How well I remember people pointing to the scoreboard in early 2008...

They haven’t allowed a recession to happen since ~2009 when they massively inflated their way out of the worst of the last one. Learned to have the cake and eat it too.

The only problem is after a few rounds of this the currency becomes worthless, and we’re well on our way. Inflation is a major component of those numbers rising.

Bloomberg: It Won’t Take Much to Burst the Stock Market Bubble - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-20/us-sto... | https://archive.today/O9sQE - August 20th, 2026

> First, the favorable impact of the artificial intelligence investment boom on economic activity and earnings will likely diminish significantly in 2027. That’s because what’s relevant for growth is how much investment is increasing, not its level. The increase in investment in 2026 will almost certainly be the peak. There aren’t sufficient resources — construction workers, electrical generation capacity, or chip manufacturing capacity - to increase investment by the same magnitude in 2027. Nor are the dominant hyperscalers likely to have the free cash flow and balance sheet capacity to sustain a bigger increase in investment in 2027 compared with 2026.

> Second, as the growth of investment spending slows, the growth in earnings of hyperscaler suppliers will falter, profit expectations will diminish and price-earnings ratios will shrink. The “picks and shovels” providers will suffer a double whammy - slower demand growth and profit margin compression. On the way up, higher demand leads to wider profit margins that sustain equity market valuations. On the way down, the outlook for earnings deteriorates quickly as the shortfall of demand relative to expectations is exacerbated by a collapse in profit margins.

> Third, as the investment cycle matures, the focus will shift to the returns that the hyperscalers are expected to earn on their massive investments. I suspect it will be difficult for the AI hyperscalers to generate sufficient revenue ($2 trillion or more per year) to generate the returns needed to justify an AI capital base that is likely to reach $5 trillion.

(I'd encourage you to read the entire piece, it was written by Bill Dudley, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and is too much to quote in its entirety)

Nearly 25% of U.S. workers are functionally unemployed, economic analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403381 - August 2026 (7 comments)

42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937288 - July 2026 (274 comments)

49% of young adults live at home, up 12 points since 2019. An economist says the fallout will reshape marriage, kids, and home-buying - https://fortune.com/2026/07/09/half-young-adults-live-home-f... | https://archive.today/1uB8d - July 9th, 2026 (Federal Reserve survey: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-we...)

The housing crisis is pushing Gen Z into crypto and economic nihilism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46079617 - November 2025 (4 comments)

Why millennials feel hopeless about the economy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062082 - November 2025 (15 comments)

Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 - May 2025 (9 comments) [Report: https://www.lisep.org/mql]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist...

I mean I wish you a lot of fun playing this discussion game online, but I kinda fail to see the point of it.

Someone could now of course say "hey, but are your sure that these are really the metrics we should be looking at?", which could then be countered with a "well of course! This is how one measures a recession, no?"

And that could go on forever, achieving absolutely nothing.

And yet with all that, Democrats are likely to retake the US Congress because a majority of Americans are experiencing an affordability crisis.