The Won't Get Fooled Again Act

The AI industry is showing all the signs of a classic bubble. Companies are spending hundreds of billions on AI infrastructure while losing money on almost every customer interaction. Tech giants are investing in each other in dizzying circles, with much of the "revenue growth" simply being investment money passed from one company to another. Banks have lent heavily into this frenzy, meaning that when AI companies start failing, the losses won't stay contained—they'll spread through the financial system just like the mortgage crisis did in 2008. The problem is that after decades of bailouts, wars, and tax cuts that built nothing lasting, America may not be able to borrow its way out of another crisis. The dollar is falling, our credit rating has been downgraded, and the well is running dry.

The Won't Get Fooled Again Act proposes two alternatives to another massive taxpayer bailout:

• Failed banks become community-focused public banks, modeled on successful systems like Germany's Sparkasse and the Bank of North Dakota—funded by fees on the largest banks, not taxpayers.
• Failed AI companies become public research utilities, preventing critical technology from being sold off to foreign adversaries or absorbed by monopolists—funded by the tech industry itself through a Digital Stability Fund.

Crucially, the government pays only for real assets like data centers and proven technology—not hype or speculation. Big investors who bet wrong get wiped out. The public gets lasting infrastructure, and we move one step closer toward unwinding a casino economy based on out-of-control inequality and reckless speculation.