In Reply to: Reminds me of the railroad construction boom of the 19th Century. posted by mh on August 23, 2026 at 11:05:45
I've forgotten what I learned about that stuff. Though, I remember thinking it was interesting at the time.
I'm sure that like fiber optic cable, all that track didn't lie unused. As the builders were liquidated, the track was sold and the price came down until it was low enough that someone could make money off it.
I'm not saying that the boom and bust of speculation was not a terrible thing.
I'm just saying that the quote "the supply creates the deamand" is kind of accurate. But, in the case of rail, and fiber optic cable, it didn't create demand at price levels that would enable the builders to pay their debt.
We'll see what happens w/ the data centers. Someone, Clock, I think - raised a very good point asking that since the Chinese are so far ahead of us on AI, are 100's of billions (a trillion?) being invested in a technology that is DOA? Or, is the market for data centers inherently local?