It’s rough out there, where “out there” means Main Street in America.

Hell, in some cities it’s so bad Donald Trump had to put armed military personnel next to Starbucks just to be sure you don’t get robbed for your Flat White by a tatted black.

On Wall Street it’s another story, though. Things are fine there, notwithstanding a turbulent week for the tech stocks responsible for minting — I don’t know exactly because the Fed data for Q3 isn’t available yet — approximately $6 trillion in new equity wealth this year.

The chart’s a reminder: It’s good to own assets. Cue Ferris: “They are so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking some up.”

This is the same story over and over again. The “haves” in America continue to enjoy a fortuitous post-pandemic economic conjuncture wherein their only liability is a fixed-rate 30-year loan, locked or refied at ~3% for an asset which appreciated by 30% from 2020-2024, and their other assets are either throwing off variable-rate monthly income at what still count as some of the highest cash yields in decades or appreciating by a minimum of 20% per year.

For the “have-nots,” it’s a different story altogether. In a lot of cases, they don’t have any assets, and because they have little in the way of a cash cushion, they tend to rely on loans and credit cards (which is to say variable-rate debt) to get by. The rates on that financing are punitive, as tabulated below.

Note that even the low-end of the “haves” spectrum is getting squeezed: Let’s say you need a new roof and a couple of new HVAC units all of a sudden and you don’t have $35,000 to piss away, but you do have some home equity. Tapping that’s gonna cost you 8%.

Who cares? Haven’t we heard this story over and over again? Isn’t it crocodile tears for the poor(s)?

Nobody, yes and yes. Or at least those are the answers when you’re on the right side of the “haves” / “have-nots” divide like everyone in the research department at BofA whose Michael Hartnett summarized the “conventional macro wisdom” for 2026 in the note from which the table above’s excerpted.

Next year should be “Goldilocks” at least initially with “lower rates and higher profits,” Hartnett said, describing the consensus. The Trump administration, he went on, “wants strong growth into the mid-terms,” which means working to keep stocks high so the “K-shaped US consumer” can keep spending, all while corporate bottom lines benefit from AI, which’ll replace human workers and drive productivity gains.

Did someone say “golden age?” They meant “Gilded Age,” proper noun.