Notices by Andrew Lokenauth (fluentinfinance@mastodon.social)

You’re paying 4× more for RAM because memory that hasn’t been made has already been bought with money that doesn’t exist.

The GPUs haven’t been built. Neither have the data centers. The infrastructure to power them may never exist.

All to satisfy demand that doesn’t exist and generate profits that are mathematically impossible.

US corporate profits just hit record highs.

Worker payouts have dropped to their lowest levels since the 1950s.

You do not hate corporate greed enough.

Canada just put 15% to 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of US products.

The US raises tariffs. Americans pay more.

Canada retaliates. Then American businesses lose sales.

Then the US raises tariffs again. And Americans pay even more.

Over $100 billion in tariff refunds has been paid out so far.

The government sent $0 to US consumers. Companies got the refunds.

It’s like taking money from your own citizens, then handing it to corporations.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

If your parents made $50K in the 90s, you need to make $130K in 2026 to have the same buying power.

$130K is the new $50K

Let that sink in

Poverty gets more expensive the longer you’re stuck in it.

Can’t afford a credit card bill? Next month, pay the bill plus interest and late fees.

Can’t afford a car repair? Later, pay for a tow, a bigger repair, and missed work.

Can’t afford a doctor visit? Later, pay an ER bill.

Can’t afford to fix a cavity? Later, pay for a root canal.

Poverty charges interest.

The typical home now costs $3,200 a month.

You need at least $120,000 a year to afford it.

Meanwhile, the median household income is $84,000.

An entire generation under 30 is starting to believe a home and family will never happen for them.

A generation with no stake in the system would rather watch it burn. Society isn’t ready for that.

A family of four now needs $178,000 to $301,000 a year to get by in America.

Meanwhile, the median U.S. household only earns $83,730.

The American Dream now requires an income most will never earn.

I have a joke about trickle-down economics.

Sadly, 99% will never get it.

Married and own a home by age 30 in America:

1950: 50%
1960: 52%
1970: 48%
1980: 45%
1990: 43%
2000: 35%
2010: 25%
2026: 12%

Crazy numbers.

$100,000 a year is the new $39,000.

In 1990, a $100,000 salary had the same buying power as about $255,000 today.

Today, $100,000 buys what roughly $39,000 bought in 1990.

A six-figure salary isn’t what it used to be.

TRUMP coin is now down 98% from its peak.

A $10,000 investment at its peak would be worth $204 today.

Around 1 million wallets have now lost a combined $3.81 billion.

Why would anyone invest in this??

720,000 people left the U.S. labor force last month.

This pushes the labor force participation rate down to 61.5%, its lowest level since 1976 (outside of the pandemic).

The biggest drop came from prime-age workers, aged 25 to 54.

These are peak working and earning years.

That deserves more attention than it's getting.

BREAKING: A rare, drug-resistant bacterium showed up in a Wyoming city's water. Investigators traced it to Mark Zuckerberg's $800 million Meta AI data center.

That water carried Cupriavidus gilardii. A rare bug that shrugs off most antibiotics.

It knocked two of the city's water plants offline for months.

That tells you where the AI boom is heading next.

Nearly half of American adults under 30 now live with a parent.

In 2019, it was 37%.

Since then, the median home list price jumped 34% to $430,000. Rent jumped 18%. The country is short about 4 million homes. The typical first-time buyer is now 40.

The day before Trump paused tariffs and sent the S&P 500 up 9.5%, his investment accounts bought 327 stocks worth up to $12.8 million.

It was one of the biggest one-day market rallies in history.

The trades were disclosed more than a year late.

The penalty was $200.

Parking tickets cost more than that.

Meta is up 10% after Bloomberg reported it’s building a cloud business to sell excess AI computing capacity.

Investors were worried Meta was spending too much on AI data centers. Now Meta is turning that spending into a new revenue stream.

That now puts Meta in the same arena as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

The average new car payment just hit $772/month. A record high.

4-year car loans used to be normal. Now buyers are stretching payments to 6, 7, and even 8 years.

1 in 5 financed new-car buyers pays $1,000+ a month.

That’s not a car payment anymore. That’s a second rent check.

Rent is up. Insurance is up. Food is up. Student loans are back. And the average new car is close to $50,000.

JUST IN: Trump bought up to $5 million of Axon stock.

Two weeks later, ICE moved toward a $220 million Taser deal.

Axon makes Tasers. Axon also controls 90% of the US Taser market.

And the White House says there are “no conflicts of interest.”

Politicians should not be trading individual stocks while the Government is handing out contracts.

Public office should be public service.

It's pretty crazy that insider trading is illegal for everyone except the people who make the laws.

JUST IN: A bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $25/hour has been introduced in the Senate.

The federal minimum wage is still $7.25. It hasn’t changed since 2009.

For years, the debate was $15/hour. Now it's $25/hour. Shows you just how much the cost of living has changed.

JUST IN: The first human trial of "reverse-aging" drugs has started.

Life Biosciences dosed the first patients with ER-100, a drug built to make damaged eye cells act younger.

The method is called cellular reprogramming. If it works, the idea moves beyond the eye. Liver disease. Nerve damage. Brain decline.

Longevity pulled in $8.5 billion in 2024 alone. The market's headed for $314 billion by 2030.