Are You An American?

"They" Are Preparing You for "Hard Times"

I’m going to spend two minutes on markets and then I’ll climb the Substack soapbox…

On markets, 2025 has been an adventure. While equities have once again ruled the day, they have done so with high volatility; adjusted for volatility (and assuming a 4.5% financing rate to add leverage), high yield has been the place to be. Hedged variants have done even better:

And while BDCs have indeed rallied since I profiled them in “Pay Attention to Our Privates,” the gap between HY and BDCs remains near record highs. In other words, I still like being long credit spread hedges even as BOTH mandate and conviction sends me towards bonds and duration.

The December rate cut is now firmly in question, as I had suggested might happen due to misconceptions around seasonal inflation adjustments.

My GUT thinks Powell and his increasingly fractious cat herd will take a “safety cut” regardless, leaving less interest income for the wealthy while solving little for those who need credit access. With tariff rebate checks flowing to the latter in the spring, unfortunately predictable, it feels like 2024-2025 is going to replay. Cut in December and then wait at least until May.

Meanwhile, while equity markets look short-term vulnerable with the S&P500 dipping below the 50-day moving average for the second time in the past week — the first occurrences since the Tariff Tantrum, late-day rallies have managed to pull us above both times. Consolidation after tremendous gains, breakout and breakdown appear equally likely. On a longer term basis, I am watching the increasing volatility of intraday movements even as “close-close” volatility remains muted. The latter is important for systematic strategies like volatility control, which are now adding back to positions trimmed in October. The former, intraday, is important because there are limits to market makers book depth; should intraday volatility continue to rise, the risks of a “break” in continuous pricing grows. But in the meantime, as much as it pains me to say it, these periods have generally been “continuations” rather than endpoints in extended bullmarkets.

---

This past week Twitter went mad(der).

A simple tweet from a “right-wing influencer” noting that 1950s working-class men could afford houses, families, and dignity triggered a thousand nearly identical mocking responses. Not debate—choreographed ridicule.

The crime? Remembering that Americans once owned things.

The mockery template was uniform: “In [earlier time], a [low-status job] could [impossible thing].” Janitors with castles. Cashiers with yachts. Peanut farmers as presidents (note, this actually happened).

This wasn’t organic humor. This was narrative discipline.

Then came @vrexec (an “American in Europe” according to his sparse bio) with a “reasonable” detailed explanation, pointing to a modest New Jersey Cape at $600-700K as proof the American Dream still lives. Just save $150,000 for a down payment. Maybe join the military. Work hard for 5-10 years. Stop being entitled.

His longform tweet is worth reading in detail (emphasis is mine):

I know (hope) the post is satire, but here’s what I’ve got to say on the matter.

This is where my mother grew up with 6 siblings and 3 dogs. Irish Catholic family in the 1950s northern New Jersey suburbs. My grandfather was a Teamster who earned his “1 Million Miles” driven. My grandmother was a homemaker. Both served in WW2. He served in China driving hovercraft. She worked in a factory manufacturing bombs.

You think they had it easy?

You think this house is gross and that you deserve better? Why is that? You think you are entitled to a sprawling place like the ones on HGTV, where you can entertain friends and have an open floor plan so you can sip your cocktail or latte with your laptop while you watch your kids play on a large flat safe surface in plain sight of you?

This house and many around it are still there, structurally unchanged since the original construction. They are selling for $600-700K. Roughly $4,500/month all-in including property taxes. Many young people have moved there and are raising great families. You can walk to the school nearby. Fire department around the corner. Pizza shops, delis, and even the train to NYC are a reasonable walk. Kids still ride bikes around the neighborhood just like I did 30 years ago, visiting grandma, and just like my mother did 60 years ago, living there.

Many in the younger generation are emotionally unfit for adulthood because they have not experienced any true hardship. They have never felt existential pressure. So they complain about relatively non-existent problems in their lives as victims of things “they” did to them.

I think there are two things going on.

One is the social engineering. I say that loosely because I am not a conspiracy theorist. Espousing conspiracy theories is a form of neo fascist populism aimed to strip individuals of personal agency and responsibility by blaming some mysterious “they” for their troubles and failures. But there really was an effort, even if well-intentioned, to demonize trades, self-employment, and working with your hands in favor of a knowledge professional class that would outsource all physical hardship and labor to other countries (or people from other countries). This produced a generation and a half that does not understand basic mechanics, the physical world, or how to get by on their own.

It also spawned this crazy belief that children should always be better off than their parents. Absolutely not. The word “should” is dangerous. Our children have better opportunities, but not guaranteed outcomes by default. Believing otherwise is directed society talk. It is extreme socialism dressed up as optimism. Life is about opportunity, not entitlement. And young people today have an order of magnitude more to be excited about and to do than even Gen X let alone the Boomers. If you cannot see that you might be a lost soul and there is little a stranger on the internet can type to change it.

The second thing is the deinstitutionalization of sick and demented people in the US as a result of Reagan era policies. This was problematic in the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s when the millennial and early Gen Z generations came of age. It created a distinct lack of safety for the Gen X and boomer generation to let their kids go explore the world on their own.

Both of these factors produced a fundamentally fearful generation of young people... which automatically translates to a desire to be near their “mommy and daddy”. And in many ways, they look to the government or society to substitute as “mom and dad” because they can’t fend for themselves. Remember my neu-feudalism post? Same idea.

So the idea of moving far away from their both physical and emotional comfort zone is deeply uncomfortable, if not insane to many young “educated” people. This is why you see memes about Millennial/Gen Z couples calling their father or father in law over to rewire a light fixture or fix something in their house. Nobody knows anything. Nobody understands anything.

So if you want to live near your parents in the same town where you grew up... you are already asking for a lot generationally speaking.

There is nothing wrong with this house and neighborhood and $4,500/month with a $150,000 down payment is not a huge hurdle if you educate yourself and work hard for 5-10 years. You would have rather driven a semi a million miles after driving hovercraft in WW2? Well, you can actually do this right now. Go join the armed forces then come back 5 years later and drive a truck. It’s an awesome career path. Can even get your MBA and help from the government.

But if you simply despise the aesthetic or maybe want more for less, then you have to move to a less developed part of the US or the world and help that area develop and grow through your efforts and your new roots.

That is the entire story of America.

Are you an American?

His thread ends with the ultimate loyalty test: “Are you an American?”

The message was unmistakable and reflected “Uniparty beliefs”: Real Americans no longer expect what their grandparents had. Real Americans accept Klaus Schwab’s prophecy—”You’ll own nothing and be happy”—or they’re not American at all.

The Mamdani Trigger

The timing is not accidental.

In November 2025, Zohran Mamdani wins the election in NYC, running on material politics—public housing, rent control, actual affordability—rather than the vibes-based identity liberalism the Democratic establishment has used for decades to avoid economic issues.

A socialist wins in NYC one year into Trump’s presidency. This terrifies everyone who relies on the pretense that scarcity is natural. That Zero to One is a template.

Young progressives started wondering: If we can elect socialists in New York under Trump, why accept permanent precarity anywhere?

The elite response (primarily liberal, but conservatives chimed in as well) was immediate and predictable: Not that these demands are wrong. Not that they’re unrealistic. But that they’re un-American.

A year after Trump won on economic populism—and with Mamdani proving the left can win with its own version—liberal elites deployed their mockery apparatus to convince their own base that wanting economic security makes you not fully American.

How the Mockery Machine Works

Start with a legitimate grievance (housing is unaffordable)
Exaggerate it to absurdity (janitors demanding mansions)
Treat the absurd version as the real claim
Blame the claimant for “entitlement”
Reframe the original grievance as un-American

This maneuver allows elites to redefine the request, “I want what my grandfather had” into “I want everything for free.” Thus, the problem becomes you, not the political economy.

“You’ve never had it so good,” they insist.

Unspoken: Keep complaining, and you’ll learn what bad really looks like.

The Participation Trophy Generation Gets the Bill

Kennedy’s 1962 call—”ask not what your country can do for you”—came after the state massively expanded opportunity: the GI Bill, subsidized mortgages, public universities, highways. The ask followed the give.

Today’s version perverts this completely: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask why you think you deserve anything at all.”

But FDR understood something our current elites pretend to forget. In 1944, he warned: “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

The mockery campaign is playing with fire. By making economic security seem un-American, they’re creating exactly the conditions FDR warned against—a precarious population primed for extremism.

This is especially cruel when aimed at Millennials and Gen Z—the generations trained from childhood to believe they were special, expressive, and destined for meaningful work. Heck, even the Fourth Turning labeled them “The Hero Generation.”

They obeyed every instruction:

• Go to college (as commanded)

• Follow your passion (as instructed)

• Check your privilege (as demanded)

• Pursue meaning over money

• Believe in diversity

• Experiences > things

And now the same system tells them that wanting a home—the very baseline of adult stability—makes them spoiled and un-American.

The “participation trophy” generation is accused of entitlement for expecting meaningful participation in the economy.

The suggestion that young Americans should join the military to maybe afford a starter home isn’t motivational. It’s feudal. Service in exchange for the chance at shelter - the logic of vassalage, not citizenship. And as a reminder, I have a son in the Navy.

The Mathematics of Impossibility

The quoted thread suggests the New Jersey home is affordable if you’re willing to compromise on HGTV aesthetics, so let’s do what the author avoided:

The Basic Math:

• Median truck driver gross income in New Jersey: $65,000

• After taxes (~26%): $48,100 take-home

• Required down payment (20%): $120,000–$150,000

• Monthly payment + taxes: $4,000–$4,500

• Annual housing cost: $48,000–$54,000

The punch line: Annual housing cost exceeds total take-home income for this “modest” home.

But here’s what was buried entirely—property taxes alone tell the story of systematic extraction.

In 1955, a Teamster made about $5,300 gross ($4,770 after tax). The poverty line for a family of four was $2,800, leaving $1,970 in “surplus above subsistence”—money for everything beyond bare survival.

Property tax on that $12,000 house? About $264/year.
That’s 13% of the surplus.

Today, that truck driver makes $65,000 gross ($48,100 after tax). The poverty line for a family of four is $31,812, leaving $16,288 in surplus.

Property tax on that same house? $10,700/year.
That’s 66% of the surplus.

Let that sink in:

• 1955: Property tax took 1/8 of your breathing room

• 2024: Property tax takes 2/3 of your breathing room