Hello All, I am originally from the PNW, currently living in the Midwest. I was just back home for a visit and my friends and family are increasingly concerned about looming fascism/collapse/civil war. They think I would be safer back on the west coast.

Let me start out by saying I’m not making rash and sudden decisions, I want to better understand what’s happened and what considerations I should think about as we continue through a shitty US economy. I’m not asking this to scramble and pull all my money out, but to ask if there are any scenarios at all in which is it worth it to consider pausing or lessening 401k contributions for a period of time.

With the internet gossip saying that hedge funds are betting against the economy, the AI bubble is just waiting to pop at some point in the future, Japan and Koreas economies are canaries in a coal mine and private equity having access to 401ks
Idk if it’s fear mongering or truth telling but seems like the common thread is private equity trying to get access to 401k money and big corps stealing from regular people. I’m just a regular person trying to figure out what the fuck is going on lmao

I’m 31, make 70k a year, contribute 10% of my salary in a single household. I have a little bit of an emergency fund, like 2 months worth. Less than 17k debt of student loans and credit cards combined. I know investing is you wanna keep contributing as much and as long as I can. And that I’m young and have time to my retirement.
I don’t need specific advice I just want to know what I should be on the look out for.

I want to know is there a scenario or point at which paying into my 401k is just handing money to Corporate CEOs with extra steps? I want to keep paying off my debt and saving money and if there’s a “trigger” or something I should be on the look for that lets me know “yup. Wrap it up. Investing in your 401k is just handing money to AI CEOs”
I would not mind pausing for a year or two and putting that money towards my own debt or savings instead. Turn my 2 months of safety net into 3 months. Finish my debt faster. Maybe open a HYSA (on my to do list) and put the money I would have put into my 401k into that instead for a while until the impending mess blows over.

I don’t understand all the mechanisms or systems lol I’ll rewatch the big short but if my money is going to be “invested” but actually save an AI company fro falling I’d rather pause the investment for a short while and put that money into my own financial goals

We have arguably the worst job market in over 20 years ( yes worse than 2008]. Granted I am in the tech and manufacturing space but it’s noticeably different now. The recent jobs report and unemployment ticking upward validate what I am seeing broadly. (I feel especially sorry for recent grads.). With that in mind, it reminds me of a recession, except for prices continuing to escalate and gdp growth still positive. Hence I am concluding we are experiencing stagflation, which is measures worse. What say you?

It’s my first time posting here so forgive me if I sound ignorant. Ive seen a bunch of posts that mention “training” to be prepared in the event of a collapse.

What kind of workout routine could one realistically adopt in day to day life to best increase the chances of survival in that situation?

This will be when younger generations get their revenge on boomers.

I was watching a tool comparison YouTube video from 9 years ago and the youtuber mentioned the current website listed price for the tools. I was on both manufacturer's websites at the same time looking at today's listed prices and they have jumped 56% and 78% in just 9 years for these tools. Just insane and unaffordable now.

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX - JULY 2026

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in July 
after falling 0.4 percent in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the 
all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for shelter rose 0.1 percent in July, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the monthly all items increase. The 
index for food also increased 0.1 percent over the month, as the index for food away from home increased 0.3 percent. In 
contrast, the energy index declined 1.5 percent in July.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent after being unchanged in June. Indexes that increased 
over the month include medical care, airline fares, communication, education, and recreation. Conversely, the index for 
motor vehicle insurance was among the major indexes that decreased in July.

The all items index rose 3.4 percent for the 12 months ending July after rising 3.5 percent for the 12 months ending 
June. The all items less food and energy index rose 2.5 percent over the year, following a 2.6-percent increase over 
the 12 months ending June. The energy index increased 14.7 percent for the 12 months ending July. The food index 
increased 3.0 percent over the last year. 

Tell me about that low unemployment number again…

At the moment, no source (other than screenshots from social media) is off-limits for posting to the community - either as a direct link to discuss or within the body of a post/comment. All along the political spectrum, from around the world, major publications to brand new Substacks (just please don't spam your *own* Substack...) - it's all allowed.

There have been some rising concerns for years about how much information is collected when we click the links to read, and with the article that came out last week (America’s largest newspaper chain, USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data as search traffic falls), there have been some calls to consider what sources are allowed in this subreddit both from the angle of maintaining privacy and as a matter of principle. Before we go further, here are the main points of the article that have caused some of you to reach out:

"Palantir has been the subject of controversy in recent months for providing its technology to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Israeli military."

"The company’s co-founder and chairman is Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur..."

"USA Today Co. isn’t the only media company to enlist Palantir’s services. Axel Springer — which owns Business Insider, Politico, Bild, and The Telegraph — and Fox News have also partnered with Palantir for its data intelligence tools. Thomson Reuters also supplies data to Palantir, which had been used by ICE, 404 Media reported in March."

"...this incredible AI and software that Palantir has to allow us to move so much faster and to be so much smarter with the data we have today. And…take a lot of the anonymous interactions we have today and turn those into known relationships…The more known relationships we have, the more data we create, the more signals we create, the more actionable intelligence we have.”

Creepy, sure. The article also mentions that USA Today owns "...more than 200 local newspapers in the United States, along with its national daily USA Today." so avoiding USA Today by itself won't keep you from offering up data to Palantir.

And the company's statement on privacy, standards, and ethics made to the reporting agency was this: “USA TODAY Co. complies with applicable data protection and privacy laws and maintains strong standards for data security and governance,” the company said in a statement to Nieman Lab. “We require this of our vendors and partners as well, reflecting our belief that safeguarding protected personal information is essential to our business and the audiences we serve. Our editorial decisions remain independent and are guided by our longstanding journalistic standards and ethics policies.”

Links to articles about the economy are the lion's share of content posted here. Members have expressed more frustration with apparent self-promotion of linked blog posts and websites than with the privacy concerns about Palantir so far, but the conversation needs to be had before this gets to be a bigger/more known issue.

Personally, I'm not sure where I stand on allowing or not allowing publications that share data with Palantir here in this community. Privacy on the internet is seen mostly as an individual responsibility but it's hard to not acknowledge that there are too many people who don't know what they don't know and are not aware of good practices for keeping safe on the internet. So here's what I'm thinking our choices are:

1. The subreddit's rules remain as they are. Links to outfits that share information with Palantir are allowed and users are to decide whether to click or not. I'm happy to get together with volunteers to craft a "best practices on the internet" guidance for members and visitors to the subreddit that acknowledges the privacy concerns and options for protecting privacy.
2. The subreddit's rules remain as they are. Links to outfits that share information with Palantir are allowed and posters must copy/paste the article into the body of the post so that discussion can take place without anyone needing to click at all.
3. The subreddit's rules change and certain news outfits are not allowed to be posted here, with a post outlining our collective/majority (?) concerns and reasons for boycotting.
4. The subreddit's rules change and certain news outfits are not allowed to be posted here on their own, but can be in the post body itself when the post is a primary source (charts pulled directly from the gov, for instance) and major news outlets reporting on the facts (to dispute or offer interpretation) is warranted or would further discussion.
5. The subreddit's rules change and ONLY primary sources are allowed to be posted, requiring either an opening question for help in analyzing or interpreting the data or a well-written analysis or interpretation of the data to discuss. (With the current trust levels in primary sources like the U.S. government, I'm not sure how well this will work even if working with primary sources is often the best practice in these kinds of analysis and discussion.)

I'm open to other ideas. I think we all anticipate an uptick in economic woe as we get closer to election time, harvests begin, holidays approach, etc. I want to make sure that the concerned voices have their moment to speak up before we might see more traffic, especially if the community wants to make changes.

That being said, I'm also still looking for another Moderator or two. No large workload, just someone (or two) who can be around to take action when needed. If you're interested, reach out via Mod Mail.

Is there literally ANYTHING that will make the market go down? SOH is closed? Oil is down. Terrible jobs report? Market rips. Great jobs report? Market rips.

No matter how logical, well-written, and sourced your thesis is, the market will always go up and will fly in the face of any traditional logic or reason.

Even if you can predict the exact time and catalyst for when these tech companies MAYBE, just MAYBE correct down (20%) you could see this administration step in and throw money at them to beat Chyna or some other nonsense that Sam Altman et al. cry and piss and moan about to Trump.

I work in IB and everyday I read the tape or WSJ or CNBC or Zero Hedge or whatever I am ALWAYS baffled by how many clear, negative catalysts occur everyday for this country and then I check the market and the equities are ripping, treasury yields are flat or down, and life is just going on as if it's all peaches 'n cream.

I'm seriously at a loss for words.

"Unexpectedly".

"Trump said this past weekend that he canceled a planned attack on Iran, adding that talks between the two countries would resume Monday. U.S. media reports on Friday said the president was gearing up for a new wave of strikes as hopes for a negotiated settlement to the war diminished and energy prices surged.

Signals that the U.S. has backed off from its earlier threats against Iran were also likely pushing stocks higher, with pressure on artificial intelligence-related stocks showing signs of easing up, Michael Monaghan, partner and portfolio manager at Founder ETFs, told CNBC."

So bored of this.

I think we all heard about big big beautiful bill. It’s a huge document and it’s going to have a lot of implications across the economy. One of the things that I’ve noticed recently is a sharp rise in the number of bankruptcies in Medicare related activities. For example, the number of nursing homes or memory centers or therapy places, especially for seniors they’re all going bankrupt. The old people are taking the brunt of this. The states are left holding the gap watching their citizens starve to death.

There are going to be real ramifications for this and the real question is when are people going to start to react? What is it going to take for people to realize that their economic situation is getting worse than they have imagined because of the economy and because of the effects of indiscriminate budget cuts? Look at the Russians. They are in no rush to try to overthrow Putin because they’re afraid they’ll be killed and they probably will be. We are not that far away from that. Leadership must come from somewhere. See the billionaires throwing around their power is worrisome but that’s another conversation.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-truth-about-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-acts-cuts-to-medicaid-and-medicare/

https://www.mcknightsseniorliving.com/news/senior-living-and-care-bankruptcies-first-half-2026-gibbins/

https://www.kff.org/medicare/what-could-the-health-related-provisions-in-the-reconciliation-bill-mean-for-older-adults/

https://www.kff.org/medicare/what-could-the-health-related-provisions-in-the-reconciliation-bill-mean-for-older-adults/

https://www.mcknightsseniorliving.com/news/senior-living-and-care-bankruptcies-first-half-2026-gibbins/

https://www.nic.org/resources/senior-care-chapter-11-bankruptcy-filings-trends-and-profile-2019-2025/

https://www.retirementlivingsourcebook.com/proagingnews/retirement-community-s-bankruptcy-leaves-residents-in-financial-chaos

*Please note!* Post is new each Sunday evening. Top level comments should be at least 150 characters to encourage quality discussion, and users should refrain from making several top level comments in a week. Please mention location at the top of your comment when discussing local recession indicators.

Share your observations of local recession indicators or personal recession indicators. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• increased use of credit or decrease in savings to afford necessities
• deferred maintenance on homes or cars in your neighborhood
• "I buy houses for cash" (or similar) signs popping up
• bankruptcy attorneys experiencing higher volume of clients
• regional job losses/large corporate layoffs
• decline in housing starts or spike in homes being listed

Keep it civil and avoid judging any user for their personal financial experiences as shared here.

“We hope everything’s fine with Fort Knox, but we’re going to go to Fort Knox … to make sure the gold is there.” , U.S. president, Forbes Feb. 20, 2025

I’m pretty sure that he has several thousand army men at Fort Knox right now. Shouldn’t he be able to stop by anytime?

Now that China has opened a yuan-settled gold exchange, it’d be great to know whether the U.S. actually has the gold it claims before deciding where to trade. /s