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Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

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Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#41
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace you with AI, and when the AI math falls apart, use your tax money to bail out AI And they’ll get away with it too

This the proof that guillotine is useful, if not to be used, to make the elite behave in way that avoid suffering it.

They think they’re immune. Even after Luigi, they still think they’re immune

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2008 all over again, but instead of Washington Mutual and Countrywide, we have whatever the heck is going on now.

I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies… trillion dollar businesses that pushed technology with the goal of eliminating 50% of white collar workers… that isn’t really mission critical. If they want the reward, they need to accept the risk when the bet doesn’t go their way. If they aren’t willing to accept that, they shouldn’t be making such big bets.

The public has been apathetic about every single thing and will just continue scrolling their TikToks

Public anger is a very pre-smartphone thing. You don’t worry about those sort of things when you’ve hyperoptimized the circus and made the bread cheap enough

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#44
post #34

Well technically they don’t own the debt, the SPVs that own the data centers do. The giants just have long term commitments, but if shit hits the fan, it’s not the tech giants but the banks that lent the money to the SPVs that are at risk. This usually means all of us are on the hook.

>Well technically they don’t own the debt Channelling the 1980s for off-balance sheet financing 101. From an economic perspective there is zero difference between borrowing to buy an asset and entering into a non-cancellable long term (equivalent to its economic life) lease for the asset. The first option causes an asset and a liability on the balance sheet, affecting debt ratios that appear in financing contracts an…

This is not true at all, leases appear on balance sheets. It's not the 80s anymore

See Apple's FY2025 10-K, the leases are in page 42 under "Lease-Related Assets and Liabilities", which shows:

Operating leases

- Other current liabilities: $1,579 million

- Other non-current liabilities: $10,911 million

Finance leases

- Other current liabilities: $538 million

- Other non-current liabilities: $692 million

Total lease liabilities: $13,720 million

https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_financials/2025/ar/...

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2008 all over again, but instead of Washington Mutual and Countrywide, we have whatever the heck is going on now.

I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies… trillion dollar businesses that pushed technology with the goal of eliminating 50% of white collar workers… that isn’t really mission critical. If they want the reward, they need to accept the risk when the bet doesn’t go their way. If they aren’t willing to accept that, they shouldn’t be making such big bets.

Until the public is willing and able to bring immediate consequences at scale to C-suites, boards, and billionaires, what the public accepts doesn't really matter.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#47
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These debts mean nothing if the US government actually views AI technology as being on par with the Manhattan project. They'll just bail them out or nationalise them. According to Wikipedia, the Manhattan project only cost $28 billion in 2024 dollars. That's a completely different order of magnitude compared to what we're talking about here. I imagine the size of the investment here would even be hard for the US go…

What percentage of the budget was it? I think that's also needed for a meaningful comparison. I've heard about the war taxes being high, but I don't know anything about the economy of the time otherwise.

I didn't have budgets handy, but GDP is another way to normalise its cost to the country; ~$2.2B cost in 1942 with a nominal GDP of $166B, nominal GDP of $29.2T in 2024 puts the Manhattan Project's cost relative to GDP at $386B in 2024.

Nominal GDP from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_statistics_of_the_Uni...

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies… trillion dollar businesses that pushed technology with the goal of eliminating 50% of white collar workers… that isn’t really mission critical. If they want the reward, they need to accept the risk when the bet doesn’t go their way. If they aren’t willing to accept that, they shouldn’t be making such big bets.

> I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies That's putting it mildly, IMO. An AI bailout would be a poison pill that would electorally doom whichever party was behind it for decades.

After seeing _what_ level of buffoonery, incompetence, and pure idiocy the gerrymandered American electoral system is capable of producing, nope, no, AI bailout won’t matter at all.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who belongs to “all of us”, i vote to not bail us out if shit hits the fan. No need to ask me when it happens, OK? No really, it’s nice of you but we really dont need to be bailed out. You are welcome :)

Replace you with AI, and when the AI math falls apart, use your tax money to bail out AI And they’ll get away with it too

Because AI is "too big to fail".
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