In this very specific case I don’t think this is what is happening. Data center investment is the only thing keeping GDP positive, the moment this stops the real situation of the economy will become visible to everyone and they don’t want that.
This is an incentive to build. Not to manage downside risk.
The USA's economy is now so precarious when the AI DC music stops it's about to all just go poof. That has to happen after the election, not before. Between other countries being forced to sell their US bonds (i.e. dedollarize) to afford oil, a 100% tax on all imports, reciprocal trade bans like fresh water from Canada, truckers running out of diesel and having to cancel food deliveries, and non-oil-based energy sources being illegal, the USA is cooked.
This is the magic. Historically many Americans voted for Leopards Eating Faces out of either a misplaced belief that their face wouldn't be eaten or a rational but still awful choice that OK, I don't want my face eaten but at least the people I don't like get their faces eaten and that's important to me. Today the idea is you vote for the Leopards Eating Faces and then when your face gets eaten that's explicitly not because of the Leopards Eating Faces. "Facts aren't true" becomes Dogma.
This almost works. Except for the most important thing. Mother Nature. Ma doesn't give a shit that you don't believe her facts are true.
GDP is a particularly poor proxy to measure all of this. AI/Datacenters can increase the GDP while the costs (energy,infra, labor,disruption,capital concentration) are distributed elsewhere
It reminds me of the old joke where two economies each eat a dead rat for 10k$ and conclude they just added 20k$ to the GDP/Economy.
I wish to ask if its that AI is increasing our actual economic output but also who really captures the gains and who bears the costs if the boom eventually reverses.