Banning data centers would blow up the U.S. economy

6 pointsposted 4 hours ago
by megamike

5 Comments

bigbadfeline

3 hours ago

> There's one thing keeping us afloat right now, and people want to get rid of it.

This is an inversion of reality. The overbuilding of data centers isn't keeping us afloat, it's the hole on the bottom of the capital ship, sinking it fast to keep it pinned to the bottom. The only way to escape such fate is to slow down and build in economically sane way.

There isn't enough money to spend on data centers in a boom-busting inflationary spiral. We're overpaying for both construction and (especially) compute because we've reached their capacity limits long ago.

We aren't building faster, we aren't building significantly more, we are building at insane prices and at huge a loss to society while pissing precious capital in the wind. The opportunity cost is enormous and it's killing the economy.

jqpabc123

4 hours ago

There's one thing keeping us afloat right now, and people want to get rid of it.

The one thing keeping us afloat right now --- is debt. And building lots of data centers for unprofitable AI vendors only adds to the problem.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/23/big-techs-ai-bond-binge-shat...

toomuchtodo

4 hours ago

Gotta rip the band aid off, it's going to happen eventually. Perhaps the US shouldn't have gotten into the position of the only growth coming from a capital bubble due to poor policy decisions.

jqpabc123

3 hours ago

Gotta rip the band aid off, it's going to happen eventually.

The article's argument is, "But, but, but why now?".

The answer is --- because the public is being asked to foot the bill --- in more ways than one.

In Texas alone, there are more than 1,800 proposed projects representing over 474 GW of requested power. This more than five times the grid’s record peak demand.