> My pet theory is that we are experiencing stagflation, but only people >70 years old have ever really experienced it before, so most people are just scratching their heads wondering how it’s possible that stocks keep going up (inflation) while jobs are disappearing (stagnation).

We do not seem to be technically experiencing stagflation,ir really either half of it, on a national scale, as we appear to still be in a weak aggregate economic expansion and inflation, while higher than the 2% target, is fairly mild at around a 3% annualized rate [0], and, in any case, stocks going up is not inflation (unqualified inflation, which is the inflation part of stagflation, in consumer price inflation, not asset value inflation.)

OTOH, we are in a very weak economy especially outside of the leading AI firms, and there are quite likely both wide regions and wide sectors of the economy which, considered alone, would be in recession, and while inflation is fairly mild, it is high for the last couple decades and being in near-recession conditions. So, for a lot of people, the experience is a something like stagflation (and there are lots of signs that the economic slowdown will continue alongside rising inflation.)

[0] though as economic statistics are only available after the fact, either of these could have changed, but the real defining period for “stagflation” in the US is the 1973-1975 recession, years which saw a minimum of 6.2% inflation (the term was actually coined in the UK for conditions which saw a massive drop in GDP growth rate, fron 5.7% annually to 2.1% in successive years, but not an actual recession, alongside 4.8% inflation.)

>we are in a very weak economy especially outside of the leading AI firms

Isn't that part of the cause? It sucks up so much investment, there's nothing left for anything else. Or at least nothing without such perceived upside.

Either they pull it off and you're replaced by AGI, or they fail to pull it off and you lose your job to the resulting economic implosion.