PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Invierno 2025

[puede ser]

(...)

El euro digital se prevé para mayo o junio. El 'partido patriótico' español (Vox) y el grupo 'Patriotas por Europa' (Orban, etc.), patriotas, ja, ja, ja, alineándose con los intereses del mundo dólar, ya se ha opuesto de manera furibunda en el parlamento europeo al conocer que habrá unión entre Bizum, Bancomat, SIBS-MBWay, EPI y Vipps MobilePay.

(...)

https://elpais.com/internacional/2026-02-06/steve-bannon-a-epstein-derribaremos-al-papa-francisco.html?event_log=oklogin

Steve Bannon a Epstein: “Derribaremos al papa Francisco”
Los mensajes entre el asesor de Trump y el financiero revelan cómo la ultraderecha estadounidense conspiró contra el Pontífice y financió partidos extremistas europeos

En la mole de documentos de Jeffrey Epstein que ha salido a la luz en la última desclasificación de archivos en Estados Unidos la prensa italiana está poniendo el foco en los mensajes que el financiero intercambió entre 2018 y 2019 con Steve Bannon, ideólogo de cabecera de Donald Trump en sus primeros años en política. Revelan dos frentes de batalla de la ultraderecha estadounidense durante el primer mandato del magnate en la Casa Blanca: financiar y potenciar partidos populistas de extrema derecha en Europa, en vista de las elecciones de la Unión Europea de mayo de 2019, y atacar al papa Francisco, a quien el mundo católico más conservador de EE UU veía prácticamente como el anticristo. Una frase de Bannon que señalan los medios italianos es muy clara: “Derribaremos a Francisco” (We’ll take down Francis). Y sigue: “Los Clinton, Xi, Francisco, UE… Vamos, hermano”.

Entre marzo de 2018 y mayo de 2019 Bannon le fue contando a Epstein sus andanzas para que la ultraderecha triunfara en las elecciones europeas de mayo de 2019. “Estoy concentrado en recoger fondos para Le Pen y Salvini, así pueden presentarse con listas completas”, le escribe el 5 de marzo. Y el día 10: “Ahora soy consejero del Frente (Nacional, de Le Pen), de Salvini, de AFD, de Orbán, de Farage. Podemos subir de 92 a 200 escaños y bloquear cualquier ley sobre criptomonedas o sobre todo lo que queramos”. De hecho en esos comicios europeos La Liga alcanzó su mejor resultado histórico, un 34,26%, que envalentonó luego a Salvini para derribar el Gobierno e intentar un adelanto electoral, una maniobra que le salió muy mal.

En diciembre de 2018, en plena crisis de los chalecos amarillos en Francia, Bannon le escribía a Epstein: “La derecha ahora tiene la clase obrera de su parte con la inmigración. Macron se ha derrumbado. Merkel está muerta. La próxima primavera ganamos con el 60% en el Parlamento europeo”. Epstein le dijo que estaba haciendo un “óptimo trabajo”: “Esperemos que estés sentado sobre las rodillas de Salvini”. Bannon replicó: “Al contrario”. Y el financiero concluyó: “Lol. Pero él no se da cuenta. Aaah, el poder de la oscuridad”.

[sargento.algodon]

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/13762843/02/26/emprender-es-la-ultima-opcion-para-un-parado-en-espana-menos-de-un-3-se-lo-plantea.html

Saludos.

Qué raro. Pero si todo el mundo tiene decenas de miles de euros esperando en la cuenta para montar un negocio. Y si no siempre puede empufarse ad eternum si todo sale mal, lo cual es raro que ocurra. Hacendado me hallo.

Esos miles de euros son el famoso (y para algunos malvado) Capital fruto del ahorro que surge por no estar suscrito a Netflix. Todos sabemos que es mejor meterlos en la entrada de un piso.

[senslev]

https://www.publico.es/sociedad/pagar-techo-comer-alquiler-empuja-pobreza-cuatro-cada-diez-inquilinos.html

[AbiertoPorDemolicion]

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/13762843/02/26/emprender-es-la-ultima-opcion-para-un-parado-en-espana-menos-de-un-3-se-lo-plantea.html

Saludos.

Qué raro. Pero si todo el mundo tiene decenas de miles de euros esperando en la cuenta para montar un negocio. Y si no siempre puede empufarse ad eternum si todo sale mal, lo cual es raro que ocurra. Hacendado me hallo.

Esos miles de euros son el famoso (y para algunos malvado) Capital fruto del ahorro que surge por no estar suscrito a Netflix. Todos sabemos que es mejor meterlos en la entrada de un piso.

Para desarrollar cualquier actividad comercial/empresarial necesitas un lugar "físico" (con techo y paredes) donde, por lo menos, poder poner una mesa con un ordenador, una máquina de coser o la caja de herramientas.

tienes tres opciones:

1. lo pones en tu casa y tiras como puedes.

2. te echas a la chepa un casero zampalangostinos, y
    2.1 te va a sacar hasta la camisa,
    2.2 te va a estar monitorizando día a día lo que ganas para sacarte más,
    2.3 le vas tener todo el día encima dándote la brasa de que te saca poco y te va a echar en unos meses.

3. Que trabaje o emprenda su puta madre.

 

[Raf909]

(...)

El euro digital se prevé para mayo o junio. El 'partido patriótico' español (Vox) y el grupo 'Patriotas por Europa' (Orban, etc.), patriotas, ja, ja, ja, alineándose con los intereses del mundo dólar, ya se ha opuesto de manera furibunda en el parlamento europeo al conocer que habrá unión entre Bizum, Bancomat, SIBS-MBWay, EPI y Vipps MobilePay.

(...)

https://elpais.com/internacional/2026-02-06/steve-bannon-a-epstein-derribaremos-al-papa-francisco.html?event_log=oklogin

Steve Bannon a Epstein: “Derribaremos al papa Francisco”
Los mensajes entre el asesor de Trump y el financiero revelan cómo la ultraderecha estadounidense conspiró contra el Pontífice y financió partidos extremistas europeos

En la mole de documentos de Jeffrey Epstein que ha salido a la luz en la última desclasificación de archivos en Estados Unidos la prensa italiana está poniendo el foco en los mensajes que el financiero intercambió entre 2018 y 2019 con Steve Bannon, ideólogo de cabecera de Donald Trump en sus primeros años en política. Revelan dos frentes de batalla de la ultraderecha estadounidense durante el primer mandato del magnate en la Casa Blanca: financiar y potenciar partidos populistas de extrema derecha en Europa, en vista de las elecciones de la Unión Europea de mayo de 2019, y atacar al papa Francisco, a quien el mundo católico más conservador de EE UU veía prácticamente como el anticristo. Una frase de Bannon que señalan los medios italianos es muy clara: “Derribaremos a Francisco” (We’ll take down Francis). Y sigue: “Los Clinton, Xi, Francisco, UE… Vamos, hermano”.

Entre marzo de 2018 y mayo de 2019 Bannon le fue contando a Epstein sus andanzas para que la ultraderecha triunfara en las elecciones europeas de mayo de 2019. “Estoy concentrado en recoger fondos para Le Pen y Salvini, así pueden presentarse con listas completas”, le escribe el 5 de marzo. Y el día 10: “Ahora soy consejero del Frente (Nacional, de Le Pen), de Salvini, de AFD, de Orbán, de Farage. Podemos subir de 92 a 200 escaños y bloquear cualquier ley sobre criptomonedas o sobre todo lo que queramos”. De hecho en esos comicios europeos La Liga alcanzó su mejor resultado histórico, un 34,26%, que envalentonó luego a Salvini para derribar el Gobierno e intentar un adelanto electoral, una maniobra que le salió muy mal.

En diciembre de 2018, en plena crisis de los chalecos amarillos en Francia, Bannon le escribía a Epstein: “La derecha ahora tiene la clase obrera de su parte con la inmigración. Macron se ha derrumbado. Merkel está muerta. La próxima primavera ganamos con el 60% en el Parlamento europeo”. Epstein le dijo que estaba haciendo un “óptimo trabajo”: “Esperemos que estés sentado sobre las rodillas de Salvini”. Bannon replicó: “Al contrario”. Y el financiero concluyó: “Lol. Pero él no se da cuenta. Aaah, el poder de la oscuridad”.

Esto es muuuuuuuuuuuuy heavy. Esto es la constatación de lo que siempre hemos creido. No sólo parte de las élites políticas de la UE están sometidas a USA/Israel, sino que también conspiran para poner a tarados como ellos, todavía más serviles con los usanos.

No es un comentario que me guste hacer, ya que no me considero belicista, pero la UE tiene que acabar de integrarse y subir la apuesta. Ejercito Europeo, con tecnología Europea.

[conejo]

Según los últimos censos y datos de rehabilitación de la Comunidad de Madrid y el Ayuntamiento se estima que en la ciudad de Madrid hay cerca de 45.000 a 50.000 edificios que no cuentan con ascensor.

Esto se traduce en aproximadamente 1,2 millones de personas que viven en edificios con problemas de accesibilidad.

Se estima que entre el 30% y el 35% de los afectados son personas mayores de 65 años. Si bajamos el corte a los 60 años el porcentaje se dispara hasta rozar el 45-50%.

Esto significa que cerca de 550.000 a 600.000 madrileños mayores de 60 años se enfrentan a diario a la "tortura" de las escaleras. De ellos, se calcula que unos 100.000 son "reclusos en su propia casa": personas que no salen a la calle en meses porque físicamente no pueden bajar y volver a subir.

Hay más de 100.000 personas mayores en Madrid que prácticamente no salen de casa (o lo hacen con muchísima dificultad) por la falta de ascensor.

[CHOSEN]

El complemento es intocable.
Las pensiones y los salarios públicos en España son una mierda.
El complemento es intocable.
 

[muyuu]

https://x.com/danfmsg/status/2016459948591333819

https://hesperides.edu.es/precio-vivienda-no-impulsa-construccion/

Saludos.

el informe completo: https://hesperides.edu.es/pages/informe-crr-sobre-la-paradoja-inmobiliaria-y-su-impacto-en-el-mercado.html

[asustadísimos]

[Es mentira que los constructores no ganen dinero. Ganan muchísimo (2025):
• ACS tiene ingresos elefantiásicos (cerca de 40 mil millones), con un margen de EBITDA que dobla la tasa de inflación, lo que es impresionante en un empresón de su tamaño.
• Acciona ha tenido un crecimiento fortísimo en ingresos, por encima del 50%, con márgenes buenísimos.
• FCC destaca por un salto inmenso del EBITDA, con márgenes extraordinarios.

Informe-bulo, que silencia que todos los países de Occidente y la UE estamos igual:
https://hesperides.edu.es/pages/informe-crr-sobre-la-paradoja-inmobiliaria-y-su-impacto-en-el-mercado.html]

[sudden and sharp]

Al rescate del árbitro comercial mundial
https://elpais.com/economia/2026-02-07/al-rescate-del-arbitro-comercial-mundial.html

Los recientes tratados comerciales de la UE profundizan su relación con los socios mayores del grupo semi-no-alineado de los BRICS: Brasil (a través de Mercosur) y la India se añaden al pacto de libre comercio firmado en 1999 con Suráfrica y ampliado luego a sus vecinos. Y se flanquean de otros trabados con diversos socios occidentales (Canadá, Japón, Australia), pertenecientes al grupo transpacífico.

Todo ello alimenta, casi en sordina y empezando por lo económico, el propósito de una alianza entre “potencias medias” como alternativa a un “mundo de fortalezas” refractarias entre sí. En la línea propugnada en Davos por el canadiense Mark Carney.

Y que ha seducido tanto a dirigentes políticos como a una pléyade de analistas relevantes. Como Anne-Maie Slaughter, de New America (“Es la hora de las potencias medias”, Project Syndicate); Martin Wolf, (“La realidad de un mundo tras la ruptura”, FT,) o Manuel Alejandro Hidalgo “Carney: el barquero y sus verdades”, Cinco Días).

La red de pactos antiproteccionistas bilaterales existentes (horizontales) es ya densa. Puede afrontar nuevos pasos para resucitar o rescatar al comercio multilateral. No solo es factible, también necesario.

El primer mandato Trump congeló la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC), impidiendo la renovación de los paneles arbitrales al morir, jubilarse o acabar su período los árbitros profesionales que fueron pilar de su mecanismo de solución de disputas.

Y en este segundo mandato entierra esa función, de facto sustituida por sus propias decisiones personales y unilaterales. Que han cancelado la triple esencia de la OMC: la cláusula-argamasa de la nación más favorecida (NMF, o en inglés MFN, Most Favoured Nation, por la que las mejoras de acceso comercial concedidas por un socio a otro se aplican a los demás); la estabilidad normativa y la obediencia a las decisiones de los árbitros.

Este cul-de-sac deja cojos a los múltiples pactos liberal/progresistas enhebrados. Claro que disponen de instancias para dirimir sus litigios. El de la UE con Suráfrica fijaba un doble escalón: primero, un intento de mediación; segundo, el arbitraje bilateral. El de la UE con Mercosur (artículo 21) es muy redondo. Pero estos y los demás carecen de un organismo permanente con autoridad globalmente reconocida al que recurrir; del consiguiente incentivo a la disciplina que supone una palanca superior a la buena voluntad de las dos partes: la “presión de los pares”, o sea de otros socios; y del potencial de la cláusula NMF.

Los políticos, encabezados por los europeos a los que llamamos Bruselas, deberían empujar el proceso de resurrección o rescate de la OMC: convocar cuanto antes un foro plural para tantear la mejor estrategia. Disponen de diagnósticos para reformarla. O para crear otra de nuevo cuño, sin el poder del líder que la ha esterilizado. Es un dilema similar al de la OTAN, pero más practicable, pues el comercio suele ser menos brutal que la defensa. Los más aficionados pueden rastrear las tesis de Petros Mavroidis y de Ignacio García Bercero en el sitio del think-tank europeísta Bruegel.

[Derby]

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/07/ai-software-anthropic-losses-stock-market

AI wiped out $400 billion this week — and it's only getting started



AI is here — and this week, investors lost over $400 billion to the realization that entire industries are on the cusp of being replaced.

Why it matters: The software-industry selloff, sparked by Anthropic's latest release, is ultimately just a baby step in a bigger transformation that may reshape how we all live and work.

It's also the first tangible verdict on what happens when AI starts eating entire categories of work, well before the long-feared white-collar bloodbath even really begins.

Driving the news: Anthropic recently released a suite of software-killing tools — prompting investors to reconsider software companies' value, with the sector down 25% in the last week.

One, Claude Code, promises to write code on users' behalf, essentially creating software at will.

The other, Cowork, offers plugins designed to help AI agents operate like a full-time coworker.

Zoom in: AI isn't just hitting software valuations, it's changing how these companies operate from the inside out.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he felt "useless" and "sad" using his own AI to code.

Software engineers using the technology are also talking to each other less than ever, showing the "death of a community," Peter Coy writes.

The big picture: As of this week, investors are seriously looking at AI not just as a productivity boost for software firms, but as a substitute.

"AI is not just going to do something to labor ... it's going to do something to profits," Shelby McFaddin, portfolio manager of a $2.6 billion fund, tells Axios.

One strategist likened it to BlackBerry: It survived, but its business model and valuation never recovered after being fully disrupted.

Yes, but: Some investors are still bullish on software stocks, especially now that they come at a discount.

The winners could be companies offering software toolkits, rather than single-use apps.

Software incumbents will also be hard to replace: "With AI, code may become cheap, but context is expensive ... you can't LLM your way past 10 years of customer data," Pitchbook noted in a report.

What we're watching: Stock prices are a bet, but sales are are the actual proof.

Growth has already slowed for software names — and is a metric to watch for other industries that could be disrupted by AI.

Customer retention will signal if people are switching to AI tools, David Fetherstonhaugh, EVP at VistaShares, tells Axios.

Watch for the market to price in AI's broader labor hit across several industries in about a year-plus, McFaddin said.

What's next: Investors' fears about AI's impact on software companies could spread to other industries the emerging tech stands to disrupt.

The bottom line: Markets just ran the math on software in an AI world — and didn't like the answer.

[asustadísimos]

[https://www.youtube.com/shorts/g8kbSAGQ7os
Rusia paga a ucranianos para obtener licencias de Starlink.]

[Hinel]

Informe-bulo, que silencia que todos los países de Occidente y la UE estamos igual:
https://hesperides.edu.es/pages/informe-crr-sobre-la-paradoja-inmobiliaria-y-su-impacto-en-el-mercado.html]

Con leerse la página 35 ya es suficiente. Informe basura.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/5b9ae74b-4326-4d62-9a08-9049c15a5ef0

The juice, the squeeze and the digital euro

Finally, a question for the answer to a question nobody asked


© Bloomberg

It’s always easier to discuss the future of the US dollar system when the dollar is going down rather than up. After all, that means you can concentrate on the broad geopolitical, economic and historical sweep rather than dealing with the killer argument of “number go up, hur hur”.  

But just because it’s easier doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to start calling the beginning of the end for the greenback (even if it will soon have a history published in hardback, traditionally a sign of impending doom for corporations).

As the BIS pointed out in a recent working paper, people have repeatedly predicted the end of dollar dominance — not least with the launch of the Euro and the tradeable yuan — but it actually ended the first quarter of the twenty-first century with a slightly higher share of global securities investment than it began.

But is it different this time? Are people really going to structurally use the dollar less as a currency for payments, reserves and borrowing? One framework for thinking about this might be the perennial question — is the juice worth the squeeze?

In a paper I’ve written with Henry Farrell as part of the joint British Academy/Carnegie Endowment project on Global Instability (there’s posh for you), we set up the juice/squeeze calculation like this:

 ‘Dollar centrality’ is a political-economic concept that refers to the extreme attractiveness of the US dollar as a currency for transactions and investment. The ‘global payment system’ is the specialised telecommunications network that connects financial institutions all over the world and allows payments to be made by electronic book entries rather than cash.

The part of the global payment system that deals with payments denominated in US dollars is the ‘dollar payment system’ or, for shorthand, ‘dollar system,’ which involves not only the hegemonic role of the US dollar but also the communications network that is bundled with the dollar.

The conveniences of dollar centrality for facilitating financial transactions are inseparable from the dollar payment system and its rules as set by the US government. International actors might prefer not to follow these rules, but it would be very painful to lose the enormous benefits of dollar centrality.

In other words, the juice is having access to a single liquid money, backed by a military hegemon that’s willing to act as a global “consumer of last resort”. The squeeze is that if you’re in the US dollar economy, you’re implicitly accepting US jurisdiction.

The dollar system squeeze

For legal purposes, the US asserts that every dollar transaction anywhere in the world can affect the dollar clearing, and therefore every dollar transaction, for legal purposes, might as well have happened in New York. This is a pretty massive over-reach in terms of extraterritoriality, but if you want to be part of the dollar economy, you’re stuck with it.  

For a long time, the juice was very much worth the squeeze, because the US didn’t really do much with this implicit power. Then 9/11 happened, and the US authorities realised that the dollar system could be used both as a means of gathering information about its enemies, and an instrument of economic coercion. Foreign banks began to learn about the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC, which is both an acronym and the noise you make when you discover you’ve been fined $9bn for sanctions infringements).

As Henry and Abe Newman put it in their book “Underground Empire”, the US in effect “weaponised” the global dollar. But the kind of weapon they turned it into wasn’t some sort of highly classified and carefully guarded cruise missile. It was more like one of those guns you can buy at an American convenience store on Saturday night if someone at the bar has annoyed you.

The trouble was, the Treasury had put the dollar sanctions weapon in place to guard vital US interests in the “War on Terror”, but it hadn’t put in place any control mechanism to ensure that the weapon would only be used for those vital interests.

If everything legally happens in New York, then anyone who can bring a case in New York can use the power of the global dollar. And inevitably, over time, various US agencies — and even private litigants — did in fact overuse the power. When you think about the FIFA scandal, for example, it’s not obvious why bribery allegations involving the Honduran members of a Swiss governing body over a tournament held in Russia were the business of the US Department of Justice.

So the squeeze got tighter over time; the EU started measures that might be characterised as somewhere between “smiling nervously and moving towards the door” and “saying ‘nice doggie’ while looking for a rock”.

Among those measures were the famous anti-coercion instrument. But the anti-coercion instrument has always lacked a degree of credibility as something which might be brandished against the US, simply because you can’t really use an anti-squeeze measure if you still need the juice.

Kindleberger’s Trap strikes again?

However, Europe has also started to worry about the reliability of the supply of juice.

“Juice” in this sense, meaning specifically the Fed swap lines. As the BIS data shows, the global dollar was actually on something of a downswing before the Global Financial Crisis; its recovery in market share is a post-2008 phenomenon.



Although the BIS authors don’t directly make this connection, it’s reasonable to suppose that one important factor supporting the dollar market after 2008 was the Fed’s decision to maintain permanent swap lines with other big central banks.

This meant that there was a global guarantee of liquidity in US dollars, reducing the risk you might be taking by having dollar assets funded by non-dollar liabilities. (The swap line agreements were mutual, so there was also global guaranteed liquidity provision in euro, yen, swiss francs and sterling, but it’s the global hegemon’s juice that actually matters).

Being able to rely on those swap lines is a big part of the value of the dollar system to non-dollar participants. And although the USA hasn’t made any outright threats, things do seem to have developed geopolitically in a direction where you’ve got to regard it as a possibility, in a way in which you didn’t before.

This is a big deal as Charles Kindleberger first astutely noted. The ECB has even started publishing analytical survey articles from its research department on the subject*. Which is not cute; central banks only do this when they’re very stressed.

If that wasn’t enough, as well as all of the obvious geopolitical issues, being part of the dollar zone now quite likely means having to accept that stablecoins are going to be increasingly embedded into your financial system, with two-way exposures to your local systemically important banks.

A large part of the rationale for the GENIUS Act was that global take-up of stablecoins would underpin the use case for the greenback — in essence, they provide a bit more “juice” for users, albeit the kind of juice that European policymakers might not be too keen to consume.

And so . . . enter the digital Euro.

ECB CBDC FTW

The digital Euro looked like a sort of orphan project for a very long time.

It was launched at the same time as a bunch of other “Central Bank Digital Currency “projects, all of which appeared to be aimed at creating sufficient Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to completely scupper Facebook’s Libra crypto project, and most of which appeared to be quietly sidelined the moment it became clear that they had thoroughly done that job.  

But the digital Euro kept on. And it’s become increasingly clear that the purpose of the thing isn’t really because anyone cares about the difference between debit cards and legal tender. Nor is it really about payment fees.

It’s all about strategic independence from the USA.  

If you want to wean yourself off the dollar system, you need to replace not just the currency, but the extremely fast, extremely reliable, extremely secure, high-capacity telecoms network with which it comes bundled.

Yes, Europe has its own payment networks for high-value and interbank business, and in many cases, the European version is better than the US. (One of the main grounds for scepticism of the digital euro is that instant bank payments work so well).  

What Europe lacks is any equivalent to the big two global but US-owned, retail card payment networks, Mastercard and Visa. Requiring every European merchant that takes cards to be set up for digital Euro (because it’s going to have legal tender status) is their way to bootstrap exactly that.  

So everyone might be underestimating the digital Euro. As a payment product, it’s debatable. But it needs to be seen as a way of buying optionality, to give some possibility of a future in which the EU isn’t quite so dependent on keeping access to a global dollar.

As a bunch of European economists argued in an open letter** to the EU parliament last month, a digital euro is “not a nice-to-have, it is an essential safeguard of European sovereignty, stability, and resilience”.

This dependence on foreign (US) payment providers exposes European citizens, businesses and governments to geopolitical leverage, foreign commercial interests, and systemic risks beyond Europe’s control. Recent developments have made this more than a hypothetical risk. Without a meaningful digital euro, our dependence will deepen as US-backed private digital currencies are gaining ground. Europe will lose control over the most fundamental element in our economy: our money

Which means, of course, that at some point, the US might see widespread take-up of the digital Euro as a passive-aggressive action in itself, requiring some sort of retaliation. A system which was once a source of global stability is now, potentially destabilising itself.

*https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/financial-stability-publications/fsr/focus/2025/html/ecb.fsrbox202511_03~9d7639f76c.en.html

**https://sustainablefinancelab.nl/wp-content/uploads/sites/506/2026/01/The-Digital-Euro-Let-te-public-interest-prevail.pdf

[Derby]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-warns-the-us-is-1000-going-to-go-bankrupt-unless-ai-and-robotics-save-the-economy-from-crushing-debt/ar-AA1VT9fA

Elon Musk warns the US is '1,000% going to go bankrupt' unless AI and robotics save the economy from crushing debt

Tesla CEO Elon Musk doubled down on his warnings about U.S. debt, predicting financial doom will be guaranteed without the transformative effects of AI and robotics on the economy.

In a lengthy, wide-ranging interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel alongside Stripe cofounder and president John Collison on Thursday, the tech billionaire was asked why he pushed for aggressive spending cuts while leading the Department of Government Efficiency if technology will supercharge GDP growth and ease the debt burden.

Musk replied that he was concerned about waste and fraud. That’s despite reports that many across-the-board staffing cuts included critical employees who had to be hired back.

“In the absence of AI and robotics, we’re actually totally screwed because the national debt is piling up like crazy,” he added.

Interest payments alone on the $38.5 trillion debt pile are about $1 trillion a year, exceeding the U.S. military budget, Musk pointed out.

Debt-servicing costs also top spending on social programs like Medicare. But President Donald Trump has vowed to boost annual defense outlays to $1.5 trillion, so the defense budget could overtake interest payments again, at least temporarily.

Reflecting on his work with DOGE, Musk said he had hoped to slow down the unsustainable financial trajectory the U.S. is on, buying more time for AI and robotics to boost growth.

“It’s the only thing that could solve the national debt. We are 1,000% going to go bankrupt as a country, and fail as a country, without AI and robots,” he predicted. “Nothing else will solve the national debt. We just need enough time to build the AI and robots to not go bankrupt before then.”

In late November, Musk made similar comments, saying on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast that the deployment of AI and robotics “at very large scale” is the only solution to the U.S. debt crisis.

But he cautioned that the increased output in goods and services as a result of the technologies would likely lead to significant deflation.

“That seems likely because you simply won’t be able to increase the money supply as fast as you increase the output of goods and services,” Musk added.

Deflation would actually worsen the debt burden in real terms, while inflation would ease it initially, though a resulting spike in bond yields would eventually send debt-interest payments soaring.

To be sure, the U.S. has some built-in advantages given that the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, allowing the Treasury Department to borrow at lower interest rates than would be possible otherwise.

The ability of the U.S. to issue debt in its own currency and the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying capacity also lessen the risk of an outright default.

Still, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warned last month that the U.S. is on a trajectory that could trigger six distinct types of fiscal crises.

While it’s “impossible” to know when disaster will strike, “some form of crisis is almost inevitable” without a course correction, the CRFB said in a report.