businesses that need to buy computers?
It's also sucking up all of the capital. Combine that with the general increase in interest rates, and I would think that's an issue for new or expanding businesses.
I'm not an economist, but this feels like too many eggs in one basket, to the detriment of almost all other industries that aren't directly involved in the AI supply chain.
font9a | 16 hours ago
It's 5% of an index that is largely made of vapor and vibes. Not the whole economy. Stings if you own some of it, but let's keep things in perspective.
I'm hoping some rational return to pre-tariff trade and rebuilding our cross-country trade relations will counteract a whole lot of "AI slowdowns" that frankly needed to have happened in 2025.
WeowDystopia | 16 hours ago
There's this old saying of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Guess our government forgot. I think the other money maker is healthcare for investors, I could be wrong. Some wallstreet bro come and correct me please.
Exweltall | 5 hours ago
Idk, a single industry is working out pretty good for Taiwan
Glass-Cabinet-249 | 4 hours ago
Was.
Constant-Plant-9378 | 17 hours ago
The stock market has been artificially propped up by out of control Federal stimulus, corporate welfare, and quantitative easing since 2018.
We have been overdue for a correction/recession for nearly a decade.
The endless money printing by our government is a big factor behind accelerating inflation.
It needs to stop.
GLGarou | 13 hours ago
IMHO, AI is also a consequence of this severe money printing and subsequent inflation and cost-of-living crisis.
Upstairs-Basis9909 | 4 hours ago
I totally agree, and I also think the bizarre DEI push was as well. The glorification of extremely non-productive (in the economic sense) roles meant there was so much money your companies could be spending on salaries for roles that frankly did nothing to help the bottom line.
Constant-Plant-9378 | an hour ago
I don't get the cause and effect relationship there
Ill-Natural3043 | 16 hours ago
Economics is a humanity not a hard science but some experts present it as such
janethefish | 15 hours ago
>It’s very funny to me how all the “economic experts” in all of these threads about this refuse to acknowledge that you can’t have a nation’s economy be entirely propped up by a single industry, let alone a single technological development.
Counterpoint: basic hygiene, healthcare, agriculture, oil, electricity. Our economy would crash if we lost the benefits of any one of these.
AccNumber77 | 14 hours ago
But that is exactly what they mean, AI is one industry. You just named at minimum 3 different industries...
thortgot | 13 hours ago
Crashing any one of those would cause the same impact.
AccNumber77 | 7 hours ago
Is there evidence for that?
MelodiusRA | 20 hours ago
The irony is no one is going to regulate AI’s development or economic use cases— just forestall resource mismanagement.
It’s gonna force companies to innovate and optimize, making the industry even stronger.
Get your buys in now while it’s cheap
1337isntREAL_7357 | 13 hours ago
"economic experts" are usually racist, me as a white person.
Ask any of them questions and it gets apparent they have an "inner" and "outer" circle of how they see what is best for the economy.
Most will hide the fact they support slavery but if you dig just a little its really apparent.
Dense-Permission8346 | 19 hours ago
It’s funny to me that people can elect people who openly attack said industry and want to regulate the hell out of it wont create issues. Then blame said industry. It’s almost like an actual open free market economy is a good thing and the government getting involved isn’t having an open market.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 21 hours ago
AI and data center CapEx were the only thing keeping the US from having zero real GDP growth. Dems have already announced they are going to attempt to freeze or add red tape to data centers and AI development. Also, many of the states previously seen as safe to build things in (primarily Texas) are now less attractive.
Pretty clearly going to be near zero or negative growth in the short term.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 21 hours ago
True but we as a society need to decide whether we would like to continue propping up the economy by creating trillionaires while ordinary people languish economically and suffer the consequences of climate change or languish economically while we try to do something about climate change and financial disparity
Experts warn building new data centers across the US could wipe out the last 15 years of greenhouse gas progress
N0b0me | 20 hours ago
Definitely the first one
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
I don’t think that is a convincing argument. There is tons of demand for data centers - nearly everyone, including us commenting here, uses them, and exponential AI use growth shows the revealed preferences of the average person.
If the data centers are not built in the US, which has relatively good environmental regulations, they will be built in other countries with less environmental laws and any local emissions will concentrate near poorer global populations.
As a concrete example of this, in response to the election results, Google announced today $15b in data centers to be built in Malaysia.
Ravenluna798 | 20 hours ago
Americans are fine with data centers.
We are not fine with Data centers that sign NDAs with town councils, unregulated burning of fossil fuels, unpermitted locations etc.
Just give us that.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
Americans are not really fine with data centers near them though they all love the product of data centers.
43/44 anti data center bills on ballots passed this election, even against projects powered entirely by clean solar and using recycled cooling water.
It’s the same NIMBYism that has affected housing - everyone is fine with abstract apartments, as long as they are somewhere else. But there is no somewhere else, because everyone everywhere opposes the local construction.
Ravenluna798 | 20 hours ago
They are opposed because all of these companies are acting shady. Its on them that they can't build.
They fined one in my state for running hundreds of unpermitted gas powered generators.
These companies did this to themselves.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 18 hours ago
Many companies are not “acting shady”. People just universally oppose large construction projects in modern America. I cannot even imagine attempting something as ambitious as the highway system or the Hoover Dam today lol
Ravenluna798 | 15 hours ago
Yes they are. They sign NDAs with councils and refuse to have hearings about them.
They are getting caught cutting corners building.
They are polluting neighborhoods with generators.
They were clearly trying to build as many as possible in the smallest amount of time.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 14 hours ago
NDAs are extremely common in building and business for large projects, generally for competitive reasons.
Ravenluna798 | 13 hours ago
With governments that refuse to hold public meetings?
Thats seems awful. We should be changing that across the board.
Of course the people paying the bill deservw oversight, no?
heyheyhey27 | 14 hours ago
It sounds like you didn't even read the comment you replied to.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 14 hours ago
Saying a dozen or so data centers have used unpermitted generators or done unpermitted construction is not a great counterpoint. There are 6k data centers nationally. That level of compliance, if anything, is high. I can’t imagine a single digit % of any manufacturing or industrial sector are following environmental laws.
heyheyhey27 | 12 hours ago
Y'know that's fair, because there are a lot of other examples they didn't mention. A lot of local town hall meetings about data centers have been pretty aggressive towards their constituents, for example certain information being presented to the council but then censored from the public.
FlightlessBabyBirb | 20 hours ago
So I live in a small Midwest town where there's a data center fight going on at the moment. There are people who are ardently against them no matter what. But there are many of us who are against because it's a terrible deal for us, but are open to it under different terms. Our city is revenue starved because city council thinks TIFs and other tax incentives are a magic bullet that can fix all of our problems. As usual, the city wants to give a 10 year tax deal to the data center. The company isn't going to use local construction and development businesses here. There is no additional noise limits, which concerns people who are close. There's no deal with the developers paying for power grid expansions of rate increases, and our city is small enough that a data center could significantly increase our energy use, which raises everyone's bills.
So why exactly shouldn't we fight this? The city is rolling out the red carpet for a private company and in return our city gets little to no economic benefit. At the most they might bring less than 10 jobs, but there's no guarantee they won't move staffing here instead as many data centers are doing.
Ravenluna798 | 19 hours ago
See i totally agree with this. It isn't Nimbyism, its just a terrible deal.
Data centers want to move in and get tax breaks like other industries that actually provide jobs.
But they barely provide any jobs.
They also use a massive amount of resources.
I'd be fine with a data center in my town. Come build somewhere that isn't disruptive but expect to pay taxes and build a new power plant.
FlightlessBabyBirb | 19 hours ago
Yes. Another thing too, everyone loves to say oh you use the Internet and AI but you don't want the data center in your city. It's a nonsensical point. Consumer demand is not really driving the build out, it's a drop in the bucket. It's tech and other industries who want compute for AI, big data, and various modeling and computational work. These things aren't being built so we can watch cat tiktoks and ask chatgpt for a summary of whatever random topic.
Qeltar_ | 20 hours ago
There are enormous areas of unused land far away from residential areas all over this massive country. As usual, it's about money.
dust4ngel | 19 hours ago
if you build data centers in unused areas, then you can't externalize the cost of the infrastructure on working people who don't matter
Ravenluna798 | 19 hours ago
I actually never thought of that.
You are correct.
Ravenluna798 | 19 hours ago
It is about money. If you offered my state a good deal, we'd take it.
But they want 10 years of no taxes, they want non union labor, they dont want to build their own power stations
They essentially want to be treated like a company that will bring a location 1000 jobs without providing 1000 jobs.
I personally sell to 2 data centers here in NJ. Older ones.
They have NO noise pollution and no one cares about their existence. Why are new data centers so loud? Is it just the company skimping out? Do they need to be that loud now?
Stationary_Wagon | 18 hours ago
The loud ones are the ones with on-site turbines for power generation. Turbines are there because grid around them either does not have enough power for them yet or can't handle the draw from a data center properly.
The noise should subside after new power plants are built in the regions they are deployed since using those turbines are really expensive and rather inefficient for the data center. There are other solutions for power as well (it became a whole specialized sector), but I know turbine powered power plants are definitely the loud ones.
Ravenluna798 | 15 hours ago
Its funny because I also sell supplies to 2 power plants that supply enough power to cover all of Philadelphia and the surrounding areas and they also make no noise.
They also built them in cornfields where no one ever complains about them.
everything_is_polys | 15 hours ago
To add to what the other responder said, the quieter data centers are possibly DPU or CPU -based. These new ones are GPU-based tho so that’s going to be louder and be a lot more energy hungry
Ravenluna798 | 15 hours ago
Is there a reason they cannot sound proof?
I'm curious
everything_is_polys | 14 hours ago
They do soundproofing but GPUs are just that much louder. Unfortunately, there’s only so much that can be blocked. Supposedly the liquid cooled campuses are better soundproofing but there’s still the energy consumption issue to handle which adds more noise on top of the cards
Alternative_Rice1867 | 18 hours ago
This is not really accurate. Smaller counties and regions face the same local opposition that bigger counties do. And most AI development is already happening in “unused land” away from residential areas, since the land costs are lower and permitting is less complicated.
BenjaminHamnett | 20 hours ago
Because it doesn’t make sense to build apartments in rural areas. And they’re notoriously hard to build in cities
Everyone loves roasting Chinese ghost cities, but that’s sort of adjacent to what your advocating
But the idea isn’t so bad, because these cities probably cost less than building a single high rise in a major city like Manhattan. A lot to be said for building it out before people are around
Qeltar_ | 20 hours ago
I'm talking about data centers, not apartments.
BenjaminHamnett | 11 hours ago
Oops, stupid comment
lux-libertas | 20 hours ago
In my opinion, this isn’t really about data centers, that’s just the use-case du jour.
This is about over four decades of economic and social policy that has consistently concentrated the gains into the few at the expense of the many.
Globalization, tech advancements, environmental regulations, labor regulations, tax policy, social programs, healthcare, education…since ~1980 the US has consistently made choices that have driven more and more income and wealth inequality and, at the same time, created negative environmental and social impacts for the majority of people.
That trend is, quite simply, not sustainable. The past decade has started to increasingly expose the fractures. We have to fix it. We have to do better. Otherwise it’s a death spiral if we’re lucky, or an outright collapse if we’re not.
Pseudoboss11 | 2 hours ago
If there's so much demand for AI, then why is it wildly unprofitable?
WildviewZZ | 20 hours ago
How many other buzz words you have to throw in there ? It makes no sense. Economic growth benefits us all, leading to higher standard of living and enable more industries being created.
forsythia_rising | 20 hours ago
Unless you get lung cancer from burning data center turbines and die. Every single member of my family has had a different type of cancer. We grew up in Texas with little to no environmental protections. I know it played a role in our sickness.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
Data centers currently account for 0.5% of US greenhouse gas emissions. I do not believe the analysis you shared by the Sierra Club is accurate. The Sierra Club estimates ~650m tons of excess emissions due to new buildouts. Compare to other sources:
- the Union of Concerned Scientists, another anti-AI / biased source, estimates 350m tons, or about half
- Frontiers in Sustainability estimates as little as 40m tons, or about 1/15th
- Bloomberg estimates about 1/4
I think, particularly with dems taking charge, most new data centers will be mandated to use solar, so even those estimates from pre-election seem high.
numba1cyberwarrior | 20 hours ago
If you think that data centers are bad for the environment than fundamentally, you should get rid of every single industry in America.
Wellontheotherhand1 | 20 hours ago
Not get rid of them, but strongly limit their ability to harm citizens with their externalities, yes. We should be strictly limiting emissions and other negative effects from industry on the environment
Sorry that doesn't work out well for your portfolio, but we should not be allowing people to harm citizens in the pursuit of profits. Period
Alternative_Rice1867 | 15 hours ago
Be extremely specific about what that looks like.
If it’s just using solar and having closed loop water usage, then great - that’s pretty easy.
Ravenluna798 | 15 hours ago
It would also require the end of tax breaks, local labor contracts and noise restrictions.
Then I'm a go. Build your heart out.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 14 hours ago
Local labor contracts don’t really work for hyperscale data centers. There literally aren’t enough skilled workers or contractors in smaller counties to build these.
Ravenluna798 | 13 hours ago
I live in NJ.
We have the labor force...
We are building data centers as we speak...
Edit: why would you pull workers from a county and not a state? Weird take...
numba1cyberwarrior | 13 hours ago
Enjoy your de-industrialization.
This is the same mentality of why Europe is being utterly dominated by the United States and China right now
Nobody is against all environmental regulations, but if you're singling out data centers which are probably one of the least resource wasting and least polluting industries in America, then we have no hope for any other industry.
WildviewZZ | 20 hours ago
Are you opposed to driving and flying as well ? Also do you eat beef ? Of course any changes do have effects. We just have to balance it out, try to help affected people to soften the blow but you can't completely not Inconvenience anyone if you want any progress at all.
dringer | 20 hours ago
Im not sure we can keep parroting this after seeing insane growth for like 2 decades while our QoL has seemingly dropped.
DarthFleeting | 20 hours ago
Seemingly seems to be the heavy lifting word in your comment.
dust4ngel | 19 hours ago
> Economic growth benefits us all
one of the greatest benefits that nobody appreciates is that trillionaires can make democracy impossible by having the power to influence elections. the reason this is beneficial is because it creates more trillionaires, and economic growth benefits us all. unless democracy is your thing, but if so you hate the economy.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 18 hours ago
If that were true, why did the capital side of this election get trounced?
Ravenluna798 | 17 hours ago
Because propaganda stops working when you reach into the pockets of citizens.
However propaganda does work.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 17 hours ago
Money does work in elections, but less than most people believe. It can be fairly marginal.
Ravenluna798 | 17 hours ago
No, id argue the podcasts and the online rage bait was pretty effective at capitaving Gen Z in 2024.
It stopped working when life became more expensive.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 17 hours ago
Most online content leans left over the last few years, so I’m not sure that could be a cause of the 2024 election.
Ravenluna798 | 14 hours ago
Its common knowledge how popular podcasts like rogan were with young men.
Funnily enough they have become so disheartened with the right they've now labeled themselves "blackpilled" rather than red or blue pilled.
haakon | 20 hours ago
So it has come to this: I saw someone on /r/economics explain to people that economic growth is beneficial.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
This is a sloppy subreddit and I think the mods do a relatively poor job of keeping focus on real economic research, which is a bummer. It’s mostly populist political stuff with a smidge of econ analysis.
WildviewZZ | 20 hours ago
lol. Yeah that's rough. This sub has been taken over slowly by ideological liberals who are not interested in Economics for 1 bit.
Big-Neighborhood8957 | 18 hours ago
We literally have a K-shaped economy with historic levels of wealth inequality, and you're over here still trying to convince people that economic growth benefits everyone. The Republicans losing the built-in electoral advantage they had in the Senate contradicts your thesis here. Economic growth certainly can benefit everyone, but it is definitely not a universal truth.
thebusterbluth | 20 hours ago
Or languish from a disease that AI could have helped cure earlier.
Qeltar_ | 20 hours ago
This isn't all or nothing. The people pushing it want it everywhere, but that doesn't mean that the people pushing back want it nowhere.
thebusterbluth | 19 hours ago
Then you should see my Facebook page and the number of people who want outright bans on all data centers.
Qeltar_ | 17 hours ago
Facebook? Seriously? :)
Of course there are dumb people everywhere, but that's a particularly rich vein.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
I think most people are unaware of the insane medical breakthroughs happening right now because of AI. Literal cures for cancer are happening.
EnamelKant | 20 hours ago
Probably because they won't be able to afford them.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
Cheap, accessible drugs like GLP-1s are now manufactured with AI-assisted processes. Those drugs are highly affordable.
thebusterbluth | 19 hours ago
My college roommate is a biomedical engineer for Eli Lilly. He uses Claude every day and tells me he's more efficient than he's ever been as a result.
EnamelKant | 19 hours ago
I'm not a biochemist but I suspect curing cancer is a bit more complicated than a weight loss drug.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 18 hours ago
Obviously the weight loss comment is different than the curing cancer comment.
In August of this year, Moderna stock doubled in one day because they announced their AI-developed cancer vaccine worked in a human trial with 1,000 patients. They believe the AI cancer vaccine personalization process will be applicable to many types of cancer.
EnamelKant | 18 hours ago
Well forgive me for not seeing how "people won't be able to afford super drugs to cure cancer" wasn't addressed by your comment of "AI was used for a completely different application and it turned out affordable"
Which also fails to acknowledge nothing is affordable if you've got no income, and the stated goal of these AI companies is to destroy millions of jobs.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 18 hours ago
Think critically for a second here. Of course I can’t claim “people can afford cancer cures” on AI-related cancer treatment, because they are mostly still in development - people can’t buy them yet! I showed you how AI is already improving / making more accessible other drugs that are already on the market.
If your only argument against AI cancer treatments is some people can’t afford them, color me not convinced - right now ZERO people get personalized cancer vaccines because they don’t exist. If eventually, only people with insurance can get them, that’s great because 90% of people have insurance, and those 90% of people will be better off because of AI.
You keep shifting goalposts.
Ravenluna798 | 20 hours ago
Dude 10% of the population doesnt have health insurance.
Are we plebs going to be able to afford the new cures?
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
Actual evidence suggests yes. GLP-1s like retatrutide are manufactured with AI assistance and that is now the fastest growing class of drug in the entire US, within just a few years of launch. And those drugs are relatively affordable to even the uninsured.
welshwelsh | 20 hours ago
10% isn't a lot. The vast majority of people will be able to afford the new cures.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 17 hours ago
Imagine opposing something good because “only” 90% of people will possibly benefit lol
Ravenluna798 | 14 hours ago
Gross.
So you think we should make sure we build out data centers before we help our populace get medical insurance?
Maybe these data centers should start paying taxes immediately.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 14 hours ago
I don’t think you can read.
tachyonvelocity | 20 hours ago
lol the fact this is the top comment on a Reddit thread about AI really means you should take the opposite side. Just because Dems won majorities of congress doesn’t mean a freeze on all data centers is going to happen. Nor is it now “pretty clearly” going to be zero or negative growth.
Barnyard_Rich | 15 hours ago
No one said "freeze on all data centers," why needlessly strawman?
But the people of the US did aggressively vote against data centers in the election, it happened. Pro-data center incumbents were routed, while data center critics swept major races in states that, as the person you responded to ACTUALLY said, were viewed as "pretty safe" from regulation issues.
Trenton, Ohio voted 80%-20% to ban all new data centers. This is a town of roughly 14,000 people in what used to be deep red Ohio.
I get it's easy to get upvotes acting like the peoples' votes won't matter, but they will. And yes it matters that Texas Democrats won every statewide race because they explicitly ran on corruption, affordability and being anti-data center. Guess what? Most Americans view all three issues as inextricably intertwined.
You can disagree with the voters all you want, put screaming that we're not allowed to look at how election results will affect policy while on an academic subreddit, of all places, is frankly hilarious because your comment fully explains why Republicans got once in a generation wrecked.
Cmd_WillRiker | 21 hours ago
Listening to Joe Kearns on CNBC yesterday cry about GDP numbers was maddening, like dude, take away the CapEx from the AI buildout and what is that number really? To say nothing of how so little of the growth in the economy actually trickles down to working people.
DisneyPandora | 20 hours ago
Joe Kearns is a known Trump Supporter and one of Trump’s closest friends. So he’s playing to the audience
NorCalJason75 | 20 hours ago
The stock market, generally, is not for normal working people. It's for the wealthy.
AdmirableSelection81 | 19 hours ago
The data center buildout has been a financial boon for people working in trades (construction, pipefitting, electricians, etc.). What are you even talking about.
welshwelsh | 20 hours ago
It absolutely is for normal working people. Anyone who makes sensible career decisions and regularly contributes to their 401k will eventually have capital gains that exceed their salary.
Lots of people don't do that, which is fundamentally a financial education problem. The solution is to make sure people understand the importance of holding stock, instead of trying to change the system to devalue the stock market.
NorCalJason75 | 20 hours ago
Total horseshit.
Reality is the wealthiest 10% own 93% the stock.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealthiest-10-americans-own-93-033623827.html
AdmirableSelection81 | 2 hours ago
I have 0 sympathy for people who don't put money in their retirement funds.
I'm not some high paid tech/finance bro, i just have a normal job and i have 7 figures in my retirement account because i live a fairly simple/frugal lifestyle and put most of my money in my ira/401k and have done so for decades.
Cmd_WillRiker | an hour ago
Your personal experience says nothing about the experience of everyone else and if you constantly compare others to your best parts, you will always look down on people.
AdmirableSelection81 | 49 minutes ago
If capitalist get excess returns vs. labor, it only makes sense to become a capitalist yourself.
Very normal people have retired in their 30's just by being frugal and putting everything they have in stocks.
Cmd_WillRiker | 29 minutes ago
Again, your experience says nothing of the experience of others and you don't get to just force a world view onto other people, especially if your world view is just "the capitalists won so become one or die"
Southern_Help4938 | 21 hours ago
Erm, the buildout of the data centers is estimated to create ~400,000 good paying trade jobs. Many of those trade jobs are paying *way* above average for their fields right now. That's not nothing.
The10KThings | 20 hours ago
Creating 400,000 temporary jobs to build data centers that contribute to permanently eliminating millions of jobs is a terrible trade off to make.
RYNNYMAYNE | 21 hours ago
How many of those jobs are going to be around in 5 years when all construction is done???
mynameisrockhard | 20 hours ago
I work in AEC and this is the part nobody ever carves out when specific projects are discussed in terms of job creation. During construction there are hundreds of workers, if not thousands on larger sites, that will work on the project during design and construction. After the project is built those jobs only exist if other similar projects are coming online. You see this kind of bolstering of numbers a lot specifically with large scale infrastructure type projects all the time and it is so clearly not what is commonly meant when we talk about job creation.
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
There are tons of jobs in the economy that don't have five year certainty windows. How many software engineers are goingt o be around in five years and compared to five years ago?
How many radiologists will we need in five years?
Stlr_Mn | 20 hours ago
400,000 is cumulative though I’ve never seen that number. At any one time it’s around 30,000 construction jobs with an additional 30,000 with jobs adjacent to it. 60,000 consistent jobs is not worth it in any way.
https://hamminstitute.org/site-files/documents/data_center_workforce.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
dwightpower420 | 20 hours ago
wow… a good paying TEMP job. Sign me up. How long do the health insurance benefits last? I’ll take my $100,000 government job instead thanks
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
You think job cuts are coming for government jobs? I can't think of a more ripe place for AI.
dwightpower420 | 20 hours ago
doubtful in my state (michigan). the republicans just got completely wiped out of state government. I’m a regulator and the industry i regulate is having AI job displacement, but that has mostly led to no new hiring. Basically, the companies i regulate are growing more than ever but they aren’t hiring or firing, but instead growing with increased use of AI. I feel terrible for new college grads, they don’t stand a chance
No-Breakfast-8154 | 20 hours ago
And once the construction ends then most of the jobs will be gone. AI data centers need little maintenance or actual employees on a daily basis. Construction could be better used for our infrastructure: better roads, high speed trains, or green energy
Lor_azepam | 20 hours ago
Seems like shit Biden was trying to do
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
Here's the rub, the data center money isn't federal money, it is private money. So sure, taking private money to build things you want is better for you than things you don't want? News?
dust4ngel | 19 hours ago
> the buildout of the data centers is estimated to create ~400,000 good paying trade jobs
the purpose of the data centers is to eliminate jobs. that's why investors are so frothy.
coke_and_coffee | 19 hours ago
Ok but why would you take away the CapEx from the AI buildout? That makes no sense.
Cmd_WillRiker | 18 hours ago
Because Joe's argument was that voters should not be upset about the economy since GDP was 3% or whatever it was, but a large portion of that number is just CapEx spend for the buildout and not a representation of an economy that is growing and "rising all boats".
Only a small sliver of the population is actually benefiting from AI.
coke_and_coffee | 16 hours ago
> but a large portion of that number is just CapEx spend for the buildout and not a representation of an economy that is growing and "rising all boats".
This is literally how ALL GDP growth works.
Do you think economies grow by uniformly expanding all industries at the same time??? Lol
Economies at the frontier of the innovation curve grow by developing new technologies and then expanding those technologies. Stacking S-curves. That’s just how it works. It makes no sense to remove one of those S-curves and then claim there’s no growth.
Cmd_WillRiker | 16 hours ago
BUT THAT MEANS JOE'S ARGUMENT IS STUPID. Dont you get it? Using GDP numbers as an argument for why regular working people shouldn't feel down about the affordable crisis is a bad argument.
You're arguing against something I'm not saying
coke_and_coffee | 15 hours ago
But we know that gross GDP is correlated with things like standard of living and GDP growth is correlated with unemployment and wage growth. It doesn’t matter if that GDP growth is only because of one industry because that’s how all GDP growth works, and yet it’s still correlated with things that benefit average worked.
Cmd_WillRiker | 15 hours ago
Okay, that's where you're wrong.
coke_and_coffee | 15 hours ago
lol k
BenjaminHamnett | 20 hours ago
Nothing else is growing because AI is sucking all the air out of the room, soaking up capital and creating uncertainty. If there was no AI boom, we’d have the normal stifled growth we always have under republicans for the last 100 years
Ok-Piece-2546 | 20 hours ago
Doesn't help that the baby in chief actively sabotaged USA with the tariffs, Iran oil crisis, both of which led to higher bonds rate
TH3PhilipJFry | 20 hours ago
Weren’t the AI companies just asking for the regulation and red tape tho? This seems like a boogeyman of a headline reason
MrDerpGently | 20 hours ago
Look, if the government doesn't step in to be a convenient bad guy, they have to try and live up to their insane hype.
recurrence | 21 hours ago
I wonder if this will bring ram prices down.
CautiousOptimism09 | 21 hours ago
Yeah by the way as they fucking should. These things are destroying eco systems and using insane amounts of power and resources for a reason that cant be explained. I just hope the taxpayers arent on the hook for bailing them out
SmurfStig | 21 hours ago
Oh you know us taxpayers will be. Same way the banks got bailed out for screwing us all over back in the subprime days.
mrjowei | 21 hours ago
Not only that but deflating the bubble early prevents a major burst from fucking up the economy in the near future.
Individual_Laugh1335 | 20 hours ago
> for a reason that can’t be explained
This is an irrational take as purposeful AI usage has been growing exponentially. Just because you live in a bubble doesn’t mean something is true.
skaestantereggae | 19 hours ago
I’m anti hyper scale data centers, and want AI regulated to hell and back, but is there anyway to make these massive data centers, better? I guess?
drakanx | 20 hours ago
Democrats will force the US to abandon AI while China will be full steam ahead.
thebusterbluth | 20 hours ago
It's not uncommon for a few sectors of the economy to be the difference in GDP growth.
Prestigious_Load1699 | 9 hours ago
That’s sort of what creative destruction is all about
Consistent_Laziness | 20 hours ago
I’d prefer this over 0 oversight. I didn’t like where we were headed.
If we can’t grow the economy without AI, then the economy is broken
Lor_azepam | 20 hours ago
Bingo, we need oversight to ensure ai is being developed to help humans not replace/hurt us
Consistent_Laziness | 20 hours ago
I agree. It can roll out but the 0 oversight it’s had has been reckless and hurtful. The environment, its cost on citizens, its use, and future utility all need to be considered carefully.
Agreeable_Basket_931 | 20 hours ago
We can just spend money on stuff that people need, like renewable energy buildout.
datums | 20 hours ago
That’s definitely not true. If they weren’t investing that money in data center construction, they would be investing it in other parts of the economy, and the GDP growth would be coming from there in stead.
All that money doesn’t just cease to exist without the data centers.
PIK_Toggle | 20 hours ago
Where would it go?
The hyperscalers are driving the bus. They aren’t going to rotate into heavy machinery.
RedTyro | 10 hours ago
The hyperscalers are hoovering up all the resources that other businesses would use for growth. If a small business owner wants to add 100 employees, he has to find a way to source 100 new computers, and when he find them, they come at more than double the cost they were before this all started. Consumers are spending more money on electricity and water that should be going into the economy. And those are just the first two things I thought of. The domino effects of the AI industry and hyperscalers are EVERYWHERE.
Jaguardragoon | 20 hours ago
Except in the case of circular financing and bloated appraisals for an IPO, then the money never really existed
But the interest paid and the liquidity tied up for 24months are real losses for nothing
TheDoomBlade13 | 20 hours ago
Large tech companies have gone all in on AI and some of the main drivers of the current market growth are specifically AI companies who aren't profitable without further scaling.
Halbaras | 20 hours ago
I'd partially agree, but a lot of capital may have already been badly misallocated. Nvidias's and Micron's margins have eaten a lot of investment, and how productive that'll actually be is debatable. A lot of the funding is also coming from just four very profitable companies, who'd otherwise be spending much of it on buybacks instead of investing in future productivity.
The lasting damage may be that the US government made a gamble that AI will bring a productivity miracle that will let them solve all their debt and demographic issues painlessly, with no tax increases. That narrative has made them feel comfortable further ballooning the deficit and pushing more unfunded tax cuts that'll be politically difficult to reverse.
Nitros14 | 19 hours ago
Buybacks used to be illegal. Perhaps they should be again?
TreeInternational771 | 20 hours ago
It just has to be attractive areas to deploy. The rate of return on AI data center build out has been much higher than building a new home or other parts of economy. That’s why people chose to allocate capital there
Ok-Piece-2546 | 20 hours ago
You don't think a bigger reason for the low growth are caused by the tariffs and the Iran war, both of which increased bond rates
lodemeup | 20 hours ago
Hmm awesome something for the republicans to blame democrats for. Just in time!
I just hope that enough people are keen to this ploy so they don’t put the foxes back in the hen house again.
dwightpower420 | 20 hours ago
good. fuck AI and the data centers they rode in on. I was just in ruby red rural ohio and the residents there are pissed at the massive data center outside Bowling Green. The residents in a small town near me in michigan just voted the entire board out over a proposed data center outside of town. Nobody but incel Elon chuds wants this technology
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
You just used a data center to read this post and to make your comment.
PatchyWhiskers | 20 hours ago
The data centers that serve internet and the data centers that run AI are not interchangeable at all. You might as well point out that we all used computers/phones to type this.
JOOOQUUU | 20 hours ago
He's part of the whataboutism flood going right now
It seems the bot owners are panicking lmao
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
It’s not whataboutism to say that everyone enjoys the output of data centers, but few want data centers. People want their cake and to eat it too.
PatchyWhiskers | 20 hours ago
You didn't address my point, that these are different sorts of data centers.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
They are not. All data centers are just rows of servers that get rented out to whoever rents them. Sometimes the tenants rent them out for AI training or for AI users, which is where a lot of the demand growth is coming from. Other times it’s stuff like Netflix, or Reddit, or anything on the internet. I rent out a small server in Ohio for a website. But the actual data centers themselves are not different. There is just more demand now due to AI so people are building bigger ones.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
They are literally the same thing. You do not know what you are talking about.
You can make an argument that data center demand growth is because of growth in AI demand, but actual data centers are literally not different for AI vs internet. Individual servers can do either, and it just depends on who the renter of a specific server is.
PatchyWhiskers | 20 hours ago
Data centers serving data don't need GPUs. This means they have less power and cooling needs.
numba1cyberwarrior | 20 hours ago
You truly have no comprehension of what you are talking about.
Wellontheotherhand1 | 19 hours ago
No, he is precisely correct. Data centers being built to support AI functions are in many cases radically different from traditional server farms
In many different ways, but just one that I will point out is that AI data centers are often 10 to 25 times more power intensive per rack, then traditional content servers. If you stop and think about what the purpose of them is for a minute, you'll see that this is not surprising
Eating_Astros_9677 | 13 hours ago
> In many different ways, but just one that I will point out is that AI data centers are often 10 to 25 times more power intensive per rack, then traditional content servers.
This is just more land efficient. It is easier to cool and power a small, dense rack than a huge sprawling rack. It doesn't change the fundamental question which is power consumption and land value.
AlaskaExplorationGeo | 19 hours ago
I could read posts and comments back in 2011 before they were putting data centers in everyone's backyards, why do they need so many more of them now?
OnlyTemperature4911 | 20 hours ago
Its giving ahkshually
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
Why comment if you aren’t going to contribute to discourse?
OnlyTemperature4911 | 19 hours ago
Oh right like what you said was so crucial lmao
Gzaleski | 20 hours ago
So does that mean it is a market correction? Also, if Ai and data centers are the only thing keeping gdp growing, isnt that bad?
alilhillbilly | 20 hours ago
Trump has been very bad for the economy, yes.
ishtar_the_move | 20 hours ago
I don't understand why companies don't build these data centers in other less regulated countries.
PatchyWhiskers | 20 hours ago
Latency and the fact that "less regulated" countries tend to be corrupt dictatorships that you don't want to have in control of billions of dollars worth of the world's most expensive tech.
pgtl_10 | 19 hours ago
Most corrupt dictators know not to just takeover tech for no reason. They know not to bite the hands that bribes them.
PatchyWhiskers | 19 hours ago
Depends who you are talking about. Most of them absolutely would do this.
pgtl_10 | 19 hours ago
Disagree. Most know that's a recipe for disaster
PatchyWhiskers | 19 hours ago
Like which dictators are you thinking of here? I can only think of Xi who is generally quite steady, but he prevented Meta from setting up in China because he wanted control of their servers.
Where are all the sensible, pro-tech freedom dictators? Name names!
pgtl_10 | 19 hours ago
UAE for instance.
PatchyWhiskers | 18 hours ago
Oh yes they'd probably love data centers. Cooling would be fun in their climate. Solar power would be great there, if the techlords can bear to dirty themselves with it.
pgtl_10 | 18 hours ago
So you are dismissing it just because it doesn't fit with your worldview? I always find it funny when people pretend they know what they are talking about.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 20 hours ago
They are starting to do that more often. Google announced in the past 24 hours that they are investing $15b into Malaysian data centers.
In the US, prior to this election, ~80% of data center spend was going to less regulated southern states. So the same pattern will play out if those state become more regulated, but with countries.
Nperturbed | 20 hours ago
There are laws on what data you can send offshore
WelpNevertheless | 20 hours ago
Tarriffing memes would solve a lot of our problems tbh
PIK_Toggle | 20 hours ago
Meta said that they will build in Saudi Arabia.
FeRooster808 | 19 hours ago
That's literally why they keep floating this "data centers in space!" idea.
davidw223 | 19 hours ago
I mean that’s also so Elon can profit heavily off all the spacex traffic that would come his way.
FeRooster808 | 19 hours ago
It is and it's another one of his "hype" ideas that is meant to keep his fanboys invested. Like so many of his promises, it's just stupid in reality. Space is not a good or even cheap means of having datacenters.
crackanape | 17 hours ago
It's only for hype and press. Data centres in space make no sense. Latency and cooling are near-insurmountable problems. Plus who is going to go in there and fix things when there's a problem? A truck roll should not cost $20,000,000.
alilhillbilly | 20 hours ago
They are doing that as well.
Proximity = important
Big-Profit-1612 | 19 hours ago
Latency. You can't beat the speed of light.
GreenRatJuice | 19 hours ago
AMZN just announced they’re going to do so in Malaysia, wouldn’t be surprised if this is going to be done by other companies.
shnoiv | 20 hours ago
Data centers have been fantastic for manufacturing in the US. Now you want to dump it off/nearshore as well? Lmao
MalikTheHalfBee | 20 hours ago
Anyone who believes the Dems are going to do anything other than prevent data centers from being built in wealthy areas pays zero attention to politics and/or how lobbying works
numba1cyberwarrior | 20 hours ago
Data centers are already built in wealthy areas. The wealthiest areas in the country have the most data centers.
MalikTheHalfBee | 19 hours ago
Prevent as in the future, as we are already seeing on the local level.
AlaskaExplorationGeo | 19 hours ago
Why don't we build more fucking housing and prop up the economy that way
ReggieEvansTheKing | 17 hours ago
That was actually part of Biden’s infrastructure bill and republicans rejected it. The original bill had like $300 billion in housing investments built into it before it got gutted. American voters all rejected this lol
“President Biden originally proposed $213 billion to $318 billion in housing investments—aimed at producing, preserving, and retrofitting over 2 million affordable and sustainable homes and building or rehabilitating more than 500,000 low- and middle-income homes—as part of his broader Build Back Better agenda. However, these housing provisions were not enacted as part of the final bipartisan infrastructure law.”
helpfulmountain7 | 16 hours ago
Yep the reason we don’t have nice things is that the Republicans fillibuster everything and Dems have never had a 2/3 majority in the past 50 years except for just one month when we passed the Affordable Care Act
nickilous | 14 hours ago
That's like asking baby boomers—the largest voting block—to vote to drastically reduce the value of their biggest asset: their house.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 18 hours ago
Yes, that sounds great.
Many of the laws and permitting processes used to stall or stop housing are also used against industrial or commercial uses like data centers too though.
LostandConfusedArt | 18 hours ago
because that would benefit not rich people and not rich people dont have as much money
Zoning and regulation is a nightmare, but tbh the data center bs really proved how little those rules mattered when push came to shove. The political will was just behind one and not the other
Dub-MS | 18 hours ago
Start a 501c.3 and see how that goes. Last I checked builders want to make a profit too.
GhostofBeowulf | 20 hours ago
I would just like to point out the counter point to this claim, but when you remove the 4 or 5 largest companies from comparison, of course it looks ugly.
CurrentCostanza | 20 hours ago
And healthcare jobs are the only reason we have positive job growth.
dust4ngel | 18 hours ago
that's not true - the data centers cause enough health issues to require more healthcare jobs to handle the increased traffic to the hospital, so they're also responsible for job growth.
followsvoices | 19 hours ago
I laugh whenever people say things are 'priced in. '
Prestigious_Load1699 | 9 hours ago
Even the Fed Futures market, which essentially forces the hand of the FOMC?
fore___ | 17 hours ago
As they should. Data centers should be regulated more heavily.
Alternative_Rice1867 | 17 hours ago
They are already regulated pretty heavily. Many of them interact with NEPA on top of arduous local permitting processes, in addition to a rapidly expanding set of state and local laws.
jjwhitaker | 14 hours ago
Reality is reality. Tech spending can't insulate every other industry from fallout of tech products. It's also more circular today than ever with nvidia investing in AIPRODUCT which then buys nvidia gpus. The infinite GDP glitch is gone.
New_Breadfruit8692 | 3 hours ago
We already had sub zero GDP growth. GDP is determined by stripping out nominal inflation from the GDP data to see what the actual change is to the production value of goods and services.
And all that requires is you believe the NOMINAL inflation rate is real.
But what happens if real inflation is 20% but they remove a huge hunk of that inflation because it is tariffs (tax) and taxes are not counted in the prices people pay, so they print a 3.6% CPI for the year? They will take the GDP calculation and strip out 3.6% of that to adjust for this bogus nominal inflation and it is still barely 1.5% up. In reality they needed to strip out at least the 20% that is what we really experienced as a price increase even though a large part of the increase was an illegal tax. Or in the following year oil related increases from a moronic war in the Middle East that is disrupting supply chains.
And once the prices went up they never went back down, and while the cash taxed out of you and me was returned, it was returned to corporations who had already passed that tax on to us as higher costs. We never got a single dime of it back.
So, REAL GDP is falling rapidly, it was probably larger at the beginning of the Great Depression, but not by that much. And we will see if the supply chains are disrupted or permanently damaged with higher energy prices going forward.
I do know that refining margins for the big oil companies are up in the 100% to 600% range and not just record profits, but some like BP used the windfall to settle all remaining debt from the Deepwater Horizon accident years early. And I also know Trump was bragging before the election how great the war is for profits and how many people were becoming millionaires and billionaires from all the refining windfall profits. So, about 0.00001% of the population actually make more money from fuel price increases than they are paying at the pumps. The rest of the 99.9999% are getting ripped a new financial asshole every time they fill up. And that alone accounts for a big part of the democrats wins.
BathroomMaximum1721 | 21 hours ago
I think the housing market will perk up except maybe in the tech cities because the mortgage rates are going down.
Southern_Help4938 | 21 hours ago
10 year is at 4.9%.... mortgage rates ticked down, barely.
BathroomMaximum1721 | 20 hours ago
Closer to 4.8%. A few lenders are offering 6.5% with no points for borrowers with excellent credit. They are saying that demand for agency MBS has increased and the mortgage spread has narrowed.
Southern_Help4938 | 19 hours ago
Sure, its possible, I don't watch lending rates anymore. However a 6.5% mortgage is still brutal in the 25 year context or so. Moreover, housing prices haven't come down much at all to adjust for the higher rates and construction costs are ridiculously elevated.
I just finished building another home and my price per ft was ~440. The last house I build was 9 years ago and it was ~190/ft, similar finishes and size.
BathroomMaximum1721 | 19 hours ago
Many buyers were priced out when rates went to 7.5% and have been waiting on the sidelines. Many of them will be able to afford the home they want at 6.5% and jump into the market.
Then there are states such as FL where the property tax reduction amendment passed and the property tax on a homesteaded property will go down by $2500 a year. Thats a $200+ per month reduction in the monthly payment and will additionally spur home buying.
Housing market has lagged for the last 2 years whereas the tech stocks soared. Now the pendulum has started swinging in the other direction.
Southern_Help4938 | 19 hours ago
I would be very careful operating under the notion that the housing market is going to see an upswing. Prices remain high, construction prices remain high, the job market and stock market is getting pretty damn jittery.
TrevorBo | 20 hours ago
Concentration of power and production proves very bad for economies. We will build and protect what serves our society.
TechnologyEither | 20 hours ago
Oh no, the bubble that everyone and their mom knew was a bubble is popping…
Lucky_Dragonfruit_88 | 18 hours ago
Lol sure buddy
notchosebutmine | 21 hours ago
Is it time for a little bit of profit taking or could I even ask about some bearish puts even shorts? Yes I know this is the story some of us want but growth is still ahead.
lazydictionary | 20 hours ago
If you are in it for the long haul, buying an index fund after a 4% drop is basically never a bad move. Unless the stock market turns into Japan from 1990-2024
coke_and_coffee | 19 hours ago
Don’t try to time the market.
pump-house | 17 hours ago
DCA all the way!
pabodie | 20 hours ago
There are a lot of really good takes on this post. I just wanna add something purely political. If we see a major correction because of a move away from AI stocks, it only underlines the weakness of Trump’s economy, it’s lack of diversity and foolishness in defensive tariffs add wars that drive up energy costs. If we can’t survive one industries correction, well then we didn’t have much of an economy to begin with
weristjonsnow | 17 hours ago
I'm sure that's how voters will see it in 28 when they blame the correction on Dems and flock back to the right
Rodot | 9 hours ago
Eh, most voters weren't getting the benefits of the AI industry and aren't as leveraged into it as, say, their own homes in 2008. It's not going to be painless, but it's not going to be a great recession or covid level event.
Key-Organization3158 | 20 hours ago
I don't think that holds. Thinking of AI as one industry is naive. It'll have impacts in every industry. More akin to a factor of production, like labor.
pabodie | 19 hours ago
Prominent AI Stock Indices & Benchmarks
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pabodie | 16 hours ago
Downvoted for posting a list of simple facts. Typical.
drakanx | 20 hours ago
gee...I wonder why there was a move away from AI...could it be the incoming Democrats who vow to halt all AI on day 1?
collin-h | 20 hours ago
BREAKING: humans unexpectedly mad about being replaced. Join us at 11 when our investigative reporters dive into the details during our special AI segment called "Why don't they just shut up and take it?"
pabodie | 16 hours ago
And while we are getting replaced we get to pay more for power and drink poison.
welshwelsh | 20 hours ago
AI isn't just one industry. It's the future of all industries. 99% of all progress in every field over the next century is going to be driven by AI.
BigBadJeebus | 19 hours ago
are you actually an ai agent?
edwardothegreatest | 19 hours ago
But currently that’s not the case so the point is still valid
anewleaf1234 | 19 hours ago
Progress.
What's AI giving the average American? because right now it is just Google with a few extra features.
It can be used to extract wealth and do flex pricing.
It can be used to eliminate jobs.
It can be used to manipulate.
But if I own a bar and I need people to have jobs so they can come to my bar and drink, how's AI going to help me?
stormy2587 | 19 hours ago
I guess you could use AI to like advertise online for the Bar but in a world where everyone can just shit out infinite AI ads for cheap is that really providing much utility?
my first thought when I see an AI ad is “do I want to go to a shitty bar/buy a shitty product/etc from a place that can’t be bothered to do more than the bare minimum advertising?”
anewleaf1234 | 18 hours ago
Bingo.
AI has made claims that it could help me, but it doesn't seem to deliver on that idea.
AI can't drink. Humans can.
So if AI pushes even ten percent of my cust. base out of their jobs that's ten percent of my customers gone.
YouWereBrained | 19 hours ago
Progress…or regression?
USSMarauder | 21 hours ago
Turns out Trump's economy was all a pack of lies.
Now that the AI companies will not be getting billions in taxpayer money for free, of course the value goes down
Individual_Laugh1335 | 20 hours ago
When my team causes the stock market to go down it is for a righteous purpose. When the other team causes the stock market to go down it is for an evil purpose.
RunningSouthOnLSD | 20 hours ago
I’m not sure how you can post something like this unironically in this sub given the fact that the last two years have been filled with evidence of how horribly this administration has been destroying the US economy, but I guess when you pretend to play the “both sides” game you don’t have to be intellectually honest.
Waterwoo | 9 hours ago
You can really see them horribly destroying the economy here https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gdpc1
Brian_MPLS | 20 hours ago
The problem is the "other team" doesn't take over for 3 months. Everything is still on the administration!
They made the choice to build on an unsustainable foundation!
PatchyWhiskers | 20 hours ago
The rich guys are afraid of what Democrats might possibly do. Specifically they are afraid that if the bubble blows there might not be a bailout.
scottyLogJobs | 20 hours ago
https://imgflip.com/i/b56o1g
Individual_Laugh1335 | 20 hours ago
I’m sorry but you do realize the stock market acts like a prediction market, no?
Brian_MPLS | 20 hours ago
Yup. The people in charge should have probably built more resilience into their economy.
Hopefully the incoming group will be smart and diversify a little bit.
Equivalent-Process17 | 14 hours ago
So you think Trump should have taken anti-democratic measures to block the Democrats from winning? I'm not sure how you build resilience to losing a democratic election?
Brian_MPLS | 13 hours ago
He should have built an economy that doesn't get spooked by the idea of law-enforcement.
Individual_Laugh1335 | 13 hours ago
How does the government build resilience into the economy?
Brian_MPLS | 13 hours ago
Well firstly by enforcing the law so that the idea of oversight doesn't spark panic.
Individual_Laugh1335 | 12 hours ago
That makes zero sense. Having a halt on AI isn’t “oversight”, it’s backwards. Yes, I want a lawmaker who barely has enough capacity to operate a computer to halt a bleeding edge technology while they try to figure out a way to either line their pockets or make it ineffective out of fear of the unknown. Democrats used to be the party of technology and moving forward but that type of policy is completely backwards.
Waterwoo | 9 hours ago
You would think an economics sub would be familiar with the well known expression "markets are forward looking."
Brian_MPLS | an hour ago
They are, and in this case they are spooked by the prospect of laws actually being enforced.
Sorry, but that falls on the people who let the corruption fester because they were getting their beaks wet...
jjwhitaker | 14 hours ago
> When democracy causes the stock market to go down it is for a righteous purpose. When fascist criminals cause the stock market to go down it is for an evil purpose.
Yes? Oversight and applying the rule of law is a good thing. If that makes markets fall then clearly the markets were corrupt and abusing their power.
When the president's buddies make billions in oil bets minutes before he speaks about Iran and his war, something is wrong.
When the president makes more stock trades than all of congress, something is wrong.
When the president buys $28mil in Dell stock days before announcing a partnership with Dell, something is wrong.
When the president's sons sit on the boards of gambling companies whos ee sweetheart deals and regulation, something is wrong.
When the president's sons sit on the boards of defense contractors seeing tens of billions in government contracts, something is wrong.
When the president's son in law is caught overseeing hundreds of billions of payments and slush funds while acting as an unregistered foreign agent and dealmaker for the country, something is wrong.
When the president's son operated a massive crypto scam raking in billions and sees no investigation, something is wrong.
Do you get it yet or are you in support of corruption, grift, theft, greed, and fraud?
hungryhungrynippos | 12 hours ago
It's not possible for that ever to be true?
CassadagaValley | 18 hours ago
There aren't "teams" in politics.
Waterwoo | 9 hours ago
Are you new here? It's been an extreme team sport since at least 2008 and getting worse every year
Ada_Kaleh22 | 21 hours ago
Welp, now's the part where we deal with all the debt the GOP ran up this time.
I've already seen the hard left start to go at Dem leadership, just because that's what they do. Thank god they were irrelevant this year. This is referring more to the grifters than the DSA candidates, glad they won.
The debt level has reached unsustainable levels. Somehow in our society when the GOP is in charge, with the media playing right along, we get to hold air for a bit at times.
And then the reality of national GOP governance hits. Again.
The Dems are the only adults in the room, but the media will once again play against them, as usual. All the problems will be because of the Dems, like they'll say this drop is their fault. So convenient for them, it's never Trump's unless it's already gold plated.
We've first off got to end the tariffs, and end the war completely.
Trump won't like that but he better triangulate or he will be swept aside.
CliftonForce | 20 hours ago
There is no good way to end the war quickly. Trump dug us into a very big cesspool.
America created a big mess for the whole planet. America has a responsibility to help clean it up, so we can't just pack up our toys and leave. The only winning move was to have never started the war in the first place.
I have no idea how to do that.
Ok-Piece-2546 | 20 hours ago
Hate to say it, but we should work with China to make Iran to be a bit more forced to settle the issue.
As much as china might happy to see this play out, they also need oil and the prices to stabilize.
A global oil crisis hurts China more than many other countries, so it's in their interest to get this over as fast as possible.
Nitros14 | 19 hours ago
It's more in China's interest to see this drag on and deplete US munitions and reputation. That's why they're arming Iran.
The worse this gets for the USA the better for unification with Taiwan.
The only thing the USA could offer China to change their mind is a free hand in Taiwan.
Ok-Piece-2546 | 19 hours ago
I mean at this point, USA can just walk away from the strait then, without talking to Iran at all. Not like things can get any worse for the relationship if they did so.
Let the global community handle it how they want to
crackanape | 17 hours ago
China cares more about the economy than about reunification with Taiwan.
AntarcticWhirlpool | 16 hours ago
It doesn’t benefit China if the US goes from building a few dozen interceptors per month to building thousands, which is what is happening. The US is ramping up weapon production to deal with the problem of the depletion, increasing war capabilities in the long run.
Message_10 | 20 hours ago
Yeah--like, if these people could turn off Fox News for a second and actually get a clear idea of how unbelievable ffffed the entire Iran situation is... it's kind of intractable, at this point. There's no good way out, and the bad ways out are unbelievably costly. This was a decision so bad it's hard to describe.
And also worth noting that going forward, there is zero, literally zero chance that Iran doesn't speedrun a nuclear bomb. Obama's treaty, imperfect though it was, literally kept a cap on progress and we had in-facility people who could make sure they didn't make progress. That kind of opportunity is gone forever.
AntarcticWhirlpool | 16 hours ago
Why do you all assume that Israel and the Arab states will allow Iran to get nuclear weapons? You realize that Israel is likely to launch a preemptive nuclear strike with Arab support to prevent that, right?
Real_Square1323 | 10 hours ago
Israel has nuclear weapons and it hasn't destroyed the world yet. I don't think Iran getting nuclear weapons does anything other than give the entire world a big peaceful break from nonstop wars in the middle east.
Nitros14 | 19 hours ago
Surrender, pay the toll, coerce Israel to leave Lebanon using all the power of the US government, evacuate the gulf bases.
War is over in a week and only costs America its pride and imperial pretensions.
AntarcticWhirlpool | 16 hours ago
Great… and when Iran actually gets to close to building nukes, and Israel launches its nukes preemptively to prevent them while the Arab states turn a blind eye, you’ll be crying that we didn’t do the hard thing by staying the course that we’re stuck in to prevent it.
It’s not just the US. The other Middle Eastern states won’t allow a nuclear Iran that controls the Strait of Hormuz either.
Ok-Piece-2546 | 19 hours ago
I think thats a likely scenario if we wanted to rip the band off as fast as we can, but ideally we can use the global leaders to help negotiate this out to have some better terms.
The problem with Trump was he is increasingly stubborn about these types of issues. Perhaps Iran might be more forthcoming to a newer deal jsut they also can move away from all of this.
After all, their best "nuke" is being able to close down the strait at any time they want. But it doesn't make sense to drag this on of it continues to hurt their bottom line.
As for the nuke stuff, I think the USA should discuss this with other global leaders. It's not like we border Iran anyways. If the global leaders are fine with it, then so be it.
sarcasticbaldguy | 20 hours ago
Typical. Republicans ruin the economy and then hand it over to democratics who get the blame.
Thadlust | 15 hours ago
Joe Biden lowered the debt right? He never spent a deficit, right?
Ada_Kaleh22 | 14 hours ago
that's not worthy of a reply but i'm nice
Southern_Help4938 | 21 hours ago
Stop pretending the deficits and debt are somehow a new thing or specific to a party. The driving force behind the debt is entitlement spending and tax cuts. Both parties had huge hands in both.
The10KThings | 20 hours ago
Stop pretending that one party doesn’t significantly contribute more to the debt than the other party.
immortal_AntonEgo | 20 hours ago
But the GOPs hand is much bigger. They have consistently raised spending while cutting taxes, its insane
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
The bulk of spending increases are automatic and generally very difficult to reign in. Mandatory spending represents ~75% of federal spending.
GhostofBeowulf | 20 hours ago
Right, and the GOP nearly doubled the annual deficit from 2 to 4T in two years since Trump has taken office...
Like... Forest, meet trees.
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
So... we're just going to make up shit now?
2026 deficit is projected at just under $2T, not the 4T you are quoting. Moreover, the deficit was flat the previous year at a bit over $1.8T and flat compared to the year before that.
Meanwhile the *increase* in medicare outlays for 2026 is estimated at ~$90B.
GhostofBeowulf | 18 hours ago
You're right, those increases were over the next decade and include losing ~$6 trillion from the OBB, and half a trillion from immigration and adminstrative action. So only an extra 650 billion increase per year!
And how are those not directly the result of Trump?
Waterwoo | 9 hours ago
Now factor in what portion of that is due to increasing interest expense due to long term bond rates going from less than 2% to over 5% in the past few years.
Southern_Help4938 | 18 hours ago
ICE total 2026 allocation was a hair over $100B, including OBB money.
The tax cut cost is estimated at ~$350B a year via OBBA.
You dont need to make up numbers to make a point.
You realize that the OBBA tax cuts were progressive in nature right? Meaning more benefit to lower incomes.
Ravenluna798 | 17 hours ago
Aren't the lower tax cuts temporary? They have an expiration date.
Ok-Piece-2546 | 20 hours ago
Since this is the case, why tf would they cut taxes. I believe there is a figure that shows $10 trillion has been added to the debt just by Bushes and 1st term Trump's tax cut alone.
So why did the stable genius and party of fiscal responsibility cut them again, all the while flunging tariffs and an oil crisis, both of which increased bond rates and inflation
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
Interest rates are far less related to oil prices and inflation than simple global sovereign deficits and bond oversupply. That's basic macro econ, something every central banker has spoke about repeatedly for the last six months.
I don't disagree on the tax cuts, we should go back to the *full* stack of Clinton rates. That means tax hikes and subsidy cuts *for all households*.
You'd agree, right?
Ok-Piece-2546 | 20 hours ago
I agree on the cuts stuff, but don't totally agree with the bond stuff.
You don't think the foreign appetite for U.S. bonds significantly lowered due to how obnoxious this current admin is, which in turn fueled the bond crisis?
It might not be a large factor but it certainly played a part, along with the untamed inflation that every country is experiencing thanks to the oil crisis and tariffs.
From a textbook, basic macro point of view doesn't bond yields and inflation go hand in hand?
Although I do yield that big tech offering higher yields also caused the yields to go higher.
But we still live in a world where could see the consequences of the tariffs and oil crisis coming from a mile away but did almost nothing to stop them.
Southern_Help4938 | 19 hours ago
No, not meaningfully and the best example is the target of Trump's harshest critique has been Canada and they have increased their UST holdings YoY.
End of the day investing in treasuries doesn't have much to do with a jackass carnival barker, it has to do with interest rates, securities, and alternatives. The real question you have to ask is whether or not a country would prefer to put their reserves in UST, or Yuan bonds, or Yen, etc. It's not a question of how great the treasury looks, it is a question of relative value and stability. For all the warts that DJT has, I don't think he has meaningfully changed the view in that regard and I think the fact that holding allocations havent changed much at all.
HumorAccomplished611 | 20 hours ago
Deficit has always gone down under dems and up under republicans. This is a 30 year trend on this point.
Most dem programs pay for themselves in some way though yes theres some entitelments
somasomore | 20 hours ago
deficits have increased slower under dems would be the correct way to phrase this. The deficit hasn't gone down under any presidency since clinton. And the the total debt added each term has gone up for every president since Bush 2.
Ok-Piece-2546 | 20 hours ago
The thing is, spending under Obama and Biden was mostly done to deal with the financial crisis and Covid.
Bush set the stage with the Wars and Tax cuts and Trump went hard on the Tax cuts. The Republicans seemed to have worsened the deficit to a much higher degree
HumorAccomplished611 | 20 hours ago
>deficits have increased slower under dems would be the correct way to phrase this. The deficit hasn't gone down under any presidency since clinton. And the the total debt added each term has gone up for every president since Bush 2.
Nah deficits go down under dems over time. Youre thinking of debt where clinton started having a surplus.
And debt isnt as bad as long as the country is growing.
And nowadays since trump its really exploded.
somasomore | 18 hours ago
The cumulative deficit under Obama was larger than Bush, under Biden was larger than Trump's 1st term.
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
Incorrect. As an example, it increased in 22, 23, and 24 (post COVID).
I am not blaming Biden's admin for that, it was largely a function of mandatory spending. That's what people don't realize, the overwhelming bulk of US spending is tied to mandatory programs which have ratcheting costs each year (SS, MCare, MCaid).
HumorAccomplished611 | 20 hours ago
Thats fair. I was looking at debt as a part of GDP and it looked pretty flat compared to the first year.
The biggest problem currently is debt servicing is getting expensive enough to start to crowd out other things.
Southern_Help4938 | 20 hours ago
Agreed, but that was predictable too. We were never going to be able to sustain 2-3% debt financing, particularly not while flooding the market with $1-2T of new issuance per year. Then consider all of the western world is floating new issuance as well. There is simply too much debt for available capital, thus rates rise.
HumorAccomplished611 | 19 hours ago
We were actually looking pretty good under Biden. Financing was going below 4% for the 10 year. Tariffs fucked it up and then the war. Really stupid mistakes.
The decade of america really got destroyed by this guy.
We could have had some tweaking and been really good for decades. Now I'm not sure what we will do. If you raise taxes youll immediately lose like bush sr. But if you dont then it might explode at some point.
Biden was a balance of growing faster than the debt for a bit but changing demographics will destory it
Southern_Help4938 | 19 hours ago
I think it is wrong to attribute treasury yields to administrations. They *really* don't have a lot of input on how Mr.Market treats new issuance. Moreover, in order for your position to make logical sense you would need to have a disconnect between the US and other western nations... you don't. Global sovereign debt costs have all correlated in the same direction almost perfectly. That supports my hypothesis, in that there is an oversupply/saturation of sovereign debt, far more than yours imo.
Take a step back and ask yourself if banks and financial institutions are really going to price trillions in debt differently because of orange man bad. They don't, they haven't, and they won't. It's an entirelty different decision making process.
HumorAccomplished611 | 19 hours ago
I think its more correlated to global events. In the initial case you have covid and then the following large inflation afterwards.
https://claude.ai/share/25089337-0535-4ff6-b0cd-6fe655fee5f3
EU correlation dropped to almost 0 november 2025
>Eurozone bonds have the weakest and least stable link. The rolling correlation fell to roughly zero from spring to autumn 2025. That fits two events I know of: in March 2025 Germany announced a fiscal and defense spending package that pushed Bund yields up, and in April 2025 the US tariff shock sent Treasuries down while euro bonds held up. By mid-2026 the correlation had rebuilt to about 0.8, and it has since faded to about 0.43.
>Take a step back and ask yourself if banks and financial institutions are really going to price trillions in debt differently because of orange man bad. They don't, they haven't, and they won't. It's an entirelty different decision making process.
If thats your takeaway then you dont understand why orange man bad. Hes bad because he disrupts global order and budgets with trade wars and you have to price in the risk of him for example starting a war for literally no reason. Especially when hes unconstrained by congress or judicial branch. Correlation goes down once countries make plans for such things as opening other trade partners or partnering with china over the usa etc.
Southern_Help4938 | 19 hours ago
COVID era was a pretty similar situation when the US treasury flooded the market with a sudden influx of $2T in unanticipated bonds. Ultimately this is a supply v demand issue and elasticity in pricing.
Outstanding sovereign debt issurance has climbed by more than 10% per year for each of the last two years. We, the globe, are simply pumping too much debt into a market that is capital constrained to absorb it. Look at foreign holders of US debt YoY. Canada up. Germany up. UK up. Belgium, way up. The downs? China down huge, Japan down slight.
The issue is the fact that global sovereign debt is rising at ~$6T a year the last two years against an 2024 figure of $59T. $6T is just too big a number, I think it really is that simple.
This has always been the problem with QE too.
Waterwoo | 9 hours ago
Those programs aren't really "mandatory". And even if some level of them is, increasing the amounts every year sure isn't.
But the fact that politically they basically are mandatory is a big part of the problem.
ImaginaryHospital306 | 19 hours ago
What do you expect Dems to actually do about the debt? There is no solution. The largest contributors to the deficit are mandatory entitlements that are politically impossible to cut.
Raichu4u | 18 hours ago
Not pass a Big Beautiful Bill, for starters. It's projected to increase deficits by 4.7 trillion by 2035 while also somehow reducing medicaid spending by $1.2 trillion. So we literally get more debt with less services.
Like come on, these are easy answers here. It's literally "Undo what Republicans have done". We have still last a ton of revenue ever since the corporate tax rate was reduced from 35% to 21% in 2017 with his first admin.
ImaginaryHospital306 | 18 hours ago
If you undo what republicans have done you just end up with smaller deficits. There are no easy answers. We have an entitlement structure that no longer works with our current demographic trajectory, and in 10 years the interest expense on the debt will be over $2tn a year at current pace, $1.2tn a year if we balanced the budget today. We are all fighting over dollars that don't exist.
Happy_Feet333 | 17 hours ago
Smaller deficits buy time. Time that is necessary for the generation on Social Security and Medicare to shuffle off the mortal coil.
Once those mandatory entitlement spending numbers fall back down to the more normal curve, then there will be a lot less government spending.
And that would mean our deficits shrink even more or are even eliminated. Which would let us start paying off the debt.
---
I don't know why everyone keeps forgetting that the Baby Boomers are an abnormal "bubble" in the demographic pipeline of the country. They had less children than their parents did. (IE: the generation that were their children are a smaller generation than the Boomer generation themselves)
Meaning less workers to pay for their benefits. Which result in ballooning deficit spending on those benefits.
But humans don't live forever... and somehow, everyone keeps forgetting that fact.
ImaginaryHospital306 | 17 hours ago
I will absolutely take smaller deficits over larger ones. However that becomes increasingly difficult as interest expense starts eating more of the budget. And you are correct the boomers entering old age is a uniquely tough period; however, it isn't going to get much better when they are gone unless we reform the entitlement structure. Millennials are a larger cohort than Gen X which helps, but they're all old enough to be in the labor force at this point. Gen Z and Alpha are both smaller so we will face the same issues.
Ravenluna798 | 17 hours ago
You're correct. Unlike other 1st world nations, we weren't doing too badly with our demographics because we had pretty decent immigration numbers.
I'd argue for it but every American head would explode again.
I'm not sure what the answer is. You aren't going to get people to have more children than they want.
Happy_Feet333 | 15 hours ago
Immigration was always the solution. And it was inherent in the founding principles of the country, too.
For immigrants are already of the age to enter the workforce... and are young enough to not need social security or medicare for years to come. And they typically marry and have children.
So they pay into the system for decades, now... and increase the population of future taxpayers.
Except that the Republicans now absolutely despise it.
---
>The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus
>Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
>"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Lucky_Dragonfruit_88 | 18 hours ago
They'll have to be the adults in the room and increase taxes
ImaginaryHospital306 | 18 hours ago
That's fine but there is no taxing our way out of the debt or even deficits in general. Interest on the debt will soon be over $1tn a year.
Lucky_Dragonfruit_88 | 17 hours ago
So all hope is lost, got it.
ImaginaryHospital306 | 17 hours ago
Not saying that, but we should at least acknowledge the reality we are in because it will soon be unavoidable.
neverknowsbest141 | 20 hours ago
I don’t think this new crop of Dems are the adults in the room like they used to be, they’re the loudest kids at a Palestine protest. They’re less pragmatic and more idealistic than ever
GhostofBeowulf | 20 hours ago
...Have you seen the other people in the room homie?
Brian_MPLS | 20 hours ago
Guess what? If they're not posting a never-ending steam of dick jokes to their official government accounts, they're the adults in this particular room.
darwizzer | 20 hours ago
Ending support for Israel and their war against Iran is the adult decision though
Waterwoo | 9 hours ago
Fine with both those moves but neither comes even close to solving the deficit, let alone the debt.
Wellontheotherhand1 | 19 hours ago
Uh, the so-called "adults in the room" have screwed things up massively over the course of all of our lifetimes, why should they be given a presumption of competence?
ITS_WANDY | 20 hours ago
Reddit isnt ready to have that conversation yet lmao.
Antique_Remote_5536 | 20 hours ago
What conversation? That the former “adults in the room” softness and ineffectiveness helped paved the way for mess we’re dealing with now? Being nice and cordial does not make you pragmatic.
Efficient_Resist_287 | 21 hours ago
AI inflated numbers and market exuberance. This is a market readjustment that is needed.
Too many of these tech co are reporting great numbers with no real tangibles to measure if real.
GuitarsandPadres | 16 hours ago
The beginning of a needed market correction.
smalltownlargefry | 20 hours ago
I seriously do not care about what the market does. It isn’t reflective at all about the state of the economy for every day people. After midterms and presidential elections, this same thing happens.
ImaginaryHospital306 | 19 hours ago
It's over. Because the AI buildout is so leveraged it doesn't even matter if Dems can pass any meaningful regulation. All that needs to happen is a mere slowing of growth in capex and the house of cards falls down. Some degree on financial contagion will ensue because of what private credit has been doing. We also seem to have forgotten we are in the middle of an oil crisis with no plausible resolution in the short term. Oh, and the housing market is in the worst spot in two decades. As soon as unemployment ticks up all hell will break loose.
Boheed | 19 hours ago
Voters basically rebelled against data center construction by putting moratoriums in place everywhere from California to rural Kansas. The manic data center buildout is dead, and the AI industry's hope for growth that relies on rapid Data Center growth. The future of the AI industry is either more efficiency, or local LLM models that run on the user's own computer.
MikeFrancesa66 | 17 hours ago
I feel like many people are glossing over the fact that this election showed anti-data center sentiment from voters across the political spectrum. This isn’t simply about Democrats being more weary of AI companies, it’s about these data centers being extremely unpopular among the general public.
Ravenluna798 | 19 hours ago
I'd argue they could pay states to build them out.
But the sweetheart deals are all over.
No more 10 year tax moratorium. No more shipping cheap workers from out of state. Frequent inspections of work sites etc.
Just like Trump, the people building these out went too far and took too many liberties with the citizens and are now going to have to suffer for it.
RegulatoryCapture | 9 hours ago
Yeah, I don’t think they will go away.
They won’t be able to do things like build them on cheap rural land near inexpensive power while also getting tax breaks. The specific needs of AI data centers gave them a lot more leeway on location. Cost is way more important than connectivity/latency. Don’t need colo customers nearby, don’t need users, just need power, space, and cooling capacity.
They will build them in industrial zones again, where power and land are more expensive and where they have to use more expensive layouts and equipment to comply with noise and emissions regulations.
Which…I guess is fine? That’s where stuff like that is supposed to go.
Boheed | 19 hours ago
They're already trying to make deals even with local communities and voters are still rejecting them en masse, it's actually wild to see voters just flat out saying "there's no way on God's green earth"
Ravenluna798 | 19 hours ago
They've lost the trust of the people. Can you blame them? In my state, they caught the new data center build running hundreds of un permitted gas fired generators.
These companies could've come in, taken the sweet no tax deals and built to code and been fine.
But they got greedy.
Hell even the Trump supporters in Texas hate data centers. When you lose that crowd as a business owner, youre cooked.
Panelak_Cadillac | 19 hours ago
Local LLM models and self contained ecosystems are most likely the way to go.
Microplasticsharts | 16 hours ago
It’s just going to get funneled into states like Alabama and South Carolina that will spread wide open to subsidize any shitty project proposed. In SC it will go to places like Cherokee county, lots of available land and a small number of bitter uneducated people who won’t be able to fight them off.
padizzledonk | 19 hours ago
This stock slide started the Thursday and Friday before the midterm because of falling corporateprofits and MASSIVE capx, however im sure that Democrats will be immediately blamed for any market correction
And its coming, anyine who pays attention has been saying we are really due for a massive correcrion because the AI mania has really gotten out of hand
throwaway9gk0k4k569 | 10 hours ago
How about that helium shortage?
New_Breadfruit8692 | 3 hours ago
Well, they have two months to sabotage the markets and economy before the 120th DEMOCRATIC congress is in power. This is plan B in case they lost. Blow up the economy so they can claim it is the democrats fault.
"President Donald Trump blamed the Democrats' sweeping midterm election victories—which gave them control of both the House and Senate—for Thursday's massive stock market sell-off, claiming the results triggered a drop in Americans' 401(k) portfolios."
Hey arsehole, it is YOUR economy. And yeah it sucks, that is why the democrats won! You cannot blame us for shit till we are sworn in and then see what happens.
Tigerhawk83 | 20 hours ago
I feel this. I have a market account built with high-tech stocks to afford a new car when I finally find one I want. The value dropped by $18k+ in the past month, $12k alone this week. Intel really fucked me. I am in the anti-data center camp, but I hoped I'd have better luck, as it's taking years to find a good fit. Neither of my current potential options is out until next year.
hobovision | 18 hours ago
If you need the money in a time span of years, you should 100% not be gambling on stocks. Yes I said gambling.
Legitimate_Page659 | 18 hours ago
I mean, if you leave the money in a savings account, you’re vulnerable to it losing 30+% of its value over a year.
That happened to many who didn’t want to “gamble” on stocks. The fed printed $10T and injected it straight into the market. Historic inflation but the market ran hot. If you were a “saver,” you got fucked.
hobovision | 9 hours ago
I'm sorry, did I miss when inflation hit 30% in the United States?
Legitimate_Page659 | 9 hours ago
Well, the CPI is designed to underestimate inflation.
But cost of living has increased ~30% since Feb 2021. Vehicles, housing, insurance, healthcare. The items that actually make up a significant portion of budgets but the CPI intentionally underweights to keep inflation metrics lower.
Official inflation numbers have to be low not just for political reasons, but also because social security is indexed against the CPI. The government literally couldn’t afford to accurately measure inflation even if they wanted to.
Tigerhawk83 | 13 hours ago
If I was using this for retirement or something, I'd agree. But for my purposes, gambling was the better choice.
I mean, the account grew from $28k to $62k, now it's down to $45k. By the time next summer or fall rolls around, it'll likely return to the mid 50s, which is enough for my needs.
Without buying the vehicle this year, I couldn't take the tax hit from that much capital gains. Otherwise, I'd have sold in September.
skibbady-baps | 15 hours ago
So Trump very predictably posted on his echo chamber of a platform that the post-election rally was all because of him and his overall greatness. Will he also take credit for this drop? I’m thinking not.
Comprehensive-Put575 | 13 hours ago
Good thing I had to cash out my retirement account early to make ends meet in Trump’s garbage economy. Otherwise, I might have had something to lose.
rightsidedown | 9 hours ago
Everyone thinks the dems are going to do something Ultra stupid like put blocks on all new data centers. I don't think that's going to happen. I think it has zero chance of happening federally, and governors will realize that it's keeping trades in work. You'll just have the usually clown show crew like Bernie that pushes this in places where data centers weren't going in the first place. Hinojosa has already said he's going to allow permitted building to go through and new building is going to need to pay their own way on utilities (which is already a thing in several states).
Pale_Top2745 | 18 hours ago
Trump needs to declare state of emergency and build these out under federal regulation. The same people voting against data centers and AI today would vote against the atomic bomb development during WW2. These are cowards and traitors.
ticketsonsalenow | 18 hours ago
Man. I cannot decide if this is like a really good satirical shitpost or not. Bravo
Legitimate_Page659 | 18 hours ago
Thank you for volunteering to have one built next to your home!
I’m glad you don’t have an issue with the rolling blackouts, constant noise, and water contamination. Thank you for your patriotic sacrifice 🫡
Pale_Top2745 | 17 hours ago
No build it next to the poors. They are the surfs of our society and should be treated as such
AccNumber77 | 14 hours ago
Enjoy the serfs raiding your beloved data centers and turning them into copper, gold, and other scrap metals.
Typical_Barracuda234 | 18 hours ago
There are valid arguments that the bomb was not necessary to win, ergo...
crackanape | 17 hours ago
The war was already won. The bomb was so that the USA could occupy Japan before the Soviets.
DaggerOutlaw | 17 hours ago
Uh, what? It was dropped to PREVENT us from having to take and occupy the country, avoiding the loss of more US lives in the process
Edit: Huh, TIL there was a Soviet factor
Typical_Barracuda234 | 17 hours ago
Yes that is one version. The other version is they has no oil, no navy, 4000 planes (4000 were lost at Okinawa alone) their infrastructure was obliterated, and they lacked food. If you'd like to review the truman diaries, the bombing survey of 1946, etc etc you will see the concern was with the proposed invasion of Japan by the sovieta slated for the 2nd or 3rd week of August 1945.
But that's just another version
crackanape | 17 hours ago
They were already about to capitulate.
JTuck333 | 18 hours ago
They’d vote against car factories.