The Perkini Report: The 2028 Reality Crisis

gist

Dario Perkins of TS Lombard writes a mock 2030 post-mortem of an AI capex bubble that bursts in 2028, styled after viral scenario posts. Capex recycling, vendor financing, off-balance-sheet leverage and unaudited lab metrics hide weak outside demand until an OpenAI IPO and a 45% hyperscaler capex cut send the S&P 500 down 30%. The recession is mild, closer to 2001 than 2008, and Fed cuts revive housing.

ideas

• Capex recycling inflates revenue. One company's capex is another company's earnings, so hyperscaler spending lifts AI ecosystem revenues without proving outside demand or productivity gains.
• Hidden leverage and vendor financing. Chip and compute sellers invest in customers who then buy more chips, while datacenters move into leased-back special-purpose vehicles that keep debt off hyperscaler balance sheets.
• The 2028 earnings cliff. In the scenario, audited IPO filings break the narrative, hyperscalers cut 2028 capex guidance 45% to about $600 billion, and by April the S&P 500 is down about 30%, erasing some $20 trillion of wealth.
• A mild recession, not 2008. Hyperscaler cash flow backstops the system, wealth effects prove small, falling imports offset the capex drop, and credit losses reach hundreds of billions while aggressive Fed cuts crowd in housing and the rest of the world.
• Real technology, commoditized value. After the crash, AI raises productivity by complementing labor, while open-weight models squeeze model-layer margins; the advice is to hold less of the AI complex than the index, add duration, and not short too early.

quotes