Yet another Hacker News

US economy beats forecasts to grow at 3.4% rate in third quarter

16 points alephnerd 1 hour ago 9 comments

jqpabc123 1 hour ago | parent

Driven by massive debt being used for AI/data center build out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2026/10/02/insid...

sparse-Matrix 1 hour ago | parent

I cam here to say, "Let me guess: It's all the AI bubble"

clarle 42 minutes ago | parent

I'm trying to not just think about myself being in the tech bubble and all, but a lot of what I've been seeing across many industries are people being laid off or unable to find work.

This includes software engineers in many of the recent layoffs, as well as artists, photographers, and animators I know who have had a significant drop in typical advertising work with the advent of AI. Many of them have switched to gig work like Uber or Doordash, which makes them considered "employed" in employment surveys.

I do understand why the "economy" might grow - reducing expenses while maintaining revenue can definitely do that, but I don't know how long something like this can be sustainable. Eventually you do need consumers to purchase things in the economy and not just circular financing of compute.

I wonder what the final end state is going to look like in a few years.

alephnerd 41 minutes ago | parent

> as well as artists, photographers, and animators I know who have had a significant drop in typical advertising work with the advent of AI...

Much of this was offshored earlier this decade independent of AI.

The sunsetting of film and art production tax credits and subsidizes in much of North America while the UK, Europe, NZ, India, and Colombia dramatically ramped theirs up meant much of the industry got offshored.

And new media has changed how advertising works. Influencer and guerrilla advertising lands better as it feels more "authentic" amongst consumers. This also reduces spend on traditional advertising and the teams needed to do so.

bwestergard 11 minutes ago | parent

"Many of them have switched to gig work like Uber or Doordash, which makes them considered "employed" in employment surveys."

That's true for the classic "U-1" unemployment rate. But the U-6 captures the "marginally attached" as well, and it hasn't shot upward.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/u6rate

Avicebron 42 minutes ago | parent

It'll trickle down, any day now

asgh199 39 minutes ago | parent

The paper economy. Apparently higher energy prices are an economic stimulant, so if you double the gas prices another time maybe you get 6.8% growth in Q4.

segmondy 11 minutes ago | parent

Do we still trust the data coming out from this admin?

qlte 9 minutes ago | parent

I love how increased healthcare spending always makes it into the top line of the strongest drivers of growth and example of consumer "willingness" to keep spending.

  Less affluent Americans in particular have been squeezed by higher prices. But Wednesday’s data showed that on the whole, American consumers continued to splash out in the third quarter, with spending on healthcare, food and accommodation rising.