Sunday November 2nd

Welcome to this week’s edition of Red State Finance — where we connect the dots between your wallet, Washington, and whatever fresh nonsense made headlines.

Let’s kick things off with a classic moment from the circus… our Line of the Week:

If only we had real journalists like that in America — but instead, we get late-night comedians with press passes.

Politics & Policy

The Fed just cut interest rates for the second time this year, citing “labor market weakness” — which is code for “we broke it, now we’re pretending to fix it.” Inflation’s still above 2%, but apparently, math is racist now, so don’t worry about it.

Meanwhile, California’s wealthiest residents may soon face a one-time 5% tax on their net worth to make up for federal healthcare cuts. You know, because punishing success has always worked out great for the economy.

And in this week’s episode of Things Trump Was Right About, Bill Gates finally admitted that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise.” Trump promptly declared victory — again — which means Democrats are now frantically rewriting science textbooks as we speak.

Markets & Money

Google and Apple hit all-time highs, proving once again that you can’t beat Big Tech — unless you delete their app.

Gold’s climb crashed harder than MSNBC on election night, and Bitcoin tanked despite the rate cut. The crypto crowd is sweating bullets after Google’s quantum computing breakthrough, which could make Bitcoin obsolete in the next decade. Translation: the “future of money” might soon need a software update.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon called decades of U.S.-China trade policy a “mistake,” but said Trump’s talks with Xi could finally reset things. Imagine that — diplomacy that actually benefits America.

Business & Culture

Corporate America continues its “human optimization” era:

But it’s not all layoffs and lithium fires — Elon Musk just launched Grokipedia, his “truthful and independent” encyclopedia to combat bias. It immediately crashed under 900,000 uploads. So technically, it’s already more popular than CNN+.

Winners & Losers

🏆 Winners:

💀 Losers:

America Decides:

As the government shutdown drags past 30 days…
It’s officially entered the “Washington reality show” phase — lots of drama, zero productivity.

Fifty-three Republicans have already voted to re-open the government 13 times.

Meanwhile, a handful of Democrats and “independents” are still treating compromise like it’s a four-letter word.

So, let’s settle it once and for all —

Turns out, when it comes to billionaires, the U.S. isn’t just winning — it’s running up the score. A new report from Altrata shows that 38% of the world’s ultra-wealthy (those worth $30 million or more) still call America home — more than the next 10 countries combined. The ultra-rich population in the U.S. surged 21% last year, leaving China and everyone else trying to copy-paste capitalism in the dust.

Translation: while other nations lecture America about inequality, their elites are wiring money into U.S. markets. The stars, stripes, and stock options still rule the world.

Elon Musk thinks your next job title might be “Unemployed… by Design.” In a new post on X, he declared that AI and robots will replace all jobs, turning “work” into a hobby — like growing vegetables instead of buying them at the store.

Some called it visionary. Others called it a billionaire’s version of “let them eat kale.” But if Musk is right, the future of labor might look less like The Office and more like Wall-E — everyone relaxed, robots running everything, and productivity measured in push-ups, not paychecks.

A new poll shows New Yorkers fully expect their city to descend into crime, antisemitism, and economic collapse if self-proclaimed socialist Zohran Mamdani wins the mayoral race — and yet, they’re about to hand him a landslide.

Voters predict boarded-up shops, 1980s-level violence, and a mass exodus of anyone who can still afford a U-Haul. Even Mamdani’s own supporters admit antisemitism could worsen under his watch. But, hey — it’s New York. The city that never sleeps… apparently doesn’t learn either.

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JPMorgan just cut the ribbon on its shiny new $3 billion headquarters in New York — a glass-and-steel monument to “sustainability and wellbeing” that looks straight out of a sci-fi horror movie. The 60-story fortress will house 10,000 employees, though critics online dubbed it everything from “corporate Hunger Games” to “a free-range analyst habitat.”

Sure, it’s energy-efficient — but judging by the viral photos of the eerie trading floor, it’s less “future of work” and more “welcome to the simulation.”

Colorado businessman Cole Evans says he was this close to selling his dietary supplement company for an eight-figure payday when his golf club decided to eject him mid-lunch — allegedly for “breaking in and stealing liquor.” (Because that’s what every multimillionaire does before a business meeting.)

Now Evans is suing the Colorado Golf Club, claiming the false accusation torpedoed his deal and his reputation. The man was chasing greens — just not the kind they thought.

PayPal became the first payment platform to let users check out directly inside ChatGPT, launching what it calls “Agentic Commerce.” Translation: soon you’ll be able to impulse-buy stuff the moment AI convinces you that you need it.

Shares jumped Tuesday after the announcement, as PayPal promised to connect its massive merchant network to OpenAI’s new instant checkout system. The result? Millions of businesses could soon be selling straight through ChatGPT — proving once again that AI doesn’t just talk… it transacts.

Oklahoma State Rep. Ajay Pittman, a 32-year-old Democrat, is under investigation for allegedly using campaign funds to buy TVs, clothes, and restaurant dinners — and her defense is one for the ages: go easy on me, my grandpa’s sick.

Investigators say her bank records show a buffet of “suspicious” expenses, from electronics to fine dining. Apparently, when Democrats say they’re “fighting for families,” they mean their own — one flat-screen at a time.

The ultra-slim 432 Park Avenue — crown jewel of Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row — is showing cracks in more than just its ego. Engineers say the 102-story luxury tower is riddled with hundreds of fractures in its facade, raising concerns that it may soon go from penthouse view to public safety hazard.

Developers are now facing lawsuits as repair estimates climb into nine-figure territory. Apparently, when you pay $80 million for an apartment in the clouds, you’re also buying front-row seats to watch your investment… slowly crumble.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says President Donald Trump’s historic sit-down with Xi Jinping in South Korea wasn’t just another handshake — it was a geopolitical power play. The two leaders discussed “bigger picture ideas” on trade and strategy that could bring up to $2 trillion in new investment into the U.S. economy.

Bessent called the talks “tough but productive,” adding that Trump is “commanding respect around the world like no other leader.” Translation: after four years of weakness, America’s back at the table — and this time, we’re setting the terms.

Chipotle’s stock just took a nosedive after the company admitted what most twenty-somethings already know — young Americans can’t afford to eat there anymore. CEO Scott Boatwright said the 25-to-35 crowd is being crushed by unemployment, student loan repayments, and stagnant wages, leaving burrito bowls off the menu and frozen pizza back on it.

Traffic’s down, sales are slipping, and households earning under $100K — roughly 40% of Chipotle’s customers — are tightening their belts. The irony? The chain famous for “food with integrity” just got hit by an economy with none.

MGM Resorts boss Bill Hornbuckle just delivered the understatement of the year: “Shame on us.” After a summer of outrage over Vegas price gouging — including the “infamous” $26 bottle of Fiji water and $12 Starbucks coffee — Hornbuckle admitted the company had officially “lost the plot.”

He told investors MGM has since “price-corrected,” conceding that you can’t sell a $29 hotel room with $12 caffeine and call it luxury. Translation: when your guests feel like they’re gambling before they even hit the tables, maybe it’s time to comp the water.

The rumor mill’s churning: Kamala Harris is reportedly testing the waters for a 2028 run. Yes — the same Kamala who couldn’t survive the 2020 primaries, wasn’t even fairly elected as the 2024 Nominee , and went on to deliver one of the most chaotic, least inspiring presidential campaigns in modern political memory.

Her campaign was a national punchline. Staff quit mid-race. Donors fled. Even liberal media called it “unfocused” and “unlikable.” She’s since mastered the art of saying nothing with conviction — word salads so incoherent that TV networks literally had to edit interviews to make her sound human.

And let’s talk about the optics: she laughed off every crisis like it was a late-night sketch, oversaw the border collapse she was supposed to fix, and outspent Trump 3-to-1 in 2024 only to lose in a landslide. Latinos abandoned her. Women didn’t rally behind her. And despite nonstop pandering, her own base never trusted her.

Now she’s on a “book tour,” pretending to be presidential while refusing to admit what every American saw — Joe Biden’s obvious decline and her own failure to lead beside him. Instead, she attacked rivals, played identity politics, mocked conservatives as “threats to democracy,” and blamed everyone but herself for the mess she helped create.

Kamala doesn’t just have a branding problem — she has a credibility crisis. Americans don’t want a leader who changes her accent with the ZIP code, reads off teleprompters during “town halls,” or hides from real interviews. They want competence, clarity, and courage — three words never used in the same sentence as Kamala Harris.

If this is the Democratic Party’s plan for 2028, it’s not leadership — it’s laziness. The Left’s obsession with symbolism over substance already gave us four years of woke chaos and destruction.

Running Harris again would prove they’ve learned nothing… and care about America even less.

What do you think?
We want to hear from you — drop your comments, takes, and hard-hitting feedback below. We’ll read every one of them (yes, even the bold ones) and feature the best responses in next week’s issue. Keep it sharp, keep it honest… and maybe keep it printable.