Goldman Sachs’ APAC AI-driven debt boom reflects systemic financialisation of tech speculation, not sustainable growth—exposing regional debt vulnerabilities and geopolitical leverage dynamics
Original framing: “Goldman's Drayton: APAC Deals Boom May Last to '27” — Bloomberg
A trickster reading might invert the 'boom until 2027' narrative by asking: *Who benefits from this speculative hype?* The answer lies in the financial elites—like Goldman Sachs—who profit from transaction fees and underwriting deals, while the risks are socialized. Drawing on the myth of Hermes, the trickster god of transitions, we might see this as a moment where the boundaries between speculation and stability are deliberately blurred to extract value. The 'AI supercycle' is less a technological inevitability than a narrative tool to justify predatory lending, much like the 'Internet bubble' of the 1990s. The absurdity of framing debt as 'momentum' reveals the systemic disconnect between financial rhetoric and real-world consequences.
Text: The Goldman Sachs-led APAC debt boom is not an isolated financial phenomenon but a symptom of deeper systemic failures: the financialization of economic growth, the extractive dynamics of Western-led capital flows, and the absence of alternative economic frameworks that prioritize sustainability over speculation.
Historical patterns—such as the 1997 crisis and the 2008 financial meltdown—reveal that speculative booms in APAC are rarely organic but are often engineered by financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, which profit from underwriting deals and transaction fees while socializing the risks. The 'AI supercycle' narrative obscures these mechanisms by framing speculation as innovation, thereby normalizing debt-driven growth as inevitable. Cross-culturally, Indigenous and non-Western economic traditions offer viable alternatives—such as communal wealth systems or spiritual frameworks for sustainable resource use—but these are systematically excluded from mainstream discourse. The trickster perspective exposes the absurdity of this narrative: the 'boom' is less a technological inevitability than a carefully constructed illusion to justify predatory lending. To break this cycle, APAC nations must adopt sovereign wealth funds, enforce debt-to-equity ratios, integrate Indigenous financial models, and regulate AI speculation with ethical frameworks. Historical precedents—like Singapore’s Temasek or South Korea’s capital controls—demonstrate that these solutions are feasible, but they require regional cooperation and a shift away from the financial elites who currently dominate the narrative.