The Average US Household Budget In One Chart This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, shows what the average U.S. household budget looks like by tracking where all income goes to, including expenditures, savings, and taxes. The data comes from The Motley Fool, with annual figures for 2023 converted to monthly spending. ℹ️ Not all spending happens every month (car maintenance for example). The annual cost is averaged over 12 months. Furthermore, households include families, single people living alone, or two or more people living together sharing the majority of their expenses. What Do Americans Spend Their Money On? Taken together, housing (25%), taxes (14%), and savings (10%) account for nearly half of the average American household’s monthly budget. This works out to about $4,000 every month. Note: The graphic combines eight categories into miscellaneous spending. Transport costs (including gas, insurance, and maintenance) take another big chunk ($1,100) out of the average household budget. After that, food (both groceries and eating out), personal insurance, and healthcare are all the other big ticket items, between $500–800 each. The biggest “non-necessity” expenditure is entertainment, coming in at roughly $300 a month. All figures listed are averages and do not account for variances between states with significantly different costs of living. Additionally this chart breaks down the average pre-tax household income by month. And averages can be skewed by ultra-wealthy outliers in the country with significantly larger expenses. For context, median household income for that same year stood at $80,610, about $20,000 lower than the average. Have U.S. households gotten richer over time? Check out How U.S. Household Incomes Have Changed Since 1967 to take a look at inflation-adjusted figures. Tyler Durden Fri, 01/10/2025 – 20:30

Macy’s And Kohl’s Announce Closures Of 93 Stores In Total Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, Retail chains Macy’s and Kohl’s are set to shut down nearly 100 stores across the country, with the decision following several quarters of negative year-over-year revenue growth. Macy’s is closing 66 stores across 22 states in an effort to “return the company to sustainable, profitable sales growth,” the retailer said in a Jan. 9 statement. Out of the 66 outlets, two have already been closed. A majority of the stores are expected to be closed during the first quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, Kohl’s announced plans to shutter 27 “underperforming stores” across 15 states by April this year. Macy’s year-over-year quarterly revenue growth registered declines for the past 10 consecutive quarters. The retailer’s “Bold New Chapter” strategy plans to shut down 150 unproductive stores while “investing in its 350 go-forward Macy’s locations through fiscal 2026,” the statement said. Macy’s CEO Tony Spring said that closing unproductive outlets would “allow us to focus our resources and prioritize investments in our go–forward stores, where customers are already responding positively to better product offerings and elevated service.” Shares of the company were down by more than 15 percent over the past year. As for Kohl’s, most of the closures are set to take place in California, with 10 outlets shutting down in the state. In addition, the company aims to shutter its San Bernardino E-commerce Fulfillment Center (EFC) in May, when the facility’s lease term expires. It is one of the 15 EFCs and distribution centers linked to the company across the United States. Kohl’s justified the decision, saying it is in a position to fulfill orders without the San Bernardino facility. “All associates have been informed, and offered a competitive severance package or the ability to apply to other open roles at Kohl’s,” it said. Kohl’s quarterly revenues have registered a year-over-year decline for 11 straight quarters. Over the past year, the company’s shares have crashed by more than 51 percent. Tough Business Conditions Several companies have slashed store counts, shuttered divisions, or filed for bankruptcy in recent months, citing profitability and cost challenges. This week, REI, a specialty outdoor retailer, said the company was exiting from its Experiences business, which included day tours and adventure travel. CEO Eric Artz said the segment “costs significantly more to run than it brings in.” “When we look at the all-up costs of running this business, including costs like marketing and technology, we are losing millions of dollars every year and subsidizing Experiences with profits from other parts of the business,” he said. Last month, party goods retailer Party City announced filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shuttering almost 700 stores nationwide after being in business for almost four decades. The company said the decision was taken to ensure continued operations while it faced an “immensely challenging environment driven by inflationary pressures on costs and consumer spending, among other factors.” In October 2024, convenience store chain 7-Eleven announced closing 444 underperforming stores to boost efficiency and manage costs. According to a report from S&P Global, U.S. corporate bankruptcies hit a 14-year high in 2024, registering 694 filings. S&P’s bankruptcy calculations only consider large companies that exceed certain asset and liability thresholds. “Businesses continued to face pressure in 2024 from elevated interest rates, especially as total debt among credit-rated non-financial U.S. companies reached a quarterly record of $8.453 trillion,” the report said. “While some relief came in September when the U.S. Federal Reserve began lowering its benchmark interest rate from a 20-year high, the central bank’s monetary easing may slow in 2025.” Overall commercial Chapter 11 bankruptcies rose by 20 percent in 2024, according to a Jan. 3 statement from the American Bankruptcy Institute. Michael Hunter, vice president of bankruptcy data provider Epiq AACER, said he expects the filing growth to continue throughout this year. “If the current trend continues, new bankruptcy filings will return to pre-pandemic normalized volumes over the next 24–30 months,” he said. Tyler Durden Fri, 01/10/2025 – 20:05

“They Didn’t Even Bother To Verify”: Fortune Magazine Tricked Into Musk Hit Piece By Internet Rando Fortune Magazine published a hit piece on Elon Musk and X on Friday, claiming that two sources told them the social media giant was planning to remove dates from posts, and charge an $8 sign-up fee. Musk has floated the idea of nixing date and time stamps from the timeline to X to employees in recent weeks, a person familiar with internal conversations told Fortune. The suggestion, which has raised worries among some staffers for its potential to exacerbate misinformation, comes as X is moving ahead with a separate plan to begin charging new users an $8 fee to sign up and begin posting on the platform, two sources told Fortune. Only one problem – there was only one source, a random anonymous person on the internet who emailed journalist Kali Hays (also of Business Insider). I found this contact information at the end of a Fortune article and decided to fool them. 2/n pic.twitter.com/jymCjlpgMi — Fortune Exposed (@fortune_exposed) January 10, 2025 Continued… Then, on Wednesday, I decided to pull the ultimate trick. I told her I was fired by @elonmusk because I’m a frontend engineer who opposed his decision to remove dates from posts. I also claimed that X is planning to charge users to create accounts. She then asked a few follow-up questions, but I responded that I didn’t know. And then… They even directly quoted my words. 7/n pic.twitter.com/1YHU85Bnmv — Fortune Exposed (@fortune_exposed) January 10, 2025 My intention was not to damage the X brand; I just wanted to expose how naive the mainstream media is, how easily they can be fooled, and why they shouldn’t be trusted. 9/n — Fortune Exposed (@fortune_exposed) January 10, 2025 My intention was not to damage the X brand; I just wanted to expose how naive the mainstream media is, how easily they can be fooled, and why they shouldn’t be trusted. 9/n — Fortune Exposed (@fortune_exposed) January 10, 2025 Tyler Durden Fri, 01/10/2025 – 19:40

The Real Cost Of Facebook’s Now-Repudiated Censorship Authored by Josh Stylman and Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute, History will remember this era as the moment when America’s most sacred principles collided with unprecedented institutional power – and lost. The systematic dismantling of fundamental rights didn’t happen through military force or executive decree, but through the quiet cooperation of tech platforms, media gatekeepers, and government agencies, all claiming to protect us from “misinformation.” Meta’s sudden dismantling of its fact-checking program – announced by Zuckerberg as a “cultural tipping point towards prioritizing speech” – reads like a quiet footnote to what history may record as one of the most staggering violations of fundamental rights in recent memory. After eight years of increasingly aggressive content moderation, including nearly 100 fact-checking organizations operating in over 60 languages, Meta is now pivoting to a community-driven system similar to X’s model. In his announcement, Zuckerberg first suggests that the censorship was purely a technical mistake, and then changes his tune near the end and admits what has long been litigated: “The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US government. And that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past 4 years when even the US government has pushed for censorship. By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further.” In many court cases costing millions, involving vast FOIA requests, depositions, and discoveries, the truth of this has been documented in 100,000 pages of evidence. The Murthy v. Missouri case alone uncovered substantial communications through FOIA and depositions, revealing the depth of government coordination with social media platforms. The Supreme Court considered it all but several justices simply could not comprehend the substance and scale, and thus reversed a lower court injunction to stop it all. Now we have Zuckerberg openly admitting precisely what was in dispute: the US government’s involvement in aggressive violation of the First Amendment.  This should, at least, make it easier to find redress as the cases proceed. Still, it is frustrating. Tens of millions have been spent to prove what he could have admitted years ago. But back then, the censors were still in charge, and Facebook was guarding its relationship with the powers that be.  The timing of the shift is telling: a Trump ally joining the board, Meta’s president of global affairs being replaced by a prominent Republican, and a new administration preparing to take control. But while Zuckerberg frames this as a return to free speech principles, the damage of their experiment in mass censorship can’t be undone with a simple policy change. The irony runs deep: private companies claiming independence while acting as extensions of state power. Consider our own experience: posting Mussolini’s definition of fascism as “the merger of state and corporate power” – only to have Meta remove it as “misinformation.” This wasn’t just censorship; it was meta-censorship – silencing discussion about the very mechanisms of control being deployed.  While tech platforms maintained the facade of private enterprise, their synchronized actions with government agencies revealed a more troubling reality: the emergence of exactly the kind of state-corporate fusion they were trying to prevent us from discussing. As we’ve covered before, we didn’t just cross lines – we crossed sacred Rubicons created after humanity’s darkest chapters. The First Amendment, born from revolution against tyranny, and the Nuremberg Code, established after World War II’s horrors, were meant to be unbreakable guardians of human rights. Both were systematically dismantled in the name of “safety.” The same tactics of misinformation, fear, and government overreach that our ancestors warned against were deployed with frightening efficiency. This systematic dismantling left no topic untouched: from discussions of vaccine effects to debates about virus origins to questions about mandate policies. Scientific discourse was replaced with approved narratives. Medical researchers couldn’t share findings that diverged from institutional positions, as seen in the removal of credible discussions of Covid-19 data and policy. Even personal experiences were labeled “misinformation” if they didn’t align with official messaging – a pattern that reached absurd heights when even discussing the nature of censorship itself became grounds for censorship. The damage rippled through every layer of society. At the individual level, careers were destroyed and professional licenses revoked simply for sharing genuine experiences. Scientists and doctors who questioned prevailing narratives found themselves professionally ostracized. Many were made to feel isolated or irrational for trusting their own eyes and experiences when platforms labeled their firsthand accounts as “misinformation.” The destruction of family bonds may prove even more lasting. Holiday tables emptied. Grandparents missed irreplaceable moments with grandchildren. Siblings who had been close for decades stopped speaking. Years of family connections shattered not over disagreements about facts, but over the very right to discuss them. Perhaps most insidious was the community-level damage. Local groups splintered. Neighbors turned against neighbors. Small businesses faced blacklisting. Churches divided. School board meetings devolved into battlegrounds. The social fabric that enables civil society began unraveling – not because people held different views, but because the very possibility of dialogue was deemed dangerous. The censors won. They showed that with enough institutional power, they could break apart the social fabric that makes free discourse possible. Now that this infrastructure for suppression exists, it stands ready to be deployed again for whatever cause seems urgent enough. The absence of a public reckoning sends a chilling message: there is no line that cannot be crossed, no principle that cannot be ignored. True reconciliation demands more than Meta’s casual policy reversal. We need a full, transparent investigation documenting every instance of censorship – from suppressed vaccine injury reports to blocked scientific debates about virus origins to silenced voices questioning mandate policies. This isn’t about vindication – it’s about creating an unassailable public record ensuring these tactics can never be deployed again. Our Constitution’s First Amendment wasn’t a suggestion – it was a sacred covenant written in the blood of those who fought tyranny. Its principles aren’t outdated relics but vital protections against the very overreach we just witnessed. When institutions treat these foundational rights as flexible guidelines rather than inviolable boundaries, the damage ripples far beyond any single platform or policy. Like many in our circles, we witnessed this firsthand. But personal vindication isn’t the goal. Every voice silenced, every debate suppressed, every relationship fractured in service of “approved narratives” represents a tear in our social fabric that makes us all poorer. Without a full accounting and concrete safeguards against future overreach, we’re leaving future generations vulnerable to the same autocratic impulses wearing different masks. The question isn’t whether we can restore what was lost – we can’t. The question is whether we’ll finally recognize these rights as truly inviolable, or continue treating them as inconvenient obstacles to be swept aside whenever fear and urgency demand it. Benjamin Franklin warned that those who would surrender essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Our answer to this challenge will determine whether we leave our children a society that defends essential liberties or one that casually discards them in the name of safety. HOLY SHLIT. Mark Zuckerberg says the Biden admin called his employees and “screamed and cursed” at them to take down Covid/vaccine content. They wanted Meta to censor memes too.When he pushed back, the Biden regime started investigating his companies.“It was brutal.” pic.twitter.com/rNwZtoq0hO— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 10, 2025 Tyler Durden Fri, 01/10/2025 – 19:15

Trump Assassination Suspect Complains About No Salt And Pepper With Meals, Cold Conditions, At Brooklyn Jail Asif Merchant, a suspected Iranian agent accused of plotting to assassinate Donald Trump and other U.S. officials, is complaining about conditions in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, according to the New York Post. Held in solitary since his July arrest, Merchant has criticized the lack of salt and pepper for his vegetarian meals. The strict facility also houses figures like Sean “Diddy” Combs and alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee, Asif Merchant’s lawyer criticized “arbitrary” restrictions at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, claiming they are intended to make his client’s life “more miserable.” The Post writes that Merchant, held in the SAMS unit, is reportedly denied warm clothing for his cold cell and access to basic seasonings or commissary items like spicy chips to flavor his vegetarian meals. His lawyer argued these restrictions lack any valid security justification. Merchant courtroom sketch, via New York Post “Merchant’s cell (and the attorney conference room on Unit 84) is very cold and he often comes to attorney-client meetings shivering from cold,” his lawyer wrote. “On the one occasion when Mr. Merchant was brought to the courthouse to meet with me and review discovery, he was so cold that he wore my winter coat throughout the meeting so he could warm up.” Merchant’s lawyer urged a judge to order better conditions at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, arguing that SAMS restrictions shouldn’t mean enduring bland food in a cold cell without proper clothing. The attorney called the conditions “inhumane” and said they interfere with Merchant’s right to counsel and defense preparation.  Merchant, accused of plotting political assassinations in retaliation for the 2020 killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, allegedly paid $5,000 to men he thought were hitmen. He’s being held alongside high-profile inmates like accused sex-trafficker Combs and alleged assassin Mangione, the report says.  Tyler Durden Fri, 01/10/2025 – 18:50