WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh stepped to the podium today, raised a mason jar of cloudy, debris-flecked liquid, and announced that the central bank will now set interest rates based on how much Americans cry into their plumbing. “What you’re looking at is raw, unfiltered despair—collected from the sewers of Cleveland,” Warsh said, giving the jar a gentle swirl. “Tastes like 75 basis points.”
In a stunning break from centuries of economic tradition, Warsh declared the agency will abandon outdated indicators like Gross Domestic Product, inflation, and unemployment. The new metric guiding monetary policy: Tears-Per-Gallon (TPG) , measured by analyzing the rising salinity of the nation’s wastewater. “Let’s be honest—GDP doesn’t tell us how many people cried into a gas station burrito last quarter,” Warsh explained, setting the jar down next to a “We 💩 the Economy” sticker. “We’ve discovered a direct, irrefutable correlation between the sodium content flowing into our sewer systems and the American public’s ability to absorb another economic body blow.”
“We’re looking for that perfect sob-to-spend ratio,” Powell said. “Think a single dad at an Olive Garden who just got a $400 car repair bill but orders the ‘Tour of Italy’ anyway. That’s our North Star.”
Are citizens secretly into it?
The Federal Reserve traded its three-piece suit for a dominatrix harness, complete with a cat-o’-nine-tails made of adjustable-rate mortgage contracts. And the American public? Showing up to that one-bedroom walk-up in North Hollywood with a crumpled Trump $250 Semiquincentennial bill, eager for the full sub experience. This is post-truth economics: math has been replaced by memes, inflation is whatever a TikTok influencer says it is, and the same government that spent decades telling us “trust the science” now sets interest rates based on sewer salinity. No one is doing anything about it.
Reaction on the street was, predictably, wet. “Honestly? I’m numb,” said Marlene Teeters, 34, a part-time Uber driver and full-time medical debt-haver, while doomscrolling TikTok outside a bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond. “My landlord uses AI to raise rent the second I laugh at a cat video. My insurance denies claims faster than my Hinge matches ghost me. And now the Fed’s measuring the nation’s tears? Joke’s on them—I’ve been cry-maxxing for years. Those are rookie numbers.”
