A forgotten New Deal playbook is quietly being revived, and it’s reshaping AI stocks
In the early 1930s, the United States faced a problem far bigger than a market correction or a cyclical downturn…
The private economy simply could not build what the nation needed next. At least, not on its own…
Huge swaths of the country still lived in the dark.
Entire regions lacked reliable electricity, modern roads, or basic industrial infrastructure.
Factories existed, but they were scattered, outdated, and incapable of scaling to meet national demands. Banks were paralyzed by fear. Capital sat idle. Confidence had collapsed.
Entrepreneurs hadn’t vanished, but the challenges they faced had grown too large, too interconnected, and too capital-intensive for individual actors to solve.
This wasn’t a failure of innovation or ambition. It was a failure of coordination.
The invisible hand was still there, yes … it just wasn’t strong enough.
So, Washington did something radical.
Instead of limiting itself to referee duties – setting rules, enforcing contracts, and hoping private capital would eventually find its footing – the federal government stepped onto the field as a direct economic participant.
It began financing massive projects, designating national priorities, and explicitly deciding which industries, regions, and capabilities would be built first.
Dams. Power grids. Roads. Factories. Supply chains.
This transformation fundamentally altered how the American economy worked. That shift became known as the “New Deal.”
Today, the New Deal is often remembered as a social safety net: jobs programs, relief checks, and public works meant to stabilize a suffering population. But that framing misses the point.
At its core, the New Deal was not a welfare program…
The New Deal was an industrial strategy.
It was a recognition that when an economy reaches a certain level of complexity – and when the stakes become national rather than individual – markets alone are no longer sufficient to determine outcomes. Scale, direction, and timing matter.
And when private capital cannot move fast enough, or coordinate broadly enough, the state steps in to reshape markets.
The New Deal pulled America out of the Great Depression…
But it also laid the foundation for decades of industrial dominance that followed.
What the New Deal Actually Did
The New Deal worked because it focused on inputs, not just outcomes.
Rather than trying to micromanage every business, the government concentrated on the foundational systems the economy could not function without:
- Power generation
- Capital access
- Transportation
- Raw materials
- Regional industrial hubs
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the clearest example.
TVA didn’t just provide electricity to rural communities. It created a federally backed energy platform that permanently lowered the cost of power for factories, manufacturers, and heavy industry across an entire region.
At the same time, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) injected capital directly into strategically important companies – taking equity stakes, guaranteeing loans, and deciding which firms would expand and which would disappear.
This wasn’t subtle.
Washington openly picked winners, protected them from failure, and gave them the resources to scale faster than competitors.
Investors who recognized this for what it was – a government-directed buildout of critical infrastructure – positioned themselves alongside those chosen firms and rode decades of growth.
Why This Matters Now
Fast forward to today, and the U.S. is facing a different kind of capacity crisis.
The constraint is no longer rural electrification….
It’s artificial intelligence.
AI systems require three things markets cannot scale fast enough on their own:
- Massive amounts of continuous power
- Enormous quantities of raw materials
- Highly specialized computing infrastructure
These are not software problems. They are industrial bottlenecks.
And just like the 1930s, private markets are moving too slowly … constrained by regulation, permitting timelines, and fragmented supply chains.
So Washington is stepping in again.
The Genesis Mission: A Modern New Deal for AI Stocks
The Genesis Mission, launched in late 2025 and led by the Department of Energy, is the modern equivalent of the New Deal’s industrial push … updated for the AI age.
Its goal is simple: Move AI from research into full-scale production, as fast as possible.
To do that, the government is once again focusing on inputs, not apps:
- Power generation (especially nuclear baseload)
- Semiconductor manufacturing and packaging
- Raw materials like copper, lithium, uranium, and rare earths
- Cooling, networking, and physical data-center infrastructure
And once again, Washington is not spreading money evenly.
It is identifying chokepoints (the specific layers where progress stalls) and directing capital, regulatory relief, and policy support to the companies that control them.
This is New Deal logic applied to AI.
TVA: nuclear power for data centers
RFC: government equity stakes and guaranteed demand
Regional buildouts: AI infrastructure hubs
It’s different technologies but the same playbook.
So what does this mean for you?
What This Means for AI Stock Investors
The last AI boom rewarded capital-light software companies. This one will not.
We are entering a phase defined by:
- Heavy infrastructure spending
- Physical constraints
- State-backed demand
- Accelerated timelines
In environments like this, the biggest gains don’t come from chasing headlines but from owning the companies that make the system function: the energy providers, material suppliers, infrastructure builders, and specialized manufacturers that the government cannot afford to let fail.
That’s why my team and I have identified six critical bottlenecks that sit at the center of this buildout: the modern equivalent of the New Deal’s power, finance, and transport layers.
And it’s why timing matters.
History Doesn’t Repeat, But It Rhymes
In the 1930s, most people didn’t realize they were watching the foundation of modern American industry being laid.
Today, that same kind of transformation is underway … this time centered on AI, energy, materials, and advanced manufacturing.
The blueprint is already visible…
The government has stopped waiting for markets and started mobilizing industry. And as history shows, when Washington decides it can’t afford to lose, it commits to winning everything.
The critical question isn’t if this reshapes markets … it’s who positions early enough to benefit.
Watch the free Genesis Mission broadcast here to see how this playbook is unfolding, which pressure points matter most right now, and why the most important investment window may already be shorter than it appears.
