… as hundreds of billions of dollars are flooding into artificial intelligence, there are serious concerns that an AI bubble could trigger another bailout with taxpayer money.
In the interview that follows, leading progressive economist Gerald Epstein, who initiated and directs the Game Changers project at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, talks about AI’s impact on finance and the bailout problem and how a transformative public finance strategy can revive democracy, promote equity and social justice, and build strong and sustainable communities.
And it’s not even really artificial intelligence. It’s basically just very fast computing.
Short of a complete societal rejection of the global economic regime, there is no way for us to not be. The expensive deals have been inked. The money has been committed. Parties will be in debt to each other for hundreds of billions of dollars. It doesn’t matter if there is a law against taxpayers footing the bill or not, that amount of economic pressure will burst into and flood the larger economy and it will harm us all. It’s going to happen no matter what. We’re not yet angry enough at the severe economic harm that is about to befoul all of us.
Yeah, I am rather amazed that it seems so fashionable to want the AI bubble to pop, as if we won’t all be in the direct line of fire. It’s like people that were wishing for the housing bubble to pop back in the mid-00s…the people at the top doing all this shit are not going to be the ones that suffer.
I’d rather the AI bubble were to spin down and have a soft landing, but honestly, I have no idea if that is even remotely possible. It seems we cannot just have a stable economy; it’s either tulip bulb mania or it’s in freefall because the investor class is not making quite as much money as they think they are entitled to.
No, the taxpayer should not have to pay bailouts. But they will, whether they want or not.
Uhh… billionaires asking for bailouts is peak failed capitalism.
“Socialism for me, but not for thee”
Can I get a bailout if I manage my money idiotically and go bankrupt?
First time through bailouts and economic crash?
Naww, but we have our first “trillionaire” this time
to be fair, we should not bail out ANY industry. if you fail at capitalism so bad you need a bailout- tough shit.
Bailout people, not companies
I feel like that depends on the industry and context. For example if say most of a specific industry is based in one or two areas and gets devastated by a natural disaster then fine. But if it’s just economic failure then they should be taken private with either the states or the feds getting controlling shares.
There is a difference between disaster recovery aid and bailout for managment failures.
state control is actually “public” or “nationalized” right? - not to be confused with “publicly traded” which is not the same as “the public runs the business” (as it would if a state ran it, being comprised of the public)
Yeah every bailout should mean public ownership. It’s the taxpayers buying the company.
Yes though in this case I’m referring to the US political entities called states, IE California, Connecticut, Arkansas, Et Cetera. But yeah I do mean nationalized in effect, when I said take it private I mean the stocks get locked down and removed from the public stock exchange while leaving owned stocks somewhat unaffected. Mostly so things like employee stocks don’t get effected, CEO or ex CEO stocks would be nullified.
Too bad, they already figured out a way to make it happen.
Didn’t the House denounce Socialism in ALL FORMS earlier this week? Therefore bailouts are no longer possible, right?
Oh, I forgot the rules don’t apply to rich people. Silly me.
Socialism wouldn’t just bail out an industry.
There’s no industry the US government won’t bail out, because the US government is corporate sponsored.
We bail out banks.
We bail out farmers.
We bail out military contractors.
… and on and on and on.
Because they “donate” to bOtH pArTiEs, and they expect a return. They don’t do this out of charity.
I think it’s worth adding that those companies intentionally run shit into the ground, taking the global economy with them, because they know the gov will ball them out.
Aha! the solution is for citizens to become industry. Then they can bail us out.
tHaT’s EvIL sOsHuLiSm!
Well don’t you know we have socialism, but only for real people - you know, Citizens United people.
Bailing is the agricultural process of cutting, drying, gathering, compressing and tying up of forage crops into compact, manageable bundles for easy storage and transport.
Therefore, I am all for bailing the CEO’s out of AI companies. We can all lend a hand in cutting them down, drying them, gathering them, tying them up and compressing them into manageable bundles for easy storage or… whatever… toss them into a volcano?
Baling*
Correct. They are getting bailed out, the terminology from using buckets to keep a boat afloat, hence the usage in this context. They are attempting to keep the industry afloat. Farmers bale things.
cutting them down, drying them, gathering them, tying them up and compressing them into manageable bundles
Sounds like a recipe for jerky. Eat the rich.
Artisanal hand-crafted AI billionaire jerky.
Yea but we already know that’s what they’re gonna do regardless of what anyone says.
Just like we already know things are eventually going to get bad enough that killing the epstien-billionare class becomes both moral and necessary.
i would argue that it is already the moral choice. they are killing the planet
How can we know either way without speaking freely about it? I think this is an important conversation we should all participate in. (Fully agree with you btw)
we are talking about it right now :) that means we arent the only ones.
I can feel the class consciousness forming. Can you feel it?
The more this gets stated and reinforced, the more likely that people will wake up, stop investing in slop and liquidate their existing investments.
We shot one corrupt CEO and for a whole glorious month Americans almost had healthcare.
Yea but we already know that’s what they’re gonna do
We can change who “they” are though, and this is our best chance since FDR.
It’s not enough to have a progressive president, we need a progressive Congress behind them. But we absolutely can refuse to bail AI bris out and strip the rest of the oligarchs of their wealth.
People acting like we can’t just depresses turnout.
Republicans won’t, neoliberals won’t, but if you act like those are the only two options…
You’re just fucking wrong
I do think you’re a bit naive about it, though. They won’t let this happen with just a simple vote. They will defend their positions of power with violence.
And use our own citizens(military) against us harder than now
My conspiracy theory part of my brain says this is why ICE is going to pay for voter information. Then they know who “the enemy” is based on our votes
Exactly this that’s what it’s gonna be, this is different then ever before and I’m not happy with this country and the pedophiles running it
People are more likely to show up for the third box, if they’ve seen that the first two don’t.
It’s a numbers game, and we need to show as many as people as possible that a last resort really is the last resort and nothing else will fix it.
Like, they were doing shady shit, it wasn’t working, so the voting members of the DNC gave neoliberals the boot.
That just fucking happened 19 months ago, and it happened with votes. And immediately materialized in a shit ton of wins because the DNC stopped hoarding money and started spending it on outreach.
If you don’t understand how huge that is, then you’re failing for neoliberal propaganda. They’re desperate to make it look like they control the party, because depressing Dem turnout is the only chance neoliberals have to grab the party back.p
Oh, you can vote, sure. I’m just saying that there will be assassinations and refusals to hand over power.
No, you’re saying you think there will be…
Regardless of its right or not, right now that’s an opinion, an assumption at best.
Just a student of history, that’s all.
A ruling class accustomed to power will pretty much never allow that power to be taken away from them peacefully.
Oh hey look at that…
From a sure thing to “pretty much never”
If I gave a fuck about helping you understand things, I’m sure we could work this out eventually.
But I don’t, so best of luck in all your endeavors, except trying to depress Dem turnout.
If you think that you can elect progressive Democrats to turn this all around…
… you’re just fucking wrong.
The Democrats have been for sale since the 1960s… it’s pretty obvious.
Do you know the Ds have pitched universal healthcare for over 30 years?
For about as long as the Rs have pitched “smaller government.” How many times will you let them fool you? Don’t be a sucker.
Buddy…
If you don’t like the candidate in the general, the time to do something was during the primary.
If you think shitty incumbents can’t be unseated and progressives can’t become incumbents, you just haven’t been paying attention.
And I’d bet my house that you don’t have an alternative, you just want people to disengage from the democratic process. Which is fucking stupid because if you vote, it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else. And if you’re doing anything else, why the fuck wouldn’t you also take the time to vote?
How do you legitimately not understand the answer is absolutely never “vote less”?
Yeah there’s really nothing to lose by voting
It’s already shitcanned and they aren’t doing the thing that needs to be done. May as well turn up to vote.
They forced this nation to take massive risks for their personal benefit. These people should be in prison and their companies and assets seized.
The world tbh
Bwahaha. Taxpayers will definitely bail out this industry, especially if the crash happens during this administration. That will be true whether or not be force some level of public ownership to reap any rewards that might accrue.
You can’t get skynet without giving all the taxpayer money to skynet. You don’t have to call it a bailout. Just give them all our money for tokens so they don’t need a bailout.
That’s not how our system works.
Socialism for the rich, bootstraps for the rest.
Too late. It’s already baked in through the insurance industry reinsurance mechanisms.
Yeah, read an article about it. They’re using life insurance providers to buy these private funds aka debt. When the AI bubble goes kaputt, that life insurance is backed up by states who are obligated by law to pay if it fails.
And in all your index funds, retirement funds, etc.
they’ve already made some of these companies publicly traded or somewhat public by linking it with publicly traded companies so it could tap into the “most safe investment” aka index funds and now they’re tapping it onto peoples taxes? smh
