Unf*cking The Republic

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the United States added 139,000 “non-farm payroll jobs” in the month of May, 2025. These figures came in close to what experts projected and depending upon one’s ideological perspective, it was either evidence of economic strength and resilience under Trump or a sign of a slowing job market as a result of Trump’s tariff policies a...

We’re experimenting with something. As we work toward a complete breakdown of the federal budget in a comprehensive essay and companion episode, we’re bringing our audience into the content creation process. We have a feeling this is going to be one of our behemoth entries into the canon (and potentially a two-parter.) So rather than overwhelm everyone with information in one shot, we...

How much credit risk is in the market? Equities get the headlines but the world runs on credit. Jamie Dimon recently declared that credit was a “bad risk” on the heels of Moody’s downgrading the U.S. credit rating and a spike in the 10 Year Treasury yield. Suddenly, the boring old credit and bond markets are all the rage on the financial news channels, and it goes much deeper tha...

Pete Buttigieg is a legitimate star in the Democratic Party. Having moved his family to Michigan there was speculation that he might run for the governor’s office or become a Senator. But he turned down both options and instead set his sights on the 2028 Presidential election. In addition to making the rounds on multiple cable shows and podcasts to help rehabilitate the image of the Democrat...

Corporations announced a staggering $233.8 billion in stock buybacks in April, the second-highest monthly total ever recorded. But unlike previous buyback bonanzas, this isn’t a sign of economic strength or corporate confidence. Quite the opposite. Are buybacks just one big shell game or are they fiscally prudent? Corporate stock buybacks have inspired great debate since a Reagan era tax law...

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

Is this the end of Capitalism? If so, what comes next? Does it even matter what we call it? Today Max pauses to reflect on the speed and totality of damage wrought by the Trump administration, and whether it’s bringing about the end of Capitalism on purpose in order to return to a state reminiscent of the industrial era when the working class lived to serve the elite and the poor thrown to t...

Max and 99 return from their Show Notes hiatus to discuss the 5 Non-Negotiables, global events, and share some genuinely insightful tangents (for a change lol). Enjoy! Chapters Intro: 00:00:21 Discord Comments: 00:06:46 5NN: 00:10:04 Emails: 00:33:34 Memberships: 01:58:40 Outro: 02:01:41 Resources Only 3 days left in our Spring Fund, Friend, and Hell Raiser! Become a member today . Subscribe to th...

Market speculation into commodities like Bitcoin and Crude oil pose dangerous risks during the best of times. Heading into a recession, the stakes are even higher. The temptation to participate during volatile periods is a psychological phenomenon that takes hold among casual investors who rarely realize when they’re part of an institutional con. When leveraged institutions are in desperate...

There’s a hidden market that might crash the economy in 2025. Tariff chaos. Leverage in the Repo Market. A burgeoning liquidity crisis. There’s an iceberg, dead ahead, only we can’t see below the surface to know how big it is. In this episode Max takes a big swing at the existential crisis brewing in the financial markets. Trump’s tariffs, declining economic data and slumpi...

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

We have a special edition of Show Notes today! In a rare occurrence, Max, Manny and 99 were all in the same place and they took to the mics to mark the occasion. Enjoy! -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook , Bluesky , TikTok  and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com . Join our Discord...

Are there hidden market patterns that signal massive economic change? A weak dollar and rising yield on the ten year treasuries sent Wall Street into panic mode over fears that Trump was torching the global economy with his tariff wars. Since 1945 the U.S. dollar has been the bedrock of the global economy. Trump’s reckless behavior has allies and enemies alike wondering if this is the end of...

We have a cool one for you today, a conversation with New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Currently, Mamdani is a member of the New York State Assembly. He’s a Democratic Socialist running in the Democratic primary against a pretty busy slate of contenders, and he’s polling second to former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who only recently entered the race. Now Mamdani was the first...

Probably the scariest, most dreaded term in economics is stagflation. Those who lived through the crisis in the 1970s can attest to this. In short, stagflation is defined as a period of low-to-no economic growth combined with high unemployment and high inflation. It’s a deadly recipe that took extraordinary measures to break the last time we experienced this phenomenon, and the method used b...

Fresh off the heels of our fifth and final Non-Negotiables of the Left series, 99 and I spent some time in the studio reviewing feedback from the UNFTR audience. While I stomped my feet like a toddler, 99 was able to finally get me under control and a productive conversation ensued.  The upshot is that the feedback was fairly muted, with most of you signaling that the Climate Trust is out of...

This is the final installment of our 5 Non-Negotiables of the Left series where we detail three short-term goals to take back the country and two long-term fights that must be waged for the sake of our democracy and the planet. This fifth entry speaks to the now back-burnered but ever-present threat to life on this planet: Climate change. This is the most difficult case we’ll make to you. We...

This week is an attempt to organize disparate content pieces from the past few weeks. Thoughts on third parties, Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress (which we mistakenly referred to as the State of the Union, oops!), notes on the final non-negotiables and random thoughts Max is working through. We’ve got a mashup of sorts on our hands so prepare for a bit of rambling. Reso...

The movement to get money out of politics will take a very long time. I know people don’t want to hear that. My guess is, in the best case scenario, we’re looking at 20 years. Best case. If it makes you feel any better, the movement to get money into politics took 181 years so by that measure, two decades to unravel what took 181 to build isn’t all that bad. Either we’re co...

Max and 99 are back for Show Notes! They catch up with some movie talk and dive deep into the Non-Negotiables and hives. Enjoy! Chapters Intro: 00:00:20 Housekeeping: 00:19:47 Emails: 00:32:20 Memberships: 01:23:32 Outro: 01:24:59 Resources Join us on Bluesky and Discord Ken Lefkowitz:  Medicare For All: An Economic Rationale Abdul El-Sayed and Micah Johnson:  Medicare For All: A Citizen...

Regardless of what happens next in the United States, the American experiment ends with Donald Trump. But Trump is a Trojan Horse. The real dismantling of our systems and norms is embodied by the man he ceded power to, the wealthiest person in the world. Elon Musk is the living avatar of the new corporate colonial era and there’s no going back to the way it was. This administration serves as...

America’s healthcare system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed. The problem is that it was designed to generate profits, not health outcomes. We spend roughly 20% of our GDP on healthcare, about double what other developed nations spend per capita, yet we have shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, and leave tens of millions uninsured or underins...

Given the turmoil and disgust surrounding Trump’s shock and awe deportation campaign, we thought it a good time to dig back into the immigration issue and update some of our findings from prior episodes. There’s no question Trump’s ICE is more brutal and seemingly indiscriminate, so we tried to put these efforts in context with prior administrations. Then we zoom out to look at r...

We’re through the first two “non-negotiables” of the Left ( Housing First  and a  Civilian Labor Corps ) and I’m taking my sweet ass time with the third: Medicare for All. In the meantime, this week’s pod is a compilation of thoughts and writing I’ve done since the inauguration; officially another Max Unfiltered entry into our canon. Chapters Intro: 00...

Today we’re tackling our second non-negotiable pillar of establishing a Civilian Labor Corps, and the timing couldn’t be more critical. You may have picked up on chatter in the wind about the impending job apocalypse at the hands of artificial intelligence (AI). I’m here to tell you that this is real. It is coming faster and more furiously than you realize, and we are wholly unpr...