. . .
K “Washington and Wall Street have strip mined the middle class for forty years. No one cares about the middle class. In the upcoming election, each party must pretend they care about the middle class for a few months.”
J “Both parties will play to the working class without really proposing any workable ideas. Nothing is working for the non-working class.”
. . .
K “They said the off-shoring of industry was going to be offset by incentivizing and teaching Americans how to code. All the coding now is also off-shore. Automation has put blue collar workers on the street. AI will put many white collar workers out there with them.”
J “The populace is restive and may just take to the streets. There is no realistic national business plan to put the populace to work.”
. . .
J “The ‘Wealth Effect’ is subtle. I am not clear whether individuals are influenced by the value of their house or by the value of their portfolio or by both. The country does not seem to have enough affordable homes, yet there seems to be a concern that housing prices may go down. And someone I know still believes that the stock market will halve in the near future.”
K “All of my Parvenu PMC friends are self-proclaimed financial geniuses. They are confident that they have been dutifully obedient and deserve to secure twenty percent increases in their portfolio a year. We shall see.”
. . .
J “Layoffs are up. Bankruptcies are up. Insecurity is up. Everyone is down.”
K “Michael W. Green, chief strategist and portfolio manager for Simplify Asset Management contends convincingly that the poverty level is $140,000 for a family of four, with two jobs and two kids, based on average spending in 2024.”
J “Give or take a few dollars. That is just about right. And we allow those in power to lie to us about the real numbers when everyone can see the truth.”
. . .
J “Trump is pushing the Fed to reduce interest rates. Reducing the Federal Funds Rate may be ineffectual if the big players vote with their dollars and demand higher Treasury yields.”
K “They may need to report that they sold all the Treasuries they set out to sell at a yield that is manageable. Every possible policy option will result in one certain outcome without question – out of control inflation of necessities. Prices are going up, up, up, up, and up.”
J “The strategy is to have the economy appear hot in November for the mid-terms and . . . then who cares what happens after that time.”
. . .
K “Many members of the MAGA movement gave the system a middle finger in 2024. Will some of them give a middle finger to the system in its current incarnation?”
J “The betrayal is deep and profound. Will they give a hoot or will they give two middle fingers to the system?”
. . .
J “No system can endure if it fails to deliver the fundamentals of human life: energy that can be afforded, food that can be purchased through dignified work, and a sense of community that binds people together rather than setting them apart and adrift.”
K “We need BTUs for our outer body, calories for our inner body, and community for our spiritual body.”
. . .
[See “My Life Is a Lie How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America” by Michael W. Green in “Yes, I give a fig.com” dated November 23, 2025.]
[See the e-commentary discussing the economic strip mining of America and Americans at Holographic Treasury Rates? The 500 Trillion Asset Steal? And Then The Great Taking? Oh, And Happy IRS Day! (April 14, 2025), Time To MAAA: Make America America Again? (September 30, 2024) and Bankruptcies? Layoffs? Foreclosures? Evictions? Inflation? (July 29, 2024). See also U.S.A. 1945 – 2005 R.I.P. (August 16, 2010) discussing the death of the America Empire that began much earlier than 2010. See also ‘Mericanize: Monetize, Mechanize And Militarize (December 30, 2013) discussing more than a dozen years ago the monetization and mechanization and militarization of ‘Merica.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
MAAA
We need BTUs for our outer body, calories for our inner body, and community for our spiritual body
e-commentary 