Tariffs are often sold as a way to protect jobs or hit back at other countries, but what they really do is raise prices for regular people. When imports are taxed, companies don’t absorb the cost, they pass it on. That means higher prices on consumer goods - clothes, electronics, food, cars... Supply chain disruption will just further drive up inflation across the board, even housing costs will feel the hit.

Lower and middle-income people feel it the most because a bigger share of their income goes to essentials. Wealthy people barely notice, an extra charge here or there doesn’t change much for them.

The idea is that tariffs help local businesses. In practice, many of those businesses just hike prices since they face less competition. Executives and investors profit, while workers may not see any benefit, or risk losing jobs to cut costs.

When industries get hit, governments often step in with subsidies, meaning taxpayers pay again.

Large companies usually find workarounds, like exemptions, offshore production, etc. Small businesses and everyday workers don’t have those options.

TLDR: Tariffs raise prices for regular people, benefit the wealthy and big corporations, and often hurt workers and small businesses. They’re sold as protection, but mostly just shift costs downward.

This is making me sick. I can't believe we've reached this level of hoarding. My only hope here is that sometime ago we thought the reign of Kings would never end. Now a new kind has risen. What will it take to make this one fall?

Most people have never heard of Dodge v. Ford Motor Company, but it might be one of the most important court cases in the history of American capitalism.

Back in 1916, Henry Ford wanted to lower the price of his cars and raise wages for his workers. The company was making massive profits, and he thought some of that money should go back into the people who helped build it.

But the Dodge brothers, who were shareholders, sued him. They wanted bigger payouts instead of lower prices or better pay. And in 1919, they won.

The court ruled that a company exists to make money for its shareholders. Not to do good. Not to help workers. Just to turn profit and send it upward. That was it.

That ruling changed everything. After that, even if a company wanted to do the right thing, it could be punished for it. Helping people became a liability.

We like to think capitalism is broken now, but maybe this is exactly how it was designed to work. Or at least how it was allowed to evolve.

This post is based on ideas from
The Last American Dream: Welcome to the End

How $450 million in fossil fuel donations shaped White House energy policy and dismantled climate progress. Check out the entire list of corruption in Trump's first week: https://open.substack.com/pub/luciaromanomba/p/six-weeks-of-corruption-senator-chris

I’m in a hospital ensuring tests are run properly. Each test error costs $10,000. Before my position came up the error rate was almost 50% now it’s less then 1% Got news last week my position is being cut. Ironically last month I got a breakdown of my job over the last year, and how I’m saving the company $10,000’s of thousands a day…Not bad for someone working for $21.50 an hour one of the lowest paid positions in the company. They told me “because of financial issues we no longer can keep the job open.” Then told the staff “because this position is such a success we are reallocating our resources” Then went ahead and offered me a different position with overnight job and cut hours. Not the job nor the hours I agreed to when I started working. I cannot take it do to personal issues. And now because “they have a position for me” I am considered as a resignation instead of a layoff and will not receive unemployment benefits.

If they are actually just taxes, why do it?

Its finally Friday YEA!!! but i am so tired of wishing every week would go by quick so we can get to the weekend only to start it all over again the next week. I am 53 and have at least another 12 years to work and honestly it feels like I am just wishing my life away to get to those few precious hours of freedom. My grandmother told when I was little not to keep wishing my life away because when you get older time just seems to go by quicker but here, I am 45 years later wishing 5 days a week away as I barrel towards old age. SMH

This piece calls out one of the biggest double standards in modern capitalism: the way we obsess over regulating poor people while letting billionaires run wild. The same folks screaming about food stamp fraud have nothing to say when a mega-corp dodges billions in taxes or tanks the economy with zero consequences. It’s a brutal takedown of the “free market” myth, showing how it only applies when it benefits the powerful.

The article especially goes in on Elon Musk, who’s somehow seen as a rogue genius even though he’s propped up by billions in government money. It breaks down how billionaires manipulate markets, dodge accountability, and rewrite rules for themselves, then get worshipped like saints for it. It doesn’t just roast individuals. It exposes the whole system for what it is: a rigged game that rewards the already-powerful and punishes everyone else for trying to survive.

Why it fits the antiwork sub? Because it dismantles the lie we’ve all been sold — that hard work equals success. It shows that the ladder isn’t just hard to climb. It’s missing rungs, tilted, and chained to the top 1%. And it doesn’t just critique, it offers something better: a vision of shared responsibility, meaningful work, and a life that isn’t consumed by hustle or worship of wealth.

If you’re tired of being gaslit by a broken system that rewards failure at the top and punishes effort at the bottom, this one hits home.

I've worked too many hours

to be broke

and stuck

at my grandma's house.

That sentence alone should be proof

that something is deeply wrong.

But instead of outrage,

I'm met with shrugs,

lectures,

and a thousand excuses.

They tell me this is normal.

It is not.

This is failure.

Not mine--

the system's.

We were told:

Work hard.

Get educated.

Play by the rules.

Success will follow.

But we did all that--

and we're still sinking.

Not because we're lazy.

Because the game is rigged,

and the rules were written

by people who no longer play by them.

Our parents don't understand.

Not because they're bad people.

But because the world they grew up in

doesn't exist anymore.

And admitting that

would mean everything they believed in

was a lie.

So they deny it.

And in that denial,

they pass down our pain

as if it's our fault.

But we see it.

We feel it.

We know the truth:

Suffering is not noble.

Struggle is not sacred.

And survival is not the meaning of life.

There is enough.

Enough food.

Enough housing.

Enough wealth.

The only thing missing

is permission to share it.

They use the generational divide as a wedge.

Father against son.

Mother against daughter.

Because a divided people

is a controlled people.

But the real war isn't between us--

it's between awareness

and denial.

The scariest part?

The world doesn't have to be this way.

And deep down,

most people know it.

But they're scared.

Because if they admit it,

they have to change.

And change is terrifying

when comfort is all you've ever known.

I believe there is a plan--

not to fix the system,

but to push it

right to the brink.

To make collapse

the teacher.

But I don't want to learn through wreckage.

I want to learn through realization.

Through truth.

Through unity.

Because if we wait for the crash,

the vultures will write the next chapter.

And they'll call it salvation.

We don't have to burn it all down.

We just have to stop

pretending

this is fine.

This is a call.

Not to arms--

but to awareness.

To clarity.

To courage.

If you feel what I feel,

say it.

Share it.

Scream it if you must.

Because somewhere,

someone is drowning in silence

waiting for a voice

that sounds like truth.

You might be that voice.

I have a job interview tomorrow. I'm going to be asking for a few dollars more then then what they listed. What do you say when they hit you back with "the old timers" don't even make that or somthing like that.

Thanks for the help!

I work for a banking software company. The great part is that it’s remote, but it goes downhill from there. I was hired to provide application support, apply patches, email admin, assist users, etc . During my interview, it was mentioned there would be occasional weekends. I agreed that wouldn’t be an issue. My last job required a rotation on a weekend of every 4-5 weeks.

In the last 6 months since I started, I’ve worked almost every weekend not only applying patches but doing full system upgrades, I won’t list everything I do, but believe me, they are substantial and take anywhere from 4-6 hours. I’ve been asked to manage 2 datacenter hypervisor environments consisting of 100 prod, qa and test servers. Also, yesterday I was asked to conduct a security-vulnerability assessment on one of the datacenter hypervisors. I’m putting in around 60 hours a week. On top of that, I have 2 full system upgrades this weekend. So my weekend is cooked again.

With all this. I’m still learning everything about this software application to understand and get to a certain level of competency. I find it almost impossible to get good at any of this given my arms are being pulled from all directions. I have to do several careers wrapped into one - tech support, software development, sql admin, infrastructure engineering and cybersecurity. Surely many think this is great experience. Learning and actually having the responsibility are 2 different things. I don’t want the stress of taking on highly visible tasks that I’m not proficient in. I’m still trying to learn the job I was hired for. It’s gotten so overwhelming I’ve gone to Fiverr to seek a cybersecurity specialist to help me do the assessment. Yes I’m paying out of my pocket for this.

My boss is clueless and has zero IT knowledge or experience, he gets all his ideas from ChatGPT. I have constant anxiety on his next dumb idea he’ll read about and ask me to do. And yes, I am actively applying for other gigs.

"The underlying purpose of Al is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth."

-Jeff Owski

Preface: I am pretty much exclusively talking about corporate jobs. I understand that retail or "blue-collar" jobs are completely different. Though there are things to address in those fields.

How in the world have people lied to themselves and to others that their jobs aren't complete wastes of time?

For a little background; I have been working two full time jobs for almost a year now (felt underpaid even after being told I was one of the top employees at a company). I am losing my mind because I can easily get by on ~10 hours of work at each when I'm actually trying 💀
At one job I work on a product that is used daily by tens of millions of Americans. At the other job I just maintain an internal tool.

I know productivity soared late last century, so WHY DO WE ALL STILL HAVE TO WORK? More realistically, WHY DOES NOBODY ADMIT THAT THEIR JOB IS PRETTY MUCH A COMPLETE JOKE AND THEY PRETEND TO BE BUSY FOR 60%+ OF THEIR TIME?
Can we admit that we don't need to be working the majority of our waking time and still achieve quite a lot of things? For fucks sake I don't think anything will ever change unless enough people admit to themselves that "hey, my work doesn't really matter that much" or "most of my time isn't actually productive."

How could some of our parents work meaningless jobs and never consider how they're wasting their life and how they're not changing the world at all so their kids will have to do the exact same thing?

I'm fed up. I would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this because it feels like everyone else is living in a different reality than me.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I hope you all have a good day.

Hey! Are you or someone you know putting off having kids due to the cost? This is your reminder that even livestock are provided the resources necessary to reproduce. Your frustrations are valid!

I just need to get this out. I'm a financial professional with over 7 years of experience, and a cpa license.

I’ve been applying to around 30 jobs a day. I’ve tailored my resume, written countless cover letters, done the networking thing, reached out directly, followed up politely—checked all the boxes. I’ve landed several interviews. Some went all the way through multiple rounds. I’ve done case studies, presentations, even had interviewers say they were excited to start working with me.

But then the momentum just stops.

I’ve had people reschedule at the last minute, not show up at all, or vanish entirely after weeks of what seemed like promising conversations. Most recently, I applied to a role where I personally knew someone on the team—someone I’ve worked with before who’s praised my work in the past. I thought, “This is it.” But after everything, they still came back with, “Your skills aren’t a match.” Then I seen that he changed his title from Finance Manager to Director.

That one stung the most.

It’s exhausting. It’s not even just the rejection—it’s the emotional whiplash. Getting your hopes up, trying not to, and still feeling crushed anyway. I’m not giving up, but I needed to let this out somewhere. If anyone else is going through this, you’re not alone.

Thanks for reading.

Redistribution is okay if it goes up? Compounding interest is exponential but the economic pie is not.

I am a home care nurse, (pediatrics) my supervisor called to let me know about a possible new patient and to meet her at their house to do an assessment. On Tuesday we meet up at the patient’s house. An older lady answers the door and states she’s the grandmother, we introduce ourselves and she invites us in. The house is very unkept, with clothes and trash lying everywhere, dishes in the sink, and empty boxes stacked up. Grandmother talked with us for a few minutes apologized about the house and said “It’s been rough, the cat died.”

We didn't end up assessing the patient as the grandmother wasn't her guardian, and the guardian was “taking care of court business.” Fast forward to today when the guardian /mom of the patient is going to be there. She answers the door and says “ Before you come in, I have to apologize about the house and the smell, the cat died and I don't know what to do with it, so it's “sleeping” in the chair”. I just stood there in shock and was at a loss for words. My supervisor said, “Excuse me, did you just say there was a dead cat in the chair?” The lady responded, “Yes, what should I do, call 911?” Supervisor told her, “No you will need to bury it”. “Oh ok, I will have a little funeral for him THIS WEEKEND, come on in.” Needless to say, we declined and supervisor explained it wasn't healthy to leave the cat in the house, but the lady said she didn't want to “just leave him outside, he’ll be ok, maybe I’ll put him in the fridge”. Supervisor finally convinced her to call animal control, which she did. However, we still left and CPS was notified about the condition of the house and safety concerns.

Because people have DMed me, the app is called Bopeep Petition (bopetition.com)

My coworker showed up 15-minutes late to an important meeting and our manager blew a fuse. She yelled at him in front of everyone. She literally called him a “t@rd,” and when he said that was inappropriate, she said “no it’s not, you were tardy so you’re a [t@rd](mailto:t@rd).” She then declared that from now on, everyone has to arrive 15-minutes early every day.

We thought she was just trying to make a point, but the next day she gave everyone who didn’t show up 15-minutes early a verbal warning. We are not being compensated for the extra time. We’re technically salaried, so this isn’t illegal, but it is an obnoxious power trip.

I got almost all my coworkers to sign a petition using an app that has the petition start out anonymous, but then it reveals the signatures when enough people sign.

So now I’m sitting locked and loaded with a strongly worded petition that 80% of the entire team has signed about how inappropriate her reaction and the new policy are.

The app will let me anonymously send the petition to anyone I want, and cc anyone I want. Who should I have the app send the petition to? Who should be copied?

My boss is one of two branch managers who are both equal seniority. Above them is the regional manager. Above that is the regional VP.

My plan is to have the app send the petition to my boss and copy both the regional manager and the other branch manager.

Thoughts? Any other suggestions?