Some More News - Some More News: Why Middle Class Doesn't Feel Middle Class Anymore

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Hi. On today's episode of Some More News, we look at how everyone except the richest Americans are largely being priced out of things that used to be common middle class activities – Disneyland, movie tickets, sporting events – and how even when you can afford something, it probably kind of sucks now.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by Jonathan HarrisProduced by Jonathan HarrisEdited by Gregg MellerPost-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#somemorenews #middleclass #disneyland If you’re 21 or older, grab 35% all month long with code SMN at http://www.indacloud.coFor a limited time get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to https://hungryroot.com/smn and use code: SMNSign up for your $1/month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/morenewsPluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.Chapters:0:00 - Introduction2:13 - Dude, Where’s My Middle Class?7:38 - Why You’ll Never Take Your Family To Disneyland Again14:02 - Stop Locking Everything Up, Walgreens21:41 - AI Is Going To Make All of This Worse29:02 - Remember the Running Man remake?31:25 - Trump And The Billionaires Don’t Care41:33 - Rich People Are Miserable Too49:33 - Things Aren’t Totally F*cked… Yet.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Scared me. You know you make a lot of noise when you show up? You should work on that. Also like and subscribe and check out the Patreon YouTube membership the notification bell all that stuff. So I was just trying to order some lunch since Crafty didn't show up today Crafty's ort for craft services or being short for short. I like to save time your time Anyway, food is my point. It just means food. But now you're here noisily and with your time unwasted and here's some news have you seen how much lunch costs these days twelve dollars for a fast food what now do you see how they had to squeeze two numbers into a one number slot the creators of that menu didn't think they'd ever need to put two numbers there it was never designed for such bloated capitalism

like seeing a best buy in Venice but whatever stuff is more expensive now we all know that but it's also Kind of worse? Like, we don't have a ton of data about the subjective quality of stuff across industries, but you can just feel that regular old stuff is worse. It can't all be attributed to nostalgia, right? The clothes you buy are worse now. Customer service is worse now.

Freaking Panera bread is worse now. We even have a popular term for the act of companies gradually shrinking the size of their products, like if Amelie was a CEO. Limited data here, but the vibe is definitely that everything designed for like the average American family is worse and less than it used to be Meanwhile, everything remotely fun like a vacation or even just seeing a movie is cartoonishly expensive And it kind of feels like that new running man movie where there's like this visible line between the super rich and a permanent underclass and nothing between that some kind of class in the middle that used to be there.

Is there a name for that? Dude, where's my middle class? Oh yeah, finger on the pulse with that reference. Also, yes, sorry, we are talking about the extinction of the middle class lifestyle today. Some of you watching might not be a part of that group and might find that a little R slash first world problem z. world's middleist violin, etc. Because more than a quarter of Americans live below the middle class,

and would love the privilege of paying $14 for a burrito bowl. But this does impact everyone, even gross rich people, which will get to. Also, notice that I'm saying the middle class lifestyle is gone. The middle class is still technically there, albeit smaller than it used to be. As of 2023, 51% of Americans were considered middle class, down from 61% in 1971. Middle class is defined by class nerds as households making between two-thirds and double the median household income, which in the U.S. right now is between about $56,000 and $167,000, though that does vary based on what state you live in and how many avocado toasts are locally available. Regardless, it's a pretty wide range that still describes barely most people.

And on paper, those people are doing fine. Even if you adjust for inflation, the median income at the beginning of 2025 was higher than it was at any other point this century. So why doesn't it feel like that? Why does it feel like the middle class is doing worse if on paper they're doing well? And the answer is all. Call that door dash, we got you! Time to scold, stop enjoying anything.

Victim, blamed. I kid, the actual answer is that middle class, I'd argue, isn't so much a salary, but the promise of a certain lifestyle. What that lifestyle entails is of course subjective, but I'm going to generalize a little bit and argue that Americans think of middle class as having enough money for essentials, including decent housing, plus the ability to go out

to eat occasionally, take a modest vacation once a year, maybe take in a concert or ball game once in a while, support at least one elaborate sexual kink, and that's about it, The Simpsons basically. Sure, money's too tight for steak, but once a year you can still go to itchy and scratchy land and get $1,100 worth of itchy and scratchy money. Also, their kink was sex in public.

People forget that. Margin Homer have a humiliation kink, Which kind of explains most of the episodes, but all of the things in that list, both essentials and luxuries, are getting more expensive in a way that pushes that lifestyle out of reach for people in the middle class range, especially on the lower end of it. I'm a real steak and potatoes guy, or these days a potatoes and more potatoes guy. So even though affordability is a Democrat hoax, let's start with the price of essentials. Cheese, bread, a cookie, milk, and a banana. A year ago, those items, would cost 1334 at the grocery store. Now 1646, up more than $3.

Doesn't sound like much until you, you know, multiply. According to that video, roughly a third of parents in that state, North Carolina, were saying their kids were not eating enough, specifically due to high prices. In fact, food prices are up 34.6% since 2019, outpacing the already stupidly high 29% of overall inflation. It's even worse for housing, where prices increased 60% between 2019 and 2025. I don't think I even need to share more inflation numbers here, right? I mean, I'm as pervy for numbers as anyone else,

especially that voluptuous eight. But I think you get the point. The stuff we need the most, like homes and home fries, and renting the movie Home Fries are way more expensive, even accounting for overall inflation. And the result, according to data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, is that Americans at every income level are spending a greater share of their income on essentials, defined as housing, food, health care, and transportation.

And like some cruel joke, almost every subcategory of those four things has seen their costs go up higher than the average rate of inflation. Even GoFundMe says that the number of fundraisers launched to cover essentials was up 20% in 2025, which kind of buries the lead that they had quadrupled the year before that. Remember when crowdfunding was just about your indie movie, about four guys finding themselves on a road trip, and you needed $20,000 to buy feathers for the scene where the guys drive through a chicken coop? Those fundraisers still exist, and that movie will rule if I ever hit my goal, but crowdfunding sites are now mostly just people begging for stuff

they need to live. On a platform owned by a corporation asking for a cut? Seems comically dystopian. Like that new running man. Out. Last November. In theaters. Then.

Now let's talk briefly about luxuries. And by luxuries, I don't just mean Faberge eggs, although I would like one to swallow. Yes, I know it's not a real egg. But what I'm mainly talking about are things and stuff and junk that most American middle-class families expect to do once in a while. Fun little activities to blow off some steam, less you get reenacted on forensic files. Going out to eat, more expensive, with prices going up at about double the rate of regular grocery inflation in 2025. Travel, way more expensive, with U.S.

hotel rates up 58% since 2020, and flights now being brutal endurance tests where you have to sheepishly ask the flight attendant for the entire can of soda, like Oliver Twist, begging for more sweet syrupy gruel. Even visiting the central symbol of American middle class prosperity, your Disney's land and world, are essentially out of reach for all but the richest quintile of Americans. Like, no joke, the majority of people who go to Disney World

are childless adults now, because those are the only people who can afford 100 to 170 bucks a ticket. Adults. Zipping around on Mr. Toad's wild ride, doing mushrooms, getting some picks for Instagram? Does that sound like Walt Disney's vision? I mean, who cares what that dead racist thinks? But we actually know the answer. A former executive at the company told a Disney biographer, quote, Walt wanted to keep Disneyland affordable. I remember how alarmed he was

when the parking fee went from 25 cents to 50 cents. That was huge to him. He once said, there will always be 10-cent coffee in Disneyland. Well, there's not. Someone break the news to his head. I mean, in fairness, there's not 10-cent coffee anywhere unless you're ordering by the dash. But the point is that Disneyland was supposed to be a place where regular Americans could take their families once in a while.

Of course it was. That's the entire point of an amusement part. It's for the middle class to feel some fucking joy. You think Bill Gates needs to feel the rush of the Matterhorn, he can build his own. Anyway, cut to today, and here's how Disney executives talk about it now. And Walt Disney World had its biggest Q3 ever. So certainly feel good from the perspective of those businesses. Traffic was solid up a little bit, and then per caps were up very, very solidly. So, you know, I know there's lots of concern about the consumer in the United

States right now. We don't see it. Our consumer is doing very, very well. Cool! Great to hear that the chief financial officer of Disney is feeling good about the economy. Because as he puts it, our consumer is doing very very well. And who exactly is that consumer guy? Oh, I don't see why people are so worried about these hunger games. Our freely multicolored wig shop is doing great. Like come on. Come on guy, you fucking guy. Yep. You get it. It's easy for Disney parks to say they're doing great when they've shifted their entire focus to the people who can afford to pay ever more exorbitant costs for tickets, parking, lightning lanes, Magic Band Plus experiences, and fake space cruises, which I've heard really good things about. This is a microcosm of what the letter nerds who are jealous of the numbered dorks call a K-shaped economy, where wealthy people are still buying tons of stuff and keeping financial markets afloat, while ordinary people feel left behind. The

richest 10% of Americans are now responsible for half of all consumer spending. And so it makes sense that theme parks, airlines, NBA teams, and others are jacking up prices. Because they can. There's a large group of people out there willing to pay them. It's not like this human bottle of Elmer's glue is doing it just to be mean. And, well, he's also mean. And it's hard to see how they'll ever stop doing this. Because, and this is key, there are more rich people now than there used to be. The share of Americans who make more than double the median income has increased significantly in the last 50 years. And well, I guess I'm happy for those people. Way to go, Richies. What it results in is a middle class that no longer feels that it can meaningfully participate in much of society

because there are now enough rich people to represent a viable consumer demographic, enough so that every company is more than happy to abandon everyone else. Why charge 30 bucks for a concert ticket when you can charge hundreds instead? They'll pay it either way. Sorry non-wealthy Americans, they don't need you anymore. Their consumers are doing great. Their consumers. Maybe come back when you accumulate enough generational wealth.

you in four lifetimes. This is part of the answer to that question you'll see, sometimes even on this show that goes something like, why do people think the economy is bad when it's actually good? The issue is that the metrics used to determine the goodness of an economy is largely based on money coming in and money going out.

And that part looks the same from the economy's point of view. But of course, whose money is it? Is it all one guy? Seems important to know. It's like saying you have a steady diet, but all you're eating are rocks. Like yeah, I guess that's steady Rock steady. And this dynamic has now become impossible to ignore Overall consumer sentiment is at its lowest point ever recorded. Lower than the 70s oil crisis or those shenanigans in 2008 in a way that has suddenly become unmoored from traditional economic indicators like inflation and the unemployment rate. Because

Because yes, prices are high, but they're also high specifically in a way that keeps people from doing the things they think middle class people should be able to do because those things are now all geared toward rich people. And don't forget, even if you can still afford to buy stuff, it's worse than it used to be. Shit just sucks now. Clearly there's been an issue with people shoplifting because everything in this walker store is under lock and key. I actually would need to have an attendant follow me around so I can shop. It is a little subjective, but I don't think we as a society have meaningfully

dealt with what a brutal experience it is now to go out and just buy stuff. If you live in a city, everything at the drugstore is locked up, requiring you to track down a dwindling number of miserable employees, and when they show up, you don't want to waste their time, so you panic by the wrong kind of deodorant from the 10,000 varieties they have for some reason. And nobody seems to be happy about this or really know why they are doing it, including the companies, I guess. But it does impact how sales work through the store. Because when you lock things up, for example, you don't sell as many of them.

We've kind of proven that pretty conclusively. He's a fast talker, that Walgreens executive. So I'm going to repeat what he said there. When you lock things up, you don't sell as many of them. Yeah, man. So maybe don't do it. And yet, they have no plans to stop. Maybe they own the Plexiglass company or something.

Whatever the reason, they would rather hurt their own business and make all of their remaining customers furious than let a few people get away with shoplifting. Probably because some spreadsheet told them it would save half a cent a year or something. And at the risk of making myself sound even more like whoever the hell this is, that's the experience everywhere now. Panda Express takes twice as long because they have fewer employees than they used to, and the people they do have are stuck filling endless delivery orders instead of helping the people standing right in front of them. Grocery stores push you into self-checkout lines, which break if you don't put the item in the bagging area within half a second of scanning it, meaning you have to wait for an actual person who is also overworked and overwhelmed to come use their little card thing to fix it.

You can't buy anything anywhere without being prompted to be, to download an app and join some stupid rewards program. The other day, I had to pay for parking by scanning a QR code and opening an account. No. Stop it. No. I'd rather eat my hand than have a confirmation code

texted to me so I can enjoy the privilege of making my car momentarily stationary. I think you see what I'm getting at here. Every single company is looking to squeeze every fucking penny they can from you, cutting every little corner they can so that they can achieve endless, unquestioned growth. And the accumulation of all this bullshit is keeping us from even wanting to go out and spend money, which is the thing this country is all about. If they want us to be happy capitalist consumers, they could at least make it a pleasant experience. So it's no wonder

we'd all rather just buy the garbage online. See fewer people. and do fewer things. Consumer sentiment is about prices, yes, but it's also about the feeling of dread that comes with just going into a store now. And I wish I could blame a single thing for all of this. Amazon or Reagan. Trump, that white devil who works at Disney.

But this is a society-wide shift that's bigger than any one person or company. So after the break, we're going to take a closer look at that shift and maybe figure out what it says about society. Who knows? Maybe I'll read more oblivious quotes from pasty executives. Unlike the executives of the brands behind the following products who are smart and good

and sexy. You want to fuck them. Science question here, but what's the opposite of a dopamine spike? Like, let's say you just got your 15th spam call of the day and now you have a palpable feeling of dread every time your phone lights up because it'll either be a spam call or even worse, A news notification. I just want it to stop. The spam, the news, texts from my loved ones, all of it.

Fortunately, my secret weapon to slow the chaos is into cloud. A fully legal online cannabis dispensary for gummies, exotic flour, premium pre-rolls, zero sugar THC sodas, energy gummies, and extra strength sleep gummies. Everything is federally legal hemp THC, lab tested and shipped discreetly to your door. Now I'm calm and collected when this spam likely character or whoever father is starts hitting me up in the middle of the afternoon as if I'm a dentist's office. IndeCloud also has different stuff for different times. Energy gummies when I want to energetically ignore a news notification. THC sodas for when I want to engage with a friend but not let them get me too riled up.

and new midnight raspberry extra strength sleep gummies when I want to sleep through the next 80 texts from political candidates asking me for money. If you're 21 or older, go to indecloud.co. That's dot c0, not dot com, and use code SMN for 30% off your first subscription order. That's indeclod.com, code

SMN for 30% off delivered routinely and discreetly to your door. Plus free gifts and free shipping on qualifying orders. And don't forget to fill out the quick survey when you order to support the show.

Ah! It's summer. Okay. Time to touch some grass. Unless you're allergic, of course. In which case, you can still go outside and touch. I don't know, the sidewalk?

Unless it's too hot. Look, you can figure out your own safe outdoor activities, but let me clue you into what really shakes up the summer routine for me. And that's Hungry Root. You guys know by now that I've been using Hungry Root for a long time. And I genuinely love it. And one of the reasons is that it is perfectly adaptable to my changing needs, depending on what the season brings.

For example, right now, I'm doing a lot of outdoor picnics, lots of quick lunches, and hungry root has been building my orders around that. It is personalized to my tastes and needs and keeps getting better over time, which makes it the only algorithm in existence that is actively nourishing my soul instead of eating it. Plus, gluten-free key lime pie cups for dessert. Yum! Unless you have like some sort of antipathy to line. But they have lots of stuff. Not just lime stuff. That's my point. Look, you are going to love Hungry Route as much as I do.

For a limited time, get 40% off your first order. Plus, get a free item in every box for life of the subscription. Go to Hungryroot.com slash S-M-N and use code S-M-N. That's HungryRoot.com slash S-M-N, code S-M-N, to get 40% off your first box. and a free item of your choice for the life of the subscription. That's a pretty great deal. Yum.

Stop doing that! I know I have a quick startle reflex, but you are really pushing it with those noisy entrances! Anyway, we're back. We were talking about the K-shaped economy and how the corporate shift to focusing on the wealthy has stripped away the lifestyle people expect from being middle class. And the companies that are left,

have been doing everything they can to squeeze every scent from you, which naturally brings down the quality of the product. As I said before, executives at almost any company you can think of are incentivized to make the same thing happen. More growth, more money, by any means necessary. Need to make more profit on crackers? Put fewer crackers in the box. Margins thinning on your furniture business?

Start making it out of cheap junk. Need to maximize your babysitting service? Tape the babies together into a ball. More babies per eye, you see. We've talked about this before, and the wild thing is that executives don't really know what to say when they're called out on it. For example, take Starbucks, please!

They've seen declining sales and less customer satisfaction, and analysts mostly credit this to a worse in-store experience. Makes sense. An emphasis on mobile orders and the drive-through means Starbucks isn't really a place anymore to go hang out, work on a screenplay, pretend to work on a screenplay, or talk about your screenplay. Plus, like everything else, the cost has gone way up. But that's not how CEO Brian Nichols sees it.

We've heard so much this year about the K-shaped economy. Fortunes for some Americans very different than for others. Is that not really something that's coming up in your sales? You know, we're not seeing that in our business. What we're seeing is people, you know, they want to have a special experience. And regardless of what your income level is, in some cases, you know, a $9 experience does feel like you're splurging. And then what that means is we have to make it worthwhile, right? And in other cases, people believe, well, this is a really affordable premium experience because they're saying like, well, it's less than $10 and I get a really premium experience.

Ah, yes, the CEO of Starbucks doesn't see a problem with the economy. He should do a money management podcast with that Disney guy. Pod Cash. Or that's rich. These fucking honky suits today. Fucking guys. Am I right? Also, what the hell is he saying?

He's just describing how perception works. You see, our coffee is expensive if you're poor, but cheap if you're rich. I guess he thinks it's a premium experience by selling McMuffins and average coffee for $9. Because when you put a rubbery bagel in a tiny paper, paper bag, it's premium now. Don't forget to pay extra for that premium dollop of cream cheese, because our bagels are so premium, they don't come with cream fucking cheese. You fucking guy!

Who, by the way, can pay himself 6,66x6 times what his median worker makes, the most among all S&P 500 companies. Of course, the majority of that salary comes in the form of stock award. So he's personally incentivized to make that number go up above all else. You get it. This isn't new. These guys aren't new. They're visibly quite old, but it's an example of how we're in the, I don't know, the late stage of this kind of behavior where excess value is no longer easy to come by. So it's being stripped out of the walls like in the conversation.

And I mean stripped almost literally because hedge funds and and other private equity firms do what's called asset stripping, where a struggling company is purchased, not to improve it, but to sell off its valuable assets to generate profits. This is essentially what happened to Sears, Red Lobster, the Chicago Tribune, and Toys R Us. It may be happening right now to Jersey Mikes. If your sandwich is looking smaller than usual,

it's probably not your imagination. $20 sandwich! It's bread and meat and cheese. Doesn't it make you feel like you're losing your fucking mind, that everyone knows what is happening and why, and yet it doesn't even really matter? RIP, Freddie Mercury and or Chester Bennington. Sure, we can do that reference.

This problem compounds because it doesn't stop once the wiring is ripped out of the walls. There need to be more ways to squeeze profits out of people. Downsizing staff is a tried and true method of making this happen, hence the popularity of the film downsizing. Right? And of course, AI is a great excuse for initiating the next futuristic phase in global customer service and shittification.

According to one report, 35% of managers think AI can and should replace many of their employees. And even if AI isn't yet replacing people at scale, it's still why many companies say they're firing people. Overall, and we can nominate this as one of the least surprising things you've ever heard, AI replacing people, at least so far and in customer service, doesn't really work and worsens everyone's experience. One survey found that four in five people preferred an interaction with a human, and more than half said they actively dislike or hate AI's use in customer service. An analyst from Qualtricks says of this dynamic, quote, Too many companies are deploying AI to cut costs, not solve problems,

and customers can tell the difference. It brings us right back to that Walgreens problem, right? They're actively doing something that consumers hate to solve a problem that barely exists because they think it might help improve their margins just a little bit more. Because they have to do something, right? They've already switched to cheaper materials, fired everyone they could, taped the babies together, cracked down on theft, put fewer chips in the bag, and sent everyone 30 spam emails a day. And so you're going to be seeing increasingly desperate ways for them to squeeze more profits out of you

every single financial quarter. Netflix is going to keep raising its prices and canceling any shows you like until people finally start unsubscribing. If they don't, then there's no reason for them to say, stop and it's just good business. Because this is all a natural product of the system put in place. The entire appeal of free market capitalism was that a bunch of companies would have to compete for our attention, which would equate to their growth. Except since there's only like four companies competing now, they've realized that they don't need to win over the consumer at all and instead are vying to see who can cut the most corners to have the thickest,

profit margin without falling apart completely. Then the winner gets to envelop the loser. Sorry, Spirit Airlines. You flew too close to the sun. Not literally. That would have been too cool. Airlines are, of course, the clearest example of this. Everyone has to fly sometime, so they have zero incentive to make that experience more pleasant. It's just who can be the cheapest without literally crashing and burning.

And so naturally, they are all nickel and diming you for every piece of luggage and the ability to even pick your fucking seat, because what are you gonna do? Huh? Walk? Look at these goddamn prices. It should be illegal to charge this much to go to Wichita and not be treated like Don Draper. You should be paid to go to Wichita.

It's kinda like that new Running Man movie, have you seen that? Where the new dystopian economy is only just good enough for enough people to not complain, and everyone just sort of gets used to how shitty it all. is. They don't even realize it could be better. And all the corporations are convincing the poor former members of the middle class that their true enemies are each other. So that when Glenn Powell and others are introduced on the show, they're framed as these ingrates who don't actually want to work for a living, which is kind of how the CEOs of our world treat everyone who isn't them. It's just like that. Everything is just like the new running man, a movie I watched, or the writer

of this episode watched or whatever. My point is that none of these corporate moves help you or make your life better. I know it's communist to say that a company should consider the lives of actual humans in their decision making. But shouldn't they? And if not, shouldn't the government be expected to put policies in place to try and make people's lives better? Isn't that why we vote for people for president? I honestly forgot. It's very sad not being able to give my kids a home to live in and grow in, bouncing around from place to place. And who do you think is, do you think someone is to blame for that, for that situation?

Definitely the political higher-ups. Good to be with you. I'm Katie Turr. That was Mary Garcia. She is a Trump voter from Nevada, and she sat down or she stood and spoke to our David Noriega to explain that she gave Trump a chance because she believed him when he said he would make life more affordable. That is why she votes, she says, to put people in power to make her life better. Ah, yes, thank you for the reminder of why people vote for stuff. Anyway, Trump, cool, love that guy. This isn't even about him, but it goes without saying that Rip Van Stinkle has made all of this worse.

Because that's what he's good at. Like we said before, consumer sentiment just hit its lowest level ever. Lower than during the oil crisis just before the release of the 1980 TV movie, the Jane Mansfield story starring Lonnie Anderson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. People feel worse about buying stuff now than they ever have. The lifestyle that Americans are trying to achieve that they've been told is the dream was already being ripped out of their hands by an unfair corporate controlled system, and now it's been made even harder because of trade wars, actual wars, a mediocre Star Wars,

and the cutting of social services. And what's even worse is that, going back to that clip, I think most people are operating under the assumption that our politicians and president specifically want to make life better for Americans. Which just isn't true anymore. Maybe it was never true, but it used to be that even if a politician sucked

and had bad ideas, we could at least believe they were trying to keep our best interests in mind. But Trump and his administration are operating just like these corporations we're talking about, aren't they? They are trying to squeeze as much money from us as they can, creating all his little weird slush funds and his pieceboard and gaming the stock market and his crypto scam and investing in drone companies and the list keeps going. So we have these corporations on one side, cutting every corner they can to squeeze a profit,

and then we have the president on the other side. Also cutting every corner he can to squeeze a profit, spending ungodly amounts of taxpayer money on vanity projects and war. And then when we ask for just a little bit in return, he says this. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You've got to let a state take care of daycare. And they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes. but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up,

but it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. That bucking guy. No different from that Disney executive or Starbucks CEO. It's just the same guy, isn't it? Trump is far from the first president

to not really give a shit about the quality. of the lives Americans are leading. But he's the first to have open disdain for the people he supposedly serves, to just shrug it off, not even pretend to want to care. Clinton, Bush, Obama, they would all at least pretend to care. They might even have some ideas about how to save the middle class, but Trump is the first president to say, yeah, so? What of it? then are Americans fighting you to make a deal? Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran,

they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American's financial situation. He doesn't care. He doesn't care that you know he doesn't care. After all, his consumers are doing very, very well. So we have a president who doesn't care because he's rich, corporations who don't care, because they're rich,

And of course we have the media who want to care, but unfortunately, well, Why lay people up? Why fire people? Why don't you have subsidize the business if in fact? Because the post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet. It needs to be, yes. I mean, that's a question. So people say it should be a trust.

And let me tell you why. Okay. Because it's a measure of its relevance. If people won't pay for our product, we're not doing, it's not doing, it's not, it's not a good enough product. It's like, you know, doing, it would be like poetry without rhyming. It's too easy.

Right, also rich. You gotta fire people though, because otherwise it's not like poetry. Fucking what? These are people's lives, Jeffrey, too easy. You're not debating like shooting on film versus digital, but also poetry without rhyme is too easy. What?

Write Sunday morning for me and then we'll talk. You fucking, fucking, fuck you, Jeff. What a, shave your fucking face, man. So the media is coming exclusively under the control of guys who feel that the news should be some kind of minimum viable product. That its goal is not to inform people about what's happening in the world, about reality, but to parrot back to them things that they already believe so that it's profitable. Here's a dipshit explaining exactly that.

And really who we want to talk to is the 70% of Americans and really around the world that identify a center left at center right. Thank you. Dipshit. That stat David Ellison gives about 70% of Americans identifying a center left or center right? That's not true. At least not in any survey we could find. And we know all the hot surveys.

This one from you gov has it at 40, at 40% if you include people who identify themselves as center. And this one from Gallup shows 34% identify as moderate. He literally made up an audience that he wants to speak to, and the ratings speak for themselves. Bezos, more like Bozos, did the same thing. He turned the post op-ed page conservative and the numbers tanked. But making money, despite what Bozos says, isn't actually the point.

It's an attempt to craft a reality that directly benefits them and their viewpoint. Media consolidation, in general, results in more right-wing perspectives and less local news. So all this stuff we've been talking about, the inshittification of products and experiences, the inability of anyone who isn't rich to meaningfully participate in leisure activities. It's stuff you're increasingly likely to only hear being criticized on the news if a Democrat is the president. Otherwise, everything is going great, which perhaps is why people voted for Trump to begin with. Because if you only hear about your very real economic troubles when a Democrat is president, you might accidentally think a Republican strongman will save you.

So let's take our last break, please. And when we come back, we will talk about just that. The psychological and political repercussions that happen when two-thirds of the country doesn't think they'll be able to retire before they're 70, and they're probably right. Now check out this stuff to buy. Starting a business is a big deal. I should know. This thing I'm doing right now is, I've been told, a business.

And for the longest time, I thought this was just like Pilates class, but for my voice. And Shopify makes starting a new business simpler. All the tools you need to launch are already in. included and ready from day one. So there's no more excuse to not take that side hobby you do with a bunch of acquaintances and make it a real business. Shopify's online tools help you set up a website fast with no coding necessary. And Shopify checkout helps more customers actually buy since I assume you're going to want money for this business of yours. Plus, if questions come up, Shopify's sidekick assistant is ready to help you troubleshoot and keep moving.

So stop putting off what you know needs to be done. Monetize stuff. Monetize it all. All you need is the idea. Shopify handles the rest. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash more news. That's one more time. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash more news.

You should do it. Listen to me. Your friend Katie, who's never led you. astray. Shopify.com slash, you guessed it, more news. The cat days of summer are coming up. So get out your scratching boards, empty the litter pan, and space out to some movies on Pluto TV that may or may not be cat-related. There's no law that says the cat days have to be all about cats, but they could be. Do some free streaming of your all-time favorite summer blockbusters, like meme girls,

Men in Black. Meow, you see me. The nap that leads to you. In Heat in the Night. James Cameron's The Abyssinian. His Girl Friday. Jigsaw starring Tobin's Bell. School of Rock.

21 Jump Street. Both Anchorman movies. A bunch of the Transformers. Cat me if you cat. Cat. Cat Tane America. Cat Tane America. Winter Soldgepur.

Cat Tane America. Siv. Pur. A Game of Thrones spin-off about Tompins cats or pounce and Lady Whiskers. Russian blue is the warmest color. They poop in your house. Walk the feline and the eyes of Tabby Faye. Summer is just better on Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. Me. Ow. Oh, you're back. I didn't hear you at all. That's a really creepy thing to do. How long were you here watching me? Did you see me do? You did, didn't you? What the fuck?

Anyway, we're talking about the rapidly diminishing lifestyle expectations of being middle class in America and why our corporate rulers don't plan to change things anytime soon. And this has done a number of things to the American psyche. We all recognize it, but no politician or news anchor wants to admit it. Instead, they'll just wonder aloud why people feel the way they feel, despite the stock market doing so well. well and never mention that 93% of those stocks are owned by the richest 10% of Americans, and more than a third of Americans own none at all. This is what's driving everyone, for lack of a better word, totally glabberflump.

It's an existential crisis among the majority of the country and awakening to the fact that the American dream, the house, the picket fence, humiliation kink, all that stuff is growing increasingly out of reach. Heck, we put a tariff on the stuff we make picket fences out of. Considering all this, it's kind of no wonder that so many people are gambling on war, or flooding Amazon's success self-help category with AI sludge, or watching a UFC fight outside the White House, or saying they want to be transported back to a time when snow would cover playgrounds,

even though that's a thing that still very much happens. We talked about this in our nostalgia episode, that so much of adult life, especially for millennials and Gen X, is trying to achieve what they had as children. And it's not that Pizza Hut was necessarily better, although it probably was. And in fact, since we wrote this episode, Pizza Hut has been sold to a private equity firm because, of course, it was.

But it's that many adults are simply able to buy less stuff, or fewer things, if you prefer, than their parents could when they were kids. They used to go on vacations, and now they can't. They grew up in a house, and now they're 45 and living in an apartment. Both parties have been in power over the last 30 years and didn't fix this. So maybe they thought they had nothing to lose by voting for the guy who said he'd get gas prices under $2 a gallon. Spoilers, he didn't!

I think this is why Gen X specifically got this nostalgia Trump disease, especially bad. Right now, they're the only generation, where a majority still think Trump is doing a good job, and they were largely the last adult generation to get a taste of what that middle-class lifestyle was supposed to be before the Great Recession kind of ruined it for good. They were just arriving at the party

when the taps went dry. For example, you know what? The median birth year for someone buying a home in 2006 was? 1967, putting the home buyer at 3,000, You know what the median birth year is for someone buying a home today? Still 1967. Only now that home buyer is nearing 60. It's hard to imagine this, but buying a home used to be a common right of passage into adulthood.

And now it's a retirement pipe dream. And a lot of that Gen X group had to watch it slip away just out of reach. They got their little mitts in the pie, had the pie, had the pie ripped out of their hands by a cartoon wolf, and now they want what's coming to them. And they're more than happy to listen to the guy blaming immigrants and blue-haired liberals for all their woes. Like, I'm not saying that the only reason we got Trump is because of economic anxiety. It was people who were doing pretty well who put him over the top the first time. What I'm saying is that people don't tend to join a cult if they're content with their lives.

Doesn't mean only sad people join cults, but it makes it way easier for the cult leader if they're sad or angry. Not to mention that it's way harder to address the increasing problems with capitalism than to simply point to some brown people and claim they are the reason cold play tickets are too expensive now. And I will try to nix you. Coldplay ref, you're welcome. This whole dynamic has been a strong undercurrent in our society pretty much since the the last financial meltdown, or I should say, the 2008 financial meltdown, in case another one has happened since we filmed this. It's pervaded pretty much every aspect of our discourse, and nobody is immune.

It's why one of the biggest movies out right now is a horror film made by a 20-year-old about a financially struggling middle-aged man, literally getting lost in a maze of nostalgia. Everyone feels it. Even rich people. Oh, no, not them! You may not have noticed because why would you notice? But every few months, there are new articles from CNBC or the Wall Street Journal about rich people who don't feel rich because just like the middle class, rich people have a very clear expectation of what it means to really be rich.

Not just some podunk shit kicker millionaire. You got to be a billionaire now. After all, we've now got our first trillionaire or maybe not. Oh, you're sorry, you're sorry. so close, Elon, you can do it. We hate you so fucking much, man. Oh, and just like the middle class, rich people are also noticing that shit is just too expensive now. For example, a few years ago, then presidential candidate Joe Biden was pitching tax hikes for anyone making more than $400,000 a year. And CNBC ran this big, whiny article with a chart of expenses that supposedly supposedly showed how, well, actually, if you live in a big city and you include a mortgage, property taxes, maxing out a 401k plan, putting aside money for your kids' college education,

three vacations a year, life insurance, thousands of dollars worth of clothes, and getting food delivered all the time, there's not much left over for, I don't know, a fucking yacht. You can only afford two eyes wide shut orgies this year. It used to be three. What a world! Fuck these rich fucks, obviously. I'm just pointing out that there's a ripple effect here. Until one day the only person who can afford to go to Disney is just Elon and his 17 kids who hate him.

All named Excalibur or xenophobia or whatever. Everyone is unhappy is the point. Especially Elon Musk. So that's the good news, actually. If you're spiteful. Which I am. And so it doesn't really help to point out. to people that actually wages have gone up since the start of the pandemic.

Because those rising wages, even if they beat inflation in certain categories, have likely been eclipsed by the rise in housing and health care costs, these load-bearing costs that weigh people down even if they got their standard 3% raise last year. Even if some stuff is cheaper, it doesn't matter when needing an ambulance will bankrupt you. And it's hard to get out of this, right? Besides doing a mad max, once prices go up, they overall tend not to go back down. And so it's genuinely good that people at the lowest end of the economy received significant wage gains in the last few years. And most people, fortunately, don't stay living in poverty for more than a few years.

We're not in the hunger games, is my point. But we're just sort of getting by, hoping that another disaster doesn't hit us. And you can really feel our expectations just fade away more and more, to the point where the only economic praise someone can muster up for the president is this. What this really means for me is, you know, as they said, last year my husband, he was diagnosed with stage three cancer. And during that time, you know, I was able to take some time and taking to his appointments and, you know, be there with him. But, you know, as you know, going through treatment, even with insurance, you kind of break the bank. And, you know, we pretty much went through our savings. And so when I found out about the no tax on tips, I was like, this is incredible because this, you know, it's not going to replace my life savings, but it's going to help.

Man, thanks for those scraps, I guess. Holy moly, can we not dream a little bigger? Like, I know that woman is a GOP plant for a Trump photo op, but I don't think she was lying there. If she was, she probably should have come up with a cooler story about how Trump used the palm of his hand to cure her husband's cancer, which was caused by illegals or whatever. Anyway, it goes without saying that we should expect more from our politicians than this.

Because we, or rather, they can do something about this. Countries can and have shrunk wealth inequality gaps. The United States had incredible wealth concentration among the richest people for decades. And then it got better, until it got a lot worse again. And yes, you can look at that chart and be completely unsurprised at the specific decade where that positive trend reversed.

So we could... Vote people into office who might institute policies that would help. Woke shit, like subsidized healthcare and child care, enforcing of antitrust laws, raising taxes on the wealthy, allowing unions to more easily organize and going after union busters, student debt relief and tuition-free college, tenant protections, and investment in publicly owned housing.

But, you know, gotta get that ballroom built first. You understand. You gotta have the ballroom for balls. So we're on our own for a bit, I guess. Back to the existential crisis happening, the American psyche, the search for meaning. And while this won't help much, the good news is that money is fake.

You know this? Do you know money is fake? And by extension, it is not actually tied to happiness, not to get all Buddha or Jesus, Moses, Zeno, Lao Tzu, the prophet Muhammad, who else? Odin? Or Odin? Not to be all those critters about it,

but you know, money won't solve all your problems. A lot of them, for sure. Money does solve the happiness that comes from being able to survive or even thrive because you have a house and food. But it doesn't solve that big problem deep inside you, you know? That darkness we all struggle with, that the world's richest man is currently losing a very public battle with, just getting dunked on by his own inner darkness, and he knows. Elon once told Rolling Stone, quote, I would never be happy without having someone. going to sleep alone kills me. It's not like I don't know what that feels like. Being in a big

empty house and the footsteps echoing through the hallway, no one there, and no one on the pillow next to you. Fuck. How do you make yourself happy in a situation like that? I know I'm not saying anything revolutionary here. Back in the very specific year of 1999, we made multiple movies about how consumerism was a trap and how it didn't fulfill our actual needs, where characters willingly put themselves into poverty because it freed them from the shackles of the middle class, an idea that is very, very quaint now. Some of those films aged better than others. One of them has a plot line where a father bravely refuses to fuck his teenage daughter's

friend. And then we just gave it all the awards. But something these films all had in common was that this anti-consumerism idea would spread through the characters like a virus, that if just one or two, two people did this, others would follow, as if they've just woken up, or in one case, literally woken up. And what I think all of these films were at least trying to articulate is that we, as a society, need to redefine what it means to be happy, what we want the American dream to be, and

even in times of economic strength, we should never tie that to money. Yes, we need houses and health care and food, and we need to push to fix our material circumstances and reduce wealth inequality. But we can also make our own fun while we do that. We can set the tone, not just for our own sake, but as a way to change things too. Only 18 months after opening to much fanfare, the Star Wars Galactic Super Cruiser Hotel is preparing for its final voyage. The Pricy Hotel, an immersive fan experience at Disney World will close its doors on September 28th. At nearly $5,000 a couple for two nights, the price was out of reach for many Star Wars enthusiasts.

Disney made an elaborate and luxury Star Wars LARPing Hotel where a two-day stay started at nearly $5,000. That was the starting rate. And that hotel shut down a little over a year later because nobody fucking went or liked it. I don't know, maybe that's because the hotel sucked. But also, that is an example of a company pricing their own customers out and failing And perhaps, if that happens enough times, they will start to wonder if maybe they are the problem. This idea that movies of the future are going to be special events like the opera or some ride

that people go on once a year. That's corporate hogwash. They need to know it's hogwash. And they might be figuring that out now that the big Star Wars event of the year was buried by two indie horror films. Or maybe, I don't know, do people just not like Star Wars anymore? But you get the point. It's slowly happening. Concerts, for example, are starting to price out their audience,

causing artists to cancel parts of their tour because it turns out that people aren't gonna pay Taylor Swift prices for post-Malone. I mean, we shouldn't pay Taylor Swift prices for Taylor Swift, but you get the point. We get to decide what we spend, what little money we have on. And perhaps, instead of scraping together $150 to bring four people to see a movie with three, snacks. We can spend that money on something else, something that doesn't include four ads for the theater you're already inside. Buy some beer. Go to the park, chase the ducks. Because even if we can afford the movie, we shouldn't have to. That's too much. Instead of worrying about not being able to afford Disney World, just take a road trip to a city you've never been to. Get a hotel, buy some beer, explore, find the park, chase the ducks. Because the point is getting together, right? Right? That's the actual wealth. That and catching ducks. This isn't about shaming people for buying a Starbucks coffee or a side of avocado. This isn't about putting the blame on DoorDash spending or frivolous purchases. It's about taking the anxiety and pressure around what the middle class and the American dream should be and reclaiming it for ourselves. All it takes is one cool person and the rest will follow. Like if some guy was on a month long,

nationwide reality show designed to make the poor fight for survival, and then they meet up with Michael Sarah to set booby traps for his pursuers and kidnap a wealthy lady for a final showdown with the bounty hunters on a future plane. Try to crash the plane, but get shot down by a missile instead, but survive and unite the audience against the reality show. We should do that. All of that. Movies. Oh, I love movies, but not enough to pay 20 bucks for them, you know? Except maybe the Odyssey. Oak Street one and that new cliffhanger. They're making a new cliffhanger and it comes out soon.

Was nobody gonna run an ad for that or what? This is why the middle class is gone. Obviously, Dune 3. That piece of shit Avengers. Or maybe, I don't know, it's good. There's actually no, we usually do like a thing. I just really wanna see Dune 3, so. I'm so sorry that post credits,

it was like not even there. I didn't even do anything. I just said the name of two movies. And only one of them I'm like excited to see. Get it together. Thanks for watching. Please like and subscribe. Make sure to check out our patreon.com slash some more news.

Leave a comment. YouTube membership is a thing. We got a podcast called Even More News. You can listen to this show as a podcast if you want to do that. And our YouTube channel's got the, even more news is on there and all this stuff. And furthermore, merchandise, further merchandise is available. So check that out and check out the pictures.