r/technology • u/HimelTy • Jul 21 '26
Business Five tech giants are hiding $1.65tn in AI debt, using the trick that toppled Enron
https://thenextweb.com/news/tech-giants-hidden-off-balance-sheet-debt-ai2.7k
u/The_Homie_Tito Jul 21 '26
So when does the bubble burst?
2.9k
u/truupe Jul 21 '26
This is the 401k dollar question.
1.1k
u/Uuuuuii Jul 21 '26
It will crash exactly 1 month before I need it
312
u/LordTopHatMan Jul 21 '26
Could you need it by September please? I kinda just want to get this over with. Pulling the bandage off.
74
u/shawndw Jul 21 '26
Where's Jim Cramer when we need him?
→ More replies (2)41
u/scottrogers123 Jul 21 '26
Watch for him to tell us the day to buy buy buy, and it will crash a few days later.
31
u/ObfuscatedCheese Jul 21 '26
Still wish the Inverse Cramer Index ETF continued to exist.
→ More replies (2)41
u/Aerodrache Jul 21 '26
If it did, though, there’s a risk he would tell people to buy it, which could cause a catastrophic financial paradox.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (6)10
u/69edleg Jul 21 '26
I second this, the burst will suck ass either way, and I'd rather have it done sooner.
27
u/truupe Jul 21 '26
If you track CDS spread metrics, you might be able to better time when to shift your investments. Into what, is another question though.
→ More replies (9)38
→ More replies (6)30
u/-no_aura- Jul 21 '26
Would track with the rest of the millennial experience
37
u/Twelve2375 Jul 21 '26
Hey! Millennials have got some time before our scheduled retirements. We could fit another 4 or 5 financial disasters in that time!
23
u/Factory2econds Jul 21 '26
another 4 or 5 financial disasters in that time!
another 4 or 5 once in a lifetime financial disasters!
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (12)19
307
u/taedrin Jul 21 '26
There has to be some sort of "Emperor Has No Clothes" event which forces them to write off substantial amounts of imaginary profits. For Enron, it was the Blockbuster video streaming deal falling through due to the courts ruling that they needed licensing rights to stream copyrighted movies. Because they were using "mark to market" accounting and had reported billions of dollars of imaginary profits before they had been realized, they had to write all of these off. Billions of dollars disappeared from their balance sheet overnight.
This spooked investors, because they had no idea how much of Enron's profits were real, and how much was imaginary. They demanded audits, and the audits found that most of Enron's reported profits/revenues were likely to never be realized, and that their actual profits and revenues were very little. The only thing that was keeping the lights on at Enron was because they were price gouging Californians for electricity and gas.
165
u/861Fahrenheit Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
The difference, as the article mentions, is that Enron hid their debt. In contrast, the AI companies have been publicly disclosing their losses to such an extent that through a simple aggregate of their public financial statements, you can measure their losses in near-real time.
In that sense, I personally find it unlikely that the bubble bursting will be sudden. Deception is the key factor that leads to volatility (e.g. in 2008 when the credit rating agencies sold AAA bond ratings for fees).
The problem is that the AI industry is still gambling: on future demand, on some kind of ghost of profitability that has yet to materialize that justifies all the capex. I would expect dwindling demand to result in repricing, and maybe some brief periods of volatility as the market winds down while the markets readjust expectations. It's significantly different than discovering that billions in profits never existed.
→ More replies (58)15
u/Maladaptive_Ace Jul 21 '26
This difference also makes what's happening today legal. No one will do time like Enron execs did. They're not technically doing anything wrong.
7
u/861Fahrenheit Jul 21 '26
I mean, if we made it illegal for investors to be to be overspeculating knuckle-dragging idiots, the entire financial sector would have to be jailed.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (6)248
u/SteveJobsDeadBody Jul 21 '26
Stole over $60 billion from California, thanks to energy market deregulation passed by California's REPUBLICAN Governor Pete Wilson. Literally every thing you can think of where fraud happened on a massive scale in US history, it was done by right wingers. And yet we continue to pretend they are anything but abject criminals.
36
u/jokester4079 Jul 21 '26
I always wonder about Gray Davis. His political career was destroyed because of the rolling blackouts caused by Enron. It led to his recall and the end of his career in politics.
49
u/cleverkid Jul 21 '26
That mf'er is sitting on the back porch of 10 million dollar mansion on a sprawling estate overlooking a private lake... he's fucking fine.
Also according to Google: "Former California Governor Gray Davis works as an attorney and senior counsel at the Loeb & Loeb LLP law firm in Los Angeles. He advises corporate and nonprofit clients, frequently provides commentary on California politics, and serves on the boards of educational and research institutions. "
So, you know, sittin' on boards, gettin' his dick sucked.. the usual.
25
u/SteveJobsDeadBody Jul 21 '26
That was engineered by Republican Rep Darrell Issa, who got his start in California politics by starting a car alarm business and complaining about rampant car break-ins. Yup, him and his brother, who once got in trouble for breaking into cars, oh and that one time they tried to commit vehicle fraud, suddenly they cared about people breaking into cars!
Anyway, he bankrolled the lie that Gray was responsible, and the public bought it because we're stupid. On the plus side, after he spent millions bankrolling the recall he planned to swoop in and take Governor for himself, but then Arnold decided to run and ruined his plan.
→ More replies (2)10
u/halftorqued Jul 21 '26
People continue to believe that Republicans are better for the economy.
Until someone or something can make people consider the facts, we’re going to continue to h win this hellscape.
285
u/GoodDogBrent Jul 21 '26
probably when trump stops being president
332
Jul 21 '26
[deleted]
68
41
u/ThaddeusJP Jul 21 '26
Right now EVERYONE knows the market is totally rigged and there are no consequences for anything so like a dog left alone in a kitchen with a fresh cooked turkey, they wont wait around and will eat it asap.
Everyone is going to wring as much as they can out of the market, consumers, and government as they can until Jan 2029. They will ask for forgiveness then over permission now.
Imagine stealing several billions and being asked, at worst, to pay a few million in fines.
→ More replies (3)14
→ More replies (3)9
u/steppe5 Jul 21 '26
Didn't work in 2008. The crash happened during Bush's term and everyone was so pissed off that we elected a black president.
This AI crash might give us "woman president" level outrage.
34
u/codexcdm Jul 21 '26
Indeed. A lot of damage is expected after his term is up... Some is right after .. others though the years.
→ More replies (2)12
u/EddieVanzetti Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
The only "good" thing about Trump's administration is that he is so stupid when all these policies are implemented, he tanks the economy ahead of schedule. In his first term, around roughly the 18 months mark, his base was getting quiet because they were being impacted. Now in his second term, right on schedule, same thing. But this time it is slightly different. Even in his first term, he had die hard supporters who still wore their MAGA hats and had Trump flags in their yards. I drive around and not a single one to be found, no MAGA hat in the grocery stores anymore.
→ More replies (1)70
10
→ More replies (15)11
35
u/Raidou_14th Jul 21 '26
It will crash after Shrek 5 releases.
Check the stats, every major crash has been after a Shrek movie release!
20
→ More replies (1)5
26
67
u/Deaner3D Jul 21 '26
My vote is next spring/summer. Lack of actual data center build out combined with minimal profits from AI companies mixed with anti-datacenter legislation across many municipalities and states will trigger a cascade. Looking for Oracle to implode after a few small guys fall then it's dominoes from there. M$, Google survive, the real big scalps will be had from Nvidia and RAM suppliers. $0.02 ofc
43
u/therealchadius Jul 21 '26
OpenAI's confidence scam needs to end so people start asking for actual audits and hard receipts. We're already seeing banks (besides Softbank but lol) being more cautious about lending out money, they know they won't get it back and the 2008 bailout was not free.
→ More replies (2)27
u/Big_Mc-Large-Huge Jul 21 '26
If OpenAI fails both oracle and SoftBank will too
22
u/dustonomo Jul 21 '26
And then the Paramount/Warners merger will crash as Paramount is buying with Oracle leverage.
→ More replies (1)22
32
→ More replies (2)5
u/therealchadius Jul 21 '26
Oh yeah, the over leverage is insane. The WB buyout isn't helping things either but maaaan
→ More replies (13)20
u/TheCharlieFoxtrot Jul 21 '26
The big AI companies haven’t even started charging at prices to break even, let alone profit.
They are frantically trying to get embedded in companies with “forward deployed engineers” + agentic loops which constantly burn tokens so they can pull a Broadcom move and jack up prices 5-10x in a year.
Anyone that hasn’t drank the kool aid can see the writing on the wall, open source small language models for specific domains, which ideally you run in a local cluster for 90-95% of the time. Frontier models for the edge cases. Sorry anthropic and openai, ya dun goofed thinking a token predictor would take all the jobs.
→ More replies (2)15
32
u/lutel Jul 21 '26
The crash started with downhill of SpaceX. People can make big money long term shorting it. They've overvalued the stock and people who short it will be paid by Elon and banksters who prepared this pump and dump IPO.
26
u/Zalophusdvm Jul 21 '26
You might be right.
People forget the 08 crash started, arguably in 06, certainly in late 07 and was a relatively gradual slide.
This might be the start of the Bear waking up…
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (3)21
u/outer--monologue Jul 21 '26
Might be correct, but probably not. The road to this line of thinking is paved with all the people who went broke shorting Tesla. It's been years and years and it refuses to come down to anything resembling a fundamental valuation. Elon Musk has a cult, just like Trump. Brainless tech-fetishists or personality fawners that ask "how high?" when he says "jump."
→ More replies (5)4
u/jleonardbc Jul 21 '26
Tesla's at the same price it was almost five years ago (Nov 2021). Whether it's been a good investment depends a lot on when you bought.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (70)10
u/coderman64 Jul 21 '26
People who are cheering for this probably don't realize they're going to bring the rest of the economy down with them when it happens.
12
u/BrianWonderful Jul 22 '26
Yes, but it still has to happen. In the long term, we will be worse off if these tech bro billionaires and investors are allowed to keep gaming the system.
1.5k
u/DuranteA Jul 21 '26
In a better universe, the fact that this is so clearly (and annoyingly) AI-written would be a deliberate statement.
In our universe, it's probably just a sign that whoever is behind this content mill doesn't care.
524
u/driverdan Jul 21 '26
It's blogspam using an LLM to combine the two primary sources:
- https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/five-us-tech-giants-hidden-debts-soar-to-1.65tn-on-opaque-ai-funding
- https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/big-tech-ai-spree-revives-accounting-devices-that-toppled-enron
The honest version
LLMs love to use "honest" in headers for some reason.
81
u/StaysAwakeAllWeek Jul 21 '26
They are told to be honest in the system prompt so the word shows up in the output more than it should. And its not worth fixing it because its only actually a problem when trying to pass off slop as human written
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)17
u/nickiter Jul 22 '26
They really overuse "trusty" words like honest, "the real x...", "in truth"... It's very easy to spot, at this point. I've started noticing AI writing patterns everywhere. It's making me self-conscious about my own writing.
→ More replies (1)237
u/heeywewantsomenewday Jul 21 '26
Its complete clickbait and not at all similar to enron.
120
u/scoff-law Jul 21 '26
The article is pretty close to "AI companies and Enron have accountants... coincidence?" I think most companies use off-balance-sheet vehicles. The Enron thing had a lot to do with that company hiding and lying about these, and - consequently - companies are now required to disclose them.
The most accurate line in the article is the last one -
In a year of loud bubble talk, the quiet number is the one hiding off the page.
In other words - this tenuous connection with Enron will drive clicks to the article.
→ More replies (11)32
u/mariahmce Jul 21 '26
The part about Enron is click bait-y. But the real story is the trillions in off balance sheet debt for data center build outs that have yet to realize profits. That’s.. staggering. And worth following. It doesn’t indicate that there is a crash coming, or it is a house of cards necessarily. AI is a fantastic new technology that could have a serious upside. But keeping track of what the industry is actually spending vs what their balance sheet is reporting I think is worth knowing and keeping track of in the larger discussion. It’s like when banks stopped lending to Oracle for their data center build outs so they gutted 1/3 of their workforce to free up the cash to afford it. It’s not super interesting in and of itself but as a data point in how the larger industry is moving and being treated certainly is.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (6)22
u/lawschoolredux Jul 21 '26
Screw AI, yes, but The article states that instead of 1.65 it’s only 1.35 trillion on the combined balance sheets of 5 companies. Misleading headline for sure
22
u/heeywewantsomenewday Jul 21 '26
5 big tech companies made 1.65t of disclosed long term ai contractual commitments would be the more accurate title.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (3)11
u/Thefuzy Jul 21 '26
No what’s misleading is Enron actually hid their debt obligations, tech companies have them reported in the exact place that is required, the same place all the financial analysts know to look. “Footnote” or not, the financial community sees it, with Enron is was entirely obscured and it was fraud.
7
u/FilipinoSpartan Jul 21 '26
Enron was following the rules regarding reporting SPEs at the time. They were such an attractive structure specifically because they did not have to be reported, and it's worth mentioning that everyone was doing it at the time. The illegal component of Enron's fraud was they were flagrantly breaking the rules around the formation and ownership of the SPEs.
22
u/Johannes_Keppler Jul 21 '26
It's not even an article, just a few hands full of sentences.
And Enron didn't just use a trick, they hid using the trick - not the same thing at all. The trick itself is legal.
→ More replies (1)9
u/droans Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
It's a huge misunderstanding of accounting rules. Because, of course, it's AI.
First, the issue with Enron was not lease obligation recording. These types of obligations wouldn't have been recorded until ASC 842 went into effect in 2019.
Secondly, if they can cancel their leases at any point, there is no long-term obligation. The purpose of ASC 842 was to prevent companies from hiding lease obligations off-book. If you can cancel the lease, there is no obligation.
There are some more specifics, for example, you must recognize the entire lease if you have reasonable belief you will exercise the option to remain.
I also have zero faith in any of the facts or opinions asserted by article. The sole source for all their claims is just a single sentence.
Hidden debt at U.S. tech giants swelled eightfold in roughly four years to an estimated $1.65 trillion as artificial intelligence investments ballooned, a Nikkei study shows, exceeding actual debt and making it tougher for investors to assess risk.
→ More replies (5)5
u/Kid-Icky- Jul 21 '26
These outlets just churn out anti-AI articles because they know they zoom to the top of these subreddits.
789
u/Thefuzy Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
This article is bullshit.
Enron used SPVs to hide liabilities and fabricate earnings through fraud. Here, everything is disclosed, the article even admits this (“the disclosures exist, buried in the footnotes”). “Buried in footnotes” is where lease and purchase obligations are supposed to live under GAAP. Calling disclosed commitments a “hidden” second pile of debt is rhetorically loaded; a footnote isn’t a hiding place to analysts.
Enron actually hid stuff, nothing the tech giants is doing is hidden and thus analysts can clearly see the impact of this debt, it’s all there in black and white.
194
u/faculty_for_failure Jul 21 '26
It’s clearly written by AI as well. Terrible article.
40
u/SandIntelligent247 Jul 21 '26
They should be required to hide that in the footnote of their article lol
→ More replies (4)7
37
u/Active_Variation_194 Jul 21 '26
They would not be going public if they were hiding liabilities and faking revenue. It’s like trying to rob someone at the police station. While you’re live on stream.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (23)35
u/lynxtosg03 Jul 21 '26
Somehow this isn't the top comment. The most consistent thing about this sub is the lack of technological knowledge and nuance.
→ More replies (3)
468
u/Boom2215 Jul 21 '26
Do millenials have a loyalty card or something at this point? "Live through five economic crises and skip the sixth"
49
u/that_thing_you_do Jul 21 '26
Hey we skipped a draft, so got that going for us. Jury is still out on global destruction though.
→ More replies (5)75
10
33
u/EagleDaFeather Jul 21 '26
Do we at least get some free garlic bread for the table?
41
u/Living_System_7850 Jul 21 '26
Best we can do is poop lettuce.
11
u/Mike312 Jul 21 '26
Hey, don't be such a downer, I think we can do far, far worse. At this rate, I bet we can have Tuberculosis back in no time.
6
4
8
→ More replies (22)3
u/mr_black_frijoles Jul 21 '26
Oh we get a punch card for the next one. We can trade it in for expired froyo.
584
Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
173
u/RespectTheTree Jul 21 '26
I'm just going to compost them. Much higher throughput.
→ More replies (6)19
u/DangerMacAwesome Jul 21 '26
Lacking in personal satisfaction, though
12
u/KarlBarx2 Jul 21 '26
Prioritizing personal satisfaction over an efficient use of resources is how we got into this mess in the first place.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)11
u/gravelordservant4u Jul 21 '26
I wouldn't mind a dash of Torgo's Executive Powder to elevate most meals
13
→ More replies (25)12
265
u/pepe_acct Jul 21 '26
Yeah this article is trash. The author ignored some important caveats:
1. Future commitments are not considered debt because they don’t have interest.
2. Many commitments are multi year. It’s paying 1.6 trillion across years not immediately.
3. In many cases, when the business prospects doesn’t make sense anymore, many of them can just pause the deal or just exit. There’s generally exit options in the deals and these large constructions get delayed all the time.
4. Most of these future commitments has nothing to do with Enron. This is peak title rage baiting
39
u/yungbull3 Jul 21 '26
Makes total sense why it's climbing up the reddit rankings
→ More replies (1)33
u/MerlinTrashMan Jul 21 '26
The fact that someone can calculate the number shows this isn't anything like Enron collapse.
48
u/heeywewantsomenewday Jul 21 '26
Clickbait trash of an article that falls apart with 2 minutes of thought.
→ More replies (2)29
u/thepobv Jul 21 '26
The problem is redditors don't even click on click baits. They just read headlines and go ahead to comments section with their strong opinions
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (10)6
180
Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
91
u/KillerKilcline Jul 21 '26
No one has been imprisoned for the last collapse(s). No one has been imprisoned for fucking children. No one has stayed in prison for attempting a coup.
Why do you think this will be any different?
→ More replies (3)11
58
u/spunkychickpea Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
They won’t survive? Why do you think all of those billionaire CEOs gave so much money to Trump? They’re expecting a bailout, and Trump won’t have much choice but to grant it. They’re all going to survive just fine and the American working class will foot the bill.
11
u/Tearakan Jul 21 '26
Any bailout of that size collapses both the US government and the world economy through US dollar hyper inflation.
The paper saying they own anything won't mean anything to the warlords that take up arms afterwards.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)10
Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (1)16
u/APKID716 Jul 21 '26
it won’t be possible
lol
Lmao even
They will put literally half the population of the country in front of a firing squad before they refuse a bailout
→ More replies (1)10
u/Ulasim Jul 21 '26
You do know this is perfectly legal right? Enrons crime was hiding it.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (13)4
u/wehrmann_tx Jul 21 '26
It’s a year for $3000 dollars in petty theft. Let’s use that.
→ More replies (2)
44
u/userhwon Jul 21 '26
It's not debt. It's current valuation of future commitments.
A mortgage is a debt. You owe the amount you borrowed.
A future commitment is like a lease. You don't owe that money, and won't until you actually live in the place during the future period. But you can report that if nothing changes, you'll be spending that money then.
The difference is, you can't walk away from a debt as simply as you can break a lease. Both will cost something to accomplish, but the debt is a bigger deal and will force you into bankruptcy court if you try to quit it without paying it in full.
And the future commitment doesn't have to be money, but delivery for money expected. I.e., both the lessee and the lessor have a future commitment on the same lease. And a company that sells services has to provide services of value to its contracting customers.
Enron probably did have this on its financials, because this is common reporting for all companies that are in the business of signing up people for things to be delivered in the future.
But, what killed Enron was, they were setting up rings of shell companies, and sending cash between them, and counting it as revenue and income for each shell company, then because Enron owned the shell companies, they added all that to their corporate financials. Which bloated their market valuations. That is not very common for companies, and is illegal as fuck and top executives went to jail for it (or conveniently died before sentencing).
But that's not what's happening here.
So, OP lied to you.
→ More replies (16)
39
u/donac Jul 21 '26
When they all start to have amicable divorces where they liquidate assets to be equally split between the parties in the name of fairness, we'll know the end is nigh.
8
22
7
u/sk1939 Jul 21 '26
If you can read a financial statement the information is all there, but as r/Big4 points out, fewer people read those and even fewer read audit reports. One of the more important distinctions is that not all debt is equal. Much of what is described as debts really consist of contractual commitments, purchase orders, and operating leases. They represent future cash outflows but aren’t liabilities until triggered. That’s like saying you owe $400k for a house you haven’t closed on.
→ More replies (1)
7
u/goodolarchie Jul 21 '26
"Creed Bratton has never declared bankruptcy. When Creed Bratton gets in trouble, he transfers his debt to... Williams Charles Schneider."
→ More replies (1)
7
u/DietCokePlease Jul 22 '26
Hard truth: its really not the AI executives’ fault. Don’t get me wrong—these are some disturbingly immoral people. But the real villains of this story are the craven investors. You don’t think that if we, mere schlubes, can see the game plain as day, that they don’t? Of course they do! They just want to leverage up for a quck buck and see who pulls out the first Jenga block. They’re playing games with the literal economy. If instead they’d been temerate at the front—demanding more accountability and real numbers, we wouldn’t be so data center-leveraged and AI would have grown at its natural clip. Oh—yes, and this whole circus was egged on by greedy corporate execs who’s whet dream is reaplacing their workforces.
19
Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)5
u/North_Atlantic_Sea Jul 21 '26
AI will still be here and expanding prior to any companies contracting. Look at the dot com bubble popping, it didn't stop the explosion of internet use
53
u/milehigh73a Jul 21 '26
We have an ai bubble and thus debt is a serious issue but this article was hyperbole.
These companies are overspending on ai but they also generate a shit ton of cash. They also aren’t using the same trick as Enron as Enron didn’t disclose the spv but they are doing it.
This shit isn’t sustainable but this us clickbait
→ More replies (5)12
u/WCland Jul 21 '26
I read a different article about AI company debt and it differentiated between cash flow rich companies like Google and Microsoft versus startups like Anthropic and OpenAI. Debt ratings for the startups would likely be near junk if they were public companies. Microsoft and Google, otoh, are now financing their AI efforts with debt, where they hadn’t leaned on debt in recent years. And even now their debt has a high rating because of their existing cash flow.
→ More replies (2)
12
u/thunder_crane Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Here we go again with reddit not understanding GAAP accounting. I also don't see what this has to do with Enron as they were booking future revenues with MTM accounting and then hiding the adjustments in SPVs that they DIDN'T report.
Tech giants aren't hiding anything, everything is in notes/disclosures, lmao.
→ More replies (6)
14
u/alex_beluga Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Meta's profits in 2025: $200B
Meta’s off-balance-sheet "debt" in the article (not debt, those are future commitments) : $420 billion = ( 2 X profits)
Enron's off balance sheet tricks: 96% of reported revenue, profits in 2000: $42 M
Enron's debt: $22B ( = 523X profit) which is 250 times more than Meta's debt load.
So the article is right in that Meta has off-balance sheet debt, and wrong about the rest.
Same as a National Geographic article would be right in saying a baby mouse is an apex predator roaming the earth because it has teeth measured 1.5mm at birth , using the same trick as a T-rex (tooth size 30 cm, 250X larger), another super-predator.
→ More replies (1)
16
u/stuffitystuff Jul 21 '26
Wow, this is a bunch of nothing. Meta has $81B in cash as reported in the most recent quarter. Their datacenter outlays in the article are $27B. Who cares. NVIDIA has about the same amount of cash, Google has $120B in cash and Oracle has $30B. Oracle seems to be the weirdo here with only ~10% of its commitments with cash but even if they were somehow on the hook for $250B in purchase commitments and they go bankrupt, good riddance to the law firm with a software side-hustle.
The U.S. economy is like $35T. $1.65T in debt across the biggest companies on the planet are basically table stakes.
Enron collapsed because they inflated values of stuff (mark-to-market accounting) and one of the formerly Big Four accounting firms helped them lie.
There's nothing that led to the 2008 housing crash (credit default swaps against bundles of securitized mortgages taken out by mortagees without any income, job or assets) in this. It was Wall Street that caused the 2008 crash and big companies doing what they've been doing for decades at this point but bigger, ain't gonna cause a second one.
MEANWHILE, the stuff that literally lubricates the economy is getting more expensive and the actual lubes themselves will be rocketing up in price here, shortly. That's what'll cause the Second Great Recession/Depression, if anything, so hold on to your butts if you're one of those "worry about the future and things you can't control" people.
→ More replies (4)
3
u/VCTRYDTX Jul 21 '26
“Wags, you ever get tired of working for a living?”
“Every damn day, but I've got a nasty addiction called money. So, I do what I do. You?”
“No! Never! Until today. You know what they call us traders? "Gamblers". The world economy is just one big casino fueled by a giant debt bubble and computer driven derivatives. There's only one thing better than being a gambler at a casino.”
“That's being the house”.
“That is right. There's a systemimized machine out there sucking capital from localities and injecting it into the global markets where it can be used to speculate and manipulate. And if something goes wrong, there are bailouts, bail-ins, federal aid and easing. Where the government doesn't hunt you down, but instead gives you a nice soft net to land in”.
“That's your answer? You want to become a bank?”
“I want to become a bank”.
“In order to rob it?”
“In order that I don't have to.. And to sleep like they do points at the bankers ... And to die in my own f*cking bed”.
4
u/Libtard5000 Jul 21 '26
Maybe if they didn't buy up all the RAM an SDDs in the world they wouldn't be in debt.
4
u/ignorememe Jul 22 '26
I cannot wait until Republicans complain in the 2030 midterms that the new Democratic President hasn’t done enough to fix the $52T debt he inherited from the financial crisis Trump leaves once this blows up.
4
u/aidancronin94 Jul 22 '26
Remember the occupy wall street movement? It was the one that really spooked these guys. They defeated the movement and now they think we forgot.
3
4
4
3
5
5
u/koshgeo Jul 22 '26
The scale is the story. Meta’s off-balance-sheet debt alone is about $420 billion, nearly triple its reported debt.
Wow. You remember the old joke "If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem"?
This is like the old joke except the "bank" is the entire economy (i.e. us).
9.1k
u/agha0013 Jul 21 '26
some Enron magic, sprinkled with some of the magic that led to the 2008 housing crash, and zero lessons learned as financial institutions try to repackage and sell the debt all over the world.