V-Dub Exchange

Episode 22: Debt-Fueled Frustration: QT is Over, Wall Street React to Mamdani, $20 Slop Bowl Revolt, Academia Budget Crunch, and Unions under Big Business

This week on The V-Dub Exchange, we break down the Fed’s decision to end Quantitative Tightening—why it matters, why they’re quietly shifting future purchases toward Treasuries and away from MBS, and what this means for risk assets, liquidity, and your portfolio. We also hit the political shockwave of Zohran Mamdani’s win in NYC and why Wall Street is panicking in public while speed-dialing him in private. Fast-casual chains like Chipotle, Cava, and Sweetgreen are getting kneecapped by the $15-bowl recession—so what can they possibly offer the broke 25–35 crowd? Finally, we unpack UChicago’s brutal financial reckoning, and close with why Elizabeth Anderson argues that modern workplaces function like private governments—and why unions, despite all their flaws, remain the only countervailing force against corporate domination.