The last letter of Malcolm J. Matusky, begun July 2, 2026.
I began this essay on July 2, 2026. In a few days we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, I will not be celebrating. I consider this 4th of July a funeral, the fireworks I’ll hear in the background will only remind me of years past when “we the people” had not yet voted to install the current regime who’s criminal and wanton destruction of our economy and society has ruined this country, our economy and my life.
I am not unique among Americans, others have been ruined having their own stories to tell, but this is mine. The summer doldrums of Phoenix have slowed my business to a crawl, this was predictable as it happens every year, but what is new to me is the federal governments wholesale destruction of our economy over the past two years, which has “trickled down” it’s negative influence upon my small business. I didn’t need much to survive, but having nothing is impossible to live on, even for me.
My business depends upon positive consumer confidence and right now there is little to go around. I am faced with ceasing operations this month. I have done this before, but this time is different as I have no “Plan B”, in fact, since moving to Arizona from New York City shortly after the 9/11 attack I am currently on “Plan G” and have no “Plan H” ahead of me. Not for lack of ideas or effort, I have put in a tremendous amount of effort into this business, but I cannot overcome the current economic climate and people’s rational to not spend money while they worry about their own future.
I have lived through a great deal of hardships in my life, but the second coming of donald j. trump is to be the one I will not survive. I deposited the last of my petty cash into my bank account yesterday to pay rent, I have no more financial resources to tap into and have racked up debt keeping my business and myself going for many months, just a little at a time, but now it’s concerning. With no new business booked, I do not see how I am going to make next months rent, which means becoming homeless, closing my business and loosing all my equipment.
What caused the current economic climate which has ruined me? Was it trump? No, not alone. Over 40 years of republican fuckery, systematically destroying our government lead to this day for me. I will not excuse democrats, their cowardice, greed and craven want of power created an environment where the 1% are now the only voters that matter, they vote with cash, not a ballot. Republicans enacted the laws which stole our liberty, privacy and wealth, but democrats stood by, weak willed, letting it happen for decades. Both parties failed us, both parties sold out the public to cheap overseas products and labor, both parties ruined our country. One party did it actively, the other passively, they are both responsible.
Every politician having served over 10 years has to go, term limits on every office, including the courts, and an age limit of 70. The electoral system is a fraud, it’s undemocratic and no other office in this country is elected this way. Its a hold over from the slave owning days and must be abolished.
The rot in our system was caused by a geriatric political elite entrenched for so long they became disconnected from the reality of the people and now couldn’t care less about us at all. I am constantly barraged by campaign contribution demands and promises, If I just pay them money they will solve my problems. What a pathetic lie. They literally caused my problems and I’ll not pay them to make my life worse. The 1% created a pay to play government and election system, now they are the only ones with money, having destroyed the wealth of the people over decades of misrule they orchestrated.
I have failed in business many times in my life and have forgotten how many businesses I have started and closed over the decades, frankly this no longer matters. I enjoyed the same negative results being an employee, the longest I lasted at any one job was one year, perhaps a few months less, I don’t keep count anymore. I left each company not because their business model was bad, but because of how poorly I was treated.
I have been self-employed most of my life and it’s not been highly profitable, but was always better than working for someone else who owned their own home, had a family, second homes and expensive toys, far more expensive than my salary. I never held a job where I earned enough money to pay rent on a crummy apartment and had money left over to enjoy myself. No job I ever held offered health care, a pension or retirement matching benefits. Not even paid holidays or a paid vacation. Most of my early jobs paid even less, as I was foolish enough to have aspirations of working in the “film business” and never took into account how unsuited I was to that industry, or how badly it treats it’s low level employees. Those early poor decisions I have been paying for all my working life, right up to this day.
If I were uneducated, a former convict, or drug-addict; I may give myself some slack in my failings, but I am none of those things. I was highly educated with a trade school degree, an undergraduate in the arts and a graduate degree in business. I have never been arrested nor have I ever embezzled anyone. I have no one to blame but myself for my failings in my career and personal life, and I have experienced nothing but a lackluster career for the past 44 years. I also started working during a period of rapid change in this country, where the business elite found ever greater profits by destroying entire industries in this country and “offshoring” jobs to the third world to enrich themselves. This is not the country I was born into, nor is it the same culture, it’s far worse. My parents enjoyed non stop improvement in their lives, I enjoyed my life as their son, but when it was my turn all I found was a diminished economy which has not stopped contracting to this day for the average American.
I will leave this earth with far less than I arrived, for when I arrived I had parents who were well off and hopeful enough for the future to have two children, and insure they were well educated… and then it all started to fall apart after I graduated college in the late 80’s, slowly at first, and now rather quickly. It’s not that I had no opportunities in my career, it’s just they quickly turned into liabilities costing me far more than they were worth. Each job was at a succession of selfishly run companies which exclusively benefited the owner, at the expense of the lowest employee, me. Federal minimum wages are a cruel joke in this country because you need four of them to live badly today.
There is nothing special about my story, and that’s terrible. So many of my generation were shown so much promise only to have our society literally mortgaged to the hilt, then we were given the bill. I am of the generation right behind the “baby boomers” who’s lives saw an arc of riches and opportunity, but what they left in their wake was anything but prosperity. We went from the “greatest generation” to the “greediest generation” in a short time. Today the cost of existence in this country has far outstripped the average persons ability to earn. Our government used to champion the common man, then on one dark day Reagan was elected and ushered in the first administration which actively made the average Americans life far worse, while enriching the 1% at our collective expense. This trend has accelerated today, where we have the most corrupt and depraved government in our history, all for the benefit of the 1%.
When I started my current business I didn’t need the economy to soar to do well, but I did need it not to get worse, what I got was so much worse than I predicted, it was beyond my imagination. Only the concept of “self-immolation” describes what American voters did to this country two years ago, and now is the moment I can no longer afford to exist, consumed by the fire of greed and corruption brought upon me by the “stupidest generation” in this countries history.
There is little I will miss of this society, culture and country. I have found it to be lacking on so many levels, far too tedious to enumerate here. I will miss the sounds and sights of the birds at the feeder in my back yard and the long conversations I had the privilege of enjoying my time with life long friends who have graced me with their affection, despite my personal and financial failings.
Of all the things in this life, I will miss those long chats most. They will remain the most memorable experiences I take with me, and what has made living this long worth all the suffering, all the losses and humiliation, which came from having to admit to financial defeat at every job and business I have closed in my life. I enjoyed few fleeting successes that meant anything to me, certainly not financial. Till now, I have never given up trying to better myself despite failure, now I see no future in this country for me which doesn’t involve more suffering than I am willing to endure.
I have been broke, un-employed, un-housed and briefly homeless in my past. Despite that, I was able to see a way forward, a path; if I endured a little longer I would be able to start again. I don’t see that now for the first time in my life. This country has become exceptionally cruel to it’s own citizens, and the rest of the world. Our business leaders have taken every dollar for themselves and left the average worker impoverished, our government has denied aid to the world’s suffering while enriching it’s leaders with all the cash they can steal from their offices while selling influence, all the while the elected guardians of our democracy, the congress and the supreme court, has been neutered by the dumbest man ever to have soiled the oval office with his vulgar presence.
My parents died while Obama was in office, they were fortunate to have never seen what this country has done to itself. They would have been crushed by it, as I am now. I spent their last five years assisting them through repeat bouts of cancer treatments which progressively diminished their bodies, their desire to live and their finances. I was left with bills to pay and the exhaustion of settling their estate which became a five year trauma for me after they passed. After they passed, I thought I was done, free, able to begin my life again but the negativity of my past was not done with me yet.
I never predicted the second coming of trump, nor did I predict the selfishness and hatred of my own sister who’s greed and narcissism manifested into five lawsuits over a period of five years in a battle for control over my parents highly diminished estate. In the end I prevailed, but not before suffering a financial and emotional toll extracted from me which I have yet to recover from, and now never will. $125,000 in cash was difficult to part with after five years of not working, managing my parents health issues on a daily basis. That was the most money I ever spent in my life on one thing. Attorneys, accountants and personal losses accumulated liquidating my parents estate. It cost me far more than that emotionally, and true to my ex-sister’s nature, she embodied the maga playbook conducting a smear campaign to ruin my reputation with my extended family. She lied in court about my treatment of my parents, claiming elder abuse, she lied about my having “secret bank accounts”. I was forced to hire a forensic accountant to sift through my parents estate, who ultimately found nothing. Like trump, she lost every court case, and reveled in the pity she extracted from all those she told who would listen how she was abused and defrauded by her evil brother. This is still a sore point with me, and now with my exit from this world coming soon, I wish to be free of any memory of her and her lies. There are many fond memories I would like to take with me when I cross from this reality to whatever lies ahead, the decade of my life I lost in my 50’s are not among them.
Unlike my parents, my body has not given out. I have no disease of the body, but one of the soul. I have committed the greatest sin one in this society can commit, my business failed and I can no longer afford to live. Today’s youth have con-men, crooks, cheats, degenerates and thieves as role models. I failed to adapt to the “new society” which has produced our current political class, an an obscene collection of billionaires who’s only “product” is to scam and lie their way to unimaginable riches all while destroying the system behind them, ruining opportunity for the least fortunate of us to live with a bit of dignity, to have a chance to rise up to the middle class. That has been destroyed, the “masters of the universe” have created new technology to replace workers with robots and AI. When will the population revolt? to reclaim their place as the backbone of society? not in the remaining time I have left. I expect eventual change, but I cannot endure remaining here any longer myself. Waiting for positive change to happen would require hope, I am all out of hope now.
I will not miss this society at all. It’s fundamentally broken, I have hated being subject to it’s cruelty my entire adult life. The fact that a few other countries are worse is no excuse at all, we could have been far better and we chose not to be. This is the American peoples greatest failing.
I am tired, tired of the relentless professional failure, the accumulation of failings in business has overwhelmed me. I never dated a woman who didn’t quickly realize she would rather spend more time with her cat. I was married once, and barely survived it. My inability to earn “enough” money to live well in Manhattan was a root cause. I realized late in life I was far better off alone.
Many years ago I had an epiphany after my last romantic entanglement ended, I was told “there is nothing more unattractive than an older man with no money” and have been on my own ever since. I have no sadness from my decision, that was the point, to eliminate the constant rejection. I started caring for my parents full time shortly after that event and didn’t have the energy, or the cash, to consider my own needs at the time. One year became two, then a decade, and now.
How does one close one’s last letter? Perhaps the same way one should close out one’s life, with gratitude. Despite my considerable failings, I am grateful for the opportunities I enjoyed, the hope I maintained, regardless of the outcome that my life would somehow improve. It never did.
One thing I am most grateful for are the few friends who never abandoned me, who took my calls when I wanted to chat and let me ramble on about the sorry state of society today. It was those moments, hearing someone else, I will miss most. I, like all before me, have no real knowledge of what comes next. Perhaps it’s another opportunity to start over elsewhere, to build a new life without all the failings of the past haunting me. The idea of re-inventing myself is what kept me going this long. If I have one thing to look forward to, it’s the endless possibility of the unknown.
END.
PS: You thought this was the end? I have one request of my friends. I don’t expect my efforts to post this on my Facebook page will be successful. If you could copy it so it has a chance to reach all those I am still connected with, I will be eternally grateful, and eternity is where I’ll be waiting for the privilege to see you again.
Malcolm John Matusky
August 1, 2026
