In 1859, the line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" made for a solid opening to Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. In 2025, it could have qualified him to be a financial columnist. We are living a tale of two countries. Yes, America has a massive GDP and a growing economy that is the envy of much of the world. And yes, the American economy is flat, stagnant, and a nightmare. For some it's a fairy tale and for others it's a scary tale, and the gulf between those two stories is getting wider. While some retailers that cater to lower income earners are closing stores and suffering soft sales numbers, purchases of lux travel and goods is growing steadily, driven by a minority of buyers with a majority of buying power. "Many Americans are pinching pennies, exhausted by high prices and stubborn inflation. The well-off are spending with abandon. The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets. Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending." WSJ (Gift Article): The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People.

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Dane and Able

"They changed pension rules to enable blue-collar workers to retire earlier than professionals. On housing, the party fought speculation by the private-equity industry by enacting the so-called Blackstone law, a reference to the giant New York-based firm that had bought beloved Copenhagen apartment buildings; the law restricts landlords from raising rents for five years after buying a property. To fight climate change, Frederiksen’s government created the world’s first carbon tax on livestock and passed a law that requires 15 percent of farmland to become natural habitat. On reproductive rights, Denmark last year expanded access to abortion through the first 18 weeks of pregnancy, up from 12 weeks, and allowed girls starting at age 15 to get an abortion without parental consent." How is Denmark achieving progress on progressive issues while its neighbors (and competitors for Greenland) are lurching to the right? "There is one issue on which Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her party take a very different approach from most of the global left: immigration." NYT Mag (Gift Article): In an Age of Right-Wing Populism, Why Are Denmark’s Liberals Winning?

+ "Germany is getting a new chancellor. Its current leader is heading out of power, but his party probably will stick around in a diminished capacity. And the Trump administration’s efforts to influence the vote don’t seem to have done much." NYT: 5 Takeaways From Germany’s Election.

+ "The AfD has embraced a highly controversial policy called "remigration", which it defines as deporting migrants who have committed crimes. But the term can also refer to the mass deportation of migrants and their descendants." From far right gains to TikTok's influence, here are some key takeaways from the German election from BBC.

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Generalized Anxiety

The latest Trump purge is happening at the highest level of the military, with five star generals being forced out and loyalists being appointed. Cory Booker on the moves: "Donald Trump has thrown that out the window and is sending a dangerous message to the military: It’s not about your independent expertise, it’s not about your years of service. It’s about your personal political loyalty to me." Booker says firing Joint Chiefs chairman sends ‘dangerous message’ to the military on political loyalty.

+ Who is Trump's pick for chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine? "Caine has not served in any of the roles — Joint Chiefs vice chairman, chief of staff for one of the branches of the armed service, or head of a combatant command — that nominees are legally required to have performed in order to be nominated." ("Legally required." Ha!)

+ Meanwhile, other DOGE-led purges are getting pushback from the courts (Lawsuit challenges Musk ‘resignation’ threat to federal workers), and from Trumpists (Email starts power clash between Musk and agency leaders — even the Trump loyalists). But so far, no pushback from Trump. Trump backs Musk as he roils the federal workforce with demands and threats.

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Not Kidding

"Paranoia has ensued. In the past year, hundreds of men in the Central African Republic have reported the presumably delusional belief that their genitals have gone missing. In Nigeria, where the fertility rate has fallen from seven to four, a widely read tabloid blamed a conspiracy of perverts in the French intelligence services who had been 'using secret nanotechnology innovations to steal penises from African men.'" Those responses are a little extreme but the broader issue is interesting. "Birth rates are crashing around the world. Should we be worried?" The New Yorker: The End of Children.

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Extra, Extra

Misaligned: "The United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Iran and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday against a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for the return of Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly." WaPo (Gift Article): U.S. votes against U.N. resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war. NYT (Gift Article): U.S. Clashes With European Allies at the U.N. Over Ukraine.

+ Polishing the Apple: "The announcement echoes one Apple made in early 2018, during the first Trump administration. At that point Apple also promised 20,000 new jobs as part of a $350 billion spend in the US, alongside a new campus in Austin which is still under construction. The company successfully appealed for tariff exemptions for some of its products, and a new US investment may be a way to secure further protection from Trump’s new charges." Apple responds to tariff threat with a $500 billion US investment plan. "If committing $500B over 4 years sounds familiar, it's because it is familiar. It's the exact same amount of money over the exact same time frame (the length of Trump's term, obviously) that was promised by the group that announced the 'Stargate Project' a few weeks ago." Some analysis from M.G. Siegler: The Art of the Old Deal.

+ Children of the Scorn: "The Trump administration is directing immigration agents to track down hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the United States without their parents, expanding the president's mass deportation effort, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters."

+ Killing Us Softly: "'Roberta Flack underplays everything with a quietness and gentleness,' the writer and folklorist Julius Lester once observed in a Rolling Stone review. 'More than any singer I know, she can take a quiet, slow song (and most of hers are) and infuse it with a brooding intensity that is, at times, almost unbearable.'" Roberta Flack, Virtuoso Singer-Pianist Who Ruled the Charts, Dies at 88.

+ Ai Yai Yai: "Leah Langley-McClean, a wedding dress designer in Nashville, recently had a customer come in with a unique ask: She presented a photo of a floor-length white gown with an asymmetrical neckline, no sleeves and no back. The dress defied the laws of physics, McClean told the bride-to-be." AI ‘inspo’ is everywhere. It’s driving your hair stylist crazy.

+ Breaking the Silence: " Let's pause of a little human "inspo." Kamala Harris gave a short but pointed speech as she accepted the NAACP Chairman’s Award. Jane Fonda called this our documentary moment in her SAG lifetime achievement acceptance speech. "We actors, we don’t manufacture anything tangible, what we create is empathy." And Democracy Docket's Marc Elias responded to an Elon Musk attack with an open letter. "I will use every tool at my disposal to protect this country from Trump. I will litigate to defend voting rights until there are no cases left to bring. I will speak out against authoritarianism until my last breath. I will not back down. I will not bow or scrape. I will never obey."

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Bottom of the News

Need a little musical inspiration to motivate your way through an average Monday's repetitive tasks? Here's an eight hours Severance mix.

+ Barry Blitt draws a perfect New Yorker cover image: You're Fired.