The consumer economy stopped needing consumers. It needs about 70 million of them.

What Nobody Tells You

💸 Americans earning $175,000 or more covered nearly 60 percent of all outlays in the first three months of 2026. Spending, debt payments, donations. Six in ten dollars, one in five people.

That's the whole game. Retail sales dropped 0.6 percent between May and July. Economists guessed 0.1. They missed by six times because they were still measuring a country where the bottom 80 percent mattered to the total.

The Financial Times counted 3,302 billionaires this year, up 13 percent, over 1,000 of them American. Their money doesn't come from you buying things. It comes from AI capex.

Why It Actually Matters

🔥 Your wallet is no longer a vote. Boycotts don't work. Demand signals don't reach anybody. Toby Edwards at FlyVictor says his clients fly private for "discretion," not to impress. They stopped performing wealth because there's nobody left to perform it for.

What To Do About It

🛥️ Watch for "resilient consumer spending" headlines this fall. That's 70 million people and a boat.

>22<

Everyone says the top 20 percent are carrying this economy. I think that's unfair to them. They never asked to carry anybody. They've been trying to put you down for years.