To disarm the big tech bomb, including “AI”, the public needs to be on high alert — as AI firms start to visibly wobble, we need clear demands and firm commitments from our leaders that if it all comes crashing down, the public won’t be the one left holding the bag.
The AI bailout will happen: the tech bros made sure of it by tying their stock to the working stiffs’ 401Ks through S&P500 index funds. It was a brilliant scam and they pulled it off without any trouble in Trump’s fasch-land.
Just saying, if everyone were to actually call their retirement fund manager and have them divest your 401k away from these assholes, that can be done. Then they would be left with the bag, not us.
But getting 100M people to do anything is nearly impossible.
Most people don’t have that granular kind of control. They have workplace 401k or pension plans with matching contributions from their employer. I get double-matched by my employer (I put in 7% and the employer puts in 14%), but I can’t call someone and have them move my money. I can attend annual meetings and vote, but I have no direct control over my money unless I divest from the program entirely to go with another program and lose that 14 percent.
Most Americans have a log in with at least 10 options they can choose. I dare say nearly all do.
Most folks don’t have a “retirement fund manager”, they just have a web portal with their company’s plan with the same 10 shitty target date funds.
Those are actually the better off folks. Most people don’t have shit.
Everyone of these folks can move full allocation to various options like money market or bonds, or international growth, etc. and they should. Oh and after the bailout begins, get out of that money market, because it will be the toilet paper market then.
Why do you think the money market would suffer? It has generally low returns as a rule and they tend to be even lower in low interest markets…but it’s an extremely conservative investment.
The money is denominated dollars or other currencies. So if you get say 2.9 percent, but actual inflation is at a much higher rate, 7 percent, you are losing money. You can buy much less stuff than you could have before you put it in there.
They can, but whether they should depends entirely on timing the market. It can stay irrational for another 2+ years, in which case selling out now would be a mistake.
Everybody who doesn’t live forever “times the market”. Your not describing discipline, you’re describing FOMO. If you believe the AI Bubble premise, and you had discipline you’d keep a lot of cash. Like Berkshire does these days. I call that “timing the market”.
Sounds like “most folks” need to start looking for alternatives or stop blindly handing their money to Wall Street criminals.
You have a number you can call, and there is an agent you can speak with about what’s being done with your investments.
It is your money and you can put it where you want.
It is just super inconvenient.
Go ask your HR person how to contact them. It’s all they’re good for.
Make an infograph and we share it in a social media campaign.
It’s worth mentioning that multiple exchanges changed their index inclusion rules this year. Nasdaq only requires 15 days subsequent to an IPO for inclusion in the Nasdaq100 as opposed to what was previously three months.
https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/docs/2026_NDX_Changes_FAQ.pdf
We don’t even have onsite HR lmao
Most retirement plans actually give you a number of other investment options besides those target date funds. The trouble is that you have to login and change your investments to small/med cap or international funds, and I believe only a minority of people have the wherewithal to do that
This is true. There’s also the “company match” that happens with up to 6%. Corporate is handling it, and the “match”, there’s no retirement agent to call.
Match means they match your contribution. (Up to x% of your salary, not everyone sees the 6% match you mentioned sometimes is 3%, sometimes it’s 10%. Depends on company… It varies a lot.)
So like if they match 5% and you make 100k, and you elect 5% to your 401k, then the company also contributes 5% of your salary to your 401k. If they match 5% and you contribute 1% of your salary they MATCH 1% of your salary to your 401k. Your 401k is yours. You can tell the managers of it to put it where you want, but it goes somewhere your org wants it to by default.
That includes where you invest your contribution.
By default your company invests in a bunch of s&p 500 index funds, probably.
You could tell them to yolo the whole 6% of your salary they match on Tesla, Gold futures, Pepsi, whatever you want.
Yes, mileage varies. There’s also a vested (work for that company X years before you keep that portion when you leave) aspect before you get to keep the employer contribution, and the remain separate accounts.
Who is the “they” you call? HR? An 800 number? It’s clear as mud at a first look. The point being, most people aren’t even going to know who to call for this. Most work retirement packages are a click once and forget type deal. Can you find the info? Yes. But it takes work. And remembering that you even have this click and forget thing attached to your workplace. That’s just people though.
Oh but private retirement funds are so much more “efficient” and have no bureaucracy! That’s what they tell you anyway. About as useful as private health insurance.
Wouldn’t matter much anyway in this case. They were always going to find a way to stick us with the bill. Hope everyone is ready for Great Depression 2: AI Slop Boogaloo!
It will happen. I was browsing this while logged out and can’t respond to the person I would like to because they’re invisible to me. The thing about bailouts is that they will likely go to the big dogs and not the actual AI companies. Microsoft, Meta, Google, NVIDIA, Amazon… They’ll get bailed out. OpenAI and Anthropic will get consumed/sold off. We’ll likely see a bidding war for their assets because while they are over valued, they are not without value, and since most of us believe all of this is a push is for cloud computing I would bet. The bubble pop will be consolidation and a push for more cloud-based saas infrastructure.
My opinion has been that all this AI bubble noise has basically just been the R&D phase of a larger rollout. I would be concerned with which company ends up with those assets because that will be a big indicator of future plans in the sector.
Oh, I don’t think you should include Meta on that list. I have a sneaking suspicion they’re going to be the Lehman Brothers of this crash.
You know…that’s fair. I can see Musk trying to take Meta. or Google.
This is what see happening too, just like the last time we did a big bailout for the banks. Wells Fargo, B of A, and JP Morgen Chase got to pick off the littler guys like Wachovia and Washington Mutual and they also got to get get tax payer funds to cover their losses.
Cloud-based saas infrastructure is the bailout. Anything else on that is gravy.
We are all their hostages