Concerning Social Security payments, my contributions were made for 40 years on every salary I received. Those jobs may not have always been the work I wanted to be doing at the time, BUT I always had a job. The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment?" I'll be part of the one percent to forward this.
I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it. The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment." This isn't a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.
If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security. If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.
That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it’s a fact).
And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.
Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger "Ponzi scheme" than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer.
But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a "benefit", as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.
Just because they borrowed the money doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!
Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.
Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it. Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.
😡😡😡✅
Have our actions actually weakened Iran, or made it stronger and more resilient? Are we, in effect, making Iran richer in the lead-up to conflict?
Are we now walking away from a crisis in the Middle East that we helped create? Why are our European allies distancing themselves from this war with Iran? Is an Israel-led US foreign policy putting strain on our alliances?
I break down these questions and more about cutting American healthcare to fund a war in this episode of America Now.
Have spent a lot of time over the last month explaining oil markets, gas prices & the Strait of Hormuz in the context of a moment when U.S. production/scale is dramatically different than in past geopolitical disruptions.
My convo @GasBuddyGuy here captured all of it.
All the techbros who worked to get Trump elected have now just watched him blow up their businesses by fucking the global supply of helium.
Literally. 🤣
That's some serious irony right there.
OpenAI may have caused the worst consumer hardware crisis in a decade with purchase orders that were never real.
In October 2025, Sam Altman flew to Seoul and signed simultaneous deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for 900,000 DRAM wafers per month. That's 40% of global supply. Neither company knew the other was signing a similar commitment at the same time. The pricing and terms would have looked very different if they had.
Those "deals" were letters of intent, not binding purchase orders. No RAM actually changed hands. But the market treated them as real. Contract DRAM prices jumped 171%. A 64GB DDR5 kit went from $190 to $700 in three months. DDR4 kits that should have been in oversupply doubled. Retailers stopped posting prices entirely.
The Abilene Stargate expansion just got cancelled because OpenAI couldn't forecast its own demand. Oracle couldn't agree on financing. The partners are squabbling. Bloomberg reported the $500B project hadn't started and no funds were raised to meet the initial budget. Multiple data center buildouts are delayed or shelved.
Now DDR5 prices are finally dropping for the first time in months, and it has nothing to do with OpenAI walking away from anything. Google released TurboQuant on March 24, a compression algorithm that cuts AI memory requirements by 6x. SK Hynix and Samsung stocks dropped 6% and 5% overnight. Corsair kits fell $60-100 from their highs within days.
One company locked up 40% of global memory with commitments it may never fulfill. A different company published a research paper. The research paper is doing more for RAM prices than the entire supply chain has done in six months.
Worked in semiconductors for many years.
Usage of helium for making computer chips is ubiquitous and required.
We just blew up 30% of the world supply.
No helium means no AI chips.
No AI chips means no AI data centers.
No data centers means no AI bubble.
=Market crash.
BREAKING: US Marines and sailors are actively revolting. Troops in the 31st MEU and on warships headed to the Middle East are filing emergency Conscientious Objector claims to stop their deployment. The Pentagon is terrified as the ranks refuse to fight Trump's war.
Let’s imagine we’re TRUMP strategizing — we have 2 options:
Option 1: seize Kharg Island — the terminal that handles most of Iran’s oil exports.
Option 2: move special forces onto Qeshm Island, right next to the Strait of Hormuz, and turn it into a forward operating base to control the shipping lane.
But let’s not forget Iran’s missiles and drones hidden in the mountains...
Join my BitChute for more DAILY updates:
https://t.co/zuRdvOXRS1
Dan Goldman just stops the TSA head in her tracks when he shows her the video of Republican John Kennedy admitting that the Democrats have made a deal with Republicans to get TSA paid and Trump turned it down out of spite and then tries to still blame Democrats.
.@kaitlancollins Anchor of The Source w/
CNN Political Commentator @finneyk
CNN Senior Political Commentator @DavidJUrban
Focus: SAVE act, DHS funding and more
3.23.26
🚨 so let me get this straight..
this morning Trump announced he's halting attacks on Iran.. someone made $1.5 billion trading on that news 5 minutes before the announcement..
and now tonight.. the Pentagon is weighing deployment of airtroops to Iran..
so the "peace" that someone made $1.5 billion off of.. lasted about 12 hours..
the pause was never peace.. it was a window.. long enough for someone to collect.. short enough for the war machine to reload..
they halted the attacks just long enough for the markets to move.. and now the troops are going in anyway..
you're not watching geopolitics.. you're watching a trade.
Let me explain what just happened 👇
5 minutes before the President announced a halt to attacks on Iran… someone placed a $1.5 BILLION bet on stocks going up and dumped $192 million in oil.
5 minutes…
These trades were 4 to 6 times larger than anything else in the entire market. Whoever did this wasn’t guessing. You don’t risk $1.5 billion on a hunch.
There was zero public indication this announcement was coming. No leaks. No press. Nothing. The only people who knew were in the room when the decision was made.
Someone in that room picked up a phone.
And within minutes they made more money than most Americans will earn in a thousand lifetimes. In a single trade. On a war that cost you $4+ a gallon gas and $16 billion in tax dollars.
American citizens funded this war. Politicians are profiting from it.
This is not the first time. Every major announcement from this administration has had massive suspicious trades right before it dropped. Tariff reversals. Policy shifts. War decisions.
This is the most blatant insider trading operation in the history of American politics. It’s not even close. And it’s happening over and over in broad daylight.
You would go to federal prison for trading on a tip from your cousin. These people are front running war decisions with billion dollar bets and nobody will ever ask a single question.
Nobody will be investigated. Nobody will be charged. By tomorrow this will be buried under the next satisfying headline. Just like last time. And the time before that.
The game is rigged. And they’re not even trying to hide it anymore…
"This has been a complete miscalculation by the US..."
"I don't think they realise that Iran would have the capabilities it does..."
@linmeitalks says the US has underestimated Iran's military capability.
@Mattallwright | #MattAllwright