This must all be pretty demoralizing if you're an honest US citizen. What's the incentive to be honest when everyone else is cheating and getting away with it at your expense?
No. Fraud subject is great to rile the public to action, but the amount of fraud that happens is so low, it is minute to the benefits of the program, and thus the program is considered effective. Secondly, every person who has committed some fraud is always looking over their shoulder for years. Fraudsters in Hurricane Katrina damages were caught ten years later.
If they aren't dumb, why are they investing in MSFT now then if it's a bubble that's doomed to fail? And even in the worst case scenario, a 10-15% decline in the S&P 500 won't trigger the next Great Depression. (Keep in mind that we already had a ~20% drawdown in public equities during the interest rate hikes of 2022/2023 and the economy remained pretty robust throughout.)
Like I said, they aren't "that" dumb. They are playing a risky game, but when they see the number go down rapidly they will pull. Which will make the line go down even faster.
>And even in the worst case scenario, a 10-15% decline in the S&P 500 won't trigger the next Great Depression
Only if you believe the 10% decline won't domino and that the S&P500 is secluded from the rest of the global economy. I wish I shared your optimism.
> and the economy remained pretty robust throughout.
Yeah and we voted the person who orchestrated that out. We don't have the money to pump trillions back in a 2nd time in such a short time. Something's gonna give, and soon.
> Only if you believe the 10% decline won't domino and that the S&P500 is secluded from the rest of the global economy. I wish I shared your optimism.
So your hypothesis is that a 10% decline in the S&P 500 will trigger the next Great Depression, i.e. years of negative GDP growth and unemployment? I agree that it could cause a slight economic slowdown, but I don't think AI and tech stocks are a large enough part of the economy to cause a Great Depression-style catastrophe.
The problem is that the non AI economy is already in the toilet. The consumer and commodities markets are all flashing red. Consumer debt is all time high. Inflation is still punishing the bottom end of workers severely and the ACA cuts will cause a lot of financial stress (unless people of course discountinue their plans)
An expected outcome from a AI blowout is the uncertainty and everyone holding onto their assets and credit recalls plus interest rate hikes.
During the great depression it wasn't the stock market collapse that caused it as much as it was the credit crunch that followed. Prior to the blowout people literally bought stocks on credit.
>So your hypothesis is that a 10% decline in the S&P 500 will trigger the next Great Depression, i.e. years of negative GDP growth and unemployment?
Yup. I won't say it's the only factor, nor biggest. But I'm focusing on this topic and not 40+ years of government economic abandonment of the working class. It's the straw that will break the camel's back.
This seems very amateur hour and likely to have the opposite of the intended effect, i.e. I expect there will be tons of Flipper Zeros that people bring as "jokes".
From a pure employment perspective, I think medicine and law probably have higher EV than CS at this point (at least in the USA - not sure about Switzerland). But if you really love programming, then it should be pretty doable to differentiate yourself from the zillions of other CS grads when it comes time to job hunt.
Since so much of the US economy (as of 2025) is built on AI, the best thing you can do is effectively de-dollarize: don't hold USD (which has already lost 10% of its value this year) and move your money into European/Asian equities instead of the US stock market.
I could see a case for personal de-dollarization in the long term, but based on previous American financial crises, European and Asian markets are also impacted by the downturn. Even the Shanghai Stock Exchange was hit in 2008[1].
Of course, this time could be different. Do you have any speculation as to why it would be?
Yeah good point, might be impossible to fully insulate yourself then. It just seems like the US economy is more tied to the AI bubble than any other national economy.
It still seems wild to me that almost 5 years into this war, Europe is still relying on America to help them with Ukraine. Should be pretty obvious by now that Americans have no real interest in this war one way or the other.
The US stopped all aid this year, except for intelligence sharing.
It's wild that people in the US think this war is not their war. They promised to defend Ukraine's territory decades ago, and barely followed through for three years, then as soon as Trump took office they completely broke their promise.
By breaking their promise, the US is encouraging nuclear proliferation throughout the world. It's extremely shortsighted and stupid to not be providing the miniscule amount of current military budget that could stop this war permanently. The US and Europe have been too timid and stupid from the start, causing massive bloodshed. But Europe is getting smarter and stronger as the US gets stupider and weaker.
Inspired by the other (somewhat aggressive) replies, I looked into what the US promised exactly and unfortunately, it looks like there was never a promise to defend Ukraine.
The relevant document is the Budapest Memorandum [0]. Ukraine, Russia, the UK and the USA are signatories and essentially each agree to respect Ukraine's borders and sovereignty and not to engage in certain hostile acts.
However the only obligation in the event of a breach is that if nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine, or Ukraine is threatened by them, the signatories must seek immediate action from the UN Security Council.
I hate to say it but it looks like the US and UK are adhering to the agreement as-written. The problem as I see it is that Ukraine accepted the agreement without stronger security guarantees.
>“We forced Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, and strategic bombers. We promised to protect Ukraine from Russia. We made Ukraine vulnerable.
So yes, this is our war.”
Ah yes, let's not have consistent policy in the USA, and let's not keep our promises/guarantees. That will make America great.
If the President says 'this is what I negotiated' we should fulfill that agreement, not look for ways to get out of the agreement or legal loopholes (sure the Ukrainians agreement said one thing, but in the English version we put something less binding). I get that doing so wouldn't be billionaire behavior that we worship (how can I get the better end of the deal AND get out of whatever commitments I made).
We can dig into the differences of "security guarantees" versus "security assurances" and the precise requirements in the text, but ultimately the disarmament of Ukraine made a promise to the rest od the world about the possibility of nuclear disarmament. And the question is whether it's possible to have security from Russia unless a country has nuclear weapons.
A defended Ukraine promised the rest of the world that they could be a country and not need to build nuclear weapons. An abandoned Ukraine means that every country needs to have nuclear weapons or the world will stand aside as nuclear powers invade every other country.
It's quite clear which world Trump wants to live in. As soon as North Korea got the bomb, he started acting sycophantically and weak towards North Korea.
We are entering a far more dangerous world, and as far as defense spending goes a far more expensive world by not giving Ukraine the conventional weapons it needs to defend itself.
>It's wild that people in the US think this war is not their war. They promised to defend Ukraine's territory decades ago, and barely followed through for three years, then as soon as Trump took office they completely broke their promise.
We did defend Ukraine to the best of our ability, given that we will not risk an apocalypse or bankruptcy over it. There is a limit to everything. Don't be naive.
>By breaking their promise, the US is encouraging nuclear proliferation throughout the world.
Would you rather have a nuclear war now, instead of mere proliferation?
>But Europe is getting smarter and stronger as the US gets stupider and weaker.
If Europe was smart, they would back a peace plan asap. They are not prepared to win a war with Russia, especially if China sides with Russia.
This might have more credibility as a post if the current "president" of the USA wasn't very obviously (a) compromised by Russia, (b) mentally incompetent, or (c) a fascist whose only interest was personal gain.
Lol... The dude waging war on Russia is owned by Russia? Are you mentally incompetent? You can drop the quotes too. He won the presidential race at least twice. As for being fascist, he hasn't rounded up people like you talking shit about him online, or taken a step toward censoring online discourse like Biden did. Fucking psyops man... You are proof that they work.
The US under Biden defended them in a very wishy washy way. He could have said do not invade or we'll send jets to stop the invading troops. But he actually said something like if it's only a small invasion the US is unlikely to get involved, and refused to allow other people's F16s to be used until a couple of years in.
If he'd just said we are not fighting but we'll send the NATO surplus stuff over 20 years old to Ukraine freely at the start that likely would have been enough. But no. "Escalation management" - Ukraine not allowed to win incase it upsets the invaders.
What a weird and unsupported accusation. Claims without evidence do not require evidence to rebut.
The US is threatening Ukrainian territory, claiming "it's already been lost." The US is not respecting the sovereignty of the borders of Ukraine.
And that's not even getting into the US breaking its promise to respond strongly to Russia should Russia ever violate the memorandum during the Obama administration.
I do not know what you consider the lie, but I do know that the US has completely tarnished its reputation over the course of many presidential administrations and has put its own interest in the world at risk due to its weakness.
The OP is not looking at the static point (of the price of that item), but the trend - ala, the derivative of the price vs quality. It was on a steep upward incline, and now it's flattening.
> At this current pace, if "the electorate" doesn't see real benefits to any of this. 2028 is going to be referendum on AI unfortunately.
Not saying this is necessarily a bad prediction for 2028, but I'm old enough to remember when the 2020 election was going to be a referendum on billionaires and big tech monopolies.
