alt Hacker News> Does this capital being private ensure "this time will be different"?
South America didn't have a mix of domestic and foreign investors deploying massive quantities of private money into capital assets in the 60s and 70s. They had governments borrowing to fund their citizens' consumption. Massive difference on multiple levels.
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> They had governments borrowing to fund their citizens' consumption.
The problem here being that it was money spent that was never earned back, and money that eventually had to be paid back, right?
This can also happen with private capital. 2008 was a bust caused by private banks, for example. AI hasn't proven to be profitable yet [1], and I'm not sure it'll makes a difference, for the success of projects like this, wether the money is coming from government or not.
In fact, if the 2008 bank bail-out, auto industry bail-out, the Silicon Valley bank prop-up, and other such actions by the US government are considered [2], if this turns out to be a bubble it will be taxpayers who end up fronting the bill.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ai-generative-business-mone...
[2] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/governmen...
Moreover, if a government is funneling taxpayer money into the projects of a few citizens, that is a clear red flag of corruption. Whereas if private entities are deciding to invest their own capital into infrastructure, it's unclear what the complaint even is