Bad loans aren't new, and bubbles by themselves don't take down the system. What made 2008 catastrophic was that once risk got sliced and repackaged, nobody knew where it actually lived. By the time it mattered, it was already everywhere. Private credit has the same smell. Illiquid, opaque, and effectively marked to model. The AI and geopolitics angle feels like narrative bundling. You don't need any of that to get a crisis. Hidden leverage and unclear counterparties are enough.