November 1, 2025
Bubble talk meets money-printer memes
Powell – unlike the dotcom boom, AI spending isn't a bubble
Powell: AI isn’t a bubble; commenters yell deja vu, money printer, 'show me profits'
TLDR: Powell says the AI boom isn’t a bubble, pointing to profits and real-world building, not cheap money. Commenters split between skeptics citing past manias and the Fed’s “money printer,” and supporters pointing to cranes, power demand, and trillion-dollar forecasts—making this a high-stakes debate over tech’s next chapter.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell says the AI surge isn’t a dotcom repeat — these firms have actual profits and the build-out is cranes, concrete, and data centers, not just hype. The crowd? Immediately split. One skeptic warned, “in past bubbles, there were also people saying ‘This is not a bubble,’” while another shot back that you can have revenue without profits, adding the dotcom mania is what made today’s AI possible. A third went for the jugular: “says the man who printed $5T,” dropping a Fed balance sheet chart. An archive link popped up for receipts.
Supporters pointed to real-world signals Powell cited: record electricity demand, utilities rushing to expand the grid, and mega-cap tech spending hundreds of billions. Wall Street chimed in — Goldman says the spending isn’t “too big,” with AI’s payoff possibly worth trillions, and JPMorgan sees a small bump to growth.
But the comment drama kept boiling: if AI is so healthy, why are layoffs rising? Who actually wins when a few giants own the pipes? Memes rolled through: “money printer go brrr,” “number go up,” and “cranes > clicks,” plus title wars over what to call the post. Verdict: confidence meets cynicism, popcorn buckets overflowed.
Key Points
- •Jerome Powell said the AI investment surge differs from the dotcom bubble, citing firms with real earnings and profits.
- •Powell stated AI and data center spending are driven by long-term productivity expectations, not low interest rates or cheap money.
- •Goldman Sachs estimates AI could deliver $8–$19 trillion in present value productivity gains for the U.S., with current AI investment under 1% of GDP.
- •JPMorgan projects AI-related infrastructure spending could add ~0.2 percentage points to U.S. GDP over the next year.
- •Powell noted tangible impacts like data center construction and rising power demand, while cautioning outcomes and productivity gains remain uncertain and uneven.