- 24 minutes 1 secondOn 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.
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18 August 2026, 2:20 pm - 1 hour 36 minutesOmnibus (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: 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: 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
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11 August 2026, 4:36 pm - 18 minutesThe 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
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.
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7 August 2026, 1:19 am - 19 minutes 18 secondsSlow 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.
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4 August 2026, 5:22 pm - 32 minutes 55 secondsOn 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
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.
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4 August 2026, 3:53 pm - 1 hour 15 minutesOmnibus (08-03-26).
Max and 99 are back again! They dive into headlines on school choice draining public education, a for-profit hospital disaster, young adults moving back home in record numbers, and nonprofits positioning themselves for the IPO windfall. Then they tackle listener emails on teaching the New Deal, the royal “we” of collective blame, and how not to hate Republicans. Enjoy!
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:31
Headlines: 00:05:14
Emails: 00:46:02
Beyond the Bullshit: 01:13:07
Memberships: 01:15:02
Outro: 01:15:14
Resources
Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians: Balloon Man
The Progressive: ‘School Choice’ Does Not Provide Better Education for All Families
Mother Jones: A For-Profit Hospital Slashed Costs. Then a Patient Froze to Death on Its Roof.
New Yorker: The Kids Are Kind of All Right
Wired: Silicon Valley’s Next IPO Billionaires Are Coming. Nonprofits Are Ready for Them
UNFTR Resources
Series: Education.
Video: Climate Change, AI and The DNC | Man-Made Disasters.
Read: How Private Equity Is Hollowing Out America’s Hospitals
Series: The Clinton Years.
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3 August 2026, 9:55 pm - 35 minutes 24 secondsOn The Record (07-28-26).
This week we dug into the Maduro kidnapping as the entry point for something much bigger—the Cold War racism and corporate vengeance that has driven U.S. Policy toward Venezuela for decades, why there has never actually been a socialist government anywhere on earth, and why the American left needs to get its definitions straight before the right keeps winning that argument by default. Then we checked back in on AI concentration risk, where the hyperscalers are now issuing long-dated debt at spreads approaching junk bond territory, which tells you what the market actually thinks about pinning the entire economy on a technology nobody has fully defined yet.
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:38
Quick Takes: 00:01:49
Max Notes: 00:09:36
Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:28:31
Chart of the Week: 00:31:25
Headlines: 00:33:28
Resources
The Economist: An interview with Elon Musk
The Economist: Elon Musk on AI: humans will no longer be in control in ten years
LastWeekTonight: Trump & Crypto
Diario AS: Trump’s Top 10 Jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
CNBC Television: ‘Big Short’ investor Steve Eisman: Market will have ‘a big correction’ if AI doesn’t succeed
Amnesty International: Facts and figures: Regularization and protection of Venezuelan nationals in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile
Migration Policy Institute: Venezuelan Immigrants in the United States
USA Today: Harris’ border work was on ‘root causes’ of migration; she wasn’t in charge | Fact check
GDN Online: Venezuela to sell up to 10% of shares in some state companies - Maduro
Reuters: Exxon awarded $908 million in Venezuela dispute
The New York Times: How Marco Rubio Is Running Venezuela From Afar
The Real News Network: US provides $300 million in earthquake recovery money to Venezuela while sitting on $8 billion in stolen oil wealth
The New York Times: With $8 Billion in Venezuelan Oil Money, U.S. Gives $300 Million in Quake Aid
Euro News: Venezuela calls for release of frozen assets to help earthquake recovery efforts
Current Affairs: Socialists Humiliate Clueless NewsNation Host
Bloomberg: Big Tech Debt Flood Is Taking Over Risk In Market: Credit Weekly
Jacobin: The Cockroach Protests Are Reviving India’s Ailing Democracy
The Progressive: Heat Waves Show Climate Change Is Here
Truthdig: The Monty Python Election: Binface vs. Mr. Brexit
Book Love
Anderson M Bean: Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives
UNFTR Resources
Video: On The Record 7-28-26 (Crushing Venezuela | Trump Bombs | Elon Blows | Socialism.)
Essay: Socialism.
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29 July 2026, 4:17 pm - 24 minutesTrump and the Black Jelly Bean Theory: CLOs Echo the MBS Fiasco from the GFC.
The New York Fed released a troubling report detailing the risk of Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) exposure in the insurance industry. Over the past several years, private equity has taken larger and larger stakes in insurers who are historically risk averse. But now they’re acting more like hedge funds in their investment strategies and have more than $2 trillion in corporate debt exposure and nearly $300 billion of it is in mezzanine financing packaged much in the way mortgage backed securities (MBS) were in the run up to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Against the backdrop of persistent inflation, a renewed round of tariffs, elevated oil prices, the war in Iran and historic consumer debt, the economy is like a tinderbox. The jelly bean theory holds that you can only reach into the jar so many times before you eventually pick the black jelly bean. Apologies in advance to all those who like black licorice flavored jelly beans.
Resources
Bloomberg: Oil Takes Out $100 to Hit Two-Month High as Iran War Expands
Reuters: Trump to impose ‘forced labor’ duties on Friday as temporary 10% US tariffs expire
The New York Times: What to Know About Trump’s Tariffs on Canada, and What’s Next
Brookings: Macroeconomic implications of immigration flows in 2025 and 2026: January 2026 update
Bloomberg: The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline
The New York Times: Alphabet Quadruples Profit to $112 Billion, Fueled by A.I. Investments
CNBC: See how much prices have increased since 2020 — in one chart
Bloomberg: Long Bonds Are Ringing a 2008 Alarm Bell
New York Fed: Insurance Companies and the Growth of Corporate Loans’ Securitization
Investopedia: Nationally Recognized Statistical Ratings Organization (NRSRO) Definition
The DESK: Rules & Ratings: Ratings agencies spar in private ratings legitimacy debacle
UNFTR Resources
Video: Trump is Running Us Off a Cliff | CLOs Echo the Global Financial Crisis.
Episode: Is Private Credit the Pin That Pops the Bubble?
Essay: Trump and the Black Jelly Bean Theory.
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24 July 2026, 8:56 pm - 1 hour 17 minutesOmnibus (07-23-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the Trump administration restricting visas for foreign journalists, tribes suing to block the gutting of the Endangered Species Act, SpaceX’s massive share unlock, and a defense of reading books in an era of mass literary abandonment. Then they tackle listener emails on coordinating progressive media against AIPAC, whether MMT is 1920s Germany, and some episode clarifications.
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:18
Headlines: 00:15:14
Emails: 00:44:38
Beyond the Bullshit: 00:59:42
Memberships: 01:16:15
Outro: 01:17:08
Resources
The New York Times: The Maduro Case May Be About to Take a Hairpin Turn
Politico: Taylor Farms still tied to cyclospora outbreak despite ‘false positive,’ FDA says
Mother Jones: Tribes and Environmental Groups Sue to Block Trump’s Gutting of the Endangered Species Act
Reporters without Borders: US imposes sweeping visa restrictions on foreign journalists, hindering global coverage of American affairs
TIME: In Defense of Reading Books
Bloomberg: SpaceX’s Great Unlocking Begins With $116 Billion Share Release
Book Love
David Peter Stroh: Systems Thinking For Social Change: A Practical Guide to Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results
Marie Arana: Bolivar: American Liberator
UNFTR Resources
Video: Trump Is a Useful Idiot for the People Behind the Scenes
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23 July 2026, 7:14 pm - 20 minutes 40 secondsShitty: The Quest to Make Everything Terrible.
Everything is getting worse, but the country hasn’t collapsed. This is all by design. Donald Trump is a useful idiot for the people behind the scenes and Project 2025, most notably Russell Vought. The Trump administration is using the nation’s finances like a personal piggy bank for themselves and large corporations while gutting agencies that provide critical services. The misconception is that Trump is driving things into the ground. He’s not. He’s just making things so shitty that the corporate state looks good in comparison.
Resources
ProPublica: “Their Entire Apparatus Is Exposed to Our Strategy”
ProPublica: “We Want the Bureaucrats to Be Traumatically Affected”
Yahoo: This Trump Official Promised To Traumatize Federal Workers — Watch His Words Come Back To Haunt Him
The New York Times: Two Dead and Scores Rescued as Flooding Engulfs Central Texas
IMF: World Economic Outlook Update, July 2026: Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology
ProPublica: “Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda
The New York Times: Why Silicon Valley’s Most Powerful People Are So Obsessed With Hobbits
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index Summary - 2026 M06 Results
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Producer Price Index News Release summary - 2026 M06 Results
U.S. News: Trump Administration’s Changes to the CFPB Cost Americans $19B, a New Report Says
National Association of Realtors: NAR Pending Home Sales Report Shows 5.4% Decrease in June
The New York Times: Cyclospora Cases Rise Rapidly, With No Source Yet Confirmed
The New Yorker: The Human Cost of DOGE’s War on U.S.A.I.D.
The Washington Post: The gaps in CDC’s public health data are creating dangerous blind spots
Axios: Measurement tweaks will make inflation data look better
UNFTR Resources
Episode: “Russputin” and the Tsar.
Episode: Project 2025.
Video: U.S. Financials in Free Fall | Graham, McConnell, and the Strait of Hormuz
Video: Trump Is a Useful Idiot for the People Behind the Scenes.
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22 July 2026, 8:56 pm - 21 minutes 17 secondsOn The Record (07-21-26).
This week we went to see The Odyssey and came out thinking about Bronze Age collapse, because Nolan’s Odysseus is haunted by the wreckage of a civilization that mistook conquest for strength—and the parallels basically write themselves. Then we checked in on the Leading Economic Index, which has been declining for years while the coincident index keeps climbing, and the gap between those two lines is the gap between Wall Street and everyone else: the market’s fine, the C-suite’s fine, but the person trying to build or buy a house is living in a completely different economy.
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:38
Quick Takes: 00:01:37
Max Notes: 00:07:53
Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:14:26
Chart of the Week: 00:17:16
Headlines: 00:19:48
Outro: 00:20:53
Resources
Guardian News: Britain’s new prime minister Andy Burnham makes address
NBC News: Trump imposes 50% tariffs on dairy, alcohol, and cars from Canada
Reuters: Doctors question evidence behind Pentagon plan for testosterone screening
Fox Business: Bessent delivers remarks on far-left political terrorism
Netflix: Bill Maher Mark Twain Prize
Middle East Eye: US influencer Clavicular’s ‘Israelmaxxing’ propaganda trip ends in national scandal
Forbes: Here’s The Odyssey’s Budget And Break-Even Point At The Box Office
Africa Is a Country: Odyssey to Africa’s last colony
Drop Site News: Jeremy Scahill and Ro Khanna CLASH Over Palestinian Armed Resistance and Iron Dome
The Conference Board: Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the US Declined in June and Partially Reversed Gains from Prior Two Months
ACLU: Defending Our Vote: The ACLU’s election safeguarding program
Grist: New York governor orders first statewide data center moratorium
The Lever: Repeat Food Contaminator Gave $2.2 Million to GOP. Now Thousands Are Sick
UNFTR Resources
Video: On The Record 7-21-26 (The Odyssey | Pete Hegseth Loves Buff Dudes | Clavicular in Israel.)
Essay: Quite the Odyssey.
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Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee at shop.unftr.com.
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21 July 2026, 7:17 pm - More Episodes? Get the App