“The flippancy with which the media reports on these data centers — both in the structure of the deals and the realities of the construction (I go into detail about this in a premium from late last year, but making data centers is hard) — is allowing con artists to get rich and creating the conditions for yet another great financial crisis.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Careless media coverage of data center deals is letting con artists get rich and setting up another great financial crisis.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, Why Are We Still Doing This?, paragraph 124.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-why-are-we-still-doing-this-0625a3-a1
We recorded 33 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-03-17. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Causal claim
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- The flippancy with which the media reports on these data centers
- is allowing con artists to get rich
- creating the conditions for yet another great financial crisis
Our interpretation
- Read this as a claim about a causal process already operating by the post date, not a prediction that a crisis must occur by an unstated deadline.
- The ordinary test is whether misleading or materially incomplete coverage helped induce financing, enriched demonstrably deceptive promoters, and increased systemic financial vulnerability.
- “Con artists” requires evidence of deception; risky investments or rising wealth alone do not establish it.
- No numerical threshold for a great financial crisis or the media's contribution is supplied.
Counts as supported if: Credible evidence traces material omissions or misleading coverage to investor decisions, gains by deceptive promoters, and consequential systemic exposure.
Counts as contradicted if: Credible investigation of the implicated financing shows that the alleged deceptive enrichment or media-driven financing mechanism did not occur, or that the claimed systemic transmission mechanism was absent.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Does the evidence support the cause?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
BIS research documents relevant debt structures and potential financial vulnerabilities. It also describes risks as moderate and dependent on earnings expectations. Neither source establishes that careless reporting caused financing flows or enriched deceptive promoters. The evidence therefore does not settle the complete causal claim.
Limitations
- Evidence for a financing risk is not evidence for every link in the claimed causal chain.
- The absence of a crisis by the evaluation date would not disprove a claim about creating vulnerable conditions.
- The claim does not identify the particular coverage and promoters needed for a direct investigation.
Evidence (2 items)
Context only: Bank for International Settlements,
economically akin to debt
Why it matters here: The analysis identifies financing structures relevant to systemic vulnerability. It does not demonstrate investor reliance on careless coverage or enrichment through deception.
- Publisher
- Bank for International Settlements
- Kind of source
- Independent measurement
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Bank for International Settlements,
appear moderate
Why it matters here: The researchers describe conditional vulnerability while assessing current risks as moderate. This qualifies the crisis framing without disproving the alleged causal process.
- Publisher
- Bank for International Settlements
- Kind of source
- Independent measurement
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Investor records or credible investigations connecting identifiable misleading coverage to financing decisions, deceptive enrichment and material systemic exposure, or evidence directly refuting those links.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, Why Are We Still Doing This?
The flippancy with which the media reports on these data centers — both in the structure of the deals and the realities of the construction (I go into detail about this in a premium from late last year, but making data centers is hard) — is allowing con artists to get rich and creating the conditions for yet another great financial crisis.
- Where
- paragraph 124
- Published
- 2026-03-17
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-why-are-we-still-doing-this-0625a3-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment wyea-why-are-we-still-doing-this-0625a3-a1.