EconomicsResearch

The papers, the teardowns,
the working notes.

Everything the desk has published — from the signed flagship papers to the reproducible briefs and the open data behind them. Every figure filed or labeled.

Signatures — The Flagship Papers

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The Fragility Brief

The 2026 AI-compute cycle is usually argued on valuation. The more decision-relevant question is structural fragility — and it is legible in the data these companies file themselves. This brief reads

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The Recycling Ratio

Committed AI compute divided by outside funded cash — the desk's flagship measurement of circular financing, from primary filings. 15.5× est., 2026Q2.

Reading the AI bubble in its own filings — 54 pages, PDF.

The Recycling Ratio

The flagship measurement quantified from primary filings — 12 pages, PDF.

The Fragility Brief

Six indicators read directly from filings, reproducible — PDF.

Teardowns & The Argument

The race between the lag and the runway.

Independent AI-economics research desk — measuring the economics of the AI build-out: the race between the productivity lag and the financing runway.

Two clocks, one race

Two clocks, one race: does the AI productivity payoff arrive before the build-out's financing has to be repriced? The combined scoreboard of the lag and the runway.

Working Notes — The Structural Reads

The productivity lag as a number: AI is deployed everywhere and visible almost nowhere in the output statistics. The Lag Index tracks the gap — and the race against the financing runway.

Moore's Law for the AI economy

One picture for the whole build-out: the forces of AI scaling, each on a single comparable log scale, indexed to their 2020 baseline. Three race upward — compute, context, and power. The cost to run a

Stranded Compute

The overbuilt AI capacity that may never earn its capex — the stranded-asset thesis, quantified: the depreciation gap, the revenue lag, and the utilization fork.

AI vs dot-com: the same chart, honestly aligned.

Is the AI boom like the dot-com bubble? We aligned both cycles at their boom starts on the same NASDAQ series: the telecom era peaked at month 48 — the AI cycle is at month 44. The overlay shows shape, not prophecy. Sources: FRED.

The energy indicator, promoted to a first-class instrument: how power constraint scores across the AI build-out, read from the filings.

The Falsifier Watch

The exits we publish in advance, and the revisions we make when the evidence moves. A live scoreboard of the thesis's falsifiers plus a dated revision ledger — credibility as an instrument.

Jevons or DWDM?

Efficiency's two endings — demand rebound or stranded glass. Fiber ran this exact test.

The Record & Open Data

Visually Explained

The whole argument as eight figures.

Methods & Sources

How every figure is measured.

The public track record — calls, dates, outcomes.

Bitcoin-anchored timestamps on every artifact.

Open data, tooling, EDGAR paths.