You forget the huge bank bailouts caused by Bush's policies in 2008. That is why it spiked. Obama brought it down during his admin.

Without that spending, the recession of 2008 would have been the same or worse as the depression of the 1930s.

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twoodfin 5 hours ago | parent [-]

This is what I meant by stories you could tell. Other folks blame Glass-Steagall repeal, which happened during the Clinton administration. The Big Short blamed it on the invention of the MBS a couple decades earlier.

IAE, nobody thinks it was a mistake to make a massive fiscal investment in 2008 to avert a depression, as you say. It’s hard to say that is a meaningful signal about the budgetary prudence of the GOP vs. Democrats.

Similarly, if Covid had hit in 2016, it wouldn’t have discredited Obama’s budgetary acumen if he spent a trillion on backstopping the economy against it.

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jmclnx 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I personally blame that repeal, but I an not an economist so I really cannot prove my belief.

I just hope we are not walking into another 2008, I think we are, but again my economic knowledge is just a crystal ball and a magic 8 ball :)

	▲	twoodfin 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wouldn’t worry too much. Imagine if all this capital investment in AI were instead being focused on solar build out. The vibes would be much more positive, but the return on capital for solar panels frankly looks paltry compared to what LLM tokens by the quadrillions can do.