Unf*cking The Republic

On The Record (08-18-26).

This week we named what’s actually happening to the American economy—Corporate Colonialism, the full realization of the Powell Memo’s 50-year project to hand the keys of democracy to the boardroom—and made the case that the real fight isn’t Trump, it’s the day after Trump. Then we got into the AI financing structures that are starting to look uncomfortably familiar: shell companies, off-balance-sheet guarantees, and phantom liabilities that only become real when everything goes wrong at once. If you get 2007 vibes, you’re paying attention. Chapters Intro: 00:00:38 Housekeeping: 00:01:28 Quick Takes: 00:02:31 Max Notes: 00:06:33 Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:15:17 Chart of the Week: 00:16:57 Outro: 00:22:47 Resources Reuters: US retail sales slump unexpectedly and sharply after a summer tax-refund boost fades AARP: July 2026 Employment Data Digest The Guardian: US navy veterans and military health experts express concern over USS Abraham Lincoln sailors CNBC: AOC says she’s been saving up to freeze her eggs. Here’s how much the procedure can cost npr: ICE plans to outfit officers with electric shock gloves Truthout: Jeffries Says He Opposes Medicare for All — Which Would Save 114k Lives Yearly Great Memos: The Powell Memorandum More Perfect Union: We Tracked the Private Jets Your Insurance Premium Paid For Bloomberg: Bond Traders Are Agonizing Over $70 Billion of Shadow Credit Backstops For AI Companies UNFTR Resources Video: On The Record 08-18-26 (The AI Bubble is About to Burst | Corporate Control of Trump.) Essay: Trump’s Corporate Masters. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Become a member at unftr.com/memberships. Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com. Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations. Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibilitySupport the show: https://www.unftr.com/membershipsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Omnibus (08-11-26).

Max and 99 are back in action, (though IRL, Max is still on vacay!). They hit headlines on MAHA’s fault lines, Flock cameras tracking cars, the world’s most prolific Wikipedia editor, and OpenAI flying influencers to a luxury nature retreat. Then they tackle listener emails on the difference between socialism/communism/and fascism, and an Elon musk sycophant. Enjoy! Chapters Intro: 00:00:33 Headlines: 00:18:18 Emails: 01:07:48 Feature: 01:26:43 Memberships: 01:35:32 Outro: 01:36:30 Resources Mark Curry: Sorry About The Weather The Independent: Women’s historic pro baseball game anthem goes viral for all the wrong reasons The Baffler: Overmedicalization and Its Discontents Business Insider: Flock cameras are everywhere. Here’s how they track cars. 404 Media: Cops Used Flock to Track a Man Across State Lines to Create Pretext to Search His Car for Weed 404 Media: LAPD Regularly Pulled Over Innocent People Because License Plate Readers Flagged Their Cars As Stolen 404 Media: Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People 404 Media: Wildlife Conservation Police Are Searching Thousands of Flock Cameras for ICE 404 Media: Cop Used Flock to Wrongfully Accuse a Woman Then Refused to Look at Evidence That Exonerated Her, Body Camera Shows 404 Media: Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country New Yorker: The Accidental Architect of the Internet’s Brain Fast Company: Influencers are being dragged for indulging in a luxury New York nature retreat on OpenAI’s dime The Wall Street Journal: Google Was a Lifeline for Publishers. Now Some Are Thinking of Cutting It Off. Social Media Today: Meta still has widest social media reach Inc.: 55 Percent of Leaders Regret AI Layoffs—and a Major Hiring Reversal Has Begun Book Love Cory Doctorow: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Become a member at unftr.com/memberships. Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com. Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations. Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibilitySupport the show: https://www.unftr.com/membershipsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Great Unwind.

The AI trade might have found its canary in the coal mine. Leopold Aschenbrenner—a 25-year-old former OpenAI researcher built Situational Awareness into one of the hottest funds on Wall Street by betting long on the construction and infrastructure side of AI (Micron, CoreWeave) and short on the chips and software everyone else was chasing (Nvidia, Broadcom, Oracle). Then July happened, prime brokers made margin calls, and his entire public stock book got liquidated overnight in a single block trade. This episode uses that blowup as the lens for a much bigger story: how a three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar hyperscaler spending pledge is propping up U.S. GDP growth, why OpenAI just quietly cut prices as “tokenmaxxing” dies and Chinese labs undercut on cost, why Mark Zuckerberg picked a fight with OpenAI and Anthropic, how overleveraged Oracle has become, how the most profitable companies in the world are posting negative free cash flow, why hyperscaler bonds are going undersubscribed, and why the length of this year’s tech bond issuance is starting to crowd out the rest of the corporate debt market. It closes with the 2008 parallel: mortgage-backed securities stacked into CDOs stacked into synthetic swaps, and how today’s version runs through corporate bonds, CLOs, hedge fund leverage, and private credit—with Treasuries as the eventual exit ramp when the unwind accelerates. Resources Analysis Atlas: Hyperscaler AI Capex 2026: The $710 Billion Year Inside the Four Spenders J.P. Morgan Asset Management: How AI demand and capex shape investing in tech stocks New York Times: U.S. Economy Slows as Inflation Bites U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA): GDP (Advance Estimate), 2nd Quarter 2026 CNBC: OpenAI cuts prices for two of its GPT-5.6 AI models as companies grow sensitive to costs Business Insider: The All-You-Can-Eat AI Era Is Over. It’s Time to Count Calories CNBC: Chinese AI models are gaining ground with U.S. companies as OpenAI, Anthropic costs surge The New York Times: Even China’s A.I. Powerhouses Can’t Figure Out How to Profit Off A.I. CNBC: Meta’s flurry of AI initiatives this month hasn’t helped lift the stock. What will? The Hill: Zuckerberg knocks AI development centralization, control Buttondown: D.A.D.: Zuckerberg Blasts Anthropic and OpenAI for “Centralizing” AI Power Reuters: AI investment boom puts Big Tech’s free cash flow under pressure CNBC: Bets against SpaceX grow to 32% of float as Elon Musk warns short sellers won’t survive Yahoo! Finance: NVIDIA’s rising CDS the talk of Wall Street amid circular financing fears Bloomberg: Big Tech Debt Flood Is Taking Over Risk In Market: Credit Weekly CNBC: Fed meeting recap: Warsh says Fed won’t hesitate to stop inflation, but bond market has doubts CNN: AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say Yahoo! Finance: Hyperscalers Hit $700 Billion in 2026 AI Spending Plans - 24/7 Wall St. Global Finance Magazine: AI’s Financial Circle Game Reuters: Hyperscaler debt binge pushes yields up as investor demand cools UNFTR Resources Video: Situational Awareness: How a 25-Year-Old's Hedge Fund Exposed the Entire AI Bubble. Essay: The Great Unwind. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Become a member at unftr.com/memberships. Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com. Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations. Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibility.Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/membershipsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Slow Moving Disasters: Climate Change, Artificial Intelligence and The Democratic Party.

This is one of those, get it off the chest episodes. A straightforward conversation about three slow moving disasters that threaten our way of life. Climate change, artificial intelligence and the Democratic Party. Obviously, that last one requires a bit of an explanation. This is that explanation. Resources United States Courts: Bankruptcies Rise 12.2 Percent Book Love Abdul El-Sayed + Micah Johnson: Medicare for All: A Citizen's Guide UNFTR Resources Video: Climate Change, AI and The DNC | Man-Made Disasters. Essay: Slow Moving Disasters. Episode: Climate Action. Episode: The Montreal Protocol. Progressive Spotlight: Abdul El-Sayed. Episode: Medicare for All. Series: The Clinton Years. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Become a member at unftr.com/memberships. Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com. Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations. Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibility.Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/membershipsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On The Record (08-04-26).

This week we went deep on debt—all $72 trillion of it—and made the case that the bond market is the real economy, that the Fed has already lost control of the entire curve, and that when the AI trade unwinds, the flood into Treasuries won’t save anyone the way the textbook says it should. Then we watched Japan demonstrate in real time what happens when you don’t have the exorbitant privilege of issuing the world’s reserve currency. A 40-year low for the yen, Japan spending $87 billion in two days trying to hold it together, and the U.S. quietly intervening not out of friendship, but because Japan’s dumping Treasuries would torch our bond market at the worst possible moment. Chapters Intro: 00:00:38 Quick Takes: 00:01:33 Max Notes: 00:07:34 Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:24:44 Chart of the Week: 00:27:02 Headlines: 00:30:56 Outro: 00:32:23 Resources Fox News: Carville vows to FLEE Dem Party over Hasan Piker: ‘Out of here’ Forbes Breaking News: Trump Gives Update On Talks With Iran Forbes Breaking News: Sparks Fly When RFK Jr. Is Pressed On Vaccines, Pandemic Prevention During CNN Interview NBC News: Trump: Jeanine Pirro ‘made a mistake’ dropping Reflecting Pool vandalism case The Thomas Crown Affair CNBC: AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Household Debt and Credit Report (Q1 2026) Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Financial Accounts of the United States - Z.1 FiscalData: What is the national debt? SIFMA: US Treasury Securities Statistics Fortune: U.S. national debt officially hits $39 trillion—adding approximately $5 billion a day since October Nippon: Japan Govt Worsens Debt-to-GDP Ratio Estimate for FY 2026 Financial Stability Board: Report on Vulnerabilities in Private Credit Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Implementation Note issued June 17, 2026 U.S. Department of the Treasury: Daily Treasury Rates TFTC: Treasury Sells $139B in Polar-Opposite Auctions: 2Y Soars, 5Y Craters MS Now: ‘Don’t be surprised when this gets kind of ugly’: El-Sayed on hotly contested MI Senate primary Bloomberg Television: Trump Revives Hopes for Iran Deal, Oil Sinks | Insight with Haslinda Amin 8/03/2026 Bloomberg: Why Japan Is Propping Up the Yen With US Help Bloomberg: BOJ Data Point to $34 Billion Japan FX Intervention Friday MacroMicro: World - Major Economies’ Holdings of US Debt The Japan Times: Yen carry trade is a ‘ticking time bomb,’ warns BCA research Forever Wars: The Markets Matter For War—You Don’t The American Prospect: The AI Bailout Could Be Baked Into the AI Bubble Jacobin: Centrist Democrats Keep Making Awful Health Reform Proposals UNFTR Resources Video: On The Record 08-04-26 (The Yen Bailout, RFK Jr. Fail, and the $72 Trillion Debt.) Essay: The $72 Trillion Debt Problem. Video: Situational Awareness: How a 25-Year-Old’s Hedge Fund Exposed the Entire AI Bubble. -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Become a member at unftr.com/memberships. Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com. Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations. Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibilitySupport the show: https://www.unftr.com/membershipsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.