A recession is coming — not the manicured kind economists dress up in euphemism, but a real one, the kind that redefines the word retroactively. Niall Ferguson has been mapping the terrain: geopolitical shocks, energy disruption, inflation that won’t be reasoned with. History, he notes, does not reward economies caught in that particular combination. It never has.

But this one carries something extra, something structural.

For years, the American economy ran on a dangerous illusion. Markets soared. Asset prices ballooned. Those already inside the system — with capital, with cushions, with connections — accumulated wealth at a pace that would have seemed obscene even a decade ago. Stocks surged. Property values became punchlines told at the expense of renters.

For everyone else — those without a trust fund or a safety net — it has been a slow slide into the abyss. Groceries crept upward, then sprinted. Rent became a monthly reckoning. Credit cards filled the gap, then tightened it. The middle class now occupies an unfamiliar position in American life — more likely to descend the ladder than to climb it.

Recessions do not hit such societies evenly. They amplify what already exists. The wealthy absorb, the rest surrender.