The Gilded Age of Robber Barons Giving Rise To Muckrakers

First half of 2026, small business bankruptcies jumped by 50% compared to 2025.  Large corporate bankruptcies are at levels of 2010 during the recession. Personal bankruptcies continue to increase by 10% to 11% 2025 and 2026.  Trump is too busy with all his Wars to pay attention to America priorities ~according to him. But These Are The Golden Years. In history, the Golden Years were touted from 1924 thru 1929 before the stock market crashed and the Great Depression took hold. Is that what Trump is alluding to?

Before the Golden Years we had the Robber Barons.  In 1859, the New York Times coined the phrase as applicable to the Vanderbilts who extracted shipping tolls. The term coincided with the wealthy, the powerful, and the unethical who used exploitive practices to amass wealth. 

Muckrakers: Investigative Journalists who began a campaign of informing the public of the corruption imposed by our Government beginning in 1900.  Turning away from the journalism of time – sensationalism, the Muckrakers uncovered and exposed. Teddy Roosevelt embraced the Muckrakers – creating the label from Pilgrims Progress.  Today, we have degraded significantly wherein lies, propaganda, sensationalism, and abject libel are the basis of most of our MSM.

The Robber Barons tactics included unfettered consumption and destruction of natural resources, influencing high levels of government, wage slavery, squashing competition by acquiring their competitors, and the creation of monopolies and trusts to evade taxes and control markets. It became known as The Gilded Age.  In addition to the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Carnegies were notable for their corruption – The Big Club is centuries old – not decades.

Trump has amassed a small fortune from his wars, but it pales in comparison to his Pay-For-Play Pardons. Get out of jail free cards are being handed out like candy canes. IF you can afford them given the price tag is $2 million – technically, a form of extortion.  These ‘pardons’ release these convicted criminals from restitution amounting into the billions as taxpayers who were defrauded now get nothing.

The original purpose of presidential pardons was to provide mercy, fix legal mistakes, and help the country heal after a crisis. Mercy denotes forgiveness in order to serve the public interest. But Trump’s pardons have been about serving the Trump interest. It isn’t about mercy, it is about lining his pockets – it is illegal and will never be prosecuted any more than Trump intends to prosecute any former political figures.

Ruining the legacy he maintained during his campaign, the drudging up of the 2020 election is irrelevant to Taxpayers. The Biden economy is irrelevant. Demonizing Democrats is yet another boring eyeroll. Trump’s Advisors would seem to have an IQ factor in the double digits as Trump pushes forward on behalf of the Israeli Military Industrial Complex.  Boeing has a backlog of orders pushing 6180 unfilled orders that many countries are now looking to cancel outright. Lockheed has a backlog of $230 Billion.  Northrup has a backlog of $104.69 Billion. All records.

Part of the backlogs are due to the unavailability of Rare Earths – a risk factor due to Trump’s refusal to bend to China. Just as in the Strait Was Open – before Trump, Rare Earths were plentiful – before Trump.  Service members are coming home crippled or in caskets – because of Trump. Grids are at risk because money is redirected to weapons and wars. All of which become an exponential number in futures. Playing catchup is ALWAYS a formidable challenge. The weapons inventory depletion can no longer be ignored. Catchup could take years leaving American industries in the twalette as alternative sources mean losing contracts and ‘respect’.

The idea that Trump would hand over more THAAD and Patriots to Zelenskky is preposterous at this juncture. But the choices for agency heads is Trump’s overall downfall given their abject incompetence when addressing the issues they are assigned to direct. In that vein, Jay Clayton, with zero intel experience, has been nominated by Trump to take over the open position as Director of National Intelligence.  Clayton is a lawyer who served in the SEC during Trump 1.  During his tenure insider trading was ignored, and he voted with Democrats 1/3 of the time. Leading us to presume The Don Cartel needed Clayton to layoff investigations concerning his family.

According to some complaints filed by the SEC recently, it appears to be aligned with Martha Stewart style reparations; Someone profited by $4600 on Insider Trading… Another is a judgement to pay $1970 in 2 installments.  And yet another final judgement for tax evasion wherein the defendant is not charged any penalties but must pay what he owes plus interest. 

 EXAMPLE:  SEC reported total receipts for FY 2025 – $17.9 billion, the majority of which was from receipts from a 2009 case.

This is similar to Kash Patel taking credit for cases that were finalized well before he took office by making the claim “The FBI has rescued…” while failing to mention it is a cumulative number over a decade. Or, “While working with such and such police department, we collectively…”. It is a form of manipulation formerly attributed to manufacturer ad campaigns which highlighted performance stats and comparables that didn’t exist to sell a product.  In this case it is Patel ‘SELLING’ himself.

Trump is a Robber Baron.  Every Lawyer he appoints to head a government agency is onboard the Piracy Train and LAW is nonexistent.  He has created an Empire Run By The Cartel while telling the peasants to get over ourselves and accept the slop doled out to us.