Welcome to You’re Probably Getting Screwed, a weekly newsletter and video series from J.D. Scholten and Justin Stofferahn about the Second Gilded Age and the ways economic concentration is putting politics and profits over working people.

TOP 5 YPGS STORIES OF 2025:

5. DOGE Chaos

The point of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) was to drastically cut federal waste, regulations, and workforce. In reality, DOGE disrupted essential services, mass terminations, created additional health and safety risks, assisted in economic insecurity, and more…

Meanwhile, government spending actually increased by 6%, from $7.135 to $7.558 trillion.

4. Epstein Files

The Epstein Files are a textbook example of a two-tier justice system that protects the wealthy and powerful compared to the rest of us.

In a recent New York Times article, Marjorie Taylor Greene said that when she threatened to expose the men who abused Epstein’s victims, Trump called to scream at her and said “My friends will get hurt.”

3. Record Corporate Stock Buybacks While Wages Stagnate

Corporate buybacks surged to $942.5 billion in 2024 with projections of $1.2 trillion in 2025, enriching wealthy shareholders and executives rather than investing in workers or things like more research and development. The wealthiest 10% of households control 88% of the stock market while the bottom half owns less than 1%.

2. Tax Cuts for Corporations, Struggles for Workers

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is bad because it bundles elite-friendly tax cuts, deregulation, and corporate priorities while shifting real costs onto ordinary people. The biggest and most permanent benefits flow to corporations and the wealthy, while any relief for workers is smaller, temporary, or indirect, and the resulting deficits are later used to justify cuts to Medicaid, housing, education, and other essentials. At the same time, weakened labor and regulatory protections reduce workers’ bargaining power, wages, and safety, while the bill does little to lower core cost-of-living pressures like healthcare, housing, or childcare. Basically, it concentrates power and wealth at the top, leaving working people paying more and getting less.

1. Trump’s Tariffs Hit Working Families with Higher Prices

Trump imposed sweeping tariffs ranging from 10% to 50% in April on "Liberation Day," which initially caused markets to lose $2.5 trillion in value. While tariff rates were later walked back, inflation remained elevated near 3% throughout the year rather than returning to the Fed's 2% target. Things like coffee prices rose nearly 19% and beef costs increased around 15% from the previous year, squeezing household budgets.

Share

THE GOOD

Book of the Year

“Enshittification” by Cory Doctorow

When Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification, he was not just finding a funner way to say “things are getting worse.” He was making a specific diagnosis about the state of the digital world and how it is affecting all of our lives (and not for the better).

The once-glorious internet was colonized by platforms that made all-but-magical promises to their users—and, at least initially, seemed to deliver on them. But once users were locked in, the platforms turned on them to make their business customers happy. Then the platforms turned to abusing their business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. In the end, the platforms die.

Here, now, in Enshittification the book, Doctorow moves the conversation beyond the overwhelming sense of our inevitably enshittified fate. He shows us the specific decisions that led us here, who made them, and—most important—how they can be undone.

Podcast of the Year

In “Organized Money” you have Dave Dayen (from The American Prospect) and Matt Stoller (from BIG) take you on a tour of how business really works.

Movie of the Year

Mountianhead. The film follows four billionaire friends on a secluded weekend retreat as the world goes through major turmoil.

BEFORE YOU GO

Before you go, I need two things from you: 1) if you like something, please share it on social media or the next time you have coffee with a friend. 2) Ideas, if you have any ideas for future newsletter content please comment below. Thank you.

Standing Tall for All,

J.D. Scholten

Subscribed