Simon Black
Simon Black, as James Hickman is more commonly known, is the Founder of Sovereign Man. He is an international investor, entrepreneur, and a free man. His daily e-letter, Sovereign Letters, draws on his life, business and travel experiences to help readers gain more freedom, more opportunity, and more prosperity.
SATIRE
In a world brimming with bewildering headlines, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.
“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything is based on actual events, news stories, personalities and legislation.
May 26, 2028: Pampers Faces Backlash for Trans-Baby Ad Campaign
Procter & Gamble, the parent company of the formerly popular diaper brand Pampers, is facing a major backlash over Pampers’ latest ad campaign.
Pampers, which is the largest global brand in P&G’s consumer stable and accounts for more than 10 per cent of the conglomerate’s net sales, recently hired the 14-month-old trans-baby influencer Taylor.
Taylor’s parents rose to prominence during the pregnancy for successfully winning a lawsuit against the state of Texas to have the baby’s gender assignment from birth be based on identity.
“We weren’t going to let some kook doctor tell us that an arbitrary flap of flesh made our child a boy, when we knew she identified as female,” said Taylor’s father – a female-to-male trans man who gave birth to the baby.
“From the moment of conception, I knew our child was a girl. Even the way she rolled around while still in my belly made it obvious to me, and to Taylor’s co-parent, that our baby would identify as female.”
Taylor’s gender assignment court case sparked national outrage, and the fury multiplied when the baby began receiving gender affirming care at the age of six months. But to Pampers’ new head of marketing, this was exactly the right story for their brand.
“Pampers is sort of anti-science in how we have always viewed babies’ genders based on their little pipi’s or whatever. It’s time we elevate the brand to become more inclusive… and force our customers to evolve and be less Medieval in their thinking,” said Karen Peters, who became VP of Marketing at Pampers less than three months ago.
Ms Peters, a recent graduate of Yale University’s Prince Harry School of Inclusion, also stated that “the entire board of directors at Procter & Gamble is behind me 100 per cent”.
P&G stock is down 70 per cent since the ad campaign began, and a company spokesman confirmed this morning that Ms Peters is on a leave of absence.
May 26, 2029: No Deal Just Six Days From Social Security Default
“We thought we had until 2033 to figure this out,” Rep Harry Sisson commented about Social Security’s looming default. And that was once true.
In the late 2010s, the Social Security annual trustee report projected that the program’s once mighty trust funds would become fully depleted by 2035. But by the early 2020s, the trust funds’ projected insolvency date had advanced to 2033.
And with each passing year of this decade, as US economic growth waned and eight per cent inflation stubbornly persisted, Social Security’s cash outflows accelerated, moving up the program’s default.
Late last year, Treasury Secretary Eric McDonnell quietly announced over the holiday break that the latest insolvency date for Social Security would be June 1, 2029… just over five months from the date of his announcement.
Congress and the White House have been trying to reach a deal for the past several months before Social Security’s funds run dry, something that would immediately trigger deep cuts to every American retiree’s monthly benefit. But the talks have produced little compromise.
Some members of Congress have advocated cutting from other government programs in order to make room for more Social Security funding, like the $77 billion spent last year housing border refugees in hotels across America.
But President AOC has taken a hard line against any cuts to government spending, saying, “We demand a clean bailout of Social Security. One hundred per cent. I’m not willing to negotiate for the future of the American people.”
Members of her own Socialist party believe the president is taking too soft a position on the issue.
“You never want to waste a good crisis,” said Senator Machaela Cavanaugh of Nebraska. “We have all the momentum we need to raise the national wealth tax from five per cent to 10 per cent; households who make more than $150,000 can easily afford to pay it.”
The House has already passed a bill that would provide short-term funding to Social Security while requiring that qualified asset managers from the private sector invest the funds, instead of merely putting all the money in US government bonds. However the president has referred to this proposal as “whacko”.
With just six days to go before Social Security runs out of money, prospects for a compromise look bleak. President AOC cut short her trip to India yesterday, where she unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade Prime Minister Singh from selling off their US dollars.
Without reaching a deal, retirees collecting Social Security will see their payments cut to just 68 per cent of their previous benefits as early as next month, and likely decline further from there.
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