The stock market is being pushed up by the same small group every single day and you can tell they’re running out of room. It’s getting harder for them to keep the illusion going. The tape looks forced. Every rally looks like someone holding a beach ball underwater and their hands are slipping.
Meanwhile regular people are completely tapped out. Not struggling, not “tight budget,” actually tapped out. Grocery shopping has turned into a humiliation ritual. Eating out is a once-a-month thing now, if that. Car and truck repossessions are climbing fast, lots filling up. New car sales falling straight down. Even McDonalds, which used to be the last cheap treat, is losing customers because nobody can justify $14 for something that used to cost $6. Everything feels upside down.
People have already borrowed everything they can borrow. The cards are full. The lines of credit are gone. No one can take on another loan to buy a house or a car or a fridge. Even the daily AI hype cycles aren’t keeping the market pumped anymore. That whole excitement engine is stalling. The bubble is out of fuel because the consumer is out of fuel.
So what solution do the politicians reach for. The one they already used. The one that looked like magic in 2020. Hand out money. Just print and hand it out. Call it stimulus or relief or fairness or whatever slogan plays that week. The plan is $2,000 for every citizen. Problem solved, right. The crowd cheers. Everyone suddenly thinks things are normal again.
But the moment the checks are announced, prices will jump. Not later. Immediately. Producers and suppliers aren’t stupid. They remember what happened last time. They know everyone will have extra cash so they will raise prices right away. The $2,000 becomes $1,200 of real value before it even arrives and then it keeps shrinking week by week as the new price level locks in.
And what most people don’t realize is that the cost of living will rise more than the amount they receive. So the gap gets bigger, not smaller. Which means they’ll demand another payment next year. And another. And the inflation number they’ll report on TV will say 3% or 4% while everyone in the real world is watching groceries move 10%, 12%, 15%.
Then comes QE again. The re-start. Flooding the system all over again. Asset prices shoot up. Food prices shoot up. Cost of everything shoots up. And the wages do not.
As for the Fed, in any sane world Powell would have to raise rates to counter this. But Powell won’t. Powell is done in May anyway. After that Trump installs people who will just keep printing because no one in politics wants to be the one holding the bag when reality hits. Money printing puppets. Simple.
Do the math. About 250m people receiving $2,000. That’s roughly $500b. Half a trillion. And that’s just one round. You think they stop after one round.
This is how a currency loses its footing. Not all at once. Slowly. Then very suddenly. And everyone will act surprised even though the warning signs were everywhere years in advance.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-hell-issue-2000-tariff-dividend-except-high/story?id=127356839