The Boom Is the Fuse

A productivity shock arrives. You decide its incidence — how it splits between wages, prices, and profits — and the economy's leverage. Then watch the same event on two dashboards, and see whether the debt underneath the boom gets paid.

Infrastructure fuse
What AI's customers keep of the gain

The tape

Updates every quarter. Flatters the transition.

Measured productivity
Corporate margins
Inflation impulse
Equity narrative

The balance sheet

Updates over years. Decides how it ends.

Wage income growth
Labor share
Real debt burden
Demand impulse

The dividend: new output from the same hours.

Wages is the only channel that relieves balance sheets. Prices help spenders but make every fixed-dollar debt heavier. Profits expand margins and concentrate the gain.

10% wages 25% prices 65% profits

Profits take whatever wages and prices leave behind.

Debt relative to income. Sets how heavy the price channel's deflation lands.

The share of the gain AI's customers must keep — as profit — to keep paying the compute rents that service the infrastructure debt.