Lost It

A Trumped Up Views story – 3/2025

“Dammit, down again!” said Mike.

“What?” asked John.

“The market is down again. I’ve lost a shit load of money this week,” said Mike.

“You should have moved your money to shiftCoin,” said John.

“That rollercoaster? Fuck no,” said Mike, making a face, “Don’t tell me you’re into that? How much?”

“Not too much. A couple hundred grand-”

“Sheeiiitt,” choked Mike, almost spitting the almond milk out of his coffee.

“I almost made half of it back with the last rally. Of course that was before the tariff threats against the country where they’re keeping the servers,” grimaced John. 

“Wait a week,-” started Mike

“And there will be another distraction,” finished John

“Squirrel!” they said in unison and laughed.

“What a shit show,” said Mike.

“Yeah but it’s our shit show,” agreed John, “Hey, what’s that on the tv? Hey, can you turn that up? Well, I’ll be damned.”

“What’s that, the fourth, fifth attempt?” asked Mike.

“Gotta be at least four. All of them misses.”

“Yeah. The one grazed him-”

“Fake. Clearly staged.”

“You think?”
“For sure.”

“That one guy got killed. The poor sap behind him. Can’t remember his name.”

“Yeah me either. And yeah, I’m sure. They’d do worse for less. I mean he did win.”

Mike shrugged slightly. “I guess.”

“Oh that’s interesting. This guy was a farmer. Lost his farm due to tariffs. Apparently he sold a lot of his stuff to Canada.”

“They know all of that already? Didn’t the cops kill this guy?”
“Secret service killed him. He had a manifesto.”

“Don’t they all?”
“Gotta have the rhetoric to get the reaction,” said John.

“True enough. I gotta find a way to make back some of this money I’m losing from the stock market crashes and tariff threats.”

“ – ”

“And don’t mention any kind of crypto or I might shoot you,” said Mike.

John held up his hands.

Threats and counter threats
The taxation of friendship
Lost in haze of fear/
                hate/
                greed.

---

Loosely related stories – Oh Democracy & Singapore Nudels