NPR.

The AI boom has had a lot of people comparing this moment to the dot-com crash.

That's when the US stock market boomed on the promise of the internet, but then dropped about

50% from its peak.

Gita Goperneth is the IMF's former chief economist and second in charge.

She's now at Harvard.

And Gita has gamed out what a dot-com-style bust would actually mean for the economy today.

We're talking about growth basically coming to a standstill in the US.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Daryan Woods.

Today on the show, a conversation with Gita Gopaneth about the possible erasure of

$35 trillion from the global economy.

Economist Gita Gopaneth joined me from her Harvard recording studio late November.

So I think we have all the gadgets we need.

Looks like a very serious microphone there.

Yes.

So today I want to explore how the U.S. stock market could mean trouble for the rest of the world.

And to set the scene, can you describe what's been behind the US stock market's pretty big increase over 2025?

If you want to understand what's happening in the US stock market, I think it also helps to go back about 10 to 15

years, which is that if you compare the performance of the U.S. stock market relative to other

stock markets around the world, the U.S. has been exceptional. So it was a one-way bet in terms

of putting money in U.S. equities. And so that's what happened was not just U.S.

households and firms put their money in the stock market, but the rest of the world also

...