They're Gutting the Middle Class, Selling Our Organs on Wall Street

Invest in your 401(k), work hard, and wait your turn. But while you were busy budgeting for groceries, they were strip-mining the American Dream, flipping the scraps to Blackstone.

Apr 15, 2025

You live in a country where you can’t afford the hospital bill for the heart attack your job gave you. Practically everything has increased in price, but your paycheck remains a sad affair. At the end of your money, there’s too much month left. Meanwhile, we’re still clawing for mortgage approval, to attain the American Dream, while private equity firms buy houses in cash, dozens at a time, wholesale style, before you even finish the application.

That’s the America we’re living in. We know that. What’s a bit harder to swallow is that this is the America we’ve let happen. We showed up at the rallies, but not at the polls. And similar to the bombastic mood when Harris and Walz took to the stage, now it’s Bernie and AOC getting tens of thousands to join them in our fight against the oligarchy. The rumor mill is already churning with the “Bernie & AOC” possibilities for 2028. Perhaps a bit premature, maybe a beacon of hope.

However, we were motivated before. This time, will our show of force translate to the polls? In some districts, yes. In others, absolutely not.

Meanwhile, we’re contending with Trump’s moronic meddling of the economy, waging a trade war that brought us to more than a mere decline. We slithered into a downturn, costing you money. What we’re living through is the systematic liquidation of the American middle class. An organ harvest. A selloff. And every time you open your 401(k) or swipe a credit card, you're watching them slice another piece off the flesh. To boot, DOGE - the Department of Government Efficiency, isn’t interested in improving anything, other than the standing of billionaires, by intervening with anything inconvenient to them.

The $11 Trillion Tariff Bomb

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The Disappearance Act

Let’s step back for a sec.

Nostalgically, there used to be a time when a single income could buy a house, raise a family, and take a vacation. It is not a fantasy vacation, not some curated Instagram façade, but a solid, good ol’ fashioned family road trip to see the ocean, the mountains, or hell, if you like Nebraska for some reason, you could visit the flats. That time is gone for most Americans.

The going rate is that you’ll have to “sacrifice a little. Cut out a vacation or two, plan a staycation, and work a little harder, for longer.” I remember Musk saying something to that degree, then I recalled Politico hitting on that subject. Picture and link below.

Two incomes now barely cover groceries and rent. Wages are flat. Debt is vertical. People aren’t chasing dreams anymore, they’re dodging invoices. Mental health is on the decline, and your physical health follows. Ask me how I know. And Wall Street? They’ve monetized your misery. They've turned it into a revenue stream. Your unpaid medical bill is someone else's quarterly bonus. The “United Health” incident wasn’t a surprise. In fact, the surprise is that there aren’t more incidents of the same nature. “They” definitely are asking for it. And, if they ask long enough, they might just receive.

Their greed, none of your fault, will inevitably become your problem.

The New Lords of the Manor

When the absurd cost of healthcare doesn’t wreck you, the other staple of America likely will: In Phoenix, Charlotte, Atlanta, entire neighborhoods now belong to faceless investment firms. Hedge funds buy single-family homes like you buy toilet paper: in bulk, no inspection, no emotion. They can close on a real estate transaction much quicker than a regular buyer, and if the money is right, most sellers won’t wait for John & Jane to close in 30 days or longer. To make matters worse, the hedge fund buyer doesn’t care if you live there. They’ll happily rent back to you, the former owner, just as long as you pay rent on time. And when you can’t, they’ve got algorithms to evict you with the click of a button. “Rentback” isn’t an unknown concept for some sellers, who may need to wait for the closing of their next home. However, when home sales are the derivative of distressed Americans, then the “rentback” scheme is a trap, even though it’s laced with cheddar.

Take Blackstone, for instance. The firm owns 12,500 units and 250+ portfolio companies.

But it wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows for Blackstone. The firm lost billions in late 2024. So what did they do? They froze investor redemptions and bought more homes. They needed the liquidity, and they doubled down on your desperation. “Picking themselves up by your bootstraps”, they continued snatching your home up.

And just in case you think that Blackstone’s greed is confined to the United States, think again. Also, Blackstone is only one of the many firms following the same agenda. There are more, and they’re all reprehensible.

Unfortunately, and frequently outside of your bubble of awareness, you may actually contribute to Blackstone’s machinery. Your retirement fund may be involved in providing the capital that’s dislocating Americans.

Therein lies the rub: You don’t want to kick people out of their homes - at least, I hope not, but by the manner in which your funds are invested, you may have stake in other people’s loss and misery.

Your misery fuels their ambitions

A Controlled Burn Disguised as a Crisis

The news tells you we’re in a correction. Musk tweets that a “little pain is to be expected before it gets better”, and Trump touts that it’s all part of the master plan, because “everyone wants to make a deal!” Bullshit, of course. No one wants to make a deal, and China is presently showing Trump that he has zero understanding of what he actually unleashed.

Nonetheless, what we’re witnessing isn’t an accident. It’s a controlled burn. A surgical demolition, executed with the precision of a Wall Street white paper. They call it monetary and trade policy. We feel it as eviction, unemployment, and bankruptcy.

And as small businesses shutter, as families crumble under debt, those same firms swoop in, buying up homes, companies, farmland. Everything must go.

They will not rest until they own it all, or we disown them from it all.

Recessions Are for Eating the Weak

Recession for thee, but not for me! Recessions aren’t bad news for everyone. For hedge funds and private equity firms, they’re a phenomenal opportunity. A fire sale of labor, property, and policy. They thrive on blood in the water.

Meanwhile, decrepits like Kevin O’Leary aren’t dissatisfied with the current tariffs. He wants 400%. Because to him, there isn’t enough blood in the water.

What’s the Driving Force?

This Is Not a Cycle. It’s a Strategy.

If this were just bad luck or single-handed incompetence, although there’s definitely an element of it, it would look different. The director behind the scenes: Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation.

I used NotebookLM to query Project 2025 for “tariffs”. If you want to know more, let me know, and I’ll write a separate Substack about just that.

Project 2025 is only one piece of the razor’s edged puzzle. Add deregulation to the mix. For instance, the 2018 Dodd-Frank rollback let regional banks gamble recklessly with your deposits. Or, add tax cuts, like Trump’s 2017 gift to corporations, resulting in a permanent discount for the rich and temporary scraps for everyone else.

But they didn’t stop there: The continuation of the tax cuts, wealth shift, and social program butchering was just continued on April 10, 2025.

The result? Corporations are flush with cash but not to raise wages. Not to invest in innovation. But to buy back their own stock, artificially inflating their value and executive bonuses while cutting jobs. Needless to say, politicians themselves got fat as hogs, by insider trading on Trump’s "Pause on Tariffs”, and now they’re passing the buck back to corporate America and the wealthy. It’s a fiscal circle jerk.

The Financial Caste System

Think about it. They’ve done an expert job in convincing us that it’s left vs. right, while in reality, it’s up vs. down.

At the top: Those who own. The ones who don’t produce but extract. Their money works so they don’t have to.

In the middle, we have what used to be the middle class. Nowadays, frequently downgraded to renters of homes. Of health. Of time.

And above us all: the rulers. Lobbyists, corporate boards, and algorithmic architects who write policy with their portfolios in mind.

At the bottom are 50% of Americans who, collectively, own a dust speck of the country’s wealth. They’re so disenfranchised, abused, and taken advantage of that their potential force doesn’t even register on the minds of the rulers and the owners.

Thus, they focused on the middle class, intending to reduce them to the lower class. Out of sight, out of mind.

Your Future

Your pension? Gone. Your Social Security? On the chopping block. Your 401(k)? Tied to a stock market that’s about as stable as a slot machine on meth. Your retirement age? Death.

Most Americans have less than $70K saved for retirement. And that’s on the best of days. Chances are, as you’re reading this, you may not even have that much. But, for the sake of the example, let’s pretend you do have $70k in the bank. How long do you think this will last?