Understanding Economic Asphyxiation as an Experimental Phenomenon of the Ruling Class

Original article: Configuración de la asfixia económica como fenómeno experimental de la clase dominante

In the current context of unprecedented debt in the United States and globally restrictive monetary policies, there is an observed rise in the cost of living that disproportionately impacts lower socioeconomic strata. This article posits the hypothesis that this situation might be explicitly or implicitly used as a social stress test, aimed at measuring the thresholds of resistance, adaptation, and protest among vulnerable populations. The phenomenon first manifests in peripheral economies, with a potential ripple effect on central countries.

For this analysis, we must consider that by 2026, the national debt of the United States will exceed $39 trillion, representing over 100% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with projections reaching 120% in the next decade. The per capita burden amounts to approximately $114,000 per inhabitant. This level of indebtedness is accompanied by an annual fiscal deficit of $1.9 trillion and an average interest rate on public debt around 3.4% (data from the Congressional Budget Office and the U.S. Treasury).

The resulting inflationary shock—stemming from a combination of post-pandemic factors, geopolitical tensions (Ukraine-Russia conflict, rivalry with China, war against Iran), and interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve—tends to create financial suffocation for households with limited savings capacity. In the absence of sufficient containment networks, many families resort to credit and forced banking as the only short-term means to sustain their basic consumption.

In this context, various financial analysis agencies and geopolitical study centers might employ models based on artificial intelligence (such as multi-agent simulation systems, sentiment analysis on social media, predictive algorithms for social unrest) for the following purposes:

• Estimate thresholds of tolerance to the rising cost of basic goods.
• Predict the likelihood and magnitude of protests or disturbances.
• Design economic stress scenarios in specific populations (peripheral countries) before potential applications in central economies.

There is no public evidence confirming the current existence of a «deliberate experiment» with such characteristics. However, from a methodological perspective, the use of artificial intelligence cannot be dismissed as a tool to simulate, monitor, or even induce conditions of economic suffocation for operational research or social control purposes. Leaked documents from the past (e.g., those pertaining to the behavioral labs of companies like Cambridge Analytica, or defense projects like DARPA’s Cognitive Emotional Learning Agent) demonstrate that the use of AI to influence vulnerable populations has already been explored in commercial and military contexts.

An example of this is the situation in Venezuela. Currently, prices for basic and hygiene products in Venezuelan supermarkets exceed, in nominal terms, those of some European countries. While this phenomenon is attributable to multiple causes (long-standing hyperinflation, exchange controls, international sanctions), its co-occurrence with the economic suffocation of broad sectors of the population allows for an analysis—albeit without proving direct causation—of how a crisis-stricken peripheral economy can serve as a predictive model of social resistances.

Understanding this phenomenon requires a distinction between:

1. Verifiable facts: U.S. debt, global inflation, rising credit costs, and increased poverty in peripheral countries.
2. Plausible but unproven hypotheses: the deliberate use of artificial intelligence to design or manage a «controlled economic suffocation» for social experimentation purposes.

This text aims to document a working hypothesis that, while speculative in its strongest aspects, warrants rigorous methodological investigation. The results of this potential experiment—if it indeed exists—remain to be seen.

The understanding of the ongoing global phenomenon is complex, and everyday people, preoccupied with making ends meet, struggle to grasp the origins of the issue.

The situation, largely unrecognized by the majority of the population and quietly studied by U.S. financial intelligence labs, is a case we aimed to chronicle, with results still forthcoming.

By Bruno Sommer