Unf*cking The Republic

We’re experimenting with something. As we work toward a complete breakdown of the federal budget in a comprehensive essay and companion episode, we’re bringing our audience into the content creation process. We have a feeling this is going to be one of our behemoth entries into the canon (and potentially a two-parter.) So rather than overwhelm everyone with information in one shot, we thought it would be useful to break it apart as we go. The first two entries made it to YouTube already but I’m packaging them up in a single episode today. The first is how the GOP budget disproportionately impacts red states. And not in a good way. The second brings us back to our Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) discussions and reframes the way we think about the national debt. Both are crucial building blocks in our understanding of the federal budget.

Access the episode resources.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:36

Red State: Fucked. 00:01:30

We Solved the Debt Crisis: 00:06:39

Post Show Musings: 00:21:49

Outro: 00:25:05

Resources

Congress: H.R.1 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): One Big Beautiful Bill Act

Bipartisan Policy Center: Federal Balancing Act

White House: Fiscal Year 2026 Discretionary Budget Request

Jacobin: Trump’s Budget: Starving Everything Except the Military

Bloomberg Television: Millstein on US Downgrade, Tariffs, Trump Tax Bill

PBS News: What’s inside the House GOP’s budget bill? Here’s a look

Congress: H.Con.Res.14

PGPF: Chart Pack: The U.S. Budget

PGPF: What Is Budget Reconciliation?

The Conference Board: Reforming the Broken Federal Budget Process 

NACO: U.S. House passes reconciliation bill: What it means for counties 

Bipartisan Policy Center: What’s in the FY2025 Senate Budget Resolution

Georgetown CCF: Medicaid and CHIP Cuts in the House-Passed Reconciliation Bill Explained 

Reuters: US Treasuries: Who owns US debt?

UNFTR Resources

Modern Monetary Theory.

Stock Buybacks Surge.

Updated Tax Evasion Figures.

Video: GOP Spending Bill is a Red State Bloodbath

Video: Big Bullsh*t Bill adds $2.4 trillion to National Debt

5NN

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Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

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How much credit risk is in the market? Equities get the headlines but the world runs on credit. Jamie Dimon recently declared that credit was a “bad risk” on the heels of Moody’s downgrading the U.S. credit rating and a spike in the 10 Year Treasury yield. Suddenly, the boring old credit and bond markets are all the rage on the financial news channels, and it goes much deeper than treasuries. Today’s episode examines the scope of the global credit market and unpacks the difference between the systemic threat posed in the global financial crisis (GFC) and the looming credit crisis today. And, it shows how the big corporations prepared for the gathering storm by rewriting the rules of the game after the GFC. The big guys are fairly insulated from any sort of looming credit shock, but the rest of us are pretty much toast.

Access the episode resources.

Chapters

Intro: 00:01:00

Post Show Musings: 00:28:25

Outro: 00:33:39

Resources

Moody’s: Moody’s Ratings downgrades United States ratings to Aa1 from Aaa; changes outlook to stable

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Household Debt and Credit Report

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates

Coleman Report: Small Business Loan Defaults Expected to Peak Next Year

Offshoring

Lincoln International LLC: Q1 2025 Lincoln Private Market Index™

Investopedia: Payment-in-Kind (PIK): What It Is, How It Works, Pros and Cons

Axios: Americans are behind on car payments at a record level

MBA: Mortgage Delinquencies Increase Slightly in the First Quarter of 2025

HBR: U.S. Commercial Real Estate Is Headed Toward a Crisis 

J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S.: Municipal Bonds: Back in the Spotlight

U.S. Department of the Treasury: Treasury International Capital Data for March

Everything Policy: Where are the key Panama Papers figures, seven years later?

Secondaries Investor: Yale sells up to $6bn of its PE portfolio amid federal funding challenge

NBER: The Offshore World According to FATCA: New Evidence on the Foreign Wealth of U.S.

Peter Lang Publishing: Hip Hop Can Save America!

UNFTR Episode Resources

The U.S. Dollar and 10 Year Treasury.

Updated Tax Evasion Figures.

Video: Credit Risk: The looming U.S. Credit Crisis

UNFTR 5 Non-Negotiables

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pete Buttigieg is a legitimate star in the Democratic Party. Having moved his family to Michigan there was speculation that he might run for the governor’s office or become a Senator. But he turned down both options and instead set his sights on the 2028 Presidential election. In addition to making the rounds on multiple cable shows and podcasts to help rehabilitate the image of the Democratic Party, he recently held a massive town hall in Iowa, where he was victorious in the 2020 Caucus. But who is Pete Buttigieg and why do so many people consider him a frontrunner for the Democratic ticket in ‘28? His experience as a small city mayor and single term as Transportation Secretary in the Biden Administration would still make him one of the least experienced candidates in U.S. history. So why all the attention?

Resources

Win The Era PAC

Washington Examiner: Buttigieg high school essay praised Sanders as courageous for calling himself ‘Socialist’

UNFTR Resources

Video: The Case AGAINST Buttigieg in 2028

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Corporations announced a staggering $233.8 billion in stock buybacks in April, the second-highest monthly total ever recorded. But unlike previous buyback bonanzas, this isn’t a sign of economic strength or corporate confidence. Quite the opposite. Are buybacks just one big shell game or are they fiscally prudent? Corporate stock buybacks have inspired great debate since a Reagan era tax law change and a Clinton era deal sweetener. On the one hand they have enriched shareholders and made executives extremely wealthy. On the other hand, the growth in buybacks mean companies aren’t investing in innovation, workers, or expansion. Let’s talk about it.

Resources

Longtermtrends: S&P 500 PE Ratio

FRED: Quarterly Financial Report: U.S. Corporations: All Information: Total Cash on Hand and in U.S. Banks

BNN Bloomberg: Corporate America plans record stock buybacks as turmoil mounts – BNN Bloomberg

Bipartisan Policy Center: How the U.S. Taxes Stock Buybacks and Dividends

Congress.gov: Stock Buybacks: Concerns over Debt-Financing and Long-Term Investing

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston: The Great Leverage 2.0? A Tale of Different Indicators of Corporate Leverage

Penn Wharton: Raise the Excise Tax Rate on Stock Repurchases

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP: Newly Proposed Regulations on Stock Buyback Excise Tax Largely Adopt Approach From Initial IRS Guidance

The New Republic: Bill Clinton Created This Terrible Corporate Loophole. Will Hillary Close It?

ProPublica: The Executive Pay Cap That Backfired

Harvard: Short-Termism And Capital Flows

Roosevelt Institute: Regulating Stock Buybacks: The $6.3 Trillion Question

ICIJ: The Panama Papers: Exposing the Rogue Offshore Finance Industry

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Crude Oil tanks as OPEC+ floods the market with product. Russia and Saudi Arabia just did the unthinkable by announcing that they’re increasing output by 411,000 barrels per day starting in June. With demand forecasts going down every day as the world braces for a Trump induced global recession, it’s the exact opposite move from what everyone expected. This episode tackles what this means for the economy, the future of energy, Trump’s tariff gambit, inflation and unemployment. 

Access the episode resources.

Resources

OPEC

OilPrice.com

U.S. EIA: Advances in technology led to record new well productivity in the Permian Basin in 2021

EnergyNews: OPEC maintains its forecast for oil demand growth in 2025 and 2026

Reuters: US agrees to sell Saudi Arabia $142 billion arms package

Responsible Statecraft: Lobby Horse: Trump’s ‘trillion dollar' visit to Saudi Arabia

Deloitte: 2025 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook

World Economic Forum: 5 trends shaping the energy world in 2025

AInvest: JPMorgan Cuts 2025 Oil Price Forecasts 12% on Weak Demand, OPEC+ Output

ExxonMobil: ExxonMobil Announces First-Quarter 2025 Results

Reuters: OPEC output hikes, trade wars have US oil producers wary of 'drill baby drill'

Trading Economics: United States Exports By Category

St. Louis Fed: Breakeven Fiscal Oil Price for Saudi Arabia (SAUPZPIOILBEGUSD)

UNFTR Episode Resources

Peak Oil: It's a Crude, Crude World.

Bitcoin & Crude Oil.

The Energy Independence Myth.

Iceberg. Dead Ahead.

Video: Oil Prices TANK as OPEC Floods the Market

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is this the end of Capitalism? If so, what comes next? Does it even matter what we call it? Today Max pauses to reflect on the speed and totality of damage wrought by the Trump administration, and whether it’s bringing about the end of Capitalism on purpose in order to return to a state reminiscent of the industrial era when the working class lived to serve the elite and the poor thrown to the streets.

Resources

Marketplace: Higher income Americans drive bigger share of consumer spending

Book Love

Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives

UNFTR Resources

YouTube: The End of Capitalism: What comes next is worse.

YouTube: Phone A Friend: Yanis Varoufakis

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Max and 99 return from their Show Notes hiatus to discuss the 5 Non-Negotiables, global events, and share some genuinely insightful tangents (for a change lol). Enjoy!

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:21

Discord Comments: 00:06:46

5NN: 00:10:04

Emails: 00:33:34

Memberships: 01:58:40

Outro: 02:01:41

Resources

Only 3 days left in our Spring Fund, Friend, and Hell Raiser! Become a member today.

Subscribe to the YouTube Channel.

Visit our 5NN homepage.

Save PBS and NPR!

Unf*cker Recommendations

Sarah Smarsh: Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth

Timothy Snyder: On Tyranny Graphic Edition: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Jason Stanley: How Fascism Works:The Politics of Us and Them

Ilan Pappe: A Very Short History of the Israel–Palestine Conflict

Sayash Kapoor + Arvind Narayanan: AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Market speculation into commodities like Bitcoin and Crude oil pose dangerous risks during the best of times. Heading into a recession, the stakes are even higher. The temptation to participate during volatile periods is a psychological phenomenon that takes hold among casual investors who rarely realize when they’re part of an institutional con. When leveraged institutions are in desperate need of liquidity they’ll stop at nothing to game the system. In this episode, Max offers a cautionary tale of speculative behavior in the crude oil markets during the financial crisis that very few people even know about. He then connects it to the dangers posed to investors who dabble in digital currencies like Bitcoin, especially under a pro-crypto Trump administration.

Access the episode resources.

Resources

Forbes: ‘Worse Than 2008’—Bitcoin Price Braced As Billionaire Ray Dalio Warns Of ‘Monetary Order Breakdown’

Forbes: ‘Big Catalyst’—Serious Fed Warning Spurs Huge BlackRock Bitcoin Price Prediction

NPR: What to know about Trump's 'crypto strategic reserve' plan

Yahoo Finance: Donald Trump’s 29-year-old crypto guru lays out the president’s plans for regulating crypto and rolling back a Biden-era crackdown

Pillsbury Law: Trump 2.0: A New Era for the Regulation of Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets

SDLC Corp: Stablecoins: Characteristics, How They Work, Functionality, and Use Cases

Bitpanda Academy: Meme Coins: Definition & Characteristics

St. Edward’s University: What Are the Exchange Coins

The Digital Chamber: Why is Bitcoin a Commodity?

Investopedia: Is Crypto a Commodity? What It Means, Examples

Book Love

Dan Dicker: Oil's Endless Bid: Taming the Unreliable Price of Oil to Secure Our Economy

Emily Lambert: The Futures: The Rise of the Speculator and the Origins of the World's Biggest Markets

Peter Maass: Crude World

Leah McGrath Goodman: The Asylum: Inside the Rise and Ruin of the Global Oil Market

UNFTR Episode Resources

Peak Oil: It’s a Crude, Crude World.

The U.S. Dollar and 10 Year Treasury: Why Economists Are Freaking the F*ck Out.

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a hidden market that might crash the economy in 2025. Tariff chaos. Leverage in the Repo Market. A burgeoning liquidity crisis. There’s an iceberg, dead ahead, only we can’t see below the surface to know how big it is. In this episode Max takes a big swing at the existential crisis brewing in the financial markets. Trump’s tariffs, declining economic data and slumping global demand will potentially neutralize half of the Fed’s crisis response arsenal. The logical and expected response to what is shaping up to be a catastrophic summer is the “Fed Put.” In other words, another bailout. But if the Fed looks to expand its balance sheet to accomplish this during a liquidity crisis, will the buyers of U.S. debt show up? Inflation and a weak dollar, frayed nerves in the bond market and more reckless behavior coming out of the White House could cause a run on the big banks and other firms that live in the “shadow repo” market leaving the Fed balancing the world on its shoulders.

Access the episode resources.

Resources

Apollo Global Management: How are US consumers and firms responding to tariffs?

LendingTree: BNPL Tracker: 41% of Users Late in Past Year

The Fed: What Happened in Money Markets in September 2019? 

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: Treasury Market Dysfunction and the Role of the Central Bank

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is how we win. This is the closing argument of the project to build the foundation of the people’s platform and take over the Democratic Party: The 5 Non-Negotiables of the Left. Three to earn the trust of the American people to win back the country, and two to salvage our democracy and our planet. The Trump administration is the culmination of a 70 year neoliberal plan to divide the population and place the wealth of the nation and levers of power into the hands of the few.

The dystopian doctrine that drives this agenda is rooted in fear born from economic precarity. As such, the opposite holds true as well. Everything positive is attainable when a population lives in economic security and has satisfied the most basic human needs. We need a politics centered on achieving this goal before we can broaden our horizon. To accomplish this we have to use the tools at our disposal, which means we have to take over most functional political apparatus available: The Democratic Party. Our contribution to this plan is simply to provide structure and clarity. This is how we win.

Access the episode resources.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:30

Non-Negotiable #1: 00:26:16

Non-Negotiable #2: 00:28:14

Non-Negotiable #3: 00:30:04

Non-Negotiable #4: 00:31:59

Non-Negotiable #5: 00:33:56

The People's Platform: 00:36:22

Get Involved: 00:37:50

UNFTR Episode Resources

Housing First: Non-Negotiable #1.

Building a Civilian Labor Corps: Bracing for the AI Job Apocalypse: Non-Negotiable #2.

Medicare for All: Non-Negotiable #3.

Election Integrity: Getting Money Out of Politics: Non-Negotiable #4.

Climate Action: Non-Negotiable #5.

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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, TikTok and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join our Discord at unftr.com/discord.

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.

Unf*cking the Republic is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com). The show is hosted by Max and distributed by 99.

Support the show: https://www.unftr.com/memberships

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.