Will AI Bonds Doom Humanity?

Mark Thornton opens with a recap of inflation, commodity prices, interest rates, and stagnant real wages before turning to “bubble bonds”: the explosion of borrowing by AI hyperscalers to finance data centers, chips, and infrastructure with assets whose useful lives may be far shorter than the bonds issued to fund them. Mark connects the AI boom to the Austrian business cycle, comparing it to earlier technology-driven bubbles in public utilities, telecom, dot-coms, and housing finance. 

On Side B, Mark discusses global financial stress, war-driven energy disruptions, diesel and food prices, strained consumers, government debt, the Treasury market, and the danger that fiat-money governments will try to print their way out. He also contrasts today’s debt problem with the post–World War II demobilization and closes with thoughts on gold, silver, central-bank buying, and the possibility of a monetary reset.

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