Sunday January 18th

A record number of Americans now call themselves “independents.” Forty-five percent, according to Gallup. That’s not some quirky trend — it’s a warning flare. When nearly half the country wants nothing to do with either party, it usually means one side has completely lost the plot. And judging by the last few years, that spiral hasn’t exactly been subtle.

Voters are unplugging. Institutions are wobbling. And the people running the show keep acting shocked.

Politics & Policy

Trump credited tariffs for hundreds of billions in revenue with virtually no inflation as the U.S. and Taiwan announced a $500B semiconductor deal. Turns out leverage still works.

Hillary Clinton has by all accounts defied an Epstein-related subpoena, risking criminal charges, while Bill Clinton is already facing contempt proceedings. Transparency apparently has limits.

A Democratic think tank is urging the party to drop “Abolish ICE,” quietly admitting it aged about as well as “Defund the Police.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is reportedly eyeing a presidential run, selectively silent on domestic violence but suddenly vocal on foreign protests. Voters noticed.

The Supreme Court weighed states’ rights to set sex-based rules in school sports as Idaho and West Virginia defend laws protecting girls’ teams. Reality is knocking.

Markets & Money

Mortgage rates fell to their lowest level since 2022, with the average 30-year fixed at 6.06%. Relief — for now.

Polymarket users erupted after the platform refused to pay out bets on a U.S. “invasion” of Venezuela. Turns out definitions matter when money’s involved.

Inflation held steady in December, still well above the Fed’s 2% target. Sticky is the new normal.

JPMorgan warned it could slash credit card availability if Trump pushes a 10% interest cap. Banks prefer leverage, not limits.

Business & Culture

7-Eleven is ditching gas pumps and chasing gourmet snacks, borrowing pages from Trader Joe’s and Aldi to survive after closing 400 stores. Desperation breeds innovation.

Aldi in turn announced plans to open 180+ new U.S. stores by 2026, pushing toward 3,200 locations by 2028. Cheap, efficient, winning.

Heineken’s CEO stepped down as alcohol demand fades with younger consumers. Sobriety is the new rebellion.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin quietly joined the California exodus, relocating or terminating multiple LLCs before Christmas. Money moves first.

Winners:

Ellen Greenberg’s family — Federal prosecutors are reopening the infamous 2011 case long labeled a “suicide” despite 20 stab wounds. Truth has a long memory.

The owner of the first hotel on the Moon — A lunar resort is planned for 2032, with five-night stays projected to cost over $10M. Inflation-proof vacations only.

Losers:

Paper straws — Florida may ban them over concerns about cancer-causing “forever chemicals.” Save the turtles, poison the people didn’t age well.

The Bill Gates Foundation — Announced layoffs of up to 500 staff after an $8B transfer to Melinda Gates, following Epstein-linked fallout. Even philanthropy isn’t immune to consequences.

America Decides:

Last Week

A landslide. 82% backed Trump’s plan to cap credit card interest at 10%. One sharp reader went further: tie credit card rates to what banks actually pay on savings.

Radical idea, apparently — letting Americans benefit from their own money.

This Week

Trump is openly pushing the idea of taking control of Greenland — and it’s rubbing just about everyone the wrong way, from Denmark and NATO to the people who actually live there.

We want your honest take.

While the country keeps splitting like Moses and the Red Sea, our elected (and very well-paid) officials are busy debating whether men can get pregnant — instead of fixing, you know… literally anything that matters.

If you’re wondering how we ended up here, this video explains everything.

Homeownership just got a lot more fragile. Banks seized 367,000+ U.S. homes last year as foreclosures jumped 14%, and housing experts are already warning that 2026 could be worse. Missed payments are stacking up, lenders are tightening, and the era of easy money is officially over. When rates stay high and wages don’t keep up, the math breaks — and the bank always wins.

Translation: Cheap credit inflated the dream. Reality is collecting on it.

Tipping culture may have finally jumped the shark. Diners at a Maryland seafood restaurant were stunned after a server scratched out the 15% tip option on a $260 bill, signaling it “wasn’t good enough.” The service was fine — not amazing — but in today’s upside-down gratuity world, anything under 20% is treated like an insult. Gratitude is being pre-written, expectations are creeping higher, and customers are starting to push back.

Translation: When tipping turns into a demand, it stops being a tip.

The American Dream keeps getting larger — but the people living inside those homes aren’t getting happier. Research published via ScienceDirect shows the average new U.S. home now offers more than 940 square feet per person, nearly double the space in the 1970s. Yet life satisfaction hasn’t followed. Instead, bigger homes often bring higher costs, more upkeep, more clutter — and fewer daily interactions. Smaller spaces naturally pull people together, reducing isolation and increasing connection. Turns out space can separate as much as it shelters.

Translation: Bigger houses look great on paper. Happiness still lives in the room you actually use.

Most people think investing starts and ends with stocks, bonds, and real estate. One asset almost everyone ignores? Art.

We’re big fans of Banksy ourselves — preferably originals that don’t shred mid-auction — but blue-chip art has quietly outperformed plenty of traditional assets over time.

If art investing hasn’t crossed your radar, take a look at Masterworks below. They make it possible to invest in iconic works without needing billionaire money or wall space.

Sure, if you held your stocks since the dotcom bubble, you would’ve been up—eventually. But three years after the dot-com bust the S&P 500 was still far down from its peak. So, how else can you invest when almost every market is tied to stocks?

Lo and behold, billionaires have an alternative way to diversify: allocate to a physical asset class that outpaced the S&P by 15% from 1995 to 2025, with almost no correlation to equities. It’s part of a massive global market, long leveraged by the ultra-wealthy (Bezos, Gates, Rockefellers etc).

Contemporary and post-war art.

Masterworks lets you invest in multimillion-dollar artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso—without needing millions. Over 70,000 members have together invested more than $1.2 billion across over 500 artworks. So far, 25 sales have delivered net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.*

Want access?

[Click here to skip the waitlist →]

_{Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. Reg A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd}

Saks Global just filed for Chapter 11 after missing a $100M interest payment, fallout from its massive $2.7B acquisition of Neiman Marcus. The deal loaded the company with debt it couldn’t service, forcing a restructuring despite lining up $1.75B in emergency financing to keep the lights on. Turns out even high-end retail can’t outrun bad balance sheets.

Translation: Fancy brands don’t cancel out ugly math.

The World Cup final is coming to New Jersey — and locals are about to hit the Airbnb jackpot. Homes near MetLife Stadium are already listed for eye-watering prices, with some Jersey City properties pushing $27,000 for three nights. Even modest homes within a short drive are clearing five figures, while Manhattan listings are flirting with $30K. That’s before fans even buy a ticket to the match.

Translation: When the world shows up, supply stays fixed — and prices go to the moon.

Americans can officially wager on the housing market itself. Prediction platform Polymarket, working with housing data firm Parcl, now lets users bet on whether home prices in cities like Miami, Los Angeles, and New York will rise or fall — using daily price indexes instead of closed sales. Homeowners can theoretically hedge a downturn, while renters can profit from price moves without ever buying a house. Housing just joined the casino.

Translation: When people start hedging their homes like stocks, the market isn’t “healthy” — it’s nervous.

Billionaire Stephen Ross, owner of the Miami Dolphins, didn’t mince words after Zohran Mamdani took office. Mamdani’s platform — free buses, free childcare, higher corporate taxes — has Ross warning that New York City is headed for serious trouble. Speaking to Bloomberg, Ross said these ideas have never worked anywhere and could turn New York into the next San Francisco — high taxes, fleeing businesses, and hollowed-out opportunity. Coming from a man worth $17 billion who literally built parts of Manhattan, the concern isn’t theoretical.

Translation: When the people who create cities warn they’re about to leave one, it’s not ideology — it’s experience.

Viral outrage fizzled fast after the Tennessee Highway Patrol released dashcam footage debunking claims a protester was struck by a trooper’s vehicle in Memphis. The video shows the man stepping in front of the patrol car, grabbing the push bars, then falling backward on his own — only to get up moments later and walk away. No hit. No assault. Just performance.

Once the footage dropped, the story collapsed. Turns out cameras don’t care about hashtags, and they’re terrible at supporting fake victimhood.

Translation: When the bodycam turns on, the narrative turns off.

Wall Street is quietly acknowledging what Washington won’t advertise: Trump’s executive order reining in de-banking has materially reduced regulatory pressure on U.S. banks. Sources tell FOX Business that the so-called “reputational risk” standard — used to justify politically motivated account closures — has been dismantled. Fewer forced shutdowns. Less SAR paperwork theater. More focus on actual risk instead of ideology.

Banks say it’s not perfect, but the grip has loosened — and balance is starting to return to the system.

Translation: When politics exits the compliance department, banking starts working again.

Twenty years ago, An Inconvenient Truth reshaped public policy, media narratives, and climate activism — largely on predictions that were treated as settled science. Fast forward two decades, and some of those claims haven’t just missed… they’ve been quietly walked back. Glacier National Park has removed signs predicting glaciers would vanish by 2020. Snow still sits on Mount Kilimanjaro. And the apocalyptic timelines never quite showed up.

The film did exactly what Al Gore intended: drive policy through fear and celebrity amplification. The problem is that time has a way of auditing predictions — and time hasn’t been kind here.

Translation: When policy is built on hype instead of reality, reality eventually shows up with receipts.

Social Security was built on a simple promise: work hard, pay in, retire with dignity.
The problem? The math no longer works.

According to the Social Security Administration, the trust fund runs short in the mid-2030s. That doesn’t mean collapse — it means automatic benefit cuts of roughly 20–25% if nothing changes. That’s not politics. That’s the law.

So will Social Security survive?
Probably. Politically, it has to.

But survival isn’t the same as strength.

We got here because:

In the 1960s, there were five workers per retiree. Today, it’s under three. No narrative fixes that.

What about fraud?
Yes, it exists. Yes, it should be crushed. But even eliminating fraud entirely wouldn’t close the long-term gap. Fraud costs billions. Structural imbalance costs trillions.

So what actually fixes this?

Here’s the real question no one wants to answer:

If Social Security ran exactly as promised, could it afford itself?

If the answer is no, then delay isn’t compassion — it’s negligence.

Social Security doesn’t need slogans.
It needs honesty.

Your Turn.

Hit reply and tell us what you think. Not talking points. Not party lines. Your honest take.

America doesn’t fix hard problems by staying quiet — it fixes them by arguing, debating, and thinking out loud again.

We read every reply. And we want this conversation back where it belongs: with real Americans.