Sunday November 23rd

Welcome to this week’s edition of Red State Finance — where we break down the money, markets, and madness without the corporate sugarcoating or Washington’s selective amnesia.

This week felt like the economy pulled a nostalgia stunt — Sizzler is somehow making a comeback — and that’s about the only feel-good headline you’re getting.

Politics & Policy

The Trump administration is forcing all SNAP recipients to reapply as part of a major fraud crackdown — after more than $102 million in benefits were stolen in just one quarter. The message from D.C. is blunt: “Business as usual is over,”and the political reaction is already heating up.

Markets & Money

Realtor just crowned Pittsburgh the most affordable major housing market in the country, which says less about Pittsburgh and more about how unaffordable everywhere else has become.

Meanwhile, 53% of U.S. homes lost value this year — the largest share since the post–Great Recession bottom in 2012.

Business & Culture

Home Depot’s latest earnings read like a warning label for the economy — anxious consumers, sluggish housing, and fewer big-ticket projects.

Target continues its multi-year slump, with understaffed and messy stores dragging profits down for the third year in a row.

Verizon is cutting 13,000 jobs in a cost-slashing overhaul.

But it’s not all doom: Toyota is investing $10 billion into a massive new North Carolina battery plant, creating over 5,000 American jobs and offering a rare dose of good news.

Winners:

Google – Shares hit a fresh record after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway quietly slid some chips onto the table. When the Oracle of Omaha taps you on the shoulder, Wall Street listens.

Gustav Klimt (and the ultra-wealthy) – A Klimt painting just sold for $236.4 million, becoming the most expensive piece of modern art ever auctioned. The seller? Leonard Lauder’s estate — because when your family built a cosmetics empire, apparently even your wall décor appreciates better than the average American’s home value.

Losers:

Common Sense – A group of self-proclaimed “experts” now says parents should ask their babies for consent before changing a diaper. Yes, in a world of rising costs and falling home values, someone decided this was the crisis to solve.

Homeowners – The real price of owning a home is now pushing $16,000 a year, thanks to insurance hikes, endless maintenance, and property taxes that refuse to take a day off. According to Zillow and Thumbtack, the affordability crisis isn’t “coming” — it’s already here, knocking loudly on the front door most people can no longer afford.

America Decides:

Last week’s poll — 65% of you said the government’s been spraying the skies and it should absolutely be banned. When two-thirds of readers agree on anything in 2025, that’s basically scientific consensus.

This week, we’re asking a question that’s been floating around political circles, cable news panels, and more than a few family group chats:

This clip is a quick reminder that CNN has flipped more times than a Pancake House menu since the Clinton years — and that Trump’s “radical” policies used to be standard-issue Democrat talking points. Wild how fast history gets rewritten.

Elon Musk told attendees at the U.S.–Saudi Investment Forum that AI and humanoid robots will soon be so advanced they’ll erase poverty and make traditional jobs unnecessary. He floated a 10–20 year timeline where automation creates so much abundance that people can choose whether they want to work at all. In other words, the future economy might run itself — no office, no commute, no meetings-that-should’ve-been-an-email.

Translation: Musk says work might be optional soon — which is adorable, considering we still can’t get the government to fix potholes.

A new Gallup analysis shows a dramatic shift: 2 in 5 American women ages 15–44 say they would permanently move to another country if they could — quadruple the rate from 2014. Back then, only 10% in the same group expressed interest in leaving, roughly in line with everyone else. Now, the number has surged to 44%, cutting across both single and married women. Overall, 21% of all Americans say they’d like to leave, one of the highest levels in nearly two decades.

Translation: Almost half of young women say they want out — which feels less like a trend and more like a Yelp review of the country after 20 years of political whiplash.

A viral Reddit post revealed a customer trying to order a simple pickup pizza… only to discover the site forced them to choose a tip — 15%, 20%, 35%, or “custom.” The catch? The custom box wouldn’t allow a $0 tip at all. When the customer tried entering zero, the site spit back a red warning: “Please enter a valid tip amount.”
So the diner did what any rational American would do: closed the tab and bought dinner somewhere else.
Reddit users quickly shared advice, including the now-famous tip hack: enter “0.001” and move on with your life.

Translation: Restaurants are now demanding you tip a robot checkout screen — but Americans are fighting back with the only weapon corporations fear: math.

We’ve been fans of FinanceBuzz for a long time — and plenty of our readers have said the same. They’ve built a reputation for offering clear, practical, real-world money advice that actually helps people make smarter decisions. If they’re not on your radar yet, they should be.

Balance Transfer cards can help you pay off high-interest debt faster. The FinanceBuzz editors reviewed dozens of cards with 0% intro APR offers for balance transfers and found the perfect cards.

Take a look at this article to find out how you can pay no interest on balance transfers until 2027 with these top cards.

Learn How To Apply

Speaking to reporters in Palm Beach, President Trump said grocery prices are already “much lower” than they were under the Biden administration — pointing to Walmart’s discounted Thanksgiving meal deal as proof of roughly 25% lower holiday food costs. He added that his team spent the weekend working on additional price-relief measures and hinted Americans may see even more consumer pressure ease in the coming weeks.

Translation: Trump says grocery prices are finally backing off — and if Walmart’s Thanksgiving discount is the canary in the coal mine, the Biden-era sticker shock might finally be dying off too. Not sure about that!

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the chipmaker is heading into a “crazy good” fourth quarter after delivering blowout earnings that calmed fears of an AI bubble. Third-quarter sales jumped 62%, marking the first acceleration in nearly two years. Huang said Nvidia expects even stronger results next quarter and emphasized that the company is leading a once-in-a-generation overhaul in global computing. He argued that the world’s entire installed base of computers is shifting toward accelerated computing, GPUs, and AI — a transition he says will fuel long-term growth for years.

Translation: Nvidia just told Wall Street the AI boom isn’t cooling — it’s barely stretching. And as long as every company on Earth keeps panic-buying GPUs, Nvidia is basically printing money.

Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the recent crypto selloff — nearly $1 trillion evaporated in six weeks — hasn’t shaken his confidence in the sector’s long-term trajectory. In an interview, Ross said his view has evolved from skepticism to optimism thanks to a more mature regulatory environment and growing institutional participation. He pointed to crypto’s expanding role in corporate treasuries, the rise of ETFs, and major banks adopting stablecoins as signs that digital assets have moved far beyond their “Wild West” reputation.

Translation: Crypto may be down, but Ross thinks it's done playing cowboy — and now that Wall Street, banks, and regulators are all-in, the next chapter might finally look like a real asset class instead of a tech bro science fair.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman weighed in on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s rent-freeze proposal, calling it well-intentioned but economically backwards. Ackman said Mamdani is correct to focus on housing affordability — but freezing rents would choke supply, deter construction, and make it even harder for the city to expand its housing stock. Mamdani, a progressive from Queens, won the Nov. 4 election on a platform centered on affordability, but critics argue his policy would worsen the very crisis he’s trying to solve.

Translation: Ackman’s basically saying: Mamdani found the right fire… then grabbed a bucket of gasoline.

With a special election less than two weeks away, newly resurfaced audio from Nashville Democrat Aftyn Behn is causing chaos inside her own party. Behn — the nominee for a Tennessee congressional seat — is heard in a 2020 podcast saying she “hates” Nashville, its country music culture, its bachelorette tourism, and essentially everything that defines the city she’s running to represent. She has also previously labeled sororities “a staple of white supremacy” and called Tennessee a “racist state,” comments now fueling criticism that Democratic candidates are increasingly out of step with the voters they need most.

Translation: Hard to win a district when your campaign message is basically “I can’t stand anything about this place.” Tennessee didn’t need opposition research — Behn did the job herself.

A new plan from Senator Joni Ernst aims to shut down a loophole in the SNAP program that allows millions in taxpayer dollars to be spent at fast-food chains through the Restaurant Meals Program (RMP). The rule — used mostly in Democrat-led states and a handful of others — lets SNAP beneficiaries buy meals at places like McDonald’s. It’s an awkward development for the fast-food giant, which became a 2024 campaign symbol after Donald Trump famously stepped behind the counter and later touted the chain’s lower prices and $5 value meals. Closing the loophole would end a sizable government windfall for McDonald’s and similar chains.

Translation: Washington might finally stop subsidizing Big Macs — and McDonald’s is about to find out what life looks like without the golden goose.

The Department of Justice has filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom over a California law that grants illegal immigrants access to in-state college tuition — even while U.S. citizens from out of state pay more. It’s the third lawsuit the DOJ has brought against Newsom in a single week. Federal attorneys argue the policy violates federal law by offering residency-based tuition benefits to people living in the country illegally while denying the same benefit to American citizens.

Translation: California is giving illegal immigrants a better college deal than Americans — and the DOJ is finally calling foul.

A near-perfect copy of Superman No. 1 from 1939 just sold for a mind-melting $9.12 million, making it the most valuable comic book ever auctioned. Certified Guaranty Company graded it a pristine 9.0 — basically the comic-collector version of finding a Ferrari with 12 miles on it.
The issue was discovered by three California brothers while cleaning out their late mother’s belongings. They knew she had comics… they just didn’t know she had lottery-ticket level comics.
Collectors are stunned, investors are jealous, and somewhere a hedge fund manager is quietly Googling “How to invest in old attics.”

Translation: Three regular guys found a comic in mom’s stuff and instantly outperformed 99% of professional money managers. The 1939 Superman didn’t just save the world — he saved their retirement.

The Democratic Party is in such spectacular disarray these days that their entire platform can now be summarized as: “We hate Trump.”

Which, at this point, is less a political belief and more a coping mechanism. Trump could pretty much cure cancer, deliver world peace, build free housing for every homeless American, and Venmo every citizen a million dollars — and Democrats would still hold a press conference demanding impeachment because of the tone he used.

But here’s the more revealing question:
Pretend it’s 2028. Trump isn’t running. Trump isn’t tweeting. Trump isn’t even on the menu.

What exactly do Democrats stand for?

Because once you remove their favorite obsession, their platform looks like a parody sketch that somehow made it into federal policy:

Strip away the anti-Trump hysteria, and Democrats look less like a political party and more like a think tank run by emotionally fragile college freshmen.

They’re anti-police, anti-border, anti-parent, anti-energy, anti-free speech, anti-common sense — and somehow still confused about why working-class Americans keep leaving in record numbers.

Maybe the real problem isn’t Trump.
Maybe it’s a party that built its entire identity around outrage, performance activism, and policies that collapse the moment you ask:

“Seriously… how does any of this help actual Americans?”

Tell us what you think — reply, comment, or DM. We read every message and feature the ones that hit hardest.