The U.S. Economy's Top Export? News. The Market for Manufactured Reality Is Booming
By: Stack o Turtles' Economics Dept.
For decades, the American economy ran on a predictable mix of industrial output, financial services, and consumer spending. But in what economists are calling "the most American product since the flag was smeared on a pair of Crocs," the United States has emerged as the world's leading exporter of news, a high-value commodity fueling everything from global political movements to meme farms.
According to a Federal Reserve custodial staff’s Substack, news is now America's most lucrative export, surpassing traditional categories like petroleum, aircraft, and even arms sales. The Trump administration calls it "strategic content production"; Wall Street calls it "the monetization of attention"; Stack o Turtles calls it, “Trumpitalism”; while the rest call it "fucking exhausting."
How did this happen? Simple: the U.S. perfected the transformation of news into an asset class.
News as a Commodity: The Market for Reality
Historically, the American export economy focused on tangible goods: cars, machinery, and pornography. But as manufacturing offshored and financialization took over, an emerging economic sector Breaking News began to dominate GDP calculations. Today, the primary American product is the story—the semi-factual, infinitely replicable, high-engagement narratives that shape global perception.
"We realized that within the new, Breaking News sector, attention grabbers such as, ‘They Don’t Want You To Know…’ and ‘Stop Doing…’ trade better than soybeans and pork bellies,” explained Treasury Secretary Penny Hoardsworth, who was appointed after promising to eliminate taxes for anyone who could read the entire tax code without a single digital distraction. "So, we’ve created new exchanges for this growing market. Why trade oil when we can trade opinions about oil?"
Economic analysts classify U.S. Breaking News exports into three primary categories:
Raw News Materials (RNMs) – Baseline reports, official statements, and leaks. Traditionally the stable domain of fact and a staple of wire services, this category has become more volatile as content farms flood the market with raw material.
Premium Narrative Products (PNPs) – Fully processed, market-optimized discourse, designed to generate sustained engagement. These include outrage cycles, political scandals, polarized viewpoints, and culture war flashpoints.
Speculative News Derivatives (SNDs) – Predictions and open-ended conspiracy theories that can be leveraged for high-yield engagement trading. This includes everything from election outcome forecasts to chemtrails, from Taylor Swift's involvement in NFL script writing to underground cities of Zeta Reticulans.
The sheer volume of these exports is staggering. The Bureau of News Production & Distribution (BNPD) estimates that foreign consumption of American-manufactured narratives will increase 47% in the first quarter, making it the fastest-growing sector in U.S. economic history.
Internal Stack o Turtles metrics reveal the Top 5 Most Profitable Keywords in Breaking News Exports include:
"Trump Said…" (Projected $3.2B Q1 Revenue)
"Americans Disagree…" (Projected $2.7B Q1 Revenue)
"Top 5…" (Projected $2.1B Revenue)
"You Won’t Believe What This [Celebrity]…" (Projected $1.9B Revenue)
“Florida Man…” (Projected $1.6B Revenue)
The Largest International Buyers?
The European Union which is currently threatening a 25% tariff on imported American news because the only percentage politicians seemingly know 25%. In major purchases of all categories, the Chinese State run media is attempting to reverse-engineer U.S. narratives for domestic use, furthering command and control over citizens. Unexpectedly, North Korea also is a large purchaser of the exports, Kim Jong-un is reportedly fascinated by a propaganda system that people voluntarily consume.
The Domestic Front: America Remains Entrepreneurial
While foreign demand for U.S. News has skyrocketed, domestic opportunities are also myriad. While supply chains are under severe strain, entrepreneurs have begun importing discourse. “By out-sourcing Breaking News we can manufacture product for pennies on the dollar.” Said an importer who asked for anonymity. Break News Think Tank, Clickworthy, Baitman & Sons, argue, “Americans are consuming ‘news scraps’, thus ensuring the country’s economic success.” With Clickworthy going on to say, “Sure, the headlines are slightly unconventional, but they still turn the cogs of the news industry.”
Stack o Turtles’ investigation found several examples of these out-sourced news articles including:
· “Top 7 Methods of Masticating Your Hamburg Sandwich: Number Vier Will Surprise You”
· “States of United America Rank from Best to Alabama”
· “A Kardashian Female Faces Hard Cancel for Dog Clothes”
· “9 Hotdog Fact Every American Must Be Knowing”
· “Taylor Swift Has Seen in New York City—What Is Pregnant?”
The Rust-Belt Resurgence
Detroit, MI: "I used to assemble transmissions for $22 an hour," said former factory worker Mike Delano, now employed as a Senior Outrage Engineer at MaxNewsMax+. "Now I generate 50 misleading headlines before lunch and make triple that. My carpal tunnel has never been worse, but my 401k has never looked better."
U.S.A. Strategery
Industry alarmists warn that if trends continue, the U.S. may face a full-fledged news deficit, forcing Americans to rely on purely speculative narratives to fill the gap, leading to a Bubble of Manufactured Reality, where the distinction between news, satire, and predictive fiction collapses entirely. To assure Americans the Trump Administration has begun building a strategic Breaking News reserve with the President stating, “We have lots of news, the best news really. We’re stockpiling news like the world has never seen.” Stack o Turtles understands this reserve consist of premium controversies for release during slow news cycles or to combat inflationary foreign news dumping.
What's Next?
The Commerce Department is developing a paywall which the U.S. will give 1/3 of an article and then, via a pop-up, force entire nations to subscribe to read more. Sources tell Stack o Turtles there will be deep discounts available “around the holidays.”
Stack o Turtles Prediction: By 2027, Breaking News means so little that reporters begin breaking news about Breaking News, creating a recursive loop that eventually collapses reality itself.
Stay tuned to Stack o Turtles, where we will continue covering this trend until our content is outsourced, finally making it affordable.