Bessent the ‘Kill-Line’ and the K-shaped economy

The term, borrowed from video games, refers to the point at which a player can no longer absorb damage without being knocked out. The invisible line beyond which many Americans tumble out of the middle class.

As one commentator widely credited with popularizing the phrase put it: many Americans appear comfortable on the surface — living in large homes and driving pickup trucks — but are in reality just one bad shock away from bankruptcy, or worse.

When an American gets seriously ill or loses a job, “crushing medical bills or a sudden loss of income can push them past a critical threshold instantly — and they fall straight to the bottom, with no way back.”

The narrative is indeed grounded in mainstream economic discussion. The idea echoes years of discussion around a so-called K-shaped economy

What is a K-shaped economy?

A K-shaped economy is one where two groups experience increasingly different circumstances. While higher-income consumers, who are benefiting from stock-market and home-price gains, continue to spend, lower-income individuals are cutting back as inflation eats into their spending power and the job market tightens. Over the past year, the ranks of those at the bottom of the K have increased as more Americans struggle to stay afloat.

Because so much of the wealth accumulation of the past few years has been driven by a surging stock market, economists fear that even a moderate drop in stocks could drive a rapid pullback in spending by the top 20%. That could reverberate to the rest of the economy, where many Americans already feel financially stressed, and lead to a recession.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-24/how-the-k-shaped-economy-is-hurting-everyone-but-the-rich

K-shaped economy in which asset owners have prospered as markets surged, while many low- and middle-income Americans have struggled to keep up with rising living costs.

The data points a more nuanced picture. The proportion of people who said they could cover an emergency expense of $400, such as a surprise medical bill or car repair, using cash or an equivalent was 63%.

Bloomberg 30 January 2026

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-01-30/trump-affordability-crisis-bessent-kill-line-query-goes-viral-in-china

The wealthiest 10% of American households—those making more than $250,000 a year, roughly—are now responsible for half of all US consumer spending.

https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/03/who-exactly-is-buying-all-of-this-stuff.html

Många undrar hur en person som Donald Trump kunnat ta sig till den absoluta makten. 

Men då har man inte förstått att Trumps grundanalys av USA är rätt – på fem avgörande punkter.

Den stora gåtan är hur just Donald Trump kunde lyckas. Är det ens möjligt att vara mindre folklig än någon som växt upp i en förmögen familj, sluppit undan Vietnamkriget på grund av tveksam hälsporre och som nu bor med sin 24 år yngre fru i en 120-rummare i Florida?

I ett tal 2016 sa Donald Trump: ”Ingen kan systemet bättre än jag. Därför är det bara jag som kan fixa det.”

Andreas Utterström SvD 31 januari 2026

https://www.svd.se/a/pBp9Kw/trump-har-ratt-i-sin-grundanalys-av-usa