The illusion held longer than it should have. For over a decade, Wall Street danced on the scaffolding of cheap money, blind optimism, and the promise that the Fed could paper over any disaster. That scaffolding just gave out.
Markets aren’t reacting. They’re breaking. What we’re seeing now isn’t panic selling. It’s the slow, steady bleeding of a system that’s run out of lies to tell. The Nasdaq isn’t correcting. It’s deflating. AI wasn’t the next internet. It was a marketing department in a fever dream.
Tech’s not leading. It’s unraveling. The so-called “growth engines” have been firing blanks. One IPO after another is gasping for air. Cloud giants are laying off workers while buying back stock to fake stability. The AI sugar rush is fading and all that’s left is bloated valuations built on hopes, not profits.
Meanwhile, the Fed is boxed in. Rates are still high, inflation won’t roll over, and the tools are spent. There’s no QE button to smash this time. They used it up in 2020. And the next time liquidity gets tight, nobody’s coming to rescue zombie banks or overstretched consumers.
Consumer debt is tapped out. Average credit card APRs are brushing 29 percent, and it’s not just luxuries people are buying. It’s gas, eggs, diapers. When the basics require borrowing, you don’t have an economy. You have a patient in cardiac arrest.
And then, from the side stage, the chaos doubles down. Trump storms back into headlines, slamming the door open with tariffs that even his former economic team warned against. China’s retaliating. Europe’s panicking. Global supply chains were fragile before. Now they’re splintering.
This isn’t economic policy. It’s a Molotov cocktail tossed into a burning building. And if you think markets hate uncertainty, just wait until they start pricing in full-blown trade war 2.0. Commodities, semiconductors, agriculture, shipping—it all just got more expensive and less reliable.
The worst part? Powell’s hands are tied. Congress is at war with itself. And Biden’s team is throwing money at problems that can’t be solved with spending anymore.
This isn’t 2008. It’s not even 2020. This time, there is no rescue. The parachutes were handed out to billionaires long ago. They’ve left the plane. Everyone else is still strapped in.
Final call: sell what you can. Cut the noise. Focus on the basics. Because this isn’t a dip or a downturn. It’s what happens when a fantasy dies.