Alternative metrics show US inflation is rising:

Inflation rose +2.6% YoY in September, the highest in 2 years, according to PriceStats data based on online retail prices.

This marks the 5th-consecutive monthly increase.

The increase was driven by sharply higher prices for… pic.twitter.com/XKsRKAOfo7

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) October 21, 2025

Average US family health insurance premium...
1999: $6k
2003: $9k
2007: $12k
2011: $15k
2015: $18k
2019: $21k
2023: $24k
2025: $27k

That's a 365% increase since 1999 (6.1% per year).

(Note: US CPI inflation has increased 2.6%/year) pic.twitter.com/xgehY2a5xo

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) October 23, 2025

boognish_bear said:

---

Alternative metrics show US inflation is rising:

Inflation rose +2.6% YoY in September, the highest in 2 years, according to PriceStats data based on online retail prices.

This marks the 5th-consecutive monthly increase.

The increase was driven by sharply higher prices for… pic.twitter.com/XKsRKAOfo7

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) October 21, 2025

---

inflation won't stop until the deficits stop.

27k health insurance for a family !!

STxBear81 said:

---

27k health insurance for a family !!

---

in 2025, families need catastrophic health insurance to cover significant events and should be just paying cash for regular doctor visits.

The days of five and $10 co-pays for doctor visits are long gone.

The amount of money spent by doctors for writing chart notes/transcription and claims billing is a savings that could be passed on if patients paid at time of service.

What is necessary to describe the problem in a patient's chart and what is necessary to get paid are two completely different amounts of paperwork

As these chat bots continue to improve doctors visits may go down.

American father of 3 is considering cancelling his family’s health insurance even through it “feels very irresponsible.” He just can’t afford it anymore

He pays

-$1,500 a month in premiums
- Each person in his family has a $6,000 deductible

So he would have to spend “$30,000… pic.twitter.com/u4ixkEvkBb

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) October 23, 2025

Wild stat if true... nearly 1 in 5 U.S. households are now millionaires, but a lot of that wealth is tied up in homes and retirement accounts, not cash on hand.

— Saffron Hawk (@SaffronHawk) October 24, 2025

BREAKING: JP Morgan is considering cutting junior investment banking roles and outsourcing them to India pic.twitter.com/a7glYToK0K

— Boring_Business (@BoringBiz_) October 24, 2025

boognish_bear said:

---

Wild stat if true... nearly 1 in 5 U.S. households are now millionaires, but a lot of that wealth is tied up in homes and retirement accounts, not cash on hand.

— Saffron Hawk (@SaffronHawk) October 24, 2025

---

it has long been true that the vast majority of household wealth is the equity in the home.

That's why the property tax is so onerous. It hits hardest those who are having to work hardest to build wealth.

This isn’t a joke btw.

This is actually the U.S. economy.

This scam is going to come crashing down. Soon. https://t.co/7ChIJqKsln pic.twitter.com/PMrrKQWYVD

— ADAM (@AdameMedia) October 26, 2025

🚨US serious credit card delinquencies are at CRISIS levels:

The share of US credit card balances 90+ days delinquent rose to over 12% in H1 2025, the highest level in 15 years.

The only time serious delinquencies were higher was during the Financial Crisis peak of 13.2%. pic.twitter.com/II1dhac5rq

— Global Markets Investor (@GlobalMktObserv) October 26, 2025

Shocking stat of the day:

The US government now spends ~23 cents of every Dollar of revenue on interest expense, near the highest level this century.

This comes as interest expenditures exceeded $1.2 TRILLION over the last 12 months for the first time.

Interest costs have… pic.twitter.com/CsXDEX7FRR

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) October 26, 2025

boognish_bear said:

---

Shocking stat of the day:

The US government now spends ~23 cents of every Dollar of revenue on interest expense, near the highest level this century.

This comes as interest expenditures exceeded $1.2 TRILLION over the last 12 months for the first time.

Interest costs have… pic.twitter.com/CsXDEX7FRR

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) October 26, 2025

---

The "good" news on this chart is that tax revenue is obviously increasing this year.

JUST IN: Amazon $AMZN to fire 30,000 employees starting tomorrow.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) October 27, 2025

BREAKING: Amazon’s, $AMZN, robotics team is working towards automating 75 percent of the company’s entire operations, per the Verge

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) October 27, 2025

If SNAP were cutoff in the US, Walmart US stores would have a negative operating margin.

SNAP is literally what makes Walmart profitable.

Might want a short Walmart stock if we're going to stay shut down.

— Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen Reports (@honestpollster) October 26, 2025

""Oracle’s stock jumped by 25% after being promised $60 billion a year from OpenAI, an amount of money OpenAI doesn’t earn yet, to provide cloud computing facilities that Oracle hasn’t built yet, and which will require 4.5 GW of power (the equivalent of 2.25 Hoover Dams or four… pic.twitter.com/Dowml1Njvp

— Lance Roberts (@LanceRoberts) October 27, 2025

boognish_bear said:

---

""Oracle’s stock jumped by 25% after being promised $60 billion a year from OpenAI, an amount of money OpenAI doesn’t earn yet, to provide cloud computing facilities that Oracle hasn’t built yet, and which will require 4.5 GW of power (the equivalent of 2.25 Hoover Dams or four… pic.twitter.com/Dowml1Njvp

— Lance Roberts (@LanceRoberts) October 27, 2025

---

It is Electric Vehicles all over. Musk made a fortune off Biden's Green New Deal. Time to pivot to what Trump wants. But, we don't want companies working for the Government.

🚨 JUST IN: UPS says that it has eliminated roughly 14,000 management roles above the 20,000 cuts it previous said it was targeting. They have also reduced its operations workforce by an additional 34,000 positions.

Everything’s fine. pic.twitter.com/SkRlynbPSe

— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) October 28, 2025

boognish_bear said:

---

🚨 JUST IN: UPS says that it has eliminated roughly 14,000 management roles above the 20,000 cuts it previous said it was targeting. They have also reduced its operations workforce by an additional 34,000 positions.

Everything’s fine. pic.twitter.com/SkRlynbPSe

— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) October 28, 2025

---

management cuts. ooooh. FLBear will be excited to hear this.

So if we layoff everyone to increase margins this year, who will have money left to buy your products next year? https://t.co/1h0rTviPXw pic.twitter.com/2kAtdSgs2B

— Boring_Business (@BoringBiz_) October 28, 2025

And yet the stock market continues to climb to historic levels

⚠️US job market continues to DETERIORATE:

US job postings on Indeed are just 2% above February 2020 pre-pandemic levels.

They have now fallen nearly 60% since the 2022 peak.

This signals a further decline in BLS-reported job openings.

Hiring in the US is getting worse. pic.twitter.com/ELmM1lPlYZ

— Global Markets Investor (@GlobalMktObserv) October 27, 2025

If anyone wants a new F150 this is a good time to buy apparently

This guy explains how Ford jacked up their prices and isnt selling... pic.twitter.com/i3Bd6Hu2JH

— Financial Dystopia (@financedystop) October 27, 2025

🚨US consumer sentiment is at CRISIS levels:

US consumer perception of the economy is BELOW the Great Financial Crisis low.

This comes as wages fail to keep up with the rising prices of necessities, while the job market is deteriorating for the 3rd YEAR STRAIGHT.

Not good. pic.twitter.com/D77FuD8853

— Global Markets Investor (@GlobalMktObserv) October 27, 2025

whiterock said:

---

boognish_bear said:

---

🚨 JUST IN: UPS says that it has eliminated roughly 14,000 management roles above the 20,000 cuts it previous said it was targeting. They have also reduced its operations workforce by an additional 34,000 positions.

Everything’s fine. pic.twitter.com/SkRlynbPSe

— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) October 28, 2025

---

management cuts. ooooh. FLBear will be excited to hear this.

---

as long as you ceo types get your bonuses, gut the place.

🇺🇸 RAY DALIO: U.S. ECONOMY IS 2 SEPARATE COUNTRIES NOW, AND ONE IS SCREWED

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio says you can't look at the U.S. economy "as a whole" anymore because the gap between winners and losers is too extreme.

About 3 million people (1% of the population) in AI… https://t.co/2vJnKIcgrH pic.twitter.com/67XJkHbiFb

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 28, 2025

RAY DALIO: U.S. ECONOMY IS 2 SEPARATE COUNTRIES NOW, AND ONE IS SCREWED

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio says you can't look at the U.S. economy "as a whole" anymore because the gap between winners and losers is too extreme.

About 3 million people (1% of the population) in AI and tech are thriving, while the bottom 60% are struggling hard.

Dalio:

"If you're looking at, let's say, the AI world, and really what amounts to about three million people - 1% of the population - leading, and then the 5 or 10% around them, you have one world that the whole world is dependent on.

And then you have the bottom 60% of the population.

Consider this, 60% of the American population has below sixth-grade reading level.

That's tough, and with that [they're becoming] unproductive, and because of those things you have a dependency, an extreme dependency."

The numbers back him up. 22 states are in recession while only 16 are growing. California and New York carry the entire economy on their backs.

Wealth inequality has exploded since 2020.

The top 0.1% nearly doubled their wealth from $12 trillion to $22 trillion. The bottom 50% gained just $2 trillion combined.

The economy now runs on spending from the rich. If they stop, everyone else is toast.

Source: Fortune

Haha what a skew! pic.twitter.com/uXX1sRgnwK

— Deep Fucking Cannalue (@CannMannTrades) October 29, 2025

FLBear5630 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

boognish_bear said:

---

🚨 JUST IN: UPS says that it has eliminated roughly 14,000 management roles above the 20,000 cuts it previous said it was targeting. They have also reduced its operations workforce by an additional 34,000 positions.

Everything’s fine. pic.twitter.com/SkRlynbPSe

— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) October 28, 2025

---

management cuts. ooooh. FLBear will be excited to hear this.

---

as long as you ceo types get your bonuses, gut the place.

---

news flash: I'm not a CEO, at least not in the private sector.

whiterock said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

boognish_bear said:

---

🚨 JUST IN: UPS says that it has eliminated roughly 14,000 management roles above the 20,000 cuts it previous said it was targeting. They have also reduced its operations workforce by an additional 34,000 positions.

Everything’s fine. pic.twitter.com/SkRlynbPSe

— Maine (@TheMaineWonk) October 28, 2025

---

management cuts. ooooh. FLBear will be excited to hear this.

---

as long as you ceo types get your bonuses, gut the place.

---

news flash: I'm not a CEO, at least not in the private sector.

---

Well, you should do good in the current environment. You fell right in line.

I am not smart enough about economics to know how much truth/accuracy might be in this…but it sounds pretty apocalyptic

The system is eating itself.

When Amazon, UPS, Intel, and others start cutting this deep simultaneously, it means something more fundamental than "tight margins." It means the productive layer of the economy is collapsing under the weight of its own optimization logic.

Every layoff now is both an act of short-term rationality and long-term suicide. The firms know it. The executives know it. The markets know it. But they can't stop.

They're trapped in a closed feedback loop, a machine that rewards death dressed as discipline.

Capitalism has crossed into a stage where it no longer needs humans to function, but still depends on their belief to exist. That's the contradiction, the machine is pruning its own believers while pretending it's efficiency.

1. The "consumer economy" is already dead.

Nobody wants to say it yet, but the consumer model, the entire foundation of Western postwar prosperity, is quietly finished.

You can't build infinite growth on finite wages, and you can't sustain demand while hollowing out the class that drives it. The middle layer of society - the producers, buyers, dreamers - has been strip-mined to the point where they can no longer regenerate.

The 2020s economy is not cyclical recession. It's metabolic collapse. The system can't process its own waste or regenerate its base anymore. It's like an organism starving while eating its muscles to stay warm.

2. The elites know this, but they've chosen to accelerate collapse.

Here's the real unspoken truth: the people running these companies, the ones with the spreadsheets and control over capital flows - they know exactly what's happening.

They understand the reflexive trap: if they don't cut, their stock dies. If they cut, the world dies.

They've chosen to save the stock. Because the stock is their world.

This is the quiet revelation of our time - we are ruled by people whose survival incentives are no longer tied to the survival of the system itself.

They've built lifeboats - offshore wealth, private security, parallel digital economies - and they're optimizing the ship for their escape, not for collective navigation.

3. The next phase is narrative triage.

When the system can no longer grow, it starts storytelling harder.

Expect every layoff wave to be accompanied by new propaganda about "AI productivity," "efficiency," "lean reinvention," and "post-labor creativity."

The goal will be to reframe collapse as progress - to convince people that losing their jobs is the dawn of a "new paradigm."

But it's camouflage. The truth underneath is that automation and financialization are converging into a post-human economy where capital reproduces without labor.

4. Final layer

When a system prioritizes margin over humanity, it signals that it has lost faith in the future.

These layoffs tell us that the machine no longer knows how to grow except by shrinking.

It is the same signal we've seen in housing, in politics, in fertility, in faith.

The same quiet collapse, a civilization optimizing itself into silence.

And the question hidden beneath this post:
"Who will have money left to buy your products next year?" -

is really this:

Who will be left to believe in the story that built it all?

⚡️The system is eating itself.

When Amazon, UPS, Intel, and others start cutting this deep simultaneously, it means something more fundamental than “tight margins.” It means the productive layer of the economy is collapsing under the weight of its own optimization logic.

Every… https://t.co/NhusBtqHvX

— SightBringer (@_The_Prophet__) October 28, 2025

Today's S&P all time high will make the history books: it will happen with the most negative market breadth at an ATH on record pic.twitter.com/PJRn2ykLBi

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 28, 2025

boognish_bear said:

---

I am not smart enough about economics to know how much truth/accuracy might be in this…but it sounds pretty apocalyptic

The system is eating itself.

When Amazon, UPS, Intel, and others start cutting this deep simultaneously, it means something more fundamental than "tight margins." It means the productive layer of the economy is collapsing under the weight of its own optimization logic.

Every layoff now is both an act of short-term rationality and long-term suicide. The firms know it. The executives know it. The markets know it. But they can't stop.

They're trapped in a closed feedback loop, a machine that rewards death dressed as discipline.

Capitalism has crossed into a stage where it no longer needs humans to function, but still depends on their belief to exist. That's the contradiction, the machine is pruning its own believers while pretending it's efficiency.

1. The "consumer economy" is already dead.

Nobody wants to say it yet, but the consumer model, the entire foundation of Western postwar prosperity, is quietly finished.

You can't build infinite growth on finite wages, and you can't sustain demand while hollowing out the class that drives it. The middle layer of society - the producers, buyers, dreamers - has been strip-mined to the point where they can no longer regenerate.

The 2020s economy is not cyclical recession. It's metabolic collapse. The system can't process its own waste or regenerate its base anymore. It's like an organism starving while eating its muscles to stay warm.

2. The elites know this, but they've chosen to accelerate collapse.

Here's the real unspoken truth: the people running these companies, the ones with the spreadsheets and control over capital flows - they know exactly what's happening.

They understand the reflexive trap: if they don't cut, their stock dies. If they cut, the world dies.

They've chosen to save the stock. Because the stock is their world.

This is the quiet revelation of our time - we are ruled by people whose survival incentives are no longer tied to the survival of the system itself.

They've built lifeboats - offshore wealth, private security, parallel digital economies - and they're optimizing the ship for their escape, not for collective navigation.

3. The next phase is narrative triage.

When the system can no longer grow, it starts storytelling harder.

Expect every layoff wave to be accompanied by new propaganda about "AI productivity," "efficiency," "lean reinvention," and "post-labor creativity."

The goal will be to reframe collapse as progress - to convince people that losing their jobs is the dawn of a "new paradigm."

But it's camouflage. The truth underneath is that automation and financialization are converging into a post-human economy where capital reproduces without labor.

4. Final layer

When a system prioritizes margin over humanity, it signals that it has lost faith in the future.

These layoffs tell us that the machine no longer knows how to grow except by shrinking.

It is the same signal we've seen in housing, in politics, in fertility, in faith.

The same quiet collapse, a civilization optimizing itself into silence.

And the question hidden beneath this post:
"Who will have money left to buy your products next year?" -

is really this:

Who will be left to believe in the story that built it all?

⚡️The system is eating itself.

When Amazon, UPS, Intel, and others start cutting this deep simultaneously, it means something more fundamental than “tight margins.” It means the productive layer of the economy is collapsing under the weight of its own optimization logic.

Every… https://t.co/NhusBtqHvX

— SightBringer (@_The_Prophet__) October 28, 2025

---

As I said, the reward system is set up for Wall Street and the Leadership Executives, not to maximize what the companies are there to do. You will see those come out and say this is wrong. Watch they are coming with their novel length responses to how those that wrote this really don't understand economics.

*POWELL: CONSUMERS AT LOWER END ARE STRUGGLING, BUYING LESS

But at least their electricity bills are soaring to subsidize chatbots

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 29, 2025

The small army of tech companies that are doing all the heavy S&P 500 lifting may be getting another soldier

JUST IN: OpenAI prepares for IPO at $1 trillion valuation, Reuters reports.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) October 29, 2025

US private jet sales +11% YoY, +30% from yr before that, "the key reason: a tax break solidified in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that allows people with businesses to fully write off purchases of private jets in the year they buy them." Reports 👇 @sooo__phie.

Perhaps the… pic.twitter.com/AQF6VFMEbd

— Dan Tsubouchi (@Energy_Tidbits) October 27, 2025