Greenspan's Legacy, Colombia's Fascist Fashionista, Housing in Freefall

[00:00:00]Allan Greenspan made it a whole century just like Henry Kissinger. Hey God, what's up with that? SpaceX already taking a dump, giving Sam Alman a preview of what's in store when you take a losing company public with no possibility of profitability. Emma Viglland crying is all of us. Want to see a left-wing troll out troll a right-wing troll? I do. A fascist fascinista is set to take over Colombia by way of Miami. The repo man cometh.

[00:00:29]Pillars of salt to power the future and housing starts. Take a nose dive. All that and little else on this week's edition of On the Record.

[00:00:42]>> All right, let's start with something awesome. If you're a progressive who's reared on the majority report and loving the ascended Zoron New York Nick Hassan [ __ ] movement, then you are going to love this. Emma Vigland is every progressive New Yorker right now.

[00:00:59]>> You have a gift for me?

[00:01:00]>> I have a I have a piece of that greatness that I brought for you.

[00:01:04]>> Are you for real?

[00:01:06]>> From the actual finals.

[00:01:09]Is it Is it upside down?

[00:01:10]>> I like legit might cry.

[00:01:12]>> Oh my god, you're crazy.

[00:01:14]>> Yeah, I'm sorry. That's >> You're crazy. I love that. You know what else I love? Watching Ed Zitron making the rounds on news channels, absolutely dunking on tech bros. Zitron pulled off quite the scoop when OpenAI's financials were leaked directly to him and then subsequently confirmed by the Financial Times. And the numbers are appalling considering they're rushing to capture some of that Elon IPO magic this year.

[00:01:40]So, the company added a little more than 9 billion in revenue last year over 2024, which sounds great except that it lost $20 billion on only 13 billion in revenue in 2025. So, they spent nearly three times as much year-over-year to lose twice as much. They're not closing the gap on this model, which supports Zitron's long-held thesis that there are no economies of scale for the frontier model developers, and they have to raise ungodly sums of money. For example, OpenAI still has $25 billion in cash on hand. And if I was an investor, I'd be like, "Hey, give it back." So, they're just keeping this illusion going. And not only are they falling way behind Anthropic, despite monster talent and a first mover advantage, their model guarantees future losses. That's why these guys aren't Amazon, they're not Uber or any other comparison that they like to draw. And while we're talking about [ __ ] IPOs, let's check in with Elon's latest adventure.

[00:02:44]WHOA, >> that about sums it up. SpaceX appears to be falling off a cliff faster than even we anticipated. and it should and this will change a lot. So this is just a snapshot for what it is right now. But it does bolster our claim that this company is nothing more than a specialurpose acquisition company, a spa, and it was treated as a real company just because Wall Street is operating at peak greed right now. And I'm sure everything won't come tumbling down like it has every other [ __ ] time we operate like this. Hey, quick aside. Don't forget if you're watching this on release day on Tuesday, it's primary day. So, if you have a competitive race in your district where there's a progressive running against some meymouthed conservative Democrat who's just holding space in that office and not doing the right thing to pass any progressive agenda, get out and vote. Hey, today we're chatting about the legacy of Allen Greenspan and Max Notes. But before we get there, we should acknowledge the passing of somebody else this week. British Prime Minister Kier Starmer. God rest his political soul. He saw the writing on the wall that said in big bold letters, "You suck." And he promptly stepped down. The seventh prime minister in a decade to figure out that Brexit wasn't a good idea, but also it's not a great idea to [ __ ] on the people who got you there, especially if you're the head of the Labor Party. And it's too bad because you seem like a nice guy, right, Owen Jones?

[00:04:10]>> Do not feel sorry for this man. He was not a good man in the wrong job. He was not a man of public service and duty who was defeated by events. He was not a man of decency, integrity. He just wasn't quite up to it. This was a man who lied through his teeth to become leader of the Labour Party. He justified Israeli war crimes, arrested opponents of genocide, attacked pensioners, disabled people, migrants, all while pocketing freebies from the rich, crushed descent, and then threw others under the bus to save himself.

[00:04:41]>> Oh dear. I stand corrected. Apparently, he's a piece of [ __ ] Starmer's just John Federman in a nice suit. But he sounded great to us because, you know, he's British and everybody there sounds smarter, a so-called left labor leader who turned his back on people like Jeremy Corbin and the working class that he supposedly represented. Two quick notes before we welcome our members and get into max notes. Members are clearly beginning to [ __ ] with me with their nicknames. One of them doesn't even have any vowels in it, and I'm here for it. I love it. First housekeeping note is that at long last, our interactive progressive trivia feature is live on our website. Just go to unftr.com/trivia to test your progressive bonafides.

[00:05:21]There are right now a couple hundred questions in there that rotate. And we've created 10 question quizzes that you can take and then share on social media when you finished. It's a great way to polish your knowledge and compete with your friends. And kudos to co-host and producer 99 along with our day job friends who helped build this out. It is, I have to say, pretty awesome. And lastly, the bear returns on Thursday.

[00:05:46]Every second counts. Now, let's thank the people who make this happen.

[00:05:53]932 members. We are cruising to a thousand and beyond. This is happening. So, thank you to our new, our upgraded, and our returning members. This week, we've got Kim W. Here's my consonant person. Rook girl, Robert M, ND, Dulac, Thomas D, Jerry J, Steve Sally, Sue, FD, the Mango, Mussolini, TK421, Monster, Just Me, Not Really, Jimmy, Jimmy, Fofimi, Sanity Seeker, Nurse Coach, Scott S, Dull, Richard R, Whimsical Opera, Dragon, How, HB, Soup Maker 54, and Eddie H. And a special shout out to my father-in-law, who shall remain nameless, but he tipped us after our episode on Elon Musk. Dad, it's unnecessary. Giving me your daughter's hand is the best, most enduring gift you could have ever given me. And I love you. Hey, if you're not in a position to support us because maybe the elite establishment has robbed you blind, don't worry. All you have to do is like and subscribe and then tell a thousand of your friends. Follow us on Blue Sky at UNFR. If you're a coffee drinker, you can purchase our organic, shade grown, bird friendly, native roasted coffee manufactured in partnership with Native Coffee Traders on the Puspetuk Reservation in New York. Your purchase supports UNFR and Native Entrepreneurship. And if you'd like to buy some coffee or offer a one-time donation or you're interested in membership, just go to unfr.com for all the details. And now, Max Notes.

[00:07:40]Alan Greenspan, made of rubber, bad faith, and worms, has died at 100. The all- knowing, all powerful, and second longest tenure chair of the Federal Reserve, has left this earthly plane to presumably preside over God's vast holdings and riches. Now, part of what made Allan Greenspan perfect for the time that he reigned between 87 and 2006 was his ability to, as he put it, master the art of mumbling with great incoherence. See, to the outside world, the maestro, as he was known in the beltway, Greenspan was the money whisperer. His judgment was never to be questioned. The bottom rung of the economic ladder was never counted against him so long as the gains at the top continued to grow unabated. In addition to ushering in what many believed to be an era of prosperity, Greenspan ushered in an era of extreme secrecy at the Fed. His methods were not to be questioned, and he displayed very little patience for those who summoned him to testify on the Hill. He was no mere mortal, and he reviled being treated as such. Thus, this self-described tactic of mumbling incoherently.

[00:08:50]Why bother explaining things to commoners? That was Greenspan. But he wasn't as much responsible for the wealth gains during his tenure as he was the reputational beneficiary of them. As Jenna Smileik writes in her Fed book, Limitless, quote, Greenspan's cult of personality owed in part to the era he oversaw. He'd been dealt a winning economic hand by history, presiding at a time of globalization, hypercharged by a relatively young working age population and big advances in computer technology.

[00:09:22]One in which less afair economics and animal spirits were celebrated as engines of prosperity. Before Greenspan ever set foot inside the Federal Reserve, he spent years cultivating a very particular intellectual identity.

[00:09:36]See, he was a card carrying disciple of Ein Rand, a fixture in her inner circle, her personal inner circle of objectivists, absorbing the gospel that markets were self-correcting, that regulation was coercion, and that government interference, at least in economic life, was a moral failing. This was a man who genuinely believed that the Federal Reserve, the institution he would one day lead, was a philosophical abomination. The central bank in the objectivist worldview at least was the embodiment of everything wrong with statist interference.

[00:10:12]Yet ambition has a way of softening one's philosophical commitments. What greased this gives for Greenspan's entry into the corridors of power was a piece of work so cynically brilliant it demands admiration. In 1983, Ronald Reagan needed to shore up social security. Carter had put a band-aid on it previously, but had even said on, you know, outgoing as president, this needs to be dealt with because at the time it wasn't keeping up with what it needed to to do to fund the trust. So, the program was hemorrhaging cash, but it didn't have to be that way. The problem with Reagan is that he couldn't be seen as raising taxes because his entire political brand was built on the promise that taxes would go down. Hard stop. So, he commissioned a fix. Enter Alan Greenspan, who chaired the National Commission on Social Security Reform and engineered what can only be described as the perfect Washington Parlor trick.

[00:11:11]Raise payroll taxes dramatically on working Americans by increasing the Social Security deduction, but leaving the income cap in place. What this did was the wealthy would just pay the same flat amount that they always had, which made the burden fall squarely on the middle and the working class. And it was in every functional sense the single largest tax increase in American history, packaged and sold as a solveny fix. So nobody called it a tax hike.

[00:11:41]Greenspan at that point had his ticket punched. So for a man who professed to despise government, he proved to be pretty comfortable inside of it. He navigated Washington with the ease of a born insider, sch smoozing and testifying and advising the very definition of a a beltway gadfly, all while maintaining this posture of the reluctant technocrat called to serve.

[00:12:04]The Federal Reserve chairmanship when it came in 1987 was just the logical culmination of a decadesl long project of making himself indispensable to the powerful and for nearly two decades. It worked cuz the economy was pretty good for the upper half. The markets rose and Greenspan spoke in these riddles and the world just tried to decode him and thought he was some sort of genius. But beneath the surface, everything was rotting. Throughout the early 2000s, as the housing bubble inflated to grotesque proportions, Greenspan actively encouraged American households to take on more debt.

[00:12:43]Floating rate mortgages, home equity lines of credit, adjustable rate instruments that looked cheap in the short term because he wanted to supercharge the economy, but they became punishing traps when rates moved. And so, did rates move? Yeah, cuz he [ __ ] moved them. Greenspan raised the federal funds rate 17 consecutive times just between 2004 and 2006. Think of the timing there. The households that he encouraged to stretch were now being slowly strangled by the same instrument that he controlled. Basically the only important part of his [ __ ] job at that time. So the overleveraging of the American middle class wasn't an accident of the markets. It had a facilitator.

[00:13:28]And then 2008 came and the whole architecture collapsed and Greenspan sat before Congress and delivered what should have been a moment of reckoning.

[00:13:39]He admitted with characteristic understatement of course that he'd found a flaw in his ideology. He hadn't accounted for the degree to which self-interest on Wall Street could be destructive rather than corrective. The market, it turned out, didn't always know best because people are greedy. So the lifetime of intellectual scaffolding that he constructed, the Randian framework, the objectivist faith and rational actors, the contempt for oversight had a huge hole in it big enough to drive the entire financial system through. And what followed wasn't contrition. He put out a book called The Map and the Territory published in 2013, giving his account of his entire career and the crisis. And it gestured at uncertainty. It updated some models, but it didn't apologize. Instead, it suggested that more psychological and behavioral frameworks should be adopted instead of strictly relying on math and models. Not his behavior, mind you, or the political elite who would starve the masses to enrich the few. It was everybody else's herd mentality that was the problem. The maestro played a wrong note, but instead of admitting it, he just rewrote the score. Our KTW goes to Walter Mastersonson, who has perfected the art of the troll and embarrassing alt-right figures and ruthless politicians and the heartless elite. I think there's just nobody better than this guy, and they never see him coming.

[00:15:17]Now, if you don't know his name, you definitely know his work. And last week, he came to New York City to troll Nick Shirley, who's the fake right-wing documentarian and propagandist and a devoted racist piece of [ __ ] So Shirley came to rain on New York's parade by attempting to show that Chinatown was some sort of hellscape. And he made a big show of painting over graffiti.

[00:15:39]Mastersonson's trolling of this troll is elite in this clip, but not nearly as entertaining as his back and forth with a Republican New Yorker that completely steals the show. So it's worth staying through the entire clip. But let's just show some of it now.

[00:15:54]>> Let's go to the video tape.

[00:15:56]>> He's almost there. I want to help him.

[00:15:58]Where's a paintbrush? Here, I'll take that one. Nick and I are going to do some socialism together where the community comes together for free.

[00:16:06]>> We're not letting We're not waiting for the free market. We're not getting paid for this.

[00:16:10]>> Your masters to do this.

[00:16:11]>> WE'RE DOING THIS FOR FREE. WE'RE DOING SOCIALISM. NICK, experience the warmth of collectivism. Manny would be so proud of you. And you're experiencing the warmth of Oh, you got paint on your shirt. That's right.

[00:16:23]>> We're We're doing socialism together.

[00:16:25]Socialism is when the government comes out and makes projects. When private individual socialism socialism is when the workers own the control the means of production.

[00:16:33]>> That's right. These are the workers.

[00:16:34]These are private individuals coming together. We're doing anarchist time.

[00:16:37]Private individuals. There's no government involved.

[00:16:40]>> Yeah. That's called an that's called anarchist socialism. That's a great term.

[00:16:44]>> That's called private individuals donating their time and voluntism is people coming together to paint graffiti.

[00:16:51]>> Yes. YES. YES.

[00:16:53]>> YES. NO.

[00:16:54]>> YES.

[00:16:55]>> HAPPY TO PARTICIPATE IN socialism with you.

[00:16:58]>> Where where you from, man?

[00:17:00]>> Manhattan. Greenwich Village.

[00:17:03]>> Just eliminate all >> Greenwich Village. Cody, what what do you think about the rents in Greenwich?

[00:17:07]What should we do to lower the rents in Greenwich Village?

[00:17:09]>> You can't. It's too They're too high.

[00:17:11]You just got to get a better job. Well, I agree with that. I don't want foreign.

[00:17:15]>> Wait, what do you what do we agree with Angle, man?

[00:17:16]>> Uh foreign wars. I don't want foreign wars. I don't think we should be in >> Iran send money to Israel.

[00:17:24]>> No, >> absolutely not.

[00:17:26]>> Okay, >> let them suck.

[00:17:27]>> You know, I'll take it.

[00:17:28]>> [ __ ] that.

[00:17:29]>> I'll take that. I'll take it.

[00:17:30]>> Our money is our money. Let's They have plenty of money. They could go use their money. Go.

[00:17:35]>> But you don't think Trump should be beholden to Apac and Yahoo?

[00:17:38]>> Not at all.

[00:17:38]>> Are you Are you mad at Trump for that?

[00:17:40]Are you >> a little bit? Yeah.

[00:17:43]>> A little bit. Yes.

[00:17:44]>> All right. I think I think the two of us aren't. We could we could unite on that issue and we could get a lot more angrier about that issue. We're participating in socialism right now.

[00:17:54]This is we're doing socialism. This is You lived in New York all all your life?

[00:17:58]>> All my life. 58 years.

[00:17:59]>> Are you How do you afford the rent in Greenwich Village?

[00:18:02]>> Uh Trump gives me money >> to wear this hat.

[00:18:06]>> Because it sounds like you're on like a worker's pension. Pension.

[00:18:09]>> Pension. Yeah.

[00:18:10]>> You can't afford Greenwich Village on a pension. on a threequarters pension.

[00:18:14]>> Well, I I'm in the I have a rent control department in the great >> Yes.

[00:18:24]>> chart of the week. So, we did an extensive piece a few months ago on the housing crisis to show how stuck the market is right now. We've got high rates and high valuations and therefore little movement. And since that time, things have only changed slightly. But May proved to be a particularly tough month. Now, one thing to keep in mind with census data, which we're going to review, is that a it has a significant margin of error around 9%. But that said, the May housing start number was outside of this range with a 15.4% drop that hits like a 2x4 to the face.

[00:19:00]So con for context this is the lowest reading since co and it missed the Wall Street consensus by like 230,000 units.

[00:19:10]It's terrible. So the headline number is bad enough but the real story is what happened in multif family construction.

[00:19:18]Buildings with five or more units the apartment towers and the mid-rise developments that were supposed to be the supply side answer to the nation's housing crisis. Multif family starts fell 40% in a single month. That's the steepest monthly drop since 2009 when the financial system was basically in a full meltdown. Now single family starts dropped more modestly, down 1.9% from April to 882,000.

[00:19:45]Building permits, which is all about future construction intent, was basically flat, down just about 7% overall with single family permits actually tipping ticking up 6%. So, there's a teeny sliver of good news. So, it's not that developers have given up.

[00:20:00]It's that they can't make the math math right now, especially on the bigger, more complex multif family projects that require more collateral, more materials, and more time. So, this is the housing that we need the most. So, that's why this is not a good signal. And it's hard to ascribe blame to a single thing especially in something as vital and as broad as housing because conditions vary from market to market. So I think it's best for us to exam examine the universal forces. The most obvious one of course is mortgage rates. So irrespective of what our president says about lowering the federal funds rate, it's pretty clear that the market is setting the pace right now based on the health of the consumer and what they believe the consumer can manage. So, the 30-year fixed rate is still around 6.4%.

[00:20:50]Which some older people will tell you isn't problematic, especially the GOP members, right? Because compared to prior decades, it's like kind of on par.

[00:20:59]But when you compare it with housing prices today versus 10, 20, and 30 years ago, this is an enormous roadblock, especially for firsttime home buyers. So rates and high valuations affect demand negatively for the obvious reasons. But the bigger reason that building might be holding off right now is still because of tariffs. See, the Trump administration's tariff regime has layered cost pressure onto an industry that was already stretched pretty thin.

[00:21:28]So like softwood lumber carries a 10% tariff still. Kitchen cabinets and vanities were at 25% and slated to climb to 50%. steel and aluminum tariffs hit structural components throughout a build. Now, last year, the National Association of Homebuilders estimated that these costs added about $11,000 to the price of every new home right out of the gate, even though a lot of these tariffs did expire. They're being reuped right now through temporary powers of AIPA under the executive powers. So, it's really difficult to parse how much is impacting supply on a monthly basis, but there's no doubt that it's having a chilling effect because people don't know when to order, how much to order.

[00:22:11]Should they be front-loading inventory if the demand isn't there because rates and home prices, the whole thing is a mess. So, when you put the rate pressure together with the tariff pressure, you get this afford affordability picture that's genuinely grim. So, like the median existing home price hit 429,000 in May. That's an all-time high for May.

[00:22:35]National median family income, by the way, is at 106,000.

[00:22:40]So, a buyer putting 20% down at the current rates at 6.48% or 65 is looking at a monthly mortgage payment of about $2,100, which is about 24% of that family's gross income. And that's before property taxes, insurance, or any maintenance.

[00:22:58]But listen, in all fairness, I think we have to remember our president's a builder. He's a developer. I'm sure there's an answer to all of this right around the corner. Look what a good job he's doing on the ballroom or the the the pool, the reflecting pool, the one that goes from blue to green. That's so creative. He's doing a great job.

[00:23:20]All right, time for some headlines. Our first is from Justice for Colombia, and it's all about their incoming president, who seems lovely. From bragging about torturing cats and keeping ties with known gangs and cartels to expressing admiration for people like Trump and Boullle and Malay, Colombia's next president is a real winner. And yet another leftist government turns right in Latin America. And if you're really into fascist fashion, by the way, which is not to be confused with fast fashion, make sure to check out his personal brand website because you too can dress and drink like a soontobe dictator. Next up, we have another heartwarming all-American story from The New Yorker that reads like a This American Life journal. It's a New Yorker article that goes through the typical day of a repo man who's busier than ever and turning anguish into influencer fodder. The most heartbreaking part of this story is when the main subject notes that quote less well-off people handle repossession better than the rich because they know what to expect. And lastly for Mother Jones, we have why GM is betting on a future with sodium ion battery storage.

[00:24:26]Now listen, I'm not going to say that I completely grasp the scale potential of this solution, but harvesting salt as opposed to lithium seems pretty promising. All right, that's it for us this week. Links to everything that we talked about are in the description below. Don't forget to go to unftr.com/triviarivia to play our new progressive trivia feature. And thanks as always to the members who keep the lights on and the coffee brewed.

[00:25:06]Heat. Heat.

[00:25:28]Heat. Heat.