Episode 210 Audio: Ben Norton

Dotcom bubbles, housing bubbles — as this week’s guest, Ben Norton, explains to us, the bubble itself is not new. But as a keen observer of our financial systems and their manipulation by the wealthy and powerful, Ben Norton gives us important insights into what makes this current bubble — and its coming implosion — even more dangerous. For the past few weeks, for example, billionaires like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffett have been dumping stocks, keeping an eye on any market instability or potential collapse. At this point, says Ben, the U.S. stock market has hit 200 percent of the GDP — higher than either the dotcom bubble or the Great Depression. At Davos, Jamie Dimon nodded to the bubble by observing that the stock market is very inflated. Pushing the issue to a potential crisis is the revelation that China can produce cheaper, better AI, and has been able to do so for a while. Air is starting to come out of the U.S. tech bubble already: in one day, over one trillion dollars of market capital in U.S. and E.U. tech companies collapsed. DeepSeek AI, the Chinese company completely revolutionizing the entire lucrative and hot-button field of AI, is open-source: anyone can access the code and understand how it works, for free. In our conversation with Ben, we chat about why this newest development is so important to the story of the U.S. stock market bubble, how and when a collapse could happen, and more. This episode will be available tomorrow on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Podcasts, and other major streaming platforms. Thanks for listening! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe