What’s in This Week’s Issue…

Good morning. Every CEO in America is suddenly firing people because of "AI."

Except the numbers don't add up. Only 5% of recent layoffs were actually caused by AI. And while workers scramble to stay relevant, someone else is quietly converting each pink slip into millions.

So this week…

• 🏆 The Big Play: How the "AI layoff" became corporate America's most profitable lie since globalization

• 💪 The Power Move: Why the real threat isn't losing your job to AI

• 💵 Follow the Money: How long can Iran sustain missile and drone attacks

-GEN

🏆 The Big Play

The biggest money power story of the week.

The $2.7 Trillion Layoff Machine and the Perfect Cover Story

When you dig into the numbers behind 2025's layoff wave, something breaks. AI accounts for just 5% of job cuts. Tariffs, restructuring, and government cuts wiped out over half a million positions.

But every CEO from San Francisco to Wall Street keeps saying the same two letters: AI.

Why? Because those two letters are worth billions.

1. The Excuse Changes, The Playbook Doesn't

Corporate America has been running this con since Reagan wore shoulder pads. The pattern isn't new. Only the excuse changes:

• 1980s playbook: Blame globalization and automation while shipping 7.5 million manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China for cheaper labor.

• 2008 playbook: Blame restructuring during the crash, then rehire workers into worse jobs with lower pay and zero benefits.

• 2025 playbook: Blame AI before it can even do the job, pocket the stock gains, quietly rehire later under different titles.

What makes AI particularly effective as cover is that it sounds inevitable. You can't argue with technology, and you can't unionize against an algorithm.

So the story preemptively ends the conversation while the actual mechanics of wealth extraction continue undisturbed.

2. Who Actually Wins When the Layoffs Hit

Follow the money, and you'll find a machine built in 1982, perfected in 2017, and running at full speed today.

Stock buybacks were once considered illegal market manipulation until Reagan-era deregulation in 1982 made them permissible.

And in 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act dropped Corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%:

• Companies promised the savings would go toward workers and innovation. Instead, nearly 80% of the tax savings went straight into buybacks.

• In 2018 alone, companies repurchased $1 trillion of their own stock. Since then, 280 of America’s largest corporations have spent $2.7 trillion buying back shares.

• Executive compensation is now tied heavily to stock performance. So when share prices rise, leadership teams collect massive bonuses.

Which creates a predictable pattern: announce AI disruption → cut workers → buy back your own shares → watch stock prices inflate → then executives sell at peak valuations.

But remember, AI didn't create this system. It just gave executives a more palatable story to tell while the machine runs.

3. The Damage Isn't Where You Think

The real cost shows up after the headlines fade:

• Klarna replaced 700 customer service roles with an AI chatbot. Customers immediately revolted over generic, useless responses. The company quietly began rehiring, targeting students and rural workers for lower-paid remote roles.

• Companies that replaced developers with AI-generated code are now discovering that nearly half of that code contains serious security vulnerabilities. Developers admit they don't always understand the code AI produces or why it works.

• Over 55% of organizations that cut staff in the name of AI now say they regret it. Gartner predicts that by 2027, half of the companies that reduced headcount for AI will rehire for similar functions under different job titles.

But even when companies backtrack, the damage is structural.

Entry-level positions, the ones that used to teach new workers the ropes, have collapsed. Between 2018 and 2024, entry-level roles in software development, data analysis, and consulting fell off a cliff.

College graduates now work jobs that don't require degrees, a phenomenon economists call underemployment. And the ones who do get hired face a new reality: algorithmic surveillance.

The threat of AI replacement, even when not immediately deployed, functions as a psychological weapon that strips workers of bargaining power. You don't ask for a raise when you believe you're one algorithm away from obsolescence.

💪 The Power Moves

Playbook for understanding the game of power.

Why the Real Threat isn't Losing Your Job to AI

Here's what nobody's saying out loud: 95% of generative AI projects fail to deliver measurable profit. And yet spending keeps accelerating.

Not because the technology works. Because the story does.

The fear of being left behind drives investment even when results don't materialize. And that fear cuts both ways. You're lying if you haven't wondered whether you'll become irrelevant in the next few years.

But here's what's more dangerous than losing your job to AI: refusing to learn the tools or using them without judgment to produce garbage faster.

The gap between people with good judgment who use AI and people who don't will only grow. Hating the tool won't protect you, and ignoring it won't save your position.

So learn the tools, understand their limits, and develop judgment that machines can't replicate.

The Takeaway:

Most importantly, stop believing the cover story. AI isn't coming for your job because it's better. It's being used as justification because the system found a new way to convert your labor into someone else's stock options.

Your job isn't to predict which jobs AI will take. It's to build skills and judgment that make you irreplaceable, regardless of what tools emerge.

The game hasn't changed, only the excuse has.

💵 Following the Money

Three of the wildest financial and corruption stories from around the world.

#1 - How long can Iran sustain missile and drone attacks?

#2 - Social media like X changes your politics whether you want it to or not. Here’s how.

#3 - Is the US at risk from Iranian cyberattacks?

✨ Poll time!

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