The War on the Future, Part 1: The War on Love

Why Your Empty Wallet is Killing Your Relationships

We’ve named the enemy’s doctrine: Managed Decline. Now, let’s map its battlefield. This is Part 1 of 3 in “The War on the Future,” detailing how The Rust systematically attacks the foundations of our lives, starting with love itself.

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It starts quietly, doesn’t it? That nagging feeling. The delayed text back about moving in together. The awkward silence when the topic of kids comes up. The dream of a house, a stable future, a family... feeling less like a goal and more like a cruel joke.

If you feel like building a life with someone is getting harder, like the basic foundation for love and commitment is crumbling beneath your feet, you are not alone. And it is not your fault.

For decades, we’ve been sold a lie. We’ve been told that finding love, getting married, and having kids are purely personal choices, matters of timing and individual readiness. But the ground truth, the one whispered in late-night anxieties and stressed-out budget meetings, is far more brutal: our ability to form stable, loving families is under direct, systemic economic assault.

This isn’t an accident. It’s the result of a half-century war waged by “The Rust” 🦠 – the parasitic corporate and financial interests that have hijacked our economy. They’ve built an “Economic Cage” around us, bar by deliberate bar, making the basic building blocks of a shared life a luxury few can afford. Let’s look at the blueprints of our prison:

Bar 1: The Unattainable Home 🏡

A stable home is the bedrock of family life. But that bedrock has been turned into quicksand. Truth Bullet 💥: The national median home price is now 5.6 times the median household income, a record high dwarfing the 2006 bubble. Truth Bullet 💥: Since 1960, inflation-adjusted home prices have soared 121%, while real household income crawled up just 29%. Renters aren’t spared; median rent jumped 72% in real terms since the 60s.

How did this happen? Engineered scarcity via restrictive zoning laws that outlaw affordable housing types, coupled with decades of financial deregulation (like the 1980 DIDMCA and 1982 Garn-St. Germain Act) that turned housing from shelter into a speculative commodity. Wall Street poured fuel on the fire, leading to the 2008 crash.

• Pocket Razor 🔪: They didn’t just build suburbs; they built walls around your future.

Bar 2: The Debt Trap 🎓💳🏥

The pathways to a middle-class life have been turned into debt traps. Higher education now often means lifelong servitude. Truth Bullet 💥: The total federal student loan burden exceeds $1.6 trillion. Truth Bullet 💥: The 2005 Bankruptcy Act made private student loans nearly impossible to discharge, creating a government-guaranteed profit engine for lenders.

This is piled onto record credit card debt (over $1.13 trillion) and the constant terror of medical debt, the most common type in collections. Pocket Razor 🔪: Your diploma came with invisible chains. This debt burden acts as a disciplinary shackle, forcing young workers into precarious jobs just to make payments.

Bar 3: The Precarious Paycheck 💼

The link between a growing economy and rising wages is broken. Truth Bullet 💥: Since 1979, worker productivity has jumped nearly 60%, but real median pay rose less than 14%. That 46-point gap is wealth stolen from workers.

Why? Systematically dismantled worker power. Union membership plummeted from over 20% to under 10%, costing non-union men alone an estimated $109 billion/year in lost wages. The exploitative “gig economy” strips workers of basic rights, with many earning less than minimum wage. Pocket Razor 🔪: Productivity went up. Your paycheck didn’t. Where did the money go?

Bar 4: The Unsupported Family 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Want to have kids? The US stands practically alone among wealthy nations in its utter failure to support families. Truth Bullet 💥: We are the only high-income country without mandated paid parental leave. FMLA offers only unpaid leave and excludes nearly half the workforce. Truth Bullet 💥: Childcare costs often exceed college tuition, yet the main federal subsidy (CCDBG) reaches only 14% of eligible children. Pocket Razor 🔪: They call it “family values” while making families financially impossible.

The Keystone: Corporate Power & Citizens United 🏛️💰

How does this cage stay locked? Corporate power bought the government. Truth Bullet 💥: The 2010 Citizens United decision unleashed unlimited corporate money into elections. Lobbying spending hit $5.6 billion in 2023. Financial, real estate, and corporate lobbies spend billions securing deregulation, suppressing wages, and blocking pro-family policies, creating a “policy veto” against popular reforms. Pocket Razor 🔪: Your vote is debated. Their dollars decide.

The Real War on Family Values

The result isn’t just hardship; it’s “cumulative precarity” – making stable family life a luxury. Young people delay marriage and kids due to rational economic calculation, not changing values. Financial stress predicts divorce, and unaffordability traps people in bad relationships.

This is the real war on family values. It’s about an economic system engineered to make families an impossible dream. It’s The Rust sacrificing our future for their profit. Recognizing the architecture of this cage is the first step to dismantling it.

READ PART 2 NOW:

The War on the Future, Part 2: The War on Childhood

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My front in this war is narrative. My weapon is the written word. But that’s just my skillset. This rebellion needs welders and coders, nurses and farmers, artists and analysts. It needs every Gear ⚙️ fighting from their own front. The Rebuttal is our forge. It’s the place where we combine our different skills and ideas to build the playbook for our victory. What’s your front? What’s your weapon? Join the War Council. Let’s build together.

The fight for a Common-Wealth of Producers begins here.

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