Category: Notes from the Field

NOTES FROM THE FIELD — Dispatch #10 April 2026 — THE NEXT POPULATION — You already know someone in this story. I. THE DESERT Michelah has applied for thirty jobs in six months. She works customer service because that’s what’s there. She described the job market to a Times moderator this way: “It’s like a…

NOTES FROM THE FIELD — Dispatch #9April 2026 — TWO CLOCKS —Nobody has put them on the same page.They arrive at the same year.  —They had made themselves replaceable. Meta owned what they’d built. They owned nothing. I. THE CONVERGENCE Two separate conversations are happening in two separate rooms. The people in each room are…

NOTES FROM THE FIELD — Dispatch #8April 2026 Mellon wrote in 1924 that taxing wage income more heavily than investment income was beyond question unfair. A century later the system runs exactly backward. Three dispatches. One argument. The first showed you the mechanism — how the ownership class built a parallel tax system inside the…

NOTES FROM THE FIELD — DISPATCH #7April 2026 If you read the last dispatch, you now understand the mechanism. The buy-borrow-die sequence. Stepped-up basis. The payroll cap. The estate tax that collects $30 billion against $50 trillion. You probably also came away with a reasonable question: how is this still the system? If it’s this…

NOTES FROM THE FIELD – Dispatch 6 Tax Day just passed. If you work for a living, you noticed. If you earn a salary — if you’re a nurse, a teacher, a contractor, an accountant, a surgeon — a meaningful share of what you made last year went to the federal government before you ever…

Notes from the Field | April 15, 2026 In December 2025, Tate Pulliam went to Yellowstone to fish. He left facing 18 months in prison for violating rules a park superintendent wrote — rules Congress never passed. His lawyers argue that’s unconstitutional. The government argues the superintendent had authority Congress delegated. Both are right. Neither…

NOTES FROM THE FIELD April 10, 2026  — THE ENCLOSURE COMPLETES — Three movements, one logic — I. THE ARITHMETIC OF DISPLACEMENT The first quarter of 2026 is now on the record. 78,557 technology workers were laid off globally between January 1 and early April. 76% were in the United States. Of those, 47.9% were…

NOTES FROM THE FIELDApril 5, 2026 — THE ROOM DECIDES WHO STAYS —Three movements, one week The past seven days produced three distinct structural developments. They are being reported as separate stories. They are not. I. THE PROMOTION PROBLEM On April 2, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, along…

NOTES FROM THE FIELD April 1, 2026 — THE INFRASTRUCTURE REMAINS —The Warehouse Acquisition Program as Durable Architecture — WHAT IS ACTUALLY BEING BUILT — In July 2025, Congress allocated $45 billion to ICE for immigration detention — more than a decade of normal detention funding delivered in a single appropriation. ICE is now the…

NOTES FROM THE FIELDApril 1, 2026 — THE SEQUENCE —Birthright Citizenship, the Robot Economy, and the Architecture of Exclusion The Supreme Court heard arguments today on birthright citizenship. The framing in most coverage is immigration law. The framing in constitutional commentary is 14th Amendment precedent. Both framings are correct and both miss the more durable…