Unf*cking The Republic

The hit series The Bear has finally concluded. The final episode is so uplifting that most reviewers appear to believe the arc of the show’s main character follows suit with a redemptive arc. But the connection to Ayn Rand’s famous book The Fountainhead might reveal the opposite meaning. The show’s main character Carmen Berzatto, portrayed beautifully by Jeremy Allen White, shows us a prototypical Randian archetype who understands everything and learns nothing. The deeper subtext of the show is the tension between the upper and working class, the pursuit of both greatness and a paycheck, and whether individual accomplishments supersede collective success. It’s a uniquely modern American theme being played out in real time between two of the most famous men in America. Elon Musk is the avatar of Rand’s objectivist theory, while Zohran Mamdani leverages his fame and status for the collective.

Resources

The Bear

Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead

The Bear, “Napkins”

The Bear, “Replicants”

Ayn Rand Institute: The Mike Wallace Interview with Ayn Rand

Wednesday Journal: The Bear visits Oak Park’s Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio

New Ideal: Howard Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright

UNFTR Resources

Video: Class War in The Bear: Individual Genius vs Collective Good

Episode: Ayn Rand Was a Dick.

Essay: The Bear and the American Male Archetype.

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This week we mapped out how Wall Street has talked itself into a story it can’t stress-test—Accenture getting punished whether AI succeeds or fails, Saylor quietly selling the Bitcoin he swore he’d never sell, and the hyperscalers borrowing billions to fund a buildout that may be obsolete before it’s finished. Then we looked at the inflation numbers, which are stuck well above target, and the quiet methodology change coming this fall that’ll let everyone claim victory without prices actually moving an inch.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:37

Quick Takes: 00:01:25

Max Notes: 00:07:06

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:18:55

Chart of the Week: 00:21:06

Headlines: 00:26:00

Outro: 00:27:08

Resources

PBS NewsHour: Stephen Miller says ‘America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers’ after SCOTUS ruling

TMZ Clips: Dr. Oz Says Great American State Fair Crowd Is Huge, But Camera Pan Shows Otherwise

CBS New York: Trump says NYC rent freeze will turn buildings “into ghettos and slums”

ScotusBlog.com

Motley Fool: Accenture Shares Plunged 50% This Year. Here’s What Investors Need to Know.

Yahoo! Finance: Strategy Says It May Sell Up to $1.25 Billion of Bitcoin

Yahoo! Finance: Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft are getting hooked on debt to fuel AI boom

Reuters:  Cheaper AI is better: Soaring bills are reshaping how businesses choose models

TechTarget: Will data centers become obsolete?

Breaking Points: “I’M DONE!” Carville, Dem Elites CRASH OUT, Demand Dem Divorce

Macro Micro: US - Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index [PCE]

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis: Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index

Farm Service Agency: Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP)

U.S. News: Methodology Changes Could Lower US May Core PCE Inflation, Economists Say

Daily Kos: Thanks, GOP: Student borrowers face massive bills this week  

The Intercept: Abdul El-Sayed Becomes First Senate Candidate Backed by Pro-Palestine Jewish Group

ProPublica: Native American Tribes Came Together to Secure Their Rights to Colorado River Water. Four States Are Stalling the Deal.

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 6-30-26 (Wall Street Insanity | White House Depravity | Zohran Crushing)

Essay: Wall Street Is Cooked.

Video: SpaceX IPO: What They’re Not Telling Retail Investors

UNFTR Trivia

UNFTR Newsletter

5 Non-Negotiables of the Left

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Is private credit the pin that pops the market bubble? The short answer is no—but that’s the wrong question entirely. Private credit is now a $1.8–$3.5 trillion market, rivaling the entire U.S. leveraged loan and high-yield bond markets combined. It’s direct lending, shadow banking, and middle-market finance all rolled into one, and firms like Ares, Apollo, Blackstone, Blue Owl, and Morgan Stanley are at the center of it. Business development companies (BDCs), are gating redemptions. Pension funds, insurance companies, and retail investors are all exposed. And the Financial Stability Board issued a formal warning in May 2026.

So what is private credit, how did it get this big, and what does it actually mean for the broader economy if it seizes up? In this episode, Max breaks down the entire private credit ecosystem—from its origins in post-2008 regulation to the mechanics of SOFR-linked floating rate loans, PIK interest, covenant-lite structures, and the $410–$540 billion in bank lending that ties the whole system together. We look at the BDC redemption crisis of 2025 and 2026, the First Brands and TriColor fraud cases and Jamie Dimon’s cockroach comment that won’t go away.

Resources

J.P. Morgan: Understanding Private Credit

Bloomberg Television: Why Private Credit Is Not a Financial Crisis Threat

Blackstone: What’s Really Happening in Private Credit? Expert Answers

CNBC Television: Inside Alts: Private credit fears resurface

CNBC Television: This is the start of a big crisis for private credit, says Verdad’s Rasmussen

The Federal Reserve: Bank Lending to Private Credit: Size, Characteristics, and Financial Stability Implications

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston: Could the Growth of Private Credit Pose a Risk to Financial System Stability?

IMF eLibrary: Chapter 2 The Rise and Risks of Private Credit in: Global Financial Stability Report, April 2024

Financial Stability Board: FSB warns on private credit vulnerabilities

NAIC: How State Insurance Regulators are Responding to Growth in CLOs and Private Credit

Bloomberg: Ares Private Credit Fund Caps Redemptions After 14% Seek to Exit

Bloomberg: Apollo Caps Private Credit Fund After 17% Request to Exit

Bloomberg: Private Credit Is Still a Hot Asset for Bond Investors Buying Debt

Bloomberg: Morgan Stanley Caps Private Credit Fund After 11.6% Exit Request

Bloomberg: Cliffwater Private Credit Fund Stung by 17% Redemption Requests

Bloomberg: Blackstone Limits Withdrawals From $79 Billion Private Credit Fund BCRED

Bloomberg: Private Credit BDC Redemptions Exceed Fundraising for First Time

The Lead Left: Middle Market & Private Credit – 1/5/2026 - The Lead Left

Financial Times: US debt investors raise alarm over lending standards

UNFTR Resources

Video: Will Private Credit’s Death Spiral Pop the Market Bubble?

Essay: Is Private Credit the Pin That Pops the Bubble?

UNFTR Newsletter

UNFTR Progressive Trivia

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Max and 99 are back, back, back again. They hit headlines on the Supreme Court shielding Roundup from cancer lawsuits, Stephen Miller quietly gutting disability rights, a socialist congressman who tried to abolish the Senate in 1911, and the Netherlands criminalizing conversion therapy. Then they dive into listener emails on stablecoins and the Genius Act, the “upside” of losing the Iran war, and how Max’s economic outlook squares with the Scott Galloways of the world. Enjoy, Unf*ckers.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:45

Headlines: 00:14:56

Emails: 00:30:07

Beyond the Bullshit: 00:59:22

Membership: 01:02:27

Outro: 01:04:24

Resources

NPR: DOJ memo stokes fear among disability advocates of a return to institutionalization

Bloomberg Law: Stephen Miller Said to Drive DOJ Memo Eroding Disability Rights

New York Times: Supreme Court Rejects Lawsuit Alleging Roundup Weedkiller Caused Cancer

Jurist: Netherlands passes law banning conversion therapy

Max: The Socialist Who Tried to Abolish the Senate

Ed Zitron: Exclusive: OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion

UNFTR Resources

UNFTR Progressive Trivia

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This week we said goodbye to Alan Greenspan, the man who spent two decades quietly rigging the economy for the wealthy, and encouraged working people to take on debt he knew would blow up in their faces (he would eventually call this a “flaw” ). Then we looked at housing starts, which just posted their worst number since COVID, with multifamily construction down 40% in a single month—because between 6.4% mortgage rates, all-time high home prices, and tariffs jacking up the cost of every material that goes into a build, the math simply doesn’t work.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:38

Quick Takes: 00:01:20

Max Notes: 00:06:27

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:13:47

Chart of the Week: 00:17:09

Headlines: 00:22:02

Outro: 00:23:17

Resources

The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder: How Did Hasan Make Emma Cry?

Ed Zitron: Exclusive: OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion

Yahoo! Finance: SpaceX stock tumbles 16.4%, shaving off most IPO gains since debut

Owen Jones: Keir Starmer: Dishonest, Unprincipled - And FINISHED

Walter Masterson: Trolling Nick Shirley in NYC

United States Census Bureau: Monthly New Residential Construction, May 2026

Freddie Mac: Mortgage Rates

NAHB: New Tariffs on Lumber, Wood Product Imports Add Headwinds to Housing Market

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Median Sales Price of Existing Homes

Justice for Colombia: Who is De la Espriella, the Colombian far right’s presidential candidate?

The New Yorker: The Repo Man is Coming for Your Ride

Mother Jones: Why GM Is Betting on a Future With Sodium-Ion Battery Storage

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 6-23-26 (Greenspan, SpaceX, and the Colombia Coup Nobody's Ready For.)

UNFTR Progressive Trivia

Essay: Alan Greenspan Has Died.

Episode: Housing in America.

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Trump lost more than the war with Iran. U.S. media tends to look at things through a bilateral or ethnocentric lens of winners and losers. The bigger story is how Trump singlehandedly altered the calculus for multiple nation states, and fundamentally shifted historic alliances. Israel stands to lose the most and is increasingly isolated now that Iran and its proxies are triumphant. But this also has enormous implications for the Gulf States who have to renegotiate their relationship with Tehran. Whether there are any actual payouts in this agreement is icing on Iran’s liquidity cake as entry to market oil prices and flows alone will amount to a huge windfall. In three short months Trump weakened the position of U.S. allies and strengthened Iran and its allies.

Resources

CNBC: Pres. Trump: MOU is not final, if I don’t like agreement we will go back to dropping bombs

AL-MONITOR: Analysis-Gulf recalibrates as Iran emerges intact from war

Al Jazeera: Will a US-Iran deal unlock $300bn in investment fund for Tehran?

Middle East Eye: US-Iran deal leaves Israel isolated and Netanyahu exposed

Brookings: The end of the American way of war?

Media Bias Fact Check: Shafaq News – Bias and Credibility

Shafaq News: Two powers, one grid: The geopolitical siege of Iraq’s economy

Frontline: Qassem Soleimani’s Complex Legacy in Iraq

Alcon Intel: Iran Proxy Network Post-War: Reconstitution & Threat

U.S. EIA: Country Analysis Brief: Iran

Tehran Dispatch: Iran Quietly Expands Oil Sales to Asia, Bypassing Western Sanctions

UNFTR Resources

Video: Trump Weakened U.S. Allies While Strengthening Iran.

Essay: We Lost More Than This War.

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Your host pals Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus! They hit headlines on AI as a political problem dressed up as a spiritual one, Carville’s prediction that Trump walks away by Easter, the new Spielberg film, and a leaked member list from Peter Thiel’s secret society, then tackle listener emails on whether there’s any coming back from this level of democratic destruction and what’s coming for the dollar and gold + more. Enjoy! 

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:18

Headlines: 00:14:10

Emails: 00:51:57

Memberships: 01:22:55

Outro: 01:26:54

Resources

The Hill: Carville doubles down on Trump departure prediction: ‘Your life is miserable’

CNBC: ‘A signal of where power sits’: Trump and world leaders joined by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google at G7

Bloomberg: SpaceX Pounces on $60 Billion Cursor Takeover Days After IPO

Jacobin: The Soul of AI and the Future of Humankind

Wired: Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society

Bluesky: Post by @crimew.gay

Adam Grant Poem

Slate: Steven Spielberg’s New Movie Is a Monument to the Power of Watching Something Together

CBS News: Mamdani delivers passionate Knicks victory speech to ‘a city overcome by happiness’

USA Today Sports: Knicks owner James Dolan says ‘I don’t need your vote’ at NYC parade celebrating NBA Finals title

Book Love

Jeff Sharlet: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

UNFTR Resources

Series: Palestine: A Political History of Palestine from the 1880s through Today.

Video: Trump Weakened U.S. Allies While Strengthening Iran.

Video: Elon Musk Is Now the Leader of the “Free” World.

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This week we took a detour into the joy of the Knicks championship and what it says about New York, collective identity, and why Zohran Mamdani’s politics make sense in a city where the billionaire and the bodega worker share the same sewer pipe. Then we got back to the markets, where a flood of new share issuances is quietly changing the supply and demand math that’s driven equities upward for 40 years. With bond yields actually competing for attention, the irrational exuberance warnings are starting to sound less crazy.

Chapters

Intro: 00:00:37

Quick Takes: 00:01:18

Max Notes: 00:04:57

Killer Left Take of the Week: 00:13:17

Chart of the Week: 00:15:34

Headlines: 00:19:51

Outro: 00:21:03

Resources

270 to Win: 2026 Senate Election Interactive Map

Sharing Sociology: From Redlining to the Court: How Systemic Racism Shaped Basketball Culture in NYC

Nate Rattner: Courts of New York (A visual atlas of the city’s public basketball spaces)

Courts of the World: Basketball Courts in New York City, NY

NYC Parks: About the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

Forbes: The Cities With The Most Billionaires 2025

The Bitchuation Room (with Francesca Fiorentini): Ivanka and Jared Chased Out Of Albania

SIFMA: US Equity and Related Statistics

CounterPunch: What’s Wrong With the American Left: Captured by the Professional Class

Dissent Magazine: AI is Theft

Grist: For first time, Americans are getting more of their electricity from solar than coal

UNFTR Resources

Video: On The Record 6-16-26 (Zohran & Knicks outshine Trump & UFC).

Essay: Be Like NYC.

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Max and 99 are here for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on Jared Kushner’s foreign entanglements, the screwworm outbreak threatening the beef supply, a tribute to revolutionary historian Gordon Wood, and a 77-year-old who lost his life savings to a gold coin scam. Then they tackle listener emails on stopping Musk’s grift and Bernie’s proposed AI wealth fund. They rank their Top 5 people who owe them a personal apology. Enjoy!

Chapters

Intro 00:00:20

Headlines: 00:29:13

Emails: 01:11:55

Top 5: 01:32:14

Memberships: 01:42:45

Outro: 01:43:09

Resources

The Hill: Trump officials play Biden blame game as screwworm spreads

Politico: A flesh-eating pest threatens Trump’s beef price hopes

Mother Jones: They Went to Jared

Business Insider: A 77-year-old lost $390,000 of his retirement savings after picking up a scam call. Now he wants to help others.

WSWS: A Tribute to Gordon S. Wood, Historian of the American Revolution

New York Times: Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes’

Business Insider: Bari Weiss was supposed to ‘restore trust’ in CBS News. It’s eroding, says CNN’s Brian Stelter.

New York Times: Bernie Sanders: A.I. Is a Public Resource. You Should Own Half of It.

Book Love

Stephen Kinzer: The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War

UNFTR Resources

Episode: F*ck Milton Friedman.

Video: SpaceX IPO: What They’re Not Telling Retail Investors.

Episode: Dear Rebekkkah Mercer.

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Donald Trump has already destroyed much of the global economy, but the worst has yet to hit the United States. This “resilience paradox” is the result of early stage demand destruction, something economists fear and policy makers have no defense against. There are multiple factors holding the U.S. economy together in a way that other countries cannot manage. And most of the damage is baked in and irreversible. Thus far, one of the more powerful dynamics has been the market’s hesitation to bet long or short on price movement, because of the fluid and unpredictable nature of Trump’s on-again/off-again announcements regarding the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. We dissect it all and lay out the scenarios ahead and what it means for the American consumer.

Resources

The Hill: Trump's sharp Iran reversal: Teases deal & cancels strikes after Kharg Island threats

RSMUS: American demand destruction: Seven channels that compound to threaten U.S. growth

CarEdge: The Auto Loan Crisis Just Hit a 32-Year Record: What It Means for Car Prices

McKinsey: An update on US consumer sentiment: Gloomier outlook ahead of sunnier days

Bloomberg: Why Oil’s Not at $200 After the Biggest Supply Shock in History

Autoweek: U.S. Auto Sales On Track for 2.6 Percent Drop in 2026 as War and Tariffs Cloud Outlook

BLS: CPI Data

MacroMicro: US - Housing Price Index vs. Rent Inflation

BLS: Real Earnings Summary - 2026 M05 Results

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