The post mentions the AI boom boosting the numbers. From Fortune[1]: "Analyst estimates from Renaissance Macro Research indicate that so far in 2025, the dollar value contributed to GDP growth by AI data center expenditure surpassed the total impact from all U.S. consumer spending"
That is worrying as that spending is constrained to a small sector that concentrates and solidifies a lot of wealth with diluted "trickle down" effects. If/when the AI industry corrects there will be a significant impact on the US economy & stock market, which I think will have a bigger negative effect on the "person in the street" than any possible positive effect from the current high spending on AI technology.
As a compounding area of concern, as AI thus becomes a single point of failure for the whole economy. Most analysts beleive that AI is in a hype bubble, with even Gartner projecting half of AI firms to shutter in the next 18 months. That basically means the circus tent is about to collapse.
I don't know why people keep referring to AI as a hype bubble. A bubble usually implies that the majority of the population doesn't see the hype and bubble for what it is (see the run up to the 2008 housing crisis, where everyone and their brother was flipping houses). In the case of AI, pretty much everyone outside of the tech and AI spaces has smelled the BS from get go.
Bubbles do damage when they pop and surprise everyone, but I don't think too many people outside of SV will be surprised when this train eventually goes off the tracks.
The problem here is not that there's an AI bubble, it's that the AI and tech folks are so disconnected from regular people.
The inflation part is guaranteed. Not sure about the "stag" part, but it could be coming - a friend works at a company whose product is used in many other industries (it's a critical part of their production lines), and their orders are down. This might be because of the death of manufacturing in the US, but might also be because their orders are also down.
I don't think that's so clear anymore. A lot of the people being deported came in on various refugee visas. While people who were brought here as children may technically be illegal, in practice that blurs the line. Similar with illegal immigrants who are spouses of legal immigrants. Then there's situations like students who came here legally but are having their visa's revoked for political reasons.
It's not clear because a large number of media outlets have constantly conflated them on purpose. "Trump wants to cut illegal immigration" "Well, being against immigration, legal or... undocumented... is racist".
The current U.S. administration, though, has made very tangible, if unconstitutional, efforts to denaturalize foreign-born and even U.S.-born citizens. Both of these acts would also be destabilizing, to say the least, if they are allowed to take place.
We should allow anyone who wants to come to the US, to come here, to use our welfare system (housing and food are a HUMAN RIGHT). Learning a new language is also pretty damn hard and the US citizens are pretty well educated, so we ought to all learn Spanish to be hospitable neighbors to our new residents. If they don't want to work, that's fine, I myself sometimes don't feel like working and that's a human right too. If someone feels that way about work, they still ought to be able to eat, live, sleep, safely, and receive medical care.
The relevant question in this context is how the number is changing. It's entirely irrelevant that the US has the most immigrants, or even that it is bringing in a lot, if the rate is changing to such a level that, per the article, "the number of foreign-born workers in the United States is already shrinking after years of rapid growth".
It doesn't matter if you think this change is good or bad, it will necessarily have economic knock-on effects and you need to decide if those are good or bad, and if bad if they are worth it.
I'm saying it's a different number. Saying "people here illegally will work for below minimum wage and don't need Obamacare contributions so your goods can be cheaper" is an economic statement, sure, but it would also have applied to slavery.
The graph presented in the article, and I assume the conclusions from it, is all foreign born workforce, regardless of legality, visa or citizenship status.
This administration is the best thing that happened to the European Union nations when it comes to the economy. During the second half of the Biden years, the crazy bounce back the US economy did with regards to economic indicators (not the same as actual sentiment on the ground) made it look like we were going to be left behind, and we would be essentially buying any high-value western products from the US and US only. Even nations like mine who survived the pandemic in terms of health effects faced terrible regrowth.
The "protectionist" policies and soft power self-immolation that happened next means that we might be able to make strides in not just catching up to the US, but also becoming a more trusted trade partner for all other nations just for the sake of doing the same thing we always did.
Even the king of the Atlantic co-operation, the military industrial complex, turned upside down in a month. Everything US administrations since the 1950s had been building and had locked in is up for negotiations now. I can't even imagine how much ground China is able to gain since even they are looking like a more stable trader compared to the US. And yes, I'm saying the US as in the entire nation, since videos of Tim Cook bribing your president made me realize that the ownership of business in the US is nearing completion, and that footage looks a lot like how Putin liked to bully business owners in front of TV cameras back in the day [0].
Thanks for helping my country survive for a few more years. The brain drain to the US has pretty much dried up.
It honestly truly looked like that from over here. Every penny the wealthy middle class earned would go to American stocks. No one was savung money by investing in the local stock market. Business news became more about American Big Tech and less about local up and comers. It felt like everything was being made for the US or by the US. Re-starting the German war industry is something no EU politician could have achieved. We have a golden opportunity to leverage China as well as enter LatAm and African markets in the absence of US soft power.
I'm surprised nobody is talking a bout the change of source countries for immigration since the 1950's. How most immigrants who come to the US now are from what historically have been non egalitarian societies.
Readit News
That is worrying as that spending is constrained to a small sector that concentrates and solidifies a lot of wealth with diluted "trickle down" effects. If/when the AI industry corrects there will be a significant impact on the US economy & stock market, which I think will have a bigger negative effect on the "person in the street" than any possible positive effect from the current high spending on AI technology.
[1] https://fortune.com/2025/08/06/data-center-artificial-intell...
lol
I saw someone comment that US GDP is shrinking if you exclude AI cap ex.
Bubbles do damage when they pop and surprise everyone, but I don't think too many people outside of SV will be surprised when this train eventually goes off the tracks.
The problem here is not that there's an AI bubble, it's that the AI and tech folks are so disconnected from regular people.
For those who haven't heard the term before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation
Are there places and times that do/did or didn't/don't teach econ?
On illegal immigrants. The US has the most immigrants[0] and is bringing in about a million a year more through legal routes.
[0] https://worldostats.com/country-stats/immigration-and-emigra...
The current U.S. administration, though, has made very tangible, if unconstitutional, efforts to denaturalize foreign-born and even U.S.-born citizens. Both of these acts would also be destabilizing, to say the least, if they are allowed to take place.
It doesn't matter if you think this change is good or bad, it will necessarily have economic knock-on effects and you need to decide if those are good or bad, and if bad if they are worth it.
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The "protectionist" policies and soft power self-immolation that happened next means that we might be able to make strides in not just catching up to the US, but also becoming a more trusted trade partner for all other nations just for the sake of doing the same thing we always did.
Even the king of the Atlantic co-operation, the military industrial complex, turned upside down in a month. Everything US administrations since the 1950s had been building and had locked in is up for negotiations now. I can't even imagine how much ground China is able to gain since even they are looking like a more stable trader compared to the US. And yes, I'm saying the US as in the entire nation, since videos of Tim Cook bribing your president made me realize that the ownership of business in the US is nearing completion, and that footage looks a lot like how Putin liked to bully business owners in front of TV cameras back in the day [0].
Thanks for helping my country survive for a few more years. The brain drain to the US has pretty much dried up.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GsDLrUieJg
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