Who Is Getting You High

 Who’s Getting You High? An Investigative Journal on Predatory Economics

Introduction: The High and the Dry

• The double meaning of “getting you high.”

• How industries create dependency — on drugs, products, debt, illusions of prosperity.

• Thesis: powerful players profit from artificial highs, leaving ordinary people, communities, and nations “high and dry.”

Part I: The Pushers — Macro Industries and Manufactured Highs

Chapter 1: Big Pharma and the Prescription High

• The opioid epidemic as case study.

• Marketing strategies that create dependency.

• Profits vs. public health — how regulation failed.

Chapter 2: Big Business and the Consumer High

• Planned obsolescence in tech and fashion.

• Advertising psychology: selling dopamine.

• Debt-driven spending as a national addiction.

Chapter 3: Big Food and the Sugar Rush

• Processed food industry engineering cravings.

• Subsidies and corporate lobbying.

• Health crises as hidden costs of cheap highs.

Chapter 4: Wall Street’s Rollercoaster

• Stock bubbles, housing crashes, crypto manias.

• How ordinary investors are lured into speculative highs.

• Bailouts for the few, bankruptcies for the many.

Part II: The Local Dealers — Micro-Level Predation

Chapter 5: Payday Loans and Debt Traps

• Micro-lending, payday lenders, and predatory interest rates.

• Case studies of families crushed by debt cycles.

• Financial literacy vs. deliberate obfuscation.

Chapter 6: For-Profit Schools and False Hopes

• Student loan crises as manufactured high of “education promises.”

• Exploitation of vulnerable populations.

• Degrees of debt, not opportunity.

Chapter 7: Housing Dreams and Eviction Nightmares

• Real estate bubbles and gentrification.

• Predatory landlords, subprime lending.

• The myth of home ownership as a guaranteed high.

Part III: The Withdrawal — Who’s Left Behind

Chapter 8: The People

• Addiction, debt, burnout.

• Working-class families juggling illusions of prosperity.

• Psychological toll of living in a high-chasing economy.

Chapter 9: The Nation

• Long-term costs of short-term highs.

• Health care burdens, broken education systems, weakened workforce.

• America’s global reputation as a debtor empire.

Chapter 10: The Naïve

• Young people inheriting the fallout.

• Immigrants promised opportunity, delivered exploitation.

• Communities devastated by cycles of boom and bust.

Part IV: Detox — Breaking the Cycle

Chapter 11: Regulation or Rehabilitation?

• How policies could curb predatory practices.

• Past reforms (antitrust, FDA, consumer protections) and what’s needed today.

Chapter 12: Grassroots Resistance

• Local co-ops, alternative lending, mutual aid networks.

• Examples of communities detoxing from corporate highs.

Chapter 13: Toward a Sustainable Economy

• Redefining growth and prosperity beyond artificial highs.

• Building systems that heal instead of exploit.

• From highs and crashes to balance and resilience.

Conclusion: Staying Grounded

• Summarizing who’s really “getting you high.”

• A call for vigilance: to stop mistaking exploitation for opportunity.

• Final reflection: the economy should not intoxicate us, but sustain us.