The 60/40 portfolio is dead, and nobody noticed. No headlines. No CNBC tribute. Just a quiet funeral for the financial strategy that built America’s middle class while Wall Street quietly dragged its corpse around like Weekend at Bernie’s.

In this episode, we unpacks how the so-called “balanced portfolio” became a weapon of control, a myth sold to workers as safety while feeding Wall Street billions in fees. From the false promises of diversification to the illusion of retirement security, this is the autopsy of a system that stopped serving the people it was supposed to protect.

The Funeral Nobody Attended isn’t about stocks or bonds, it’s about trust, belief, and the slow collapse of financial stories that no longer hold up. Because what died wasn’t just a portfolio. It was a mindset.

Thanks for listening to Beyond the Workforce. If this episode hit home, share it with someone who needs to hear the truth behind the headlines. And don’t forget, you can check out all the Beyond the Workforce articles at www.beyondtheworkforce.com

.

For nearly a century, Americans have been told Social Security is their safety net, a promise that if you work hard, pay in, and stay loyal, you’ll be taken care of in the end. But that promise was never real. It was a political invention built to fund the government, not protect the worker.

In this episode of Beyond the Workforce, David Thomas Graves exposes how Social Security was born out of desperation during the Great Depression — not as a retirement plan, but as a cleverly disguised tax pipeline. He breaks down how the system was designed to recycle your money into government spending, how inflation and demographics have gutted its foundation, and why your “benefits” are paid in devalued dollars.

From shrinking worker-to-retiree ratios to the myth of the trust fund, this episode reveals the uncomfortable truth: Social Security isn’t saving you, it’s spending you.

This is the great American illusion, and it’s time to see it for what it really is.

Thanks for listening to Beyond the Workforce. If this episode hit home, share it with someone who needs to hear the truth behind the headlines. And don’t forget, you can check out all the Beyond the Workforce articles at www.beyondtheworkforce.com

.

For over a century, the Federal Reserve has sold Americans the story of control, that it can fine-tune the economy with the pull of a lever. Raise rates, lower rates, pump liquidity, pull it back. Stability on command. But the truth is harder: the brakes don’t work anymore.

In this episode of Beyond the Workforce, David Graves unpacks the illusion of control and explains how fiscal dominance has trapped the Fed in the very machine it built. We break down what “liquidity” really means, why debt has become the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, and how every attempt to pull money out risks breaking the system.

From wages that lag behind prices, to savings that erode, to housing and retirement turned into speculative assets, workers pay the bill for a system addicted to debt. And with the dollar’s global dominance showing cracks, the costs are only getting heavier.

This is the machine’s last stand. The question isn’t whether it fails, it’s how long the illusion can last before workers demand something real.

Read the full article

Thanks for listening to Beyond the Workforce. If this episode hit home, share it with someone who needs to hear the truth behind the headlines. And don’t forget, you can check out all the Beyond the Workforce articles at www.beyondtheworkforce.com

.