AI's debt binge can't last, hidden borrowing reaches $1.65T

Post by runarberg » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 11:07 PM UTC

rybosworld wrote: post #107

runarberg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there for the Great Recession, and they were indeed in the public discussion. I remember the year 2007, as a 20 year old anti-capitalist, I was counting days until the economic crash. As predicted by plenty of left-wing economists at the time. The only people who didn’t see it coming were the capitalists who were invested in the inflated market, and had bought into pseudo-scientific economic theories that serve…

I was too - and to be frank: it's dishonestly revisionist to say this was a topic in the public eye. There's a very good reason a book (and movie) like The Big Short was such a big hit. It's because it was about the handful of people who actually saw the crash coming and were confident enough to put their money and reputation on the line.

Post by jml7c5 » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 11:19 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #79

rybosworld wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have any examples? Because all of the biggest and most famous crashes were events that only a very small minority of people ever saw coming. Tulips, 1929, Dotcom, Great Recession, 2010's Flash Crash - none of these were in the public discussion before they happened.

I was there for the Great Recession, and they were indeed in the public discussion. I remember the year 2007, as a 20 year old anti-capitalist, I was counting days until the economic crash. As predicted by plenty of left-wing economists at the time. The only people who didn’t see it coming were the capitalists who were invested in the inflated market, and had bought into pseudo-scientific economic theories that serve…

Post by jitokim » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 11:25 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #5

As a bystander directly immune to the fortunes of AI going up or down, it does feel like there are a lot more people thinking this is inning 9 of the LLM story than there are people thinking it's inning 3. Which makes it tempting to believe it's probably closer to inning 3.

Post by donavanm » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 11:30 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #91

darth_avocado wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a bystander directly immune to the fortunes of AI going up or down Sorry to break it to you but you are neither immune nor a bystander to the fortunes of AI going down. You are part of it all whether you like it or not.

You're not breaking anything to me. I deliberately phrased it as "directly immune" because I have no financial stake in AI-related companies. Obviously a debt-bomb of any type imploding reverberates across the economy.

Post by runarberg » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 11:32 PM UTC

jml7c5 wrote: post #113

runarberg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there for the Great Recession, and they were indeed in the public discussion. I remember the year 2007, as a 20 year old anti-capitalist, I was counting days until the economic crash. As predicted by plenty of left-wing economists at the time. The only people who didn’t see it coming were the capitalists who were invested in the inflated market, and had bought into pseudo-scientific economic theories that serve…

This is a bit of a "broken clock is right eventually" sort of thing, though. I could say without any evidentiary basis "there will be a financial crisis" for years and eventually be right, but I don't think it would be fair to say that I predicted it in a meaningful way. The details matter.