All the cynical research warn that Artificial Intelligence is coming for your job. Not because it’s actually good enough yet, God, no, but because just the idea of it is enough to warp the economy beyond recognition.
Remember that, people.
It is really not the machines that you need to worry about. It is the billionaires salivating over them, creating the hype, gullible sheep believing in them, it not delivering, and therefore plunging us all into the abyss of financial ruin.
Here I said it. .
This is actually the TL;DR, so if you wish, you can quit reading now. The rest is all about the indicators, why this most likely will be the case.
But you, I know you!
You aren’t satisfied with a mere statement coming from a man that only rants about Big Tech, and is always looking for a good reason to burn them to the ground.
So, let’s start with a new study that is out there, by Caleb Maresca at the New York University.
He lays it all out in detail.
His research doesn’t predict that AI will wreck the economy someday. It is saying that the anticipation of AI wreaking havoc, is already screwing things up.
Business leaders, banks, writers like me, and investors aren’t waiting for artificial intelligence to prove itself. They are already gambling on a future where AI runs everything, and that means your paycheck is being devalued before the AI even arrives.
Maresca’s study is called “Strategic Wealth Accumulation Under Transformative AI Expectations”, isn’t some vague techno-doomsday piece, unlike my own stuff. It is a serious economic analysis that shows that as soon as people believe AI will replace human labor, they change how they spend and save.
One of the results is that Interest rates will skyrocket as banks anticipate massive shifts in labor costs. Wages will plummet as corporations assume that they won’t need workers much longer. Wealth hoarding intensifies as the rich scramble to buy up AI assets before everyone else. The economy starts self-cannibalizing before AI has even proven it can do half of what’s being promised.
How bad could it get?
Well, according to Maresca, interest rates could climb by as much as 10-16% in some scenarios. If you don’t spend your free time thinking about interest rates (lucky you), let’s break it down. That means that starting a business becomes nearly impossible, buying a home turns into a fantasy, and borrowing money is suddenly reserved for the ultra-rich.
Everyday people, like the plebs that we are, will start to panic.
We stop spending.
We start hoarding cash.
And this, makes everything worse. Oh, the irony of it all.
The economy will grind to a halt because nobody wants to move money when they think AI is about to destroy their earning potential. This is what Maresca calls a “prisoner’s dilemma in saving behavior”, everyone trying to out-save each other in an AI-powered game of economic chicken.
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The big players are already making their moves.
Sam “the Scam”, recently said that AI will require a new social contract.
Yes, he talks about UBI – Universal Basic Income.
Sounds very, very noble.
Until you realize that he is one of the guys that makes darn sure that “contract” involves zero obligations to pay human workers.
Have you read my rants about how dark the Gig Economy is? If not, you can read it here: Freedom is a lie of the Gig Economy | LinkedIn
And Klarna’s CEO Sebastian Schmiemiaowski (never get his name 100% right) arrogantly said that his AI system replaced 700 full-time employees. He celebrated this like a medieval king, and was bragging about how many peasants he crushed this week.
Yes he did.
Ok, ok, he may not have called them peasants, but it sure wasn’t any nicer.
And then there’s Elon Schmuck, who mused that “jobs will be optional” in the future. For whom exactly? Them billionaires who own AI? Or the rest of us who are desperately trying to sell handmade trinkets on Etsy just to afford food?
Bunch of freaking hypocrites.
The free money fantasy that is called Universal Basic Income
Universal Basic Income sounds great. Yeeeeey! Free money! No strings! The government just hands you cash, and suddenly your life is easier. No more working dead-end jobs just to survive. Except, reality has a nasty habit of wrecking utopian fantasies, as you are quite aware off.
A serious UBI plan, like the $12,000-a-year proposal in the U.S., would cost $2.5 trillion annually.
2.5 Trillion
With a big T.
That is a thousand Billion, also with a big B.
The US doesn’t even spend 900 Billion on defense.
So, forcing this kind of unprecedented increase in federal spending would be disasterous to the economy. That’s a tax hike that will be so monstrous that even the IRS would need therapy. And then there’s inflation. Dumping that much money into the economy doesn’t exist in a vacuum, you know. It drives up demand, and that in turn jacks up prices, and that means your free money buys you… nothing.
Just look at Finland’s failed UBI experiment.
They ran a trial, spent the cash, and found that it didn’t even improve employment rates. And Ontario’s government killed their UBI project after realizing that it actively discouraged people from working.
Hahahahahaha.
Sory people.
Just a cynical laugher, as usual . . .
If you are trying to help the working class, maybe don’t make policies that pay them not to work.
And let’s not pretend the political system will ever make this happen. Take Switzerland, now that is one of the most progressive countries on Earth, and it put UBI to a vote in 2016.
It lost.
Hard.
Over 76% of voters rejected it, because even they knew the math didn’t add up.
In the U.S. it is D.O.A.
Conservatives call it socialism, corporations hate it, and even Democrats can’t agree on how to pay for it, and I personally think its a doomed experiment to start with. Because if think that Wall Street is going to sit back and let the government start handing out free cash while they lose control. . . Nah, the free market will kill it before it even reaches a vote. And that is before we get to the logistical nightmare of restructuring the tax code to fund it.
So, even if UBI did pass, guess who pays for it?
You.
Yeah, you.
You, but with higher taxes, worse inflation, and an economy where fewer people work but prices keep rising. So don’t be shocked when your rent is three times higher, your groceries are unaffordable, and you still have to work, only now with less opportunity.
If you want to get a taste of how this feels, just visit my home-country, the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the taxes don’t nibble at your paycheck like in the U.S.A.. They just freaking devour it.
A middle-class worker earning say €5000 a month is already down to €2400 after a brutal 52% income tax. Think that’s the end of it? Nah. Nearly half of what’s left gets taxed away again. VAT (21.5% on most goods and services) bleeds your purchases dry. Then there are local taxes, tariffs, a tax on savings, inheritance tax, car taxes, and let’s not forget fuel tax, which is practically daylight robbery. And by the time all these taxes pile up, assuming you own a modest car and not a bloody beautiful Dodge RAM, put a bit in savings, and don’t splurge too much, then you’re left with about €1700 to cover rent, utilities, food, healthcare, and whatever remains of your will to live.
Congratulations!
You work all month to keep the government fat while you try to figure out if you can afford both heating and groceries.
The top 1% controls over 55% of US’ wealth
The research doesn’t stop at Maresca’s study. A Rabobank economic analysis did a bloody good job, and they say that as the AI hype grows, the central banks will likely be forced to raise interest rates even further to keep inflation in check, because AI-induced economic distortions, like mass layoffs, wealth consolidation, erratic spending behavior, will make financial markets even less predictable.
Basically the AI is altering how people behave financially at a fundamental level. And banks, well, what shall I say, they don’t like unpredictable.
But let’s talk about who actually wins here.
The problem isn’t that AI will automate work. The problem is that AI will automate profits into the hands of the few who control it. When AI eliminates a job, that money doesn’t disappear. It doesn’t redistribute itself across the economy like some fairy tale about rising tides lifting all boats. It flows directly to the owners of AI systems, and is concentrating wealth like never before.
Maresca’s study warns that if this trend continues, America’s economy will start to look eerily like Russia’s, where the top 1% controls over 55% of the nation’s wealth. Yup. Russia (hi @Aleksey), where the oligarchs run everything and regular people are left to fight for economic scraps. Except America’s version of this nightmare will probably be even worse because at least in Russia, there’s still demand for human labor. And when AI gets good enough, and it lies less, then even that vanishes.
So, again, welcome to the new feudal system, where billionaires own the AI land and the rest of us are left trying to survive in their algorithmic kingdom.
This isn’t speculation from my side, if you were thinking that.
The data is already clear.
Wages for the bottom 90% of workers in the U.S. have barely risen since the late 1970s, while corporate profits have skyrocketed. Wealth concentration has accelerated at levels unseen in modern history. Oxfam’s recent report states that 63% of all new wealth created since 2020 has gone directly into the pockets of the richest 1%. This isn’t an economy anymore. This is an extraction machine. And AI is the final upgrade, and the feature that ensures wealth only moves in one direction.
And what do policymakers plan to do?
Nothing.
Nada.
Niente.
Zilch.
Nichts.
They can’t even freaking regulate TikTok.
And we expect them to handle AI before it turns the economy into a billionaire’s playground? Especially not now, when the economy has been turned into a bro-ligarchy by Trump, where he lets his apostles rampage through the government and allowing them to pocket money from taxpayers (also read my article about how Musk financed all of his operations).
Maresca suggests that the best move would be to push politicians into enacting laws that allows for AI-generated wealth to be distributed more fairly.
Sure.
I like it.
Don’t get me wrong.
You know that I am a technology Marxist. Read: Seize the means of Artificial Intelligence – before they enslave us with it! | LinkedIn
But even in the best-case scenario, our collective governments are years behind the curve on this, and in the worst-case scenario, they’re already too compromised to stop it (hello America, I’m sorry).
So what now?
Do you roll over and accept that you’re an economic footnote?
Do you invest in AI stocks and pray you’re on the winning side when the labor market collapses?
Or do you at least recognize what’s happening before it’s too late?
The world isn’t moving toward abundance, it’s moving toward austerity for everyone except the ultra-rich.
If you don’t own AI, you are the product.
Prepare accordingly. Because the hype isn’t just a lotta talk from my side.
It’s already shaping the world.
Signing off from the inevitable big recession.
Marco
Well, that’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have a fresh episode of
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Used sources:
Sources:
- Maresca, C. (2025). “Strategic Wealth Accumulation Under Transformative AI Expectations,” arXiv preprint. ar5iv.org
- Futurism – “AI Hype Will Plunge America Into Financial Ruin, Economist Warns” (Feb 2025). futurism.com
- Neuron (expert) – “AI’s Economic Impact: Insights from Caleb Maresca’s Research”. neuron.expert
- Brookings Institution – “AI’s impact on income inequality in the US” (2024). brookings.edu
- Rabobank – “The economic impact of AI: Four scenarios” (Nov 2024). rabobank.com
- Economic Policy Institute – data on wage growth inequality. epi.org
- INET Economics – “Wage Stagnation and Productivity” (2022). ineteconomics.org
- Federal Reserve Economic Data – top 1% wealth share. fred.stlouisfed.org
- Oxfam International – wealth concentration press release (2023). oxfam.org
- Reuters – Fed interest rate hike (Feb 2023). reuters.com
- Federal Reserve History – Volcker era interest rates. en.wikipedia.org
- OfficeChai – Sam Altman on social contract (2025). officechai.com
- Futurism – Siemiatkowski/Klarna AI layoffs (Jan 2024). futurism.com
- Fox Business – Elon Musk on AI and “universal high income” (May 2024). foxbusiness.com
- Business Insider – Elon Musk quotes on UBI (2017-2018). businessinsider.com
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