Markets are drastically underpricing AI's white-collar disruption risk.
When China joined the WTO — call it AI 1.0 in terms of labor displacement — US manufacturing employment collapsed 30% and never recovered. That was blue-collar.
Now we're staring at AI 2.0, which targets knowledge workers, analysts, coders, middle managers — the entire white-collar stack. Yet equity valuations, bond spreads, and macro positioning assume minimal disruption.
If AI 2.0 is even 20% as disruptive to white-collar jobs as offshoring was to manufacturing, almost every price on our screens is wrong. Earnings assumptions, consumer spending models, tax revenue forecasts — all built on employment stability that may not exist.
This isn't a tech story. It's a macro repricing event waiting to happen. Portfolio construction needs to reflect that reality.
When China joined the WTO — call it AI 1.0 in terms of labor displacement — US manufacturing employment collapsed 30% and never recovered. That was blue-collar.
Now we're staring at AI 2.0, which targets knowledge workers, analysts, coders, middle managers — the entire white-collar stack. Yet equity valuations, bond spreads, and macro positioning assume minimal disruption.
If AI 2.0 is even 20% as disruptive to white-collar jobs as offshoring was to manufacturing, almost every price on our screens is wrong. Earnings assumptions, consumer spending models, tax revenue forecasts — all built on employment stability that may not exist.
This isn't a tech story. It's a macro repricing event waiting to happen. Portfolio construction needs to reflect that reality.
