What I Talk About When I Talk About Money

The Seven Dollar Silence

‘Tis the season…for money.

The automatic doors slid open with a resigned sigh. Inside, the supermarket was trying too hard. Tinsel strangled the checkout lanes, silver and red, reflecting the harsh fluorescent glare that makes everyone look like they have a mild fever. Above the produce section, plastic snowflakes hung from the ceiling tiles on invisible fishing lines. They spun slowly in the draft from the air conditioner, revolving like tiny, frozen galaxies that didn’t care about us or our groceries.

A robotic Santa stood near the entrance, waving a stiff, mechanical hand at a stack of onions. Whir-click. Whir-click. The sound was rhythmic and dry, like a metronome counting down the time until closing. The speakers were playing a jazz version of “Jingle Bells” that sounded like it had been recorded underwater. It was a festive scene, technically, but it felt hollow, like a stage set for a play that had been cancelled years ago.

I went there to get some gift cards. The enormous refrigerators were humming a low, flat note, vibrating against the stacks of peppermint bark. Cash seems too informal, too raw, so I figured a Visa gift card would look formal for acquaintances . Proper. Especially, when I truly don’t ‘know’ them to find the right gifts. 

At the counter, the clerk, a man with tired eyes that looked like they had seen too many receipts, scanned the card. I watched the numbers flash on the screen. Then I couldn’t believe my eyes. Visa charges a $7 “activation” fee per card.

Seven dollars. To activate money that is already money.

I just couldn’t do it. The absurdity of it rose up in my throat like a dry cough. I had to cancel them. It doesn’t make sense to me. It felt like a tax on existence, a toll booth erected in the middle of a hallway in your own house.

It reminded me of that scene in Falling Down.

Michael Douglas, with his white shirt and tie, standing in the convenience store. He just wants a soda. The clerk wants eighty-five cents. Douglas argues it should be fifty. He’s not mad about the thirty-five cents; he’s mad about the principle of the drift. The way the world silently slides away from logic while we are busy sleeping or working. The can of soda is the same can, but the cost of holding it has changed.

The clerk at Ralph’s didn’t have a bat, and I didn’t have a briefcase filled with weapons, but the feeling was the same. The rules had shifted underneath my feet without a memo.

I walked out into the parking lot. The sun was pale and distant. It occurred to me that the stock market is currently charging us a similar activation fee.

For the last two years, we walked into the store, picked up anything labeled “AI,” and it worked. It was simple. But listening to the latest whispers from Wall Street—specifically the notes from Goldman Sachs for 2026—it seems that the easy transaction is over. The activation fee for profit is going up.

They say the “Buy Anything AI” phase has finished. The first chapter, where you could throw a dart and hit a winner, is closed. Now, we are entering Chapter Two. This is the “Show Me” phase. You can’t just buy the concept of the future anymore; you have to buy the plumbing. The copper wires. The power grids. The “Enablers” who build the stage, not just the actors standing on it.

It’s a strange rotation. The “Magnificent Seven”—those towering giants that have held up the sky like Atlas—are tired. The experts say the light is shifting to the corners of the room we haven’t looked at in years. Financials. Industrials. Even Europe, that old, dusty museum across the ocean, might be forced to wake up and grow, simply because it has no other choice.

They talk about Copper becoming the new Gold. Not because it sparkles, but because the AI gods need electricity, and electricity needs copper. It is a return to the physical, to the heavy, conductive reality of things.

The market, like the Visa card, demands a fee for its utility. Next year, that fee is discernment. You cannot simply hold the card; you must understand the machinery behind it.

I sat in my car for a while, watching a stray shopping cart roll slowly across the asphalt, driven by a wind I couldn’t feel. It bumped against the curb and stopped.

I turned the key, and the engine hummed a low, neutral note. The radio was off. The problem of the gifts remained on the passenger seat, invisible and unsolved. The cash was still too cold. The cards were still a swindle. I tried to think of a third option, something that sat comfortably between the two, but my mind was blank.

I just sat there, listening to the idle of the engine, waiting for a solution to arrive from the gray sky, but nothing came down except a fine, misty rain. I still haven’t come up with another idea to replace them.

Disclaimer: This post is a collection of thoughts floating in the space between a supermarket checkout line and the stock market. While it mentions financial concepts, Goldman Sachs, and the price of copper, it is not financial advice. I am just a person sitting in a car, listening to the rain, trying to make sense of activation fees. The market, like a mechanical Santa, is unpredictable. Please consult a professional before making any investment decisions, lest you find yourself paying a toll you didn’t expect.